Posts Tagged ‘Nature’

Death? Afterlife? Rebirth?
~ Easter Reflections on Resurrections

At my death do not lament our separation …
as the sun and moon but seem to set,
in reality this is a rebirth.
~ Rumi
“I tell you the truth,
no one can see the kingdom of God
unless he is born again.”
~ John – 3:3
“The soul is eternal, all-pervading, unmodifiable, immovable and primordial.”
“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.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Krishna to Arjuna
“I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as a plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was man.
Why should I fear?
When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as man,
To soar with angels blest;
But even from angelhood I must pass on …”
~ Rumi
death, as men call him, ends what they call men
–but beauty is more now than dying’s when…
~ e. e. cummings
“The dewdrop belongs to the sea.
Separated, it is vulnerable to the sun and wind and other elements of nature;
but when the droplet returns to its source, it becomes magnified in oneness with the sea.
So it is with your life.  United to God you become immortal.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
Eternal Life is gained by utter abandonment of one’s own life.
When God appears to His ardent lover the lover is absorbed in Him,
and not so much as a hair of the lover remains.
True lovers are as shadows, and when the sun shines in glory
the shadows vanish away.
He is a true lover to God to whom God says,
“I am thine, and thou art mine! ”
~ Rumi


Tree of Life

The Last Supper



The biblical story of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection raises crucial issues about life and death – about afterlife and rebirth – and about our true identity and reality.

As countless millions traditionally commemorate the rebirth and resurrection of Jesus Christ following his physical death by crucifixion, let us contemplate the deep significance of that story.  Whether we regard it as historic or metaphoric, the story raises crucial issues about life and death – about afterlife and rebirth – and about our true identity and reality.

Physical death is inevitable, but Life is perpetual.

Death of the physical body is inevitable and unavoidable. After birth, “no matter how we strive, no body leaves alive.” Uncertainty exists only about time of death, and about whether there is conscious life after physical death.

For millennia seers, saints, philosophers and mystics have addressed perennial questions of life after physical death and of our true identity and reality. Since the beginning of the 20th century when Albert Einstein revolutionized Western science with his theories of special and general relativity, quantum physicists and other non-materialistic scientists have begun confirming ancient mystical insights.

Raymond A. Moody, Jr., PhD, MD coined the term ‘Near Death Experience’ [NDE] in his 1975 best-selling book “Life After Life”. Since then NDE’s have become widely considered, especially by millions who claim to have experienced them. And some leading-edge non-materialist scientists have cited testimonies about NDE’s and other extraordinary mystical experiences as evidence that consciousness survives physical death.

For example, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, world renowned scientist, teacher, author and pioneering authority on death and dying, believed in survival of spirit after physical death, and used butterflies as symbols of the death process.

Soon after World War II, she visited the children’s barracks at the Maidanek concentration camp in Poland. There, amazingly, she observed hundreds of butterfly images drawn by the inmate children on the walls, even with pebbles and fingernails. Spellbound by the sight of butterflies drawn on the walls, she wondered why they were there and what they meant.

Twenty-five years later, after listening to hundreds of terminally ill patients, she finally realized that the imprisoned children must have known that they were going to die, and intuitively were using butterflies as images of the physical death process. Dr. Kubler-Ross thus explained in The Wheel of Life, A Memoir of Living and Dying:

“They knew that soon they would become butterflies. Once dead, they would be out of that hellish place. Not tortured anymore. Not separated from their families. Not sent to gas chambers. None of this gruesome life mattered anymore. Soon they would leave their bodies the way a butterfly leaves its cocoon. And I realized that was the message they wanted to leave for future generations. . . .It also provided the imagery that I would use for the rest of my career to explain the process of death and dying.”


Dr. Kubler-Ross’s writings have inspired many other non-materialist scientists, authors, and teachers who have followed her lead. Also, of great importance in helping us understand whether spirit survives physical death were the ground-breaking scientific studies by Dr. Ian Stevenson, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, who for forty years studied children world-wide who spontaneously remembered past lives. Dr. Stevenson objectively validated and documented about twelve hundred such cases.

Thanks to the ‘leading edge’ work of Dr. Kubler-Ross and Dr. Stevenson, and of distinguished non-material scientists inspired by them, there now exists overwhelming scientific evidence that consciousness and mind are independent of physical bodies; that our physical bodies and brains are not originators of consciousness and mind, but their receptors, tuners and transducers.  And that until we evolve beyond space/time duality reality, apparent reincarnation or rebirth may happen after death of the brain and physical body.

What survives physical death?

If – like snowflakes – each of us manifests as an absolutely unique physical form, what is it about us that can survive death of that unique form, and be “born and reborn”?

“Reincarnation” is often understood to be the transmigration of a “soul” – viz. apparently uniquely circumscribed spirit – to another body after physical death.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism’s most cited ancient scripture, Divine Avatar Krishna instructs Prince Arjuna that:

“The soul is eternal, all-pervading, unmodifiable, immovable and primordial.”; “The soul never takes birth and never dies” but “when the body is destroyed” or when “giving up old and worn out bodies . . [it] accepts new bodies.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2


Though in Buddhism there is no concept of separate soul or individual self that survives death, Buddhists believe in rebirth. Like most mystics, Buddhists say that in addition to our physical body, we are enveloped by subtle astral and mental bodies, which survive death of the physical body and become consciously associated with successive physical bodies.

Thus the Dalai Lama says that:

“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.”


A detailed and compelling description of afterlife can be found in “Autobiography of a Yogi”, by Paramahansa Yogananda, Chapter 43 – The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar .   There Yogananda credibly recounts a long discussion with his physically deceased Guru, Sri Yukteswar, who – like Jesus – resurrected to explain to his disciple Yogananda many details of afterlife.  [You can read that extraordinarily fascinating story at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_a_Yogi/Chapter_43

Many psychics say that on physical death “we” survive and enter different realms. eg. http://www.victorzammit.com/Whenwedie/whatdoeshappen.htm

But ancient Vedic and Buddhist non-dualism philosophies (“Advaita”;”Advaya”) have for millennia taught that this impermanent and ever changing world is an unreal illusion called maya or samsara; and, that “all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream”… .

“The world, indeed, is like a dream
and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage!”
~ 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


Notwithstanding the Buddha’s non-dualist teachings, the Dalai Lama says he practices death and rebirth eight times daily. And, as Tibetan Bodhisattva of Compassion, he intends to return until all sentient beings are liberated from suffering.

If you had the option of a one-way exit pass to ‘heaven’, would you volunteer as a Bodhisattva to come back to this crazy world?

Vivekananda and Einstein.

The ancient Eastern non-dualism teachings were first brought to large Western audiences by Swami Vivekananda, principal disciple of nineteenth century Indian Holy Man Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, at and after the 1893 Parliament of World Religions in Chicago.

In an eloquent New York City lecture called “The Real and the Apparent Man”, Vivekananda equated maya or samsara with “time, space, and causation” and presciently predicted scientific confirmation of the ancient Vedic non-dual philosophy of One Infinite Existence. He said:

“According to the Advaita philosophy, ..this Maya or ignorance–or name and form, or, as it has been called in Europe, time, space, and causality–is out of this one Infinite Existence showing us the manifoldness of the universe; in substance, this universe is one. So long as any one thinks that there are two ultimate realities, he is mistaken. When he has come to know that there is but one, he is right. This is what is being proved to us every day, on the physical plane, on the mental plane, and also on the spiritual plane.”


“What then becomes of all this threefold eschatology of the dualist, that when a man dies he goes to heaven, or goes to this or that sphere, and that the wicked persons become ghosts, and become animals, and so forth? None comes and none goes, says the non-dualist. How can you come and go? You are infinite; where is the place for you to go?
 
“So it is with regard to the soul; the very question of birth and death in regard to it is utter nonsense. Who goes and who comes? Where are you not? Where is the heaven that you are not in already? Omnipresent is the Self of man. Where is it to go? Where is it not to go? It is everywhere. So all this childish dream and puerile illusion of birth and death, of heavens and higher heavens and lower worlds, all vanish immediately for the perfect. For the nearly perfect it vanishes after showing them the several scenes up to Brahmaloka. It continues for the ignorant.”


“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


Revered 20th century Indian sage, Sri Ramana Maharshi – who was a renowned exponent of non-dualism – taught that for self-realized beings there is no reincarnation, but that reincarnation exists until self-realization – that self-realization reveals this entire world of space/time/duality as illusionary maya or samsara. Thus, responding to the question: “Is reincarnation true?”,  he said: 

“Reincarnation exists only so long as there is ignorance. There is really no reincarnation at all, either now or before. Nor will there be any hereafter. This is the truth.”


Einstein’s revolutionary non-mechanistic science and unconventional religious ideas were consistent with highest non-dualistic Eastern religious teachings, because they questioned the substantiality of matter, the ultimate reality of space, time and causality, and reincarnation. Like Vivekananda, Einstein said:

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”



“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”

“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.”

“There is no place in this new kind of physics for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality.”




“That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.”

“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, …Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism.”

~ Albert Einstein


Ron’s Explanations and Reflections on Reincarnations and Resurrections.

Dear Friends,

At age ninety, I have long reflected upon crucially important perennial questions concerning life, death, afterlife, and rebirth. And thereby I’ve been blessed to realize that consciousness we call “life” continues eternally after inevitable physical death.

Until my mid-life spiritual awakening, I self-identified only as my mortal physical body, its thoughts and its story, and believed that inevitable death of the body ended life. I had no opinion, knowledge or belief concerning reincarnation or afterlife in ‘heaven’ or ‘hell’, or of an immortal “soul”.

Then in my early forties, I had irreversibly transformative experiences of spiritual self-identity and afterlife: I began to realize that I was not merely my mortal body, its thoughts and story, but eternal and universal awareness. And I started seeing visions of apparent past lives, and inner and outer appearances of deceased people, including my maternal grandfather and Mahatma Gandhi, who I now regard as my first perceived inner guide.

So, I began accepting Eastern ideas of reincarnation and transmigration of an eternal soul, while gradually losing fear of inevitable physical death. Then, 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?”; and, 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 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, quotes and poems on these subjects. (See, e.g., https://sillysutras.com/category/afterlife/ ;https://sillysutras.com/category/life-and-death/; https://sillysutras.com/category/reincarnation/ )

Ultimately I’ve concluded that cosmically there is no death; that “birth and death are virtual, while Life is perpetual” and that “as we lose our fear of leaving life, we gain the art of living life.” (See e.g. https://sillysutras.com/know-death-to-know-life-know-death-to-know-that-there-is-no-death/ )

Consequently, I’ve become ever less fearful about my own inevitable and perhaps imminent bodily death, and often witness Earth-life like an illusionary play or movie, rather than Reality – which I now consider timeless LOVE as Infinite Potentiality beyond comprehension, imagination or description.

Moreover, I’ve become persuaded that from a Self–realized ‘Buddha’s eye view’ all our supposedly separate lifetimes, incarnations, emanations or appearances can be Seen timelessly and concurrently – formed like ink blots in a ‘big bang’ Rorschach test; but that (except for rare Avatars or Buddhas) we are karmically challenged to live each supposed space/time lifetime as lovingly and empathetically as possible, while ever mindful that we are not separate mortal entities but indivisible formless and eternal Infinite Potentiality as LOVE.

To encourage our deep insights on perennial questions of afterlife and reincarnation, like “Who am I?” and “What is death?”, I have shared the foregoing writings.

May Easter and every day help us attain destined inner fulfillment and happiness during our ephemeral lifetimes on precious planet Earth.

And so may it be!

2023 Epilogue.

Dear Friends,

During recent equinox holidays we have experienced an unprecedented era of social, psychological, political, and economic turbulence, violence, and polarity, with seemingly imminent nuclear war or other omnicidal catastrophe ending earth-life as we’ve known it.

More people than ever before are suffering fears of death, illness, impoverishment, or imminent calamity, and are unable to live normally. They feel deprived of God-given human rights and necessities, and prevented from engaging in customary economic and social activities. Some are homeless or ‘sheltering’ unable to reverently commemorate the equinox holidays with others. 

Nonetheless, our species is still insanely plundering, polluting and pillaging our planet’s limited resources and and unsustainably destroying it’s precious ecosystem and climate.

But, paradoxically, this is also a time of epochal opportunity, not only a time of apparently imminent catastrophe caused or condoned by our species.

Thus, this an especially appropriate time for us to deeply reflect upon our fundamental life purposes, priorities and responsibilities as sentient Earth beings.

Because ignorance of humanity’s immortal Self-Identity causes continual fearful sufferings which impede evolution and progress, it is crucial that we transcend fears. So the foregoing writings are offered to help us overcome our fears, and thereby enter an unprecedented new era of peace and prosperity on earth.

Dedication

These writings are deeply dedicated to encouraging reflection about our Eternal Self-identity as timeless Divine LOVE.

May they help us experience ever expanding fulfillment and inner happiness during our ephemeral lifetimes on precious planet Earth, whatever we believe about death, afterlife or rebirth.

Invocation.

May we – in this ephemeral human lifetime
on our precious planet Earth –
realize our common dream for a new reality,
where everyone everywhere is happy.

May Everyone Everywhere Be Happy!
“Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu!”



And so shall it be!!

Ron Rattner

“Finding Freedom” as the Spiritual message of the Passover story


“Be empty of worrying,
Think of Who Created Thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?”
~ Rumi

“You will know the truth,

and the truth will set you free.”

~ John 8:32

“Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt land
Tell old Pharaoh to let my people go.”
~ Afro-American Spiritual Song

“Free at last, free at last.
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

“We are shackled by illusory bonds of belief.

Freedom is beyond belief.”

~ Ron Rattner – Sutra Sayings

“There is only one central issue, crisis, or challenge for man,
which is, that he must be completely free.
As long as the mind is holding on to a structure, a method, a system, there is no freedom.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

“Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice.
Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness
of our daily existence and activity.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

“Bondage is of the mind; freedom too is of the mind.
If you say ‘I am a free soul.
I am a son of God who can bind me’
free you shall be.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa

“The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him–
that moment I am free from bondage,
everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.”
~ Swami Vivekananda

All life is an effort to attain freedom from self-created entanglement;
it is a desperate struggle to undo what has been done under ignorance,
to throw away the accumulated burden of the past,
to find rescue from the debris left by a series of temporary achievements and failures.”
~ Meher Baba

“Freedom is of the nature of the soul, it is its birthright:
.. real freedom of the soul shines through veils of matter
in the form of the apparent freedom of man.”
~ Swami Vivekananda

“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 [karmic] law,
to go beyond causation.”
~ Swami Vivekananda

“Liberation is our very nature. We are that.
The very fact that we wish for liberation
shows that freedom from all bondage is our real nature.”
~ Ramana Maharshi

“Spiritual freedom is freedom from all wanting. . .
When the soul breaks asunder the shackles of wanting,
it is emancipated from bondage to body, mind, and ego.
This freedom brings realization of the unity of all life
and puts an end to all doubts and worries.”
~ Meher Baba

“True freedom and the end of suffering
is living in such a way as if you had completely chosen
whatever you feel or experience at this moment.
This inner alignment with Now is the end of suffering.”
~ Eckhart Tolle

“The most fundamental message of Gautama the Buddha is not God, is not soul… it is freedom: freedom absolute, total, unconditional. He does not want to give you an ideology, because every ideology creates its own slavery. He does not want to give you a religion, because religion binds you.”
~ Osho

“We are shackled by illusory bonds of belief.
Freedom is beyond belief.”
~ Ron Rattner – Sutra Sayings

“You are truly free when you are not a person.”
~ Deepak Chopra – The Book of Secrets

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual,
“Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr. — “I Have a Dream” speech, August 28, 1963

 

“Finding Freedom”




Ron’s introduction to “Finding Freedom” as the spiritual message of the biblical Passover story
 
Dear Friends,

Happy Easter/Passover/Ramadan/Navratri/Nowruz etc. vernal holiday season!

As Passover begins today, this posting explains why metaphorically “Finding Freedom” as Eternal LOVE is the spiritual message of the biblical Passover story, and the transcendental inner goal of all non-dual religious, ethical and perennial wisdom paths.

Most people associate “freedom” with personal, political, and economic liberty.  But spiritual freedom is an extraordinarily rare transcendental state which can be inwardly attained even by those who do not enjoy external freedoms, like slaves or prison inmates.

Only after my 1976 spiritual awakening, did I begin reflecting upon and discovering inner spiritual freedom. 

My Background in “Finding Freedom”


I first deeply reflected on transcendental concepts of “freedom” during the 1950’s on learning of Abraham Maslow’s humanistic psychology theories concerning self-actuated people, and when I read “Escape From Freedom” by German-born psychotherapist Erich Fromm, who endorsed the fundamental importance of not submitting to outer-dictates from an authoritarian societal system that prescribes inauthentic beliefs and behaviors.

Though I’ve always been instinctively inner-directed, after becoming a lawyer I rarely reflected about inner “freedom” until I had a memorable face-to-face exchange with my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, just prior to his 1980 return to India. 

While then residing in my apartment, Guruji told me: “Rasik, a yogi’s body is like a baby’s body. Your body is like a prison. I am like a jailer with the prison key. I come and go as I please.”

Thereupon, I became intensely curious about Guruji’s surprising revelation that my body was “like a prison”. And I wondered how and why ‘I’ was ‘imprisoned’, and how ‘I’ could get out of ‘jail’ – free like Guruji. So I began deeply exploring inner spiritual freedom, as distinguished from personal, political, and economic freedoms.  



Soon, I was reminded of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legendary  “I Have a Dream” speech, and wondered why his words “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last” were so deeply powerful. 



Ultimately, I realized that those words were rooted in the biblical Exodus Passover story; and I intuited that spiritual “freedom” is the essential mythical message of that story.  I concluded that the Passover story symbolically emphasizes escape from outer bondage to a Divinely ‘promised land’ within – viz. escape from enslavement by mistaken beliefs in false external idols, Gods or goals to an inner ‘promised land’ of ONE eternal Divinity imminent in each of us.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is ONE!”

~ Deuteronomy 6:4


Later, I noted that Jesus powerfully alluded to spiritual freedom by prophesying:

“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

~ John 8:32


So Jesus was teaching that we will find freedom (from psychologically self-imposed worldly slavery) only when we transcend entity identity, and commonly self-identify as ONE Divine spirit – the kingdom of heaven within – rather than as embodied personalities, 
supposedly separate from each other and Nature.


Ultimately, I concluded that our limited and limiting ego ideas about separate self-identity and reality confine each of us within a kind of psychological prison in which suffering is inevitable, and which restricts realization of our infinite potentialities.  



However, the masters teach and demonstrate that we can each mentally transcend that “prison” and emerge “free at last” from our self-woven karmic cocoons, no matter what our outer circumstances.  



Thus, Rumi reminded us:

“Be empty of worrying,

Think of Who Created Thought!

Why do you stay in prison

when the door is so wide open?”

~ Rumi



The ultimate possibility of getting out of thought-jail FREE is explained in the foregoing quotations and following sutra-essay.  May these writings encourage our evolution to precious inner freedom, our divine birthright.



And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


Sutra-essay: How can we find “Freedom”?

Q. What is “freedom”, and how can we experience it?



A. “Freedom” is a word with different meanings.
Here we define “freedom” as ultimate spiritual Reality beyond thought or ego – beyond human comprehension, imagination, description or belief – which can only be known experientially, not rationally or mentally.



Ultimate “freedom” is our divine birthright, our nature and our destiny. Freedom is ever NOW, never then. Knowingly or unknowingly, all people – including atheists, non-theists, and agnostics – long for “freedom”.



After mystically experiencing “freedom”, great beings like Jesus, the Buddha and Krishna have encouraged us to aspire to this ultimate transcendent experience. Mystics say that as long we self-identify only with our thoughts in ever changing space/time/causality reality we are inescapably ‘imprisoned’ in a state of psychological bondage, with inevitable suffering; that we experience ultimate “freedom” only in the present moment – the NOW – as we choicelessly self-identify with timeless universal awareness or spirit immanent in each of us. And essential non-dualistic wisdom teachings of all enduring spiritual, mystical and mythic paths allude to spiritual “freedom”.



Thus, the most important Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, is a teaching by Divine Avatar Krishna about the ultimate spiritual goal (“moksha”) of liberation or “freedom” from the cycle of death and rebirth (“samsara”).



Similarly, all of Gautama Buddha’s teachings were aimed at ending human suffering through attainment of “freedom” from mental fetters or chains (samyojana) of mistaken self-identification with samsara.



When Jesus said: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32) he meant that we will experience “freedom” on realizing our true self-identity as eternal soul or spirit. And in declaring: “I and the Father are One” (John 10:30), Jesus showed that we can only find such freedom when we self-identify with ONE Divine spirit – the kingdom of heaven within – rather than as supposedly separate embodied personalities.



“Finding Freedom” is the spiritual message of the biblical Passover story.

Many Jews and Christians annually remember and ritually observe the biblical Exodus story about God miraculously rescuing Jews from bondage as slaves in Egypt, with Christians recalling that a Passover Seder dinner was Jesus’ last supper.   Some Afro-American Christians celebrate by singing the popular spiritual song “Go Down Moses”

.

The Exodus story symbolizes humanity’s eternal quest for spiritual freedom – for societal escape from enslavement by mistaken beliefs in false external Gods or goals to an inner ‘promised land’ of ONE eternal Divinity universally imminent as LOVE within each of us, regardless of religious or spiritual beliefs.  So Passover rituals of lighting outer candles, can symbolically remind us of humanity’s perpetual quest for the eternal inner light of universal freedom.



Conclusions



1) We find and experience ultimate freedom only in choiceless awareness that we are ONE Universal LOVE, beyond our apparent subject/object separateness; and beyond our beliefs, religions, ideologies or philosophies.

2) By recognizing and transcending illusory belief barriers which seem to imprison us, we are –

“Free at last, free at last!”

~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


3) The current era of worldwide turmoil and war, with global fear and suffering is paradoxically a time of both our species’ apparent catastrophic threat to all Earth-life, and an unprecedented opportunity for a wonderful new era of peace and prosperity.

4) This is impelling a “critical mass” of humankind to deeply reconsider our life purposes and priorities as sentient Earth beings instinctively seeking “freedom” as our Divine birthright.

5) Whatever our outer life circumstances, there always exists within us a God-given egoless state of “freedom” as LOVE, attainable by all humans.

Dedication

This “Finding Freedom” posting is deeply dedicated to inspiring our destined spiritual realization of that wonderful world, beyond fear and suffering, where we shall be “Free at last, free at last!”


Please enjoy and consider it’s key quotations, sutra-essay and comments, and embedded spiritual music explaining that ultimate “Freedom”, is spiritual freedom as Eternal LOVE, which is the transcendental goal of all perennial wisdom paths.

Invocation



May today’s writings and music

inspire our instinctive and destined realization
of 
a wonderful world of LOVE
where we are “Free at last, free at last.”


And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

“Go Down Moses”

Afro-American spiritual about exodus story, sung by Louis Armstrong and chorus.




Divine Harmony
~ by Swami Paramahansa Yogananda

“Harmony is the secret principle of life.”
~ Swami Paramahansa Yogananda
“You are walking on the earth as in a dream.
Our world is a dream within a dream; you must realize
that to find God is the only goal, the only purpose, for which you are here.
For Him alone you exist. Him you must find.”
~ Swami Paramahansa Yogananda



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



Ron’s Introduction to “Divine Harmony”

Dear Friends,

To honor Swami Paramahansa Yogananda on the anniversary of his 1952 mahasamadhi, it is my grateful privilege to share with you Swami Yogananda’s enlightened aphorisms titled “Divine Harmony” as excerpted verbatim from his “Journey To Self-Realization: Collected Talks And Essays On Realizing God In Daily Life, Volume III”.

Swami Yogananda’s profound wisdom words about “Divine Harmony” are shared to help heal the world, by awakening Humankind to our spiritual Oneness and Harmony with Nature and Universal Awareness, as LOVE.

May Paramahansa Yogananda’s Divine message inspire us to BE harmonious with ourselves, with each other, and with all of Nature of which we are part.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


“Divine Harmony” ~ by Paramahansa Yogananda

Excerpted from Journey To Self-Realization: Collected Talks And Essays On Realizing God In Daily Life, Volume III.
 

·         Disharmony is misery and death; harmony is the joy of life.

·         We Live in Two Worlds

·         The outside world is the one in which your life engages in action and interaction.  The world inside of you determines your happiness or unhappiness, and also your fitness or unfitness, expressed in the world outside.  The hand of the One who made these worlds tuned them to harmonize with each other.  Harmony is their inherent nature.  If they seem discordant, that is the fault of those who misuse and abuse the potentials of these divine creations.

·         People are convinced that their own personal perceptions are “fact” until contrary evidence eventually proves otherwise.  Who can persuade biased individuals that the whole universe moves in an eternal cosmic rhythm, and that all irregularities are misconceptions due to limited or distorted vision?  Those who can hear, hear; those who can see, see; those who have a perceptive heart perceive the divine harmony that runs through all creation.

·         To penetrate into the soul of creation, yoga insight is required.

·         There Is Harmony at the Core of Disharmony

·         Things are not what they seem.

·         Consider everything that happens as a note in the symphony of the Cosmic Conductor.

·         Only those who partake of the harmony within their souls know the harmony that runs through nature. Whosoever lacks this inner harmony feels also a lack of it in the world.  The mind in chaos finds chaos all around.

·         How can one know what peace is like if he has never tasted it?

·         But he who has inner peace can abide in this state even in the midst of outer discord.

·         Harmony is born of love and wisdom.  These, in turn, are offspring of a heart that is pure and outreaching.  A pure heart is the result of pure thoughts.

·         Mental purity comes from a selective process by which the mind sorts good thoughts from bad, rejecting the latter and dwelling always on the former.

·         By repetition, and by reinforcement through application to action, discrimination becomes a virtuous habit.  When the mental conflict of divergent thoughts ceases, owing to the elimination of wrong thinking, there arises in one’s life an outward as well as an inward harmony.  Therefore, whenever your thoughts engage in a family quarrel among themselves, mediate their differences with wisdom and behold! Distressing conflicts will disturb you no more.

·         The mind is nature’s incinerator wherein you can burn to ashes all mental dross that is not worthy to be saved:  your waste thoughts and desires, your misconceptions and grievances, and your discords in human relationships.  There is not a single relationship, however estranged, you cannot reconcile, provided you do so first in your own mind.  There is not a single problem in life you cannot resolve, provided you first solve it in your inner world, its place of origin.  Be not intimidated by consequences, even though they be drastic.  Before you act, if you first harmonize the situation with the discriminative wisdom in your mind, the outcome will take care of itself.  A harmonized mind produces harmony in this world of seeming discord.

·         Inner harmony is a prolific source of power; it breeds strength.  Things that you think you are unable to bear, you can not only bear but change and improve.  To you is given the power that can move the world and alter the face of fate despite inharmonious outer circumstances.

·         Harmony conserves mental energy; disharmony dissipates it.

·         Harmony manifests itself as a natural goodness.  A man who cannot get along with others is one who does not get along with himself, he is always at war inwardly, ill at ease with his own nature.

·         Those who cannot find peace in their own hearts will not find it elsewhere either.

·         Harmony is the Secret Principle of Life

·         Good judgment is a natural expression of wisdom; but it is directly dependent on harmony within, which is poise of mind.  When the mind lacks harmony, it has no peace; and without peace it lacks both judgment and wisdom.  Life is full of bumps and knocks.  In the hours of trials, which demand your keenest judgment, if you preserve your mental equilibrium you will attain victory.

·         This is equally true in any type of organization – any structure that has interacting parts, from nature as a whole to human relationships to corporate businesses and spiritual societies.  Harmony is the soul of organization; disharmony is death.

·         Harmony is the fruit of common understanding.

·         Efforts to establish harmony among human beings or nations solely on the basis of economic equality of equivalence of military preparedness are sure to fail.

·         What is necessary is an understanding of the common higher necessities for the preservation and true happiness of the bodies, minds, and souls of all beings.

·         Love and forbearance are essential to the growth of harmony. Love nurtures all things that grow; it harmonizes and unites.  Hatred agitates and separates; and indifference destroys what could have been made good and beneficial.  Love is harmony and harmony is love.

·         “People have time to worry and to suffer, but feel they have no time to meditate and work toward being truly happy.”  Throw off difference and cultivate love, forbearance, and wisdom. Build your joys on the sure foundation of inner harmony. Cherish no thought that does not harmonize with the love and lawful ideals of God.  Thus will your whole life be flooded with the light and bliss of the Divine Harmony.


Invocation

May Swami Paramahansa Yogananda’s Divine message inspire us to BE
harmonious with ourselves, with each other, and with all of Nature of which we are part.

May we thereby cooperatively coexist, peacefully, harmoniously and happily, with each other and with all other life on our precious planet,
for the welfare of the World and all life.

Until ultimately we realize our common Divine Self-identity
As the Eternal light of timeless LOVE.


And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

Remembering the Mirror of the Mind
With Passionate Love Songs
~ Ron’s Memoirs

There’s a place for us,
Somewhere a place for us.
Peace and quiet and open air
Wait for us, somewhere.

There’s a time for us,
Some day a time for us,
Time together with time to spare,
Time to learn, time to care.

Some day!
Somewhere!

~ West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein music, Stephen Sondheim lyrics.



Remembering the Mirror of the Mind
With Passionate Love Songs
~ Ron’s Memoirs


Introduction

Dear Friends,

My recent memoirs postings have emphasized the fundamental spiritual importance of Remembering the Mirror of the Mind, because we create our “optical illusion” of reality with our thoughts and projections of our perceptions.

Some of these postings have explained this with words and demonstrated it with music. Their intent is to show how open-hearted listening to the sounds of mystical music (whether or not vocalized) can communicate deep inner wisdom.

My last postings were inspired by “Passion” a musical play with lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim.

Today’s posting was inspired by the 1957 Broadway musical West Side Story, (a contemporized version of the Romeo and Juliet story) with masterly music composed by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

It features a heart-felt performance of the West Side Story song “Somewhere” sung by Matt Leisy at a 2015 gay pride benefit, and a West Side Story “Maria” cello solo, by Hajime Mizoguchi and “Somewhere” vocal solo by Hayley Westenra – sung in Japan, March 2012.

Today’s posting demonstrates the timeless power of “Somewhere” when sung from a heart-space attuned to universal love energy, by anyone, regardless of gender, religion, ethnicity, or other labels.

Thus, the performances of “Somewhere” embedded below show how we can remember the Mirror of the Mind by intuitively listening to mystical music which (beyond words) conveys deep wisdom of timeless LOVE.


Somewhere (West Side Story) Lyrics

There’s a place for us,
Somewhere a place for us.
Peace and quiet and open air
Wait for us, somewhere.

There’s a time for us,
Some day a time for us,
Time together with time to spare,
Time to learn, time to care.

Some day!
Somewhere!

We’ll find a new way of living,
We’ll find a way of forgiving.
Somewhere,
Somewhere . . .

There’s a place for us,
A time and place for us.
Hold my hand and we’re halfway there.
Hold my hand and I’ll take you there

Somehow,
Some day,
Somewhere!



Somewhere (West Side Story) -“2015 Performance of “Somewhere” by Matt Leisy

Somewhere (West Side Story) – Matt Leisy




West Side Story “Maria” cello solo by Hajime Mizoguchi , and “Somewhere” vocal solo by Hayley Westenra – performed in Japan March 2012



Dedication

May the above performances of “Somewhere” and “Maria” help us remember the Mirror of the Mind when listening to mystical music which (beyond words) conveys deep wisdom of timeless LOVE.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner



Remembering the Mirror of the Mind
With Passionate Love Songs
~ Ron’s Memoirs

“Loving you is not a choice
It’s who I am
Loving you is not a choice
This is why I live
You are why I live”
~ Stephen Sondheim, Passion




Remembering the Mirror of the Mind
With Passionate Love Songs
~ Ron’s Memoirs


Introduction

Dear Friends,

My last memoirs postings explained with words, a mirror exhibit, and a mystical music performance, the spiritual importance of remembering the Mirror of the Mind.

Today’s posting demonstrates how hearing and seeing a passionate song, sung from a heart-space attuned to universal love energy, can help us remember the mirror of the mind to bless everyone everywhere.

It was inspired by “Passion” a musical play with lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim, which is briefly described below.

“Passion” Background and history

Passion is notable for being one of the few projects that Stephen Sondheim himself conceived. The story was adapted from an Italian film, Passione d’Amore, which Sondheim first viewed in 1983.

The plot is about how a handsome young soldier (in 19th century Italy), Giorgio, falls in love with a homely and ailing woman, Fosca, who has obsessively pursued him.

Sondheim’s masterly lyrics and music tell how a previously reluctant and selfish person can ultimately accept and reciprocate persistently powerful pure love feelings.

Passion opened and ran on Broadway from May 1994 to January 1995. After winning the Tony Award for Best Musical, the original cast performance was filmed and televised on PBS

Original Cast “Passion” Best Musical Performance



Original Loving You Performance by Donna Murphy, Best Actress



Loving You Lyrics

Loving you is not a choice
It’s who I am
Loving you is not a choice
And not much reason to rejoice
But it gives me purpose
Gives me voice to say to the world:
This is why I live
You are why I live


Conclusion and Dedication

Today’s posting reminds us that even previously selfish people,
can ultimately accept and reciprocate persistently powerful pure love feelings.

So may it help bless everyone everywhere, with openness to passionate songs,
attuned to heart-felt universal LOVE.

And so may it ever be!

Ron Rattner


Loving You Epilogue

Dear Friends,

The above posting features 1994 original cast recordings from Stephen Sondheim’s masterful lyrics and music in his award winning musical “Passion”. My foregoing comments emphasize the original story’s message that even previously selfish people, can ultimately accept and reciprocate persistently powerful pure love feelings in a single lifetime.

Since then I’ve realized that the “Passion” story reflects expansive mirror of mind perennial wisdom, which applies at different times to spiritually evolving people reincarnating and karmically learning timeless truths of Divine Grace and LOVE, which are ever present blessings in all human lifetimes.

For example the wisdom of Sondheim’s “Loving You” lyrics can be experienced in different ways, even by talented professional actors. To demonstrate this, I’ve embedded two more YouTube performances of “Loving You”; the first by actress Elana Rogers at a 2011 Olivier Awards ceremony; and the second a 2012 performance by Melissa Errico emotionally dedicated and sung to her husband.

May our continuing openness to such passionate songs, help us bless everyone everywhere attuned to heart-felt universal LOVE.


And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


2011 “Loving You” Performance by Elana Rogers at Olivier Awards ceremony




2012 “Loving You” Performance by Melissa Errico Dedicated to Her Husband.




Remembering the Mirror of the Mind
~ Ron’s Memoirs


“The identification of pure awareness
with the mind and its creations
 causes the [mistaken] apprehension of both an objective world and a perceiver of it.”

~ Patanjali – Yoga Sutras
“All appearances are verily one’s own concepts,
self-conceived in the mind,
like reflections seen in a mirror.
To know whether this be so or not,
look within thine own mind.”

~ Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche)
Perception is a mirror, not a fact.

And what I look on is my state of mind,
 reflected outward.”

~ A Course In Miracles
“When you look in the mirror, what do you see?”
Do you see the real you, or what you have been conditioned to believe is you?
The two are so, so different.
One is an infinite consciousness capable of being and creating whatever it chooses,
the other is an illusion imprisoned by its own perceived and programmed limitations.
~ David Icke
“The mind of the Sage being in repose
becomes the mirror of the universe,
the speculum of all creation.”
~ Chuang Tzŭ
“The Witness and the witnessed are ONE.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Saying
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,

they are modes in which we think.”
“The distinction between past, present, and future

is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong.
What we have called matter is energy,
whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses.”

~ Albert Einstein
‘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]
“Every particle of the world is a mirror.
In each atom lies the blazing light of a thousand suns.”
~ Mahmud Shabestari, Sufi Mystic, 15th century
“We are what we think.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts we make the world.”
~ Buddha

“The world, indeed, is like a dream

and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage!”

“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.”
~ Swami Vivekananda [Jnana Yoga]
“We are like the spider.
We weave our life and then move along in it.
We are like the dreamer
who dreams and then lives in the dream.
This is true for the entire universe.”

~ Aitareya Upanishad
“Our mentality is our reality.

Our “reality” is what we think it to be.”

~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Whatever we think, do, or say,
changes this world in some way.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Thought divides Universal Awareness,
as a prism divides light.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Human consciousness is conditioned consciousness;
it is pure Awareness conditioned by ego conceptions.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Ego” = “Mind”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
One must elevate — and not degrade — oneself with
one’s own mind, which is one’s friend as
well as one’s enemy. The mind is the friend of those
who have control over it, and the mind acts like an
enemy for those who do not control it. (6.05-06)
~ Bhagavad Gita 6.5-6



Remembering the Mirror of the Mind ~ Ron’s Memoirs

Introduction

Dear Friends,

At age ninety I’m again updating memoirs to emphasize my most important spiritual insights learned since spiritually awakening over forty years ago.

I’ve learned that our space/time duality “reality” is an energetic mental illusion which we create with our unique “free choice” thoughts, beliefs and behaviors. And that by understanding and intuitively using and controlling our “mind” we can inwardly advance our happiness and spiritual evolution, despite challenging outer life circumstances, with inevitable fears and sufferings.

For millennia mystics, seers and sages have revealed that space/time/duality reality is an unreal mental illusion, that they’ve often called maya or samsara. And these inner discoveries have been scientifically confirmed by Albert Einstein’s revolutionary relativity discoveries that everything everywhere is endless energy – E=mc2.

As an elder seeker of Self-Realization, I’m sharing this memoirs posting to help us understand and use our minds to transform and transcend them. Therefore the posting explains how the mind functions like a mirror, which only perceives and projects reflections. These perceived reflections are mistakenly interpreted by our minds as physical or material objects, which are only optical energy illusions.

Like mirrors the clearer the mind, the clearer and more accurate are its displayed images. And minds like mirrors can identify as “reality” only via perceived light wave images. Since most humans discern only a tiny part of a vast and ever expanding electromagnetic energy spectrum, what we visually and mentally reify is only a persistent “optical illusion of consciousness.”

Yet while incarnate we cannot escape viewing our space/time duality world through the ‘mirror of the mind’. But more and more we can remember that it reflects the unseen light of Eternal Awareness onto the screen of our human consciousness its Source. And thereby we can gradually transform and transcend the mind’s persistent “optical illusion of consciousness.” by inwardly remembering and Self-identifying with that Eternal Light of Consciousness..

So by learning how human minds perceive, reflect, and project like mirrors we can better understand why our perceived reality is only a mental illusion, which we can inwardly control to advance (and not deter) our spiritual evolution.

(See What is the human “mind”? Is it best friend or worst enemy?)
(See Transcending Ego-Suffering)

Therefore, I’ve posted the above and following quotations and explanations about how human minds appear and function like mirrors, to further our spiritual evolution.

Quotations about mental unreality of time on Earth

“The world, indeed, is like a dream

and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage!”

“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
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,

they are modes in which we think.”
“The distinction between past, present, and future

is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“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.”
~ Dalai Lama

“The mind is a bundle of thoughts.
The thoughts arise because there is the thinker.
The thinker is the ego.
The ego, if sought, will automatically vanish.
The ego and the mind are the same.
The ego is the root-thought from which all other thoughts arise.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“All bad qualities center round the ego. ..
There are neither good nor bad qualities in the Self.
The Self is free from all qualities. Qualities pertain to the mind only.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“The mind is only a bundle of thoughts [with] their root in the I-thought.
Whoever investigates the True “I” enjoys the stillness of bliss.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“All unhappiness is due to the ego. With it comes all your trouble.
If you would deny the ego and scorch it by ignoring it you would be free.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
One must elevate — and not degrade — oneself with
one’s own mind, which is one’s friend as
well as one’s enemy. The mind is the friend of those
who have control over it, and the mind acts like an
enemy for those who do not control it. (6.05-06)
~ Bhagavad Gita 6.5-6
“Every Cause has its Effect;
Every Effect has its Cause;
Everything happens according to Law;
Chance is but a name for Law not recognized;
There are many planes of causation,
But nothing escapes the Law.”
~ The Kybalion

Conclusions about the Mirror of the Mind as a controllable ego-mind illusion

The foregoing quotations from scriptures and seers and information on related SillySutras postings enable us to conclude that:

1) The ego = the mind; they are the same. The ego is the root I-thought from which all other thoughts arise. The mind is only a bundle of thoughts [with] their root in the I-thought.

2) Ego is what we think we are when we mistakenly self-identify as an individual mortal physical body separate from eternal non-duality Reality,
and as perceiver of a supposedly material space/time world. And our body is our ego incarnate.

3) Our Ego identification as separate forms permits our free choice. But it subjects us to the karmic cause and effect law at every energy plane of illusory separate existence. And at lower energy planes karmic suffering is inevitable. So ego can become like a psychological prison in which earthly karmic suffering or reward is unavoidable.

4) Uncontrolled ego invariably attempts to perpetuate its unreal existence. But such attempted ego self-preservation is always futile. What never existed can not be preserved.

5) Until the ego-mind is psychologically cleared, it can be controlled to gradually advance spiritual evolution. We can use it to lose it. Like using a thorn to remove another thorn’s sliver, we can use ego-mind to clear ego-mind.

6) To hasten our spiritual evolution we should mindfully control our thoughts, and behave with forgiveness, kindness and compassion; and no longer confuse non-dual projected pure awareness as a separate objective world.

7) We should remember that our perceived Earth-life separation from eternal Mother/Father/God and Nature is a mental illusion that never happened.
So we have nothing to fear – EVER.

Invocation


May we ever remember and never forget
That our true identity is immortal LOVE;

That all that is, was, or ever can be

is the Eternal Light of Divine Love – NOW!

That as embodied Human Souls
we’ve fleetingly appeared through the
Mirror of the Mind

As illusionary space/time energy forms,
to always follow our Heart

Until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE
within Mother/Father/God and Nature –
our Eternal Source.

May we ever remember and never forget

That our separation from Source never happened.
So we’ve nothing to fear – EVER.


That all that is, was, or ever can be

is the Eternal Light of Divine Love – NOW!



And so may it ever be!

Ron Rattner

Remembering Timeless Truth
~ Ron’s Memoirs


Remember God, forget the rest.
Forget who you think you are,
to know what you really are.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. 
As you see him, you will see yourself.
As you treat him, you will treat yourself. 
As you think of him, you will think of yourself. 
Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself
or lose sight of yourself.”
~ A Course in Miracles (ACIM)


Ramayana


Remembering Timeless Truth ~ Ron’s Memoirs

Introduction

Dear Friends,

As I explained in recent postings, at age ninety I’m updating memoirs as an elder seeker of Self-Realization, to emphasize my most crucial spiritual insights learned so far, beginning with a spiritual awakening over forty years ago. Until then I was completely unaware of any spiritual reality or evolutionary goal, and I self-identified only with my mortal physical body, its labels, thoughts and story.

Then, after two decades of instinctively pursuing social justice causes as a secular litigation attorney, I was blessed with a spontaneous awakening from Newtonian reality, and previously presumed mortal self-identity as a physical body-form. Soon thereafter on the luckiest day of my life I synchronistically met a 100 year old Hindu Holy Man, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas (Guruji).* who initiated me with a Rama mantra, and a spritual name meaning “one engrossed in devotion”.

Whereupon I became a self-declared “Born-Again Hindu” and for the first time in this precious human lifetime I meditated regularly, and recited devotional Sanskrit prayers to attain a spiritual goal of of Self-Realization or Moksha. Since then, I’ve been experiencing an ongoing inner evolutionary process that is opening my intuitive Heart to formerly unimagined realizations about our eternal Self-identity and Reality as Divine LOVE.

Forty four years have now passed since I received Guruji’s spiritual initiation in April, 1978. But the kundalini evolutionary process which he initiated still continues. Thanks to Guruji’s subtle guidance, it appears to be removing my ego-mind limitations, so that there is today (self-identified with this life-form) much less “Ron” and much more “Ram”. Like ‘magical’ spiritual alchemy, the Rama kundalini energy is transmuting and transforming Ron’s humanity to Divinity.

At age one hundred sixteen Guruji consciously and intentionally left his physical body in India. But from subtle planes he continues to help humanity. So since then, with frequent tears of deep devotion and gratitude, I’ve continued to experience (at subtle levels of awareness) his profoundly transformative shakti energy.

* Footnote

See Facebook page Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas for a brief biography of Guruji, and many photos.

Remembering Timeless Truth

This memoirs chapter gratefully explains how as a devotional “Born-Again Hindu” I’ve realized that during our current karmic experiment in 3D Earthly space/time and duality, we are remembering and recycling prehistoric patterns of Divine Truth which (as recounted in ancient Hindu Vedas) can be considered as allegories for human life, helping humans attain greater understanding of God, Spiritual truth, purpose and Moksha liberation.

Hindu Vedic epics about Divine Non-duality

The two most accessed ancient epics in world literature are the Vedic Mahābhārata and Ramayana. They tell stories about Divine Avatars Krishna and Rama, who are both incarnations and icons of the same highest non-duality God.

1) Mahābhārata

In the Bhagavad Gita, which is the most influential extant Vedic spiritual scripture, Lord Krishna is charioteer for warrior Prince Arjuna in the Mahābhārata battle. On realizing that there are mutual friends and family members on both sides of the battle, Prince Arjuna refuses to fight. Whereupon Lord Krishna expounds on what constitutes right action, the meaning of life and the nature of the Divine. Thereby, with timeless and profound philosophic guidance, Lord Krishna persuades Arjuna to fulfill his moral duty or dharma. This happens even though Krishna and Arjuna have long been close cousins and friends.

2) Ramayana

This epic, narrates the life of Princess Sita, of Janakpur, and Prince Rama, of Ayodhya. It recounts Rama’s fourteen-year exile urged by Rama’s stepmother Kaikeyi upon his father King Dasharatha, and his journeys in Indian forests with his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana. They soon encounter Monkey-God Hanuman who quickly becomes the faithful servant and protector of Princess Sita and Lord Rama.

Thereafter upon kidnapping of Sita by evil Ravana – King of Lanka (Ceylon) and resulting war, Monkey-God Hanuman is pivotal to Princess Sita’s rescue. He slays demons, burns down Lanka, and rescues Sita. This enables Rama’s jubilant return to Ayodhya to be crowned king.

Thus Hanuman is key to the inevitable ultimate victory of Divine justice over immoral iniquity, and reunification of innate Divine male and female aspects of ONE Mother-Father God.

Hanuman Chalisa

For many years one of my daily Hindu practices from Guruji was recitation of the Hanuman Chalisa – a poetic ode to the legendary monkey-god Hanuman by poet-saint and philosopher Tulsidas. The Chalisa venerates Hanumanji as ‘the protector of saints and sages’ and recounts some of his brave and miraculous feats. And after many years of recitations, I assimilated some of that social justice energy.

Though I ended daily recitation of the Hanuman Chalisa decades ago, like Hanuman I’ve continued to devotionally venerate Lord Rama. Frequently I spontaneously call and tearfully cry to Ram, even during nighttime sleep periods, and I’m often repeating my Ram mantra. Also I still often devotionally sing “Shri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram”

The Sanskrit word “Shri” means auspicious, and is only used as an honorific title. The words jai or jaya mean “Victory to!” In current English vernacular they exclaim “Hooray God!”

Remembering our eternal Self-identity and Reality as Divine LOVE

After retiring from legal practice at age sixty, with Guruji’s encouragement I instinctively spent many years reclusively reflecting about God.

And I soon realized from my “Born-Again Hindu” devotional prayers and practices to Lord Rama that we are experiencing the inevitable and destined victory of Divine justice over immoral iniquity as recounted in the Ramayana. That we are again remembering and recycling prehistoric Divine Truth about our only true SELF identity beyond our common space/time ego-mind illusion of being separate forms.

As embodied Human Souls we karmically appear as illusionary separate space/time energy forms, until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE within Mother/Father/God – the Eternal Source from which we’ve never separated.

So upon remembering this timeless Truth I realized that Sri Ram, Jai Ram had again been victorious and that Divine justice had again prevailed over egoic immoral iniquity.

Whereupon I spontaneously composed and recorded a poetic sutra-song titled “Remember!”.

Today, I’ve written and recorded it again in timeless devotional homage to Sri Ram’s victory and Guruji’s Rama lineage.

Remember!

Don’t forget what you knew

before you withdrew,

from dwelling in Heaven’s domain.



Recall your affinity,

with dazzling Divinity,

and in that Presence remain.



Remember with gratitude,

life is beatitude,

even its sorrows and pain;



For we’re all in God’s Grace,

every time, every place,



and Forever (S)HE will reign!



Ron’s audio singing of “Remember!”

Listen to


Conclusion

May we ever remember and never forget

That our true identity is immortal LOVE;

That as embodied Human Souls
we’ve appeared as illusionary space/time energy forms,
to always follow our Heart

Until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE
within Mother/Father/God –
our Eternal Source.

May we ever remember and never forget

That our separation from Mother/Father/God never happened.

So we’ve nothing to fear – EVER.



And so may it FOREVER be!

Ron Rattner




Awakening as LOVE, Till the end of time
~ Ron’s Memoirs

“Be thankful for everything at all times.
Realize that all power to think,
and speak, and act comes from God.
And that S/He is with you now, guiding and inspiring you.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda




Awakening as LOVE, Till the end of time
~ Ron’s Memoirs


Dear Friends,

At age ninety, on November 8th, 2022, I became the longest lived male member of my Rattner surname Ukrainian Jewish lineage. All other Rattner men died in their 70’s, except for my father and maternal grandfather who lived until 89.

But my family’s Ukrainian Rattner women, have lived much longer than the men. And I’ve discovered that Mother/Father/God always controls our 3D experiment in time. That our illusionary perceived earth-life separation from ONE LOVE never happened. So we’ve nothing to fear – EVER.

Also, I’ve optimistically learned that our earthly experiment in time is soon ending, as a “critical mass” of human souls imminently awakens from eons of matrix thralldom by evil entities, which cannot survive in energy realms beyond illusionary fearful lower realm space/time separation.

Family History

In the mid-1950’s, at age 41, my dear Mother Sue had two serious heart attacks, and a cardiologist then predicted she’d soon die. She didn’t die as predicted, but with God’s Grace she lived until Thanksgiving day 2007, a few weeks before her 100th birthday in January, 2008. This helped me realize that God’s in charge of our lives, not expert doctors.

And despite a very difficult life history, my Mother’s youngest sister Florence is still living gratefully and independently with sharp mental acuity at age 106, in a Los Angeles senior care facility where the majority of other elderly residents are senile.

My life experience helps explain why I NOW optimistically anticipate that our thought-formed separate 3D Earth-world of fears and sufferings is neither appropriately chosen by Humankind, nor Divinely planned. That Mother/Father/God will soon honor Nature to preserve it, rather than cataclysmically end Earth-life as we’ve known it.

Previous Memoirs

In recent memoirs, I’ve demonstrated how music communicates deep feelings of instinctive perennial wisdom beyond words. Until now I’ve focussed on traditional Jewish musical themes, of Kol Nidré and Sunrise Sunset.

But historically societies which honor all their artists, whether musical, visual, literary, theatrical, photographic, or other arts, enjoy loving energies beyond separate fearful evil-entity lower realms.

So in this memoirs chapter, I’m optimistically demonstrating the importance of honoring all art and artists until we gratefully Awaken as ONE LOVE beyond time.

In 1945 the timeless music of Frederic Chopin’s Polonaise No.6, in A Flat-Major, Op. 53, was set to words titled “TILL THE END OF TIME”, by lyricist Buddy Kaye.

To show how all musical art communicates deep feelings of instinctive perennial wisdom beyond words, I’m hereafter cantorially singing edited lyrics from “Till the End of Time”. Please enjoy and listen with an open heart.

Listen to

Ron’s recitation of “Till the end of time”



Till the end of time

Till the end of time,
Long as stars are in the blue,
Long as there’s a spring, a bird to sing,
I’ll go on loving you.

Till the end of time,
Long as roses bloom in May,
My love for you will grow deeper,
With every passing day.

Till the wells run dry,
And each mountain disappears,
I’ll be there for you, to care for you,
Through laughter and through tears.

So, with your Heart in sweet surrender,
Tenderly Know that I’m,
The ONE LOVE you’ve lived for,
Till the end of time . .
Till the end of time.


Dedication

May these memoirs ever honor
ONE DIVINE LOVE
“Till the end of time”;
While we remember through all artists
that until then, nothing else is possible;
So there’s nothing to fear – EVER.


And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

“Harmonic Resonation” ~ “Harmonic Coalescence”
~ Sutra Sayings

“May we live in harmless harmony,

and keep in cosmic synchrony,

as we play in Nature’s symphony.”

~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings




Ron’s Introduction to “Harmonic Resonation” and “Harmonic Coalescence”

Dear Friends,



“Harmonic Resonation” and “Harmonic Coalescence” are poetic sutra-sayings composed long ago about the crucial importance of living harmoniously with each other and Nature.

As hereafter published and orally recited they still express ever enduring ideas and ideals of fundamental spiritual significance.

May these sutra-sayings encourage and inspire us to help heal the world, by living as LOVE, with our harmonious thoughts, emotions and behaviors.


And so may it be!


Ron Rattner

Harmonic Resonation ~ Sutra Sayings

Quicken and BE,
in harmony.

The higher our entrainment,
the greater our attainment.

Don’t disrupt and polarize,
but syncretize and harmonize.

Live harmlessly
in harmony.

Stay in cosmic synchrony,
as you play in Nature’s symphony.

How can there be harm in me
when I am perfect harmony?

As harmony we stay
out of harm’s way.

Let us consciously live conflict-free
as constant cosmic Harmony.

Lovingly let us ever Be
thought-free perfect Harmony.



Ron’s audio recitation of “Harmonic Resonation” – Sutra Sayings

Listen to



Harmonic Coalescence

May we harmonize,
together in unity:

Unity in diversity,
not uniformity;

Unity in equality,
not hierarchy;

Unity in integrity,
not conformity.

Unity as universal

LOVE!



Ron’s audio recitation of “Harmonic Coalescence” – Sutra Sayings

Listen to




And so may it be!


Ron Rattner

“Harmony”
~ Quotation Collection

“Love is the energizing elixir of the Universe,

the cause and effect of all Harmony.”

~ Rumi
“When there is harmony
between the mind, heart and resolution
then nothing is impossible.”
~ Rig Veda
“Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another . . And over all these virtues put on LOVE, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
~ Colossians 3: 12-17
“Let us live in harmless harmony,

and stay in cosmic synchrony,

as we play in Nature’s symphony.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings




Ron’s introduction to “Harmony” ~ Quotation Collection

Dear Friends,



Over thirty years ago I began deeply reflecting about the crucial importance of living harmoniously with each other and Nature. Since then I’ve accumulated the following treasury of inspiring quotations about “Harmony”, which express ever enduring ideas and ideals of fundamental spiritual significance.

May these quotations encourage and inspire our harmonious thoughts, emotions and behaviors to help heal the world, beyond illusory perceived separation from Nature and each other.



And so may it be!



Ron Rattner


Quotations and Sayings about “Harmony”

“Harmony is the secret principle of life.”

~ Paramahansa Yogananda


“When there is harmony between the mind, heart and resolution

then nothing is impossible.”

~ Rig Veda


”Neither human wisdom nor divine inspiration
can confer upon man any greater blessing than
[to live a life of happiness and harmony here on earth].”

~ Plato

“Clothe yourselves with compassion,
kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Bear with each other and forgive one another . .
And over all these virtues put on LOVE,
which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”

~ Colossians 3: 12-17


“Love is the energizing elixir of the Universe,

the cause and effect of all Harmony.”

~ Rumi

“(A)ll problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony.”
~ Sri Aurobindo

“The heart and mind can find peace and harmony
by contemplating the transcendental nature
of the true Self as supreme effulgent life.”
~ Patanjali

“Where the heart is full of kindness which seeks no injury to another,
either in act or thought or wish, this full love creates an atmosphere of harmony,
whose benign power touches with healing all who come within its influence.
Peace in the heart radiates peace to other hearts,
even more surely than contention breeds contention.”
~ Patanjali, Yoga Sutra

“Affirm divine calmness and peace,
and send out only thoughts of love and goodwill
if you want to live in peace and harmony.
Never get angry, for anger poisons your system.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda

“A harmonized mind produces harmony
in this world of seeming discord.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda

“Go forth in every direction –
for the happiness, the harmony, the welfare of the many.
Offer your heart, the seeds of understanding,
like a lamp overturned and re-lit, illuminating the darkness.”
~ Buddha

“The life ahead can only be glorious
if you learn to live in total harmony with the Lord.”
~ Shirdi Sai Baba

“Happiness is when what you think,
what you say,
and what you do are in harmony.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi


“Virtue is harmony.”

~ Pythagoras

“God reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists.”
~ Albert Einstein

“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed.
Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“The sage is one with the world,
and lives in harmony with it.”
~ Lao Tzu



”One who lives in accordance with nature

does not go against the way of things,

but moves in harmony with the present moment.”

~ Lao Tzu

“He who lives in harmony with himself
lives in harmony with the universe.”
~ Marcus Aurelius

“The essence of saintliness is total acceptance of the present moment, harmony with things as they happen.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“If only the whole world could feel the power of harmony.”
~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart


”The superior person is in Harmony,

but does not follow the crowd.

The lesser person follows the crowd,

but is not in Harmony.”

~ Confucius


“Love opens all doors,

no matter how tightly closed they may be,

no matter how rusty from lack of use.

Your work is to bring unity and harmony,

to open all those doors which have been closed for a long time.

Have patience and tolerance. Open your heart all the time.”

~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

“The life of this world is nothing but the harmony of opposites”
~ Rumi


“Where there is discord,

let us sow Harmony.”

~ Peace Prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi


”Without law or compulsion,

men would dwell in harmony.”

~ Lao Tzu


As soon as laws are necessary for men,

they are no longer fit for freedom.

~ Pythagoras


”Happy the man whose lot it is to know

The secrets of the earth.

He hastens not

To work his fellows hurt by unjust deeds,

But with rapt admiration contemplates

Immortal Nature’s ageless harmony,

And how and when the order came to be.”

~ Euripides



”To have a positive religion is not necessary.

To be in harmony with yourself and the universe is what counts,

and this is possible without positive and specific formulation in words.”

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


“The unlike is joined together,

and from differences results the most beautiful harmony.”

~ Heraclitus

”Mutual respect and mutual listening

are the foundations of harmony within the family.”

~ Buddha



“Harmony can not thrive in a climate of
mistrust, cheating, bullying; mean-spirited competition.”

~ Dalai Lama


”Wherever I go meeting the public… spreading a message of human values …
[and] harmony, is the most important thing.”

~ Dalai Lama


”If you want peace and harmony in the world,

you must have peace and harmony in your hearts and minds.”

~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj



“Happiness is not a matter of intensity

but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.”

~ Thomas Merton


”Harmony sinks deep into the recesses of the soul

and takes its strongest hold there,

bringing grace also to the body and mind as well.

Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe,

wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness,

and life to everything. It is the essence of order.”

~ Plato



”Music then is simply the result of the effects of Love on rhythm and harmony.”

~ Plato


”Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God

and the permissible delights of the soul.”

”Harmony is next to Godliness”

~ Johann Sebastian Bach


“If only the whole world could feel the power of harmony.”

~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart



“Every element has a sound, an original sound from the order of God; 
all those sounds unite like the harmony from harps and zithers.”

~ Hildegard of Bingen



“A life in harmony with nature,

the love of truth and virtue,

will purge the eyes to understanding her text.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson


“With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony,

and the deep power of joy,

we see into the life of things.”

~ William Wordsworth



“Life’s errors cry for the merciful beauty
that
 can modulate their isolation

into a harmony with the whole.”

~ Rabindranath Tagore



“The highest education is that

which does not merely give us information

but makes our life in harmony with all existence.”

~ Rabindranath Tagore

“Training the intellect does not result in intelligence.
Intelligence comes into being when one acts in perfect harmony,
both intellectually and emotionally.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

“As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures
there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people.
Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.”
~ Isaac Bashevis Singer


”I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world,
 not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind…”

~ Albert Einstein



”The harmony of natural law reveals an Intelligence of such superiority that, 
compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings
is an utterly insignificant reflection.”

~ Albert Einstein


“In art, and in the higher ranges of science,

there is a feeling of harmony which underlies all endeavor.

There is no true greatness in art or science

without that sense of harmony.”

~ Albert Einstein



“My feeling is religious insofar as I am imbued

with the consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind

to understand more deeply the harmony of the Universe

which we try to formulate as “laws of nature”

~ Albert Einstein



”Today wherever you go, carry the intention of peace, love, and harmony in your heart.”

“Just as light brightens darkness, discovering inner fulfillment can eliminate any disorder or discomfort.
This is truly the key to creating balance and harmony in everything you do.”

~ Deepak Chopra


”There is great freedom in simplicity of living,

and after I began to feel this,

I found harmony in my life between inner and outer well-being.

There is a great deal to be said about such harmony,

not only for an individual life but also for the life of a society.

It’s because as a world we have gotten ourselves so far out of harmony,

so way off on the material side,
 that when we discover something like nuclear energy
 we are still capable of putting it into a bomb 
and using it to kill people!

This is because our inner well-being lags so far behind our outer well-being.”

~ Peace Pilgrim



”Everyone has the perfect gift to give the world-
and if each of us is freed up to give our unique gift,
the world will be in total harmony.”

~ R. Buckminster Fuller


“Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity.”

~ Plato (The Republic)



“Out of clutter find simplicity.

From discord make harmony.

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

~ Albert Einstein


“The simplification of life is one of the steps to inner peace.

A persistent simplification will create an inner and outer well-being

that places harmony in one’s life.”

~ Peace Pilgrim



“Adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life’s relationships,
just as the cold of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes,
which vanish with the warmth.”

~ Soren Kierkegaard



“Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend;

you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left”

~ Aldo Leopold


“Live harmlessly in Harmony.”

~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings


“How can there be harm in me,

when I’m in harmless Harmony?”

~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“Let us live in harmless harmony,

and stay in cosmic synchrony,

as we play in Nature’s symphony.”

~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“Don’t disrupt and polarize,

but syncretize and harmonize.”

~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings





And so may it be!



Ron Rattner