Consciousness

How Shall We Pray?

“When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing — nothing.”
“We should seek not so much to pray, but to become prayer.”
~ Saint Francis of Assisi

“Our prayers should be for blessings in general,
for God knows best what is good for us.”
~ Socrates

“Prayers go up and blessings come down.”
~ Yiddish Proverb

“There is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church where I kneel.

Prayer should bring us to an altar where no walls or names exist.

Is there not a region of love where the sovereignty is illumined nothing,”

~ Rabia of Basra

“Prayer is nothing else but an intense longing of the heart.
You may express yourself through the lips;
you may express yourself in the private closet or in the public;
but to be genuine, the expression must come from the deepest recesses of the heart…”


~ Mahatma Gandhi

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you,
it will be enough.”

~ Meister Eckhart

“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


praying

How Shall We Pray?

Introduction to “How Shall We Pray?”

Dear Friends,

To augment my recent tribute to Saint Francis of Assisi and the peace prayer attributed to him, I have posted the foregoing quotations and the following written and recited sutra-poem, “How Shall We Pray?”, with explanatory comments about prayer.

These writings are deeply dedicated to encouraging our frequent loving prayers, with faith that they’ll be answered; and that, thereby, as Divine instruments we may help bless our precious planet and all life thereon.



May such prayers inspire our energetically uplifted transcendence of ego-mind’s evolutionary impediments, to hasten our inevitable spiritual transformation, beyond fearful ego-mind sufferings.

And so may it be!


Ron Rattner


How Shall We Pray?

Q. How Shall We Pray?

A. Pray for God to do through you –

Not for you.

Pray like Saint Francis of Assisi:

“Lord, make me an instrument of thy Peace.”



Ron’s audio recitation of “How Shall We Pray?”

Listen to


Ron’s Comments on “How Shall We Pray?”

Dear Friends,

On seeing sudden dire emergencies or threats most humans instinctively pray for help, even if they didn’t previously pray, or are atheists.

People who customarily pray, have differing ideas about the meaning and methods of “prayer”. Most consider prayer as asking for divine help or expressing gratitude to God. But additionally “prayer” can be broadly considered as all spontaneous, heartfelt, or worshipful longing or communion with Divinity or Nature.   

And all such loving prayer may be magically powerful. Until our Self-Realization, we have infinite prayerful-potentiality to help bless this world, because

“everything we think, do or say
changes this world in some way”.


Becoming Prayer

Saint Francis of Assisi exemplified our infinite potentiality to bless this world and everyone, everything, everywhere. He was completely devoted to blessing all Life, without exception or exclusion. His extraordinarily inspiring life demonstrated that it’s possible to live life as prayer, not just with prayer.

Thus in the rule for his Order of Friars Minor, Saint Francis instructed:

“When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing — nothing.”
“We should seek not so much to pray, but to become prayer.”


Realization of such a perpetually prayerful saintly state is humanity’s deepest instinctive aspiration.

Conclusion and Dedication

Consciously or subconsciously, no matter who or where we are, all humans universally share an irresistible instinctive aspiration to transcend ego-mind’s seeming separation of us from our inseparable Source – a transcendent state beyond words or thoughts, so marvelous that its subliminal memory attracts every sentient being to BE ONE – as Infinite LOVE.

Today’s “How Shall We Pray?” writings and recitation are deeply dedicated to encouraging our frequent loving prayers, with faith that they’ll be answered; and that, thereby, as Divine instruments we may help bless our precious planet and all life thereon.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

Raising “Human Consciousness”
~ Ron’s Memoirs

“The key to growth
is the introduction of higher dimensions
of consciousness into our awareness.”
~ Lao Tzu
“Our separation of each other
is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ 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]
“Consciousness is the basis of all life

and the field of all possibilities.
Its nature is to expand and unfold its full potential.
The impulse to evolve is thus inherent in the very nature of life.”
~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything,
you are 
essentially conscious of yourself.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
Thought divides Universal Awareness,
as a prism divides light.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Human consciousness is conditioned consciousness;
it is pure Awareness conditioned by conceptions.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings


Lau Tzu

Raising “Human Consciousness” ~ Ron’s Memoirs

Ron’s Introduction

Dear Friends,

In these critical times when humans are the only species causing unprecedented climate collapse, warfare and other catastrophic crises which insanely, unsustainably and imminently threaten all life on our precious planet, it appears urgently imperative that we bring expanded awareness of our true immortal identity and infinite potentiality into the world. So recently I posted quotations, poetry definitions and explanations about Clearing “Human Consciousness”.

Today, to further emphasize our urgent need and unlimited potential to honor our beautiful planet and all it’s life forms by energetically elevating a “critical mass” of our species, I’m posting memoirs explaining my awakening process and perspectives about raising “human consciousness”, a concept with immense spiritual significance.

Also, I’m hereafter sharing an optimistic prediction of an energetically ascended new Earth reality beyond current fears and sufferings.

My Awakening Process

At midlife I was spiritually awakened (through Amazing Grace) to self-identity as pure awareness, rather than as a mere mortal body, its thoughts and its story. That realization initiated an inner evolutionary process, bringing previously unimagined blessings of peace and happiness, to be shared with others.

After initially self-identifying as pure awareness, I gradually surmised that Ron’s awareness must be the same as that of every other sentient being; that I’m not merely an individual consciousness separate as a person from other sentient beings, but Universal Awareness – the mysterious spiritual Source of all manifestation and all phenomena.

Thereafter I began wondering about seemingly differing space/time states of “human consciousness”, and common consciousness of all other life-forms. For example, I became curious about how “human consciousness” might differ from dog consciousness, cat consciousness, bird consciousness, fish consciousness, plant consciousness, insect consciousness, cell consciousness and perhaps even consciousness of apparently inanimate and lifeless forms like rocks and manufactured objects (like the 1976 Volvo miraculously blessed by my Guruji).

After much reflection, I decided that what we call “human consciousness” apparently differs from common consciousness of other life-forms – which seem spontaneously harmonious with Nature – because most humans mistakenly perceive and think of themselves to be separate from each other and Nature due to what Einstein called “an optical illusion of consciousness”, and what for millennia spiritual scriptures and non-duality teachings call “ego”. Hence I’ve realized that

Universal Awareness is the sole essence and Source of all life/forms; and that human ego-mind divides universal Awareness as a prism divides light.
So, “human consciousness” is an ego-mind mental conception which seemingly circumscribes Universal Awareness; it is Universal Awareness conditioned by conception.

Thus I’ve concluded that all our ideas about “human consciousness” arise and subside in Universal Awareness; that we are never in differing states of consciousness – they are in us as Universal Awareness; and, that as we “widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty”, we gradually free ourselves from our optical ego-illusion of separation from other life-forms.

Thereby we increasingly experience elevated consciousness of Universal Awareness – our true Source and Divine essence; and we are more and more blessed with infinite potential to collectively advance all life on planet Earth.

An optimistic “New Reality” prediction

Although most people are now experiencing a matrix programmed era of unprecedented post-pandemic fearful sufferings, this is also an age of immense evolutionary opportunity.

Hence I optimistically foresee that current sufferings are energetically awakening and elevating “a critical mass” of human beings to a prophesied “new reality” of egalitarian and cooperative Earth-life sharing and openness, beyond ego-mind’s optical illusion of separation from Nature and its lifeforms.

Occasionally our Earthly “doors of perception” are opened beyond ego-mind’s 3D (‘mental mirage’) illusions of space, time, and duality by psychic experiences, which can’t yet be explained by conventional material sciences. So they’re called “miracles” or biblical “signs and wonders”.

But such Earthly “miracles” (like astral projection, synchronicity, telepathy, remote viewing, prophesy, or energy-healing) are energetically ordinary in subtler energy realms of 5D and higher.

And so I optimistically predict an imminent new Earth reality, with raised “human consciousness” beyond current fears and sufferings.

Dedication

The foregoing writings and optimistic “New Reality” prediction are respectfully dedicated and offered to help encourage and inspire our collective participation in the elevation of “human consciousness” to resolve and transcend all crises on our precious planet, bringing us universal peace, light, and love.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

Let Food Be Thy Medicine


Let food be your medicine.”
“First, do no harm” [Primum non nocere.]
~ Hippocrates

“Everyone has a doctor in him or her;
we just have to help it in its work.
The natural healing force within each one of us
is the greatest force in getting well.
Our food should be our medicine.
Our medicine should be our food.”
~ Hippocrates

“Leave your drugs in the chemist’s pot,
if you can heal the patient with food.”
~ Hippocrates

“Each of the substances of a man’s diet
acts upon his body and changes it in some way,
and upon these changes his whole life depends.”
~ Hippocrates

“Just as food causes chronic disease,
it can be the most powerful cure.”
~ Hippocrates

“Let nothing which can be treated by diet
be treated by other means.”
~ Maimonides




Let Food Be Thy Medicine

Ron’s Introduction

Dear Friends,

To help us be healthy I’m today posting the excellent University of California Television (UCTV) video embedded below, titled “Let Food Be Thy Medicine”.

In collaboration with the UC San Diego Center for Integrative Nutrition, the Berry Good Food Foundation convened a panel of highly qualified experts to discuss nutritional principles for maintaining general individual, societal, and environmental well-being; for preventing disease and degradation; and for nutritional treatment and healing of chronic diseases, and biodynamic restoration of environmental degradation.

From differing experiential perspectives, the panelists impart and discuss much helpful information, and cite resources for further investigation by interested viewers. Also continuing current updates are kept available online by hashtag at https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/foodasmedicine.

The considerable importance of this video, is reflected by its almost 14 million YouTube viral viewers; its title is a presumed direct teaching of legendary Greek philosopher and healer Hippocrates. Hence I have posted the title quotation above, together with a few other apt Hippocrates quotes consistent with ancient wisdom.

Please watch and carefully consider this important video.

May it encourage us and countless others to enjoy optimal health by making food our medicine.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

UCTV YouTube video: Let Food Be Thy Medicine/



Evolving ‘Out Of The Box’:
Into The Light Of Creation.

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
~ King Solomon – Proverbs 23:7
“The release of atom power ..changed everything
except our way of thinking..the solution to this problem
lies in the heart of mankind.”
~ Albert Einstein

“I think with intuition. The basis of true thinking is intuition.
Indeed, it is not intellect, but intuition which advances humanity.
Intuition tells a man his purpose in life.
One never goes wrong following his feelings – for feelings and intuition are one.”
~ Albert Einstein

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

~ Albert Einstein

“A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”
~ Albert Einstein

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness
that created it. ”
~ Albert Einstein
“Humanity is evolving out of the box and into the light of creation.”
~ Ellie Crystal




Evolving ‘Out Of The Box’ and Into the Light of Creation

Ron’s Introduction

Dear Friends,

Twelve years ago I optimistically first composed and published the following poetic prophesy of Humankind’s transcendence of current cataclysmic threats to life on Earth, predicting that “we shall soon reach a “critical mass” tipping point which uplifts “human consciousness” to transcend and resolve crises created by outmoded and illusionary beliefs.”   

Since then, it appears that we have experienced unprecedented self-inflicted threats by only our species of nuclear war or climate collapse cataclysm, potentially portending destruction of Earth life as we have known it. Accordingly, most humans are now experiencing an extraordinary (matrix programmed) post-pandemic “new normal” era of fearful sufferings. So we urgently need energetically elevated “human consciousness’ to avert such catastrophes.

However, from my still optimistic perspective, this is not only a time of unprecedented threat to Earth life, but also an age of immense evolutionary opportunity. It is increasingly apparent that current global sufferings are energetically awakening and elevating “a critical mass” of human beings to a prophesied “new reality” of egalitarian and cooperative Earth-life sharing and openness, beyond ego-mind’s optical illusion of separation from Nature and its lifeforms.

So I’ve hereafter reposted my ‘utopian’ poetic prophesy of Humankind’s transcendence of current cataclysmic threats to life on Earth.  Please deeply consider joining the “critical mass” it predicts.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


Evolving ‘Out Of The Box’ Into The Light Of Creation

Individually and societally, humankind have been caught in a psychological box, self-created by mistaken perceptions and ego-mind ideas of separation from Nature and each other.

We’ve mistakenly regarded ourselves and others as mere limited entities,
 rather than as limitless souls – spirit drops in an infinite ocean of Eternal Light.
 And, our worldviews have been mostly based on such unrealistically reductionist ideas of who and what we are.

Thereby, individually we’ve been caught in a mistaken self-identity box;
and societally we’ve been “boxed in” by an outmoded Newtonian
pre-quantum worldview. Though quantum science now knows that “reality”
can’t be reduced
 to objects or entities in space,
we’ve kept acting as if this is so.


We’ve thus been self-limited by our mistaken ideas of “reality” and of our true identities, powers and potentialities –
 which are infinite,
though yet largely unknown and unrealized.


But, spurred by extraordinarily critical inter-personal and planetary crises, 
and innately blessed with an intuitive evolutionary impetus in each us, 
more and more people are realizing their true spiritual nature
 and awakening with compassion from their egoically imagined limitations.

From seeing everyone and everything as discrete and separated by apparently immutable boundaries, we are gradually realizing that everyone/everything is connected by our common essence:
ever-changing energy in a matrix of immutable eternal Awareness –
our true Source and common Divine essence.

We are evolving from a Newtonian “reality” of polarized duality
to a quantum “Reality” of holistic connectedness; from either this or that, to this and that are ONE. And so we are beginning to envision, intuit and implement
 ‘Out Of The Box’ solutions to current crises.



And as we evolve ‘Out Of The Box’ and into the Light of creation,
we shall soon reach a “critical-mass” tipping point which energetically uplifts “human consciousness” to transcend and resolve current crises arising from outmoded and illusionary ego-mind beliefs.





Ron’s comments on evolving out of the box into the light of creation.

Dear Friends,

While long aware that “no problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it”, I’ve often wondered how individually and societally we can most effectively elevate “human consciousness” to resolve critical interpersonal and international planetary problems. And I’ve concluded that we need to be ever more loving and compassionate; that our love is ‘contagious’ and will inevitably bless and change the world as it gradually spreads to others, until ultimately we will reach a “critical mass” tipping point triggering new societal worldview solutions to old problems.

So many years ago I optimistically began predicting in the foregoing essay that

“we shall soon reach a critical mass tipping point which uplifts human consciousness to transcend and resolve crises created by outmoded and illusionary beliefs.”


Yet paradoxically it appears we are now nearer than ever before to nuclear or ecological disaster, potentially portending destruction of Earth life as we have known it. So, more than ever before, we urgently need energetically elevated “human consciousness” to avert such disaster.

A century has passed since quantum science revealed to us that “reality” can’t be reduced to objects or entities in space/time. Yet we’ve kept acting as if this is so – clinging to a false Newtonian materialistic worldview that sees everyone and everything as discrete and separated by apparently immutable boundaries.

Three generations have passed since immensely destructive nuclear weapons were first developed, atmospherically tested, and savagely used by the American Empire against innocent civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet these dreadful weapons have insanely proliferated worldwide and now threaten our precious planet more than ever before. In a May 1946 letter to prominent Americans, Albert Einstein wrote:

“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”


Einstein foresaw that such “unparalleled catastrophe” could be averted only from levels of consciousness beyond those which created it; thus he observed that “the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind.”

After much deep reflection, and with unspeakable faith in the Sacred Heart of all Humans – which is LOVE – I have today optimistically reposted the foregoing poetic essay with my intuitive ‘utopian’ prophesy of Humankind’s transcendence of current cataclysmic threats to life on Earth.

I still foresee the imminent onset of a new age of nonviolent cooperative societies which will advance the highest good for all life on our precious planet, transcending the outmoded and illusionary beliefs which created current crises.

So I optimistically pray that we shall join together – each from our unique heartfelt perspective – to fearlessly follow our hearts and ‘contagiously’ bless all Life as LOVE.

Dedication and Invocation

This posting is deeply dedicated to inspiring us to lovingly BE and bless all Earth-Life as LOVE. So

May we honor as LOVE
the spiritual Source and essence
of everyone/everything/everywhere
thereby energetically uplifting “human consciousness”
to lovingly transcend and resolve
crises created by long outmoded
illusionary ego-mind beliefs.


And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

Clearing “Human Consciousness”

“If the doors of perception were cleansed
everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
~ William Blake
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,
but by making the darkness conscious.”
~ Carl Jung
“It is only through a change of human consciousness that the world will be transformed. 
The personal and the planetary are connected. As we expand our awareness of mind, body, psyche, and spirit and bring that awareness actively into the world, so also will the world be changed.”
~ Michael Toms, New Dimensions Radio introduction
Everything we think, do, or say,
changes this world in some way.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Just as dreamers ‘create’ their dreams,
 together we are a ‘dream-team’, 
karmically dreaming our world into being; and,
 consciously or unconsciously creating a ‘common dream’.”
“As we ever awaken,
 we shall consciously and cooperatively
 participate to co-create an ever better reality – 

as we intend, intuit, and imagine it to be.”
~ Ron Rattner, SillySutras.com Home Page Dedication






Clearing “Human Consciousness”

Ron’s Introduction

Dear Friends,

The following verses were composed during my extended post-retirement reclusive period of prayer and meditation. They are explained in the comments below.

Clearing Consciousness

“Christ consciousness”
“Cosmic consciousness”,
“Enlightened consciousness”,
“Buddha nature”


All are different terms connoting
the non-dual universal Absolute –
Unconditioned Awareness.

Ordinary “human consciousness” is
conditioned consciousness;

It is pure Awareness
conditioned by conceptions.

And our conceptual conditioning
determines our condition.

Everyone wants
enduring happiness,
freedom and love.

And what we seek,
we shall find –

As mindfully,
we decondition the mind.

As we lose illusory conceptual constraints,
we shall experience
ever expanding awareness,

And so we shall find –
enduring peace of mind.



Ron’s audio recitation of Clearing Consciousness

Listen to


Ron’s explanation of Clearing “Human Consciousness”

Dear Friends,

We are all part of a participatory natural order wherein everything/ everyone is interdependent; and in which everything we think, do or say changes this world in some way. (See, e.g. Synchronicity Inquiry) Even without words or thoughts we can powerfully communicate through our vibratory energetic emanations, and our tears, smiles, music, and other arts.

So by our compassionate or fearful energy emanations each of us (in our own unique way) is either advancing or deterring evolution of earth life everywhere. 

As part of the divine ‘design plan’, we are graced with infinite potentiality to individually and collectively advance all life on planet Earth, through our loving and compassionate thoughts, words, and deeds, even while we’re still experiencing illusionary ego-mind separation from Universal Awareness – our Divine Source and sole ultimate identity and Reality. Thus, as spiritually awakening beings we are helping to transform the world by clearing “human consciousness”.

In furtherance of the SillySutras website’s dedication to advancing our ‘conscious and cooperative co-creation of an ever better reality’, I have today posted the above poem and quotations about our unlimited human potential to transform the world.

May they inspire and encourage our active participation in clearing “human consciousness”, each from a unique perspective and in unique ways, to
“co-create an ever better reality – 
as we intend, intuit, and imagine it to be”.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

From Seeing to BEING:
Wholeness, Holiness, LOVE
~ Ron’s Memoirs


“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
~ Albert Einstein

“The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness,

the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside.”

“This perfection must come through the practice of holiness and love.”. . .
“Every step that has been really gained in the world has been gained by love; criticizing can never do any good, it has been tried for thousand of years. Condemnation accomplishes nothing.”

~ Swami Vivekananda

However many holy words you read,

However many you speak,

What good will they do you

If you do not act on upon them?”

~ Buddha

“Many good sayings are to be found in holy books,

but merely reading them will not make one religious.”

~ Sri Ramakrishna
 Paramahansa

“The mind, unless it is pure and holy, cannot see God.”

~ Seneca the Younger

“What the world needs today
is neither a new order, a new education,
a new system, a new society
nor a new religion.
The remedy lies in a mind and a heart filled with holiness.”

~ Shirdi Sai Baba

It’s not our longitude
Or our latitude,
But the elevation of our attitude,
That brings beatitude.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“Everything can be taken away from a man but one thing:
the last of the human freedom —
to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one’s own way.”
~ Viktor Frankl

Ron Near Sofa Altar

From Seeing to BEING: Wholeness, Holiness, LOVE ~ Ron’s Memoirs

Dear Friends,

At almost age 90, as an elder on the path to Self-Realization, I remain deeply motivated to help inspire others spiritually. So I’m continuing to write memoirs about my evolutionary experiences.

This memoirs chapter hereafter explains how my living room sofa became a sacrosanct spiritual altar; how I prayed and meditated there for decades; and how my worship of perceived outer images there was gradually transformed energetically to become an open hearted inner experience everywhere – a grateful and soulful process of honoring the Divinity and Holiness of “all living creatures and the whole of Nature” on our precious blue planet.

How my living room sofa became an altar

On meeting my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, I was profoundly affected by his powerful cosmic life-force energy [“shakti”]. And I learned that his extraordinary inner energy was independent of his physical vitality, and physical presence. Moreover, I learned that Guruji was one of those rare yogis who could intentionally transfer “shakti” to others not only by touch, gaze, or mantra sound, but also by thought. Thus I’ve experienced Guruji’s shakti when not in his physical proximity, and even when his physical body was very weak.

In 1980 Guruji stayed at my apartment just before returning to India. His physical body and vitality were then exceptionally weak and exhausted. He was so weak that he had to be carried out of my apartment to the van bringing him to the SFO International airport. But his cosmic shakti energy was as strong as ever. After Guruji’s departure, I soon discovered that even objects touched by Guruji had become imbued with his intense cosmic energy.

While at my apartment Guruji slept at night on a large mattress brought here from his Soquel ashram. Daytimes he often sat on a living room sofa looking out at the panoramic view of San Francisco Bay. Soon after his departure I helped carry Guruji’s mattress out of my twelfth floor apartment, via elevator to a devotee’s van parked in the basement garage to be returned to the ashram.

After only a few minutes of clutching Guruji’s mattress, I became tremendously “enshakticated” – intoxicated merely by closeness to Guruji’s cosmic life-force which had amazingly permeated the mattress, rather than by ingesting some inebriating or hallucinogenic substance.

From that amazing energy experience, I realized that my living room sofa where Guruji had sat had been transformed to be a holy relic imbued with his shakti. So I made it an altar. Afterwards for over thirty years I worshiped, prayed, cried and meditated at that altar, and no one sat on it. But sensitive visitors and I felt Guruji’s holy energy still radiating from it.

Here is 2012 photo of Ron, at age seventy, at his sofa altar:



When not then meditating at my living room sofa altar, I began and ended each day worshiping at a bedroom floor altar beside a futon.



Only after being seriously disabled by taxicab rundown injuries did I start sleeping on a bed at age eighty one.

How my sofa altar’s energy was elevated and transformed

Soon after my eightieth birthday, the life-force emanations from my sofa altar were energetically evaluated by my dear spiritual friends Gayla Yates Gordon and Barry Gordon, who are both experienced and genuine masters of Feng Sui.

They tactfully persuaded me to remove the sofa altar images, because the altar’s spiritual energies had so elevated that they’d expanded throughout my living room and beyond. So now only a few inspiring images of Guruji, Jesus Christ, Sri Ramakrishna and a few others have been moved beside my computer desk across the living room.

And especially since my miraculous survival from deadly taxicab rundown injuries eight years ago my worship, prayer and meditation has been transformed to become a continuous open-hearted inner experience of honoring the Divinity and Holiness of all life everywhere.

How I’m now viewing and living this precious human lifetime

I’ve learned from Sri Ramakrishna that ego (either helpful or harmful) is unavoidable on Earth; and that with ego we have apparent free choice of our behaviors, or at least our states of mind – our mental attitudes.

And especially inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I follow my conscience and (if possible) nonviolently refuse to actively or passively obey or condone immoral or discriminatory government activities, laws or edicts.

Further, thanks to Albert Einstein, I’m aware that everything’s energy [E=mc2] in Cosmic Consciousness, with each unique energy form vibrating at a particular rate according to its degree of consciousness. So as a unique energy entity with a unique space/time perspective my views may be inappropriate to others. But I’m sharing them now for those for whom they may be harmonious.

From my optimistic perspective we are now experiencing an unprecedented “new normal” energetic ‘quantum leap’ in human consciousness, and are ascending to a prophesied “new reality” of egalitarian and democratic sharing and openness beyond prior deprivations and sufferings. In this extraordinary era the immoral low energy vibrations of division, fear, anger, greed and deception are being overcome and transcended by the elevated energies of Self-awareness, gratitude and freedom, as more and more humans are awakening and BEING the eternal Light of LOVE.

I’m aware that with apparent freedom of choice we each create and experience a unique “reality” with unique thoughts and behaviors from unique perspectives. And I adamantly refuse to reify this insane world of immoral human caused catastrophic wars, climate collapse, illnesses, injuries, and psychopathic deprivations of God-given rights and necessities.

So I choose to see this world as an unreal, immoral and poorly programmed matrix movie in which I will not participate. Instead of reifying this matrix mirage, I’m envisioning and creating a wonderful new world beyond needless suffering, where everyone everywhere is happy – and where living is Loving.

To avoid being psychologically “brainwashed” by matrix propaganda and gossip I refuse to view all addictive “news” and social media of mass deception and distraction. And I avoid reifying “news” or “op ed” articles that evoke fear, worry, anger, or frustration.

What I’ve learned from elevating altar worship

In space/time duality relative “reality’ we have freedom to live lovingly and fearlessly.
And the more we live with energetically elevated mental attitudes the more we experience peace and happiness, and help to positively co-create an energetically elevated and wonderful world.

Accordingly, all of our fearless, forgiving, and loving thoughts, behaviors, and emotions inevitably uplift this world and everyone/everything everywhere. So:

It’s not our longitude
Or our latitude,
But the elevation of our attitude,
That brings beatitude.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“Everything can be taken away from a man but one thing:
the last of the human freedom —
to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one’s own way.”
~ Viktor Frankl


Dedication and Invocation

Thus, this memoirs chapter is deeply dedicated
to encouraging all others on the path to Self-Realization
to open, listen to, and follow their Heart.

Thereby may we empathetically and lovingly
live for giving, not getting;
for helping, not harming
all beings (not just humans),
and our beautiful precious planet Earth,
which birthed us all.


And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

A Magical Sea Gull Friendship
~ Ron’s Memoirs


“Wait for me here by the way,
whilst I go and preach to my little sisters the birds.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi, Little Flowers of St. Francis

“You should love everyone because God dwells in all beings.”

“Have love for everyone, no one is other than you.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa

“All things are our relatives;

what we do to everything, we do to ourselves.

All is really One.”

~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

“At the center of the Universe dwells the Great Spirit and —
this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”
~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

“We did not weave the web of life.
We are merely strands in it.
All things are bound together. All things connect.”
~ Chief Seattle

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

~ Blaise Pascal



A Magical Sea Gull Friendship ~ Ron’s Memoirs

After living alone for over forty years, I cannot remember any recent time when I’ve felt lonely or bored.  Though I very much enjoy and require regular interactions with people, animals and nature, I’m invariably happy and savor solitude whenever I am alone at home.

However, soon after my 1976 divorce there were many times when I felt quite lonely and craved adult companionship and social contact – especially on weekends when I was alone and not working.

Gradually, such feelings of loneliness faded away and finally disappeared. And I preferred being alone – while in my apartment and while regularly jogging or walking along the Bay or in nature places, like the Point Reyes National Seashore.

Moreover, with continuing spiritual practices and amazing synchronicities, more and more I experienced a subtle connection with everyone and everything, and realized that at a subtle level I was never really alone.

The last time I recall feeling rather lonely in my apartment was just after my beloved Guruji – Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas – returned to India in 1981.   Until his departure, he and his entourage had been living with me for several weeks.

He was then constantly attended by several people who also slept in my apartment. And many others came every day as helpers and visitors.

Never before or since then has my apartment been the scene of so much activity, with so many people. Never before or since then has my apartment had such a palpably powerful and magnetic spiritual ambience.

Then after Guruji’s departure, in abrupt contrast to the period of his visit, I was suddenly living all alone again without any human company, and without Guruji’s extraordinary shakti energetic presence.

So, at first, I felt somewhat lonely – especially missing Guruji’s powerful presence. But, soon thereafter, I had an amazing synchronistic experience which assuaged my loneliness feelings, and which reminded me that I’m never really alone.

Here is what happened:

One lovely weekend morning, I arose from an extended period of prayer and meditation in my living room, unknowingly in an elevated and abstracted state of awareness. It was a beautiful sunny day, without any fog obscuring my panoramic view of the Golden Gate and the Bay.

Then, looking far westward toward the Golden Gate bridge I saw glimmering in the sunlight a distant lone white sea gull gracefully flying and hovering in the wind currents.

While gazing at that delightful scene in a ‘spaced out’ state and uninhibited by ordinary limiting beliefs about “reality”, I silently and spontaneously asked the sea gull:

“Oh beautiful bird, won’t you please come here and visit me?”

And almost immediately the sea gull obliged.

It banked, turned and flew from far away directly toward me until it landed and perched on the West deck railing of my apartment, just a few feet away from where I was beholding it through a floor to ceiling living room window.

The sea gull and I gazed at each other for a few moments. Then I silently asked:

“Dear sea gull, please let me feed you; please fly to that North window that opens, so I can give you some food.”

And again the bird obliged.

It flew about thirty feet from the West railing where it was perched in front of me, to a concrete ledge, just outside the only ventilation window on the North side of my living room. Then, I walked near the sea gull’s new resting place, and already having established communication, I again silently asked it:

“Now, dear sea gull, will you please wait there until I can find some food and feed you?”

And again the bird obliged. It remained on that ledge until I found some bread and seeds, opened the North window, and fed it. Finally, after eating, the bird flew away. But that didn’t end our magical new relationship.

Not only did my new sea gull friend later return for a few more feedings, but for several months it often ‘reciprocated’ my kindness by treating me to extraordinary aerobatic displays.

Just as captive dolphins or other marine mammals might constantly swim round and round in their confining pool or tank, my sea gull friend often visited me by flying round and round a large open space between the front of my twelfth floor apartment (on the north side of my high-rise apartment building) and a row of five high-rise buildings half a block away on Vallejo street.

All of these extraordinary sea gull visitations happened when I was alone in my apartment, except one. On one occasion the bird appeared when I had a visitor from out of town, my friend Steve, who like me was both a lawyer and an initiate of Guruji.

After Steve witnessed my sea gull visitor, I remembered that Guruji once told us that some advanced yogis have the ability to enter or possess bodies of other creatures, even scorpions in caves conducive to meditation. So I wondered then whether Guruji had sent that sea gull to assuage my feelings of loneliness on his departure.

But, however it happened, the sea gull experience proved a crucial blessing because it synchronistically bestowed an important evolutionary insight about how our concepts of “reality” determine and disrupt our ‘relationship’ with Nature.

My communication and communion experience with the sea gull happened because I was in an elevated, open-hearted, and intuitive state of consciousness uninhibited by ordinary limiting beliefs about “reality”, and about our apparent separation from other life-forms.

Thus, that unforgettable experience demonstrated our human potential to intuitively feel loving oneness with all of Nature. It was a dramatic reminder of our cosmic consciousness connection with all seemingly separate life-forms.

As Einstein observed, “Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”

Throughout human history indigenous societies have intuitively revered and communed with all of Nature. In such societies, my sea gull experience might have been considered quite ‘normal’, not at all unusual or noteworthy.

But in our present technological age, most humans have lost their innate ability to be attuned and harmonious with all of Nature. So, paradoxically, it is only our species – the species which considers itself most advanced – that is causing serious natural disruptions, disharmonies and ecological crises.

Like my sea gull friend, other creatures without any conceptions about “reality” are spontaneously harmonious with Nature.

So I view my sea gull communion experience as symbolic of our ever innate human potential – and urgent ecological imperative – for returning to an elevated heart level of awareness from which spontaneously, intuitively and harmoniously we shall honor and cooperate with Nature, thus allowing all life everywhere to survive and thrive.

And so it shall be!

Ron Rattner

Extraordinary Energy Experiences
~ Ron’s Memoirs

“The entire physical creation,
so awe inspiring to human mentality…
provides only tantalizing hints
to the underlying wonders of being.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“We never cease to stand like curious children
before the great Mystery into which we were born.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The miracle is not to walk on water,
but to walk with love on earth,
as if your feet are kissing the ground.

We must learn to say ‘Yes’ to the miracles of life.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Directly experiencing the multi-dimensionality of manifest reality
helps free the mind and open the heart,
inspiring and encouraging ever new insights,
while raising ever new mysteries.
~ Ron Rattner – Sutra Sayings
As we lose our fear of leaving life,
we gain the art of living life.
~ Ron Rattner – Sutra Sayings

Ron as Franciscan Friar,
Halloween 1981


Extraordinary Energy Experiences

Introduction

Einstein revolutionized our understanding of physical reality by showing that everything everywhere is endless energy, viz. E=mc2. But rare are those who mindfully self identify with this pivotal revelation.

Since realizing my true essence and identity as eternal spirit, beyond form – beyond birth and death, I have been experientially blessed with unforgettable reminders of the ephemerally impermanent and energetic nature of our apparent physical reality, and of its eternal context in cosmic consciousness beyond time and space.

From these experiences I’ve gradually lost fear of death and have been opened to innumerable new revelatory insights about this magical and mysterious world of forms and phenomena. These experiences have helped me live an ever happier life, as predicted by my beloved Guruji, and have inspired ever new insights and questions concerning our infinite evolutionary potentialities.

Subtle energy sensitivities

Amongst my most noteworthy new experiences have been unprecedented subtle energy perceptions.

Immediately after my spiritual rebirth experience I briefly experienced myself as mere lines of energy – like those associated with Chinese acupuncture.

Then my experience of bodily consciousness returned, but never again as before. Previously perceived bodily boundaries expanded well beyond my skin, and in rare instances even melted or merged into mystery. And I became aware that my bodily self-perceptions constantly varied with varying states of vitality and subtle awareness.

Here are some examples of this new clairsentience.

Starting soon after the rebirth experience, at times I felt the energies of people, creatures and objects visually perceived to be far away. And beyond my visual perception I became consciously sensitive to the energies of people and places both in and remote from my physical proximity – their ‘vibes’.

For example, I remember sitting with my then young son Josh in the grandstand at a San Francisco Giants baseball game, almost palpably feeling the energy of each pitched baseball as it left the pitcher’s hand and sped toward the batter. The entire playing field seemed within the ambit of my perceived energy field.

Once when meditating alone in my apartment and concerned about a grove of Northwest Pacific coast old growth trees then being clear-cut for lumber, I empathetically experienced with endless tears the suffering of those ancient beings.

After meditating in my high-rise view apartment, I remember at rare times looking out and feeling the energies of birds flying in the distance. And while walking on a path or beach by the Bay I sometimes palpably felt the energy emanations of people i saw moving at a distance from me.

One sunny Sunday, as I walked along San Francisco Bay to and from the Golden Gate Bridge, I beheld  every person I encountered – dozens, without exception – as a divine being emanating and glowing with Divine luminescence. (See Beholding Beings Of Light )

Energy ‘mergers’

The foregoing unusual energy experiences seemed to involve supposed subject-object perceptions, viz. Ron aware of various supposedly separate distant forms. But other new energy experiences apparently transcended such supposed subject-object separation.

For example when I was talking in person or by phone with certain people with whom I felt special rapport – like my ‘high energy’ friend Betty Bethards, a spiritual teacher and psychic – I often experienced elevated energy, as if our subtle energy fields had synergistically expanded. And after I met Guruji I was consistently transformed and energetically uplifted when in his physical proximity, irresistibly resonating with his amazingly powerful “shakti” cosmic life-force.

Perhaps my most extraordinary new energy events were subtle energy ‘mergers’ that happened during out of body [OOB] experiences. The first ‘merger’ happened quite synchronistically, soon after my divorce. Just before awakening one work-day morning, I beheld an extremely vivid and large movie-like inner image of a blue-eyed blond woman who I’d never before seen.  Quite puzzled I wondered who she was and why she had appeared in my inner vision.   Those questions were soon answered.

A few days later, alone and lonely on a Saturday evening, I searched the SF Chronicle’s weekend event calendar for something to do.   There I learned that a Tibetan bell concert was about to happen in an auditorium not far from my apartment.   Though I then knew nothing about Tibetans, and never before heard Tibetan bells, this concert seemed interesting.  So I made a last-minute decision to attend.

There were no reserved seats, and by the time I arrived the only remaining seats were on a small back balcony far from the stage. So I sat there waiting for the concert to begin.  After a few moments, I noticed the person already seated immediately to my left.   She was undoubtedly the woman who had appeared in my vision a few days earlier.  She was a yoga teacher with whom I soon had a brief but very important romantic relationship.

Once during that relationship I had the unprecedented experience of leaving my body during physical coition with union of our subtle bodies above the intertwined physical bodies, which I viewed from above. Apart from that brief OOB experience, it seemed thereafter that our subtle bodies remained conjoined even when we were physically apart. One week I had a mysterious leg pain not traceable to physical trauma. That weekend I learned from my friend that she had injured a leg, and that apparently we were simultaneously experiencing the same leg pain.

After we were together physically, I initially experienced amazingly enhanced vital energies. But later because of very stressful life circumstances she became quite devitalized and enervated. Thereupon, she unknowingly began syphoning my vital energies whenever we were together. When we parted, instead of having amazingly enhanced energies, I became so debilitated that I couldn’t jog or even walk to work as usual. Finally, without vital energy it became impossible for me to continue to be with her. Our relationship ended. It was virtually my last romance before becoming abstinent for the remainder of my adult life – so far.

A few years later I had another memorable OOB merger experience, but this time without any physical intimacy. Here’s what happened.

In October 1981 I was invited to attend a Jungian archetypal Halloween costume party in Sausalito, California. Attendees were asked to dress as a personality or image important to them in this lifetime. Never before had I attended an adult costume party. Nor had I ever before thought about any “archetype” important to me.

But on learning that I could borrow a Franciscan friar’s habit from my friend Michael Toms, I decided to attend as Saint Francis of Assisi, with whom I had discovered a deep inner rapport. Dressed as St. Francis, I went to the party alone.

It was held in a large old warehouse space where there was live music and an extensive dance floor area. The warehouse was hot, noisy and crowded – not an ambience apparently conducive to spiritual experience or elevated awareness. But that’s what happened to me.

I was standing alone on the dance floor when a woman stranger costumed as an angel invited me to dance with her. I gladly accepted. Then she told me that as a spiritual practice she was “toning”, and asked if I would like to “tone” with her as we danced, explaining that while dancing together we could make harmonious tonal sounds.  I hadn’t before heard about toning, and was curious.

So, at her suggestion, we danced and twirled and toned together like Sufis. Soon, while we were thus twirling and toning, I had another memorable OOB experience.

Fleetingly I ‘left my physical body’ and from above the two twirling dancers perceived our subtle bodies merged. This was a revelatory experience for me, because I learned from it the possibility of “tantric” merger without physical union.

After dancing and toning for a short time, we shared contact information. I learned that her name was Mary Saint-Marie, and that she was a visionary artist from Mount Shasta, California. But I did not reveal my merger experience to her. We parted without dancing again. Thereafter, we briefly exchanged correspondence when Mary was considering enrolling in graduate studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) where I then was Board Chairman. But we never met again for almost thirty years.

In the meanwhile, I wondered why I had such an extraordinary experience with an ‘angelic’ stranger in a crowded, hot and noisy place. Ultimately, I determined it happened because my dancing partner was an extraordinarily elevated being who (then unknown to me) had recently experienced a prolonged period of out of body cosmic Oneness.

As I write, Mary Saint-Marie is still a visionary artist and spiritual guide who shares her rare transcendent perspectives and experiences via inspiring art and spiritual writings, and in work shops and consultations.

Several years following my subtle merger experience with Mary Saint-Marie, I had another unforgettable revelatory union experience even more extraordinary than the previous ones.

Mahavatar Babaji

“Total merger [with another soul] is a much higher and deeper love bond than anything you can know on the earth plane. [It] is like stepping inside of one another’s auras; [and] is far superior to the physical mechanics of the sexual experience.”
~ Betty Bethards,
“There is No Death”, pp 89-90. [edited]

One night I was awakened from a deep sleep to behold within the face image of an Indian yogi, who looked familiar but who I could not then identify. Thereupon, the yogi merged our subtle fields, and we became ONE. Words cannot describe the orgasmic thrill of that merger.

It was for me thrilling beyond any other experience of this lifetime.

For many years after that extraordinary glimpse of evolutionary potentiality I wondered about the identity of the benevolent yogi who had bestowed the unforgettable experience, and why it happened. Finally, through synchronicity, I intuited his identity.

One evening, while on-line at my computer, I was wondering about the mysterious yogi when a familiar portrait appeared in a file I was searching. It was Mahavatar Babaji the legendary timeless saint and root guru of Paramahansa Yogananda’s kriya yoga lineage, who was pictured and described in “Autobiography of a Yogi”. Instantly I intuitively recognized him as the compassionate yogi with whom Ron had been merged.* [See footnote.]

Conclusion

I don’t know why I was karmically granted these wonderful “peek experiences”. Like other extraordinary experiences, they’ve helped to free my mind from illusory limitations and to open my heart to ever new Divine insights.

Perhaps they were portents that – after eons of endless evolution – Humankind will ultimately realize ever elevated life experiences through our precious planet’s inevitable dimension Ascension,

In an autogyral
Endless spiral
Flowing up and beyond
The beyond.

Or maybe we’ll experience supramental powers upon earth, as envisioned by Sri Aurobindo.

In all events, these fleeting extraordinary energy experiences have helped inspire my ever growing gratitude and unconditional faith in our Infinite Potentiality – in the Mystery of Divinity.

*Footnote:
In February 1982 at the Kumbha Mela in Allahabad, India, I beheld an ethereal being who was soon identified to me as “Mahavatar Babaji”. I believe the Oneness experience with him happened several years after our encounter in India.


Dedication and Invocation.

The above energy stories are published with the deep aspiration that they will help free our ego-minds from all illusory fearful limitations, and open our hearts to ever new Divine insight and inspiration.

And with ever-growing gratitude and unconditional faith in our Infinite Potentiality as Universal Love:

May they inspire our Sacred heart Realization
of our infinite evolutionary potentiality
to bless the universe as Divine Love,
beyond all illusory fears
of death, disease or deprivation,
and without current insanely-inflicted
space-time perils, sufferings and sadness.

May they thus portend our continuing co-creation
of harmoniously elevated societies
which inspire and benefit all of Nature
and all Life everywhere as LOVE –
until our destined ultimate transcendence
of this permanently impermanent dream-like world
of space/time and duality!



And so may it be!



Ron Rattner

Choosing To Live A Miraculous and Holy Life ~ Ron’s Memoirs


“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

“And as to me, I know nothing else but miracles.”

~ Walt Whitman

“For everything that lives is Holy,

life delights in life.”

~ William Blake – The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Try and penetrate the secrets of nature and you will find that,
behind all the discernible laws and connections,
there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable.
Veneration for this force beyond anything we can comprehend is my religion.”
~ Albert Einstein

“The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness,

the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside.”

~ Swami Vivekananda

“Unless ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.”
~ John 4:48

Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina,
May 25, 1887 – September 23, 1968
Capuchin Franciscan Friar with stigmata


Dear Friends,

On observing noteworthy mysteries which we can’t yet explain by known natural or scientific laws, we may call them “miracles” and attribute them to an Infinite or Divine Power, beyond human comprehension. Whether or not we call these phenomena “God” or Nature or Universal Intelligence, we can (like Albert Einstein) choose to live “as though everything is a miracle.” This memoirs posting outlines how I’ve begun regarding everything and everyone as divine and holy miracles.

My last “Miraculous Lotus Flower” memoirs posting told how I was obliged to change my description of a supposedly “real” blooming flower by physical proof revealed by my daughter Jessica Eve Rattner. However, I’ve been especially inspired by Sri Ramakrishna’s Teachings About God in All Beings to always remember that we have freedom of choice to perceive only Divine spirit or God – to see that everything is a Holy miracle – with love beyond fear or proof.

Today’s memoirs chapter discusses Divine “miracles” that can’t ever be scientifically or rationally explained, but are best accepted with faith as perpetual “unsolved” mysteries arising from “acts of God”. Perhaps the most inspiring such miraculous story yet posted on the SillySutras website is “Why The Choir Was Late” Similarly many other posted true synchronicity stories can be regarded as Divine mysteries beyond proof.

Some more unsolvable “miracles”

1) From May 1976 to February 1977, I had so many previously unprecedented premonitions, dreams, synchronicities, and precognitive and astral experiences that I began wondering whether we can astrally bi-locate, travel and transcend serial time. This still remains a question beyond scientific proof.

2) During April – May 1978, I synchronistically met my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, who demonstrated yogic powers which I’d never previously imagined possible. These were Guruji’s rarely demonstrated “signs and wonders” [John 4:48] that motivated me to receive his shaktipat initiation. Soon thereafter at Guruji’s request, I drove him and his designated successor, Shri Anandi Ma, for an unforgettable sight seeing trip from Oakland to San Francisco to see Grace Cathedral and Saint Mary’s Cathedral.

En route as we passed the high-rise building, where my law office was on the 21st floor, I exclaimed spontaneously: “Guruji, my office is at the top of that building”. “Very good,” he responded. And we drove on. The next morning, my twenty first floor air conditioned office was completely suffused with the ambrosial fragrance of roses. But, its windows were sealed, and there were no roses in the entire law office suite. So afterwards I questioned Shri Anandi Ma about the rose fragrance. Smilingly she replied: “Oh, that’s Guruji’s calling card, when he makes astral visits”. So, how did that astral visit happen? It’s still a “miracle” beyond scientific proof.

3) During Guruj’s last months in the USA (in 1980-81), he affirmed to me his yogic ability to travel astrally at will. He 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.” But such astral traveling still remains a “miracle” beyond scientific proof.

4) In May 1992, after an unforgettable déjà vu pilgrimage to Italy to commune with Saint Francis of Assisi, I drove to the Southern Italy Adriatic town of San Giovanni Rotondo to pay my respects to Padre Pio, a famous stigmatist and Capuchin Franciscan Friar, known for his miraculous deeds, astral appearances, and for sometimes manifesting subtle fragrances of roses with violets.  While I prayed and meditated at his holy tomb, I was unforgettably suffused with those fragrances. Later, I had repeated experiences of flower fragrance ‘visits’ from Guruji and other mystics. Those flower fragrance manifestations are still “miracles” beyond scientific proof.

5) In May 1993, intuiting that our daughter Jessica has just arrived from India on a world tour (with her spiritual teacher, Ammachi,) Jessica’s mother Naomi opened her San Francisco front door to discover strewn on her front porch the mysterious appearance of many rose petals. Later, Ammachi sent Naomi a packet of similar rose petals, without revealing or claiming to be the source of this rose petal ‘miracle’.

Soon thereafter while reading “The Autobiography of Saint Therese of Lisieux: The Story of a Soul.” I was repeatedly reminded and thought of Jessica. Then I synchronistically discovered (at “Christ in the Desert” a remote New Mexico monastery) that during Therese’s brief life as a Carmelite nun she often threw rose petals; and that during her last illness she had announced:

“After my death I will let fall a shower of roses”.


Saint Therese of Lisieux,
“The Little Flower of Jesus”,
January 2, 1873 – September 30, 1897


Since Therese’s passing many manifestations of rose petals and other posthumous “miracles” continue to be attributed to her. But Naomi’s rose petal manifestation “miracle”, remains an unsolved mystery beyond scientific proof.

Spiritual importance of seeing everyone and everything as divine and holy miracles beyond proof.

1) Every incarnate human is unique, with a unique “reality” “created” by his/her individual thoughts and behaviors. And we each have personal freedom to think and behave as we choose.

2) But our freely chosen thoughts and behaviors unavoidably subject us to the universal law of cause and effect; and thereby to karmically ‘reap as we sow’ either joy or suffering, depending whether we are lovingly kind, compassionate, and helpful or fearfully selfish, hedonistic and harmful.

3) If we always choose, to live with love beyond fear or proof; to perceive only Divine spirit or God; and to see that everything is a Holy miracle – we gradually create states of consciousness beyond karmic suffering and we ‘reap’ increasingly joyous lives. Ultimately we are destined to awaken from this dream-like relative “reality” to BE the eternal mystery of Divinity as LOVE.

Dedication of Choosing To Live A Miraculous and Holy Life

This memoirs chapter is deeply dedicated to elevating our ever evolving earthly “reality” by encouraging a “critical mass” of Humankind to choose living with loving, kind, compassionate, and helpful thoughts and behaviors.

May it inspire us to always remember that we have freedom of choice to perceive only Divine spirit or God – to see that everything is a Holy miracle – with love beyond fear or proof, until we ultimately awaken from this dream-like relative “reality” to BE the eternal mystery of Divinity – as LOVE.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


My Miraculous Lotus Flower
~ Ron’s Memoirs


“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.”

~ George Orwell, “1984”

“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.”

~ Albert Einstein

“Objective reality does not exist” ….

“The universe is fundamentally a gigantic … hologram”

~ David Bohm, Quantum Physicist and Einstein protege

“Perception is a mirror, not a fact.

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

~ A Course In Miracles (ACIM)

“Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.”
~ Niels Bohr, quantum physicist

“I regard consciousness as fundamental.
I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.
We cannot get behind consciousness.
Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
~ Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist

“We do not see things as they are;

we see things as we are.”

~ Talmud

“Whatever we think, do, or say,

changes this world in some way.”

~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings


Ron Rattner on June 7, 2022, with Miraculous Lotus Flower


Introduction to “My Miraculous Lotus Flower”

Dear Friends,

Today I’m privileged to share with you a recent true memoirs story, symbolizing the fundamental spiritual principle that every incarnate space/time human is unique, with a unique “reality” which we “create” with our thoughts and behaviors. And that to evolve we need to be ever open to new ‘realities’ which transcend our prior beliefs. Hence human societies could not have advanced if we inflexibly believed that the earth was flat, or was the center of our solar system.

My evolving “reality” history

Since my mid-life spiritual awakening, I’ve realized that many prior beliefs and paradigms about “reality” were fundamentally mistaken and limiting; requiring acceptance of never previously imagined new “realities” through open minded questioning and mindfulness, crucial for life-long learning and spiritual evolution.

Thus since 1976, I’ve learned (from mystic masters, quantum science, and out of body experiences) that we each ‘create’ an illusionary space/time “reality” through “an optical illusion of consciousness” with our unique thoughts, words, and behaviors – whereby we mistakenly perceive, project, and self-identify ourselves as supposedly mortal entities separate from each other, Nature, our precious planet, and from our ultimately inseparable Universal essence as infinite LOVE. (See e.g. Our Mentality is Our Reality)

Also, I’ve learned that in this illusionary space/time reality everything is energy [e=Mc2] appearing and disappearing within Universal consciousness. But most humans mistakenly identify only with their thoughts, instead of their consciousness of those thoughts, and don’t realize that cosmically we are merely energy vortices ‘disguised as persons’. However, as we elevate our energies beyond polarizing fears and negative emotions and radiate innate common love and compassion, we gradually transcend space/time sufferings and reap ever increasing karmic rewards, as ‘givers not getters’. And (as in the following memoirs story) those rewards often appear through amazing synchronicities.

My Miraculous Lotus Flower

This miraculous lotus flower story exemplifies my still continuing life-long “reality” realization process:

In December 2017 my former neighbor Simran Alden (a real estate broker, raised in India before emigrating to the US) left a colored flower at my front door taped to an envelope with information about year-end real estate taxes. Because of color blindness, presbyopia, and other age-related visual limitations I couldn’t discern the flower’s botanical identity or color, nor could I see it clearly. It appeared to me to be a very “real” but dried-out cut flower. So to revive and preserve it’s beauty for a few days, I carefully put it into a tube of fresh tap water.

On awakening the next day I saw a beautifully opened flower, which I assumed would soon fade and wither with age. But miraculously it stayed “alive” and beautiful. And I soon believed that the “real” flower was forming roots on seeing as organic material in the water tube.

So I regularly refilled the tube with filtered water (rather than tap water), and delightedly observed my miraculously blooming “real” flower, which I kept in prominent view on my dining room table.

When Simran Alden later phoned me about my condominium’s market value, I thanked her for the flower she’d given me in December, and told her that I was still enjoying its beauty. However, I don’t remember telling her that I believed it to be “real” and had been watering it regularly. Afterwards I emailed Simran a photo of me enjoying the flower. And I enjoyed and carefully watered my miraculous “real” flower for over four more years.

But that suddenly stopped in June 2022.

At the beginning of June, 2022, my 2008 large screen iMac, running a long outdated OS 10.9 operating system irreparably stopped working. The old iMac contained all of my essential digital data, and was not separately backed-up. So I urgently needed to save its data and replace it with another iMac which would still run OS 10.9; or I’d be involuntarily ‘retired’ as an online spiritual philosopher, sponsored by The Perennial Wisdom Foundation.

Thanks to Divine grace and many amazing synchronicities, I’m “back in business” as a spiritual philosopher, and still able to compose spiritual memoirs.

Here is what happened:

On the June 1st ‘death’ of my iMac, I immediately contacted my almost 93 year old long-time friend and computer ‘guru’, “KJ”, about my urgent dilemma. With compassion “KJ” began expertly guiding my replacement of the 2008 iMac with a late 2012 model that would still run OS 10.9. Also he instructed my daughter Jessica about finding a successor iMac on Craig’s List. Jessica successfully found a replacement iMac, and on June 7th she brought it to my apartment. It still needed to be carefully converted to run my OS 10.9 data. And (with “KJ’s” expert assistance) that finally happened on June 23, 2022. The next night “KJ” passed peacefully in his sleep. If “KJ” had departed on June 1st instead of June 24th, I couldn’t be sharing this memoirs story with you.

Jessica’s lotus “reality” revelation

On arriving at my apartment on June 7, 2022 with the 2012 replacement iMac, my dear daughter Jessica Eve Rattner, (now a prize-winning documentary photographer and UC Davis Master of Fine Arts, with keen color and visual perception) iconoclastically shattered my miraculous flower “reality” image. Looking at the flower, she immediately perceived and impishly revealed to me that the tubed bloom was an not an organically botanical flower, but a cotton woven and fabricated pink lotus.

Ron Rattner on June 7, 2022, after learning Jessica’s lotus flower “reality”


As Simran probably knew, the pink lotus is the official National Flower of India, and is prominent in ancient India’s history, art, and teachings. It has long been an extremely sacred symbol of the spiritual path, enlightenment and resurrection.

So I now view the flower as an auspicious synchronistic blessing, but Jessica’s “reality” revelation has compelled me to stop believing it miraculous.

Dedication of “My Miraculous Lotus Flower”

May this lotus flower story auspiciously symbolize the infinite potential blessings of our ever evolving earthly “reality”, which we “create” with our ever changing thoughts and behaviors.

May it remind us to always be open to new ‘realities’ which transcend our prior beliefs, until we ultimately transcend all incarnate “reality”.

Until then may we ever BE kind and compassionate, and pray:

“Infuse us, enthuse us, and use us, to bless all life as Love!”

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner