Posts Tagged ‘harmony’

Seeing the World as “Nothing But Movies”
~ Ron’s Memoirs

“This earth is nothing but movies to me. Just like the beam of a motion picture. So is everything made of shadow and light. That’s what we are. Light and shadows of the Lord. Nothing else than that. There’s one purpose. To get to the beam.” 
~ Paramahansa Yogananda-Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 30
“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion,
does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.”
~ Buddha
“This whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once: scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic.” 
~ Carl Gustav Jung
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. 
I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. 
We cannot get behind consciousness. 
Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
~ Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
“Objective reality does not exist” ….
“the universe is fundamentally a gigantic … hologram”

~ David Bohm, quantum physicist


Swami Paramahansa Yogananda January 5, 1893 – March 7, 1952


Ron’s Introduction to Seeing the World as “Nothing But Movies”.

Dear Friends,

Today’s memoirs title was inspired by Swami Paramahansa Yogananda’s above quotation, and by my unprecedented state of mind, since miraculously recovering from near-death taxicab run-down injuries eight years ago.

I now often experience this life like a movie, with scenes of continuing synchronicities enigmatically arising from ever mysterious karmic causes and conditions. But this life-stage has arrived only after many decades of difficulties and experiential evolution, beginning before my mid-life spiritual awakening.

During childhood my entire life seemed very dreamlike, and – like my nocturnal dreams – I’ve forgotten most of it.   

Thereafter, and until midlife, Earth life became my sole “reality”.  Then following a profound midlife spiritual awakening and previously unimagined mystical experiences, I more and more have been blessed to self-identify as non-dual eternal spirit inhabiting a mortal body, in an illusory world.

Thus my life again seems quite dreamlike and synchronistic – often like a masterfully pre-scripted movie, in which I am currently playing a fleeting role as retired lawyer and spiritual philosopher, who is still learning and evolving.

Retrospective realization of the apparent perfection of my lifetime’s evolutionary history has instilled in me unshakable and irreversible faith in God and Nature, and unspeakable gratitude for their blessings – especially since my miraculous survival and recovery from near death injuries sustained eight years ago on being run down by a taxicab.

At almost age 90, as I contemplate my inevitable (and possibly imminent) physical death, I keep wondering how we can best ‘be in this world but not of this world’ while remembering that we are immortal spirit – not mere embodied mortals – experiencing unique lifetimes, karmically predetermined to help us learn and see our true self-identity. And how we can keep alert for constant potential lessons and blessings in our lives.

I have been blessed with unforgettable fleeting ‘peek’ spiritual experiences demonstrating that earth life is like a ‘light show’ – an illusory play of consciousness. Yet, I’m often deeply moved by the insanity, violence and suffering now rife on our precious planet, and often wonder how we can best address it.

Questions.

As we awaken from the illusion of our apparent separateness from each other and Nature:

Is it possible for us to live in this impermanent world of inevitable suffering, without responding compassionately and emotionally to the immense miseries and apparent injustices experienced everywhere by countless sentient beings?

How can we most skillfully and compassionately address ubiquitous world misery, injustice and suffering?

Discussion.

Each of us has a unique perspective with unique karmic causes and conditions. So I am unqualified to offer specific spiritual advice to anyone else. But, encouraged by my Guruji to share spiritual learning experiences, I offer the following views, in case they may help others.

I believe that even highly elevated incarnate beings cannot always live emotionally detached from ubiquitous misery and suffering. But that we can all best respond compassionately and intuitively, rather than react reflexively, while peacefully remaining self-identified as incarnate universal spirit, rather than as separate ego-minds.

Recently I learned that – even while experiencing transcendent states of consciousness – Indian Holy Man and Avatar, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, suffered bereavements on deaths of a nephew, older brother, and beloved attendant. Similarly Swami Paramahansa Yogananda experienced deep bereavement on death of his mother, and significant emotional trauma following a betrayal and lawsuit by his former trusted childhood best friend and assistant, Dhirananda.

Yet, Yogananda later explained in Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 30, his view that:“This earth is nothing but movies to me.”

But (except for psychopaths) aren’t we all often autonomically emotionally attuned with others when with them or thinking of them, and even in viewing videos, movies and plays?

Background

In my student days I learned of maniacs like Hitler in Nazi Germany, Mao in Communist China, Stalin in the U.S.S.R., Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and numerous other dictators who were then bestially causing untold murders and misery. Naively, I then believed that my country the U.S.A., and its Western allies, represented only virtues of good and democratic decency, and that after the demise of World War II era psychopaths, the world would be restored to a utopian age of peace and prosperity. But I was wrong.

I slowly realized that the U.S.A. was becoming a violent and totalitarian police state, rather than a socially benevolent democracy – especially beginning with the legally unprecedented and undemocratic U.S. Supreme Court selection of George W. Bush as 43rd US President (after patently flawed Florida elections).

Bush’s inauguration was soon followed by outrageous false flag terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which purportedly justified a preplanned series of unprovoked and unlawful U.S. invasions of sovereign middle East countries on the fraudulent pretense that they threatened us with further “terrorism” because of (non-existent) alleged “weapons of mass destruction”.

So (like Professor Howard Zinn), I began feeling that I was living in an ‘occupied country’; that the so-called “American dream” of Presidents Ronald Reagan, et.al. had become a global nightmare of a rapaciously violent uni-polar empire threatening all life on Earth.

Current perspectives.

Never before did I imagine how far purportedly democratic world societies and the U.S. government ‘of by and the for the people’ would degenerate. Nor until recently did I realize that neither of the two dominant U.S. political parties provides an alternative to a rapaciously violent worldwide American empire threatening possible nuclear or ecologic or biologic catastrophe.

Optimistically, I believe that the present post-pandemic “new normal” era has been a “red pill” portent of the end of empire; that it is awakening a critical mass of concerned humans who will no longer tolerate current global hegemonic tyranny with unsustainable, unjust, immoral, and criminal exploitation of life on our precious planet; and, that we will at long last democratically and compassionately avert human caused calamity, by ending totalitarian governments by and for psychopathic billionaires, and replacing them with democratic governments by and for all people and all life on our precious planet Earth.

Aspirations.

May current global insanity and suffering soon awaken humankind to a new democratic era of compassionate concern for all life everywhere. Yet may it also inspire us to realize, like Swami Yogananda, that this world is “nothing but movies”; that it is an illusory mental projection of shadow and light displayed to help us “get to the beam” – which is the Eternal Light of LOVE.


Invocation.

Whatever happens in this ever impermanent illusory world of inevitable suffering, may we never forget our eternal oneness with Nature and all earth-life, and may we ever emanate universal peace and happiness, while realizing that this world is “nothing but movies”.


And so shall it be!

Ron Rattner


Transcending Violence


“Violence is not merely killing another. It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when we obey because there is fear. So violence isn’t merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country. Violence is much more subtle, much deeper, and we are inquiring into the very depths of violence.”


“When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent?
Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence.
So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“Prejudice of any kind implies that you are identified with the thinking mind. It means you don’t see the other human being anymore, but only your own concept of that human being. To reduce the aliveness of another human being to a concept is already a form of violence.”


“The moment you put a mental label on another human being,
you can no longer truly relate to that person. . .
It then becomes possible to perpetrate any act of violence.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“If you and I are having a single thought of violence or hatred
against anyone in the world at this moment,
we are contributing to the wounding of the world.”
~ Deepak Chopra


J. Krishnamurti ~ May 11, 1895 – February 17, 1986



Introduction to “Transcending Violence”

Dear Friends,

The following Q and A essay about transcending violence was first composed and published almost four years ago. Since then we’ve begun experiencing an extraordinarily stressful, turbulent, and polarized “new normal” post-pandemic period with widespread global human violence and threats to life on Earth and innate human rights never before imagined by most of us, including me.

Accordingly I’ve felt intuitively impelled to amend and update the essay, (and to supplement it with a collection of important spiritual quotations), thereby explaining why to transcend violence it is crucial that humanity must now elevate our behavioral and emotional energies beyond those which have long-prevailed prior to this unprecedented “new normal” post-pandemic period.

These writings are deeply dedicated to transcendence of current unprecedented global violence by our loving, compassionate, fearless, and forgiving behaviors and emotions, beyond prevailing disharmonious levels of human consciousness.

May they encourage our conscious harmony with Nature, and unconditional Love and forgiveness for all Life everywhere.

May we thereby help bless the world as LOVE.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

Quotation Collection concerning “Violence”


“I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in anything you believe is evil.”
~ Albert Einstein

“The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one’s opponent.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi 

“Violence is not only impractical but immoral.” 
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

“Nothing good ever comes of violence.”
~ Martin Luther 

“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart,
cannot come by an appeal to the brain.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“Poverty is the worst form of violence.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“Intolerance is itself a form of violence
and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“ An unjust law is itself a species of violence.
Arrest for its breach is more so.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“Violence and injury enclose in their net all that do such things,
and generally return upon him who began.”
~ Lucretius

“Every leaf that grows will tell you:
what you sow will bear fruit,
so if you have any sense my friend,
don’t plant anything but Love.”
~ Rumi

“If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolute night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Violence, even well intentioned, always rebounds upon oneself.”
~ Lao Tzu

“Violence should not be responded to with violence.
The only way out of violence and conflict is for us to embrace the practice of peace, to think and act with compassion, love, and understanding.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“To prepare for war, to give millions of men and women the opportunity to practice killing day and night in their hearts, is to plant millions of seeds of violence, anger, frustration, and fear that will be passed on for generations to come. ”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct,
and tends to produce ferocity toward those
who are not regarded as members of the herd.”
~ Bertrand Russell

“It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation.
Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people,
but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people
who sit around and say, “Wait on time.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

“Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence
but also internal violence of spirit.
You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr.

“Violence does not necessarily take people by the throat and strangle them.
Usually it demands no more than an ultimate allegiance from its subjects.
They are required merely to become accomplices in its lies.”
~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“Violence can only be concealed by a lie,
and the lie can only be maintained by violence.”
~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“If you and I are having a single thought of violence or hatred
against anyone in the world at this moment,
we are contributing to the wounding of the world.”
~ Deepak Chopra



Transcending Violence

Q. We live in stressful, turbulent and crazy times, with widespread violence. How can we transcend such violence?

A. “Violence” has different meanings for different people in different societies. So we must first define violence to address this question.

From a spiritual perspective “violence” includes much more than just overt physical or emotional acts of violence. As long as we egotistically view the world and others conceptually, and not conciously, there is violence.

Subtly, violence is unconscious human mental separation from others and Nature. So all such mental separation “breeds violence”.

Thus, spiritually this is a world of inevitable “violence”, which can never be totally eliminated, but can be appreciably alleviated by harmoniously loving behaviors. Yet even individually “enlightened” loving beings living in mentally sick societies overtly experience societal violence.

Hence Jesus endured violent crucifixion, mockery and humiliation from ignorant crowds, because ‘heretically’ he preached “love your neighbors” and even “your enemies”; repudiated socially condoned hypocrisy, brutality and thirst for worldly power and gains; and even audaciously proclaimed the ultimate non-duality ‘forbidden mystical Truth’ – that “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

So as long as we abide in this space/time world, we can never totally transcend its inevitable violence and suffering. To transcend violence we must transcend this world of karmic cause and effect. We must BE choiceless Universal Awareness beyond all mental conceptualization, including the ‘transcendence’ concept.

“To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe;

it cannot be found here. ….
The only way to come out of bondage

is to go beyond the limitations of [natural] law,

to go beyond causation.”

~ Swami Vivekananda

However, as human consciousness inevitably evolves we will gradually reduce violence and suffering, individually and societally. Most earthly violence arises from human ignorance of our spiritual Oneness with Nature. So as human spiritual ignorance ends, violence will be appreciably alleviated as disharmonious behaviors and emotions are dispelled and supplanted with love and compassion.

And so it shall be!

Ron Rattner

Go For the Gold:
The Golden Rule For a Golden Age

“Today, … any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal,
and so will be inadequate.”
“The time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ Dalai Lama
“What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor:
that is the whole of the Torah;
all the rest of it is commentary.”
~ Rabbi Hillel, Talmud, Shabbat, 31a – Judaism
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you;
for this is the law and the prophets.”
~ Matthew 7:12 – Christianity
“Hurt not others in ways you yourself would find hurtful.”
~ Udana-Varga, 5:18 – Buddhism
“This is the sum of duty: do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.”
~ The Mahabharata, 5:1517 – Hinduism
“Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”
~ Fortieth Hadith of an-Nawawi,13 – Islam
“Do not unto others what you do not want them to do to you.”
~ Analects 15:13 – Confucianism
“All things are our relatives;
what we do to everything, we do to ourselves.
All is really One.”

~ Black Elk – Native American Spirituality
“Do what you will, so long as it harms none.”
~ Wiccan Rede – Neo-paganism
“Don’t do things you wouldn’t want to have done to you.”
~ British Humanist Society – Humanism
“Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticize my neighbor until I have walked a mile in his moccasins.”
~ Native American prayer
“It’s not just religious people who believe in the Golden Rule.
This is the source of all morality, this imaginative act of empathy – putting yourself in the place of another.”
~ Karen Armstrong
“I will be as careful for you as I should be for myself in the same need.”
~ Homer, The Odyssey – Ancient Greece – 700 BC
“A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.”
“Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.”
~ Albert Schweitzer


Golden Rule

 
Awakening to a Golden Age.

Dear Friends,

We live in an age of mental malaise. Delusional human behaviors are causing life-threatening environmental, international and inter-personal crises and conflicts. For our peaceful survival on mother Earth, we must transcend these insane behaviors and resolve the problems they have caused.

As Albert Einstein aptly observed: “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” So our survival depends on elevating human consciousness, societally and individually.

According to the Dalai Lama,

“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment must come from the human heart. [From] a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.” . . . “Today, … any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate.” . . “The time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”


Thus for humanity’s peaceful survival on our beautiful blue planet, the critical problems now confronting us must be resolved through love and compassion, based on universal human ethics that are “beyond religion” – because religion alone “is no longer adequate”.

How can this happen?

With ever expanding empathy for all life everywhere we must follow ‘the Golden Rule’. For millennia wisdom teachers from virtually all enduring ethical, religious, and spiritual traditions have proposed a simple ethical rule which if consciously and conscientiously followed can change the world.

Its essence is that we do no harm; that we treat all beings with the same dignity that we wish for ourselves and that they wish for themselves.

Though easy to understand, this Golden Rule of reciprocal empathy can not easily be followed until we awaken within – beyond our “optical delusion” of separateness – to our collective connection with all beings and all life everywhere. Then as Einstein suggests we can gradually “widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

Eventually, we won’t even need the Golden rule. As my beloved Guruji Shri Dhyanyogi revealed:

“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”


Ultimately, by following our sacred heart we will be in harmony with all life everywhere.

“This above all: to thine own self be true, 

And it must follow, as the night the day, 

Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet


So with awakened hearts let us actualize a Golden Age wherein everyone everywhere treats all beings and all life with the same dignity that they wish for themselves – with an empathetic “genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”

And so shall it be!

Beautiful Golden Rule Video.


 


Ron’s 11:11 Commentary on Awakening to a Golden Age.

Dear Friends,

For many people these are dark and divisive “new normal” times unprecedented in their lives. But current painful world suffering and turmoil can be seen as darkness before an inevitable dawn; as marking a rare turning point in human history – an immense evolutionary opportunity for disintegration of outdated world political, economic and ecological paradigms that have become painfully and unsustainably anachronous, to make way for a new era of human harmony and conscious connection with each other and with Nature.  

From seeing everyone and everything as discrete and separated by apparently immutable boundaries, we are rapidly realizing that everyone/everything is connected by a common Essence – ever-changing energy in a matrix of immutable awareness. Thus, we are evolving from a Newtonian “reality” of polarized duality to a quantum “reality” of holistic connectedness; from either this or that, to this and that are ONE.

With this realization, we can best address current challenges, and transcend pervasively polarizing negative emotions – like fear and anger – with feelings, insights and actions arising from loving-kindness and compassion for all life everywhere.

With benevolent and focused intentions, more and more we can open our hearts to innate human empathy, and thereby realize our collective connection with and deep concern for all life everywhere – even including perceived adversaries or enemies.

With heartfelt concern for all Earth-life, we must do no harm, and treat all beings with the same dignity we wish for ourselves, and that they wish for themselves.

May we collectively join in heartfelt harmony with this crucial ‘golden rule’ ethical principle.

Whereupon with intentions, and actions arising from reciprocal empathy for all life everywhere, may all humankind truly transcend and cooperatively resolve our critical ecologic, economic, international and interpersonal problems, for an enlightened and elevated new age that will bless all life on our precious planet.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

From co-dependent exploitation,
to co-creative realization
~ A rare turning point in Human history

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won.
There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible,
but in the end they always fall — think of it. Always.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood,
and I —
 I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”
~ Robert Frost – The Road Not Taken



Dear Friends,

We have reached a rare turning point in modern human history. Confronted by apparent dire threats to survival of life on Earth as we’ve known it, our species is awakening to a prophesied new enlightened Earth age. After eons of imagined darkness, we are now realizing our infinite potential as timeless wholeness and Oneness with Source – as LOVE beyond comprehension, imagination or description.

Thus a “critical mass” of Humankind will soon be energetically (not spatially) uplifted to a compassionate new world, dynamically harmonious with Nature and all life everywhere – a “new reality” foreseen for millennia by non-materialist mystic seers.

Accordingly this essay is dedicated to inspiring our awakened inclusion in that uplifted “critical mass”.

Historic Background

Throughout recorded history, in order to evolve, human societies have been compelled to abandon previously cherished inflexible beliefs about “reality” (our cosmology, religion, science, philosophy etc.) which limited learning, impeded progress, and facilitated evil and harmful behaviors.

How could we have advanced believing that the earth was flat, or that it was the center of our solar system? And now, because of unprecedented anthropogenic threats to survival of Earth life as we’ve known it, we are again urgently compelled to transcend cherished beliefs about our perceived (three dimensional) illusionary “reality”.

Refusing Ruling Class Exploitation

Human societies have mostly been undemocratically governed by self-proclaimed elite rulers. But for eons our earthly human societies have been secretly dominated and energetically exploited by psychopathic “leaders” representing a few unimaginably malevolent and unknown astral “rulers”.

Thus, until now we’ve lived unaware of our existence in addictive codependent relationships with our “leaders” and “rulers”, which relationships are parasitically exploitive and dysfunctional. And so far this tiny ruling class has cleverly and selfishly used their understanding of our subliminal Oneness with Source (and all other perceived energy forms) to successfully exploit us.

Currently, using controlled mainstream media of mass deception, they have subliminally “brainwashed”, indoctrinated, and inculcated most of humanity into erroneously and fearfully accepting parasitic servitude to them. Such subliminal servitude has precluded us from realizing our infinite power to fearlessly co-create elevated energetic realities, beyond all domination or exploitation, and thereby to fulfill our deepest evolutionary aspirations.

But in recent “new normal” times our ruling “leaders” have enacted immoral laws, orders and edicts which are so flagrantly outrageous that they are painfully awakening many people to our innate human rights and freedoms. Accordingly, those people are resisting and refusing to follow such insanely immoral and unlawful decrees, rather than degenerate into a locked-down Malthusian global 3D society of unprecedented and insidious human control and enslavement by a few malignant psychopaths.

Thus by their civil disobedience and adamant moral refusal to bear such insanity, a critical mass of humankind are about to be energetically uplifted to co-create a wonderful new era in human history.

Though we appear separate, we are all One with Source

“Human beings are made of body, mind and spirit.
Of these, spirit is primary, for it connects us to the source of everything,
the eternal field of consciousness.”
~ Deepak Chopra

All is a play in consciousness. All divisions are illusory.
You can know the false only. The true you must yourself be.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“You are awareness, disguised as a person.”

~ Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

Although each human is unique in apparent physical form, (like hexagonal crystalline snowflakes) we all subliminally share the same mysterious spiritual Source, which is inconceivable and indescribable. Because we are so subliminally connected we are all affected by a lack of harmony or morality anywhere in our perceived 3D “reality”. Therefore, we are awakening globally to resist immoral edicts which wickedly violate our innate human rights and freedoms.

Until now our subconscious oneness with all Earth life has permitted subliminal matrix control over our species. But growing human awareness of such Oneness with Source is paradoxically enabling us to irreversibly escape from our current codependent bondage in an imperceptible matrix “prison”.

The following quotations and explanations are about how and why we can soon escape:

Escaping from co-dependent exploitation, to co-creative realization.

“When fear becomes collective, when anger becomes collective,
it’s extremely dangerous. It is overwhelming…
The mass media and the military-industrial complex create a prison for us,
so we continue to think, see, and act in the same way…
We need the courage to express ourselves even when the majority is going in the opposite direction…
because a change of direction can happen only when there is a collective awakening…
Therefore, it is very important to say, ‘I am here!’ to those who share the same kind of insight.” 
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power

“The choice that frees or imprisons us is the choice of love or fear.
Love liberates. Fear imprisons.”
~ Gary Zukav

“Deep down, at our cores, there are only two emotions:
love and fear.
All positive emotions come from love,
all negative emotions from fear.
From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy.
From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt.”
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross & David Kessler – When You Don’t Choose Love You Choose Fear

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” . . .
~ 1 John 4:18


Discussion: Until now parasitic lower realm entities have been able to subliminally exploit third dimension humans, only by cleverly fomenting widespread divisive beliefs, fears, anger and other negative emotions. Without such fears and emotions these evil entities can not exploit us. They cannot function in energetically loving dimensions. Fear and Love can’t coexist. And love is “contagious”.

So provoked by outrageously immoral orders and edicts, and aided by unprecedentedly propitious Earth energy cycles, we are now remembering and choosing our true Self identity as Divine LOVE, beyond comprehension, imagination or description.

And as we realize that as eternal LOVE we have nothing to fear, but fear itself, we will inevitably irreversibly escape from captured codependence to fearlessly co-create a wonderful new era in human history.

Methods which are hastening our escape from matrix imprisonment:

1) Living lovingly and gratefully

“Love Is The Law Of Life:

All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. 

Love is therefore the only law of life.

He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. 

Therefore, love for love’s sake,

because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.”

~ Swami Vivekananda


“It is not joy that makes us grateful;

it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”

~ Brother David Steindl-Rast

“Thankfulness is the soul of beneficence …

For thankfulness brings you to the place where the Beloved lives.”

~ Rumi


2) Becoming mindfully conscious of eternal LOVE

“By the definite science of meditation known for millenniums to the yogis and sages of India, and to Jesus,
any seeker of God can enlarge the caliber of his consciousness to omniscience to receive within himself the Universal Intelligence of God.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda

“Meditation is one of the most direct and powerful ways to awaken to who we really are and to experience happiness as a state of consciousness that already exists within us.”
~ Deepak Chopra


A focused or stilled mind is crucial to spiritual evolution. With stilled minds we access intuition and imagination, and are uplifted beyond darkness of negative emotions.
With stilled minds we telepathically ‘hear’ and follow our Sacred Heart’s message of Love.
With stilled minds we follow our heart – not our ego.
With stilled minds we instinctively reject dark “leaders” who’ve betrayed and ‘imprisoned’ us.

“The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.” 
~ Blaise Pascal

“Faith is a knowledge within the heart,

beyond the reach of proof.” 
~ Kahlil Gibran

“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift,

and the rational mind is a faithful servant.

We have created a society that honors the servant

and has forgotten the gift.” 
~ Albert Einstein


3) Practicing nonviolent Gandhian civil disobedience.

“Satyagraha means resisting untruth by truthful means”

“It is a religious duty to fight untruth.

If one remains steadfast in it in a spirit of dedication,
it always brings success.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi


Those of us who already realize how humans are being psychopathically dominated and immorally imprisoned in an invisible ‘matrix’, must now morally and truthfully act to preserve inherent human rights and protect our planet and progeny. With righteous courage, we must speak out and nonviolently disobey unlawful and immoral edicts.

4) Being the change we wish to see.

“[T]he world will not change if we don’t change.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

“If we are to make progress,

we must not repeat history but make new history.

We must add to inheritance left by our ancestors.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
~ Buddha

“The world is a projection of our collective consciousness.
If our collective consciousness reaches that place of peace, harmony, laughter and love,
it will be a different world.”
~ Deepak Chopra


Energetically we live in a labyrinth of thoughts, intentions, feelings and behaviors which create our “reality”. “Whatever we think, do, or say, is changing this world in some way.”

Accordingly, as we prioritize our intention to mindfully radiate loving and forgiving thoughts, behaviors, and emotions we are inevitably and irreversibly elevating and enlightening our earthly “reality” beyond malevolent darkness.

5) Turning off mainstream media.

“Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.”
~ Edward Bernays

“Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated
are confident they are acting on their own free will.”
~ Joseph Goebbels

“The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”
~ Aldous Huxley

“All propaganda is lies, even when one is telling the truth.”
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
~ George Orwell


All mainstream information media have become propagandist instruments dishonestly dominated and controlled by our “leaders”. Whenever possible we must turn them off, even if they seem to publish information with which we agree. We must not be diverted or confused by information or speculation, which is published with insidious motives.

If we seek information (not speculation) about purported current events or history, we need to investigate non-mainstream sources, especially those which are ridiculed, slandered or censored by mainstream media – like Robert F. Kennedy’s Children’s Health Foundation. However, in reviewing such alternative information outlets we must carefully consider their facts and sources, and not assume their accuracy or credibility.

6) Mindfully recognizing that this world is a mere mental illusion

“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion,
does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.”
~ Buddha


“…this separation between man and man, between nation and nation,
between earth and moon, between moon and sun.
Out of this idea of separation between atom and atom comes all misery.
But the Vedanta says that this separation does not exist, it is not real.”

“Your own will is all that answers prayer,
only it appears under the guise of different religious conceptions to each mind.
We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, but it is only the Self, the ‘I’.”
~ Swami Vivekananda – Jnana Yoga

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein

“What appears to be a stable, tangible, visible, audible world, is an illusion.”
“Objective reality does not exist” ….
“the universe is fundamentally a gigantic … hologram.”

~ David Bohm, Quantum Physicist

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won.
There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible,
but in the end they always fall — think of it. Always.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi


We now exist in a perceived relative “reality” where everything is energy (e=Mc2), and suffering is omnipresent. But enlightened mystics and scientists remind us that our “reality” and its seeming separation of perceived thought forms is merely “an optical illusion of consciousness” and that we avert suffering by “recognizing that the world is but an illusion.”

As we consciously identify our comparative “reality” as merely an illusion, we will transcend suffering from negative intentions, actions, thoughts and emotions. And thereby we’ll live with ever growing kindness, and with compassion for others who are still suffering.

Inevitably our kindness will quicken and elevate our subtle energy emanations, until we irreversibly experience our lives from higher dimensions where there is no suffering, just oneness with Source – as LOVE.

Like Gandhi and other great souls we’ll then perceive this world like a metaphoric good versus evil “movie” in which Divine Truth and Love always prevail.

7) Laughter and humor are always uplifting

“When you realize how perfect everything is

you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.”

~ Buddha

“Sing because this is a food our starving world needs.
Laugh because that is the purest sound.”

~ Hafiz

“What is soap to the body, laughter is to the soul.”

~ Yiddish Proverb

“Time spent laughing is time spent with the Gods.”

~ Japanese proverb

“I laugh when I think how I once sought paradise as a realm outside of the world of birth.
It is right in the world of birth and death that the miraculous truth is revealed.
But this is not the laughter of someone who suddenly acquires a great fortune;
neither is it the laughter of one who has won a victory.
It is, rather, the laughter of one who; after having painfully searched for something for a long time,
finds it one morning in the pocket of his coat.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh

“If a person can laugh totally, wholeheartedly, not holding anything back at all,
in that very moment something tremendous can happen
because laughter, when it is total, is absolutely egoless,
and that is the only condition in which to know God, to be egoless.”
~ Osho

“If honesty were suddenly introduced into American life, the whole system would collapse.”
“That’s why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
~ George Carlin


Invocation

At this unprecedented turning point in modern human history,
may we mindfully recognize and intentionally radiate
truth of our common Self-identity as LOVE.

May we thereby be part of an irreversibly uplifted “critical mass” of Humankind,
which will co-create a prophesied compassionate new world,
dynamically harmonious with Nature and all life everywhere.

And so shall it be!


Namasté!

Ron Rattner

Infinite Potential ~ Dawning of a New Age


“That which is truly alive in the living being is the energy of spirit,
and this is never born and never dies.”
~ David Bohm

“Space is not empty. It’s full.
It is the ground for the existence of everything,
including ourselves”
~ David Bohm

“Objective reality does not exist” ….

“the universe is fundamentally a gigantic … hologram”

~ David Bohm


Dr. David Bohm ~ December 20, 1917 – October 27, 1992


Introduction to “Infinite Potential ~ Dawning of a New Age”

Dear Friends,

We have reached a rare turning point in modern human history. Confronted by dire anthropogenic threats to extinction of life on Earth as we’ve known it, our species is awakening from eons of darkness to a prophesied new enlightened Earth age, as we realize our infinite potential as wholeness and oneness with our eternal spiritual Source.

Thus a “critical mass” of Humankind will soon be energetically uplifted to co-create a compassionate world, dynamically harmonious with Nature and all life everywhere – a “new reality” foreseen for millennia by non-materialist mystic seers.

Today’s posting commemorates the imminent advent of this awakened new age by posthumously honoring Dr. David Bohm a brilliant theoretical physicist, philosopher and author, who Einstein called his “spiritual son” and the Dalai Lama his “science guru”. Dr. Bohm’s groundbreaking theories may soon scientifically confirm ancient spiritual wisdom, and support humankind’s “critical mass” realization of our previously unimagined infinite potentiality.

This posting includes an introductory outline of Dr. Bohm’s history, followed by a carefully culled collection of key Bohm quotations, and a highly recommended embedded documentary video titled “Infinite Potential The Life and Ideas of David Bohm”.

It is intended to help us intuit, envision and co-create the dynamic new reality we want to see.

Infinite Potential The Life and Ideas of David Bohm

Embedded below is a highly recommended documentary film about Dr. David Bohm. Here is an almost verbatim summary of the filmmakers’ description of its contents, followed by a brief addendum of relevant facts about Dr. Bohm’s historic relationship with Albert Einstein.

The Life and Ideas Of David Bohm

An incredible journey into the nature of life and Reality with David Bohm, the man Einstein called his “spiritual son” and the Dalai Lama his “science guru”.

A brilliant theoretical physicist, Bohm got the attention of the greatest minds in science, including Robert Oppenheimer, who became his thesis advisor.

Bohm’s scientific insights into the underlying nature of reality and the profound interconnectedness of the Universe and our place within it are ground-breaking and transformational.

But his revolutionary ideas were way ahead of their time and posed a threat to the scientific orthodoxy, which dismissed him and forced him into exile.

His questioning of the scientific orthodoxy was the expression of a rare and maverick intelligence. He shows us that the nature of reality is infinite and believed in a “hidden” regime of reality – the Quantum Potential – that underlies all of creation and which will remain beyond scientific endeavor, an idea echoed by many mystical traditions.

We are all participants and observers in the emergence of a reality…the Observer is the Observed. Bohm shows us that we are all co-producers of a possible future in which personal and global transformation is possible.

He invites us on a journey into the heart of our being, into consciousness itself…

Addendum re Dr. Bohm’s historic relationship with Albert Einstein.

For the last twenty two years of his life Einstein was a fellow at the Princeton Institute For Advanced Study where he met and befriended Dr. David Bohm, then a young member of the Princeton University physics department. Dr. Bohm became Einstein’s Princeton protégé who Einstein called his “spiritual son”, and with whom he exchanged letters after Bohm’s forced departure from Princeton during the notorious McCarthy era of American politics. Perhaps better than anyone else Dr. Bohm learned how Einstein had intuitively formulated his revolutionary theories.

With that understanding, Bohm conceptualized reality as “undivided wholeness”. And Bohm realized that the profound implications of Einstein’s insights have not yet changed mainstream physicists’ predominantly Newtonian mental models of solidity, invariance, and three dimensional space/time, influenced by their benefitting from immense weapons industry investments.

And in his writings, Bohm (a rare scientific maverick) explicitly explained how a new mode of dynamic thinking beyond physics was required to enable recognition and resolution of the many anthropogenic difficulties causing insane and dire threats of extinction of Earth-life as we’ve known it.

Thus Bohm used many new words for the holistic principle of “undivided wholeness”, such as “implicate order”, “quantum potential field”, and “holomovement” to express that nothing is static; that everything is in “universal flux”, a dynamic interconnected process of infinitely becoming.

Bohm’s innovative conceptualizations of “undivided wholeness” were intended to radically shift our thinking about reality, away from terms of separation, to motion or process. Similarly Bohm also tried to imagine ways of using language which emphasized verbs, rather than separate subjects and objects.

Despite his immense achievements, Bohm is still relatively unknown because of Robert Oppenheimer’s influential opposition to Bohm’s theoretical work, which Oppenheimer could not mathematically refute. Realizing that Bohm radically challenged mainstream physics, Oppenheimer called Bohm’s ideas, “juvenile deviationism,” saying that, “if we cannot disprove Bohm, then we must agree to ignore him.”


Dr. David Bohm, Quotations Collection Concerning Physical Reality, Spiritual Philosophy, and Cosmology



“That which is truly alive in the living being is the energy of spirit,
and this is never born and never dies.”

”The essential quality of the infinite… is its subtlety, its intangibility.
This quality is conveyed in the word spirit, whose root meaning is ‘wind or breath.’ This suggests an invisible but pervasive energy to which the manifest world of the finite responds.”

“Consciousness is never static or complete but is an unending process of movement and unfoldment.”


“Space is not empty. It’s full. It is the ground for the existence of everything, including ourselves”

“We could say that practically all the problems of the human race are due to the fact that thought is not proprioceptive.”

“To change your reality you have to change your inner thoughts.”

“Thought creates our world, and then says ‘I didn’t do it”

“If our troubles originate in a kind of ‘ocean’ of thought and language, in which we are submerged, but of which we are only dimly aware, it would seem reasonable to begin immediately to inquire into the actual function of our thought and language. To do this requires, of course, that we give this function our serious attention. We do give such attention to a vast range of things, including nature, technology, politics, economics, society, psychological problems, and so forth. Why should thought and language be the one field left to function automatically and mechanically, without serious attention, so that the resulting confusion vitiates most of what we try to do in all other fields?”

“Objective reality does not exist” ….
“the universe is fundamentally a gigantic … hologram”


“What appears to be a stable, tangible, visible, audible world, is an illusion.
It is dynamic and kaleidoscopic — not really “there”. 
What we normally see is the explicit, or unfolded, order of things, rather like watching a movie.
 But there is an underlying order that is mother and father to this second-generation reality.”

“It is proposed that the widespread and pervasive distinctions between people (race, nation, family, profession, etc., etc.) which are now preventing mankind from working together for the common good, and indeed, even for survival, have one of the key factors of their origin in a kind of thought that treats things as inherently divided, disconnected, and “broken up” into yet smaller constituent parts. . . . . Each part is considered to be essentially independent and self-existent.”
 
“The notion that all these fragments is separately existent is evidently an illusion, and this illusion cannot do other than lead to endless conflict and confusion. Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today.” 
 

“Thus, as is now well known, this way of life has brought about pollution, destruction of the balance of nature, over-population, world-wide economic and political disorder and the creation of an overall environment that is neither physically nor mentally healthy for most of the people who live in it.” 
 


“Individually there has developed a widespread feeling of helplessness and despair, in the face of what seems to be an overwhelming mass of disparate social forces, going beyond the control and even the comprehension of the human beings who are caught up in it.”

“some might say: ‘Fragmentation of cities, religions, political systems, conflict in the form of wars, general violence, fratricide, etc., are the reality. Wholeness is only an ideal, toward which we should perhaps strive.’ But this is not what is being said here. Rather, what should be said is that wholeness is what is real, and that fragmentation is the response of this whole to man’s action, guided by illusory perception, which is shaped by fragmentary thought.”

“From the point of view of the species, death is part of this whole process. You could say that species have evolved in such a way that individual members last a certain time. Perhaps a certain kind of species would be better able to survive if the individuals didn’t last too long. Other kinds could last longer.”

“Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today.”

“During the past few decades, modern technology, with radio, TV, air travel, and satellites, has woven a network of communication which puts each part of the world in to almost instant contact with all the other parts.”

Yet, in spite of this world-wide system of linkages, there is, at this very moment, a general feeling that communication is breaking down everywhere, on an unparalleled scale.

“We are all linked by a fabric of unseen connections. This fabric is constantly changing and evolving. This field is directly structured and influenced by our behavior and by our understanding.”

“We are internally related to everything, not [just] externally related. Consciousness is an internal relationship to the whole, we take in the whole, and we act toward the whole. Whatever we have taken in determines basically what we are. Wholeness is a kind of attitude or approach to the whole of life. If we can have a coherent approach to reality then reality will respond coherently to us.”

“Ultimately, the entire universe…has to be understood as a single undivided whole.”

“The question is how our own meanings are related to those of the universe as a whole. We could say that our action toward the whole universe is a result of what it means to be us.”

“[T]here is a universal flux that cannot be defined explicitly but which can be known only implicitly, as indicated by the explicitly definable forms and shapes, some stable and some unstable, that can be abstracted from the universal flux. In this flow, mind and matter are not separate substances. Rather, they are different aspects of our whole and unbroken movement.”

“We could say that practically all the problems of the human race are due to the fact that thought is not proprioceptive.”

“The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.”

“Space is not empty. It is full, a plenum as opposed to a vacuum, and is the ground for the existence of everything, including ourselves. The universe is not separate from this cosmic sea of energy.”

“Ultimately, all moments are really one, therefore now is an eternity.”

“Thought runs you. Thought, however, gives false info that you are running it, that you are the one who controls it. Whereas actually thought is the one which controls each one of us.”

“In Nature nothing remains constant. Everything is in a perpetual state of transformation, motion and change.”

“In the long run, it is far more dangerous to adhere to illusion than to face what the actual fact is.”

“Individuality is only possible if it unfolds from wholeness.”

“Dialogue is a space where we may see the assumptions which lay beneath the surface of our thoughts, assumptions which drive us, assumptions around which we build organizations, create economies, form nations and religions. These assumptions become habitual, mental habits that drive us, confuse us and prevent our responding intelligently to the challenges we face every day.”

“Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture.”

“Deep down the consciousness of mankind is one. This is a virtual certainty because even in the vacuum matter is one; and if we don’t see this, it’s because we are blinding ourselves to it.”

“In some sense man is a microcosm of the universe; therefore what man is, is a clue to the universe. We are enfolded in the universe.”

“There is a difficulty with only one person changing. People call that person a great saint or a great mystic or a great leader, and they say, ‘Well, he’s different from me – I could never do it.’ What’s wrong with most people is that they have this block – they feel they could never make a difference, and therefore, they never face the possibility, because it is too disturbing, too frightening.”

“Perhaps there is more sense in our nonsense and more nonsense in our ‘sense’ than we would care to believe.”

“Consciousness is much more of the implicate order than is matter… Yet at a deeper level [matter and consciousness] are actually inseparable and interwoven, just as in the computer game the player and the screen are united by participation.”

“…consciousness is a coherent whole, which is never static or complete, but which is in an unending process of movement and unfoldment.”

“If you engage in positive thinking to overcome negative thoughts, the negative thoughts are still there acting. That’s still incoherence. It’s not enough just to engage in positive thoughts when you have negative thoughts registered, because they keep on working and will cause trouble somewhere else.”

“Thought is constantly creating problems that way and then trying to solve them. But as it tries to solve them it makes it worse because it doesn’t notice that it’s creating them, and the more it thinks, the more problems it creates.”

“Similarly, thought is a system. That system not only includes thought and feelings, but it includes the state of the body; it includes the whole of society – as thought is passing back and forth between people in a process by which thought evolved from ancient times.”

“When you are thinking something, you have the feeling that the thoughts do nothing except inform you the way things are and then you choose to do something and you do it. That’s what people generally assume. But actually, the way you think determines the way you’re going to do things. Then you don’t notice a result comes back, or you don’t see it as a result of what you’ve done, or even less do you see it as a result of how you were thinking. Is that clear?”

“Dialogue is really aimed at going into the whole thought process and changing the way the thought process occurs collectively. We haven’t really paid much attention to thought as a process. We have engaged in thoughts, put we have only paid attention to the content, not to the process. Why does thought require attention? Everything requires attention, really. If we ran machines without paying attention to them, they would break down. Our thought, too, is a process, and it requires attention, otherwise its going to go wrong.”

“We have the idea that after we have been thinking something, it just evaporates. But thinking doesn’t disappear. It goes somehow into the brain and leaves something-a trace-which becomes thought. And thought then acts automatically.”

“We haven’t really paid much attention to thought as a process. we have engaged in thoughts, but we have only paid attention to the content, not to the process.”

“In nature nothing remains constant. Everything is in a perpetual state of transformation, motion, and change. However, we discover that nothing simply surges up out of nothing without having antecedents that existed before. Likewise, nothing ever disappears without a trace, in the sense that it gives rise to absolutely nothing existing in later times.”

“The notion of a separate organism is clearly an abstraction, as is also its boundary. Underlying all this is unbroken wholeness even though our civilization has developed in such a way as to strongly emphasize the separation into parts.”

“Then there is the further question of what is the relationship of thinking to reality. As careful attention shows, thought itself is in an actual process of movement.”

“If we can be cheered up by positive images we can be depressed by negative ones. As long as we accept images as realities we are in that trap, because you can’t control the images.”

“It is proposed that a form of free dialogue may well be one of the most effective ways of investigating the crisis which faces society, and indeed the whole of human nature and consciousness today. Moreover, it may turn out that such a form of free exchange of ideas and information is of fundamental relevance for transforming culture and freeing it of destructive misinformation, so that creativity can be liberated.”

“Ego-centeredness is not individuality at all.”

“Thought reflexes get conditioned very strongly, and they are very hard to change. And the also interfere. A reflex may connect to the endorphins and produce an impulse to hold that whole pattern forther. In other words, it produces a defensive reflex. Not merely is it stuck because it’s chemically so well built up, but also there is a defensive reflex which defends against evidence which might weaken it. Thus it all happens, one reflex after another after another. It’s just a vast system of reflexes. And they form a ‘structure’ as they get more rigid.”

“What is needed is to learn afresh, to observe, and to discover for ourselves the meaning of wholeness.”

“Thus, in a dialogue each person does not attempt to make common certain ideas or items of information that are already known to him. Rather, it can be said that collectively they are making something in common”

“Yet, in spite of this world-wide system of linkages, there is, at this very moment, a general feeling that communication is breaking down everywhere, on an unparalleled scale.”

“Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today.”

“The system [of thought] doesn’t stay with the difficult problem that produces unpleasant feelings. It’s conditioned somehow to move as fast as it can toward more pleasant feelings, without actually facing the thing that’s making the unpleasant feeling.”

“Another problem of fragmentation is that thought divides itself from feeling and from the body. Thought is said to be the mind; we have the notion that it is something abstract or spiritual or immaterial. Then there is the body, which is very physical. And we have emotions, which are perhaps somewhere in between. The idea is that they are all different. That is, we think of them as different. And we experience them as different because we think of them as different.”

“Thought is creating divisions out of itself and then saying that they are there naturally.”

“This is another major feature of thought: Thought doesn’t know it is doing something and then it struggles against it is doing. It doesn’t want to know that it is doing it.”

“My suggestion is that at each state the proper order of operation of the mind requires an overall grasp of what is generally known, not only in formal logical, mathematical terms, but also intuitively, in images, feelings, poetic usage of language, etc.”

“individual thought is mostly the result of collective thought and of interaction with other people. The language is entirely collective, and most of the thoughts in it are. Everybody does his own thing to those thoughts – he makes a contribution. But very few change them very much.”

“We have reversed the usual classical notion that the independent “elementary parts” of the world are the fundamental reality, and that the various systems are merely particular contingent forms and arrangements of these parts. Rather, we say that inseparable quantum interconnectedness of the whole universe is the fundamental reality, and that relatively independent behaving parts are merely particular and contingent forms within this whole.”

“And thought struggles against the results, trying to avoid those unpleasant results while keeping on with that way of thinking. That is what I call ‘sustained incoherence.”

“There is no reason why an extra-physical general principle is necessarily to be avoided, since such principles could conceivably serve as useful working hypotheses. For the history of scientific research is full of examples in which it was very fruitful indeed to assume that certain objects or elements might be real, long before any procedures were known which would permit them to be observed directly.”

“Then there is the further question of what is the relationship of thinking to reality. As careful attention shows, thought itself is in an actual process of movement. That is to say, one can feel a sense of flow in the stream of consciousness not dissimilar to the sense of flow in the movement of matter in general. May not thought itself thus be a part of reality as a whole? But then, what could it mean for one part of reality to ‘know’ another, and to what extent would this be possible?”

“A new kind of mind thus beings to come into being which is based on the development of a common meaning that is constantly transforming in the process of the dialogue.”

“Real dialogue is where two or more people become willing to suspend their certainty in each other’s presence.”

“People are no longer primarily in opposition, nor can they be said to be interacting, rather they are participating in this pool of common meaning which is capable of constant development and change.”

“We can’t simply take the way things seem and just work on that, because that would be another kind of mistake thought makes-taking the surface and calling it the reality.”

“Anybody can use science and technology without fundamentally altering his own frame of mind which governs how they are used.”

“The treatment of the indeterminacy principle as absolute and final can then be criticized as constituting an arbitrary restriction on scientific theories, since it does not follow from the quantum theory as such, but rather from the assumption of the unlimited validity of certain of its features, an assumption that can in no way ever be subjected to experimental proof.”

“The question of relevance comes before that of truth, because to ask whether a statement is true or false presupposes that it is relevant (so that to try to assert the truth or falsity of an irrelevant statement is a form of confusion).”

“If each one of us can give full attention to what is actually ‘blocking’ communication while he is also attending properly to the content of what is communicated, then we may be able to create something new between us, something of very great significance for bringing to an end the at present insoluble problems of the individual and of society.”

“In relativity, movement is continuous, causally determinate and well defined, while in quantum mechanics it is discontinuous, not causally determinate and not well defined.”

“One thus sees that a new kind of theory is needed which drops these basic commitments and at most recovers some essential features of the older theories as abstract forms derived from a deeper reality in which what prevails in unbroken wholeness.”

“Thus, in scientific research, a great deal of our thinking is in terms of theories. The word ‘theory’ derives from the Greek ‘theoria’, which has the same root as ‘theatre’, in a word meaning ‘to view’ or ‘to make a spectacle’. Thus, it might be said that a theory is primarily a form of insight, i.e. a way of looking at the world, and not a form of knowledge of how the world is.”

“But what is [the] quality of originality? It is very hard to define or specify. Indeed, to define originality would in itself be a contradiction, since whatever action can be defined in this way must evidently henceforth be unoriginal. Perhaps, then, it will be best to hint at it obliquely and by indirection, rather than to try to assert positively what it is.

One prerequisite for originality is clearly that a person shall not be inclined to impose his preconceptions on the fact as he sees it. Rather, he must be able to learn something new, even if this means that the ideas and notions that are comfortable or dear to him may be overturned.

“But the way people commonly use the word nowadays it means something all of whose parts are mutually interdependent – not only for their mutual action, but for their meaning and for their existence.”

“A corporation is organized as a system – it has this department, that department, that department… they don’t have any meaning separately; they only can function together. And also the body is a system. Society is a system in some sense. And so on.”

“So one begins to wonder what is going to happen to the human race. Technology keeps on advancing with greater and greater power, either for good or for destruction.”

“From the outset, however, this whole controversy has been plagued by tacit assumptions, very often of a philosophical rather than a physical character.”

“This kind of overall way of thinking is not only a fertile source of new theoretical ideas: it is needed for the human mind to function in a generally harmonious way, which could in turn help to make possible an orderly and stable society.”

“violence doesn’t stop merely by saying, ‘we’ll act based on love’, because that can become just an idea that gets absorbed into the system.”

“If you are going to ask what state of feeling goes with understanding, I am afraid that it will have to be described by the word “love”. This word has unfortunately been used in so many false ways that it hardly means anything nowadays. Yet, I think that by implication, the meaning will come across. For example, some parents claim they “love” their children, but do not understand them. Is this really possible? If they do not understand what their children actually are, then the beings for whom they feel love must be imaginary, just projections of the parent’s own minds. Thus, what the parents actually “love” is not their actual children, but rather, some projections of themselves. Such a love is evidently false. Evidently, there can be no real love without understanding. Vice versa, can there be understanding without love? If we hate something, we reject it and do not understand it. . . . If we are indifferent to something, we will never undertake the arduous task of understanding it. If something pleases us, we will be afraid to look at its dark side, and again we won’t understand it, i.e., see it wholly and totally. So it seems that the only feeling that will lead to the action of understanding is love.”


Infinite Potential – The Life & Ideas Of David Bohm



Afterlife?

“In order to know through experience what happens beyond death,

you must go deep within yourself.
In meditation, the truth will come to you.”

~ Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
“It is in love that we are made; in love we disappear.”
~ Leonard Cohen
“It is in dying to ego life,

that we are reborn to Eternal Life.”

~ Peace Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi (edited by Ron Rattner)
“It is crucial to be mindful of death —
to contemplate that you will not remain long in
this life. If you are not aware of death, you will
fail to take advantage of this special human
life that you have already attained. It is
meaningful since, based on it, important
effects can be accomplished.”
~ Dalai Lama – From “Advice on Dying: And Living a Better Life”
(written with Jeffrey Hopkins, PhD)
Whence come I and whither go I?

That is the great unfathomable question,

the same for every one of us.

Science has no answer to it.

~ Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
“People .. who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

~ Albert Einstein
“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions,
that they exist in the present,
which is what there is and all there is.
~ Alan Watts
“Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never Then!”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings





Introduction to “Afterlife?”

Dear Friends,

The mystery of bodily death has long been a central religious and philosophical issue.

Since midlife I have gratefully realized from previously unimagined mystical experiences that inevitable physical death does not end our conscious lifetimes, and that we can enjoy ever growing happiness and soul fulfillment as we lose all ego/mind fears and worries about death and dying.

My profound mystical realizations are explained and discussed in the following Q and A sutra essay verses and comments thereon.

These writings are shared to help inspire our Self realization that beyond ego illusions there is no time, no death or afterlife; that on transcendence of conceptual life, there is only eternal mystery of indescribable and unimaginable Infinite Potentially.

May these writings thereby advance humanity’s ever growing happiness free from fear of inevitable physical death, and all other fearful and negative earthly emotions, and elevate us to harmoniously live together with kindness and compassion, as LOVE.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


Afterlife?

Q:  Is there an afterlife?
A:   After-life is NOW.

Q:  Is there life after death?
A:  There is no death – only Life.

Q:  Then, what is it we call death?
A:  A vacation – eternal life-force vacating a transient vehicle.



Ron’s Comments on “Afterlife?”

Dear Friends,

Have you ever considered what if anything happens after bodily death?

The mystery of what happens upon bodily death is an enduring philosophical and religious issue. It is therefore addressed in the above quotations and Q and A sutra essay verses, and in many other SillySutras postings revealing that beyond ego/mind illusions there is no death or afterlife – only Eternal Life NOW.

Background Discussion.

Physical death is inevitable and natural. But for many years it was largely a taboo subject in American society. Euphemistic language was used to describe death. Most Americans feared death, believing it ended life; they usually died in hospitals or other institutions, and not at home surrounded by family.

Today fear of death remains a major societal issue, impeding spiritual evolution, especially for Westerners.  Such fear arises from mistaken ego identification as only a mortal physical body rather than the eternal life-force which enlivens the body.  But gradually millions of people are transcending fear of death, and leading happier lives after near death [NDE], out of body [OOB] and other mystical experiences.

Since my midlife spiritual awakening I’ve realized that conscious contemplation of physical death can be spiritually important and helpful.
 
On meeting my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, I learned that from childhood he had been preoccupied with two perennial puzzles: “Who am I?” and “What is death?”; that at age thirteen, inspired by irresistible inner longing for Self-realization, Guruji had run away from home in search of experiential answers to those enduring questions.   Ultimately his questions were answered through meditative experience.  Thereafter he taught that:


“In order to know through experience what happens beyond death,

you must go deep within yourself.

In meditation, the truth will come to you.”

~ Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas


Also I’ve learned that Tibetan Buddhists encourage frequent contemplation of physical death as an important spiritual practice for optimizing opportunities of this precious lifetime, and in preparation for auspicious future lifetimes.  Thus the Dalai Lama has written that:


“It is crucial to be mindful of death —  
to contemplate that you will not remain long in
this life. If you are not aware of death, you will
fail to take advantage of this special human
life that you have already attained. It is
meaningful since, based on it, important
effects can be accomplished.”
~ From “Advice on Dying: And Living a Better Life” by Dalai Lama and Jeffrey Hopkins, PhD


Inspired by Guruji, the Tibetan Buddhists, and mystical experiences, I developed deep curiosity and philosophical interest in the spiritual significance of death and dying, reincarnation, and karma.  And gradually I have realized the importance of these subjects.

So I’ve shared many stories, essays and poems about these subjects, which I commend to your attention. (Eg. See “related” posts and audio files linked below.)


Especially after suffering a June, 2014 near-death taxicab rundown, more than ever before I now frequently contemplate my inevitable – and perhaps imminent – death, with unspeakable gratitude for this precious human lifetime and for the evolutionary opportunities and happiness it has brought me.
 
Gratefully I have learned from experience that life is eternal and that “as we lose our fear of leaving life, we gain the art of living life.”

So this posting is dedicated to helping us find growing happiness free from fears and worries about inevitable physical death, and related fearful and negative emotions. So that we instead accentuate optimistic and compassionate feelings, attitudes, and behaviors, which bring us ever growing happiness and further our spiritual evolution.

And so may it be! 

Ron Rattner

Life Is NOW, Never Then!

“That which is timeless is found NOW.”

~ Buddha
“Life can be found only in the present moment.
The past is gone, the future is not yet here,
and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment,
we cannot be in touch with life.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“People .. who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

~ Albert Einstein
Tao and Zen

are NOW,

not then.

~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings





Introduction to Life Is NOW, Never Then!

Dear Friends,

After my mid-life spiritual awakening, which began a new life phase of previously unimagined interest in spiritual evolution, I began to regularly and reflectively walk alone by San Francisco Bay, as an informal spiritual practice.

While walking by the Bay, I synchronistically began “channeling” spiritual sayings, rhymes and poems. Often, too, I’d spontaneously sing original melodies to accompany my poems and rhymes. As I walked, I regularly wrote the words that came to me. But, mostly I forgot the melodies, which I couldn’t write.

One of the few songs with melody that I remembered, I called Life Is NOW, Never Then!

It was telepathically transmitted and received as I joyfully experienced being in the precious present moment – the NOW.

After composing the Life is NOW song I rarely sang it, and it wasn’t otherwise performed or known to others, except for a few of my friends. Later, upon launching the SillySutras website, I recorded and posted an mp3 version of the song.

Also, Rob Tobias, a talented Oregon musician/songwriter/singer and videographer, and longtime partner of my niece Janice Medvin, started filming me for a biographical documentary record of eccentric Uncle Ron’s spiritual journey from litigation to meditation and beyond, which he titled: “Walks With Ron (A Spiritual Memoir)” . During the filming process, Rob heard and liked the Life is NOW song, and ultimately this year he professionally performed and recorded his version of the song.

Embedded below are both my original recording and Rob’s current professional recording of the Life is NOW song. Please enjoy the written and recorded versions of the song, and reflect deeply on their fundamental spiritual message.

May they inspire our spiritual evolution and growing happiness in life, by encouraging our being Here NOW in each precious present moment.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


Life Is NOW, Never Then!

Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.

Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.

Life is NOW or never,
Life is NOW forever,
Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.

Past is history,
Future’s mystery;
But, life is never then.

Life is NOW or never,
Life is NOW forever,
Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.

Time is how
We measure now.
But, life is never when.

Life is NOW or never,
Life is NOW forever,
Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.

Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.

Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.

Life is NOW or never,
Life is NOW forever,
Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.



Ron’s singing of “Life Is NOW, Never Then!”

Listen to


Rob Tobias’s professional performance of “Life Is NOW”

Listen to


Dedication

May the Life is NOW song lyrics and recordings inspire our spiritual evolution and growing happiness, by encouraging our being Here NOW in each precious present moment.

And so may it be!

Namasté!

Ron Rattner

Undo Ego!

“Ego is the biggest enemy of humans.”
~ Rig Veda
“The foundation of the Buddha’s teachings lies in compassion,
and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego,
the number-one enemy of compassion.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama
In the pursuit of learning every day something is gained.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.
~ Lao Tzu
“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find
 all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.”
~ Rumi
Q. How much “ego” do you need?
A. Just enough so that you don’t step in front of a bus.
~ Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
“Undo Ego!
Use it to lose it.”

“As ego goes,
consciousness grows,
until it Knows
– Itself.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

Lau Tzu


Undoing

Undoing

There’s nothing to do
but undo,

Until you’re through and undone.

Then, when nothing’s undone,
there’s nothing to do,

But to BE –

Free and

ONE!



Ron’s audio recitation of “Undoing”

Listen to


Ron’s explanation of “Undo Ego”

Dear Friends,

For millennia spiritual teachings have identified “ego” as a fundamental impediment to spiritual evolution and realization. Thus, the ancient Vedic seers told us that “Ego is the biggest enemy of humans.” (Rig Veda ) And the Dalai Lama says that ego is the “number-one enemy of compassion.”

Spiritual teachers refer to “ego” as mistaken human self-identity as a personality separate from eternal Infinite Potentiality – our true identity. 
Ego is often described as a psychological prison, causing inevitable karmic suffering. 

“The world is a prison and we are the prisoners:

Dig a hole in the prison and let yourself out!”

“Why do you stay in prison 
when the door is so wide open?”

~ Rumi


I have posted the foregoing quotations, sutra sayings and poem about undoing ego to remind us of our critical need to let go of who or what we think we are, so we can realize and BE what we really are – ONE with Nature as Infinite Potentiality. 

Every Human – except for rare Buddha-like beings – knowingly or unknowingly is in some evolutionary stage of undoing mistaken ego identity – a process indispensable to our spiritual evolution.

For example, in spiritual memoirs I tell how (after many years of reciting and following prescribed prayers and practices) I became an “Uncertain Undo” looking within to discover and discard remaining ego impediments to spiritual evolution and realization – as eloquently advised by Lao Tzu and Rumi.

“In the pursuit of learning every day something is gained.

In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.”

~ Lao Tzu



“Your task is not to seek for love,

but merely to seek and find
 all the barriers within yourself

that you have built against it.”

~ Rumi



Whimsically I’ve suggested that everyone should “seek relief from belief”; because “on the path of Undo we’ll never be through ’til we’re an undone ONE”. So as an “Uncertain Undo” I’ve gradually been letting go of previously accepted beliefs and concepts about humanity, self-identity and reality.



My present paradigm is that we live earth-lives to learn from experience our essential common self-identity as LOVE – each from a unique karmic perspective. 

That each of us is here to transcend suffering by uncovering and undoing our unique barriers to Self realization – our mistaken ego identities and tendencies. As we mindfully identify those mental mistakes, it becomes possible for us to use ego, to lose ego. As revealed in the Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism’s best known scripture, it is possible for our mind to become our “best friend”, rather than “worst enemy”


One must elevate – and not degrade – oneself with one’s own mind, as the mind is both a friend and an enemy.

For those who have subdued and conquered the mind, it is the best of friends.

But for those who fail to do so, the mind remains the greatest of enemies.

~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter Six, Lord Krishna to Arjuna


Dedication


This posting is respectfully offered to help remind us of our critical need to let go of who or what we mistakenly think we are, so we can realize and BE what we really are – ONE with Nature as its Eternal Source. 



Also, these undoing ego writings are sincerely intended to help us live ever happier lives, until we all become “an undone ONE”.



And so shall it be!


Ron Rattner

Subject-Object?

“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,
they are modes in which we think”

~ Albert Einstein
“This perception of division between the seer and the object that is seen, is situated in the mind. For those remaining in the heart, the seer becomes one with the sight.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
‘Time, space and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen…In the Absolute there is neither time, space, nor causation.’
~ Swami Vivekananda [Jnana Yoga]
“This whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once: scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic.”
~ Carl Gustav Jung
“Objectivity is an illusory impossibility.”
“All concepts are mental projections of Cosmic Consciousness.
But for name – subject and object are same.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Essence Of Nondualism:
Consciousness = Subject = Object = Self
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings


Albert Einstein



Subject-Object?

Q. Where does subject end, and object begin?

A. Nowhere.

E=mc2.

Everything’s energy everywhere.

Energy’s endless,
So everything’s endless.

But we mistakenly believe what we perceive.

Thus, as Einstein observed:

“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”

Subject and object are mere ways of thinking –
perceptual/conceptual projections of Cosmic Consciousness,
which is our true Self.

As twentieth century Indian sage Sri Ramana Maharshi observed:

“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything,
you are essentially conscious of yourself.”






Ron’s Subject-Object Commentary:

This “Subject-Object?” essay points to our spiritually limiting illusory belief that we are separate “subjects” observing separate “objects” in space/time.  

Cosmically, as Einstein observed, “Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
 
Due to non-locality of space/time ‘reality’, perceived subjects and objects are not separated, but connected.  All perceptions require projected subjective consciousness, which is immeasurable.  So all perceptions are subjective projections of ONE immeasurable consciousness.

Thus everything perceived everywhere is an impermanent holographic energy form of projected consciousness.  Yet we mistakenly believe in objectivity of what we subjectively project and perceive.

Like most Westerners I grew up culturally imbued with mistaken ideas and ideals of “objectivity” of our scientific, academic, journalistic and judicial institutions – of which as an adult I became disabused.
 
And after my midlife spiritual awakening, I began to realize that objectivity is an illusory impossibility; that the idea of objectivity refers only the measurable material world of forms and phenomena, which mistakenly excludes consciousness – the ultimate immeasurable Reality and source of all perceptions.

Despite revolutionary discoveries in relativity and quantum physics, for the past century most materialistic mainstream scientists have remained reluctant to recognize the impossibility of scientifically ‘objective’ accuracy in describing Nature through measurement without reference to immeasurable consciousness. 

Yet more and more visionary scientists have seen and transcended this mistaken materialist view.  As explained by Nobel prize winning physicist Max Planck:


“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of Nature.
 And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.”


Invocation

May the foregoing quotations and essay
encourage our deep ‘subjective’ reflection and recognition
that Humankind – and all of its institutions –
are part of Nature’s insoluble Mystery,
with which we must mindfully and reverentially be ever harmonious. 

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

Life’s in the Balance

“Interdependence is a fundamental law of nature.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Happiness is not a matter of intensity
but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.”
~ Thomas Merton
“Life is balance of holding on and letting go.”
“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.”
~ Rumi
“joy and sorrow are inseparable. . .
together they come and when one sits alone with you . .
remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”
~ Khalil Gibran
“what is joy without sorrow? what is success without failure?
what is a win without a loss? what is health without illness?
you have to experience each if you are to appreciate the other. there is always going to be suffering. it’s how you look at your suffering, how you deal with it, that will define you.”
~ Mark Twain
“In Attunement with God you will find the way to true success,
which is a balance of spiritual, mental, moral, and material attainment.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“As long as you live, you will be subject to change,
whether you will it or not –
now glad, now sorrowful;
now pleased, now displeased;
now devout, now undevout;
now vigorous, now slothful;
now gloomy, now merry.
But a wise man who is well taught in spiritual labor
stands unshaken in all such things,
and heeds little what he feels,
or from what side the wind of instability blows.”
~ Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
“As it acts in the world, the Tao is like the bending of a bow.
The top is bent downward; the bottom is bent up.
It adjusts excess and deficiency so that there is perfect balance.
It takes from what is too much
and gives to what isn’t enough.
Those who try to control, who use force to protect their power,
go against the direction of the Tao.
They take from those who don’t have enough
and give to those who have far too much.
The Master can keep giving because there is no end to her wealth.
She acts without expectation, succeeds without taking credit,
and doesn’t think that she is better than anyone else.”
~ Lao Tzu, translation by Stephen Mitchell
“Let us celebrate – not separate – the Whole;

Let us balance our differences on a fulcrum of

< LOVE >.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings






Life’s in the Balance

Our life is in the balance,
Ever < NOW >,

‘Twixt our hopes
and our history,

On a fulcrum of Mystery,

Our life is in the balance,
Ever < NOW > !



Ron’s audio explanation and recitation of “Life’s in the Balance”

Listen to



Ron’s explanation of “Life’s in the Balance”

Dear Friends,

The foregoing quotations and sutra verses address an important philosophical and practical question: “How can we live a “balanced life”?”

Have you ever considered what it means to live a “balanced life”?  If so, what did you decide?  Have you considered eating a balanced diet, or balancing and prioritizing your time spent with work, recreation, meditation, relationships, rest, etc.?

Each of us is unique with a unique Earth life history and perspective.  So there can be no specific answer or definition for each of us about what constitutes “a balanced life”.  Moreover, everything is in constant flux, precluding any unchanging answer.  Yet living a “balanced life” is an issue of considerable importance for all of us.

Especially since my mid-life inner awakening, I have learned that – just as our bodies naturally tend toward maintaining a state of homeostasis – there is a strong tendency throughout Nature to maintain homeostatic equilibrium, and to energetically compensate for any disruptions or deviations from that balanced state.  Also that “Interdependence is a fundamental law of nature.”

Yet it appears that we Humans are the only earthly species responsible for significant ecological imbalances. Forgetting that Nature is our nature; that we are interdependently ONE with Nature; and, that Nature ‘bats last’, we have mistakenly believed and behaved as if we are separated from each other and from Nature. So people unsustainably neglect or try to control Nature, and mistakenly disrupt Nature’s homeostatic equilibrium.
 
This behavior has resulted in catastrophic threats to all Life as we’ve known it, from disharmonious cruelty, wars, and insanely unsustainable exploitation of our precious planet. So we now see widespread physical, psychological, and economic suffering and unhappiness. Our mistaken self-identification as supposedly separate entities is what spiritual teachers call “ego”.  And most spiritual teachings are intended to help us transcend such limited ego consciousness.

For example the Dalai Lama reminds us that

“Interdependence is a fundamental law of nature. Not only higher forms of life but also many of the smallest insects are social beings who, without any religion, law, or education, survive by mutual cooperation based on an innate recognition of their interconnectedness. The most subtle level of material phenomena is also governed by interdependence. All phenomena, from the planet we inhabit to the oceans, clouds, forests, and flowers that surround us, arise in dependence upon subtle patterns of energy. Without their proper interaction, they dissolve and decay.”

Because we have egocentrically forgotten our inseparable interconnectedness and interdependence with all life everywhere, we have degenerated into insanity – unconsciously committing mass suicide by ecocide, and threatening nuclear catastrophe. So these are critical times of immense jeopardy and suffering, yet immense opportunity.


The human species has developed amazing new technologies, which if wisely and unselfishly used could foster a wonderful new enlightened age. And paradoxically we can advance toward such a new age by emulating past pre-industrial societies.

Isn’t it now crucial that we learn from the wisdom of indigenous people who have lived sane and happy lives by prioritizing sustainable harmony with Nature over it’s unsustainable exploitation; cooperation over competition; respect for prophets over lust for profits; democracy over authoritarianism?

Conclusion

Since Nature is our nature and is in charge of our lives, to live a “balanced life” we must self-identify with Nature, and consciously cooperate with our precious planet’s interdependent ecosystem.  We must behave mindfully without disrupting the crucial homeostatic harmony of our body-minds with our environment.

Dedication

May the foregoing “Life’s in the Balance” sutra verses and quotations help us discover innate happiness in our interdependent and inseparable ONENESS with Nature and all of its lifeforms, and encourage us to allow Nature to bless all life everywhere with interdependent balance and harmony. 

 

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner