Divinity
Say I am You ~ by Rumi
“There is no reality but God,
says the completely surrendered sheik,
who is an ocean for all beings.”
~ Rumi
Say I am You ~ by Rumi
I am dust particles in sunlight,
I am the round sun.
To the bits of dust I say, Stay.
To the sun, Keep moving.
I am morning mist,
and the breathing of evening.
I am wind in the top of a grove,
and surf on the cliff.
Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.
I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.
The musical air coming through a flute,
a spark of stone, a flickering
in metal. Both candle,
and the moth crazy around it.
Rose, and the nightingale
lost in the fragrance.
I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy,
the evolutionary intelligence, the lift,
and the falling away. What is,
and what isn’t. You who know
Jelaluddin, You the one
in all, say who
I am. Say I
am You.
(Translation by Coleman Barks)
Presence – Our Greatest Gift
“My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
~ Exodus 33:14
“What is God? The eternal one life underneath all the forms of life. What is love? To feel the presence of the one life deep within yourself and all creatures; to be it! Therefore, all love is the love of God.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
The Tao is called the Great Mother: empty yet inexhaustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds. It is always present within you. You can use it any way you want.
~ Lao Tzu
As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others.
~ Marianne Williamson
“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why we call it ‘The Present’.”
~ Eleanor Roosevelt (and others)
You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present.
~ Eckhart Tolle
Presence – Our Greatest Gift
Each person has different
talents, interests and abilities.
But, all people share
one common gift:
Consciousness, awareness, presence.
Life’s essence is Presence.
Presence is our greatest gift.
And the greatest gift we’ve been given,
Is the greatest gift we can give –
NOW and forever.
Ron’s audio recitation of Presence – Our Greatest Gift
Human Fallibility and Divine “Perfection” ~ Ron’s Memoirs
“Follow your heart, even if it contradicts my words”
~ Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
~ Buddha
“All is Perfection,
but nobody’s perfect.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Incarnation is limitation.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“All people are flawed;
None are perfect.
But the most flawed,
Are those who claim or think they’re perfect.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
Many of us have faith in an omnipresent and omniscient Divine Perfection which is beyond comprehension, imagination or description. And, knowingly or unknowingly, we seek such Perfection here on Earth. But in our phenomenal duality reality “perfection” is an idea, which implies it’s opposite – imperfection. We can’t have one, without the other. So, a “perfect” person isn’t possible.
[see, e.g. https://sillysutras.com/is-personal-perfection-possible/ ]
Some of us may be blessed to meet inspiring spiritual teachers, gurus or saintly people on whom we may project and, accordingly, in whom we may perceive perfection. I have done this with my beloved and venerable Hindu guru, Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, and with a few other “enlightened” spiritual teachers. But, ultimately, I have learned from inner and outer experience that incarnation is limitation, and that however evolved an incarnate being may be s/he is fallible. Here on Earth, where we experience life via physical bodies, it seems that human fallibility ‘goes with the territory’ – that “to err is human”.
Once while my friend Joy Massa was walking in the woods with our beloved Guruji, Dhyanyogi, he advised Joy:
“Follow your heart, even if it contradicts my words”.
This teaching was exceptionally noteworthy in view of the ancient Hindu tradition of complete surrender to the Guru. So I have reflected much about Guruji’s extraordinary message to Joy. And I have particularly wondered why Guruji did not directly give that profound teaching to most other disciples – including Ron.
I believe that when Guruji gave us personal teachings, they were appropriate to our particular state of evolution and to our unique karmic constraints. Thus, Guruji was especially encouraging Joy – an exceptionally intellectual person – to honor her ‘inner’ Guru’ over her intellect or outer authorities. Joy already was quite skeptical of outer religious authority and e.g. had rejected certain Catholic Church dogma, such as Papal infallibility.
Moreover, it appears that despite Guruji’s highly elevated state of evolution and extraordinary powers, he was acknowledging to Joy – with rare saintly humility – even his own earthly limitations.
In my experience, while living in this ever changing world, we need to rely vigilantly both on our powers of discrimination and on our divine intuitive insights. But, that whenever in doubt, it is wise for us to to honor intuition over intellect, and to find guidance in our heart – not our head; and, that we must still our mind so as to hear our heart, instead of listening to the ‘voice in our head’. Accessing our inner wisdom helps transcend many earthly limitations and to solve problems created by lower levels of human consciousness.
Here is an apt and insightful essay by spiritual author and teacher Andreas Mamet, entitled “The Braid”. *[see footnote]
The Braid
by Andreas Mamet
Our quest for spiritual empowerment has at its core the association with those who we believe can assist us in our endeavors by virtue of their accomplishments. For this reason, we seek out teachers and gurus.
When we imagine how an accomplished teacher might look like or behave, we draw many inferences from our Judeo-Christian belief system, which describes God as perfect and infallible. We conclude that a person who experiences nearness to God, or even full God-Realization, is infallible. We believe that such a person is perfect in making decisions and can do no wrong. This is what I believed three decades ago, at the beginning of my spiritual journey. Now, almost 30 years later, after much observation, I have come to think otherwise. Mistakes do not stop after an individual becomes God-Realized or finds her/himself emanating more and more Divine Light. Errors of judgment remain a possibility. This was one of the more surprising realizations for me, as I believed in the myth of infallibility.
This myth is promoted often by the priest archetype, the “god professional,” in as much the following illusion is projected: God is infallible. I am close to God. Thus, I am infallible, and you need to do exactly as I say. This defines very much the traditional guru-disciple relationship of olden days, reaching into our present. It is, however, to be noted that recent decades have shown many instances wherein gurus have imploded their structures by making decisions that, in the end, displayed poor judgment and created havoc. This left their disciples spinning, forced to wonder what happened here and come to their own conclusions or responses.
One response was that the guru or teacher is so enlightened that he merely gave this experience to us as lesson to learn. That is the “denial response,” seeking to uphold the illusion of the infallible master, justifying the continuing, uncritical association of the individual with the guru arechetype. The stance of total devotion and surrender is maintained.
There is a story that deals with the theme of total surrender as is often asked of the disciple archetype. Gurdjieff, a spiritual teacher at the beginning of the twentieth century, was on a trip by car. At one point the lights stopped working, and Gurdijieff asked his disciple to sit on the hood of the car and hold a flashlight. The disciple was about to climb up to do as asked when Gurdjieff stopped him, asking, “Does it not occur to you that this is a completely idiotic request?”
Yes, there are beings who are very close to the Divine. They emanate qualities that are breathtaking. When you come into their company, powerful experiences take place instantly. It is those experiences that lead us to assume the teacher is perfect, a satguru. This assumption is an illusion. Yes, enlightenrnent may be there. But infallibility is not.
This puts the entire concept of unconditional surrender out of commission. It places upon us the need for total responsibility and minute-to-minute alertness. We are to wake up from the sleep that lets somebody else tell us what to do and how to act. Every second, we are required to display intelligent wisdom, discernment, and accept or reject what is placed before us on the grounds of this discernment. Had the Gurdjieff disciple displayed this (hard-to-attain) ability, he would have told Gurdjieff, “No.”
But, to reject the action of a being we feel is God-Realized or God-Near is a most difficult thing. We are prepared to sacrifice our common sense and intelligent discernment for an act of idiocy if we believe that God is merely testing us. To reject a Buddha is most difficult. “When you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!” The Buddha himself said that. What does this mean? It means that after a thorough and deep relationship with an awakened being, the attachment is so huge, it becomes an obstacle in the disciple’s process of liberation.
This is the image that I have created for myself to understand what happens in the arising of God-Nearness: It is like a braid. You take one strand of hair and braid it with another strand of hair. The strands become completely intertwined, utterly close … one section, the human; the next, the Divine.
This, to me, represents the reality of things. Hence, the entire system of Asian teachers, Tibetan lamas, and others based on surrendering to a “high consciousness” are promoting an illusion. I feel we have entered an era wherein this illusion will be revealed. The fact of the remaining humanness of the one who experiences God-Nearness will become more evident, and the old, traditional system of unconditional surrender will be recognized as inappropriate. It will gradually disappear.
This creates a problem of different kind. It remains a fact that there are those who, on the grounds of superior and long-established practice, have indeed generated a God-Nearness that supersedes our own. This simply has to be admitted and acknowledged. Respect is due where respect is due. It should be expressed. When a transmission of light and wisdom is given, respect and gratitude are to be given in return.
But we should be able to turn on a dime. The second a teaching or request is expressed that is inappropriate or simply painfully outdated (women on the left, men on the right, old patriarchal illusions and power structures promoted), it should be challenged on the spot. In this way, old traditions that simultaneously carry blessings and ignorance are stimulated by infusions of needed reform. Teachers who carry blessings and unreflected garbage of olden days are given food for thought. If these infusions are not accepted, considered to be sacrilegious gestures, then we should be willing to turn on our heels and walk.
In the end, the Divine Experience will come to us on the grounds of our longing for it. That is the basis. The longing for the Divine will fill our body with the experience of the Divine. Translate your longing into fervent, ceaseless practice. Call the Divine until the Divine is tired of hearing your voice and descends into your body completely to get rid of your crying.
* Andreas Mamet’s other writings can found on his blog and Facebook pages.
Ron’s Conclusion
Ultimate Truth is Mystery – unimaginable and intellectually inexpressible.
But, highest wisdom pointing us to that Mystery, is implicit in Shri Dhyanyogi’s precious teaching “Follow your heart, even if it contradicts my words”; it guides us to “Seek first the kingdom of heaven, which is within.” ~ Matthew 6:33; Luke 17:20-21
Heeding that wisdom, may each of us look within and ultimately be guided by our divine intuition – our sacred Heart, rather than by fallible ‘outer authorities’.
And so shall it be!
Love is Our New Religion
“There is only one religion,
the religion of Love.”
~ Sathya Sai Baba
“Our purpose is process –
Metamorphic process.
Gleaning meaning in matter,
We learn all that matters –
We learn all that matters is LOVE!”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Love is joyous consciousness.
That consciousness is the Creator,
and it is out of Love and joy
that (S)He creates.”
~ Swami Amar Jyoti
Ron’s Introduction
Knowingly or unknowingly, we are awakening to our true Essence and nature, which is LOVE. As we awaken we are co-creating an ever better reality – as we intend, intuit, and imagine it to be.
Spiritual author and teacher Brian Piergrossi has beautifully captured and communicated our re-awakening to LOVE with his poem “Love is the New Religion” .
Thanks to Aluna Joy Yaxkin and harpist Peter Sterling,
Brian’s powerful message is displayed with beautiful multimedia, photography and music on a You Tube video.
Here is the video version:
Here is an edited version of Brian’s poem:
Love is the New Religion
On the surface of our world right now
There is war, violence, and craziness
And things may seem dark.
But calmly and quietly
At the same time
Something is happening underground.
An inner revolution is taking place
And certain individuals
Are being called to a higher light.
It is a silent revolution
From the inside out
From the ground up.
This is a global co-operation
That has sleeper cells in every nation.
It is a planetary Spiritual Conspiracy.
You won’t likely see us on T.V.
You won’t read about us in the newspaper.
You won’t hear from us on the radio.
We don’t seek glory.
We don’t wear any uniform. We come in all shapes and sizes, colors and styles.
We are in every country and culture of the world
In cities big and small, mountains and valleys
In farms and villages, tribes and remote islands.
Most of us work anonymously
Seeking not recognition of name
But profound transformation of life.
Working quietly behind the scenes
You could pass by one of us on the street
And not even notice.
We go undercover
Not concerned for who takes the final credit
But simply that the work gets done.
Many of us may seem to have normal jobs.
But behind the external storefront
Is where the deeper work takes a place.
With the individual and collective power
Of our minds and hearts
We spread passion, knowledge, and joy to all.
Some call us the Conscious Army
As together
We co-create a new world.
Our orders come from the Spiritual Intelligence Agency
Instructing us to drop soft, secret love bombs
when no one is looking.
Poems ~ Hugs ~ Music ~ Photography ~ Smiles ~ Kind words Movies ~ Meditation and prayer ~ Dance ~ Websites Social activism ~ Blogs ~ Random acts of kindness…
We each express ourselves
In our own unique ways
With our own unique gifts and talents.
“Be the change you want to see in the world”
That is the motto that fills our hearts.
We know this is the path to profound transformation.
We know that quietly and humbly
Individually and collectively
We have the power of all the oceans combined.
At first glance our work is not even visible.
It is slow and meticulous
Like the formation of mountains.
And yet with our combined efforts
Entire tectonic plates
Are being shaped and moved for centuries to come.
Love is the religion we come to share
And you don’t need to be highly educated
Or have exceptional knowledge to understand it.
Love arises from the intelligence of the heart
Embedded in the timeless evolutionary pulse
Of all living beings.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
Nobody else can do it for you.
Yet don’t forget, we are all here supporting you.
We are now recruiting.
Perhaps you will join us
Or already have.
For in this spiritual conspiracy
All are welcome, and all are loved.
The door is always open.
Invocation
May the Universe empower us to realize together our common dream for an ever better world – where LOVE is our common religion, blessing everyone everywhere.
And so shall it be!
“Be Here Now”, “Rama”, and Rainbow Synchronicity ~ Ron’s Memoirs
How can the divine Oneness be seen?
In beautiful forms, breathtaking wonders, awe-inspiring miracles?
The Tao is not obliged to present itself in this way.
If you are willing to be lived by it, you will see it everywhere,
even in the most ordinary things.
~ Lao Tzu
Gandhi’s appearance as my inner guide began a synchronistic sequence of connections with Hindu teachings and teachers.
Soon after est and Silva, Allen Chase, the same friend who had urged me to take the est training, successfully importuned me to read a book called “Be Here Now”. It told about the spiritual transformation of Dr. Richard Alpert, Harvard Ph.D, into Baba Ram Dass, a Western teacher of Eastern wisdom, after meeting his Hindu guru – Neem Karoli Baba.
“Be Here Now” was my first memorable exposure to Hindu and other Eastern teachings. It was for me an extraordinary book, unlike any other I’d ever before seen or read. Filled with beautiful calligraphy, art, and photos, it imaginatively presented a fascinating melange of Eastern ideas previously unknown to me.
“Be Here Now” concluded with a sort of spiritual ‘cook book’ section, with many suggestions and ‘recipes’ for various spiritual practices. Some suggestions interested me though I didn’t immediately adopt any of them. But the book planted seeds for spiritual practices which I later adopted. The first of these practices – simple repetition as a mantra of the word “Rama”, a Hindu name for God – soon manifested in my life, in a surprising way and with remarkable continuing consequences.
Shortly after reading “Be Here Now”, in June 1977 I spent several days in Honolulu, Hawaii, where I was taking depositions. I stayed at a beautiful hotel on the outskirts of the city near a state park, and I decided to linger for the weekend after conclusion of the depositions.
Returning to the hotel after the depositions, I had time for a late Friday afternoon walk in the state park which was a ‘jungle-like’ hillside area of lush tropical plant-life. Dressed only in very light clothing, I began walking upward on a narrow trail into the tropical wilderness area.
As I walked up, I ‘spaced-out’ and stopped paying close attention to the trail or the environment. After a while I suddenly realized that I had left the trail and was lost in the ‘jungle’; and, that it was getting late and soon would be night-time. I unsuccessfully searched for a trail through the seemingly impassible jungle undergrowth, which would guide me down and out of the hillside wilderness area. But I couldn’t find any path. Gradually, I became more and more apprehensive, afraid of being lost there, hungry and chilled through the night, without the comfort of my luxurious hotel accommodations.
Then something extraordinary happened. For the first time in my life, spurred by fear I began, spontaneously repeating out loud “Rama, Rama, Rama, Rama…” – thereby urgently invoking some Divine solution to my dilemma. And soon I experienced an “Ahaa moment” providing that solution.
Suddenly, I realized that a shallow meandering mountain stream which I had been crossing was flowing down the hill and out into the ocean. I stepped gingerly into the rocky stream bed and followed its twisting path down and out of the jungle park.
As I walked downward in the stream bed I kept repeating “Rama” “Rama”, “Rama”, “Rama”…….until I was out of the nature area and back at my hotel, just before dinner time.
Retrospectively, I now view this experience as an important metaphoric message for me and perhaps others on a spiritual path, who may feel fearful or lost and unable to find or reach their Divine destination: “What you seek is in plain (in)sight. So, fear not and stop searching in all directions. Just let go, and go with the flow”.
On returning to my hotel room, I felt extraordinarily peaceful, but very “strange” and different than ever before. In this strange state, as I was about to get ready for dinner, I gazed into a large dressing room mirror and beheld in amazement my image reflected as never before. I perceived my face and head enveloped in a beautiful multi-colored aura, like auras I had seen portrayed on some ancient religious icons.
Thereupon, instead of going down for dinner in a hotel restaurant, I sat for hours virtually thoughtless on a dressing room bench intently gazing in wonder at my mirrored auric image.
On awakening Saturday morning, I immediately recalled with wonder this unprecedented experience. Whereupon, there ensued an inner dialogue between a “voice in my head” and my intuition. Every time my heart was uplifted by recalling that beautiful experience, the ‘voice’ told me that I’d been hallucinating, and hadn’t really seen anything unusual. So, I went out to the beach that morning in a state of mental confusion.
It was a beautiful calm and sunny day with a few white wispy clouds in the sky. But my mind was not calm. As I sat in the sand, I kept wondering whether or not I had really seen that beautiful multi-colored aura. But finally I intuitively resolved my inner debate, and thought: “Yes, it definitely was a ‘real’ aura, but I’m not sure I remember all its beautiful colors. What were they?”
Thereupon, I looked up and beheld a lovely rainbow, with the very same colors I’d seen in the aura. While I had been lost in thought, a couple of dark clouds had appeared with a quickly passing light tropical shower, leaving in its wake the fleeting rainbow.
I took the sudden appearance of the rainbow as Divine confirmation of my aura experience. Retrospectively, I see that the rainbow’s unexpected appearance, was one of innumerable continuing synchronicities which have blessed and guided my inner transformation process and given clues for my ever unfolding spiritual mystery story, which I will continue sharing with you.
Beholding The Eternal Light Of Consciousness ~ Ron’s Memoirs
“There is a light that shines beyond all things on Earth, …
beyond the highest, the very highest heavens.
This is the light that shines in your Heart.”
~Chandogya Upanishad 3.13.7
“Beholding the higher light beyond the darkness
we came to the divine light Sun in the Godhead,
to the highest light of all.”
~ Rig Veda
“You are the light of the world.”
~ Matthew 5:14
Every particle of the world is a mirror.
In each atom lies the blazing light of a thousand suns.
~ Mahmud Shabestari, Sufi Mystic, 15th century.
Beholding The Eternal Light Of Consciousness
Though I’ve always loved walking in nature, such walks rarely happened during my married years, as it was not an interest shared by my wife. But soon after our divorce, in summer 1976 I vacationed at Yosemite National Park, where for the first time I spent days hiking in the Sierra Nevada high country, while sleeping and eating at various park tent camps at differing elevations.
I arrived at Yosemite with many new questions arising from recent re-awakening and high energy experiences, and left with even more new experiences and new questions. But an amazing, unforgettable and unforeseen answer to one question – “Why I am crying so much?” – was soon bestowed.
After spending my first night at Merced Lake, the lowest elevation Yosemite tent camp, the next day I hiked over ten miles and more than two thousand feet upward to one of the highest camps, Sunrise, where I arrived just before sunset. I was assigned a bunk where I deposited my backpack, and then decided to ascend to the summit of a ten thousand foot granite dome adjoining the camp.
As I climbed up I felt unusually invigorated yet tired from hours of hiking. On reaching the summit of the granite dome, it seemed as if I was on top of the world. It was the end of a glorious clear summer day in Sierra Nevada high country. Turning southward, I beheld a magnificent mountain vista of the Cathedral Range.
The extraordinary beauty of that alpine panorama at sunset seemed unworldly, and evoked for me strange feelings of déjà vu – of being in the Himalyas – and of entering ‘God’s cathedral’. Spontaneously I began sobbing and crying intensely torrential tears.
Then, completely overcome with emotion, suddenly and instinctively I threw my body to the ground and with crying eyes closed, silently importuned a momentous request. Earnestly addressing the Highest Power with utmost urgency, I implored: “Take me. Take me now. I want nothing more; there is nothing more left for me in this life!”.
Whereupon, I beheld within an unimaginably intense and ethereal effulgence, which I can only now describe as the ‘light of ten thousand suns’. Ancient Vedic scriptures have thus alluded to this inner light:
“If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One –.”
Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 11, Verse 12
Until that transformative inner light revelation at Yosemite, I had been puzzled about why I had continued crying so much since the realization that I was pure Awareness – not my body, my thoughts or my story. Sadness at the divorce was not an adequate explanation for what was happening to me. But the puzzlement began resolving with that unforgettable Yosemite inner light revelation.
Before Yosemite my intense crying had begun with the realization that I was pure Awareness. And at Yosemite while suddenly and intensely crying and yearning to end my ‘imagined’ sojourn in this world, I beheld the transcendental Light of that Awareness.
My tears then were not tears of sadness, but tears of intense longing to merge with that Light, and so to end the illusion of separation from it. I had beheld Divinity in that magnificent panorama of God’s cathedral, and with all my Heart intensely yearned to be eternally merged with it.
But this realization of why I was crying, raised a new mystery: “How could it be that a secular lawyer who hadn’t cried or fervently prayed during his entire adult life, was now intensely crying and praying for God?”
Ultimately, I learned that I had been graced with “the gift of tears” – a blessed spiritual path of longing and crying for the Divine associated for millennia with devotional mystics in Catholicism, Sufism, Sikhism, Hinduism and other paths. The Universe gradually provided answers to that question, and other questions about my many mystical experiences, through a series of extraordinary synchronistic happenings and experiences which were bestowed after the Yosemite experience.
Though these happenings and experiences were too numerous for me to now recall and recount, I shall share some of the most memorable ones with you.
Laughter: Quotes and Hafiz poem
“When you realize how perfect everything is
you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.”
~ Buddha
“What is soap to the body, laughter is to the soul.”
~ Yiddish Proverb
“I would not exchange the laughter of my heart for the fortunes of the multitudes; nor would I be content with converting my tears, invited by my agonized self, into calm.
It is my fervent hope that my whole life on this earth will ever be tears and laughter.
Tears that purify my heart and reveal to me the secret of life and its mystery,
Laughter that brings me closer to my fellow men;
Tears with which I join the broken-hearted,
Laughter that symbolizes joy over my very existence.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“Time spent laughing is time spent with the Gods.”
~ Japanese proverb
“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.”
~ Victor Borg
“Sing because this is a food our starving world needs.
Laugh because that is the purest sound.”
~ Hafiz
“Blessed is he who makes his companions laugh.”
~ The Koran
“It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr.
“I have been confronted with many difficulties throughout the course of my life, and my country is going through a critical period. But I laugh often, and my laughter is contagious. When people ask me how I find the strength to laugh now, I reply that I am a professional laugher.”
~ The Dalai Lama
Laughing Buddha
Laughter ~ Hafiz
What is laughter? What is laughter?
It is God waking up! O it is God waking up!
It is the sun poking its sweet head out
From behind a cloud
You have been carrying too long,
Veiling your eyes and heart.
It is Light breaking ground for a great Structure
That is your Real body – called Truth.
It is happiness applauding itself and then taking flight
To embrace everyone and everything in this world.
Laughter is the polestar
Held in the sky by our Beloved,
Who eternally says,
“Yes, dear ones, come this way,
Come this way towards Me and Love!
Come with your tender mouths moving
And your beautiful tongues conducting songs
And with your movements – your magic movements
Of hands and feet and glands and cells – Dancing!
Know that to God’s Eye,
All movement is a Wondrous Language,
And Music – such exquisite, wild Music!”
O what is laughter, Hafiz?
What is this precious love and laughter
Budding in our hearts?
It is the glorious sound
Of a soul waking up!
Hafiz translation from: I Heard God Laughing – Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky
A Brain Scientist’s ‘No Brainer’ NDE
“The brain does not create consciousness,
but consciousness created the brain,
the most complex physical form on earth, for its expression.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
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 laureate physicist, as quoted in The Observer (25 January 1931)
“The very study of the physical world leads to the conclusion that
consciousness is an ultimate reality and,
all the possible knowledge, concerning objects
can be given as its wave function”
~ Eugene Wigner, Nobel laureate physicist and co-founder of quantum mechanics
Introduction.
For millennia mystics and seers have realized experientially that our space/time/causality reality is but a play of consciousness; that all impermanent appearances, all apparent forms and phenomena – including human brains – are but holographic projections of timeless Universal Awareness.
But very few scientists have shared this revelatory mystical world view. Most scientists do not regard as “real” that which is beyond perception and conception.
Rather than recognizing consciousness as the ultimate and eternal Source of our reality, reductionistic and materialistic mainstream science says that brains generate consciousness, and that we see via our brains.
However, there have been innumerable published reports of near death and out of body experiences and other mystical experiences which contradict this mainstream brain hypothesis. (*See footnote re Near Death Experiences [NDE’s].) Nonetheless, until now most brain scientists have dismissed these reports as untrustworthy “anecdotal” evidence. Rarely have mainstream brain scientists transcended their mistaken materialistic paradigm. But there have been noteworthy exceptions. (see e.g. Atlantic Monthly: The Science of Near-Death Experiences.)
Dr. Eben Alexander
Thus, in October 2012 Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon who has taught at Harvard Medical School, went public with an autobiographical account of a life changing dramatic and vivid near death experience (NDE) of what he called “heaven” while he was in a week-long comatose state with a non-functional brain neocortex. (His best-selling first book, ”Proof of Heaven”, was published by Simon and Schuster on October 23, 2012.)
Dr. Alexander reported being told in “heaven”:
“‘You have nothing to fear. There is nothing you can do wrong.’ The message flooded me with a vast and crazy sensation of relief.”
He has written that prior to his NDE he did not believe in such experiences, and ‘scientifically’ dismissed them.
“As a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences. I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon. I followed my father’s path and became an academic neurosurgeon, teaching at Harvard Medical School and other universities. I understand what happens to the brain when people are near death, and I had always believed there were good scientific explanations for the heavenly out-of-body journeys described by those who narrowly escaped death.”
“According to current medical understanding of the brain and mind, there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent.”
“There is no scientific explanation for the fact that while my body lay in coma, my mind—my conscious, inner self—was alive and well. While the neurons of my cortex were stunned to complete inactivity by the bacteria that had attacked them, my brain-free consciousness journeyed to another, larger dimension of the universe: a dimension I’d never dreamed existed and which the old, pre-coma me would have been more than happy to explain was a simple impossibility.”
Raised as a Christian, Dr. Alexander used the religious concepts of “God” and “heaven”, to describe his extraordinary experience.
“Communicating with God is the most extraordinary experience imaginable, yet at the same time it’s the most natural one of all, because God is present in us at all times. Omniscient, omnipotent, personal-and loving us without conditions. We are connected as One through our divine link with God.”
Apart from referring to God, he also identified unconditional Love as the the ultimate Reality and “basis of everything” that exists.
“Love is, without a doubt, the basis of everything. Not some abstract, hard-to-fathom kind of love but the day-to-day kind that everyone knows-the kind of love we feel when we look at our spouse and our children, or even our animals. In its purest and most powerful form, this love is not jealous or selfish, but unconditional. This is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or will ever exist, and no remotely accurate understanding of who and what we are can be achieved by anyone who does not know it, and embody it in all of their actions.”
With newfound openness to “anecdotal” evidence, Dr. Alexander now expresses optimism that as science and mysticism ever more agree, humankind will evolve to wonderful new states of being.
And so may it be!
Footnote
*Near Death Experiences [NDE’s].
The term ‘Near Death Experience’ [NDE] was coined in 1975 by Raymond A. Moody, Jr., PhD, MD, in his book Life After Life which sold over thirteen million copies worldwide. Since then numerous NDE accounts have been published and discussed in mainstream media, on the internet, in films and videos, and in magazines and books. Many spiritually inspiring NDE stories have been published and researched by the International Association For Near-Death Studies [IANDS] and others. So NDE’s have become widely considered, especially by those who claim to have experienced them. And some non-materialist scientists cite NDE’s as evidence that consciousness survives physical death. For millions of people NDE’s, and other extraordinary mystical experiences, have proven to be spiritually inspirational, and transformative events, diminishing or ending fear of death and encouraging a newly open, trusting and loving lifestyle. (see e.g. Atlantic Monthly: The Science of Near-Death Experiences.)
Synchronicity Story: A Spiritual Experience on Bernal Heights
“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”
~ Fred Rogers
“When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him, you will see yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you think of him, you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose sight of yourself.”
~ A Course in Miracles (ACIM)
Bernal Heights view
Lately, I have been blessed with ever more magical moments and with ever increasing gratitude for this precious and lucky life. Usually these magical moments have happened synchronistically and unexpectedly. And often they’ve involved spiritual experiences with people, creatures or Nature, which I call “holy encounters”.
Just before the recent solstice holidays, I was blessed with a magical visit to a beautiful San Francisco view place which I had never before seen. And there I met a lovely man, Daniel Raskin, who shared with me a haunting story (which follows) of his unforgettable spiritual experience in a remote Utah desert canyon.
Here’s what happened, and the story Daniel told me:
I moved from Chicago to San Francisco in 1960, attracted by San Francisco’s climate, physical beauty and ambiance. Within its boundaries are more than fifty hills, several islands, and significant stretches of Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay.
So, while living in San Francisco I have visited and enjoyed almost all of its best known view places. But until recently I never had known about or seen the spectacular view from atop Bernal Heights a hilly neighborhood above San Francisco’s outer Mission and Bay View districts.
Then, just before Christmas, I was invited to attend a beautiful holiday dinner party hosted by Shelley Cook, a very talented and intuitive massage therapist who has been skillfully helping heal and realign my body since it suffered a painful lower back yoga injury.
At the party there were many lovely artistic people, all much younger than me. One of the other guests, Audrey Daniel, a professional photographer/videographer, told me she had lived for many years in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights district, which she regarded as San Francisco’s most charming and typical neighborhood – like a village within the city. Whereupon, realizing that I had never yet visited Bernal Heights during my 50+ years as a San Franciscan, I became curious about seeing what Audrey was describing.
My curiosity was soon satisfied synchronistically by The Lone Arranger, my ‘appointments secretary’.
A few days after the party, at Shelley’s request, I unexpectedly rescheduled my regular afternoon appointment with her to morning, so she could accommodate some people from Santa Cruz who’d just been injured in an auto accident.
Upon finishing our morning massage therapy session, Shelley had extra time before her afternoon appointments. Generously, she offered to show me a nearby Vedanta healing center and shrine which she had long been urging me to visit. So we went to the shrine.
There, as I gazed at an image of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa – a nineteenth century Hindu saint with whom I have long felt special affinity – I experienced a deep Divine mood, and cried copious tears of devotion.
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Thereafter, when Shelley and I left the shrine, it was lunch time. And instead of returning home to eat, I unexpectedly went with Shelley to a restaurant which she recommended. At first she suggested a nearby Asian restaurant, but then she suddenly intuited that we would probably more enjoy going to a place on Bernal Heights.
So, four days after hearing from Audrey Daniel about the Bernal Heights district, I visited that area for the first time in my life, and there enjoyed a delicious Mexican lunch with Shelley. After we ate and before returning to her studio, Shelley urged me to hike atop Bernal hill to enjoy the magnificent panoramic view of San Francisco, instead of taking my usual daily walk by the Bay.
So, still in spiritual mood from my experience at the Ramakrishna Vedanta shrine, I walked up steep streets to the base of Bernal hill. There I approached the first person I encountered, seeking directions to the hilltop trail.
But instead of a quick encounter about directions, we had an extended dialogue. It was Daniel Raskin, with whom I enjoyed a long spiritual chat and experienced a ‘holy encounter’, before we parted and I beheld the spectacular panoramic view from atop Bernal Hill.
Synchronistically, Daniel identified himself as a photographer living in the Bernal Heights vicinity, like Audrey the photographer responsible for my curiosity about that neighborhood. And when I mentioned Audrey, Daniel said he had participated and appeared in her documentary film The Owls of Bernal Hill.
As we chatted, I told Daniel of my interest in mysterious spiritual synchronicities. Whereupon, he shared with me a wonderful story of an unforgettable spiritual experience. Here is Daniel’s story as he wrote it for a diary in 1998, just after it happened:
A Spiritual Experience
By Daniel Raskin *
July 15, 1998, Cottonwood Point, Arizona
Sierra Club Trip: Locating Petroglyphs
Utah Box Canyon
Today we visited the end of a box canyon where there were complex and intriguing ancient petroglyphs and small ruins. After breakfast we drove a short way to our trailhead and hiked a few miles along a sandy path. The plants were mostly a bluish
aromatic sage; also juniper, cacti, local grasses and, here and there, a late blooming flower. The sky was perfectly clear, deep blue, and the sun fierce. Most of the hike was in full sun; the temperature in the nineties by ten or eleven.
The end of the canyon was a spectacular place, a high semi-circular vertical cliff. It was concave and beautifully banded, brown, light brown, reddish brown and yellow. A broad waterless wash wove through the flat valley floor. There, in the
shade of the canyon, oaks and plants with red berries grew.
As soon as I got into the shade of the canyon walls, I began to breathe rapidly. I did not feel I had over-exerted myself, and did not understand why I was breathless. I began to feel slightly nauseous, faint and dizzy. I also felt very moved by the beauty surrounding me. I began to feel very emotional. My heartbeat was rapid and my breath uncontrollably fast and deep. I began to feel like I had taken LSD.
I sat down. My condition intensified. I began to cry, copious tears. I was simultaneously relieved, frightened and confused. My thoughts and feelings wandered freely. As I continued to cry, I felt over-joyed to be alive. I felt blessed to enjoy the relative security of my middle class existence. I thought about my partner Ann. I thought about her ovarian cancer. It almost killed her, but now she is healthy again and stronger in new ways. I thought about Jesse, my twenty-one year old, and how he is now thriving after a difficult adolescence. I thought about Sam, my sixteen year old. He has survived a risky and chaotic early adolescence, and is stronger and more mature. I felt my love, my powerful love for my family. All this time I was crying and breathing deeply.
I thought about the miracle of being alive, of experiencing existence in the midst of infinite eternity. What explains my chance to experience life? Who or what, ultimately, gave me and all of us this miraculous gift?
As I thought and cried, I slowly began to calm down. My breath slowed. After a while I felt stable enough to get up. I took photographs of the canyon and the beautiful oaks and wild currents growing there. Then I joined the group. They had
dispersed about the headwall to view the great array of petroglyphs. There were animals, human figures, designs and scenes pecked into the rock. The most impressive was a figure of a one-legged person. People with deformities were sometimes holy people in Native American cultures.
After looking at the rock art I investigated the remains of a kiva. A coyote had made a lair in its recesses. I found a small rodent’s jaw. I climbed down to the canyon floor. Datura, a hallucinogenic plant was growing there. I wondered: “am I in a sacred place?” After a while we left the canyon, had lunch, visited more rock art sites and returned to camp. I felt light-headed for several hours.
What happened to me? Did I become delirious from the heat? Was I freaked out by the rigors of this trip, lonely for my family? Maybe. But why did this happen today, rather than on another hot, hard working day?
And, why did this happen in a place with a petroglyph of a one-legged person, a kiva and hallucinogenic plants growing?
I’d like to say I had a vision, if saying that didn’t feel arrogant and presumptuous. Who knows? Fortunately, life is full of mysteries.
After returning home: I shared my experience with Ann. She said that I had had a spiritual experience about the gift of life and the power of love, as she had had when she was sick with cancer.
* Daniel Raskin is a retired San Francisco preschool teacher and photographer.
Utah Box Canyon
Today we visited the end of a box canyon where there were complex and intriguing ancient petroglyphs and small ruins. After breakfast we drove a short way to our trailhead and hiked a few miles along a sandy path. The plants were mostly a bluish
aromatic sage; also juniper, cacti, local grasses and, here and there, a late blooming flower. The sky was perfectly clear, deep blue, and the sun fierce. Most of the hike was in full sun; the temperature in the nineties by ten or eleven.
The end of the canyon was a spectacular place, a high semi-circular vertical cliff. It was concave and beautifully banded, brown, light brown, reddish brown and yellow. A broad waterless wash wove through the flat valley floor. There, in the
shade of the canyon, oaks and plants with red berries grew.
As soon as I got into the shade of the canyon walls, I began to breathe rapidly. I did not feel I had over-exerted myself, and did not understand why I was breathless. I began to feel slightly nauseous, faint and dizzy. I also felt very moved by the beauty surrounding me. I began to feel very emotional. My heartbeat was rapid and my breath uncontrollably fast and deep. I began to feel like I had taken LSD.
I sat down. My condition intensified. I began to cry, copious tears. I was simultaneously relieved, frightened and confused. My thoughts and feelings wandered freely. As I continued to cry, I felt over-joyed to be alive. I felt blessed to enjoy the relative security of my middle class existence. I thought about my partner Ann. I thought about her ovarian cancer. It almost killed her, but now she is healthy again and stronger in new ways. I thought about Jesse, my twenty-one year old, and how he is now thriving after a difficult adolescence. I thought about Sam, my sixteen year old. He has survived a risky and chaotic early adolescence, and is stronger and more mature. I felt my love, my powerful love for my family. All this time I was crying and breathing deeply.
I thought about the miracle of being alive, of experiencing existence in the midst of infinite eternity. What explains my chance to experience life? Who or what, ultimately, gave me and all of us this miraculous gift?
As I thought and cried, I slowly began to calm down. My breath slowed. After a while I felt stable enough to get up. I took photographs of the canyon and the beautiful oaks and wild currents growing there. Then I joined the group. They had
dispersed about the headwall to view the great array of petroglyphs. There were animals, human figures, designs and scenes pecked into the rock. The most impressive was a figure of a one-legged person. People with deformities were sometimes holy people in Native American cultures.
After looking at the rock art I investigated the remains of a kiva. A coyote had made a lair in its recesses. I found a small rodent’s jaw. I climbed down to the canyon floor. Datura, a hallucinogenic plant was growing there. I wondered: “am I in a sacred place?” After a while we left the canyon, had lunch, visited more rock art sites and returned to camp. I felt light-headed for several hours.
What happened to me? Did I become delirious from the heat? Was I freaked out by the rigors of this trip, lonely for my family? Maybe. But why did this happen today, rather than on another hot, hard working day?
And, why did this happen in a place with a petroglyph of a one-legged person, a kiva and hallucinogenic plants growing?
I’d like to say I had a vision, if saying that didn’t feel arrogant and presumptuous. Who knows? Fortunately, life is full of mysteries.
After returning home: I shared my experience with Ann. She said that I had had a spiritual experience about the gift of life and the power of love, as she had had when she was sick with cancer.
* Daniel Raskin is a retired San Francisco preschool teacher and photographer.
******
Do you agree (as I do) with Daniel’s partner Ann that he “had a spiritual experience about the gift of life and the power of love”?
And didn’t Daniel’s spontaneously copious tears express more eloquently than any words the heartfelt depths of his joy and gratitude for this blessed life?
Ron’s moral of the story:
Daniel’s deep spiritual experience, shows us that we don’t need religious rituals, beliefs or dogma to experience Divinity; that, beyond religion, our grateful communion with Nature can be an equally powerful spiritual path.
Your Religion Is Not Important
Introduction. The following is a brief dialogue between the Dalai Lama and Brazilian theologist Leonardo Boff, one of the renovators of the Theology of Freedom, as recounted by Boff:
Boff’s Narative.
“In a round table discussion about religion and freedom in which
Dalai Lama and myself were participating, at recess I maliciously, and also with interest, asked him:
“Your holiness, what is the best religion?”
“I thought he would say: “The Tibetan Buddhism” or “The oriental religions, much older than Christianity”
“Dalai Lama paused, smiled and looked me in the eyes ….which surprised me because I knew of the malice contained in my question. “He answered:
“The best religion is the one that gets you closest to God.
It is the one that makes you a better person.”
“To get out of my embarrassment with such a wise answer, I asked:
“What is it that makes me better?”
“He responded:
“Whatever makes you
more Compassionate,
more Sensible,
more Detached,
more Loving,
more Humanitarian,
more Responsible,
more Ethical.”
“The religion that will do that for you is the best religion”
“I was silent for a moment, marveling and even today
thinking of his wise and irrefutable response:
“I am not interested, my friend, about your religion
or if you are religious or not.
“What really is important to me is your behavior in
front of your peers, family, work, community,
and in front of the world.”
“Remember, the universe is the echo of our actions and our thoughts.
“The law of action and reaction is not exclusively for physics.
It is also of human relations.
If I act with goodness, I will receive goodness.
If I act with evil, I will get evil.
“What our grandparents told us is the pure truth.
You will always have what you desire for others.
Being happy is not a matter of destiny.
It is a matter of options.”
Finally he said:
“Take care of your Thoughts because they become Words.
Take care of your Words because they will become Actions.
Take care of your Actions because they will become Habits.
Take care of your Habits because they will form your Character.
Take care of your Character because it will form your Destiny,
and your Destiny will be your Life
… and …
“There is no religion higher than the Truth.”
You Tube presentation of this dialogue:
