Posts by 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
Synchronicity Story: Dr. King, Alice Walker, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and “If I Was President”
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,
tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
“We must learn to 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.
“If I was President
The first thing I would do
is call Mumia Abu-Jamal.”
~ Alice Walker
Dare to be a nonconformist.
Society rewards conformers.
But, posterity honors reformers.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Let us elevate our aspirations,
from the bottom line to the highest good.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
In these critical times,
we need a critical mass
to solve our critical mess.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968
Ron’s Introduction.
Dear Friends,
Today’s posting honors American hero and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on his 95th birthday anniversary.
Sixty years have passed since Dr. King’s 1963 “dream” speech, and his later assassination at age 39. Yet, as discussed in my following commentary, the US population still endures most of the flagrant societal injustices Dr. King addressed – and which were noted by Alice Walker in today’s synchronicity story about her poem “If I Was President”, including unjust imprisonment of countless political truth-tellers and societal reformers, like Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Nonetheless, I again share this amazing synchronicity story with the deepest faith that together we can and will awaken the world from its present fearful ‘nightmare’ to realize Dr. King’s prophetic ‘dream’:
That ‘free at last’, we will honor the equality and divinity of everyone everywhere, and thereby transcend exploitation and discrimination against the world’s most vulnerable people, using our common-wealth for our common-weal to end the iniquity of inequity in our society.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Synchronicity Story.
One January morning I received an email notice of an archived lecture about departed hero Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr. given by poet, author, and Buddhist peace activist Alice Walker, in Atlanta in 2006. The lecture was entitled “We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For.” [a YouTube video is linked below]
Because of my great respect for Dr. King as a national hero, and for Alice Walker’s wisdom, artistic genius and exemplary engagement in non-violent peace activism, I listened to the lecture. It was eloquent and moving.
At one point Alice Walker noted the posthumous persistence of social problems addressed by Dr. King before he was assassinated, and she cited as emblematic of our continuing societal injustices the political incarceration and threatened execution of brilliant truth teller journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, following his egregiously wrongful political conviction for a crime committed by someone else.
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Especially, because I regard Abu-Jamal as an unjustly imprisoned ‘great soul’ who was subjected to an extraordinarily unjust trial, I had been amongst the millions world-wide protesting his political incarceration and threatened execution.
Synchronistically, a couple of hours after I listened to the Alice Walker lecture mentioning Abu-Jamal, I received a rare phone call from Prison Radio, a charitable organization dedicated to recording and distributing worldwide weekly radio commentaries by Abu-Jamal then telephoned from death row. (If interested you can listen to those commentaries at the Prison Radio website http://www.prisonradio.org/.)
The caller, Sharyn, invited me to a house party at which Abu-Jamal’s current legal situation was to be be discussed in depth. I told Sharyn that I had just been thinking about Mumia because of Alice Walker’s reference to him in her eloquent Atlanta talk about Dr. King. In response, Sharyn told me that shortly before she called me, Prison Radio had that day just received a new poem written and sent by Alice Walker from Mexico about Mumia and other prominent political prisoners.
Entitled, “If I Was President”, the opening lines of the poem say:
“If I was President
The first thing I would do
is call Mumia Abu-Jamal.”
Alice Walker
Synchronicity Questions and Reflections.
So why did the universe decide to synchronistically communicate with me that day through Dr. King, Alice Walker and Prison Radio about Mumia Abu-Jamal? It is a mystery, and a reminder of how little we understand our miraculous world “reality”.
From space/time perspective, synchronicities are noteworthy or meaningful coincidences in time. But from a cosmic perspective serial time is just an illusory way we think. So Albert Einstein has said:
“People … who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
Inspired by Einstein I have tentatively explained such synchroncities this way:
“Synchronicities are noteworthy “coincidences” in time,
which show us that in Nature,
there is no time and there are no “coincidences –
that everything that is, was, or will be is NOW;
that everything happens in harmony and synchrony
concurrently, not coincidentally.
Synchronicities are like Nature’s positive “bio-feedback’ or ‘radar’ signals showing when we are existing out of time and in the eternal NOW.”
And here is an interesting quote from Deepak Chopra:
“According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don’t bother you anymore. You become light hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous.”
How do you explain synchronicities in your life?
Whether or not we can ever really explain mysterious synchronicities, may they ever infuse us with feelings of awe and gratitude for our interdependence with all miraculous and mysterious Life on this precious planet.
Alice Walker: “We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For.”
Ron’s Commentary Honoring Dr. King.
Dear Friends,
On the 95th birthday anniversary of departed hero Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., let us join countless others worldwide in honoring and ardently following his visionary legacy of nonviolently seeking world peace and social justice with forgiveness and Love.
Regrettably realization of Dr. King’s vision of world harmony still seems distant, as societal problems he addressed more than half a century ago perilously persist. Moreover, threats of nuclear and ecological holocaust appear more imminent than ever before, as the US empire continues to insanely squander more than than half its budget on wars and weapons, while neglecting the human rights of most of its own citizens, as well as countless other innocent victims worldwide.
Dr. King’s history.
Dr. King was a fourth generation Baptist preacher and non-violent peace and social justice activist especially inspired by Jesus and Mahatma Gandhi. He honored and followed Gandhi as “guiding light …. of nonviolent social change’’, and in 1959 journeyed to India to study Gandhian methods. On arrival there, King said:
“To other countries, I may go as a tourist,
but to India, I come as a pilgrim.”
Afterwards, inspired by Jesus and Gandhi, Dr. King ardently preached non-violence, saying
“We must learn to live together as brothers
or perish together as fools.”
“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Ultimately, Dr. King’s life paralleled Gandhi’s life. Each began as an outspoken advocate of inter-racial equality and social justice in racially segregated societies: Gandhi as a South African civil rights lawyer; and King as a Southern-Baptist preacher. Gradually their missions expanded to encompass universal peace, freedom and social justice for everyone everywhere.
Gandhi ultimately inspired independence of the entire Indian subcontinent from almost a century of colonial domination and exploitation by the British raj.
Dr. King conscientiously and eloquently decried the fraudulent and immoral US war in Viet Nam, and the entire exploitive US corporate capitalist economic system which fostered perpetual war for perpetual profit of a privileged few, to the undemocratic detriment of an impoverished majority. He said:
“I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.”
“Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.”
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
“Don’t let anybody make you think God chose America as His divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.” .. “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
Like Jesus and Gandhi, Reverend King preached love and forgiveness, saying:
“At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.”
“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.”
“The time is always right to do what is right.”
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
1964 Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1964 Dr. King was awarded and humbly accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, as ‘trustee’ for countless unknown others. And he cited Mahatma Gandhi’s success in India as a key precedent encouraging nonviolent civil rights activism in the USA, saying:
“This [nonviolent] approach to the problem of racial injustice …. was used in a magnificent way by Mohandas K. Gandhi to challenge the might of the British Empire and free his people from the political domination and economic exploitation inflicted upon them for centuries.”
And Dr. King described how (because of technological advances which threaten global nuclear/ecological catastrophe) the survival of humanity depends upon our nonviolently solving
“the problems of racial injustice, poverty, and war” by “living in harmony” with “all-embracing and unconditional love for all men”.
Eloquently he explained unconditional love as
“that force which all of the great religions [Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist] have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. . . . the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate Reality.”
Dr. King’s 1968 Martyrdom.
Like Jesus and Gandhi, Reverend King was martyred at the pinnacle of his powers. Dr. King (like President John F. Kennedy) was assassinated by the US military/industrial secret government when his expanding influence became an intolerable barrier to their psychopathic war plans for Viet Nam and beyond.
Concluding Dedication and Invocation.
To honor Dr. King’s lasting legacy as one of the greatest Americans who ever lived, I have shared this posting with deepest faith that together we can and will awaken the world from its present fearful ‘nightmare’ to realize Dr. King’s visionary ‘dream’ of worldwide peace and justice, with love and forgiveness.
That ‘free at last’, we will honor the equality and divinity of everyone everywhere, and thereby transcend immoral exploitation and discrimination against the world’s most vulnerable people, using our common-wealth for our common-weal to end the iniquity of inequity in our society.
So that as Abraham Lincoln envisioned:
“Under God, [we] 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.”
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Swami Vivekananda: 15 Laws of Life
“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
“…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]
‘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]
“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]
“But if there is ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will hold no location in place or time; which will be infinite, like the God it will preach; whose Sun shines upon the followers of Krishna or Christ, saints or sinners, alike; which will not be the Brahman or Buddhist, Christian or Mohammedan, but the sum total of all these, and still have infinite space for development; which in its Catholicity will embrace in its infinite arms and find a place for every human being … It will be a religion which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which will recognize a divinity in every man or woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be centered in aiding humanity to realize its divine nature.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
Swami Vivekananda, January 12, 1863 – July 4, 1902 *
Photo Inscription. *In September 1893 in Chicago, USA, Swami Vivekananda reverently autographed this photo with the handwritten inscription:
“One infinite pure and holy –
beyond thought beyond qualities
I bow down to thee”.
“One infinite pure and holy –
beyond thought beyond qualities
I bow down to thee”.
Introduction.
Dear Friends,
This posting honors Swami Vivekananda, the great 19th century Indian sage and orator, and founder of Western Vedanta Societies, on his 161st birthday anniversary.
As principle disciple of Holy Man Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Swami Vivekananda first brought universal Indian wisdom to large Western audiences beginning as Indian delegate to the historic 1893 Chicago Parliament of World Religions, where his opening remarks famously addressed his “Sisters and Brothers of America”, and concluded with this prayerful invocation:
“I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.”
[Reenacted excerpts from his Parliament speeches are linked only online.]
Thereupon and thereafter Swami Vivekananda eloquently explained to Westerners ancient perennial principles of Hinduism, and why according to Advaita Vedanta nondualist philosophy this impermanent and ever changing world of space, time and causality is illusory; that “In the Absolute there is neither time, space nor causation”; that “Love Is The Law Of Life .. just as you breathe to live; that the goal of mankind is the knowledge [that]…oneness is the secret of everything.”
Though Vedic rishis or seers had anticipated Einstein’s 1905 theory of relativity by millennia, their teachings were largely unknown in the West until first explained by Vivekananda soon before Einstein revolutionized Western science.
Swami Vivekananda experientially had realized as impermanent and illusory the appearance of our space, time, causality, and duality reality. From his rare level of nondualist consciousness beyond ego-mind he shared many wise perennial teachings to guide our lives on Earth, including the “Fifteen Laws of Life”, which follow, with my explanatory comments.
Written over a hundred years ago, these fundamental wisdom teachings remain exceptionally important for our worldwide transcendent awakening opportunities in current times.
May they deeply inspire and guide us to help heal the World by realizing and experiencing their fundamental truths.
Swami Vivekananda: 15 Laws of Life.
1. 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.
2. It’s Your Outlook That Matters: It is our own mental attitude, which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful; our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light.
3. Life is Beautiful: First, believe in this world – that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you do not understand it in the right light. Throw the burden on yourselves!
4. It’s The Way You Feel: Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.
5. Set Yourself Free: The moment I have realised 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.
6. Don’t Play The Blame Game: Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.
7. Help Others: If money helps a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.
8. Uphold Your Ideals: Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.
9. Listen To Your Soul: You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.
10. Be Yourself: The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!
11. Nothing Is Impossible: Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin – to say that you are weak, or others are weak.
12. You Have The Power: All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.
13. Learn Everyday: The goal of mankind is knowledge… now this knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside: it is all inside. What we say a man ‘knows’, should, in strict psychological language, be what he ‘discovers’ or ‘unveils’; what man ‘learns’ is really what he discovers by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.
14. Be Truthful: Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
15. Think Different: All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.
Ron’s Explanation.
Swami Vivekananda had realized and revealed to us that this ego-mind illusory 3D “reality” of supposed space, time, and causality-duality, is an unavoidable mere mental mirage beyond human thought comprehension, imagination, or expression.
Like Jesus Christ and countless other prior and subsequent spiritual avatars and seers, Vivekananda proclaimed (in 20th century vernacular) the pre-primordial non-dualist truth that “Love Is The Law of Life”, that the infinitely powerful and potential Human Heart and the Cosmos are not separated, but One Eternal LOVE.
For example, two thousand years ago Jesus Christ incarnated in a mortal human body to reveal that: “I and the Father are ONE”, and that “God is Love” saying:
“Let us love one another: for love is of God;
and everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God.
He that loves not, knows not God; for God is love.
If we love one another, God dwells in us, and His
love is perfected in us.” [1 John 4:7-8; 12 ]”
Jesus taught us to not only love each other, but to love and forgive even our enemies, importuning God while suffering excruciating pain as He was being crucified by Roman soldiers,
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
~ Luke 23:34
Jesus so demonstrated that because we not separated but exist as One Eternal LOVE when we love each other we love our Eternal SELF – our Divine Mother/Father Creator and Sole Source.
Thus, Swami Vivekananda revealed over a hundred years ago, that these same fundamental wisdom teachings of Jesus, remain exceptionally important for our worldwide transcendent awakenings in current times.
And such revelations can inspire and awaken a pivotal “critical mass” turning point in human history, when much of humankind will energetically awaken to loving levels of consciousness and spiritual freedom.
We are thereby immensely blessed to participate in thus raising humanity’s collective consciousness, as we gratefully awaken from inside out as ONE INFINITELY POTENTIAL Divine LOVE .
Ron’s Dedication.
This posting honors both Swami Vivekananda and his renowned Spiritual Master, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, whose lives and teachings have been extraordinarily inspirational for countess beings, including me. Additionally it honors my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, who was also inspired by Vivekananda.
Vivekananda considered Shri Ramakrishna as “higher and nobler than all ordinary” teachers, and attributed all his powers to Ramakrishna, saying:
“All that I am . . is owing to my Master, Shri Ramakrishna, who incarnated and experienced and taught this wonderful unity which underlies everything, having discovered it alike in Hinduism, in Islam, and in Christianity.” [His] “One touch, one glance, can change a whole life.”
Synchronistically, my Guruji Shri Dhyanyogi – who was another one of those rare great beings whose “One touch, one glance, can change a whole life.” – was crucially inspired and helped by Vivekananda.
The fascinating story of how this happened is told in “This House is on Fire, The Life of Shri Dyanyogi”, pp 61-64, by Shri Anandi Ma.
After fifteen years of solitary wandering in rural India Guruji had a dramatically transformative vision of Vivekanda, who assured Guruji that he would reach his spiritual goal.
Soon thereafter Guruji discovered and was enthralled by Vivekananda’s teachings published in the book Raja Yoga, which included his apt lectures in the West, and commentaries explaining Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, widely accepted as a foundational Sanskrit text of Raja Yoga philosophy.
Guruji continuously read and re-read Vivekandanda’s Raja Yoga book, like a scripture, and ultimately he repeatedly recommended it to his disciples, including me.
Invocation.
May these precious wisdom teachings continue to inspire and guide countless people worldwide in current critical times.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Reenacted audio excerpts from Vivekananda talks at 1893 Chicago Parliament of World Religions.
From Darkness To Light
“And God said,
“Let there be light,”
“And God divided the light from the darkness.”
~ Genesis 1:3-4
“I wish I could show you
when you are lonely or in the darkness,
the astonishing light of your own being.”
~ Hafiz
Into my heart’s night
Along a narrow way I groped;
and lo! the light,
An infinite land of day.
~ Rumi
“The night is as bright as the day.”
“Darkness and light are both alike.”
~ Psalms 139:10-11
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Do not be sad.
For God sends hope in the darkest moments.
The heaviest rain comes from the darkest clouds.”
~ Rumi
“See, I will create new heavens
and a new earth.”
~ Isaiah 65:17
The people who walk in darkness
Will see a great light;
Those who live in a dark land,
The light will shine on them.
~ Isaiah 9:2
For nothing is hidden,
except to be revealed;
nor has anything been secret,
but that it would come to light.
~ Mark 4:22
The trumpet shall sound,
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible,
and we shall be changed.
~ 1 Corinthians 15:52
“Light is the real essence of everything.
This earth is not “earth” as you see it;
it is light.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
From Darkness To Light
Dear Friends,
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.
During ages of ignorance and darkness we’ve unknowingly and unwittingly been imprisoned and exploited by ego-bonds of belief in a simulated mental matrix from which we are at long last escaping and ascending incorruptible and awakened to the Divine eternal light of Universal Awareness.
Following the December 21, 2023 Winter Solstice, 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 planet Earth, time is inescapable. We cannot live timeless lives, in dense 3D relative “reality”. So until we transcend illusory ego mind beliefs of separation 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 previously unknown awakened levels of awareness, by fearlessly emanating and radiating harmonious heart levels of loving serenity and calmness. However such ascension will require Humankind to consciously receive Divine Grace.
“Love cannot be learned or taught.
Love comes as Grace.”
~ Rumi
“The winds of grace are always blowing,
but you have to raise the sail.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna
For humanity’s “critical mass” ascension to elevated states of awareness, we must individually and collectively radiate heartfelt loving energies, without ego-mind thoughts and emotions of fear, anxiety, aggression or hatred, that invariably perpetuate our perceived illusory separation from each other and Nature.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
So let us experience current insane space/time events like a projected movie or “Light Show”. And may we thus elevate our energetic emanations by realizing that these dreamlike dark and dystopian times cannot threaten or harm our true immortal SELF identity and Reality as Eternal LIGHT, LIFE and LOVE.
Conclusion
This is a pivotal turning point in human history, when much of humankind will energetically ascend from darkness to light and loving levels of consciousness and spiritual freedom.
We are immensely blessed to participate in thus raising humanity’s collective consciousness, as we awaken to BE inner Source ultimate Reality.
Invocation
Whatever happens in this ever impermanent illusory world of inevitable karmic suffering,
May we never forget our eternal immortality and spiritual Oneness with Nature and all Earth-life.
And may we ever emanate and widely radiate universal peace and happiness,
While realizing that this world is like a projected movie or “light show” –
Just a dreamlike ever changing illusory play of Universal Awareness.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Uniquely The Same
“You are the light of the world.”
~ Matthew 5:14
Into my heart’s night
Along a narrow way I groped;
and lo! the light,
An infinite land of day.
~ Rumi
“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
“If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One –.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 11, Verse 12
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.
And this is the reason the cosmos first
needs to be divided into the tiniest parts,
and enormous shatterings must take place
in order to separate the smallest particles.
And after they are polished up and clarified, behold:
each speck will contain the whole of all existence,
and it all is filled with God’s light and his glory.
~ Rabbi Avraham Kook
“There is an endless net of threads throughout the universe.
The horizontal threads are in space. The vertical threads are in time.
At every crossing of the threads, there is an individual.
And every individual is a crystal bead.
And every crystal bead reflects not only the light from every other crystal in the net,
but also every other reflection throughout the entire universe.”
~ Indra’s Net – from the Vedas of ancient India, 7000 years old
“Light is the real essence of everything.
This earth is not “earth” as you see it;
it is light.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“Reality’s essence is Divine luminescence.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Ron’s Introduction to “Uniquely The Same”
Dear Friends,
The following “Uniquely The Same” sutra poem tells us that we are unique in form, but that in Essence we are eternally identical Divine Spirit, Light, Life, and LOVE.
Together with the above quotations and following recitation and explanation, this posting is dedicated to reminding us that as common Cosmic Consciousness, we are “the light of the world”.
Also, that we shall experience ever increasing happiness as we evolve toward destined Self-realization,
by using our mind as our best friend, rather than worst ego enemy.
Please enjoy and consider this posting accordingly.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Uniquely The Same
We are all
uniquely the same.
In form we’re unique,
but in Essence identical:
Spirit, Light, Life, LOVE.
Deeply, but subconsciously,
we share common Cosmic Consciousness –
Common “I”ness.
Common “I am” ness.
As ever more we experience our Universality,
We shall ever more transform our “reality”.
Ron’s audio recitation of Uniquely The Same.
Ron’s Comments on “Uniquely The Same”
Dear Friends,
Today’s posting is dedicated to our remembering and realizing that our true Self-identity is as “the light of the world”; that although we appear separated, in Essence we are ONE eternally identical Divine Spirit, Light, Life, and LOVE.
As Jesus’ Christ’s Sermon on the Mount reminds us, we “are the light of the world” – a world in which the law of the Prophets must persist “until heaven and earth disappear” [Matthew 5:14-18].
Except for rare Avatars and Bodhisattvas virtually all incarnate human beings are remembering and awakening as “the light of the world” to our Eternal Divine identity as ONE LOVE.
However, while we mentally experience ourselves as seemingly separated from Nature and everyone and everything else, we are subject to karmic cause and effect. But we enjoy ever increasing happiness as we evolve toward destined Self-realization, by mindfully remembering our true Self identity, and by using our mind as our best friend, rather than worst ego enemy.
Thus Hinduism’s best known scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, reveals this core teaching about achieving spiritual liberation or Moksha.
One must elevate – and not degrade – oneself with one’s own mind,
as the mind is both a friend and an enemy.
For those who have subdued and conquered the mind,
it is the best of friends.
But for those who fail to do so,
the mind remains the greatest of enemies.
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter Six, Lord Krishna to Arjuna
Dedication
This “Uniquely The Same” posting is deeply dedicated to
reminding us that we are “the light of the world”.
May it awaken and inspire our ever increasing happiness,
as we advance toward our destined Self-realization as
Divine Spirit, Light, Life, and LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Vision and Perception
~ Quotations and Sutra Sayings
“In the ultimate stillness
Light penetrates the whole realm;
In the still illumination,
There pervades pure emptiness.
When I look back on the
Phenomenal world,
Everything is just like a dream.”
~ Han-shan Te-Ch’ing
“All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.”
~ Edgar Allan Poe, A Dream Within a Dream
“We are such stuff As dreams are made on,
and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.”
~ William Shakespeare
Vision and Perception Quotations and Sutra Sayings
“If the doors of perception were cleansed
everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
~ William Blake
“Your vision will become clear
only when you look into your heart.
Who looks outside, dreams.
Who looks inside, awakens.”
~ Carl Jung
“Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.”
~ Jonathan Swift
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.
What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
~ Antoine de Saint Exupery
“Seeing the Invisible is Knowing the Ineffable.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Nothing’s impossible for the Invisible.”
Our greatest challenges foreshadow our greatest possibilities.
Everything’s possible when nothing’s inevitable.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“The Master observes the world,
but trusts his inner vision.
He allows things to come and go.
His heart is as open as the sky.”
~ Lao Tzu
“Perception is a mirror, not a fact.
And what I look on is my state of mind,
reflected outward.”
~ A Course In Miracles [ACIM]
“I saw the angel in the marble
and carved until I set him free.”
~ Michelangelo
“Where there is no vision, people perish.”
~ Proverbs 29:18
“True vision is insight, not eyesight.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“The eyes of the soul of the multitudes
are unable to endure the vision of the Divine.”
~ Plato
“People only see what they are prepared to see.”
”We are immersed in beauty,
but our eyes have no clear vision.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
”Shut your eyes so the heart may become your eye,
and with that vision look upon another world.”
~ Rumi
“Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision
to recognize it as such.”
~ Henry Miller
“Everyone takes the limits of his own vision
for the limits of the world.”
~ Arthur Schopenhauer
“The most pathetic person in the world
is someone who has sight,
but has no vision.”
~ Helen Keller
“Let the waters settle,
you will see stars and moon
mirrored in your Being.”
~ Rumi
“Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception
resembles more than anything else
that celestial source from which we all are come.”
~ Michelangelo
“The question is not what you look at,
but what you see.”
”I begin to see an object
when I cease to understand it.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
“Love and fear represent two different lenses
through which to view the world.
Which I choose to use
will determine what I think I see.”
~ Marianne Williamson
“As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind,
so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.”
~ Helen Keller
“Truth (satya) implies Love. – – –
Devotion to this Truth is the sole justification for our existence. – –
Without (Love) it is impossible to observe any principles or rules in life.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
”Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees
takes off his shoes.”
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“The eye with which I see God
is the same eye with which God sees me.”
~ Meister Eckhart
“People think that they see,
but they don’t.”
~ Henry Moore
“There are many paths to the top of the mountain,
but the view is always the same.”
~ Chinese Proverb
“As a man is, so he sees.
As the eye is formed, such are its powers.”
~ William Blake
“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile
the moment a single man contemplates it,
bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”
~ Antoine De Saint-Exupery“
”When the sun rises,
do you not see a round disc of fire
somewhat like a guinea?
O no, no, I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host
crying Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.”
~ William Blake
“The soul never thinks without a mental picture.”
~ Aristotle
“Nothing exists until or unless it is observed.
An artist is making something exist by observing it.
And his hope for other people is
that they will also make it exist by observing it.
I call it creative observation. Creative viewing.”
~ William S. Burroughs
“The Impossible Dream”
Quotes and Comments
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star”
~ Mitch Leigh & Joe Darion, “The Impossible Dream” (From “The Man of La Mancha”)[edited]
“In the ultimate stillness
Light penetrates the whole realm;
In the still illumination,
There pervades pure emptiness.
When I look back on the
Phenomenal world,
Everything is just like a dream.”
~ Han-shan Te-Ch’ing
“All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.”
~ Edgar Allan Poe, A Dream Within a Dream
“We are such stuff As dreams are made on,
and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.”
~ William Shakespeare
Ron’s Introduction to “Our Impossible Dream”
Dear Friends,
At age ninety one, I’ve realized that every human being on our beautiful blue planet Earth, without exception, is awakening from an impossible ego dream – an experiment in time, space and duality of seemingly seeing and being separate from our one and only Divine Mother/Father/God Creator and Source; an illusory chosen separation amnesia that never happened, because Ultimate Reality and existence is only Infinitely Potential LOVE.
So I have earlier today republished vision and perception quotations and sutra sayings summarizing this realization.
But because of the crucial importance of this realization, which can karmically inspire our ever-increasing inner happiness in this precious human lifetime, I’m now concurrently publishing memoirs, comments, and key quotations, about transcending 3D space/time and duality illusionary relative reality by awakening from its inevitable but impossible ego-mind dreams and fears, of suffering death or non-existence.
These quotes and comments differ because each of us is unique with perspectives, thoughts, and behaviors different from all other sentient beings. Thus we are each experiencing differently our inevitable awakenings from our impossible ego dreams and hallucinations of separation from our Divine Mother/Father/God Creator as ONE Infinitely Potential LOVE.
Also, I’ve recently discovered and embedded below the beautiful melody and lyrics of the song The Impossible Dream (From “The Man of La Mancha”) as hauntingly and powerfully sung by great world tenor José Carreras, the words & music by Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion.
Gratefully and joyfully I invite you to hear, read, and reflect upon today’s quotes and comments, which will inevitably bless us all as LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Ron’s Reflections on “Our Impossible Dream”
Dear Friends,
“Knowingly or subconsciously everyone seeks eternal peace and happiness. But until we attain Self Realization, we’re all evolving beyond egoically and fearfully misidentifying ourselves as separated from our Mother/Father/God and only Divine Creator, instead of BEING and existing as ONE Eternal LOVE.
Except for rare Avatars and Self-Realized Beings, like Zen Master
~ Han-shan Te-Ch’ing quoted above, or like Jesus Christ the Eternal embodiment of Divine LOVE, no Earthly human being can always be ego-free.
That is impossible in this low energy illusory 3D world of time, space, and karmic causality duality, where nothing or no one exists forever.
So we unavoidably suffer here from our unskillful ego-thoughts, fears and behaviors.
And our fearful sufferings are like a cosmic ‘incentive system’ for us to faithfully remember our true non-duality self-identity and ‘reality’ as Eternal LOVE.
Our sufferings end when we remember, with experiential Self knowledge, that we are Infinitely potential and Eternal Divine LOVE, rather than impermanent, separate and mortal ego-mind entities that never existed.”
So we are all living an impossible dream within a dream, until we courageously awaken “to reach the unreachable star”.
Gratefully and joyfully may we to hear, read, and reflect upon today’s haunting melody, quotes and comments, which will inevitably bless us all as LOVE.
And so may it be!
The Impossible Dream – Jose Carreras-
José Carreras singing “The Impossible Dream”
“The Impossible Dream”
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear the unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not goTo right the unrightable wrong
To be better far than you are
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable starThis is my quest, to follow that star
No matter how hopeless,
No matter how far
To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into hell
For a heavenly causeAnd I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will be peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my restAnd the world would be better for this
That one man scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star
Everyday Thoughts For Thanksgiving
“To be a presence of perpetual thanksgiving may be the ultimate goal of life.
The thankful person is the one for whom life is simply one long exercise in the sacred.”
~ Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB from The Psalms: Meditations for Every Day of the Year
“Thankfulness is the soul of beneficence …
For thankfulness brings you to the place where the Beloved lives.”
~ Rumi
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues,
but the parent of all others.”
~ Cicero
Ron’s Introduction to “Everyday Thoughts For Thanksgiving”
Dear Friends,
For everyone’s Thanksgiving happiness every day, I’m again publishing the following perennial wisdom quotations about thankfulness.
Thanksgiving became my favorite holiday long ago, when I realized that thankfulness is a universal blessing uplifting everyone everywhere, regardless of their cultural, spiritual, secular or religious attitudes or beliefs.
Now at age ninety one, I’m unspeakably grateful for still being alive, aware, ambulatory and interdependently-independent – especially since miraculously surviving a deadly taxi rundown nine years ago. Thus, I’ve learned that continual thankfulness is a state of Divine Grace – that every day’s a bonus, and every breath a blessing, not just during Thanksgiving holidays, but always!
May every day be a day of Thanksgiving, for everyone everywhere.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Everyday Thoughts For Thanksgiving
“Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
~ Rumi
“Join me in the pure atmosphere of gratitude for life.
Join my eyes and soul in their divine applause.”
~ Hafiz
“You have no cause for anything but gratitude and joy.”
~ Buddha
“It is not joy that makes us grateful;
it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”
~ Brother David Steindl-Rast
“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you,
it will be enough.”
~ Meister Eckhart
“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends,
the old and the new.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.”
~ Buddha
“I thank God for my handicaps for, through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God.”
~ Helen Keller
“O Lord, who lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.”
~ William Shakespeare
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
~ Albert Einstein
”A grateful mind is a great mind,
which eventually attracts to itself great things.”
~ Plato
“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.”
~ Aesop
”Gratitude bestows reverence,
allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies,
those transcendent moments of awe
that change forever how we experience life and the world.”
~ John Milton
“I am grateful for what I am and have.
My thanksgiving is perpetual.
It is surprising how contented one can be
with – only a sense of existence.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
“Gratitude is heaven itself.”
~ William Blake
“No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.”
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
“Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.”
~ Psalm 100
“When you allow your heart to open to the universe’s flow of love, gratitude comes with that flow. Gratitude for the people that you love, and for those who share your life. Gratitude for the Creation of the beautiful Earth as our home in this great cosmos. Gratitude for the Sun that gives us life. Gratitude for being alive, for just existing, for being in the flow of the wonder of life.”
~ Owen Waters
“Gratitude flows unimpeded from an open heart. When you allow it, gratitude will flow as freely as the sunshine, unobstructed by judgments or conditions.”
~ Owen Waters
“Every day should be a day of Thanksgiving for all the gifts of Life — sunshine, water, the luscious fruits and greens,
which we receive as indirect gifts from the Great Giver.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us – and He has given us everything.
Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God.
For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.”
~ Thomas Merton
“The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful
and has nobody to thank.”
~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti
I thank you God for most this amazing day
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky,
and for everything which is natural
which is infinite
which is yes….
I who have died am alive again today
and this is the sun’s birthday;
this is the birth day of life and of love and wings…
~ e. e. cummings
“When we develop a right attitude of compassion and gratitude,
we take a giant step towards solving our personal and international problems.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama
It’s not our longitude
Or our latitude,
But the elevation of our attitude,
That brings beatitude.
***
So an attitude of gratitude
Brings beatitude.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
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 Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Dedication
The foregoing quotations and thoughts For Thanksgiving are dedicated to encouraging, inspiring and guiding us to enjoy ever growing gratitude, on Thanksgiving holidays and every day.
May every day be a Thanksgiving day for everyone everywhere.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Happy Thanksgiving Day – Every Day!
Enjoy! – Beautiful Gratitude Video
Narrated by Brother David Steindl-Rast, a now 97-year-old Benedictine monk
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
Diego Rivera ~ “Día de los Muertos”
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
