Divinity

Vernal Equinox Blessings

“To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
~ Ecclesiastes 3:1
“The winds of grace are always blowing,
but you have to raise the sail.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna





Ron’s introduction to Vernal Equinox Blessings

Dear Friends,

I first learned of Chapter 3:1-8 of the Book of Ecclesiastes on hearing a popular 1960’s folk song written by Pete Seeger called “Turn! Turn! Turn!” quoting the biblical passages verbatim beginning with: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” I then sensed the importance of those passages (attributed to King Solomon), but never deeply reflected upon them until after my 1976 midlife spiritual awakening.

Until then, I was largely insensitive to the symbolic importance of time cycles, and I had little inner inclination to celebrate or commemorate new years or new seasons. Only afterwards did I begin learning about importance of astronomical and astrological sciences with increasing appreciation of ancient pre-Christian cultures which recorded time through solar, lunar or lunisolar calendars, such as Persian, Mayan, Islamic, Vedic, Hebrew, Chinese, and Tibetan.

Paradoxically, since my midlife change of life I have become increasingly aware of the importance of earth-life seasons and cycles in time, while realizing that cosmically Albert Einstein was right when he told us: “the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”; and, that “space and time are not conditions in which we live, [but] modes in which we think.”

Thus I have realized and written that “time is how we measure NOW”.

Yet, this posting (on the March 19th, 2024, vernal equinox) is sincerely dedicated to inspiring our understanding of how auspicious earth-life cycles and seasons can help us bless and transform this world, until together we remember and realize that as timeless Divine souls we are the Eternal light of Universal Awareness as LOVE.

Vernal Equinox Blessings and Opportunities

The vernal equinox is a traditionally important astronomical event which can mark an especially auspicious new life phase for everyone everywhere, and for all earth-life. Especially in Northern climes spring is considered a season for spiritual renewal and rebirth; a time for recognition of our cyclic transition from darkness to light – of both inner and outer illumination. And this can be an especially auspicious time for political progress everywhere on our precious planet.

Thus, as awakening spiritual siblings we can collectively resolve critical interpersonal and international planetary problems, which threaten all earth-life, and which can be solved only through our awakened awareness of how and why we humans alone have caused these crises.

Whatever our cultural conditioning, or our spiritual, religious or ethical traditions, we can NOW join together in identifying and  symbolically discarding old defilements, so as to continue earth-life with a fresh clean slate – a process exemplified by the ancient vernal equinox New Year tradition of Zoroastrianism, which is observed by millions people worldwide as Nowruz.

Many religious historians believe that Zoroastrianism is the oldest of the revealed world-religions, and that it may have influenced humankind, directly and indirectly, more than any other single faith; that it has influenced the major Asian religions, and that many beliefs of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim monotheistic religions were derived from Zoroastrianism. 

Zoroastrianism teaches that Life’s purpose is to renew the world; to help the world progress towards perfection.  And, that Happiness in Life comes to those who live for the happiness of others.

Key Zoroastrian tenets are: 

“Good thoughts, good words, good deeds.”; 
“Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do,
and then all beneficial rewards will come to you”;  and
“There is only one path and that is the path of Truth.”


Like many Westerners I first learned of the wisdom of the Persian mystical tradition through the poems of the great Persian Sufi mystics Rumi and Hafiz, some of which are posted on the SillySutras website. Rumi’s poetry is so superlatively beautiful and mystically insightful – even when translated from Farsi – that he has been recently called the “most popular poet in America”, over seven centuries since his death.

And just as many Western people keep copies of the bible in their homes, many Persian and Iranian people keep copies of Hafiz’ writings which they consider the pinnacle of Persian literature.  The poems and sayings from Rumi and Hafiz quoted on SillySutras are the amongst the most beautiful and deeply insightful postings on the entire website, and I commend them to your attention. See here and here.

If like countless others you are inspired to help the world through infinite opportunities for transformative blessings for everyone everywhere enhanced by this auspicious equinox earth-life cycle, it is important to remember that such blessings are not automatic but depend on our loving thoughts, words and deeds. The principle was succinctly stated by 19th Century Indian holy man Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, who reminds us that:

“The winds of grace are always blowing, but you have to raise the sail.”

Conclusion

We are living in extraordinarily turbulent times with immense dangers and opportunities. But we are encouraged by Rumi’s consoling wisdom:

“Do not be sad.
For God sends hope in the darkest moments. 
The heaviest rain comes from the darkest clouds.” 
~ Rumi


May we collectively view what is happening environmentally and politically as disintegration of an old world paradigm that has become painfully and harmfully obsolete, to make way for a more enlightened and elevated new age that can and will bless all life on our precious  planet.

And let us each from our unique perspectives, and with our unique propensities, lovingly ‘raise our sails to the winds of grace’ which will hasten a new golden age of peace on earth and goodwill for all.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


“Turn! Turn! Turn!” – Video.




Dealing With Death and Dying
~ Ron’s Memoirs

“In order to know through experience what happens beyond death,
you must go deep within yourself.
In meditation, the truth will come to you.”
~ Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
“As we lose our fear of leaving life,
we gain the art of living life.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Face death to live life.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Death is a vacation –
Eternal Life-force vacating a transient vehicle –
“a space-time soul suit”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“It is in dying to ego life,
that we are reborn to Eternal Life.”
~ Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi (edited by Ron Rattner)


Whats-Really-Real

Ron’s Introduction to Dealing With Death and Dying

Physical death is inevitable and natural. But when I grew up it was largely a taboo subject in American society. Most Americans feared death, believing it ended life. They usually died in hospitals or other institutions, and not at home surrounded by family. And mostly they used euphemistic language to describe death.

Though the mystery of inevitable bodily death has long been a central religious and philosophical issue, my Chicago public school and Madison Wisconsin college courses, did not encompass that mystery – nor did my Jewish education.

Both my grandmothers had died before I was born. My paternal grandfather who I hardly knew died while I was quite young and I was not brought to his funeral. Not until later adulthood did I suffer loss of any other dear person or pet, or think much about death.

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

During college days in Madison, Wisconsin, while imprudently and unskillfully swimming too far from shore in Lake Mendota, I nearly drowned and unforgettably experienced a mostly subconscious fear of death. Fortuitously, in the nick of time, I was sighted and rescued by boaters.

For many years thereafter, as a (non-swimming) relatively young and healthy person, I neither consciously confronted nor philosophically considered that innate fear of death.

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

So, I began accepting perennial Eastern ideas of reincarnation and transmigration of an eternal soul, while gradually losing fear of inevitable physical death. Then, on meeting my beloved Guru, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas (on the luckiest day of my life), I learned that from childhood he had been preoccupied with two perennial puzzles: “Who am I?” and “What is death?”; that at age thirteen, inspired by irresistible inner longing, Guruji had run away from home in search of experiential answers to those eternal questions.

Inspired by Guruji, I became religiously transformed from

“Secular Hebrew” to “Born-again Hindu” to “Uncertain Undo” and “Beyond”.

And I developed a deep curiosity and philosophical interest in the spiritual significance of death and dying, reincarnation, and karma.

Elsewhere, on SillySutras.com I have shared many experiences, essays and poems on these subjects. (See, for example, https://sillysutras.com/category/afterlife/; also https://sillysutras.com/death-afterlife-rebirth-easter-reflections-on-resurrections/)

Ultimately I concluded that cosmically there is no death; that

“Birth and death are virtual, while Divine Life as LOVE is perpetual”.

(See e.g. https://sillysutras.com/know-death-to-know-life-know-death-to-know-that-there-is-no-death/ )

Consequently, I became ever more detached and less fearful about my own inevitable (and perhaps imminent) bodily death. But, my detachment about my own demise did not negate my compassionate concern for loss of others – especially dear ones – and my wish for their auspicious transitions. This became evident when at age sixty-one I was, at long last, confronted with my dear father’s last illness and passing.

Here is what happened.

Dealing with my dear father’s last illness and death

My dear father, Harry, came into this world on December 14, 1904, with a very strong body which served him well and without serious disease or disability until age 88. Then beginning in 1993 he had a series of ailments which proved terminal.

First he suffered an extremely painful and protracted case of herpes shingles for which he was treated with Prednisone, a powerful immune system depressant, which weakened him. Soon after recovering from that affliction, while already debilitated he had an intestinal hernia injury, so painful that he was hospitalized and suffered greatly before and after emergency abdominal surgery. Then he soon developed congestive heart disease with lungs filling with liquid and mucus. And finally he was diagnosed with lung cancer – a terminal disease which he had averted despite being a three pack a day cigarette chain smoker from teen age until age sixty. Amazingly, he had will power to immediately quit smoking cigarettes on publication of the 1964 US Surgeon General’s report confirming cigarette carcinogenicity and toxicity.

My Dad had enthusiastically enjoyed his long life, especially after his retirement and move from Chicago to the California Bay Area, near his children. But he was not anxious to prolong that life while he suffered painful terminal disease. Once, when I visited him in the John Muir Hospital, sadly he confided in me: “Ron, they put dogs and cats out of misery, but make people suffer. If Doctor Kevorkian was in this area and not Michigan, he’d be my doctor.”

Though, as a law-abiding “born-again Hindu” I had mixed emotions about euthanasia, I felt great compassion for my father and wanted to do whatever would be spiritually appropriate to mitigate his suffering and assure his most auspicious possible transition. So, I consulted my Brahmin Vedic pundit-astrologer friend Pravin Jani, father of Guruji’s successor, Shri Anandi Ma.

Pravinji recommended that I recite certain Sanskrit mantras and that I make two extraordinary charitable donations dedicated to my father: first, that I give to a chosen charity a gift of actual gold – not money; and second, that I purchase and give a holy cow to an Indian ashram. So, with heartfelt compassion for my father, I began reciting the mantras and arranged the unusual donations in his honor.

First, I donated rare American eagle gold coins to New Dimensions Foundation, where I was a Board member. Then, through arrangements by my daughter Jessica who was then living on Ammachi’s Kerala ashram, I acquired and donated to the ashram a holy cow, where it was gratefully received.

“Why” you may ask “was it considered propitious to donate a cow to an Indian ashram?” Because in India cows were revered as sacred animals by millions of Hindus. Hindus believed that their Divine Avatar Krishna incarnated 5,000 years ago as an enchanting cowherd. He is often described as Bala-Gopala, “the child who protects the cows.” and as Govinda, “one who brings satisfaction to the cows.”

I learned about holy cows during my 1982 sacred pilgrimage to India. One of my most memorable images of that trip, was of stray cows roaming free and obstructing traffic on busy Calcutta streets as our tour bus approached the downtown hotel where we were staying. Later, in the holy city of Rishikesh, I communed with and kissed one of the sacred small cows on the Sivananda, Divine Life Ashram.

Holy Cow at Rishikesh 1982.1

Ron Kissing Holy Cow at Rishikesh, 1982


Many Indian ashrams and rural Indian families have at least one dairy cow, using it for milk, curds, butter, ghee and dung as fuel for pujas (ritual ceremonies). Thus, the cow remains a protected animal in Hinduism today, revered by most Hindus, who do not eat beef.

When I stayed at Ammachi’s ashram in 1992, the ashram had one cow. It’s limited dairy products were used mostly for feeding Ammachi and some swamis, but were insufficient to supply other ashram residents. However, with special dispensation, for a few days Jessica obtained for me one morning cup of curd (yoghurt) which helped heal the severe intestinal upset with which had I arrived at the ashram, suffering food poisoning from a Brahmin wedding feast in Ahmedabad. So the following year I was especially happy to repay that ashram cow’s blessing by donating another sacred cow to be its companion.

Apparently my bovine and gold donations and prayers did not prolong my father’s life. But I have faith that they helped his transition to a heavenly afterlife. When it became evident that Dad’s days here were numbered, at his request he was released from hospital to hospice care at home in March 1994.

To help, I started sleeping at my parents’ Walnut Creek apartment. On the night of March 10, 1994, sensing that Dad’s death was imminent, I stayed awake reciting Sanskrit mantras, especially a mantra recommended by Guruji for auspicious transitions of those destined to die. As I fervently recited mantras, I felt enhanced subtle energies and entered a clairsentient state. Then, though Dad was sleeping in another room, I felt the departure of his spirit. The next morning he was gone, and I helped my mother with required post-death arrangements.

My experiences after my dear father’s transition, and concluding comments about Death and Dying

That night, exhausted by the stress of prior days, I returned to San Francisco where I slept soundly in my ‘high-rise hermitage’. Just before awakening, and while I was in a semi-sleep state, my dear father fleetingly appeared in a vivid inner vision. He looked as he did during the prime of his life, rather than as a debilitated old man. Telepathically he assured me he was fine and then disappeared.

Later, when I told Indian friends what happened, they informed me that Dad had died on Maha Shivaratri (the ‘Great Night of Shiva’) considered the most auspicious holy night of the year by millions of Hindus.

Soon afterwards I received another extraordinary assurance of Dad’s favorable transition as I was driving to Shri Anandi Ma’s home in Antioch for a weekend meditation program. En route, I had picked up as passengers Anandi Ma’s parents and brother Umesh at their Berkeley apartment. Like his revered sister, Umesh then spent many hours daily in deep meditation often communing with Guruji’s ishta devata, Hindu monkey-God Lord Hanuman, considered an incarnation of Shiva.

As we traveled to Antioch, Umesh said to me: “Ron, I have a message for you from Hanumanji.” With extreme curiosity, I asked about that message. Whereupon, Umesh replied: “Hanumanji says, don’t worry about your father, we’re taking care of him.”

Six months later, on August 29, 1994, Guruji took mahasamadhi at age one hundred sixteen, and joined the heavenly host caring for my father and countless others. So, heeding Hanumanji’s assurance, I’m not concerned about my father. Instead, as I too approach the end of this precious lifetime, it is my heartfelt aspiration to help through self-purification and compassion not only family dear ones but all other suffering sentient beings with whom we energetically remain inseparably connected.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

‘Spiritual’ People In A Perfectly Crazy World

‘Spiritual’ People In A Perfectly Crazy World

“Look how the caravan of civilization
has been ambushed.

Fools are everywhere in charge.

Do not practice solitude like Jesus.

Be in the assembly, and take charge of it.”

~ Rumi
“In the present circumstances, no one can afford to assume

that someone else will solve their problems.

Every individual has a responsibility to help guide our global family in the right direction.

Good wishes are not sufficient; we must become actively engaged.”

~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama, from “The Path to Tranquility:  Daily Wisdom”
“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe’,

a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security.”

~ Albert Einstein ( N. Y. Times , March 29, 1972)
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
“Love is the highest, the grandest, the most inspiring,
the most sublime principle in creation.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“Love Is The Law Of Life:
All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction.
Love is therefore the only law of life. 
He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. 
Therefore, love for love’s sake,
because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.”

~ Swami Vivekananda



Ron’s Introduction to ‘Spiritual’ People In A Perfectly Crazy World

Dear Friends,

Happy Saint Valentine’s Day, 2024!

We are immensely privileged to have incarnated on Earth at a rare time in modern human history, as a “critical mass” of Humankind pass from violent, fearful and dark times to an age of lasting peace, light, and Love – not just annually, but every day.

During ages of ignorance and darkness we’ve unknowingly and unwittingly been imprisoned and exploited by ego-bonds of belief in a mental matrix from which we are at long last escaping and ascending incorruptible and awakened to the Divine eternal light of LOVE.

We are about to emerge from eons of outer darkness to a new age of awakened inner eternal Light; from an era of collective fearful psychoses threatening God given human rights and freedoms, to an evolutionarily “enlightened” age free from suffering and deprivation.

On our precious blue planet Earth, time is inescapable. We cannot live ego free timeless lives, in dense 3D relative “reality”. So until we transcend illusory ego mind beliefs of being separated from Divine Source, every Earthly ending is a new beginning. And the ending of eons of human bondage is an extraordinarily historic turning point, with infinite opportunities for our transcendent Self realization as Divine LOVE.  

Thus, in this new Earth age many souls will be blessed to ascend to infinitely awakened levels of awareness, by choosing to be actively engaged in emanating and radiating harmonious heart levels of love and compassion.


Here are observations by the Dalai Lama from which we may draw inspiration and motivation, counseling that we must act to solve ecological crises and restore peace “before it is too late”:


“Peace and the survival of life on earth as we know it are threatened by human activities that lack a commitment to humanitarian values. Destruction of nature and natural resources results from ignorance, greed and lack of respect for the earth’s living things.”

“This lack of respect extends even to the earth’s human descendants, the future generations who will inherit a vastly degraded planet if world peace does not become a reality, and if destruction of the natural environment continues at the present rate.”

“Our ancestors viewed the earth as rich and bountiful, which it is. Many people in the past also saw nature as inexhaustibly sustainable, which we know is the case only if we care for it.”

“It is not difficult to forgive destruction in the past which resulted from ignorance. Today, however, we have access to more information; it is essential that we re-examine ethically what we have inherited, what we are responsible for, and what we will pass on to coming generations.”

“Many of the earth’s habitats, animals, plants, insects and even micro-organisms that we know to be rare may not be known at all by future generations. We have the capability and the responsibility to act; we must do so before it is too late.”

“Just as we should cultivate gentle and peaceful relations with our fellow human beings, we should also extend that same kind of attitude towards the natural environment. Morally speaking, we should be concerned for our whole environment.”

“This, however, is not just a question of morality or ethics, but a question of our own survival. For this generation and for future generations, the environment is very important. If we exploit the environment in extreme ways, we will suffer, as will our future generations. When the environment changes, the climatic condition also changes. When the climate changes dramatically, the economy and many other things change. Our physical health will be greatly affected. Again, conservation is not merely a question of morality, but a question of our own survival.”

“Therefore, in order to achieve more effective environmental protection and conservation, internal balance within the human being himself or herself is essential. The negligence of the environment, which has resulted in great harm to the human community, resulted from our ignorance of the very special importance of the environment. We must now help people to understand the need for environmental protection. We must teach people to understand the need for environmental protection. We must teach people that conservation directly aids our survival.”

“If you must be selfish, then be wise and not narrow-minded in your selfishness. The key point lies in the sense of universal responsibility. That is the real source of strength, the real source of happiness. If we exploit everything available, such as trees, water and minerals, and if we don’t plan for our next generation, for the future, then we’re at fault, aren’t we? However, if we have a genuine sense of universal responsibility as our central motivation, then our relations with the environment, and with all our neighbours, will be well balanced.”

“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment must come from the human heart. The key point is a call for a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”

(From “Humanity and Ecology”, © 1988, The Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama)

Ron’s Comments on ‘Spiritual’ People In A Perfectly Crazy World

Thus this an exceptional era for people who intuitively experience our spiritual common essence and nature to become engaged.



We live in an age of mental malaise; the Hindus call it Kaliyuga. Our precious planet is polluted by human ignorance and greed.


“The more that money rules the World,
the more that money ruins the World.”



We have degenerated into an insane society, unconsciously committing mass suicide by ecocide.



Unrestrained human consumption exploits vulnerable people and depletes finite planetary resources which sustain life. Billions of people suffer needless poverty, starvation and avoidable disease, while obscenely privileged oligarchs greedily acquire power and excessive material wealth far beyond their conceivable needs.



Earth-life as we known it is threatened by environmental catastrophe or nuclear annihilation, precipitated by corrupt world “leaders” who are
destroying the life support systems which sustain us.



Even in “advanced” countries, it is virtually impossible now to breath air or drink water which is not in some way polluted by our species. Agricultural soils have been depleted and corrupted. Global weather patterns and hydrologic systems have been materially disrupted by human activities; protective atmospheric ozone is being depleted. Glaciers are melting; long frozen Arctic tundra is thawing. Though non-polluting alternative technologies are available and feasible they are considered “economically” impractical.



By “bio-engineering” living organisms we are even tampering and blindly experimenting with our genetic origins. From birth (and even prenatally) every person’s body/mind is polluted by numerous and ubiquitous manmade chemical and radioactive materials, many of which are carcinogenic.



Many species are rapidly becoming extinct. Around the world, thousands of birds are suddenly falling dead out of the sky, and countless dead fish are appearing on shores of rivers, lakes and oceans. The oceans are polluted with our detritus, and much marine life is threatened. Even remote Arctic polar bears are becoming hermaphroditic because of phthalates and other chemicals dispersed by humankind, and they are threatened with destruction of the ecosystem on which they depend for survival. [See http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/toxic-waste-creates-hermaphrodite-arctic-polar-bears-5336813.html]



So, as we widen our circle of compassion to embrace the whole of Nature and all living creatures, it becomes apparent that as the Dalai Lama observes we must “become actively engaged” to avert imminent ecological catastrophe.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

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”
.


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

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



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




Cosmology Mythology ~
From Beyond The Beginning,
To The Beginning And Beyond
~ Ron’s Memoirs

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth
And the earth was without form and void
And darkness was upon the face of the deep
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters
And God said ‘Let there be light’; and there was light
And God saw the light, that it was good
And God divided the light from the darkness”
~ Genesis 1:1-4
“We never cease to stand like curious children
before the great Mystery into which we were born.”
~ Albert Einstein




Ron’s Introduction to “Cosmology Mythology ~ From Beyond The Beginning, To The Beginning And Beyond”

Dear Friends,

From my present perspective at age ninety one, I’m continuing to emphasize prior memoirs postings which are spiritually fundamental. So I’ve posted today with “Cosmology Mythology ~ From Beyond The Beginning, To The Beginning And Beyond”, an enquiring poem ‘channeled’ during my reclusive post-retirement period beginning thirty years ago.

After only believing that I was merely my mortal physical body, its thoughts and story, at midlife (in 1976) I awakened to previously unimagined spiritual Self identity as pure consciousness.

Thereafter I soon synchronistically experienced a miraculous 1977 week in New York from which I began wondering about the reality of our earthly time, space and duality third dimension [3D] planet.

On returning to San Francisco from that miraculous week in New York, I began believing that our earthly time, space and duality existence is just an illusionary dream-like mirage. And I wanted to know: 1) how and when time began; and 2) whether there really are any earthly coincidences or accidents, or if everything that happens to us is predestined by laws of cause or karma.

Thereafter, I became experientially persuaded that our ever impermanent space/time duality causality reality – often called samsara or maya – is an endless illusionary projection of a mysterious Infinite Potentiality beyond conception, comprehension, or description. And that from the unavoidable ego-mind illusion of earthly third dimension [3D] time, space, and duality we are all, without exception, experiencing spiritual transformation and Awakened Eternal existence as ONE Divine LOVE .

I discovered and accepted Eastern Advaita-Vedanta non-duality philosophy, and similar non-duality teachings of Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism, that the universe and time originated simultaneously from a state of emptiness or non-existence in a sort of cosmological “big bang”; that all that ever was, is, or will be is NOW.

The following “Cosmology Mythology” poem was inspired by my curiosity and intuitive speculation on how and why cosmic creation originated.

For reasons hereafter discussed and dedicated, I offer it for your inspiration and deep reflection.


Cosmology Mythology ~
From Beyond The Beginning,
To The Beginning And Beyond

Eternal Mystery:
Pure potentiality;
Infinite intelligence;
Plenum void, pregnant with cosmological constancy,

Matrix intending to manifest,
To realize and actualize infinite potentiality.

Aum thought –
Creation vibration:
Bursting brilliance of brightest light,
Ending endlesss night.

Silence sounding in
Ever resounding
Symphony of spheres.

Spiraling stardust:
Agglomerating and growing,
Glowing and flowing,
Cosmically, consciously,
Systemically, siderealy,
Galactically, fractally, spherically.

Mystery manifest
as life-formed multiplicities:
Rotating, revolving and
Ever evolving —
To complexities from simplicities.

Infinite Intelligence
Exploring, and communing –
With Itself,

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

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



Ron’s audio recitation of “Cosmology Mythology ~
From Beyond The Beginning, To The Beginning And Beyond”

Listen to



Ron’s explanation of “Cosmology Mythology ~
From Beyond The Beginning, To The Beginning And Beyond”


Dear Friends,

After my midlife spiritual awakening to Self-identity as Awareness, I rejected and ended previous beliefs about “Reality” and became very curious about how and why our cosmos was created.  

So introspectively I began wondering, e.g.:

“Did the cosmos appear from emptiness? 
What was its source – its matrix?  
Was it divinely created?  If so, why?
Did anything exist beyond its beginning? 
Will it ever end?  If so, will it begin again? 
What is its purpose, if any?” 



For example, while so wondering I composed  this metaphoric verse:

Life is a metaphoric metamorphosis process.

Gleaning meaning in matter,

we learn all that matters —

we learn all that matters is

LOVE!

Whether or not the foregoing Cosmology Mythology intuited verses ring true for you, may they inspire our wonder and amazement about our precious lives on this beautiful blue planet.  And thus, may they help us transcend long outdated beliefs about supposedly material reality which impede our reverential realization of ONE timeless spiritual Reality beyond materiality – a Universal Intelligence about which Albert Einstein observed:  


“We never cease to stand like curious children
before the great Mystery into which we were born.”

Dedication

May this Cosmology sutra-poem and mp3 recitation
encourage and inspire our deepest awe and gratitude
for our precious lives on this beautiful blue planet,
bringing us ever expanding fulfillment and happiness,
until our ultimate transcendence
of this permanently impermanent earth world
of space, time and duality
as ONE Divine LOVE.

 



And so may it be!


Ron Rattner

New Paradigm-ism

“I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, and Confucian.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“I have learned so much from God
That I can no longer call myself
a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew”
~ Hafiz
“Not Christian or Jew or Muslim,
 not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or Zen.
Not any religion, or cultural system.
 I am not from the East or the West,nor out of the ocean or up 
from the ground,
not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all.
I do not exist, am not an entity in this world
 or the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve 
or any origin story.
My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless.
 Neither body nor soul.
I belong to the beloved
 have seen the two worlds as one 
and that one call to and know,
First, last, outer, inner, only that 
breath breathing human.”
~ Rumi, ‘Only Breath’
“Wherever I look, I see men quarreling in the name of religion — Hindus, Mohammendans, Brahmos, Vaishnavas, and the rest.
But they never reflect that He who is called Krishna is also called Siva, and bears the name of the Primal Energy, Jesus, and Allah as well–
the same Rama with a thousand names.
A lake has several ghats.
At one the Hindus take water in pitchers and call it ‘jal’; at another the Mussalmans take water in leather bags and call it ‘pani’. At a third the Christians call it ‘water’.
Can we imagine that it is not ‘jal’, but only ‘pani’ or ‘water’?
How ridiculous! The substance is One under different names, and everyone is seeking the same substance;
only climate, temperament, and name create differences.
Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him!
He will surely realize Him.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion.
It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology.
Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Today, … any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal,
and so will be inadequate.” . . .
“[T]he time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”

~ Dalai Lama
“Irrevocable commitment to any one religion is not only intellectual suicide;
 it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world.”
~ Alan Watts
“The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.”

~ J. Krishnamurti
“If there is love in your heart you don’t have to worry about rules.”
~ Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find
 all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.”
~ Rumi
“Follow dharma, not dogma.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings





Ron’s Introduction to “New Paradigm-ism”

Dear Friends,

Soon after my midlife spiritual awakening I began wondering with concern why Western monotheistic fundamentalism had often resulted in religious crusades, inquisitions, and jihads against alleged heretics or nonbelievers in a supposed one true Messiah or God.
And I soon learned that some Eastern religions have violent fundamentalist sects. [see https://sillysutras.com/monistic-musings-reflections-and-questions-on-god-and-divinity/]

The following sutra essay/poem (with mp3 recitation) is about our need for a new societal paradigm of universal kindness and compassion beyond religion.
Composed long before launching of the SillySutras website, it was later posted online with the above quotations, encouraged by publication of the Dalai Lama’s book Beyond Religion: Ethics For A Whole World.

On composing and later posting this sutra/poem, with quotations, I was concerned about unjust racist, religious, political, and economic ideologies, which are explained in the poem, and in my following dedication comments urging that humankind harmoniously live together as LOVE.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


New Paradigm-ism

Let’s get beyond
Catholicism – Protestantism – Judaism – Mohammedanism –
Hinduism – Buddhism – Taoism – Confucianism – Shamanism

And all other belief “isms”.

It’s time to end
religious ism schisms.

It’s time to blend religion-ism
with syncretism.

So, let us transcend
Ism dogmatism

And live ismlessly as

LOVE!



Ron’s audio explanation and recitation of “New Paradigm”-ism

Listen to



Ron’s explanation and dedication of “New Paradigm”-ism

As explained in the above Introduction, “New Paradigm-ism” was first posted with concern about evils perpetrated in the name of fundamentalist religious beliefs.
And as a deeply dedicated social justice advocate I’ve long been bothered by
unjust racist, religious, political, and economic ideologies, that also foment ignorant fears and violence, because (as wisely written by Dr. Martin Luther King while wrongfully jailed in Selma, Alabama), “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

This is so because:

In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.
~ Mark Twain, Autobiography


Thus this posting is respectfully dedicated to inspiring our compassionate beliefs and behaviors, learned from our unique life experiences, that advance humankind’s inevitable transcendence of unjust racist, religious, political, and economic ideologies, so we may harmoniously live together as LOVE.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

Gandhi’s Words of Wisdom

“My life is my message”
~ Mahatma Gandhi


Mahatma Gandhi
(October 2, 1869 – January 30, 1948)


Introduction

Mohandas K. Gandhi was born in India on October 2, 1869, one hundred fifty four years ago. He came to be known and loved by the Indian people and worldwide as “Mahatma”, an honorary Sanskrit term meaning “Great Soul”, like the term “Saint” in Christianity.

During his lifetime, he was recognized as father of Indian democracy, a monumental accomplishment achieved through non-violent relentless pursuit of Truth as God (satyagraha). Gandhi changed himself to change the world by being the change he wanted see.

Though Mahatma Gandhi realized that his life was his message, he often wrote (or was quoted about) his philosophical ideas on subjects of perennial importance. Because Gandhi walked his talk authentically, peacefully, and universally, his words – like his humble life – will be remembered for centuries, and will continue to inspire and actuate countless millions of people worldwide.

So, in tribute to this great soul, let us recall some of his inspiring words of wisdom:

Gandhi’s Words of Wisdom

“My life is my message”

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

“In a gentle way you can shake the world..”

“You may never know what results come of your actions,

but if you do nothing, there will be no results.”

“If we are to make progress,
we must not repeat history but make new history.
We must add to inheritance left by our ancestors.”

“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

“A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes.”

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


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

“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”

“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”

“I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.”

“Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its corruption and lawlessness.”

“There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for.”

“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”

“Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.”

“Prayer has saved my life, without it I should have been a lunatic long ago. I feel that as food is indispensable for the body so was prayer indispensable for the soul. I find solace in life and in prayer. With the Grace of God everything can be achieved. When His Grace filled one’s being nothing was impossible for one to achieve.”

“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…”

“It is my constant prayer that I may never have a feeling of anger against my traducers, that even if I fall a victim to an assassin’s bullet, I may deliver my soul with the remembrance of God upon my lips.”

“All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.”

“My religion is based on truth and nonviolence. Truth is my God. Nonviolence is the means of realizing Him.”

“Nonviolence succeeds only when we have a real living faith in God.”

“My faith runs so very much faster than my reason that I can challenge the whole world and say, ‘God is, was and ever shall be’.”

“Spiritual relationship is far more precious than physical. Physical relationship divorced from spiritual is body without soul.”

“A man with a grain of faith in God never loses hope, because he ever believes in the ultimate triumph of Truth.”

”Nonviolence is the greatest force man has been endowed with.

Truth is the only goal he has. For God is none other than Truth.

But Truth cannot be, never will be, reached except through nonviolence…

That which distinguishes man from all other animals is his capacity to be non-violent.

And he fulfills his mission only to the extent that he is non-violent and no more.“

“I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist and Confucian.”

“Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.”

“I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”

“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”

”Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”

“I cannot think of permanent enmity between man and man, and believing as I do in the theory of reincarnation, I live in the hope that if not in this birth, in some other birth I shall be able to hug all of humanity in friendly embrace.”

“Nonviolence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.”

“Nonviolence is not a cloistered virtue to be practiced by the individual for his peace and final salvation, but it is a rule of conduct for society. To practice nonviolence in mundane matters is to know its true value. It is to bring heaven upon earth. I hold it therefore to be wrong to limit the use of nonviolence to cave dwellers [hermits] and for acquiring merit for a favored position in the other world. All virtue ceases to have use if it serves no purpose in every walk of life.”

“It is no nonviolence if we merely love those that love us. It is nonviolence only when we love those that hate us. I know how difficult it is to follow this grand law of love. But are not all-great and good things difficult to do? Love of the hater is the most difficult of all. But by the grace of God even this most difficult thing becomes easy to accomplish if we want to do it.” (From a private letter, dated 31-12-34.)

“To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face, one must be able to love the meanest of all creation as oneself.”

Ahimsa is not the crude thing it has been made to appear. Not to hurt any living thing is no doubt a part of ahimsa. But it is its least expression. The principle of ahimsa is hurt by every evil thought, by undue haste, by lying, by hatred, by wishing ill to anybody. It is also violated by our holding on to what the world needs.”

“I do not believe…that an individual may gain spiritually and those who surround him suffer. I believe in advaita, I believe in the essential unity of man and, for that matter, of all that lives. Therefore, I believe that if one man gains spiritually, the whole world gains with him and, if one man falls, the whole world falls to that extent.”

“I do not believe that the spiritual law works on a field of its own. On the contrary, it expresses itself only through the ordinary activities of life. It thus affects the economic, the social and the political fields.”

“Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics,

do not know what religion is.”

“Suffering, cheerfully endured, ceases to be suffering and is transmuted into an ineffable joy.”

“The goal ever recedes from us. The greater the progress the greater the recognition of our unworthiness. Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.”

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

“In the dictionary of the seeker of truth there is no such thing as being ‘not successful’. He is or should be an irrepressible optimist, because of his immovable faith in the ultimate victory of Truth, which is God.”

“What do I think of Western civilization?
I think it would be a very good idea.”


Dedication and Invocation

As a blessing, may we deeply reflect on Gandhi’s enduring philosophy and exemplary life.

Thereby, like this Great Soul, may we be inspired “from the deepest recesses of the heart” to live in “in a gentle way” that nonviolently blesses all life everywhere as Truth and LOVE.  

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner