Divinity
The Luckiest Day of My Life
~ Meeting My Spiritual Master
“When the student is ready, the master appears.”
~ Buddhist Proverb
The Luckiest Day of My Life ~ Meeting My Spiritual Master
When something or someone wonderful happens in our lives many of us feel grateful and lucky, especially if our good fortune happens seemingly by chance.
Can you recall times or incidents when you felt really lucky? Have you ever thought that something or someone in your life was a wonderful blessing? Have you ever considered yourself lucky to be alive? Blessed to be living during important times?
I want to share with you a story about the luckiest day and biggest blessing of my life – a blessing which I couldn’t understand when it happened and can’t yet fully appreciate. Because of what happened that day, I am happier than ever before, enjoying a wonderful life on our precious planet and able to share with others ever more love, happiness and gratitude.
Paradoxically, this biggest blessing of my life followed my most painful experience, and has helped me realize that even my life’s most difficult experiences have been disguised blessings, which have helped me to open and to evolve spiritually.
In 1976, during a psychologically traumatic divorce separating me from my young children, I experienced an extraordinary and dramatic rebirth experience opening me to the spiritual dimensions of life.
Before the divorce, my most memorable spiritual experiences had happened in hospital delivery rooms when, in my presence, my former wife Naomi gave birth to our children, Jessica and Joshua.
But beginning with my dramatic rebirth experience and spiritual opening, I gradually have learned that each birth – and every other appearance and experience in this world – originates with unseen energies arising in Infinite Awareness; that our true essence and identity is eternal spirit, beyond form – beyond birth and death; and thus, that spirituality, consciousness and mind, are of immeasurably preeminent importance to us as genesis of all physical or material appearances.
I couldn’t have experienced these blessings but for what happened forty four years ago on the luckiest day of my life – April 15, 1978 – two years after my spiritual rebirth experience.
On that day I received a spiritual initiation from an extraordinary Holy man – venerable Hindu guru Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas (Guruji).*[see footnote] Until meeting Guruji, I knew very little about Gurus or their teachings and had no intention of becoming involved with a spiritual teacher. Nor did I have any idea of how a rare and authentic Guru could help me both in this world and from subtle planes – like an incarnate ‘guardian angel’. So, I couldn’t begin to imagine how fortunate I was.
Before meeting Guruji, I didn’t understand the karmic law that we reap as we sow. But since then I have learned that in this world nothing – however mysterious – escapes the law of cause and effect. So I now intuit that the biggest blessing of my life did not happen by chance; but, that it was my destiny to meet Guruji as my spiritual master and that I was led to him through synchronicity.
Before meeting Guruji, I wasn’t familiar with Indian culture or religion. But I began to have synchronistic experiences which seemed associated with India.
First, Mahatma Gandhi surprisingly and vividly appeared to me as an inner spiritual guide advising me at various times in response to my questions to him, even though I then knew little about him and hadn’t invoked him. (Later I learned that Gandhi had been a lawyer, and that from childhood his principal spiritual practice was constant repetition of the name “Rama” – an Indian name for God which was his last utterance on his assassination in 1948.)
Soon thereafter, in Hawaii while lost in a jungle-like nature preserve and frightened, I spontaneously and inexplicably began calling and repeating “Rama” – a name for God which I’d never before recited in this life, found my way out of the jungle tangle, and immediately thereafter began seeing my own aura, and afterwards auras of others.
Later, in San Francisco, I was suddenly awakened from deep sleep one night to behold (sitting up with eyes wide open) an extraordinarily vivid vision of a golden Indian Divine Mother which morphed into a golden image of myself.
Thereafter, at night before retiring, I began seeing blurred inner visions of an elderly Indian man with a beard, though I had not yet begun meditating regularly.
Apart from these “inner” experiences there was a series of “outer” synchronicities that led me to Guruji.
Attempting to scientifically understand what was happening to me after my spiritual re-birth experience, I found and read with tremendous interest and fascination a medical case study book by Lee Sannella, MD, entitled: “Kundalini-Psychosis or Transcendence” about an esoteric psychophysiological transformation process long known to Indian yogis and adepts but not to Western medicine; a process initiated by awakening of dormant ‘kundalini’ energy at the base of the spine.
The book defined the kundalini process as an “evolutionary process taking place in the human nervous system”. As I read therein medical case studies of fifteen different people undergoing the kundalini process, I realized that I too had been experiencing that process since my April 1976 spontaneous rebirth episode; and, that the kundalini process might explain some of my ‘weird’ new experiences.
Thereupon, I wanted to meet Dr. Sannella, who practiced in the Bay Area as both a psychiatrist and ophthalmologist. On learning that he was a principal officer of the California Society For Psychical Study, I joined the society and began attending its bi-monthly meetings, where I met him.
One evening in early April 1978, I attended a regular meeting of the Society. As I entered the meeting room, I saw a poster announcing a forthcoming series of meditation programs at the University Christian Church in Berkeley. The poster featured a prominent picture of an elderly man with a gray beard. As the meeting progressed, I irresistibly kept looking at the poster. Something about the picture of the old man fascinated me.
After the formal meeting concluded, I asked Dr. Sannella about the pictured meditation teacher and his announced meditation programs. Dr. Sannella told me that this would be an exceptional opportunity for “darshan” of an Indian master yogi, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, with rare power to activate and guide the Kundalini transformation process, which when activated could accelerate spiritual evolution but cause problems without such guidance. (I later learned that Dr. Sannella had received an initiation from this master yogi.)
I took a printed flyer with details of the schedule and decided to attend the first of the announced meditation programs. A crucially important new life phase was about to begin.
The meditation programs proved unlike anything I had anticipated or ever before experienced. At the front of the room was a pleasant, bright-eyed elderly man with a beard, wearing a white robe, and accompanied by an interpreter. Unknown to me, this small elderly gentleman was then about 100 years old, and had attained an exceptionally advanced state of spiritual evolution with unbelievable mystical powers which were largely esoteric in the West and clearly beyond the comprehension of Western science.
I soon began experiencing some of those extraordinary powers, and began perceiving him differently than anyone else I’d ever yet met.
In the interpreter’s introductory remarks we were informed that Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas was empowered to awaken dormant kundalini energy via thought, gaze, sound or touch; that in the ensuing meditation program we were to be given an experience of communication of this energy via the sound of sacred Sanskrit mantras, which he would sing. We were instructed to sit with closed eyes, watch our breath, and listen to the mantras.
Listening to Dhyanyogi sing Sanskrit mantras was for me reminiscent of hearing Jewish cantors singing Hebrew prayers and chants. But I had never before felt such intense subtle energy. Nor had I ever before perceived someone with a luminous silvery aura like his. After the singing, audience questions were entertained and answered via interpreter. On conclusion of the program, I decided to – and did – attend the next night’s program. It was similar to the first, and I experienced it similarly. And so I decided to attend the final program.
At the last program I experienced Dhyanyogi’s exceptional spiritual energy more intensely than ever before, and felt somehow changed by it in an ineffable way. That program ended with an announcement that on Sunday morning Dhyanyogi would be conferring a shaktipat initiation on anyone requesting it, after they made appropriate arrangements. It was explained that this shaktipat initiation would entail his formal transfer to each initiate of Divine shakti energy via touch and otherwise.
Still an uptight lawyer, I felt quite reluctant to participate in an esoteric initiation involving unknown formal commitments to an Indian guru with whom I was barely familiar. So I didn’t sign up for the shaktipat initiation, but retained the contact information for shaktipat participants. I returned to my San Francisco studio apartment still experiencing the intense subtle energies which had been transmitted that night, and feeling quite strange – like I’d never before felt.
Within a few minutes after entering my apartment, I spontaneously began extraordinarily intense crying and sobbing, as had first happened during my 1976 rebirth experience. Then, with closed eyes I beheld amazing inner visions. First I saw a small bright blue circle. Gradually, the vivid circle grew larger and larger. Then, within the circle, with the clarity of a good color TV image, I beheld Dhyanyogi, who had come for an inner visit knowing I was in a receptive state of consciousness after meditating with him in Berkeley.
I had learned from my inner experience with Gandhi, that disembodied spirits could intentionally manifest to me while I was in an ‘alpha state of consciousness’. But this was my first such experience with an incarnate being. And thereupon I suddenly realized that, long before I met or heard about him, it was Guruji who had frequently appeared to me as the blurred inner image of an elderly man with a beard.
This experience and realization changed my mind about taking the shaktipat initiation. I thought “this yogi is someone very special, who I must learn more about.” So, the next day I phoned and made arrangements to participate in the esoteric initiation ceremony.
During the ceremony I was given a sacred mantra to repeat as a primary spiritual practice. Like Gandhi’s mantra and the mantra I had first spontaneously repeated in Hawaii, it was a Rama mantra. Also, I was given a Sanskrit spiritual name: “Rasik”. Before leaving the ceremony I asked Guruji’s assistant for the meaning of “Rasik”, and was quite surprised and puzzled when he replied “one engrossed in devotion”. He wrote this new spiritual name and its meaning on the cover of a small meditation instruction pamphlet which I had received after the initiation ceremony.
“Why has a secular lawyer like me being given a name like this?”, I wondered. The answer to that question gradually became quite evident.
After meeting Guruji in 1978, I was fortunate to see and be with him on various occasions during his remaining time in the US – mostly in group retreats and meditations. In his holy presence, I was invariably moved to intense devotional tears. And more and more Guruji’s saintly simplicity, compassion, love, and humility captured my heart.
And as he presciently foresaw in bestowing the name “Rasik”, I became and have ever since remained “engrossed in devotion”, intensely yearning for the Divine, and often spontaneously calling and weeping for “Rama” with deep emotion of devotion.
In December, 1979, Guruji was interviewed for a “New Dimensions” radio broadcast, which is linked below. I was lucky enough to have been present then and to have briefly participated in that interview, explaining how I became Guruji’s disciple.
During the interview, Guruji told how he had come to the United States in 1976, to find and help American devotees many of whom he had previously seen during a near death visit with Lord Rama, the aspect of universal Divinity most emphasized in Guruji’s devotional practices.
Further he explained the importance of meditation and “shaktipat” and how his kundalini yoga path was not a religion but a spiritual practice and science bringing lasting inner peace and happiness to individuals of any belief or religious affiliation. He concluded the interview by chanting mantras with which he subtly transmitted his exceptional spiritual energies.
Guruji New Dimensions Radio Interview, December 18, 1979
In addition to emanating an amazingly intense shakti energy field, Guruji displayed extraordinary physical prowess. I saw him as a centenarian demonstrating difficult yogic postures – like head stands – and walking so fast on a beach that young people had to jog to keep up with his extraordinary pace.
But, after four years of tireless efforts in the US, Guruji became extremely debilitated and in 1980 was obliged to return to India. My apartment in San Francisco, was the last place in the US where he stayed for a few weeks. During that period I was blessed not only with his holy presence but with rare opportunities to speak with him directly.
On one of those memorable occasions, I effusively and spontaneously exclaimed to him: “Guruji, the day I met you was the luckiest day of my life!” After a pregnant pause, his unforgettable reply was: “That’s true.”
Forty four years have now passed since I received shaktipat initiation. But the kundalini evolutionary process which Guruji initiated still continues. Thanks to Guruji’s subtle guidance, it seems irresistibly to be removing my egoic limitations, so that there is today (self-identified with this life-form) much less “Ron” and much more “Ram” than there was on April 15, 1978. Like ‘magical’ spiritual alchemy, the kundalini shakti is transmuting and transforming Ron’s humanity to Divinity.
At age 102, Guruji returned to India where he spent his fourteen remaining years until leaving his physical body at age 116, one hundred forty four years ago. Nonetheless since then, with tears of deep devotion and gratitude, I have continued to experience (at subtle levels of awareness) his profoundly transformative shakti energy.
Thus, from the depths of my heart, I still feel that the day I met Guruji forty four years ago was the luckiest day of my life.
* Footnote
See Facebook page Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas for a brief biography of Guruji, and many photos.
2022 Epilogue to The Luckiest Day of My Life,
This memoirs story (originally published in 2011) is republished today, January 8, 2022, to honor Guruji on his 144th birthday anniversary (calculated by Vedic lunar/solar calendar). And to emphatically affirm that the luckiest day of my life was on meeting Guruji forty four years ago.
Guruji’s 144th birth anniversary number is considered spiritually important in prophetic biblical passages, as well as in different wisdom traditions.
Current “new normal” troubled times, seem anticipated by biblical and similar prophecies that 144,000 ‘lightworkers’ or ascended masters will incarnate concurrently to help free humanity from fearful dark powers, enabling an unprecedented new Earth age of freedom from suffering and deprivation.
But for Guruji’s blessings after a 2014 near-death taxi rundown, I would not have survived to age 89 to witness these immensely important times. So more than ever I’m grateful for meeting Guruji on the luckiest day of this life.
Concluding dedication and invocation
May those of us who were blessed to receive Guruji’s shaktipat initiation,
emanate as his spiritual heirs, heartfelt love and forgiveness
helping human ascension to elevated states of awareness
beyond mis-perceived ego separation from each other,
to realization of our eternal common Oneness with God, Nature,
and all Life everywhere.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
There’s Nothing Ahead ~ Rumi
“Come out of the circle of time
And into the circle of love.”
~ Rumi
“The Past, the Future, O dear, is from you;
you should regard both these as one.”
~ Rumi
“Fling me across the fabric of time and the seas of space.
Make me nothing and from nothing-everything.”
~ Rumi
“The Eternal looked upon me for a moment with His eye of power,
and annihilated me in His being,
and become manifest to me in His essence.
I saw I existed through Him.”
~ Rumi
“I am an ark in the swift flood of time,
and my companions, a fellowship.
Who throws in with us sails into light.”
~ Rumi
“Forget the future.”
“The day is conscious of itself.”
~ Rumi
There’s Nothing Ahead ~ Rumi
Lovers think they’re looking for each other,
but there’s only one search:
wandering this world is wandering that,
both inside one transparent sky.
In here there is no dogma
and no heresy.
The miracle of Jesus is himself,
not what he said or did about the future.
Forget the future.
I’d worship someone who could do that.
On the way, you may want to look back, or not.
But if you can say, There’s nothing ahead,
there will be nothing there.
Stretch your arms
and take hold of the cloth of your clothes
with both hands.
The cure for pain is in the pain.
Good and bad are mixed.
If you don’t have both,
you don’t belong with us.
When one of us gets lost,
is not here, he must be inside us.
There’s no place like that
anywhere in the world.
Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi,
Translation: Coleman Barks
There’s Nothing Ahead ~ Rumi
https://youtu.be/Y2BSUpUShqI
Voice: Md Taufikur Rahman
background Music:
🎵 Song: ‘Juan Sánchez – Now The Silence’ is under a Free for YouTube license.
https://soundcloud.com/juansanchezcom…
Perennial Permanence Puzzlement
“This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds .
To watch the birth and death of beings
is like looking at the movements of a dance.
A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky,
rushing by like a torrent down a steep mountain.”
~ Buddha (563 – 483 BC)
A corporeal phenomenon, a feeling, a perception, a mental formation,
a consciousness, which is permanent and persistent, eternal and not subject to change, such a thing the wise men in this world do not recognize;
and I also say that there is no such thing.
~ Buddha (563 – 483 B.C)
“In the beginning was Atman; the one without a second.”
“We are like the spider.
We weave our life and then move along in it.
We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream.
This is true for the entire universe.”
~ Aitareya Upanishad of Rig Veda
“In this ever-changing space/time world,
nothing is immutable,
but much is inscrutable.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Perennial Permanence Puzzlement
Is there anything permanent
in Heaven’s vast firmament?
Is there a Perfection
beyond all conception –
a Cause of all that’s so?
Is there a force –
an Eternal Source –
that we can ever know?
Is it our task, to seek and to ask,
and so to ever grow?
‘Tis a Perennial Puzzlement!
Ron’s recitation of Perennial Permanence Puzzlement
Ron’s Comments on Perennial Permanence Puzzlement
Dear Friends,
The foregoing written and recited sutra verses were initially inspired by actor Yul Brynner’s legendary performance of the song “A Puzzlement” in the award winning Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The King and I”. In that song Sri Oscar Hammerstein’s spiritually insightful lyrics emphasize the inevitable uncertainties about our beliefs and behaviors in an ever changing world. For example:
“There are times I almost think
Nobody sure of what he absolutely know”
“And it puzzle me to learn
That tho’ a man may be in doubt of what he know
Very quickly he will fight
He’ll fight to prove that what he does not know is so”
So (like Hammerstein’s lyrics) the above verses emphasize inescapable uncertainties in this ever impermanent duality reality. They all ask rationally unanswerable rhetorical questions, in a world of “Perennial Puzzlement”.
But beyond rational thought, all sutra verses point to immutable Eternal Awareness ever imminent in everything/everyone everywhere.
Thus, with above quotations, they are deeply dedicated to hastening Humanity’s awakening to That Eternal Source.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
From co-dependent exploitation,
to co-creative realization
~ A rare turning point in Human history
“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.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood,
and I — I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
~ Robert Frost – The Road Not Taken
Dear Friends,
We have reached a rare turning point in modern human history. Confronted by apparent dire threats to survival of life on Earth as we’ve known it, our species is awakening to a prophesied new enlightened Earth age. After eons of imagined darkness, we are now realizing our infinite potential as timeless wholeness and Oneness with Source – as LOVE beyond comprehension, imagination or description.
Thus a “critical mass” of Humankind will soon be energetically (not spatially) uplifted to a compassionate new world, dynamically harmonious with Nature and all life everywhere – a “new reality” foreseen for millennia by non-materialist mystic seers.
Accordingly this essay is dedicated to inspiring our awakened inclusion in that uplifted “critical mass”.
Historic Background
Throughout recorded history, in order to evolve, human societies have been compelled to abandon previously cherished inflexible beliefs about “reality” (our cosmology, religion, science, philosophy etc.) which limited learning, impeded progress, and facilitated evil and harmful behaviors.
How could we have advanced believing that the earth was flat, or that it was the center of our solar system? And now, because of unprecedented anthropogenic threats to survival of Earth life as we’ve known it, we are again urgently compelled to transcend cherished beliefs about our perceived (three dimensional) illusionary “reality”.
Refusing Ruling Class Exploitation
Human societies have mostly been undemocratically governed by self-proclaimed elite rulers. But for eons our earthly human societies have been secretly dominated and energetically exploited by psychopathic “leaders” representing a few unimaginably malevolent and unknown astral “rulers”.
Thus, until now we’ve lived unaware of our existence in addictive codependent relationships with our “leaders” and “rulers”, which relationships are parasitically exploitive and dysfunctional. And so far this tiny ruling class has cleverly and selfishly used their understanding of our subliminal Oneness with Source (and all other perceived energy forms) to successfully exploit us.
Currently, using controlled mainstream media of mass deception, they have subliminally “brainwashed”, indoctrinated, and inculcated most of humanity into erroneously and fearfully accepting parasitic servitude to them. Such subliminal servitude has precluded us from realizing our infinite power to fearlessly co-create elevated energetic realities, beyond all domination or exploitation, and thereby to fulfill our deepest evolutionary aspirations.
But in recent “new normal” times our ruling “leaders” have enacted immoral laws, orders and edicts which are so flagrantly outrageous that they are painfully awakening many people to our innate human rights and freedoms. Accordingly, those people are resisting and refusing to follow such insanely immoral and unlawful decrees, rather than degenerate into a locked-down Malthusian global 3D society of unprecedented and insidious human control and enslavement by a few malignant psychopaths.
Thus by their civil disobedience and adamant moral refusal to bear such insanity, a critical mass of humankind are about to be energetically uplifted to co-create a wonderful new era in human history.
Though we appear separate, we are all One with Source
“Human beings are made of body, mind and spirit.
Of these, spirit is primary, for it connects us to the source of everything,
the eternal field of consciousness.”
~ Deepak Chopra
All is a play in consciousness. All divisions are illusory.
You can know the false only. The true you must yourself be.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“You are awareness, disguised as a person.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks
Although each human is unique in apparent physical form, (like hexagonal crystalline snowflakes) we all subliminally share the same mysterious spiritual Source, which is inconceivable and indescribable. Because we are so subliminally connected we are all affected by a lack of harmony or morality anywhere in our perceived 3D “reality”. Therefore, we are awakening globally to resist immoral edicts which wickedly violate our innate human rights and freedoms.
Until now our subconscious oneness with all Earth life has permitted subliminal matrix control over our species. But growing human awareness of such Oneness with Source is paradoxically enabling us to irreversibly escape from our current codependent bondage in an imperceptible matrix “prison”.
The following quotations and explanations are about how and why we can soon escape:
Escaping from co-dependent exploitation, to co-creative realization.
“When fear becomes collective, when anger becomes collective,
it’s extremely dangerous. It is overwhelming…
The mass media and the military-industrial complex create a prison for us,
so we continue to think, see, and act in the same way…
We need the courage to express ourselves even when the majority is going in the opposite direction…
because a change of direction can happen only when there is a collective awakening…
Therefore, it is very important to say, ‘I am here!’ to those who share the same kind of insight.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power
“The choice that frees or imprisons us is the choice of love or fear.
Love liberates. Fear imprisons.”
~ Gary Zukav
“Deep down, at our cores, there are only two emotions:
love and fear.
All positive emotions come from love,
all negative emotions from fear.
From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy.
From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt.”
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross & David Kessler – When You Don’t Choose Love You Choose Fear
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” . . .
~ 1 John 4:18
Discussion: Until now parasitic lower realm entities have been able to subliminally exploit third dimension humans, only by cleverly fomenting widespread divisive beliefs, fears, anger and other negative emotions. Without such fears and emotions these evil entities can not exploit us. They cannot function in energetically loving dimensions. Fear and Love can’t coexist. And love is “contagious”.
So provoked by outrageously immoral orders and edicts, and aided by unprecedentedly propitious Earth energy cycles, we are now remembering and choosing our true Self identity as Divine LOVE, beyond comprehension, imagination or description.
And as we realize that as eternal LOVE we have nothing to fear, but fear itself, we will inevitably irreversibly escape from captured codependence to fearlessly co-create a wonderful new era in human history.
Methods which are hastening our escape from matrix imprisonment:
1) Living lovingly and gratefully
“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
“It is not joy that makes us grateful;
it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”
~ Brother David Steindl-Rast
“Thankfulness is the soul of beneficence …
For thankfulness brings you to the place where the Beloved lives.”
~ Rumi
2) Becoming mindfully conscious of eternal LOVE
“By the definite science of meditation known for millenniums to the yogis and sages of India, and to Jesus,
any seeker of God can enlarge the caliber of his consciousness to omniscience to receive within himself the Universal Intelligence of God.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“Meditation is one of the most direct and powerful ways to awaken to who we really are and to experience happiness as a state of consciousness that already exists within us.”
~ Deepak Chopra
A focused or stilled mind is crucial to spiritual evolution. With stilled minds we access intuition and imagination, and are uplifted beyond darkness of negative emotions.
With stilled minds we telepathically ‘hear’ and follow our Sacred Heart’s message of Love.
With stilled minds we follow our heart – not our ego.
With stilled minds we instinctively reject dark “leaders” who’ve betrayed and ‘imprisoned’ us.
“The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.”
~ Blaise Pascal
“Faith is a knowledge within the heart,
beyond the reach of proof.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift,
and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant
and has forgotten the gift.”
~ Albert Einstein
3) Practicing nonviolent Gandhian civil disobedience.
“Satyagraha means resisting untruth by truthful means”
“It is a religious duty to fight untruth.
If one remains steadfast in it in a spirit of dedication,
it always brings success.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
Those of us who already realize how humans are being psychopathically dominated and immorally imprisoned in an invisible ‘matrix’, must now morally and truthfully act to preserve inherent human rights and protect our planet and progeny. With righteous courage, we must speak out and nonviolently disobey unlawful and immoral edicts.
4) Being the change we wish to see.
“[T]he world will not change if we don’t change.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“If we are to make progress,
we must not repeat history but make new history.
We must add to inheritance left by our ancestors.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
~ Buddha
“The world is a projection of our collective consciousness.
If our collective consciousness reaches that place of peace, harmony, laughter and love,
it will be a different world.”
~ Deepak Chopra
Energetically we live in a labyrinth of thoughts, intentions, feelings and behaviors which create our “reality”. “Whatever we think, do, or say, is changing this world in some way.”
Accordingly, as we prioritize our intention to mindfully radiate loving and forgiving thoughts, behaviors, and emotions we are inevitably and irreversibly elevating and enlightening our earthly “reality” beyond malevolent darkness.
5) Turning off mainstream media.
“Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.”
~ Edward Bernays
“Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated
are confident they are acting on their own free will.”
~ Joseph Goebbels
“The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”
~ Aldous Huxley
“All propaganda is lies, even when one is telling the truth.”
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
~ George Orwell
All mainstream information media have become propagandist instruments dishonestly dominated and controlled by our “leaders”. Whenever possible we must turn them off, even if they seem to publish information with which we agree. We must not be diverted or confused by information or speculation, which is published with insidious motives.
If we seek information (not speculation) about purported current events or history, we need to investigate non-mainstream sources, especially those which are ridiculed, slandered or censored by mainstream media – like Robert F. Kennedy’s Children’s Health Foundation. However, in reviewing such alternative information outlets we must carefully consider their facts and sources, and not assume their accuracy or credibility.
6) Mindfully recognizing that this world is a mere mental illusion
“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion,
does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.”
~ Buddha
“…this separation between man and man, between nation and nation,
between earth and moon, between moon and sun.
Out of this idea of separation between atom and atom comes all misery.
But the Vedanta says that this separation does not exist, it is not real.”
“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
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“What appears to be a stable, tangible, visible, audible world, is an illusion.”
“Objective reality does not exist” …. “the universe is fundamentally a gigantic … hologram.”
~ David Bohm, Quantum Physicist
“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.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
We now exist in a perceived relative “reality” where everything is energy (e=Mc2), and suffering is omnipresent. But enlightened mystics and scientists remind us that our “reality” and its seeming separation of perceived thought forms is merely “an optical illusion of consciousness” and that we avert suffering by “recognizing that the world is but an illusion.”
As we consciously identify our comparative “reality” as merely an illusion, we will transcend suffering from negative intentions, actions, thoughts and emotions. And thereby we’ll live with ever growing kindness, and with compassion for others who are still suffering.
Inevitably our kindness will quicken and elevate our subtle energy emanations, until we irreversibly experience our lives from higher dimensions where there is no suffering, just oneness with Source – as LOVE.
Like Gandhi and other great souls we’ll then perceive this world like a metaphoric good versus evil “movie” in which Divine Truth and Love always prevail.
7) Laughter and humor are always uplifting
“When you realize how perfect everything is
you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.”
~ Buddha
“Sing because this is a food our starving world needs.
Laugh because that is the purest sound.”
~ Hafiz
“What is soap to the body, laughter is to the soul.”
~ Yiddish Proverb
“Time spent laughing is time spent with the Gods.”
~ Japanese proverb
“I laugh when I think how I once sought paradise as a realm outside of the world of birth.
It is right in the world of birth and death that the miraculous truth is revealed.
But this is not the laughter of someone who suddenly acquires a great fortune;
neither is it the laughter of one who has won a victory.
It is, rather, the laughter of one who; after having painfully searched for something for a long time,
finds it one morning in the pocket of his coat.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh
“If a person can laugh totally, wholeheartedly, not holding anything back at all,
in that very moment something tremendous can happen
because laughter, when it is total, is absolutely egoless,
and that is the only condition in which to know God, to be egoless.”
~ Osho
“If honesty were suddenly introduced into American life, the whole system would collapse.”
“That’s why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
~ George Carlin
Invocation
At this unprecedented turning point in modern human history,
may we mindfully recognize and intentionally radiate
truth of our common Self-identity as LOVE.
May we thereby be part of an irreversibly uplifted “critical mass” of Humankind,
which will co-create a prophesied compassionate new world,
dynamically harmonious with Nature and all life everywhere.
And so shall it be!
Namasté!
Ron Rattner
Be The Change
“[T]he world will not change if we don’t change.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do. “
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“If we are to make progress,
we must not repeat history but make new history.
We must add to inheritance left by our ancestors.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“My life is my message”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Whatever we think, do, or say,
changes this world in some way.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Introduction to “Be The Change”
Dear Friends,
From “Gandhi The Man” we learned that Mohandas K. Gandhi, changed himself to change the world – that from a frail and fearful child, he became Mahatma Gandhi, one of the most inspiring and positively influential human beings in known human history.
“Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.”
~ Albert Einstein (after Gandhi’s 1948 assassination)
“[S]ince the time of Christ there has been no single individual whose life and ideals have influenced the masses more than Mahatma Gandhi’s.”
“God sent him into the world as a prophet who for the first time…went beyond his flock and influenced the great masses of people politically.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“Mahatma Gandhi, implemented [the] very noble philosophy of nonviolence in modern politics, and he succeeded. That is a very great thing. It has represented an evolutionary leap in political consciousness, his experimentation with truth.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama, from “The Dalai Lama, A Policy of Kindness”
Gandhi’s extraordinary transformation, became epigrammatically encapsulated by the slogan “Be The Change”, which was often attributed to him, though it is not a direct quotation.
The following posting explains the source and significance of the “Be The Change” slogan, consistent with Gandhi’s exemplary life, and his “satyagraha” movement’s resolutely non-violent active assertion of fundamental human morality, which has brought this world an unprecedented “evolutionary leap in political consciousness”.
It includes:
1) Gandhi’s original quotations and philosophy about changing the world;
2) My explanation of the significance of Mahatma Gandi’s “be the change” philosophy; and
3) An embedded YouTube video performance by talented American rapper MC Yogi who, inspired by Gandhi, has creatively conveyed the Mahatma’s life story in rap with rhymed words and powerful pictures.
Gandhi’s original quotations about changing the world
According to his grandson, Arun Gandhi, he was speaking after a prayer service where people said to him that the world has to change for us to change.
He responded, “No, the world will not change if we don’t change.”
So we must each be the change we want to see.
Similarly, In 1913 Mohandas K. Gandhi published an essay about snakebites that included this passage:
“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.” (*For source, see footnote below)
Also at this time Gandhi published in Hindi a lengthy treatise titled A GUIDE TO HEALTH which included an entire chapter about avoiding and treating snakebites.
An 88 page English translation of that treatise was published in 1921, with statements similar to the above essay quotation. In it Gandhi vehemently asserted that no God created creature is instinctively predatory and dangerous to humans if approached with LOVE.
Thus he declared:
“[W]e are wrong in regarding the serpent as a natural enemy of man.
The great St. Francis of Asissi, who used to roam about the
forests, was not hurt by the serpents or the wild beasts, but they
even lived on terms of intimacy with him. So too, thousands of
Yogis and Fakirs live in the forests of Hindustan, amidst lions and
tigers and serpents, but we never hear of their meeting death at
the hands of these animals.”
“I have implicit faith in the doctrine that, so long as man is not
inimical to the other creatures, they will not be inimical to him.
Love is the greatest of the attributes of man. Without it the
worship of God would be an empty nothing. It is, in short, the
root of all religion whatsoever.”
*Footnote: 1964, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Volume XII, April 1913 to December 1914, Chapter: General Knowledge About Health XXXII: Accidents Snake-Bite, (From Gujarati, Indian Opinion, 9-8-1913), Start Page 156, Quote Page 158, The Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. (Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi at gandhiheritageportal.org) link ↩
What is the signicance of Mahatma Gandhi’s “be the change” philosophy?
The slogan “Be The Change” symbolizes and summarizes Gandhi’s important moral and spiritual philosophy. And Gandhi’s inspiring life, is of particular political importance in the current unprecedented “new normal” era.
By following Mahatma Gandhi’s example we can avert current threats to life as we’ve known it, and morally ascend beyond all historical precedents, to realize Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s prophetic “dream” of an idyllic future, and (as foreseen by the Mahatma) “add to [the] inheritance left by our ancestors” .
Mahatma Gandhi and his “satyagraha” movement successfully applied the noble spiritual philosophy of nonviolence and ahimsa to civil disobedience in modern politics. It followed his realization, and determined fearless faith, that unconditional love and forgiveness are the most powerful of human attributes and the foundation of all enduring religious traditions aimed at realizing God as Truth.
The more we live lovingly and fearlessly, the more we find peace and happiness, and as a “critical mass” help to positively transform the world. “Whatever we think, do, or say, changes this world in some way.” Accordingly, all of our fearless, forgiving, and loving thoughts, behaviors, and emotions inevitably uplift this world and all its supposedly separate life-forms.
The Gandhi Rap – Be the change you want to see
Because Gandhi walked his talk authentically, peacefully, and universally, his words and life were very inspiring and powerful. He changed the world by being the change he wanted see, particularly the non-violent end of the British Raj in India, followed by Indian independence and democracy.
So Gandhi’s life and words have inspired and actuated countless millions of people worldwide.
One of the those people is a talented American rapper named MC Yogi who has creatively conveyed the Mahatma’s life story in rap with rhymed words and powerful pictures.
You can listen, watch and enjoy his unique Gandhi Rap here:
Dedication and Invocation
Inspired by Gandhi’s example, let each of us consciously live our lives as our message.
And together let us be the change we want see.
This posting is dedicated to inspiring a “critical mass” elevation and transformation of humankind consistent with Gandhi’s exemplary life, and his “satyagraha” movement’s resolutely non-violent active assertion of fundamental human morality, which has brought this world an unprecedented “evolutionary leap in political consciousness”.
May Mahatma Gandhi’s inspiring example remind us of our common Self-identity as Love with all Life on our beautiful blue planet. And may it encourage and inspire us to live fearlessly and forgivingly with loving-kindness and compassion for everyone and everything everywhere.
And so it shall be!
Ron Rattner
“Gandhi the Man”
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“My life is my message.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“My life is my message.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart,
cannot come by an appeal to the brain.”
“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart,
cannot come by an appeal to the brain.”
“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist and Confucian.” ….. “My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realizing Him.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist and Confucian.” ….. “My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realizing Him.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
Introduction to “Gandhi the Man”
Dear Friends,
Since my midlife awakening, my life has unfolded in previously imaginable ways, like a spiritual mystery story. Instead of a “who done it?” mystery it has been an ongoing “who am I?” mystery.
The following memoirs chapter is titled “Gandhi the Man” because that is also the title of a wonderful Gandhi biography by Eknath Easwaran which significantly furthered my still unfolding spiritual mystery story.
The importance for me of that Gandhi biography can be best understood in context of my recently posted 9/11 tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and from review of three prior memoirs chapters about my introduction to Hindu teachings and to Mahatma Gandhi.
So for your convenience I’ll summarize those prior chapters in this Introduction, but respectfully suggest that if interested you read them separately.
1) Silva Mind Control
At a Silva Mind Control workshop Mahatma Gandhi became my first known inner spiritual guide, when he appeared telepathically to answer questions and counsel me long after his 1948 assassination. Because he was quite famous, I clearly recognized him wearing a white Indian dhoti. However I then knew very little about Gandhi’s life and story, and he had appeared only after I asked the universe to send my most appropriate inner guide. So I soon wondered why the universe had chosen Gandhi to counsel me.
2) Why Be Here Now?
After Silva Mind Control, I was guided to read an extraordinary book called “Be Here Now” which told how Harvard professor Richard Alpert had become Ram Dass, a Western teacher of Eastern wisdom, after meeting his Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba. The book also included suggestions for Eastern spiritual practices, like repeating (as a mantra) “Rama, Rama, Rama, Rama…”, an important Hindu name for God. That suggestion soon manifested in my life, in an amazingly unprecedented, way as my “who am I” spiritual mystery story enfolded.
3) “Be Here Now”, “Rama”, and Rainbow Synchronicity
After taking depositions in Hawaii, I stayed for weekend relaxing on a hotel beach, and hiking nearby. On a Friday afternoon I decided to briefly hike (without a backpack) in a mountainous and jungle-like Hawaiian state park across from my hotel. While hiking I lost sight of all trails and became fearful of being lost, hungry and chilled throughout the night.
Then for the first time in my life, I spontaneously began, calling out loud “Rama, Rama, Rama, Rama…” – fearfully invoking a Divine solution to my plight. And soon I experienced an “Aha moment” suddenly revealing that a nearby meandering mountain stream was flowing down and out of the jungle park. So I walked downstream in it, and kept repeating “Rama”, “Rama”, “Rama” until I was safely back in my hotel.
There I felt extraordinarily peaceful, but very “strange”. In this strange state, I gazed into a large dressing room mirror and beheld in amazement my face and head enveloped in a beautiful multi-colored aura, like those depicted on ancient religious icons. Virtually thoughtless, I then sat for hours intently gazing in wonder at my mirrored auric image, before going to bed.
On awakening Saturday morning, as I immediately recalled this wondrous experience, there ensued a confusing inner dialogue between the “voice in my head” and my thought-free intuition. Whenever my heart was uplifted by recalling that beautiful experience, the ‘voice’ told me that I’d been hallucinating. So, that morning I went out to the beach in a state of 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’d really seen that beautiful multi-colored aura.
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?”
Whereupon, I looked up and beheld a lovely rainbow, with the very same colors I’d seen in the aura. While I’d 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. As a lawyer, I took the sudden appearance of the rainbow as Divine “corroboration” of my rainbow aura experience.
The rainbow’s unexpected appearance, was one of innumerable continuing synchronicities which have blessed and guided my inner transformation process as clues for my ever unfolding spiritual mystery story, which I will continue sharing with you in the following “Gandhi the Man” chapter.
“Gandhi the Man”
After my synchronistic “Rama” rainbow experience in Hawaii, I felt an inner affinity with “Rama” as a divine name, but didn’t yet adopt a practice of regularly repeating it as a mantra. However, I became intrigued by the powerful potentiality of that practice by a new spiritual friend.
Soon after discovering the Rama mantra in “Be Here Now” and then spontaneously reciting it in Hawaii, I synchronistically met in California an American woman named “Veda Rama”, originally from Boston. She had become a spiritual devotee of Ram Dass in New England (when he was writing “Be Here Now”), and had followed him to the New Mexico Lama Foundation, where she helped to artistically produce and distribute the first hand-assembled and hand-bound editions of that wonderful book. While in New Mexico, she had received the spiritual name “Veda Rama” (meaning “truth of God”).
After meeting Veda Rama I introduced her to my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi. He later initiated her as “Ram Dassi” – the feminine equivalent of Ram Dass (meaning “servant of God”).
She became – and remains – a very dear spiritual friend, with whom I’ve shared countless synchronicity experiences. Those experiences have included my story of how Mahatma Gandhi appeared and counseled me at Silva Mind Control, as my first inner guide – so that I’d become quite curious about Gandhi’s life history. And soon after hearing my Gandhi story, she gave me a beautiful pictorial Gandhi biography titled “Gandhi the Man” by Eknath Easwaran, as a birthday gift.
From reading that biography I learned that Gandhi was a timid and fearful child. So in his early years Gandhi’s beloved nurse Rambha taught him to repeat the name“Rama” whenever he felt afraid. Later throughout his adult life, reciting the Rama mantra became Gandhi’s most important spiritual practice, along with regularly reading the Bhagavad Gita.
Thus, as an adult Gandhi often walked constantly repeating his Rama mantra in rhythm with his steps; and he wrote extensively about the importance of repeating the name “Rama” (the Ramanama).:
“When a child, my nurse taught me to repeat Ramanama whenever I felt afraid or miserable, and it has been second nature with me with growing knowledge and advancing years. I may even say that the Word is in my heart, if not actually on my lips, all the twenty-four hours. It has been my saviour and I am ever stayed on it.” “The mantram becomes one’s staff of life and carries one through every ordeal….” “Each repetition … has a new meaning, each repetition carries you nearer and nearer to God.”
“When a child, my nurse taught me to repeat Ramanama whenever I felt afraid or miserable, and it has been second nature with me with growing knowledge and advancing years. I may even say that the Word is in my heart, if not actually on my lips, all the twenty-four hours. It has been my saviour and I am ever stayed on it.” “The mantram becomes one’s staff of life and carries one through every ordeal….” “Each repetition … has a new meaning, each repetition carries you nearer and nearer to God.”
Even as Gandhi fell to an assassin’s pistol fired point-blank into his heart, in fearless forgiveness he uttered nothing but “Rama, Rama …” his last words from the eternal depths of his heart.
Because he walked his talk authentically, peacefully, and spiritually, his words and life have been exceptionally inspiring and powerful. Gandhi changed the world by being the non-violent change he wanted see, particularly the end of the British Raj in India, followed by Indian independence and democracy.
But few people realize that Gandhi’s legacy includes not just his world renowned campaign for Indian independence, but that he began and named his unprecedented civil rights movement with a brilliantly waged struggle against institutionalized apartheid racism in South Africa.
Gandhi was educated in England as a Common Law barrister, and was not trained in Indian law. So to engage in legal practice he moved from India to South Africa, where for over twenty years he practiced as an idealistic and extraordinarily effective common law civil rights attorney before returning to India, where he became that nation’s most beloved modern hero, and one of the most inspiring and positively influential human beings in all history.
From his deep and extraordinary spiritual aspiration and determination to realize Truth as God or Rama, Gandhi changed himself to change the world. He transformed from beginning life as a timid child, to become a fearlessly determined civil rights advocate relentlessly pursuing nonviolent secular and spiritual Truth.
Gandhi’s history in South Africa is described in my recently posted 9/11 tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King. It tells the inspiring story of how on September 11, 1906, a young lawyer named Mohandas K. Gandhi organized and addressed an anti-apartheid meeting of 3,000 people crowded into the Empire Theater in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Members of the Indian community – both Moslem and Hindu – had gathered there in opposition to a proposed apartheid law that would require Indians to register, be finger-printed and carry special identity cards at all times, and which would further deprive them of civil liberties for failure to comply with the egregiously immoral law.
Gandhi argued that the law be resisted, but warned that resisters realize that they could be jailed, fined, beaten and even killed. The assembly not only declared its opposition to the legislation; its members raised their right hands and swore, with God as their witness, that they would not submit to such an unjust law. Following their September 11th meeting and pledge, Indians refused to register and began burning their ID cards at mass rallies and protests. Thus began the original 9/11 non-violence movement that would literally change the world as the most powerful positive tool for salutary social change.
The September 11th Johannesburg event began a powerful anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Thereafter, in 1908 Gandhi carefully coined a new word – “satyagraha” – to describe the movement’s ground-breaking inter-religious spiritual mission.
Satyagraha is Sanskrit neologism combining “satya” (Truth) with “agraha” (holding firmly). But because Satyagraha is rooted in Vedic spiritual wisdom it is extremely difficult to translate into English. It roughly means the non-violent and resolute pursuit of “Truth” as equated with “God”.
Thus, Gandhi’s satyagraha movement was fundamentally spiritual, not just political. It encompassed relentless pursuit of spiritual Truth through the political practice of active, faith-based civil disobedience. It was steadfastly dedicated to asserting and living Divine Truth by nonviolently and respectfully resisting institutional immorality and injustice to achieve societal and political justice.
Beyond mere “pacifism” or “passive resistance”, it encompassed an actively militant, yet resolutely non-violent faith-based assertion of one’s moral beliefs, with open defiance of unjust laws or decrees, and with steadfast remembrance that Divinity [viz. “Truth”] is immanent in all creation, including one’s oppressors. In addition to practicing satyagraha and ahimsa, Gandhi, was a vegetarian, who lived a non-materialistic, simple life, and practiced aparigraha, non-attachment to possessions.
The more I learned about Gandhi the more he inspired me. I identified with him as a civil rights advocate and as a spiritual truth-seeker. Also his non-attachment to possessions and vegetarianism, was significant for me since I, too, had become a vegetarian living with increasing non-attachment to worldly possessions. And in 1978 my beloved Guruji initiated me with a “Rama” mantra.
Thus, Gandhi’s inner appearance at Silva Mind Control, to counsel me was absolutely appropriate. Gandhiji became and (after over forty years) remains one the few most important humans who have inspired my still unfolding spiritual mystery story – a transformation and transmutation from “Ron” to “Ram”. Even now, I frequently and tearfully call that Divine name.
So, as inspired by Gandhi, “Rama” remains – enshrined in my heart as a constant impetus to my ever evolving spiritual mystery story.
Once when asked about his teachings, Gandhi aptly replied:
“My life is my message.”
Upon deeply realizing and experiencing the universal wisdom of that statement, I was inspired to compose this sutra/poem:
On the Earth branch
of the great Cosmic University,
We are all students
and we are all teachers.
We are all learning love.
And, as Gandhi observed,
our lives are our teachings.
So, as we live
and as we learn,
we each may teach –
peace, love, and compassion.
And so it shall be!
Invocation
May Mahatma Gandhi’s exemplary life,
ever inspire and morally motivate countless humans
to live life peacefully and compassionately
in eternal harmony with Nature and Divinity –
as LOVE!
Shri Ram, Jai Ram, Jai Jai Ram!
Namasté!
Ron Rattner
Honoring the Relentless Pursuit of Truth:
Gandhi’s Original 9/11 Truth Movement
and Dr. King’s Message of World Peace Thru Nonviolence and Love
“Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this
ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.”
~ Albert Einstein (after Gandhi’s 1948 assassination)
“Many ancient Indian masters have preached nonviolence as a philosophy. That was a more spiritual understanding of it. Mahatma Gandhi, in this twentieth century, produced a very sophisticated approach because he implemented that very noble philosophy of nonviolence in modern politics, and he succeeded. That is a very great thing. It has represented an evolutionary leap in political consciousness, his experimentation with truth.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama, from “The Dalai Lama, A Policy of Kindness”
“Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart,
cannot come by an appeal to the brain.”
“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“I found in the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi … the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.”
~ Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Introduction
Dear Friends,
Today’s posting (on the twentieth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC), is dedicated to advancing worldwide social justice by inspiring nonviolent civil disobedience to extraordinarily irrational, immoral, and tyrannical edicts of current world “leaders”. The posting highlights histories of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as the most prominent and inspiring 20th century spiritual practitioners of nonviolent resistance to those in power.
And it explains how the Gandhian nonviolent Satyagraha truth movement has brought humankind “an evolutionary leap in political consciousness” beyond centuries of spiritual philosophy preached by Indian mystic masters. (See above Dalai Lama quotation)
Background
Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC, many people regard September 11 as a day that will live in infamy – a day of treachery, often cited (disingenuously or duplicitously) as pretext for an Orwellian era of endless war, violence and dystopian deprivations of civil liberties.
(See PBS Documentary 9/11-Explosive Evidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l-8PFk8j5I)
But, paradoxically, few realize that on a century earlier September 11th Mahatma Gandhi launched his extraordinary “satyagraha” peace and justice movement through which Gandhi, and countless others inspired by him, have accomplished much good in the world by non-violently resisting and transforming widespread social injustice and oppression. As recognized by the Dalai Lama’s above quotation, Gandhi’s nonviolent truth movement represented “an evolutionary leap in political consciousness”.
Of countless humans inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s life and words, most prominent and influential has been Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who honored Gandhi as a spiritual “guiding light …. of nonviolent social change”, and who in 1959 journeyed to India to study Gandhian methods, saying:
“To other countries, I may go as a tourist, but to India, I come as a pilgrim.”
During and since Mahatma Gandhi’s extraordinary lifetime, he has been venerated worldwide as one of the greatest spiritual and political leaders not just of our time, but of all times. Because he walked his talk authentically, peacefully, and spiritually, his words and life have been exceptionally inspiring and powerful.
Mahatma Gandhi changed the world by being the non-violent change he wanted see, particularly the end of the British Raj in India, followed by Indian independence and democracy. But few people realize that Gandhi’s legacy includes not just his campaign for Indian independence, but that it began with his brilliantly waged struggle against institutionalized apartheid racism in South Africa, with ground-breaking inter-religious dialogue and cooperation.
Gandhi’s Original 9/11 Truth Movement
On September 11, 1906, a young lawyer named Mohandas K. Gandhi organized and addressed a meeting of 3,000 people crowded into the Empire Theater in Johannesburg, South Africa. Members of the Indian community – both Moslem and Hindu – had gathered there in opposition to a proposed law that would require Indians to register, be finger-printed and carry special identity cards at all times, and which would further deprive them of civil liberties for failure to comply with the egregiously immoral law.
Gandhi argued that the law be resisted, but warned that resisters realize that they could be jailed, fined, beaten and even killed. The assembly not only declared its opposition to the legislation; its members raised their right hands and swore, with God as their witness, that they would not submit to such an unjust law.
Gandhi’s legendary talk at the Empire Theater meeting is dramatically portrayed by academy award winning actor Ben Kingsley in this excerpt from the epic film “Gandhi”:
The next day after the anti-apartheid meeting, the Empire Theater was mysteriously destroyed by fire.
Following their September 11th meeting and pledge, Indians refused to register and began burning their ID cards at mass rallies and protests. Thus began the original 9/11 non-violence movement that would literally change the world as the most powerful positive tool for salutary social change.
Satyagraha
The September 11th Johannesburg event began a powerful anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Thereafter, in 1908 Gandhi carefully coined a new word – “satyagraha” – to describe the movement.
Satyagraha is Sanskrit neologism combining “satya” (Truth) with “agraha” (holding firmly). But because Satyagraha is rooted in Vedic spiritual wisdom it is extremely difficult to translate into English.
Gandhi was a spiritual man in search of God, who equated “Truth” with “God”. He grew up inculcated as a Hindu, and in South Africa called the Bhagavad Gita his “spiritual reference book”. However, he acknowledged that he had been influenced by the teachings of Jesus, the writings of Tolstoy, and Thoreau’s famous essay, “Civil Disobedience.”
Thus, Gandhi’s satyagraha movement was fundamentally spiritual, not just political. It encompassed relentless pursuit of spiritual Truth through the political practice of active, faith-based civil disobedience. It was steadfastly dedicated to asserting and living Divine Truth by nonviolently and respectfully resisting institutional injustice to achieve societal and political justice. Beyond mere “pacifism” or “passive resistance”, it encompassed an actively militant, yet resolutely non-violent faith-based assertion of one’s moral beliefs, with open defiance of unjust laws or decrees.
The movement began with the above recounted defiance of South African apartheid decrees, and burning of racially discriminatory ID cards. Later in India it actively defied unjust British Raj laws, like laws forbidding Indians to make their own salt, and requiring export of all Indian grown cotton to be fabricated in England. Gandhi’s “satyagraha” movement disobeyed those laws with the famous “salt march” and by not purchasing British produced fabrics, while fabricating their cotton with spinning wheels. And Gandhi actively opposed the Indian “untouchable” caste system, condoned by the Bhagavad Gita, as well as by immorally exploitive societal customs.
Gandhi often and broadly spoke about “satyagraha”. Here are a few of his apt quotations:
Truth (satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves
as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha, that is to say,
the Force which is born of Truth and Love or non-violence, and gave up the use of the phrase
“passive resistance”, in connection with it, so much so that even in English writing
we often avoided it and used instead the word “satyagraha” itself.
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“The word satya (Truth) is derived from Sat which means ‘being.’ Nothing is or exists in reality except Truth. That is why Sat or Truth is perhaps the most important name of God, In fact it is more correct to say that Truth is God than to say God is truth. On deeper thinking, however it will be realized that Sat or Satya is the only correct and fully sign fact name for God.”
“Devotion to this Truth is the sole justification for our existence. All our activities should be centered in Truth. Truth should be the very breath of our life. When once this stage in the pilgrim’s progress is reached, all other rules of correct living will come without effort, and obedience to them will be instinctive. But without Truth it is impossible to observe any principles or rules in life.”
“[W]hat may appear as truth to one person will often appear as untruth to another person.
But that need not worry the seeker. Where there is honest effort,
it will be realized that what appear to be different truths are like the countless and apparently different leaves of the same tree.
Does not God himself appear to different individuals in different aspects?
Yet we know that He is one. But Truth is the right designation of God.
Hence there is nothing wrong in every man following Truth according to his lights.
Indeed it is his duty to do so.
Then if there is a mistake on the part of any one so following Truth it will be automatically set right.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi – Mohandas Gandhi on the Meaning of Truth 1/1/1927
“Satyagraha means resisting untruth by truthful means”
“It is a religious duty to fight untruth.
If one remains steadfast in it in a spirit
of dedication, it always brings success.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi – 3/30/1911 Cape Town speech
“Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.” “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
”Non-violence 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 non-violence…
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.“
~ Mahatma Gandhi
Satyagraha Conclusion
Thus the “satyagraha” movement has been a militant, but resolutely non-violent active assertion of fundamental human morality, which has brought this world an unprecedented “evolutionary leap in political consciousness”.
Thereby Mohandas K. Gandhi has become one of the most inspiring and positively influential human beings in our current history.
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr’s, Message of World Peace Through Love and Gandhian Nonviolence
Like Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King, a Christian minister, dedicated his life to nonviolent religious spirituality, not just to political social justice.
In 1964 (at age 35) Dr. King became the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for his nonviolent social activism in opposing racial segregation, poverty, and war. As a dedicated Christian disciple of Jesus, Dr. King
“found in the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi … the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.”
Dr. King’s life paralleled Gandhi’s life. Each began as an outspoken advocate of inter-racial equality and social justice in racially segregated societies. Gradually their nonviolent missions expanded to encompass universal freedom, peace and social justice for everyone everywhere.
On humbly accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, as ‘trustee’ for countless unknown others, Dr. King cited Gandhi’s success in India as a key precedent encouraging nonviolent civil rights activism in the USA, saying:
“This [nonviolent] approach to the problem of racial injustice …. was used in a magnificent way by Mohandas K. Gandhi to challenge the might of the British Empire and free his people from the political domination and economic exploitation inflicted upon them for centuries.”
And King described how (because of technological advances which imminently threaten nuclear/ecological catastrophe) the survival of humanity depends upon our nonviolently solving “the problems of racial injustice, poverty, and war” by “living in harmony” with “all-embracing and unconditional love for all men”.
Eloquently he explained that
“[Love is] that force which all of the great religions [Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist] have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. . . . the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate Reality.”
Whereupon he recited this wisdom passage from the First Epistle of St John:
“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 ]”
Like Gandhi and Jesus – who also ‘heretically’ preached nonviolent love and forgiveness – King was martyred at (age 39), when his ‘heretic’ truth telling and expanding prophetic powers became intolerable barriers to the US Empire’s military/industrial war plans for Viet Nam and beyond.
Conclusion and Dedication
Today’s posting is deeply dedicated to inspiring a new era of global social justice through peaceful noncooperation and resistance to pervasive “new normal” era political and institutional social injustice, and its insane desecration of Nature on our precious planet.
May the prophetic seeds of political and spiritual Truth first sewn by Gandhi on September 11, 1906, and nurtured worldwide by Dr. King, at long last soon end needless suffering, and allow an unprecedented new era of global peace and harmony, beyond fear and hostility.
And may humankind now heed Dr. King’s crucial warnings that we must “learn to live together as brothers [and sisters] or perish together as fools”; that our survival depends upon “living in harmony” with “all-embracing and unconditional love for all men [and women]”.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Nobel Peace Prize Lecture (full audio+text)
Monistic Musings – Reflections and Questions on “God” and Divinity
“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
“You are “gods”; you are all children of the Most High.”
~ Psalm 82:6
“Let never day nor night unhallow’d pass,
But still remember what the Lord hath done.”
~ William Shakespeare
Remember God, forget the rest.
Forget who you think you are,
to know what you really are.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Ron’s Introduction to his “Monistic Musings”
Dear Friends,
After my spiritual awakening I began wondering why many monotheistic religious fundamentalists – especially Jews, Christians and Moslems – historically espoused different, dogmatic and disharmonious views of their “ONE God”. And I reflected on why monotheistic fundamentalism had often resulted in religious crusades, inquisitions, and jihads against alleged heretics or nonbelievers in the one true God or Messiah.
Later, after my introduction to Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist non-dualism teachings (which I accepted as valid and consistent with Western monotheism), I learned that those Eastern religions also had violent fundamentalist sects; that for example Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by an opinionated Hindu fundamentalist opposed to Gandhi’s advocacy of egalitarian and nonviolent Hindu-Muslim tolerance and cooperation.
As I reflected philosophically, I rhetorically asked and answered the following musings about monotheism, God, and divinity which I’ve called “Monistic Musings – Reflections and Questions on “God” and Divinity”.
These rhetorical ruminations have increasingly helped me remember and revere the Divine Holiness of everyone, everything, everywhere, with ever expanding gratitude for this hallowed human lifetime.
They are shared with the deep aspiration that they may similarly inspire all of us, until ultimately we realize that everything’s holy; and, that nothing’s really Real, but Divine LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Monistic Musings – Reflections and Questions on “God” and Divinity
Q. What is “God”?
A. “God” is a word – a noun –
with countless connotations,
different for different people –
all believing or disbelieving in “God”.
Thus, “God” did not create humans,
but humans created “God” – with thoughts from
ruminations, revelations, intuitions, and speculations.
For many monotheists
“God” is a universally Supreme Deity,
and sole Creator and Ruler of the universe;
and, “God” is a “he” word,
meaning an anthropomorphic male deity,
with supernatural yet human-like qualities.
But, in this duality “reality”,
gender is everywhere in everything.
So, how can there be just one such God?
Isn’t it so that for every such God,
there’s got to be a Goddess;
for every “he” God, a “she” God?
Thus, mustn’t any unitary Divinity,
be beyond gender and duality –
and so, transcend this polarity “reality”?
And if Transcendent,
though universally immanent,
mustn’t such a sole Divinity
be infinite, ineffable and inconceivable?
So how can we describe,
denominate, or depict THAT?
Even if we neuter it,
how can we name it?
Doesn’t any designation of unitary Divinity,
tend to divide and disrupt humanity?
What about atheists who ardently deny Divinity,
versus convinced theists and deists?
And what about religious fundamentalists?
Aren’t “God”, Allah, and Adonoi,
the same ‘Supreme Being’?
And if there is just one “God”,
how can that one God
be a different “true God”
for Christians, Muslims, and Jews
and their diverse denominations?
If one “true God” is the same
for all those religions,
what do they fight and shout about?
‘Methinks they protest too much’
because they really can’t conceive Divinity.
Don’t their fundamentalist shouts
disclose their doubts
about the identity of Divinity?
And isn’t there a connection between
monotheistic fundamentalism
and messianic fanaticism?
If one “true God” is the sole benevolent
Creator and Ruler of the Universe,
why did “S/He” create a world
with so much suffering and sorrow?
Why not a perpetual paradise without evil?
How can “S/He” allow holocausts
and other terrible calamities?
In projecting “God” as Creator,
don’t we just reify and deify
our doubts about Divinity?
Did “God” create karma and causation?
If so, why?
So, can we get beyond speculating and
arguing about “God” and Creation?
And can we transcend
dogmatic divisive designations of Divinity?
Can’t we be tolerant
of all benevolent religions,
moral codes, and philosophies?
Can we – as the Buddha –
avert theistic speculation
that “tends not to edification?”
Buddhists aren’t theists or deists.
They don’t believe in a Creator God –
but they pray a lot.
I wonder who they’re praying to?
And I wonder who’s listening to their prayers –
and to everyone else’s prayers?
Isn’t it the same universal Awareness?
If so, how can we ever know?
How can we infer, find,
and know “God”
only through reason,
rather than revelation,
inner insight, or intuition?
If there is a universal Divinity
transcending our “reality”,
what is it’s identity?
Can we ever know such Divinity –
mystically, experientially, intuitively –
while yet dwelling in duality?
Can we know the Immortal
before leaving “this mortal coil”?
Or must first we depart or die,
to be “born to Eternal life”?
To know the Immortal,
must we abjure desire
for earthly pleasures and ways
of this world?
Can’t we be “in this world
but not of this world”?
If so, how?
How, when and where shall we seek God?
Shall we follow doctrines, dogmas, or ideologies
from ‘outer’ authorities or theologies?
Or, as unique beings,
shall we each look within
and follow our Sacred Heart?
Doesn’t inner infinity ‘create’ outer “reality”?
So, isn’t inner infinity true Divinity?
And isn’t true Divinity
Eternal Mystery?
The Bible says:
“Ask, and it shall be given..; seek, and ye shall find.”
So, now that we’ve asked all these questions,
will “God’” answer them?
God Knows!?
Ron’s Dedication of “Monistic Musings”
Dear Friends,
As explained in the above introduction, my curiosity and continuing reflections about disharmonious monotheistic views of One God and the true Messiah motivated the foregoing “Monistic Musings”, and have helped me increasingly experience the Divine Holiness of everyone, everything, everywhere.
So these musings are dedicated to inspiring all of us to see ourselves as “children of the Most High” [Psalm 82:6], until ultimately – beyond all illusory ego-mind perceptions of separation from each other and Nature – we inevitably realize our common SELF identity as Divine LOVE!
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Everything’s Holy
“The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness,
the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
Ron’s Introduction to “Everything’s Holy”
Dear Friends,
Today’s “Everything’s Holy” posting includes a visionary sutra-poem, a quotation collection about “Holiness”, and an explanatory commentary about THAT transcendent “miraculous” and mysterious Divine Reality beyond illusionary space/time duality reality. Also embedded is an inspiring video performance by Louis Armstrong (with lyric captions) of his legendary song “What A Wonderful World”.
This posting was inspired many years ago after I was emotionally moved and uplifted by Peter Mayer video performances of his song “Holy Now”. (See https://sillysutras.com/holy-now-by-peter-mayer/ ) Since imagining and composing the “Everything’s Holy” sutra-poem, I’ve gradually transformed to a “holy” state of being, with virtually constant gratitude and awareness that all Life is Divine and Holy.
Thus, I’ve learned from life that we can evolve, from just hearing about “holiness”, or observing “holy days” or ‘holy seasons’ with ‘holy songs and scriptures’, or visiting rare ‘holy places’, holy people, or holy artifacts, to always experiencing the Divine Holiness of everyone, everything, everywhere.
And I’m sharing these ‘holiness’ writings and Wonderful World song with the heartfelt aspiration that they may advance our inner evolution from seeing everything everywhere as separate and impermanent manifestations of mortal matter, to realization that all phenomena are reflections of Eternal Holy Spirit – that all Life is an endless gift of God’s Grace and LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Everything’s Holy
Everything’s a miracle:
E=mc2 – all manifestation is miraculous.
Everything’s Whole:
Mind and manifestation are ONE!
Everything’s Holy:
All matter manifests from Mystery,
and melts to merge with Mystery –
The mystery of Divinity.
So essence of everything is Divine Mystery, and
Everything’s Holy.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Everything’s Holy”
Quotation Collection about “Everything’s Holy” and “Holiness”
“For everything that lives is Holy,
life delights in life.”
~ William Blake – The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness,
the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside.”
“This perfection must come through the practice of holiness and love.”
“Every step that has been really gained in the world has been gained by love; criticising can never do any good, it has been tried for thousand of years. Condemnation accomplishes nothing.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
“There comes a holy and transparent time
when every touch of beauty opens the heart to tears.
This is the time the Beloved of heaven is brought tenderly on earth.
This is the time of the opening of the Rose.”
~ Rumi
“If you put your soul against this oar with me,
the power that made the universe will enter your sinew
from a source not outside your limbs, but from a holy realm
that lives in us.
~ Rumi – “That Lives in Us”
“A holy spirit lives within you.”
~ Leo Tolstoy
“The wisdom of the Holy Spirit is much greater than the wisdom of the entire world. Within the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, silence prevails; the wisdom of the world, however, goes astray into idle talk.”
~ Isaac of Nineveh
“Everything is interwoven, and the web is holy.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
“Even the merest gesture is holy if it is filled with faith.”
~ Franz Kafka
“Holiness consists simply in doing God’s will,
and being just what God wants us to be.”
~ Saint Therese of Lisieux
“Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.”
~ Abraham Joshua Heschel
“However many holy words you read,
However many you speak,
What good will they do you
If you do not act on upon them?”
~ Buddha
“Many good sayings are to be found in holy books,
but merely reading them will not make one religious.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna
“The mind, unless it is pure and holy, cannot see God.”
~ Seneca the Younger
“What the world needs today is neither a new order, a new education, a new system, a new society nor a new religion. The remedy lies in a mind and a heart filled with holiness.”
~ Shirdi Sai Baba
“One need not scale the heights of the heavens, nor travel along the highways of the world to find Ahura Mazda. With purity of mind and holiness of heart one can find Him in one’s own heart.”
~ Zoroaster
“The most holy and important practice in the spiritual life is the presence of God –
that is, every moment to take great pleasure that God is with you”
~ Brother Lawrence
“One should hallow all that one does in one’s natural life. One eats in holiness, tastes the taste of food in holiness, and the table becomes an altar. One works in holiness, and raises up the sparks which hide themselves in all tools. One walks in holiness across the fields, and the soft songs of all herbs, which they voice to God, enter into the song of our soul.”
~ Martin Buber
“To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!”
~ Allen Ginsberg
“If God gives you an abundant harvest of trials, it is a sign of great holiness which He desires you to attain. Do you want to become a great saint? Ask God to send you many sufferings.
~ St. Ignatius of Loyola
“Many people are so imprisoned in their minds that the beauty of nature does not really exist for them. They might say, ‘What a pretty flower,’ but that’s just a mechanical mental labeling. Because they are not still, not present, they don’t truly see the flower, don’t feel it’s essence, it’s holiness-just as they don’t know themselves, don’t feel their own essence, their own holiness.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“Throw away holiness and wisdom, and people will be a hundred times happier. Throw away morality and justice, and people will do the right thing. Throw away industry and profit, and there won’t be any thieves. If these three aren’t enough, just stay at the center of the circle and let all things take their course.”
~ Lao Tzu
“I disbelieve all holy men and holy books.”
~ Thomas Paine
“I studiously avoided all so-called “holy men.” I did so because I had to make do with my own truth, not accept from others what I could not attain on my own. I would have felt it as a theft had I attempted to learn from the holy men and to accept their truth for myself. Neither in Europe can I make any borrowings from the East, but must shape my life out of myself-out of what my inner being tells me, or what nature brings to me.”
~ Carl Jung
“There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
~ Albert Einstein
“And as to me, I know nothing else but miracles.”
~ Walt Whitman
“Do you realize the unimaginable greatness, the holiness of what you so casually call ‘consciousness’? It is the unmanifest Absolute aware of its awareness through the manifestation, of which your mind-body is presently a part.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Do you realize the unimaginable greatness, the holiness of what you so casually call ‘consciousness’? . . . . How can you ever forget the basic truth that consciousness is the very expression of what-we-are. It is through the stirring of consciousness that the unmanifest Absolute becomes aware of its awareness through manifestation, and the whole universe comes into existence.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
”When all the false self-identifications are thrown away, what remains is all-embracing love.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Only if one knows the truth of Love, which is the real nature of Self, will the strong entangled [ego] knot of life be untied. Only if one attains the height of Love will liberation be attained. Such is the heart of all religions. The experience of Self is only Love, which is seeing only Love, hearing only Love, feeling only Love, tasting only Love and smelling only Love, which is bliss.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“Mind and Manifestation are One”
~ Mary Saint-Marie
Ron’s Reflections on “Everything’s Holy” and “Holiness”
Dear Friends,
The Louis Armstrong video below and the foregoing ‘Holiness’ quotations and sutra-poem are shared with the heartfelt aspiration that they may further our inner evolution from seeing everything everywhere as separate and impermanent manifestations of mortal matter, to realization that all phenomena are reflections of Eternal Holy Spirit – that all Life is an endless gift of God’s Grace and LOVE.
So that – with opened Hearts in “a holy and transparent time” – we may realize all space/time phenomena as appearances of Divine Holiness.
Yet, as we are blessed to perceive this Wonderful World as holy, let us always remember that our space/time perceptions are like an ego-mind projected movie – an unreal and illusory play of Universal Consciousness in which nothing’s really Real but Divine LOVE.
“Only if one knows the truth of Love, which is the real nature of Self, will the strong entangled [ego] knot of life be untied. Only if one attains the height of Love will liberation be attained. Such is the heart of all religions. The experience of Self is only Love, which is seeing only Love, hearing only Love, feeling only Love, tasting only Love and smelling only Love, which is bliss.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
”When all the false self-identifications are thrown away,
what remains is all-embracing love.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
And so shall it be!
Namasté!
Ron Rattner
“What A Wonderful World” sung by Louis Armstrong with captioned lyrics
“Holy Now”
~ by Peter Mayer
“The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness,
the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
“The most holy and important practice in the spiritual life
is the presence of God –
that is, every moment to take great pleasure
that God is with you”
~ Brother Lawrence
Everything is holy now
Everything, everything
Everything is holy now
~ Peter Mayer. “Holy Now”
Ron’s Introduction to “Holy Now” by Peter Mayer
Dear Friends,
Many years ago I was emotionally moved and uplifted by video performances of the song “Holy Now”, with inspiring lyrics composed and beautifully sung by Peter Mayer. So today I’m sharing with you those videos and lyrics.
In his lyrics Mayer describes his transformation from an awestruck child hearing in church about wondrous biblical “miracles”, to a spiritual life stage wherein Mayer has evolved to see everything as a divine “miracle” – so that for him everything is “Holy Now”.
On being inspired by “Holy Now”, I soon composed a poem titled “Everything’s Holy” which I’ve posted with an online quotation collection and discussion about “holiness” at https://sillysutras.com/everythings-holy/.
Since first hearing “Holy Now”, I have gradually evolved to a state of being similar to Peter Mayer’s, with virtually constant gratitude and awareness that all Life is miraculous and holy.
So I’ve learned from life that we can evolve within, from just hearing about rare “miracles”, or observing a few “holy days” or ‘holy seasons’ with ‘holy songs and scriptures’, or visiting rare ‘holy places’, holy people, or holy artifacts, to always experiencing the miraculous holiness of everyone/everything/everywhere.
Peter Mayer’s inspiring lyrics and video performances herein are dedicated to furthering our inner evolution from seeing everything everywhere as separate and impermanent manifestations of mortal matter, to realization that all phenomena are reflections of Holy Spirit – that all Life is a miraculous and Eternal gift of God’s Grace – as LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Lyrics to “Holy Now” by Peter Mayer
When I was a boy, each week
On Sunday, we would go to church
And pay attention to the priest
He would read the holy word
And consecrate the holy bread
And everyone would kneel and bow
Today the only difference is
Everything is holy now
Everything, everything
Everything is holy now
When I was in Sunday school
We would learn about the time
Moses split the sea in two
Jesus made the water wine
And I remember feeling sad
That miracles don’t happen still
But now I can’t keep track
‘Cause everything’s a miracle
Everything, Everything
Everything’s a miracle
Wine from water is not so small
But an even better magic trick
Is that anything is here at all
So the challenging thing becomes
Not to look for miracles
But finding where there isn’t one
When holy water was rare at best
It barely wet my fingertips
But now I have to hold my breath
Like I’m swimming in a sea of it
It used to be a world half there
Heaven’s second rate hand-me-down
But I walk it with a reverent air
‘Cause everything is holy now
Everything, everything
Everything is holy now
Read a questioning child’s face
And say it’s not a testament
That’d be very hard to say
See another new morning come
And say it’s not a sacrament
I tell you that it can’t be done
This morning, outside I stood
And saw a little red-winged bird
Shining like a burning bush
Singing like a scripture verse
It made me want to bow my head
I remember when church let out
How things have changed since then
Everything is holy now
It used to be a world half-there
Heaven’s second rate hand-me-down
But I walk it with a reverent air
‘Cause everything is holy now
Peter Mayer singing “Holy Now”
Dedication
May Peter Mayer’s inspiring lyrics and video performances of “Holy Now”
help further our evolution from seeing everything everywhere
as separate and impermanent manifestations of mortal matter,
to inner realization that all phenomena are reflections of Holy Spirit –
that all Life is a miraculous and Eternal gift of God’s Grace –
as LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner