Posts Tagged ‘Love’
Vernal Equinox Blessings
“To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
~ Ecclesiastes 3:1
“The winds of grace are always blowing,
but you have to raise the sail.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna
Ron’s introduction to Vernal Equinox Blessings
Dear Friends,
I first learned of Chapter 3:1-8 of the Book of Ecclesiastes on hearing a popular 1960’s folk song written by Pete Seeger called “Turn! Turn! Turn!” quoting the biblical passages verbatim beginning with: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” I then sensed the importance of those passages (attributed to King Solomon), but never deeply reflected upon them until after my 1976 midlife spiritual awakening.
Until then, I was largely insensitive to the symbolic importance of time cycles, and I had little inner inclination to celebrate or commemorate new years or new seasons. Only afterwards did I begin learning about importance of astronomical and astrological sciences with increasing appreciation of ancient pre-Christian cultures which recorded time through solar, lunar or lunisolar calendars, such as Persian, Mayan, Islamic, Vedic, Hebrew, Chinese, and Tibetan.
Paradoxically, since my midlife change of life I have become increasingly aware of the importance of earth-life seasons and cycles in time, while realizing that cosmically Albert Einstein was right when he told us: “the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”; and, that “space and time are not conditions in which we live, [but] modes in which we think.”
Thus I have realized and written that “time is how we measure NOW”.
Yet, this posting (on the March 19th, 2024, vernal equinox) is sincerely dedicated to inspiring our understanding of how auspicious earth-life cycles and seasons can help us bless and transform this world, until together we remember and realize that as timeless Divine souls we are the Eternal light of Universal Awareness as LOVE.
Vernal Equinox Blessings and Opportunities
The vernal equinox is a traditionally important astronomical event which can mark an especially auspicious new life phase for everyone everywhere, and for all earth-life. Especially in Northern climes spring is considered a season for spiritual renewal and rebirth; a time for recognition of our cyclic transition from darkness to light – of both inner and outer illumination. And this can be an especially auspicious time for political progress everywhere on our precious planet.
Thus, as awakening spiritual siblings we can collectively resolve critical interpersonal and international planetary problems, which threaten all earth-life, and which can be solved only through our awakened awareness of how and why we humans alone have caused these crises.
Whatever our cultural conditioning, or our spiritual, religious or ethical traditions, we can NOW join together in identifying and symbolically discarding old defilements, so as to continue earth-life with a fresh clean slate – a process exemplified by the ancient vernal equinox New Year tradition of Zoroastrianism, which is observed by millions people worldwide as Nowruz.
Many religious historians believe that Zoroastrianism is the oldest of the revealed world-religions, and that it may have influenced humankind, directly and indirectly, more than any other single faith; that it has influenced the major Asian religions, and that many beliefs of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim monotheistic religions were derived from Zoroastrianism.
Zoroastrianism teaches that Life’s purpose is to renew the world; to help the world progress towards perfection. And, that Happiness in Life comes to those who live for the happiness of others.
Key Zoroastrian tenets are:
“Good thoughts, good words, good deeds.”;
“Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do,
and then all beneficial rewards will come to you”; and
“There is only one path and that is the path of Truth.”
Like many Westerners I first learned of the wisdom of the Persian mystical tradition through the poems of the great Persian Sufi mystics Rumi and Hafiz, some of which are posted on the SillySutras website. Rumi’s poetry is so superlatively beautiful and mystically insightful – even when translated from Farsi – that he has been recently called the “most popular poet in America”, over seven centuries since his death.
And just as many Western people keep copies of the bible in their homes, many Persian and Iranian people keep copies of Hafiz’ writings which they consider the pinnacle of Persian literature. The poems and sayings from Rumi and Hafiz quoted on SillySutras are the amongst the most beautiful and deeply insightful postings on the entire website, and I commend them to your attention. See here and here.
If like countless others you are inspired to help the world through infinite opportunities for transformative blessings for everyone everywhere enhanced by this auspicious equinox earth-life cycle, it is important to remember that such blessings are not automatic but depend on our loving thoughts, words and deeds. The principle was succinctly stated by 19th Century Indian holy man Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, who reminds us that:
“The winds of grace are always blowing, but you have to raise the sail.”
Conclusion
We are living in extraordinarily turbulent times with immense dangers and opportunities. But we are encouraged by Rumi’s consoling wisdom:
“Do not be sad.
For God sends hope in the darkest moments.
The heaviest rain comes from the darkest clouds.”
~ Rumi
May we collectively view what is happening environmentally and politically as disintegration of an old world paradigm that has become painfully and harmfully obsolete, to make way for a more enlightened and elevated new age that can and will bless all life on our precious planet.
And let us each from our unique perspectives, and with our unique propensities, lovingly ‘raise our sails to the winds of grace’ which will hasten a new golden age of peace on earth and goodwill for all.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
“Turn! Turn! Turn!” – Video.
Dealing With Death and Dying
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“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
“As we lose our fear of leaving life,
we gain the art of living life.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Face death to live life.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Death is a vacation –
Eternal Life-force vacating a transient vehicle –
“a space-time soul suit”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“It is in dying to ego life,
that we are reborn to Eternal Life.”
~ Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi (edited by Ron Rattner)
Ron’s Introduction to Dealing With Death and Dying
Physical death is inevitable and natural. But when I grew up it was largely a taboo subject in American society. Most Americans feared death, believing it ended life. They usually died in hospitals or other institutions, and not at home surrounded by family. And mostly they used euphemistic language to describe death.
Though the mystery of inevitable bodily death has long been a central religious and philosophical issue, my Chicago public school and Madison Wisconsin college courses, did not encompass that mystery – nor did my Jewish education.
Both my grandmothers had died before I was born. My paternal grandfather who I hardly knew died while I was quite young and I was not brought to his funeral. Not until later adulthood did I suffer loss of any other dear person or pet, or think much about death.
Until my mid-life spiritual awakening, I self-identified only with my mortal body, its thoughts and its story, and I assumed that death of the physical body ended life. So I had no knowledge, opinion or belief concerning reincarnation or afterlife in ‘heaven’ or ‘hell’, or of an immortal “soul”.
During college days in Madison, Wisconsin, while imprudently and unskillfully swimming too far from shore in Lake Mendota, I nearly drowned and unforgettably experienced a mostly subconscious fear of death. Fortuitously, in the nick of time, I was sighted and rescued by boaters.
For many years thereafter, as a (non-swimming) relatively young and healthy person, I neither consciously confronted nor philosophically considered that innate fear of death.
Then in my early forties, I had transformative experiences of spiritual self-identity and afterlife: I realized that I was not merely my body, its thoughts and story, but eternal and universal awareness. And I began seeing visions of apparent past lives, and inner and outer appearances of deceased people, including my maternal grandfather and Mahatma Gandhi, my first perceived inner spiritual guide.
So, I began accepting perennial Eastern ideas of reincarnation and transmigration of an eternal soul, while gradually losing fear of inevitable physical death. Then, on meeting my beloved Guru, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas (on the luckiest day of my life), 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, Guruji had run away from home in search of experiential answers to those eternal questions.
Inspired by Guruji, I became religiously transformed from
“Secular Hebrew” to “Born-again Hindu” to “Uncertain Undo” and “Beyond”.
And I developed a deep curiosity and philosophical interest in the spiritual significance of death and dying, reincarnation, and karma.
Elsewhere, on SillySutras.com I have shared many experiences, essays and poems on these subjects. (See, for example, https://sillysutras.com/category/afterlife/; also https://sillysutras.com/death-afterlife-rebirth-easter-reflections-on-resurrections/)
Ultimately I concluded that cosmically there is no death; that
“Birth and death are virtual, while Divine Life as LOVE is perpetual”.
(See e.g. https://sillysutras.com/know-death-to-know-life-know-death-to-know-that-there-is-no-death/ )
Consequently, I became ever more detached and less fearful about my own inevitable (and perhaps imminent) bodily death. But, my detachment about my own demise did not negate my compassionate concern for loss of others – especially dear ones – and my wish for their auspicious transitions. This became evident when at age sixty-one I was, at long last, confronted with my dear father’s last illness and passing.
Here is what happened.
Dealing with my dear father’s last illness and death
My dear father, Harry, came into this world on December 14, 1904, with a very strong body which served him well and without serious disease or disability until age 88. Then beginning in 1993 he had a series of ailments which proved terminal.
First he suffered an extremely painful and protracted case of herpes shingles for which he was treated with Prednisone, a powerful immune system depressant, which weakened him. Soon after recovering from that affliction, while already debilitated he had an intestinal hernia injury, so painful that he was hospitalized and suffered greatly before and after emergency abdominal surgery. Then he soon developed congestive heart disease with lungs filling with liquid and mucus. And finally he was diagnosed with lung cancer – a terminal disease which he had averted despite being a three pack a day cigarette chain smoker from teen age until age sixty. Amazingly, he had will power to immediately quit smoking cigarettes on publication of the 1964 US Surgeon General’s report confirming cigarette carcinogenicity and toxicity.
My Dad had enthusiastically enjoyed his long life, especially after his retirement and move from Chicago to the California Bay Area, near his children. But he was not anxious to prolong that life while he suffered painful terminal disease. Once, when I visited him in the John Muir Hospital, sadly he confided in me: “Ron, they put dogs and cats out of misery, but make people suffer. If Doctor Kevorkian was in this area and not Michigan, he’d be my doctor.”
Though, as a law-abiding “born-again Hindu” I had mixed emotions about euthanasia, I felt great compassion for my father and wanted to do whatever would be spiritually appropriate to mitigate his suffering and assure his most auspicious possible transition. So, I consulted my Brahmin Vedic pundit-astrologer friend Pravin Jani, father of Guruji’s successor, Shri Anandi Ma.
Pravinji recommended that I recite certain Sanskrit mantras and that I make two extraordinary charitable donations dedicated to my father: first, that I give to a chosen charity a gift of actual gold – not money; and second, that I purchase and give a holy cow to an Indian ashram. So, with heartfelt compassion for my father, I began reciting the mantras and arranged the unusual donations in his honor.
First, I donated rare American eagle gold coins to New Dimensions Foundation, where I was a Board member. Then, through arrangements by my daughter Jessica who was then living on Ammachi’s Kerala ashram, I acquired and donated to the ashram a holy cow, where it was gratefully received.
“Why” you may ask “was it considered propitious to donate a cow to an Indian ashram?” Because in India cows were revered as sacred animals by millions of Hindus. Hindus believed that their Divine Avatar Krishna incarnated 5,000 years ago as an enchanting cowherd. He is often described as Bala-Gopala, “the child who protects the cows.” and as Govinda, “one who brings satisfaction to the cows.”
I learned about holy cows during my 1982 sacred pilgrimage to India. One of my most memorable images of that trip, was of stray cows roaming free and obstructing traffic on busy Calcutta streets as our tour bus approached the downtown hotel where we were staying. Later, in the holy city of Rishikesh, I communed with and kissed one of the sacred small cows on the Sivananda, Divine Life Ashram.
Many Indian ashrams and rural Indian families have at least one dairy cow, using it for milk, curds, butter, ghee and dung as fuel for pujas (ritual ceremonies). Thus, the cow remains a protected animal in Hinduism today, revered by most Hindus, who do not eat beef.
When I stayed at Ammachi’s ashram in 1992, the ashram had one cow. It’s limited dairy products were used mostly for feeding Ammachi and some swamis, but were insufficient to supply other ashram residents. However, with special dispensation, for a few days Jessica obtained for me one morning cup of curd (yoghurt) which helped heal the severe intestinal upset with which had I arrived at the ashram, suffering food poisoning from a Brahmin wedding feast in Ahmedabad. So the following year I was especially happy to repay that ashram cow’s blessing by donating another sacred cow to be its companion.
Apparently my bovine and gold donations and prayers did not prolong my father’s life. But I have faith that they helped his transition to a heavenly afterlife. When it became evident that Dad’s days here were numbered, at his request he was released from hospital to hospice care at home in March 1994.
To help, I started sleeping at my parents’ Walnut Creek apartment. On the night of March 10, 1994, sensing that Dad’s death was imminent, I stayed awake reciting Sanskrit mantras, especially a mantra recommended by Guruji for auspicious transitions of those destined to die. As I fervently recited mantras, I felt enhanced subtle energies and entered a clairsentient state. Then, though Dad was sleeping in another room, I felt the departure of his spirit. The next morning he was gone, and I helped my mother with required post-death arrangements.
My experiences after my dear father’s transition, and concluding comments about Death and Dying
That night, exhausted by the stress of prior days, I returned to San Francisco where I slept soundly in my ‘high-rise hermitage’. Just before awakening, and while I was in a semi-sleep state, my dear father fleetingly appeared in a vivid inner vision. He looked as he did during the prime of his life, rather than as a debilitated old man. Telepathically he assured me he was fine and then disappeared.
Later, when I told Indian friends what happened, they informed me that Dad had died on Maha Shivaratri (the ‘Great Night of Shiva’) considered the most auspicious holy night of the year by millions of Hindus.
Soon afterwards I received another extraordinary assurance of Dad’s favorable transition as I was driving to Shri Anandi Ma’s home in Antioch for a weekend meditation program. En route, I had picked up as passengers Anandi Ma’s parents and brother Umesh at their Berkeley apartment. Like his revered sister, Umesh then spent many hours daily in deep meditation often communing with Guruji’s ishta devata, Hindu monkey-God Lord Hanuman, considered an incarnation of Shiva.
As we traveled to Antioch, Umesh said to me: “Ron, I have a message for you from Hanumanji.” With extreme curiosity, I asked about that message. Whereupon, Umesh replied: “Hanumanji says, don’t worry about your father, we’re taking care of him.”
Six months later, on August 29, 1994, Guruji took mahasamadhi at age one hundred sixteen, and joined the heavenly host caring for my father and countless others. So, heeding Hanumanji’s assurance, I’m not concerned about my father. Instead, as I too approach the end of this precious lifetime, it is my heartfelt aspiration to help through self-purification and compassion not only family dear ones but all other suffering sentient beings with whom we energetically remain inseparably connected.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Honoring Abraham Lincoln
~ on Presidents’ Day
“We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain –
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom –
and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
~ Abraham Lincoln – Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863
“With malice toward none, with charity for all,
with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,
let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
~ Abraham Lincoln – Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865
“I am a firm believer in the people.
If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis.
The great point is to bring them the real facts.”
~ Abraham Lincoln
Honoring Abraham Lincoln on Presidents’ Day
Dear Friends,
On the annual U.S. “Presidents’ Day” national holiday, US Presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln’s February birthdays are commemorated.
Washington and Lincoln are leaders who who successfully fought the US revolutionary war for Independence from Great Britain, and the US Civil War to end human chattel slavery.
Both wars were fought in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence to secure human life, liberty, and happiness pursuant to “the laws of nature and of nature’s God”.
The US founding fathers recognized, that governments and their chartered transnational organizations do not exist by Divine right; that they are established by people to serve people – not to unfairly tax, exploit or oppress them – and that they are illegitimate unless they serve human rights and happiness.
In the US Civil War over 600,000 non-indigenous Americans died; more than during all other US wars, from the Revolution through Vietnam.
Thereafter, in his famous address dedicating a Gettysburg national cemetery, President Lincoln eloquently invoked divine providence, and called for a national rebirth of equal rights, liberty and representative government, proclaiming:
“We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain –
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom –
and that government of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.”
~ Abraham Lincoln – Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863
Representative government and empire cannot coexist.
Contrary to President Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg aspiration and dedication, and to the Declaration of Independence, the USA has paradoxically become history’s most colossal and hegemonic world empire.
Instead of peacefully furthering human life, liberty, and happiness, the vast American empire has been perpetually involved in wars, either directly or vicariously, in ways Washington and Lincoln could have never imagined. It is possible that the US has killed more than 20 million people in 37 “victim nations” just since World War II, including millions of non-combatant civilian women and children.
Moreover, the American government is no longer a republic or democracy. Lincoln’s egalitarian ideal of a US government “of the people, by the people, for the people” has been insidiously co-opted by and for obscenely wealthy olipoloists, trillion $$$ transnational hedge funds, and corporations constituting a mere tiny fraction of 1% of Humankind. (*see Footnote)
Furthermore, in recent years there has been much American civil and political discord, concurrent with unprecedented worldwide turmoil, social unrest and adversity. Countless people are experiencing serious deprivations of God given human rights and necessities. Accordingly they are angrily and anxiously displaying polarized and violent behaviors and emotions. Moreover, many justifiably fear nuclear, climate, or biological catastrophe ending human life on Earth as we’ve known it.
Thus, while some Americans celebrate their past presidents during the Presidents’ Day holiday weekend, others are deeply concerned about deprivations of purported American democracy.
Whether or not we are citizens of the American empire, whatever may be our political, cultural, generational, or geographical perspectives, we all share overriding common needs and aspirations which are critically threatened by imminently disastrous world crises involving U.S. policies. So it is appropriate for us all to seriously reflect on Presidents’ Day about the current state of our precious planet.
[*Footnote Even ex-president Jimmy Carter has publicly recognized that the US is no longer a democracy. Eg. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/jimmy-carter-is-correct-t_b_7922788.html
https://theintercept.com/2015/07/30/jimmy-carter-u-s-oligarchy-unlimited-political-bribery/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/09/13/jimmy-carter-speaks-out-against-us-oligarchy-and-trumps-diplomatic-failures]
Evolutionary opportunity.
These are obviously critical times of immense worldwide jeopardy and suffering. But they can also afford us extraordinary evolutionary opportunities for conscientiously promoting world peace and social justice, and for equitably redistributing limited planetary resources which are now greedily and unsustainably monopolized, hidden or hoarded by a few obscenely rich oligopolists. And thereby we have opportunities for rededicating Humanity to the sanctity of all life on Earth.
As His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama has observed:
“It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others.”
Thus, it is appropriate for us to collectively consider how we can accomplish most good for ourselves and others.
And how our precious planet can be guided for common good by humble, harmonious, and compassionate people, rather than insanely dominated top-down by malignantly exploitive oligopolists.
Dedication.
This posting is dedicated to advancing Lincoln’s eloquently articulated aspirations:
“With malice toward none, and empathy for all,
Let us end the iniquity of inequity in our society,
So “that government of the people, by the people,
for the people, shall not perish from the Earth”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Invocation.
May we thereby advance universal peace and justice,
for the welfare of the World and all it’s life-forms everywhere, until ultimately we consciously coexist beyond this world
As the Eternal light of Cosmic LOVE
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
‘Spiritual’ People In A Perfectly Crazy World
‘Spiritual’ People In A Perfectly Crazy World
“Look how the caravan of civilization has been ambushed.
Fools are everywhere in charge.
Do not practice solitude like Jesus.
Be in the assembly, and take charge of it.”
~ Rumi
“In the present circumstances, no one can afford to assume
that someone else will solve their problems.
Every individual has a responsibility to help guide our global family in the right direction.
Good wishes are not sufficient; we must become actively engaged.”
~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama, from “The Path to Tranquility: Daily Wisdom”
“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe’,
a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his 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 this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security.”
~ Albert Einstein ( N. Y. Times , March 29, 1972)
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
“Love is the highest, the grandest, the most inspiring,
the most sublime principle in creation.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“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
Ron’s Introduction to ‘Spiritual’ People In A Perfectly Crazy World
Dear Friends,
Happy Saint Valentine’s Day, 2024!
We are immensely privileged to have incarnated on Earth at a rare time in modern human history, as a “critical mass” of Humankind pass from violent, fearful and dark times to an age of lasting peace, light, and Love – not just annually, but every day.
During ages of ignorance and darkness we’ve unknowingly and unwittingly been imprisoned and exploited by ego-bonds of belief in a mental matrix from which we are at long last escaping and ascending incorruptible and awakened to the Divine eternal light of LOVE.
We are about to emerge from eons of outer darkness to a new age of awakened inner eternal Light; from an era of collective fearful psychoses threatening God given human rights and freedoms, to an evolutionarily “enlightened” age free from suffering and deprivation.
On our precious blue planet Earth, time is inescapable. We cannot live ego free timeless lives, in dense 3D relative “reality”. So until we transcend illusory ego mind beliefs of being separated from Divine Source, every Earthly ending is a new beginning. And the ending of eons of human bondage is an extraordinarily historic turning point, with infinite opportunities for our transcendent Self realization as Divine LOVE.
Thus, in this new Earth age many souls will be blessed to ascend to infinitely awakened levels of awareness, by choosing to be actively engaged in emanating and radiating harmonious heart levels of love and compassion.
Here are observations by the Dalai Lama from which we may draw inspiration and motivation, counseling that we must act to solve ecological crises and restore peace “before it is too late”:
“Peace and the survival of life on earth as we know it are threatened by human activities that lack a commitment to humanitarian values. Destruction of nature and natural resources results from ignorance, greed and lack of respect for the earth’s living things.”“This lack of respect extends even to the earth’s human descendants, the future generations who will inherit a vastly degraded planet if world peace does not become a reality, and if destruction of the natural environment continues at the present rate.”
“Our ancestors viewed the earth as rich and bountiful, which it is. Many people in the past also saw nature as inexhaustibly sustainable, which we know is the case only if we care for it.”
“It is not difficult to forgive destruction in the past which resulted from ignorance. Today, however, we have access to more information; it is essential that we re-examine ethically what we have inherited, what we are responsible for, and what we will pass on to coming generations.”
“Many of the earth’s habitats, animals, plants, insects and even micro-organisms that we know to be rare may not be known at all by future generations. We have the capability and the responsibility to act; we must do so before it is too late.”
“Just as we should cultivate gentle and peaceful relations with our fellow human beings, we should also extend that same kind of attitude towards the natural environment. Morally speaking, we should be concerned for our whole environment.”
“This, however, is not just a question of morality or ethics, but a question of our own survival. For this generation and for future generations, the environment is very important. If we exploit the environment in extreme ways, we will suffer, as will our future generations. When the environment changes, the climatic condition also changes. When the climate changes dramatically, the economy and many other things change. Our physical health will be greatly affected. Again, conservation is not merely a question of morality, but a question of our own survival.”
“Therefore, in order to achieve more effective environmental protection and conservation, internal balance within the human being himself or herself is essential. The negligence of the environment, which has resulted in great harm to the human community, resulted from our ignorance of the very special importance of the environment. We must now help people to understand the need for environmental protection. We must teach people to understand the need for environmental protection. We must teach people that conservation directly aids our survival.”
“If you must be selfish, then be wise and not narrow-minded in your selfishness. The key point lies in the sense of universal responsibility. That is the real source of strength, the real source of happiness. If we exploit everything available, such as trees, water and minerals, and if we don’t plan for our next generation, for the future, then we’re at fault, aren’t we? However, if we have a genuine sense of universal responsibility as our central motivation, then our relations with the environment, and with all our neighbours, will be well balanced.”
“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment must come from the human heart. The key point is a call for a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
(From “Humanity and Ecology”, © 1988, The Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama)
Ron’s Comments on ‘Spiritual’ People In A Perfectly Crazy World
Thus this an exceptional era for people who intuitively experience our spiritual common essence and nature to become engaged.
We live in an age of mental malaise; the Hindus call it Kaliyuga. Our precious planet is polluted by human ignorance and greed.
“The more that money rules the World,
the more that money ruins the World.”
We have degenerated into an insane society, unconsciously committing mass suicide by ecocide.
Unrestrained human consumption exploits vulnerable people and depletes finite planetary resources which sustain life. Billions of people suffer needless poverty, starvation and avoidable disease, while obscenely privileged oligarchs greedily acquire power and excessive material wealth far beyond their conceivable needs.
Earth-life as we known it is threatened by environmental catastrophe or nuclear annihilation, precipitated by corrupt world “leaders” who are
destroying the life support systems which sustain us.
Even in “advanced” countries, it is virtually impossible now to breath air or drink water which is not in some way polluted by our species. Agricultural soils have been depleted and corrupted. Global weather patterns and hydrologic systems have been materially disrupted by human activities; protective atmospheric ozone is being depleted. Glaciers are melting; long frozen Arctic tundra is thawing. Though non-polluting alternative technologies are available and feasible they are considered “economically” impractical.
By “bio-engineering” living organisms we are even tampering and blindly experimenting with our genetic origins. From birth (and even prenatally) every person’s body/mind is polluted by numerous and ubiquitous manmade chemical and radioactive materials, many of which are carcinogenic.
Many species are rapidly becoming extinct. Around the world, thousands of birds are suddenly falling dead out of the sky, and countless dead fish are appearing on shores of rivers, lakes and oceans. The oceans are polluted with our detritus, and much marine life is threatened. Even remote Arctic polar bears are becoming hermaphroditic because of phthalates and other chemicals dispersed by humankind, and they are threatened with destruction of the ecosystem on which they depend for survival. [See http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/toxic-waste-creates-hermaphrodite-arctic-polar-bears-5336813.html]
So, as we widen our circle of compassion to embrace the whole of Nature and all living creatures, it becomes apparent that as the Dalai Lama observes we must “become actively engaged” to avert imminent ecological catastrophe.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Living Life, Teaching Peace
“My life is my message.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“You must be the change
you want to see in the world.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“In a gentle way you can shake the world..”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“You may never know what results come of your actions,
but if you do nothing, there will be no results.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Whatever we think, do, or say,
changes this world in some way.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Ron’s Introduction to “Living Life, Teaching Peace”
Dear Friends,
The following “Living Life, Teaching Peace” sutra-verses, were largely inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s legendary declaration that “My life is my message” in response to an inquiry about his ‘message for the world’.
Gandhi, who was trained in England as an attorney, became a renowned advocate for civil rights and social justice, who was recognized as father of Indian democracy. During his lifetime he was loved by the Indian people and known worldwide as “Mahatma”, an honorary Sanskrit term meaning “Great Soul”, like the term “Saint” in Christianity. Gandhi helped change the world by being the change he wanted see. His nonviolent activism and relentless pursuit of Truth have inspired millions, and continue to influence the history of our times.
Gandhi was my first known inner spiritual guide who appeared while I was in meditative states, long after his 1948 assassination. Only after his inner appearance did I synchronistically learn of Gandhi’s history as a nonviolent civil rights lawyer pursuing spiritual Truth.
Later, after receiving shaktipat initiation as a Hindu Rama devotee (like my Guruji), Gandhi became and has ever since remained for me an especially important spiritual icon and inspiration. (See memoirs posts re “Silva Mind Control” and “Gandhi the Man”)
In comments after the following “Living Life, Teaching Peace” sutra-verses I will explain their spiritual principles, with the aspiration that Gandhi’s exemplary life may encourage and inspire us to live in harmony with those principles.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Living Life, Teaching Peace
On the Earth branch
Of the great Cosmic University,
We are all students,
And we are all teachers.
We are all learning Love.
And, as Gandhi observed,
Our lives are our teachings.
So, as we live,
And as we learn,
We each may teach –
Peace, love, and compassion.
And so it shall be!
Ron’s audio comments and recitation of Living Life, Teaching Peace
Ron’s Explanation of “Living Life, Teaching Peace”
Knowingly or unknowingly we all influence others, often at imperceptibly subtle energy levels, whether or not we are famous people like Gandhi.
“Whatever we think, do, or say,
changes this world in some way.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Not only do we affect people we know or meet, or think about, but in our space/time ‘reality’ where everyone/everything is energy – E=mc2 – we are metaphorically like vibrating and radiating energy vortices, ‘broadcasting’, receiving, and transducing energy “vibes”, which influence all Earthlife everywhere.
So – though we’re not famous like Mahatma Gandhi – our lives are our message.
When we are loving and compassionate, we help others to harmoniously resonate those ways of being in the world. Conversely our negative behaviors and emotions such as fear, anger and hatred invariably impede earthly love and compassion.
So in skillfully and mindfully living life with Loving behaviors and “vibes”, we each reach and teach as well as learn from others.
Invocation
While we ‘matriculate’
on ‘the Earth branch of the great Cosmic University’,
may we mindfully live loving lives harmonious with Nature.
May our deepest intuitions and aspirations
encourage and inspire us
each to learn and to teach
peace, love and compassion.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Armistice Day, 11:11
~ No More War: Quotes and Comments
“And they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.”
~ Isaiah 2:4
“Nothing will end war unless the people refuse to go to war.”
“War cannot be humanized, only abolished”
“You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
~ Dalai Lama
“We must . . live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence,
but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Mankind must put an end to war,
or war will put an end to mankind…”
~ John F. Kennedy
“There is no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy.
There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.”
~ Abraham Lincoln
“More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars — yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.”
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
“The great question is, can war be outlawed from the world?
If so, it would mark the greatest advance in civilization since the Sermon on the Mount.”
~ Douglas MacArthur
“Thou shalt not kill.”
~ Exodus 20:13
“Does the commandment ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ mean nothing to us?
Are we to interpret it as meaning ‘Thou shalt not kill except on the grand scale,’ or ‘Thou shalt not kill except when the national leaders say to do so’?”
~ Linus Pauling
Armistice Day, 11:11 ~ No More War
Dear Friends,
Over a century ago on November 11th at eleven o’clock a.m. — the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918, an armistice agreement was signed by the combatant Allied nations and Germany to end four years of Word War I hostilities. This historic event was thereafter commemorated by the Allied nations as a national “Armistice Day” holiday idealistically marking termination of “the war to end all wars”.
However, at the outbreak of World War II, the US national holiday name became “Veterans Day”, while British Commonwealth nations changed from “Armistice Day” to “Remembrance Day”. And for decades endless more wars have followed the “the war to end all wars”.
Human societies have advanced industrially and technologically, but have yet utterly failed to stop warring. As American humorist and social commentator Will Rogers sardonically observed:
“You can’t say civilization don’t advance…
in every war they kill you in a new way.”
~ Will Rogers
Although armed conflict is behaviorally as old as humankind, for the first time in our recorded history we are now forced to realize that any more wars will probably trigger an omnicidal nuclear, ecological, biological, or radiological catastrophe insanely ending earth-life as we’ve known it.
But paradoxically, while human survival is technologically threatened as never before, we concurrently have gained unprecedented technical capacity to sustainably end all human starvation and poverty. And in these critical times of immense suffering, yet immense opportunity, we are awakening to our infinitely unlimited human potentiality.
So as we appropriately honor and remember all those who have been conscripted or enlisted into military services fighting endless wars, let us urgently and lovingly envisage and intend – at long last – an era with no more war on our precious planet.
Together let us morally insist that mother Earth be democratically governed bottom-up by compassionate nonviolent societies, rather than autocratically ruled top-down by malignantly insane warlike “leaders”.
We must relentlessly refuse to cooperate with or participate in any more immoral war, and only commemorate “Armistice Day” (instead of “Veterans Day”), remembering that another war can be the “war to end all wars” and all life on our beautiful blue planet!
May we so initiate a new era of lasting world peace.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Day Of The Dead
~ An Ancient Celebration of Eternal Life
“Life is eternal. There is no death.
If people correctly understood death,
they would no longer have any fear of the unknown”. .
“What we think of as life and death are merely transitions,
changes in the rate of vibration in a continual process of growth and unfoldment.”
~ Betty Bethards – “There is No Death” pp. 90-91
“We are born and reborn countless number of times,
and it is possible that each being has been our parent at one time or another.
Therefore, it is likely that all beings in this universe have familial connections.”
~ H. H. Dalai Lama, from ‘The Path to Tranquility: Daily Wisdom”
“Reincarnation is not an exclusively Hindu or Buddhist concept,
but it is part of the history of human origin.
It is proof of the mindstream’s capacity to retain knowledge of physical and mental activities.
It is related to the theory of interdependent origination and to the law of cause and effect.”
~ H. H. Dalai Lama (Preface to “The Case for Reincarnation”)
“The soul never takes birth and never dies at any time,
nor does it come into being again when the body is created.
The soul is birthless, eternal, imperishable and timeless
and is never destroyed when the body is destroyed.
Just as a man giving up old worn out garments accepts other new apparel,
in the same way the embodied soul giving up old and worn out bodies
verily accepts new bodies.”
“The soul is eternal, all-pervading, unmodifiable, immovable and primordial.” ~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Krishna to Arjuna
“Overcoming the fear of death changes our whole perspective on life.
Everything we do and think and feel takes on new meaning.
When we realize that we are not limited by the physical,
we begin to get the idea that we are really master of our own destinies
and we more fully align ourselves with the eternal nature of our beings.”
~ Betty Bethards – “There is No Death” pp. 82-83
“To be afraid of dying
is like being afraid of discarding an old worn-out garment.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“God is love in all religions,
so the more we live love
the closer we are to God”.
~ Betty Bethards
“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
“Birth and death are virtual,
but Life is perpetual.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“As we lose our fear of leaving life,
we gain the art of living life.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Evolution of consciousness is the central motive of terrestrial existence.”
~ Sri Aurobindo
“All existence is a manifestation of God.”
~ Sri Aurobindo
Day Of The Dead ~ An Ancient Celebration of Eternal Life
Ron’s Introduction to Day Of The Dead
Dear Friends,
This posting describes “Day Of The Dead” – “Día de los Muertos” – an ancient Meso-American celebration that began 3000 years ago. It’s above quotations and following explanations are dedicated to helping everyone everywhere find ever greater inner happiness by transcending fear of death.
Discussion
When the Spanish arrived five centuries ago in territory now known as Mexico, they found indigenous persons practicing what seemed to be a gruesome ritual that mocked death.
Although the Catholic Church attempted to eliminate this religiously unsanctioned ceremony, they were unsuccessful. Thus the “Día de los Muertos” tradition continues in Mexico, and has spread to other parts of the world where mostly persons of Mexican heritage persist in lovingly and joyfully honoring people and pets whose souls have passed and persist in other dimensions.
Though based on perennial wisdom truth beyond time, this Day Of The Dead festival is annually observed mostly on November 1st and 2nd, just after Halloween.
Rather than being premised on pagan ignorance, this ritual is rooted in instinctive human insight celebrating and honoring our true Spiritual Reality and common Identity, as Eternal Life, Light, and Divine LOVE – a timeless Reality which never dies.
So it pertains to all souls everywhere, not merely to those of pre-Hispanic Mexican heritage.
Conclusion and Dedication
At age ninety one, losing fear of death has greatly helped me experience ever-increasing inner happiness in this precious human lifetime.
So I’ve often posted writings about transcending all such death fears, and all other illusionary ego-mind fears of non-existence.
For example my July 23rd, 2022 tribute to my friend Betty Bethards summarizes universal teachings about supposed death because it contains a verbatim summary of Betty Bethards’ excellent book titled “There is No Death”.
Furthermore my recent Human Potential Differential? posting reveals that every incarnate human earth being, and every other sentient earth being is, and has always been without exception, a manifestation of ONE Divine LOVE.
And it explains how as each unique soul awakens to its true identity, it evolves to ever ascending energy planes; that from third dimension [3D] illusory space/time duality reality, it transcends all ego-mind fears to exist lovingly and dharmically, ever free of unhappiness and disharmony, until it is dissolved as destined into Mother/Father/God, as ONE LOVE.
Dedication
Thus, this Day Of The Dead posting is deeply dedicated
to awakening and inspiring us
to live fearlessly, lovingly and dharmically,
until we inevitably transcend all fearful ego-mind thoughts and behaviors
as Universal Divine LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Human Potential Differential?
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“You are not a drop in the ocean.
You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
~ Rumi
“Our destiny is Divinity.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
~ Buddha
“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
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“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
“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
“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
“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
“Cultivate compassion;
harvest happiness.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Give, and it will be given to you.
~ Luke 6:38
“For it is in giving that we receive.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi, peace prayer
“The wicked earns deceptive wages,
but one who sows righteousness gets a sure reward.”
~ Proverbs 11:18
“Sow for yourselves righteousness;
reap steadfast love”
~ Hosea 10:12
“A faithful man will abound with blessings,
but whoever hastens to be rich will not go unpunished.”
~ Proverbs 28:20
“Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!”
~ Psalm 126:5
“Evolution is an endless process –
from nescience to gnosis to apotheosis;
from bestial to celestial.
We ever evolve as our boundaries dissolve.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Ron’s Introduction to Human Potential Differential
Dear Friends,
At age ninety, I’m continuing to update my memoirs with perspectives learned so far from this precious human lifetime.
Beginning thirty years ago, during a long post-retirement secluded period of meditation, introspection, and prayer, I began wondering whether human ignorance was leading us to unavoidable ‘end-times’; whether human evolution on Earth was inevitable, or just optional.
I observed people in various stages of evolution – from barbarians to Buddhas – and questioned whether Earthly humans who were selfish, violent, or warlike might ‘condemn’ us all.
So I began composing (and continuing to amend) the following Q and A sutra-essay titled “Human Potential Differential?”, which I still deem important, in light of my recent “Best Things in Life are Free” memoirs posting, the above sutras, quotations, and the following explanations.
Like “Best Things in Life are Free”, this “Human Potential Differential” posting is deeply dedicated to inspiring each of us
to lovingly follow our Sacred Heart until it is dissolved as destined into Mother/Father/God, as ONE LOVE
Please enjoy and consider it accordingly.
Ron Rattner
Human Potential Differential?
Q. Can humankind transform:
From bestial to celestial?
From infernal to supernal?
From barbarians to Buddhas?
From sinners to saints?
From selfishness to selflessness?
From immorality to immortality?
A. YES, YES, YES !!!!
As medieval alchemists transmuted lead into gold,
Mother/Father/God will transform Humanity
into ONE LOVE.
Transformation is inevitable,
but advent of ultimate realization
depends upon each unique soul’s chosen thoughts and behaviors, whether selfish or loving.
We ‘reap as we sow’,
and as we cultivate compassion;
we harvest happiness.
Ultimately, we are each dharmically destined
to Awaken as an Infinite Ocean of ONE Eternal LOVE,
rather than existing as mere ego-mind “I” drops
in that limitless Divine Ocean.
By lovingly following our Sacred Heart
We will melt and disappear timelessly –
into the Mystery of Divinity –
as Eternal LOVE.
Ron’s Recitation of Human Potential Differential
Ron’s Comments on Human Potential Differential?
Dear Friends,
During thirty years of post-retirement solitude, I’ve deeply questioned and reflected on whether human ignorance is leading us to unavoidable ‘end-times’; whether human evolution is inevitable, or just optional. Ultimately, I’ve concluded that human evolution is inevitable but that its rate differs for each unique soul.
Recognizing that dharmically and karmically we reap as we sow, and inspired by Jesus Christ, I’ve given my irrevocable ‘power of attorney’ to the law of cause and effect to non-judgmentally forgive all moral ignorance.
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repeatedly taught forgiveness.
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged.
Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.
Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”
~ Luke 6:37
“But I say unto you, Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you,
and pray for them which
despitefully use you, and persecute you”
~ Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27
And even as he was dying on a cross in excruciating pain, Jesus beseeched God’s forgiveness of those who crucified him:
And Jesus said,
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
~ Luke 23: 34
In emphasizing “they know not what they do” Jesus invoked Divine forgiveness in response to apparent unwitting (rather than malevolent) sins of the Roman soldiers who crucified him.
Human Potential Differential in current turbulent times
For the following reasons, even in this era of unprecedented global warfare, suffering and turmoil, I’m spiritually optimistic about survival of Human Earth-life, despite dire “end times” predictions of its cataclysmic collapse:
1) I’ve realized that “Our destiny is Divinity” because we’re not what we think we are, but Infinite Eternal Awareness!
2) As unique immortal souls we are each dharmically destined to be dissolved in timeless Eternal ONENESS as Divine LOVE beyond unavoidable third dimension space/time duality[3D] Earthly ego-mind fears and illusions. We each transcend inescapable ego-mind fears and illusions at rates dependent upon whether our unique thoughts and behaviors are loving or selfish – helpful or harmful.
3) Moreover, there is no death. Death is just an energy transition, until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE. It’s an illusory belief that our lives end when our mortal bodies no longer function.
4) Karmically, as each unique soul evolves to ever ascending energy planes, it transcends all ego-mind fears to exist lovingly and dharmically, forever free of unhappiness and disharmony until dissolved in timeless Eternal ONENESS as Divine LOVE beyond unavoidable third dimension space/time duality[3D] Earthly “realty”.
5) While subjected to ego-mind, we unavoidably exist with karmic cause and effect sufferings from the earthly illusion of space/time/duality “realty”. But the more we intentionally lovingly follow our Sacred Heart the more we enjoy happy lives, and the less we suffer from perpetually unknown karmic causes and conditions.
6} Ultimately, we’ve never been separated from our Eternal Source Mother/Father/God. So we have nothing to fear – EVER
Conclusion and Dedication
As each unique soul evolves from illusory space/time duality third dimension [3D] to ever ascending energy planes, it transcends all ego-mind fears to exist lovingly and dharmically, forever free of unhappiness and disharmony until it is dissolved as destined into Mother/Father/God,
as ONE LOVE.
This “Human Potential Differential” posting is deeply dedicated to encouraging and inspiring each of us to live fearlessly, lovingly and forgivingly, until we inevitably transcend all fearful ego-mind thoughts and behaviors as Universal Divine LOVE
Invocation
May today’s Human Potential Differential
verses, quotations and explanations
help us hasten our inevitable process
from nescience to gnosis to apotheosis.
Remembering that we reap as we sow,
may we ever more choose to cultivate compassion
and harvest happiness
for everyone everywhere,
until as destined we are dissolved
As an Infinite Ocean
of ONE Eternal LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Interdependence Way,
On Independence Day
~ A Revolution of Consciousness
“At the center of the Universe dwells the Great Spirit and —
this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”
~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux
“We did not weave the web of life.
We are merely strands in it.
All things are bound together. All things connect.”
~ Chief Seattle
“All things are our relatives;
what we do to everything, we do to ourselves.
All is really One.”
~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux
“Independence is impossible!”
“Whatever we think, do, or say,
changes this world in some way.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Remember God, forget the rest.
Forget who you think you are,
to know what you really are.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“We are not merely mortal drops
in an ocean of ephemeral forms,
but the eternally Infinite Ocean of Universal Awareness,
appearing as drops!”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Nothing Real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.”
~ A Course In Miracles (ACIM)
“You are “gods”;
you are all children of the Most High.”
~ Psalm 82:6
“You are the light of the world.”
~ Matthew 5:14
“Hear O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE”
~ Deuteronomy 6:4; Mark 12:29
“Though One, Brahman is the cause of the many…
The One manifests as the many,
the formless putting on forms.”
~ Rig Veda, 1500–1200 BCE
“All things come out of the One and the One out of all things.”
~ Heraclitus, 500BC
“Reality cannot be found except in One single source,
because of the interconnection of all things with one another.”
~ Leibniz, 1670
“That which permeates all,
which nothing transcends and which,
like the universal space around us,
fills everything completely from within and without,
that Supreme non-dual Brahman— that thou art.”
~ Shankaracharya
Interdependence Way, On Independence Day
~ A Revolution of Consciousness
Dear Friends,
Happy July 4th, 2023, US Independence Day holiday!
Almost 250 years ago on July 4th, 1776, our founding fathers declared their independence from British royal rule. Their declaration later led to the founding of the United States of America, which has become the richest and most powerful empire in the history of our precious planet Earth.
July 4th has become a popular American national holiday now celebrated by many US citizens without their mindful contemplation of its deeper meaning.
But today’s July 4th, 2023 SillySutras posting – like thousands of other prior SS postings – is dedicated to our mindful contemplation of how these Independence events can help us lead ever happier and more fulfilling lives while our eternal souls are incarnate on planet Earth in mortal physical bodies, which inevitably deteriorate and die.
As explained in the the recent “Egocide” posting, it is impossible to avoid some ego identification with consequent karmic suffering when existing incarnate on Earth, as supposedly separate from each other and all other life-forms. Only when we end our beliefs and behaviors as supposedly separate “I”-Egos, do all our sufferings end. That happens when we are ONE as an infinite Ocean of Divine LOVE, rather existing as mere separate “I”-drops in that Infinite Ocean.
As revealed by Sri Ramakrishna Paramanansa, although ego is unavoidable on Earthly incarnations, we quicken our transcendence thereof by choosing beliefs and behaviors which are loving and helpful, rather than selfish.
This posting is dedicated to inspiring our realization that until we so transcend Ego, worldly independence is impossible.
Ancient Vedic and Buddhist non-dualist scriptures have revealed that this Earth world arose from, and is interdependently part of, only ONE Eternal spiritual Source or GOD.
Therefore, until they disappear forever, all life-forms in this world always exist interdependently, not independently.
Long prior to Mid-East monotheism, the ancient Rig Veda revealed that
“Though One, Brahman [God] is the cause of the many…
The One manifests as the many, the formless putting on forms.”
And the Buddhist Heart Sutra said that everything originates only “interdependently” from emptiness [“anatta”].
July 4th, 1776, Background
On July 4, 1776, thirteen American colonies declared their independence from British royal rule, in an historic document inspired by Thomas Paine’s Deist philosophy and written by Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that under “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” government is established by people to secure their life, liberty, and happiness, and is to be overthrown as illegitimate if it no longer does that.
The US founding fathers recognized, that governments and their chartered transnational organizations do not exist by Divine right; that they are established by people to serve people – not to exploit or oppress them – and that they are illegitimate unless they serve human rights and happiness.
Since July 4, 1776, “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” have prevailed, but the world has changed immensely: The thirteen North American colonies have become the richest most powerful empire in world history, much vaster than the British empire which it succeeded. Human population has grown meteorically, from approximately 800 million (with 2.5 million people inhabiting American colonies) to over 7.9 billion and growing rapidly.
Through amazing technological and scientific advances the world has become much smaller and most humans have become part of an instantly interconnected and largely interdependent global community, sharing critical information in an unprecedented new age of world-wide ecologic, economic, political and social crises and opportunities. Yet despite this amazing technological advancement much of humanity continues to suffer illusionary psychological separation from each other and Nature, fostering insanely unsustainable ecological desecration of our precious planet, and barbaric exploitation of vulnerable beings and other life-forms, which threaten extinction of all Earth life as we’ve known it.
Yet as in 1776 such psychopathic insanity is still initiated and perpetrated by a few “rulers” or “leaders”, and by greedy transnational institutions evading equitable taxation and distribution of wealth who all self-destructively thrive on always increasing their power and control over others.
Nonetheless they are still allowed by most of humankind to insanely exploit and desecrate our world.
However, in the almost 250 years since 1776, there has been an unprecedented awakening of humanity, and we are now experiencing a revolution of human consciousness with unprecedented worldwide social and cultural unrest.
Deeply disturbed by irrational and immoral interruptions of their normal lives more and more people are psychologically awakening to our sacred connection with, and deep moral responsibility to cherish and preserve, all life on our precious planet Earth.
Moreover today’s July 4, 2023, Independence Day holiday coincides with the the first of four consecutive full super-moons after the 2023 summer solstice, which spiritually and energetically is extremely sacred for both Hindus and Buddhists, as Guru Purnima (the first Guru’s birthday) and as the day when the Buddha gave his first sermon.
Beyond today’s day of spiritual sanctity, we are also experiencing exceptionally advantageous cosmic energies, and rare cyclical and astrological planetary alignments, which are energetically elevating a “critical mass” of humankind to ascend beyond illusionary Third Dimension ego consciousness toward previously unimagined Fifth Dimension heart/mind telepathic awareness.
And currently confronted with apparently imminent global catastrophe, humankind are realizing on July 4, 2023, (as did visionary English-born Deist philosopher Thomas Pain) that under “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” independence is impossible; that everything and everyone is interdependent, not independent.
So faced with possible catastrophe ending Earth-life as we’ve known it, our global human family can awaken to avert extinction by transcending critically mistaken and illusory Ego-mind beliefs in separate independence, with realization that independence is impossible; that everyone/everything is interconnected and interdependent, with no-one/nothing existing independently, except Nature’s God.
Therefore, let us use this rare opportunity to revolutionarily and compassionately transform the world, so that all life forms everywhere consciously exist cooperatively and interdependently, not selfishly and exploitively.
Closing Invocations
May we revolutionarily and compassionately transform the world!
May all life forms everywhere exist interdependently,
As uniquely conscious and cooperative instruments of Light and Love,
May we so interdependently co-create an ever better world as ONE Eternal LOVE
– Happy, Harmonious and Peaceful –
As Nature’s God ever intended it to BE!
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New Worldview:
Our urgent need for a new interdependent worldview – how we need to collectively change our beliefs to change our world – is expertly explained and portrayed in this excellent one hour documentary movie, already viewed online by over one million concerned people.
Fear
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear,
. . . . and the one who fears is not perfected in love.”
~ 1 John 4:18
“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
“The choice that frees or imprisons us
is the choice of love or fear.
Love liberates. Fear imprisons.”
~ Gary Zukav
“Love is what we were born with.
Fear is what we learned here.
The spiritual journey is the relinquishment
– or unlearning – of fear
and the acceptance of love back into our hearts.”
~ Marianne Williamson
“Fear arises through identification with form, whether it be a material possession, a physical body, a social role, a self-image, a thought, or an emotion. It arises through unawareness of the formless inner dimension of consciousness or spirit, which is the essence of who you are. You are trapped in object consciousness, unaware of the dimension of inner space which alone is true freedom.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“Those who fear suffering, suffer from fear.”
~ French Proverb
“To be afraid of dying
is like being afraid of discarding an old worn-out garment.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Love blesses the world; fear afflicts it. ”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Fear of death is fear of life;
so face death to live life.”
***
“You are not a mortal; you are immortal.
So never fear being a non-being.”
***
“Our deepest fears
hide our highest potentials.”
***
“As we lose our fear of leaving life,
we gain the art of living life.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“There is a light that shines beyond all things on Earth,
… beyond the highest, the very highest heavens.
This is the light that shines in your Heart.”
~ Chandogya Upanishad 3.13.7
“Love is the only freedom in the world
because it so elevates the spirit
that the laws of humanity and the phenomena of nature
do not alter its course.”
~ Khalil Gibran, Broken Wings
Ron’s Introduction and Explanation of “Fear”
Dear Friends,
Beginning thirty years ago, during an extended post-retirement secluded period of meditation, introspection, and prayer, I “channeled” and wrote many spiritual aphorisms, essays, and sutra-poem verses. Later, some of these spiritual insights were digitized, recorded on computers, and published on the SillySutras website after it was launched thirteen years ago.
Today’s posting about “Fear” augments, explains and republishes some of those writings. Because of unprecedented worldwide post-pandemic deaths, warfare, anxiety and fear of global catastrophe, these insights now seem particularly important.
Background
For eons, masses of Earthly humans (experimentally forgetting their common Divine birthright as Eternal beings of love and light, and thus believing themselves separate in space and time from each other and Nature), have been hierarchically ruled through religious, military, or political dogma by a few self-proclaimed rulers who’ve been extremely rich, royal, or purportedly enlightened, omniscient, or infallible beings.
As explained in previous memoirs I’ve found persuasive evidence that some of these rulers have been very intelligent but evil and demonic Luciferian beings with undemocratic and tyrannic intentions, who are afflicted and dominated by subhuman malignant energies which psychotically and parasitically polarize, divide and exploit humankind, by provoking anger, anxiety, and fear. I’ve also referred to these mental parasites or energy vampires as “archons”, a term used in the Gnostic traditions.
As psychopaths without morality, they’ve become rulers of most major human governments and empires. And most people have accepted and followed these leaders without questioning their motives.
But gradually a growing number of people have morally refused to follow these evil rulers, unless intimidated.
And such refusals are becoming crucial because these Luciferians or Archons can exist only in low energy biospheres, like Earth’s third density illusory world of space, time, and duality. They cannot exist in elevated biosphere energies of infinitely potential fifth dimensions and above. So these evil rulers keep frightening and intimidating people to prevent their energetic ascensions to higher dimensions.
Coordinated False Declarations of a (non-existent) Deadly Coronavirus Pandemic.
Starting in 2019/20, these tyrannic rulers decided to falsely frighten their societies with coordinated declarations by individual and institutional world leaders of a (non-existent) deadly coronavirus pandemic requiring worldwide social and business lock-downs and alleged urgent need for repeated life-saving anti-viral vaccinations.
For example, Henry Kissinger (former secretary of state and national security adviser in the Nixon and Ford administrations) declared in a pre-vaccine Wall Street Journal Op Ed that “The Coronavirus Pandemic Will Forever Alter the World Order”. and that
“The [alleged] coronavirus has struck with unprecedented scale and ferocity. Its spread is exponential: U.S. cases are doubling every fifth day. At this writing, there is no cure. Medical supplies are insufficient to cope with the widening waves of cases. Intensive-care units are on the verge, and beyond, of being overwhelmed. Testing is inadequate to the task of identifying the extent of infection, much less reversing its spread. A successful vaccine could be 12 to 18 months away.”
Thereafter, several (Bill Gates Foundation financed) anti-coronavirus experimental mRNA vaccines were “miraculously” developed (without long-term safety testing), patented, and sold to Archon dominated governments, which mandated them for their citizens’ purported protection.
But despite urgently coordinated and repeated global administration of these (alleged) life-saving anti-viral vaccinations, and worldwide enactments of unconstitutional, immoral and irrational laws and edicts preventing normal travel, business activities, and religious and social life, there is little believable evidence supporting these purported anti-pandemic procedures.
Instead, as of June 2023, there exists MUCH credible – but main media censored – official, actuarial, and medical expert evidence that already over 600 million human beings have been unnecessarily killed or injured by alleged anti-coronavirus vaccines, and that such deaths and injuries are continuing.
THE UNVACCINATED | “Nobody is Safe!”
Embedded below is a recent 11 minute video from Matt Orfalea’s YouTube channel which humorously documents the entire coordinated vaccination intimidation campaign with many audio/video clips from major media monopolies controlled by Luciferian Archons.
Because pervasive fear precludes humans from energetically ascending to higher dimensions where Archon Luciferians can’t exist, this is an important video.
Please enjoy and reflect on it, and thereafter read (and listen) to my original sutra-verses about “Fear” (republished below) and deeply consider the profound Love versus Fear quotations and sutras posted above.
Fear
We’ve nothing to fear but fright;
fright which hides our light.
For just beyond our darkest fright
shines our brightest light –
The Eternal light of LOVE.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Fear”
Conclusion, Dedication, and Invocation
We now live in a fear-pervaded low energy biosphere
of third dimension time, space, and duality,
where love and fear cannot co-exist.
The spiritual insights about Fear, expressed in the foregoing key quotations, sutras and brief poem, are deeply dedicated to furthering our destined transcendence of all infinitely potential biospheres
mentally separate from our Eternal existence as ONE Divine LOVE.
Invocation
May these writings about Fear
Inspire our Self-identification as spirit,
While ending our worldly anxieties
Of bodily death or disease,
Thereby inspiring us to fearlessly BE
– Karma FREE – Eternally
As ONE Divine LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner