Einstein
Season’s Blessings!
“To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
“What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.”
~ Ecclesiastes 3:1 and 1:9
“The winds of grace are always blowing,
but you have to raise the sail.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence,
but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Cherish or Perish.
Co-exist cooperatively, or
Co-expire catastrophically.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness,
a kind of prison for us. . .Our task must be to free ourselves from this
[mental] prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all iving creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
~ Albert Einstein (edited excisions)
“The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”; “space and time are not conditions in which we live, [but] modes in which we think.”
~ Albert Einstein
Season’s Blessings!
Dear Friends,
Following the recent September new-moon and solar equinox, we’re all blessed to experience a new season, as unique incarnate Earth-beings with unique karmic perspectives and limitations, and with different evolutionary life-cycle seasons and challenges. (See video linked below.)
“To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the sun (or heaven).”
~ Ecclesiastes 3:1
Though we’re each ending and beginning new space/time solar/lunar and karmic temporal seasons, Cosmically (beyond the ego-mind’s persistent perception-projection-deception), “there is nothing new under the sun”. [Ecclesiastes 1:9]
In this ever-changing illusory ego-mind reality we’re experiencing time and seasons, while learning that our true Source and Infinite Reality forever exists beyond space/ time/duality; that Cosmically Life is NOW, ever NOW, never “then”!
But as students on the ‘Earth branch of the Great Cosmic University’, while we orbit, rotate, and revolve with Gaia, the Earth Mother that physically birthed us all, we must harmoniously honor Nature’s blessings and limitations. As stewards of all Life-forms on this precious planet, we must protect and nurture them – not insanely and unsustainably pillage, plunder and destroy them.
We must
“Cherish or Perish.
Co-exist cooperatively, or
Co-expire catastrophically.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
So on beginning new solar, lunar, and karmic seasons, let us resolve to solve catastrophic crises – which imminently threaten all Life-forms on our precious planet.
Individually and collectively, let us become actively engaged as a global human family to resolve with compassionate solidarity human threatened nuclear and ecological cataclysm, not just as a matter of morality or ethics, but for survival of earth life as we have known it. With conscious concern for urgent dangers of nuclear or ecologic omnicide, let us politically, socially and spiritually act before it is too late.
But first, let us conscientiously calm our disturbed, judgmental and reactive states of ego-mind. Rather than vindictively seeking retribution for perceived wrongs, or condemning or trying to change others, may we first empathetically look within to recognize and resolve our own disharmonious habits and behaviors.
Thereby with quiet minds and open hearts may we non-violently and non-judgmentally resist injustice, while honoring the spiritual essence and universal equality of everyone everywhere.
And so may we help bless and transform our lives and our space/time world, until we ultimately transcend it.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
“Turn! Turn! Turn!” Ecclesiastes 3 – Video + Text.
Evolving ‘Out Of The Box’:
Into The Light Of Creation.
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
~ King Solomon – Proverbs 23:7
“The release of atom power ..changed everything
except our way of thinking..the solution to this problem
lies in the heart of mankind.”
~ Albert Einstein
“I think with intuition. The basis of true thinking is intuition.
Indeed, it is not intellect, but intuition which advances humanity.
Intuition tells a man his purpose in life.
One never goes wrong following his feelings – for feelings and intuition are one.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”
~ Albert Einstein
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness
that created it. ”
~ Albert Einstein
“Humanity is evolving out of the box and into the light of creation.”
~ Ellie Crystal
Evolving ‘Out Of The Box’ and Into the Light of Creation
Ron’s Introduction
Dear Friends,
Twelve years ago I optimistically first composed and published the following poetic prophesy of Humankind’s transcendence of current cataclysmic threats to life on Earth, predicting that “we shall soon reach a “critical mass” tipping point which uplifts “human consciousness” to transcend and resolve crises created by outmoded and illusionary beliefs.”
Since then, it appears that we have experienced unprecedented self-inflicted threats by only our species of nuclear war or climate collapse cataclysm, potentially portending destruction of Earth life as we have known it. Accordingly, most humans are now experiencing an extraordinary (matrix programmed) post-pandemic “new normal” era of fearful sufferings. So we urgently need energetically elevated “human consciousness’ to avert such catastrophes.
However, from my still optimistic perspective, this is not only a time of unprecedented threat to Earth life, but also an age of immense evolutionary opportunity. It is increasingly apparent that current global sufferings are energetically awakening and elevating “a critical mass” of human beings to a prophesied “new reality” of egalitarian and cooperative Earth-life sharing and openness, beyond ego-mind’s optical illusion of separation from Nature and its lifeforms.
So I’ve hereafter reposted my ‘utopian’ poetic prophesy of Humankind’s transcendence of current cataclysmic threats to life on Earth. Please deeply consider joining the “critical mass” it predicts.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Evolving ‘Out Of The Box’ Into The Light Of Creation
Individually and societally, humankind have been caught in a psychological box, self-created by mistaken perceptions and ego-mind ideas of separation from Nature and each other.
We’ve mistakenly regarded ourselves and others as mere limited entities, rather than as limitless souls – spirit drops in an infinite ocean of Eternal Light. And, our worldviews have been mostly based on such unrealistically reductionist ideas of who and what we are.
Thereby, individually we’ve been caught in a mistaken self-identity box;
and societally we’ve been “boxed in” by an outmoded Newtonian
pre-quantum worldview. Though quantum science now knows that “reality”
can’t be reduced to objects or entities in space,
we’ve kept acting as if this is so.
We’ve thus been self-limited by our mistaken ideas of “reality” and of our true identities, powers and potentialities – which are infinite,
though yet largely unknown and unrealized.
But, spurred by extraordinarily critical inter-personal and planetary crises, and innately blessed with an intuitive evolutionary impetus in each us, more and more people are realizing their true spiritual nature and awakening with compassion from their egoically imagined limitations.
From seeing everyone and everything as discrete and separated by apparently immutable boundaries, we are gradually realizing that everyone/everything is connected by our common essence:
ever-changing energy in a matrix of immutable eternal Awareness –
our true Source and common Divine essence.
We are evolving from a Newtonian “reality” of polarized duality
to a quantum “Reality” of holistic connectedness; from either this or that, to this and that are ONE. And so we are beginning to envision, intuit and implement ‘Out Of The Box’ solutions to current crises.
And as we evolve ‘Out Of The Box’ and into the Light of creation,
we shall soon reach a “critical-mass” tipping point which energetically uplifts “human consciousness” to transcend and resolve current crises arising from outmoded and illusionary ego-mind beliefs.
Ron’s comments on evolving out of the box into the light of creation.
Dear Friends,
While long aware that “no problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it”, I’ve often wondered how individually and societally we can most effectively elevate “human consciousness” to resolve critical interpersonal and international planetary problems. And I’ve concluded that we need to be ever more loving and compassionate; that our love is ‘contagious’ and will inevitably bless and change the world as it gradually spreads to others, until ultimately we will reach a “critical mass” tipping point triggering new societal worldview solutions to old problems.
So many years ago I optimistically began predicting in the foregoing essay that
“we shall soon reach a critical mass tipping point which uplifts human consciousness to transcend and resolve crises created by outmoded and illusionary beliefs.”
Yet paradoxically it appears we are now nearer than ever before to nuclear or ecological disaster, potentially portending destruction of Earth life as we have known it. So, more than ever before, we urgently need energetically elevated “human consciousness” to avert such disaster.
A century has passed since quantum science revealed to us that “reality” can’t be reduced to objects or entities in space/time. Yet we’ve kept acting as if this is so – clinging to a false Newtonian materialistic worldview that sees everyone and everything as discrete and separated by apparently immutable boundaries.
Three generations have passed since immensely destructive nuclear weapons were first developed, atmospherically tested, and savagely used by the American Empire against innocent civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet these dreadful weapons have insanely proliferated worldwide and now threaten our precious planet more than ever before. In a May 1946 letter to prominent Americans, Albert Einstein wrote:
“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”
Einstein foresaw that such “unparalleled catastrophe” could be averted only from levels of consciousness beyond those which created it; thus he observed that “the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind.”
After much deep reflection, and with unspeakable faith in the Sacred Heart of all Humans – which is LOVE – I have today optimistically reposted the foregoing poetic essay with my intuitive ‘utopian’ prophesy of Humankind’s transcendence of current cataclysmic threats to life on Earth.
I still foresee the imminent onset of a new age of nonviolent cooperative societies which will advance the highest good for all life on our precious planet, transcending the outmoded and illusionary beliefs which created current crises.
So I optimistically pray that we shall join together – each from our unique heartfelt perspective – to fearlessly follow our hearts and ‘contagiously’ bless all Life as LOVE.
Dedication and Invocation
This posting is deeply dedicated to inspiring us to lovingly BE and bless all Earth-Life as LOVE. So
May we honor as LOVE
the spiritual Source and essence
of everyone/everything/everywhere
thereby energetically uplifting “human consciousness”
to lovingly transcend and resolve
crises created by long outmoded
illusionary ego-mind beliefs.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Analyzing Einstein’s Autograph ~ Synchronicity Story
“Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.”
~ Albert Einstein
“There are no mistakes, no coincidences,
all events are blessings given to us to learn from.”
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful
for the evolution of your consciousness.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“As I look back upon my own life, I see how many events – which at the time appeared horribly painful or unnecessary – contained remarkable lessons which I sometimes did not understand until many years later. Now life appears to me – more and more – as a gorgeous Persian rug. Seen from underneath (that is, from the ordinary human viewpoint), it may be a mess of loose strands, knots, pieces of wool hanging in a disorderly manner; but seen from above – from another level of perspective – what perfect order, harmony and beauty!”
~ Pierre Pradervand
Analyzing Einstein’s Autograph ~ Synchronicity Story
Ron’s Introduction
Dear Friends,
Many silly sutras, poems and essays were first written on bits of paper during an extended period of solitude, when I had no computer, TV, or daily paper, and was extremely reluctant to participate in the ‘digital revolution’. To express my skeptical attitude about possible technological transformation, I wrote that I chose the “inner net” rather than the internet; that while “the world wants ever more information, Ron seeks infinite inspiration: in the Unknown, in the Mystery – the Mystery of Divinity.
But finally, despite prolonged reluctance to go on-line, I felt obliged to get a computer in 2002 after my son had significant legal problems requiring my help.
Only thereafter did I discover Albert Einstein’s wise quotations on many philosophical subjects other than theoretical physics. I was amazed to learn that Einstein had expressed many of the same ideas which were conveyed in my sutras. Thereafter, in trying to discuss those ideas with others I often used Einstein quotes, rather than sutras. [As a lawyer I learned that it is much more persuasive to cite Supreme Court rulings than decisions of an unknown justice of the peace.]
A few years ago, I wanted to discuss one of these ideas with my friend “KJ” a retired San Francisco medical doctor and self-taught computer ‘guru’, who I met through a mutual friend after going on-line, and who generously helped me learn how to use my iMac and to resolve many inevitable digital dilemmas. So, I asked KJ “what do you think of Albert Einstein?” I expected him to acknowledge Einstein’s genius, and then anticipated quoting Einstein to him to initiate a conversation about the quotation. But his answer surprised me.
He replied: “If it wasn’t for Albert Einstein, I wouldn’t be here.”
At first, I thought KJ was joking and asked him to explain, expecting some humorous story. Instead he told me how a graphologist’s analysis of Albert Einstein’s signature sychronistically began a friendship which saved the lives of KJ and his parents.
KJ’s Story
Both of KJ’s parents were European medical doctors from Czechoslovakia. In the late 1920’s, before KJ was born they temporarily moved to Freiburg, Germany where his father was a surgical resident. KJ’s mother was then informally studying (and practicing) handwriting analysis, then recognized and taught as a scientific discipline in Germany and other advanced European countries.
One evening, KJ’s mother attended a lecture in Freiburg by a noted handwriting analysis expert. As part of the lecture, the graphologist asked audience members to place their signatures on small bits of paper, which were collected in a container and randomly picked by him for instant anonymous analysis. In so analyzing audience members’ signatures, the expert described one of them as “a quite average person, but with a flare for one particular field”. Thereupon a little man with bushy hair got up from the rear of the room and rushed up to the lecturer, proclaiming “That is the best analysis of my personality that I have ever heard.” He was so pleased, that he spontaneously rewarded the lecturer with a one hundred mark note – which was then a significant amount of German currency.
It was Albert Einstein, who by then was well known and acclaimed world-wide as a “genius” of theoretical physics for which he had received a Nobel prize. But it was not then generally known that in addition to physics, Einstein was quite interested in graphology. After the lecturer’s spontaneous signature readings, there ensued conversations about handwriting analysis amongst the audience members. And KJ’s mother, who had never before met Einstein, discussed with him graphology issues of mutual interest. This ‘chance’ meeting began a long friendship between Einstein and KJ’s mother, focused on their common interests and expertise in graphology. So, in the 1930’s after KJ’s parents left Freiburg and returned to Prague, his mother kept in touch with Einstein.
In Prague, KJ’s father became quite prominent and was appointed Surgeon to the President of the country. He was also a very outspoken political liberal. So, after the Nazis invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939, they listed KJ’s father as an “undesirable” person. And his life was thus jeopardized.
By this time, Einstein had renounced his German citizenship and emigrated to the USA, where as a Professor at the Princeton, NJ, Institute for Advanced Studies he had a free schedule and was using his great prestige to advocate for pacifism and social justice causes, and to tirelessly help countless potential European refugees obtain emigration visas to escape Nazi persecution, which he abhorred.
Via correspondence with KJ’s mother he learned of her family’s jeopardy, and managed to obtain for them an emigration visa, permitting them to come to the USA when KJ was nine years old.
So, but for Einstein KJ wouldn’t be here. And perhaps without KJ, Ron wouldn’t have learned enough about computers to have digitally recorded and published on-line his silly sutras, essays and apt Einstein quotes, or to have shared with you his “synchronicity” stories.
Einstein’s Noteworthy Humility
Professor Einstein’s spontaneously enthusiastic reaction to the graphologist’s reading that he was an ordinary person with a special talent happened when Einstein was already acclaimed world-wide as a “genius”. Yet it was consistent with his historical persona.
Historians say that Einstein was a very humble man who remained simple and self-effacing despite the world’s immense flattery and “genius” label, using his great prestige to advocate for social justice and controversial causes, like pacifism. So he regarded himself as just an ordinary person, with certain abilities in theoretical physics. For example he has said:
“I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” “It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
Apart from disclaiming superior intelligence, Professor Einstein once eschewed credit for his scientific accomplishments on grounds of predetermination. Until his death in 1955, Einstein rejected the “uncertainty” principle of quantum mechanics advanced by most respected physicists of his time; he stubbornly maintained his determinist view, consistent with ancient mystical insights, that
‘God does not play dice with the universe’
Thus, in a 1929 interview, when the debate about quantum mechanics “uncertainty” was at its height, Einstein modestly said that:
“I claim credit for nothing” . . “Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.” [Einstein: The Life and Times, Ronald W. Clark, Page 422.]
Einstein’s steadfastly determinist view was consistent with ancient mystical insights, that the principle of cause and effect (or karma) pervades the phenomenal Universe without exception; that the ideas of chance or “uncertainty” arise from mysterious causes and conditions not yet scientifically recognized or perceived.
Some quantum physicists now suggest that recent non-locality experiments show that Einstein erred in rejecting quantum uncertainty theory; that these experiments support what Einstein rejected as “spooky action at a distance”. However, it is still possible that quantum physicists’ ideas of chance or “uncertainty” arise from predetermined causes and conditions not yet recognized or perceived by mainstream science.
Since Einstein’s death, some physicists, like his protege David Bohm, have advanced theories which reconcile apparent contradictions between universal “causality” and quantum “uncertainty” and “non-locality” and they are thereby ever narrowing remaining apparent disparity between scientific and mystical views of “reality”.
Einstein – Jung Synchronicity
Recently, we learned of a synchronistic connection between Albert Einstein and Carl Gustav Jung’s seminal work in coining and developing the concept of “synchronicity” – which on SillySutras.com has been expanded and treated as an important spiritual phenomenon.
According to Harper’s Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experience, “The concept of synchronicity was developed largely by Carl G. Jung, who credited Albert Einstein as his inspiration.”
Einstein and Jung had met for a series of dinners in Zurich while Einstein was clarifying his theory of relativity. Long later in a 1953 letter to Carl Seelig, Jung wrote:
“Professor Einstein was my guest on several occasions at dinner… These were very early days when Einstein was developing his first theory of relativity, [and] it was he who first started me off thinking about a possible relativity of time as well as space, and their psychic conditionality. More than thirty years later, this stimulus led to my relation with the physicist Professor W. Pauli and to my thesis of psychic synchronicity.” … “It was above all the simplicity and directness of [Professor Einstein’s] genius as a thinker that impressed me mightily and exerted a lasting influence on my own intellectual work.”
Conclusion
The foregoing “synchronicity” story could not have been recounted by KJ and written by Ron, but for an amazing chain of mysteriously related unlikely events.
It couldn’t have happened unless:
1. Dr. Carl Gustav Jung met Professor Albert Einstein, whose “simplicity and directness” inspired Dr. Jung to coin and develop the concept of “synchronicity”.
2. KJ’s mother from Prague, Czechoslovakia and Professor Einstein hadn’t both shared interest as scientists in handwriting analysis; and therefor had concurrently attended a graphology lecture in Freiburg, Germany;
3. Where Einstein’s anonymous handwriting sample was randomly drawn and analyzed by the lecturer as that of ‘an ordinary person with a special talent’ – to Einstein’s delight;
4. Whereupon KJ’s mother met and discussed handwriting with Professor Einstein, and became so friendly with him as to maintain a continuing course of correspondence about graphology which lasted for years;
5. Until the 1939 Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, which resulted in life-threatening jeopardy of KJ’s father and mother as alleged “undesirables”.
6. At a time after Einstein had emigrated to the USA, where as a Professor at the Princeton, NJ, Institute for Advanced Studies he had a free schedule and was using his great prestige to advocate for pacifism and social justice causes, and to tirelessly help countless potential European refugees obtain emigration visas to escape Nazi persecution, which he abhorred.
7. Whereupon KJ’s mother succeeded in communicating with Einstein, who managed to obtain for KJ’s family an emigration visa, permitting them to come to the USA when KJ was nine years old.
8. Where after retiring from a career as a San Francisco MD, KJ became a self-taught ‘computer guru’ who continuously helped Ron with his digital dilemmas after they ‘randomly’ met in 2002 through a mutual friend.
9. After reluctantly going online to help his son with legal problems, and consulting “Dr. Google”, Ron unexpectedly discovered many wise Einstein philosophical observations similar to Ron’s Sutra Sayings, and later innocently asked KJ “what do you think of Albert Einstein?”
So but for Einstein, KJ wouldn’t be here. And perhaps Ron wouldn’t have learned enough about computers to have digitally recorded and published on-line his silly sutras and apt Einstein quotes and essays, much less to have been privileged to share with you KJ’s extraordinary Einstein “synchronicity” story.
Ron’s August 24, 2022: Epilogue
Today, August 24, 2022, is KJ’s 93rd birthday. On June 24th KJ passed away peacefully in his sleep. But that happened only after he amazingly helped resolve a crucial computer crisis which almost prevented continuation of the Silly Sutras website.
So this Einstein synchronicity story is republished today as a posthumous 93rd birthday tribute to KJ who told this story, and to recount how KJ resolved a critical computer problem to save the Silly Sutras website.
Here is what happened:
On June 1st I was almost prevented from continuing the website when my 2008 iMac (with outdated OS 10.9 operating system and broken backup disk) irreparably stopped working. On the ‘death’ of my iMac, I immediately contacted KJ about my urgent dilemma.
Despite his advanced age, KJ expertly guided replacement of the 2008 iMac with a late 2012 model that could still be converted to run OS 10.9. Also he instructed my daughter Jessica about finding such an iMac on Craig’s List. Jessica successfully found a replacement iMac, and brought it to my apartment to be carefully converted to run voluminous SillySutras archived data on Mac OS 10.9. And with KJ’s expert guidance that finally happened on June 23, 2022.
Then the next night KJ passed away peacefully in his sleep. If KJ had departed on June 1st instead of June 24th, I couldn’t be sharing his Einstein synchronicity story with you today.
Closing questions
According to Einstein, as quoted above, all this was pre-determined “by forces over which we have no control”.
Do you agree? What do you think?
Honoring God’s “Holy Fools”
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight.”
~ 1 Corinthians 3:19
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”
~ Deuteronomy 6:4-5
“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
~ 1 John 4:7-8
“Full of love for all things in the world;
practicing virtue in order to benefit others,
this man alone is happy.”
~ Buddha
“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.”
~ Rumi
“Love is the highest, the grandest, the most inspiring,
the most sublime principle in creation.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“Love Is The Law Of Life:
All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction.
Love is therefore the only law of life.
He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying.
Therefore, love for love’s sake,
because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
“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
Honoring God’s “Holy Fools” ~ Ron’s Memoirs
Introduction
Dear Friends,
Prior memoirs have recounted my midlife transformation from “Secular Hebrew” social justice litigation lawyer to “Born-again Hindu” devotional-emotional lover of God, and then to “Uncertain Undo” seeking ‘relief from belief’, because ‘on the path of Undo, we’ll never be through, ’til we’re and undone ONE!’.
[See e.g. Crying For God and other ‘Kundalini Kriyas’]
This memoirs chapter tells how, as a newly awakened ‘lover of God’ (Bhakta), I’ve discovered and honored “Holy Fools” – rare ascetic and eccentric lovers of God, who don’t live in ordinary worldly ways.
I’ve learned that throughout human history there have been very famous “Holy Fools”. Only after first ‘discovering’ such famous “Holy Fools”, did I later learn that in all human societies there are countless more unknown God intoxicated “Holy Fools”; and that they timelessly bless this world as LOVE.
In some Eastern societies they are called “masts”, a word which originates from the Sufi term mast-Allah, meaning “intoxicated with God”.
In Hindu societies they are called Avadhutas, who are overwhelmed with inner love for God. For millennia India has honored Avadhutas, as self-realized bhakti mystics living beyond worldly ego-mind consciousness and concerns, and without adhering to accepted social standards. (See e.g. Advadhuta Gita)
To help you understand why I have honored spiritual “heretics” and “holy fools” as lovers of God, here is a summary of my devotional history:
Ron’s Devotional history
Until my profound midlife spiritual awakening, I hadn’t shed tears as an adult. But then I cried for twenty four hours. Thereafter, I began wondering why I was crying so much. But soon I realized with amazement that I was crying with intense longing for God. (See Beholding The Eternal Light Of Consciousness.) And I became and remained an extremely devotional, and frequent crier for God – often ecstatically longing and calling for the Divine.
After meeting my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, and receiving his shaktipat initiation into the path of kundalini yoga as “Rasik: one engrossed in devotion”, I gradually learned that my continual longing and profuse crying for God was an immense transformative blessing – recognized not only in the bhakti Hindu devotional tradition, but also in:
1) Sufism epitomized by enlightened Muslim mystical poets Rumi and Hafiz who realized that all appearances in our seemingly complex earthly “reality” are manifestations of ONE eternal LOVE; and
2) in the Orthodox/Catholic “gift of tears” tradition of St. Isaac of Ninevah, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina.
Thus, when not crying I often had what I called ‘alternative LSD experiences’ of spontaneous (and sometimes ecstatic) Laughing, Singing, and Dancing. And even as an octogenarian “Uncertain Undo” I still often privately experience spontaneous outbursts of laughing, crying, and calling to God.
Guruji’s explanation was that:
“There are two kinds of kriyas, one is for purification and the other for the manifestation of joy. ..
Whenever one experiences great joy or bliss, this also manifests physically as crying or laughing.”
~ Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
Learning about devotional spirituality
Not until my 1976 spiritual awakening, did I begin learning about spirituality.
On moving from Chicago to San Francisco in 1960, I was ignorant about spiritual subjects, or religions other than Judaism.
I knew nothing about Christian saints, or core Christian teachings. I didn’t even realize that my new “San Francisco” home city was named for history’s most popular Christian saint. Moreover, apart from Christianity, I was ignorant of Eastern spiritual and religious teachings.
Growing up in Chicago, I had become familiar with Judaism’s core teachings:
“ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is One”; and
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”
~ Deuteronomy 6:4-5
However, I had no idea of their supremely profound sacred significance.
But my midlife spiritual awakening experiences triggered an unprecedented interest in spiritual subjects. Initially – sparked by inner experiences and amazing synchronicities – I experienced great curiosity about Saint Francis of Assisi, and about Christian teachings which inspired him.
Later I began reading hagiographic stories about other Eastern and Western saints and sages. Gradually, I learned that – apart from Jesus and a few other world-famous paragons of Divine LOVE – the Divine devotional path has been followed by countless unknowns, especially in certain societies which for centuries have honored and emphasized devotional Love.
And gradually I became inspired by genuine “lovers of God” as exemplars of an important spiritual tradition, with which I had instinctively joined.
Lovers of God as “Heretics”
On discovering Rumi’s poetry, I learned that Muslim culture has long encompassed all aspects of love, culminating with Sufism’s mystical Self-realization as Divine LOVE as life’s ultimate goal. And, similarly, that Sufi philosophy has so honored eccentric lovers of God that it has specifically identified many of them as “masts” – persons so overwhelmed with love for God, that they appear externally disoriented.
Also, during my 1982 pilgrimage to India I learned that for millennia India has honored avadhutas, self-realized bhakti mystics living beyond usual egoic consciousness and worldly concerns, without adhering to accepted social standards. (See e.g. Advadhuta Gita, and Avadhuta – Wikipedia)
I indelibly remember seeing a peacefully smiling elderly man sitting stark naked on a rock in freezing temperatures midst ice and snow near the Himalayan headwaters of the holy Ganges river.
Like Sufi “masts” and Indian avadhutas, worldwide there have been countless unknowns societally honored as God intoxicated ‘holy fools’ with extraordinarily unconventional behaviors inconsistent with social norms.
Famous “Heretic” Prophets
Supremely eminent Greek philosopher Socrates, who taught the Delphic oracle’s fundamental transformative spiritual maxim “Know Thyself”, was considered an heretic and was sentenced to death after being unjustly tried and convicted for allegedly corrupting the youth of Athens. He was an archetypal wise ‘fool’ whose distinctive teaching method consisted in exposing foolishness of the world. For example, just before Socrates died of a coerced suicide, by drinking hemlock, he declared that fear of death was fear of the unknown.
In Western Christianity Paul the Apostle proclaimed that
“The wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight.”
(1 Corinthians 3:19)
So, Christianity has at times rejected as foolishness “the wisdom of this world”. And it has endorsed the ‘Imitation of Jesus Christ’ – who preached “Love your neighbors” and even “your enemies”. And ‘heretically’ repudiated socially condoned hypocrisy, brutality, greed, and selfish desire for worldly power and gains; forgivingly endured crucifixion, mockery and humiliation from ignorant crowds; and even audaciously proclaimed the ultimately ‘forbidden mystical Truth’ – that “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).
In learning about Jesus’ “heretic” teachings – especially his Sermon on the Mount – I instinctively recognized him as an outspoken social justice reformer, and Truth telling political and religious nonconformist. And I intuitively honored him as a paragon of virtue, like prophets of other great religions, but not as God’s “only Son”.
I always conceived of “God” as ONE universally immanent nameless, formless, nonjudgmental Supreme Power. So I rejected any idea of a personal or judgmental God, and considered the Bible a collection of metaphoric legends – not as ‘the word of God’ who spoke only through special messengers.
And just as I always rejected Torah teachings about Jews as “chosen people”, I could never accept Christian dogma that Jesus was God’s “only Son” because he declared “I and the Father are one”.
Nor – like Gandhi – could I morally accept non-egalitarian Hindu scriptures justifying socially stratified caste systems, with some people deemed “untouchables”.
But I accepted that especially in historically dark and threatening eras of rampant world materialism, decadence, and violence, there have often appeared renowned sages or incarnate avatars to prophetically guide Humankind to societal and spiritual renaissance. And as religious nonconformists and social dissidents these famous reformers – like Jesus and Socrates – often were considered as “heretics”, and severely punished by contemporary worldly authorities.
‘Discovering’ Saint Francis of Assisi and Sri Ramakrishna as heretic “holy fools”.
Most famous Christian emulator of Jesus was Saint Francis of Assisi who in midlife – as an unconventional apostle of Love – renounced and relinquished all his worldly possessions and privileges as son of a wealthy merchant, to live reclusively in the Umbrian countryside; and later to establish an exemplary order of Franciscan Friars who gave away all possessions and survived only on alms while preaching in the streets to common people. Francis so completely identified with Jesus that, near the end of his earthly life, he became the first saint in history to miraculously receive crucifixion stigmata.

St. Francis of Assisi
Perhaps the best known Indian saint of the nineteenth century was Indian Holy Man Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa – an extraordinarily charismatic and eccentric ascetic, sometimes compared to St. Francis of Assisi.
(See Sri Ramakrishna and St. Francis of Assisi, by Sister Devamata, 1935)

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa
February 18, 1836 – August 16, 1886
After my midlife spiritual awakening, I felt increasing egalitarian affinity and harmony with people living unconventionally ‘from inside out’, rather than with outer-directed worldly and conventional people.
And in learning about many famous saints and mystics, I felt most affinity with Saint Francis of Assisi and Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa.
Both of them were extraordinarily charismatic ascetics, having relinquished and renounced all worldly pleasures and privileges, to live in utter simplicity. Both were remarkably unconventional and seemingly “God intoxicated” exemplars of Divine Love and devotional faith – blessed with the ‘gift of tears’ and of spontaneously praying, singing, conversing and calling to the Divine, which as egalitarians they beheld everywhere and in every being. Both saints eschewed punditry and were simple, unschooled and unscholarly, yet with vast innate wisdom imparted conversationally and recorded by others.
Both historically helped to reform world religions by charismatically living their teachings. And both were so eccentrically unconventional that they were even considered insane by some worldly people, including a few friends and relatives.
Perhaps I found exceptional rapport with both St. Francis and Ramakrishna because my own private devotional tendencies and unconventional behaviors seemed similar to theirs, and especially because of inner and synchronistic experiences, including amazing and unforgettable déjà vu of their still palpable divine energies (shakti) during pilgrimages to India and Assisi.
Later, I learned that that renowned mystical poet-masters Hafiz and Rumi, were Supreme exemplars of the Sufi-Persian path of love. But that even in their societies which honored Love, they were considered by Moslem authorities to be “heretics” or “holy fools” because – like Jesus – they realized and truthfully proclaimed their mystical self-identity as Divine LOVE – a fundamentally forbidden heresy to ruling mullahs. Thus, though Hafiz was not executed, his remains could not be entombed in a Moslem cemetery in his beloved birthplace and cultured home city, Shiraz, Iran.
LOVE as the unseen Source of the worlds we see
Following the midlife spiritual rebirth and awakening, I’ve gradually discovered that LOVE is all that is, was, or will be; that LOVE is our true SELF-identity, and the unseen timeless Source of all worlds we see.
So I’ve realized that all God’s “holy fools” bless this world as living LOVE. And that their eccentricities and ‘heresies’ can help reveal that societal sanity requires radical reform of orthodox worldly rules and beliefs.
Dedication and Invocation – Love for all, Hatred for none!
This memoirs chapter is deeply dedicated to inspiring a critical mass of humanity increasingly to honor each other and all life as ONE LOVE – beyond the endless ego-mind illusion of a space/time duality universe
And let us ever remember that we are the unseen Source of all worlds we see!
So let us love GOD with all our heart and soul and with all our might.
And with firm faith, may our guiding motto ever be
‘Love for all, Hatred for none!’
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Extraordinary Energy Experiences
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“The entire physical creation,
so awe inspiring to human mentality…
provides only tantalizing hints
to the underlying wonders of being.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“We never cease to stand like curious children
before the great Mystery into which we were born.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The miracle is not to walk on water,
but to walk with love on earth,
as if your feet are kissing the ground.
We must learn to say ‘Yes’ to the miracles of life.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Directly experiencing the multi-dimensionality of manifest reality
helps free the mind and open the heart,
inspiring and encouraging ever new insights,
while raising ever new mysteries.
~ Ron Rattner – Sutra Sayings
As we lose our fear of leaving life,
we gain the art of living life.
~ Ron Rattner – Sutra Sayings

Ron as Franciscan Friar,
Halloween 1981
Extraordinary Energy Experiences
Introduction
Einstein revolutionized our understanding of physical reality by showing that everything everywhere is endless energy, viz. E=mc2. But rare are those who mindfully self identify with this pivotal revelation.
Since realizing my true essence and identity as eternal spirit, beyond form – beyond birth and death, I have been experientially blessed with unforgettable reminders of the ephemerally impermanent and energetic nature of our apparent physical reality, and of its eternal context in cosmic consciousness beyond time and space.
From these experiences I’ve gradually lost fear of death and have been opened to innumerable new revelatory insights about this magical and mysterious world of forms and phenomena. These experiences have helped me live an ever happier life, as predicted by my beloved Guruji, and have inspired ever new insights and questions concerning our infinite evolutionary potentialities.
Subtle energy sensitivities
Amongst my most noteworthy new experiences have been unprecedented subtle energy perceptions.
Immediately after my spiritual rebirth experience I briefly experienced myself as mere lines of energy – like those associated with Chinese acupuncture.
Then my experience of bodily consciousness returned, but never again as before. Previously perceived bodily boundaries expanded well beyond my skin, and in rare instances even melted or merged into mystery. And I became aware that my bodily self-perceptions constantly varied with varying states of vitality and subtle awareness.
Here are some examples of this new clairsentience.
Starting soon after the rebirth experience, at times I felt the energies of people, creatures and objects visually perceived to be far away. And beyond my visual perception I became consciously sensitive to the energies of people and places both in and remote from my physical proximity – their ‘vibes’.
For example, I remember sitting with my then young son Josh in the grandstand at a San Francisco Giants baseball game, almost palpably feeling the energy of each pitched baseball as it left the pitcher’s hand and sped toward the batter. The entire playing field seemed within the ambit of my perceived energy field.
Once when meditating alone in my apartment and concerned about a grove of Northwest Pacific coast old growth trees then being clear-cut for lumber, I empathetically experienced with endless tears the suffering of those ancient beings.
After meditating in my high-rise view apartment, I remember at rare times looking out and feeling the energies of birds flying in the distance. And while walking on a path or beach by the Bay I sometimes palpably felt the energy emanations of people i saw moving at a distance from me.
One sunny Sunday, as I walked along San Francisco Bay to and from the Golden Gate Bridge, I beheld every person I encountered – dozens, without exception – as a divine being emanating and glowing with Divine luminescence. (See Beholding Beings Of Light )
Energy ‘mergers’
The foregoing unusual energy experiences seemed to involve supposed subject-object perceptions, viz. Ron aware of various supposedly separate distant forms. But other new energy experiences apparently transcended such supposed subject-object separation.
For example when I was talking in person or by phone with certain people with whom I felt special rapport – like my ‘high energy’ friend Betty Bethards, a spiritual teacher and psychic – I often experienced elevated energy, as if our subtle energy fields had synergistically expanded. And after I met Guruji I was consistently transformed and energetically uplifted when in his physical proximity, irresistibly resonating with his amazingly powerful “shakti” cosmic life-force.
Perhaps my most extraordinary new energy events were subtle energy ‘mergers’ that happened during out of body [OOB] experiences. The first ‘merger’ happened quite synchronistically, soon after my divorce. Just before awakening one work-day morning, I beheld an extremely vivid and large movie-like inner image of a blue-eyed blond woman who I’d never before seen. Quite puzzled I wondered who she was and why she had appeared in my inner vision. Those questions were soon answered.
A few days later, alone and lonely on a Saturday evening, I searched the SF Chronicle’s weekend event calendar for something to do. There I learned that a Tibetan bell concert was about to happen in an auditorium not far from my apartment. Though I then knew nothing about Tibetans, and never before heard Tibetan bells, this concert seemed interesting. So I made a last-minute decision to attend.
There were no reserved seats, and by the time I arrived the only remaining seats were on a small back balcony far from the stage. So I sat there waiting for the concert to begin. After a few moments, I noticed the person already seated immediately to my left. She was undoubtedly the woman who had appeared in my vision a few days earlier. She was a yoga teacher with whom I soon had a brief but very important romantic relationship.
Once during that relationship I had the unprecedented experience of leaving my body during physical coition with union of our subtle bodies above the intertwined physical bodies, which I viewed from above. Apart from that brief OOB experience, it seemed thereafter that our subtle bodies remained conjoined even when we were physically apart. One week I had a mysterious leg pain not traceable to physical trauma. That weekend I learned from my friend that she had injured a leg, and that apparently we were simultaneously experiencing the same leg pain.
After we were together physically, I initially experienced amazingly enhanced vital energies. But later because of very stressful life circumstances she became quite devitalized and enervated. Thereupon, she unknowingly began syphoning my vital energies whenever we were together. When we parted, instead of having amazingly enhanced energies, I became so debilitated that I couldn’t jog or even walk to work as usual. Finally, without vital energy it became impossible for me to continue to be with her. Our relationship ended. It was virtually my last romance before becoming abstinent for the remainder of my adult life – so far.
A few years later I had another memorable OOB merger experience, but this time without any physical intimacy. Here’s what happened.
In October 1981 I was invited to attend a Jungian archetypal Halloween costume party in Sausalito, California. Attendees were asked to dress as a personality or image important to them in this lifetime. Never before had I attended an adult costume party. Nor had I ever before thought about any “archetype” important to me.
But on learning that I could borrow a Franciscan friar’s habit from my friend Michael Toms, I decided to attend as Saint Francis of Assisi, with whom I had discovered a deep inner rapport. Dressed as St. Francis, I went to the party alone.
It was held in a large old warehouse space where there was live music and an extensive dance floor area. The warehouse was hot, noisy and crowded – not an ambience apparently conducive to spiritual experience or elevated awareness. But that’s what happened to me.
I was standing alone on the dance floor when a woman stranger costumed as an angel invited me to dance with her. I gladly accepted. Then she told me that as a spiritual practice she was “toning”, and asked if I would like to “tone” with her as we danced, explaining that while dancing together we could make harmonious tonal sounds. I hadn’t before heard about toning, and was curious.
So, at her suggestion, we danced and twirled and toned together like Sufis. Soon, while we were thus twirling and toning, I had another memorable OOB experience.
Fleetingly I ‘left my physical body’ and from above the two twirling dancers perceived our subtle bodies merged. This was a revelatory experience for me, because I learned from it the possibility of “tantric” merger without physical union.
After dancing and toning for a short time, we shared contact information. I learned that her name was Mary Saint-Marie, and that she was a visionary artist from Mount Shasta, California. But I did not reveal my merger experience to her. We parted without dancing again. Thereafter, we briefly exchanged correspondence when Mary was considering enrolling in graduate studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) where I then was Board Chairman. But we never met again for almost thirty years.
In the meanwhile, I wondered why I had such an extraordinary experience with an ‘angelic’ stranger in a crowded, hot and noisy place. Ultimately, I determined it happened because my dancing partner was an extraordinarily elevated being who (then unknown to me) had recently experienced a prolonged period of out of body cosmic Oneness.
As I write, Mary Saint-Marie is still a visionary artist and spiritual guide who shares her rare transcendent perspectives and experiences via inspiring art and spiritual writings, and in work shops and consultations.
Several years following my subtle merger experience with Mary Saint-Marie, I had another unforgettable revelatory union experience even more extraordinary than the previous ones.

Mahavatar Babaji
“Total merger [with another soul] is a much higher and deeper love bond than anything you can know on the earth plane. [It] is like stepping inside of one another’s auras; [and] is far superior to the physical mechanics of the sexual experience.”
~ Betty Bethards, “There is No Death”, pp 89-90. [edited]
One night I was awakened from a deep sleep to behold within the face image of an Indian yogi, who looked familiar but who I could not then identify. Thereupon, the yogi merged our subtle fields, and we became ONE. Words cannot describe the orgasmic thrill of that merger.
It was for me thrilling beyond any other experience of this lifetime.
For many years after that extraordinary glimpse of evolutionary potentiality I wondered about the identity of the benevolent yogi who had bestowed the unforgettable experience, and why it happened. Finally, through synchronicity, I intuited his identity.
One evening, while on-line at my computer, I was wondering about the mysterious yogi when a familiar portrait appeared in a file I was searching. It was Mahavatar Babaji the legendary timeless saint and root guru of Paramahansa Yogananda’s kriya yoga lineage, who was pictured and described in “Autobiography of a Yogi”. Instantly I intuitively recognized him as the compassionate yogi with whom Ron had been merged.* [See footnote.]
Conclusion
I don’t know why I was karmically granted these wonderful “peek experiences”. Like other extraordinary experiences, they’ve helped to free my mind from illusory limitations and to open my heart to ever new Divine insights.
Perhaps they were portents that – after eons of endless evolution – Humankind will ultimately realize ever elevated life experiences through our precious planet’s inevitable dimension Ascension,
In an autogyral
Endless spiral
Flowing up and beyond
The beyond.
Or maybe we’ll experience supramental powers upon earth, as envisioned by Sri Aurobindo.
In all events, these fleeting extraordinary energy experiences have helped inspire my ever growing gratitude and unconditional faith in our Infinite Potentiality – in the Mystery of Divinity.
*Footnote:
In February 1982 at the Kumbha Mela in Allahabad, India, I beheld an ethereal being who was soon identified to me as “Mahavatar Babaji”. I believe the Oneness experience with him happened several years after our encounter in India.
Dedication and Invocation.
The above energy stories are published with the deep aspiration that they will help free our ego-minds from all illusory fearful limitations, and open our hearts to ever new Divine insight and inspiration.
And with ever-growing gratitude and unconditional faith in our Infinite Potentiality as Universal Love:
May they inspire our Sacred heart Realization
of our infinite evolutionary potentiality
to bless the universe as Divine Love,
beyond all illusory fears
of death, disease or deprivation,
and without current insanely-inflicted
space-time perils, sufferings and sadness.
May they thus portend our continuing co-creation
of harmoniously elevated societies
which inspire and benefit all of Nature
and all Life everywhere as LOVE –
until our destined ultimate transcendence
of this permanently impermanent dream-like world
of space/time and duality!
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Humility: A Supreme Virtue
“Humility is the solid foundation of all the virtues.”
~ Confucius
“Spirituality automatically leads to humility.
When a flower develops into a fruit,
the petals drop off on its own.
When one becomes spiritual,
the ego vanishes gradually on its own.
A tree laden with fruits always bends low.
Humility is a sign of greatness.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
“Holy humility confounds pride
and all the men of this world
and all things that are in the world.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi
“Humility grows as ego goes.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Humility is next to godliness.
No one enters the highest heaven
believing s/he belongs there.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Introduction to “Humility: A Supreme Virtue”
Dear Friends,
The following Q and A essay defines “humility” and explains why it is perennially considered a great spiritual virtue inversely associated with “ego”. (Previous posted related articles include collections of quotations and Sutra Sayings.)
Humility: A Supreme Virtue
Q. What is “humility”?
A. Authentic humility is a core virtue and a sign of spiritual evolution.
It is a state of modesty, free from pretension, pride and arrogance;
a state that intuitively recognizes the Divine equality of all beings as blessed with the same Eternal Essence, and their Oneness with Nature; a state which opens us to learning by allowing us to acknowledge our limitations and fallibilities, and to experience with awe and wonder how little we know about the miraculous magnificence of this Creation.
Yet, humility is not a state of powerlessness or of low self esteem, but of powerful inner security, inner knowing, and inner-directedness.
Q. How does humility happen?
A. Humility grows as ego goes. As we ever more realize that we are part a vast universe and not separate from it, we gradually become less and less egoistic and self centered and more and more compassionate and humble. As Einstein says, this is a process of “widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Q. Why is humility considered a virtue, especially in prominent people?
A. Prominent people are subject to great flattery, praise and adulation which can entice and inflate ego, the enemy of compassion and humility. Those who have resisted such ego temptations have been lauded as truly great beings. Eg. Gandhi was called “Mahatma” a Sanskrit word meaning “great soul”.
Throughout history, “humility” has been recognized and appreciated as a supreme virtue manifested by great beings from every tradition and culture, who chose to lead non-pretentious, simple lives dedicated to helping others, and who have thereby inspired countless others. Today, for example, H.H. the Dalai Lama who is revered by millions worldwide as a great sage and religious leader, often describes himself as a “simple monk”, and sometimes publicly responds to questions with “I don’t know.” *
[*According to Buddhism, ego and “enlightenment” cannot coexist. No “enlightened” Buddhist can acknowledge “enlightenment” because any such acknowledgment would necessarily imply an ego-identity, a personality, a being, a separated individuality. ~ Diamond Sutra, Chapter 9]
Discussion
Enduring scriptures affirm importance of “humility”. For example, the Bhagavad Gita [13:8-12], perhaps the most important Hindu scripture, recognizes humility and lack of pride as virtues essential to Self Realization.
In the Tao Te Ching the great Taoist sage Lao Tzu states that
the Master’s “constant practice is humility.”; and that: “Humility means trusting the Tao, thus never needing to be defensive.”
Various bible passages attest to the humility of Jesus. Jesus once said of Himself,
“I am meek and humble of heart”
~ Matthew 11:29.
And in the Sermon on the Mount,
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
~ Matthew 5.5.
Jesus claimed no special powers but attributed all to God. eg.
“I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doth the works.”
~ John 14:10;
“..I can of mine own self do nothing…I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.”
~ John 5:30.
And Jesus counseled humility:
“Yea, all of you gird yourselves with humility, to serve one another: for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.”
~ 1 Peter 5.5.
Of Moses the bible says:
“Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.”
~ Numbers 12:3.
Modern humble heroes included Albert Einstein. He remained simple and self-effacing despite the world’s “genius” label and immense flattery, using his great prestige to advocate for social justice and controversial causes, like pacifism.
Einstein was a very humble man who regarded himself as just an ordinary person, with certain abilities in theoretical physics. [eg. see Synchronicity story: Analyzing Einstein’s Autograph]
For example, he disclaimed the ‘genius’ label, saying:
“I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.”
“It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
Einstein explained his humility, thus:
“What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”
In eulogizing Mahatma Gandhi’s virtuous life, Einstein said:
“Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.”
The great Gandhi, whose example of non-violent relentless pursuit of Truth and selfless service to humanity continues to inspire countless others, remained a humble man despite his immensely important accomplishments. His humility was evidenced by these Gandhi statements:
“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.” . . . .
“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”
Humility and Ego
Spiritually, the supreme virtue of “humility” is inversely associated with “ego”. Thus prominent humble people are often regarded as great beings, because they are not egotistic.
From childhood we are acculturated to identify only with a limited and disempowering self-image. We are taught to believe that we are born into Nature as limited and separate mortal beings; but not that Nature is our nature, or that essentially we are Beings of Light, sharing limitless immortal Cosmic consciousness with all life-forms.
Such restrictive self-image is what spiritual teachings call “ego” – as distinguished from Freud’s salutary psychological definition of “ego”.
Spiritually, “ego” refers to fundamentally mistaken human mental self-identity as personalities separate from eternal Infinite potentiality;
our restrictive self-identity which causes us endless karmic suffering from unskillful thoughts, words and deeds.
Thus the ancient Rig Veda called “ego”:
“the biggest enemy of humans.”
And Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa told us that:
“All troubles come to an end when the ego dies”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Since “ego” arises from mental activity – from thoughts and beliefs – it cannot continue without persistently mistaken thoughts about who or what we are. Through an evolutionary process of conscious psychological self-transformation, we can transcend mistaken egoic ideas of who we think we are, and gradually realize and remember that ultimately we truly are ONE with Universal Intelligence – with Eternal Spirit.
As gradually we transcend our illusory ego identities as merely separate mortals, and increasingly self identify as Eternal Spirit, we inevitably become ever more humble. Our Humility grows as ego goes. The smaller the ego, the greater the being.
Conclusion
Authentic humility is a supreme virtue which ever expands as we become less and less egoistic and self centered and more and more compassionate, thereby “widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Dedication and Invocation
In these critical times of immense suffering and jeopardy, yet unprecedented opportunity, let us join together with utmost love and humility in envisioning our precious planet democratically ruled bottom-up by humble, peaceful and compassionate citizens, rather than top-down by selfishly plutocratic and egotistic purported “leaders”.
May these biblical passages prove prescient:
Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall.
~ Proverbs 16:18
God opposes the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.
~ James 4:6
And so may it be.
Ron Rattner
Problems:
~ Can We Ever BE
Problem-FREE?
“Life is not a problem to be solved,
but a reality to be experienced.”
~ Soren Kierkegaard
Ron’s Introduction to “Problems”
Dear Friends,
This posting asks whether we can ever be problem-free. And it affirmatively answers that question (philosophically and pragmatically) with quotations, poetic verses, and comments defining “problems” as purely mental and explaining why all problems are created and exist in the human mind as ego illusions, and are ended when seen mindfully and transcended with LOVE.
Please enjoy and deeply reflect on these writings.
They are sincerely dedicated to helping us live happily and problem-free.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Problems?
Q.
What causes problems?
And how can we solve them?
A.Ignorance spawns them;
Intelligence solves them;
Wisdom averts them;
Truth transcends them.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Problems?”:
Quotations About Seeing and Solving Problems
“Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve.”
~ Erich Fromm
Ego is the biggest enemy of humans. ”
~ Rig Veda“All problems are [ego] illusions of the mind”
~ Eckhart Tolle“There is not a single problem in life you cannot resolve,
provided you first solve it in your inner world, its place of origin.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda“Whenever you experience unhappiness or depression in daily life, this is caused by the ego, the self-cherishing thought.
Any obstacle to practicing Dharma or even to achieving
happiness and success in this life is caused by the ego.”
~ Lama Zopa Rinpoche“The ego is a monkey catapulting through the jungle:
Totally fascinated by the realm of the senses, it swings from one desire to the next, one conflict to the next, one self-centered idea to the next.
If you threaten it, it actually fears for its life. Let this monkey go. Let the senses go. Let desires go. Let conflicts go. Let ideas go. Let the fiction of life and death go. Just remain in the center, watching. And then forget that you are there.”
~ Lao Tzu“The foundation of the Buddha’s teachings lies in compassion, and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego, the number-one enemy of compassion.”
~ Dalai Lama“Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.”
~ Erich Fromm“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
~ Dalai Lama“All the happiness there is in the world arises from wishing others to be happy.
All the suffering there is in the world arises from wishing oneself to be happy.”
~ Bodhisattva Shantideva“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
~ Rumi“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
~ Albert Einstein“Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.”
~ Albert Einstein“Freedom from the desire for an answer
is essential to the understanding of a problem.”
~ J. Krishnamurti“If we can really understand the problem,
the answer will come out of it, because
the answer is not separate from the problem.”
~ J. Krishnamurti“The quest is in the question.
The question is the answer.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings“To think or not to think,
that is the question!”
* * *
“Thinking and Being can’t coexist.
So stop thinking and start Being.”
* * *
“Forget who you think you are
to Know what you really are.”
* * *
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Ron’s Comments about seeing and solving “Problems”
Dear Friends,
As sentient beings on planet Earth, we share innate yearning for continuing happiness. But there aren’t yet utopian Earthly societies inhabited by perfectly happy people without problems.
Thus, individually and societally, all humans inevitably experience problems and limitations which interfere with their happiness – no matter who we are, or how we are self-identified or categorized.
Though physically – like snowflakes – each of us is unique (but mortal) with a unique story and history, spiritually we are all inextricably interconnected and interdependent – existentially sharing an Eternal common Divine Source as Universal LOVE.
Problems preclude lasting happiness
So solving our societal and interpersonal problems is crucial to fulfillment of our inborn wish for lasting happiness. And just as curing disease usually requires diagnosis of its cause, to solve Earthly problems we need to see their source.
To help us “diagnose” our problems I have posted the foregoing quotations and enigmatic sutra poem (composed many years ago) about seeing, solving and transcending “problems”.
Seeing and solving psychological problems
The above sutra poem mainly addresses mental – rather than physical – “problems”, since physical pain is inevitable while mental suffering is optional.
As to psychological problems, His Holiness the Dalai Lama teaches that
“The greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion” because “the need for love lies at the very foundation of human existence;” and because without “love and compassion . . .humanity cannot survive”.
Psychological problems and suffering inevitably arise when – ignorant of our true spiritual self-identity as LOVE –we futilely seek happiness from ephemeral worldly satisfactions. So the poem identifies “ignorance” as the source of “problems”.
And Rumi tells us:
“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.”
Mental Problems are Ego Problems
Those mental ‘barriers’ which we have ‘built within’ all arise from ego, to which Buddhist teachings often refer as ‘self-cherishing thought’. Through ego we mistakenly mentally self identify as entities separate from the Whole – as separate perceivers of a supposedly objective world.
But this is an unreal ego illusion – samsara. And our self-cherishing beliefs and behaviors seeking psychological self-preservation and protection of that ego illusion of separateness are ultimately futile.
What never was can never be preserved
To promote lasting happiness and compassion, most spiritual practices have for millennia been aimed at transcending illusionary ego identity. For example this intention has been mentioned in ancient Vedic and Taoist texts such as Rig Veda and Tao Te Ching, as well as in Buddhist scriptures:
Ego is the biggest enemy of humans. ”
~ Rig Veda
“The ego is a monkey catapulting through the jungle:
Totally fascinated by the realm of the senses, it swings from one desire to the next, one conflict to the next, one self-centered idea to the next. If you threaten it, it actually fears for its life. Let this monkey go. Let the senses go. Let desires go. Let conflicts go. Let ideas go. Let the fiction of life and death go. Just remain in the center, watching. And then forget that you are there.”
~ Lao Tzu “
The foundation of the Buddha’s teachings lies in compassion, and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego, the number-one enemy of compassion.”
~ Dalai Lama
Thus, according to perennial spiritual teachings, ego must be recognized, renounced and transcended.
No thought, no ego.
Ultimate overcoming of ego happens only when thought ceases NOW, and Universal Intelligence which has been mistakenly regarded as a separate experiencer of sensations and emotions, and a separate performer of actions, exists by itself and as itself, and is not mentally divided and projected.
Happiness grows as ego goes
Only very rare ‘awakened’ Buddha-like beings have completed the metamorphosis from Humanity to Infinite Intelligence – from human consciousness to superconsciousness. So the overwhelmingly vast majority of Humankind are incarnate because we are limited by illusionary ego entity-identity, and we inevitably suffer “problems” in space/time causality/duality.
But all of us can gradually evolve and achieve ever growing happiness by seeing and solving our ego problems from ever elevated mental states of consciousness, subtler than those which created them.
Initially we may use our inborn intelligence to “diagnose” and abandon the beliefs and behaviors causing our experience of such problems. Also, with wisdom we may avert problems by observing mistakes of others and not emulating such mistakes. And ultimately we will thoughtlessly BE problem-FREE – as LOVE.
Invocation
May we overcome our sufferings from earthly ‘problems’,
and experience ever growing happiness,
and fulfillment of our deepest aspirations,
by gradually recognizing, renouncing and transcending illusory ego-beliefs and behaviors,
until we become eternally problem-FREE –– as LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Time Cycling
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,
they are modes in which we think.”
“The distinction between past, present, and future
is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
~ Albert Einstein
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
Tao and Zen
are NOW,
not then.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Life can be found only in the present moment.
The past is gone, the future is not yet here,
and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment,
we cannot be in touch with life.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“Remember then: there is only one time that is important – Now!
It is the most important time
because it is the only time when we have any power.”
~ Leo Tolstoy
“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions,
that they exist in the present,
which is what there is and all there is. ”
~ Alan Watts
“You have no cause for anything but gratitude and joy.”
~ Buddha
Introduction to “Time Cycling”
Dear Friends,
The following “Time Cycling” sutra poem was composed long ago as a reminder that in space/time duality “reality” serial time is an unavoidable mental illusion. It is today republished (written and recited) on Black Friday, the beginning of an unprecedented 2021 year-end holiday season, when more than ever before many people are consciously suffering and worrying about their Earth-lives.
Many people with remaining money or credit are shopping in stores and online for Black Friday bargains. Others are protesting and demonstrating because of politically instigated divisiveness, turbulence and violence. A much smaller but growing number of spiritually aware humans (like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Catherine Austin Fitts) are determined to nonviolently disobey unlawfully evil edicts of our “leaders” and “rulers”. which they see as giving us a choice of “slavery or freedom”. (e.g. “We’ll Never Give Up” – Protests Erupt Across World over Government COVID Tyranny)
The “Time Cycling” poem is not intended to disrupt anyone’s enjoyment or perspective of this year’s holiday season.
As explained in comments after the poem, it has been published as a reminder for all of us to always be grateful and happy, as we remember our true spiritual immortality and Reality as ONE timeless LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Time Cycling
Beyond time
In time
Take time
Make time
Fill time
Kill time
Find time
Lose time
Spend time
End time
Out of time
No time
NOW!
Ron’s audio recitation of “Time Cycling”
Ron’s comments on “Time Cycling”
Dear Friends,
Over forty years ago, I began questioning the ‘reality’ of serial time after experiencing many ‘mind-blowing’ pre-cognitive synchronicities during a 1977 week in New York City. (See Synchronicity Story: An Amazing Experiment With Time )
Ultimately after reflecting on these and many more amazing synchronicities, and upon teachings of mystic masters, I became persuaded that Einstein accurately described space/time/duality reality as “merely a persistent illusion” arising from our thoughts rather than “conditions in which we live”.
Nonetheless, I’ve learned that it’s impossible for us to live timeless Earth lives, but that we are often reminded by synchronicities that time is a cosmic illusion, because the synchronicities are emblematic of Reality beyond time.
The above “Time Cycling” poem arose from the insight that common English vernacular ‘programs’ our unthinking mental acceptance of the supposed reality of time.
I hope you’ll enjoy its whimsical words without being ‘brainwashed’ by them as you read and listen to my mp3 oral recitation of “Time Cycling”.
The “Time Cycling” poem is not intended to disrupt anyone’s enjoyment or perspective of this year’s holiday season.
As explained in above introductory comments and quotations, it has been published on an unprecedented “Black Friday” as a reminder for all of us, whatever our unique perspectives about these times, to always be informed, grateful and happy.
May this poetry, and above quotations and explanations about illusory temporal “reality”, inspire ever more timeless happiness and gratitude in our lives as we remember our true spiritual immortality and Reality as ONE timeless LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Go For the Gold:
The Golden Rule For a Golden Age
“Today, … any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal,
and so will be inadequate.”
“The time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ Dalai Lama
“What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor:
that is the whole of the Torah;
all the rest of it is commentary.”
~ Rabbi Hillel, Talmud, Shabbat, 31a – Judaism
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you;
for this is the law and the prophets.”
~ Matthew 7:12 – Christianity
“Hurt not others in ways you yourself would find hurtful.”
~ Udana-Varga, 5:18 – Buddhism
“This is the sum of duty: do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.”
~ The Mahabharata, 5:1517 – Hinduism
“Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”
~ Fortieth Hadith of an-Nawawi,13 – Islam
“Do not unto others what you do not want them to do to you.”
~ Analects 15:13 – Confucianism
“All things are our relatives;
what we do to everything, we do to ourselves.
All is really One.”
~ Black Elk – Native American Spirituality
“Do what you will, so long as it harms none.”
~ Wiccan Rede – Neo-paganism
“Don’t do things you wouldn’t want to have done to you.”
~ British Humanist Society – Humanism
“Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticize my neighbor until I have walked a mile in his moccasins.”
~ Native American prayer
“It’s not just religious people who believe in the Golden Rule.
This is the source of all morality, this imaginative act of empathy – putting yourself in the place of another.”
~ Karen Armstrong
“I will be as careful for you as I should be for myself in the same need.”
~ Homer, The Odyssey – Ancient Greece – 700 BC
“A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.”
“Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
Awakening to a Golden Age.
Dear Friends,
We live in an age of mental malaise. Delusional human behaviors are causing life-threatening environmental, international and inter-personal crises and conflicts. For our peaceful survival on mother Earth, we must transcend these insane behaviors and resolve the problems they have caused.
As Albert Einstein aptly observed: “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” So our survival depends on elevating human consciousness, societally and individually.
According to the Dalai Lama,
“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment must come from the human heart. [From] a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.” . . . “Today, … any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate.” . . “The time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
Thus for humanity’s peaceful survival on our beautiful blue planet, the critical problems now confronting us must be resolved through love and compassion, based on universal human ethics that are “beyond religion” – because religion alone “is no longer adequate”.
How can this happen?
With ever expanding empathy for all life everywhere we must follow ‘the Golden Rule’. For millennia wisdom teachers from virtually all enduring ethical, religious, and spiritual traditions have proposed a simple ethical rule which if consciously and conscientiously followed can change the world.
Its essence is that we do no harm; that we treat all beings with the same dignity that we wish for ourselves and that they wish for themselves.
Though easy to understand, this Golden Rule of reciprocal empathy can not easily be followed until we awaken within – beyond our “optical delusion” of separateness – to our collective connection with all beings and all life everywhere. Then as Einstein suggests we can gradually “widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Eventually, we won’t even need the Golden rule. As my beloved Guruji Shri Dhyanyogi revealed:
“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”
Ultimately, by following our sacred heart we will be in harmony with all life everywhere.
“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet
So with awakened hearts let us actualize a Golden Age wherein everyone everywhere treats all beings and all life with the same dignity that they wish for themselves – with an empathetic “genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
And so shall it be!
Beautiful Golden Rule Video.
Ron’s 11:11 Commentary on Awakening to a Golden Age.
Dear Friends,
For many people these are dark and divisive “new normal” times unprecedented in their lives. But current painful world suffering and turmoil can be seen as darkness before an inevitable dawn; as marking a rare turning point in human history – an immense evolutionary opportunity for disintegration of outdated world political, economic and ecological paradigms that have become painfully and unsustainably anachronous, to make way for a new era of human harmony and conscious connection with each other and with Nature.
From seeing everyone and everything as discrete and separated by apparently immutable boundaries, we are rapidly realizing that everyone/everything is connected by a common Essence – ever-changing energy in a matrix of immutable awareness. Thus, we are evolving from a Newtonian “reality” of polarized duality to a quantum “reality” of holistic connectedness; from either this or that, to this and that are ONE.
With this realization, we can best address current challenges, and transcend pervasively polarizing negative emotions – like fear and anger – with feelings, insights and actions arising from loving-kindness and compassion for all life everywhere.
With benevolent and focused intentions, more and more we can open our hearts to innate human empathy, and thereby realize our collective connection with and deep concern for all life everywhere – even including perceived adversaries or enemies.
With heartfelt concern for all Earth-life, we must do no harm, and treat all beings with the same dignity we wish for ourselves, and that they wish for themselves.
May we collectively join in heartfelt harmony with this crucial ‘golden rule’ ethical principle.
Whereupon with intentions, and actions arising from reciprocal empathy for all life everywhere, may all humankind truly transcend and cooperatively resolve our critical ecologic, economic, international and interpersonal problems, for an enlightened and elevated new age that will bless all life on our precious planet.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Infinite Potential ~ Dawning of a New Age
“That which is truly alive in the living being is the energy of spirit,
and this is never born and never dies.”
~ David Bohm
“Space is not empty. It’s full.
It is the ground for the existence of everything,
including ourselves”
~ David Bohm
“Objective reality does not exist” ….
“the universe is fundamentally a gigantic … hologram”
~ David Bohm

Dr. David Bohm ~ December 20, 1917 – October 27, 1992
Introduction to “Infinite Potential ~ Dawning of a New Age”
Dear Friends,
We have reached a rare turning point in modern human history. Confronted by dire anthropogenic threats to extinction of life on Earth as we’ve known it, our species is awakening from eons of darkness to a prophesied new enlightened Earth age, as we realize our infinite potential as wholeness and oneness with our eternal spiritual Source.
Thus a “critical mass” of Humankind will soon be energetically uplifted to co-create a compassionate world, dynamically harmonious with Nature and all life everywhere – a “new reality” foreseen for millennia by non-materialist mystic seers.
Today’s posting commemorates the imminent advent of this awakened new age by posthumously honoring Dr. David Bohm a brilliant theoretical physicist, philosopher and author, who Einstein called his “spiritual son” and the Dalai Lama his “science guru”. Dr. Bohm’s groundbreaking theories may soon scientifically confirm ancient spiritual wisdom, and support humankind’s “critical mass” realization of our previously unimagined infinite potentiality.
This posting includes an introductory outline of Dr. Bohm’s history, followed by a carefully culled collection of key Bohm quotations, and a highly recommended embedded documentary video titled “Infinite Potential The Life and Ideas of David Bohm”.
It is intended to help us intuit, envision and co-create the dynamic new reality we want to see.
Infinite Potential The Life and Ideas of David Bohm
Embedded below is a highly recommended documentary film about Dr. David Bohm. Here is an almost verbatim summary of the filmmakers’ description of its contents, followed by a brief addendum of relevant facts about Dr. Bohm’s historic relationship with Albert Einstein.
The Life and Ideas Of David Bohm
An incredible journey into the nature of life and Reality with David Bohm, the man Einstein called his “spiritual son” and the Dalai Lama his “science guru”.
A brilliant theoretical physicist, Bohm got the attention of the greatest minds in science, including Robert Oppenheimer, who became his thesis advisor.
Bohm’s scientific insights into the underlying nature of reality and the profound interconnectedness of the Universe and our place within it are ground-breaking and transformational.
But his revolutionary ideas were way ahead of their time and posed a threat to the scientific orthodoxy, which dismissed him and forced him into exile.
His questioning of the scientific orthodoxy was the expression of a rare and maverick intelligence. He shows us that the nature of reality is infinite and believed in a “hidden” regime of reality – the Quantum Potential – that underlies all of creation and which will remain beyond scientific endeavor, an idea echoed by many mystical traditions.
We are all participants and observers in the emergence of a reality…the Observer is the Observed. Bohm shows us that we are all co-producers of a possible future in which personal and global transformation is possible.
He invites us on a journey into the heart of our being, into consciousness itself…
Addendum re Dr. Bohm’s historic relationship with Albert Einstein.
For the last twenty two years of his life Einstein was a fellow at the Princeton Institute For Advanced Study where he met and befriended Dr. David Bohm, then a young member of the Princeton University physics department. Dr. Bohm became Einstein’s Princeton protégé who Einstein called his “spiritual son”, and with whom he exchanged letters after Bohm’s forced departure from Princeton during the notorious McCarthy era of American politics. Perhaps better than anyone else Dr. Bohm learned how Einstein had intuitively formulated his revolutionary theories.
With that understanding, Bohm conceptualized reality as “undivided wholeness”. And Bohm realized that the profound implications of Einstein’s insights have not yet changed mainstream physicists’ predominantly Newtonian mental models of solidity, invariance, and three dimensional space/time, influenced by their benefitting from immense weapons industry investments.
And in his writings, Bohm (a rare scientific maverick) explicitly explained how a new mode of dynamic thinking beyond physics was required to enable recognition and resolution of the many anthropogenic difficulties causing insane and dire threats of extinction of Earth-life as we’ve known it.
Thus Bohm used many new words for the holistic principle of “undivided wholeness”, such as “implicate order”, “quantum potential field”, and “holomovement” to express that nothing is static; that everything is in “universal flux”, a dynamic interconnected process of infinitely becoming.
Bohm’s innovative conceptualizations of “undivided wholeness” were intended to radically shift our thinking about reality, away from terms of separation, to motion or process. Similarly Bohm also tried to imagine ways of using language which emphasized verbs, rather than separate subjects and objects.
Despite his immense achievements, Bohm is still relatively unknown because of Robert Oppenheimer’s influential opposition to Bohm’s theoretical work, which Oppenheimer could not mathematically refute. Realizing that Bohm radically challenged mainstream physics, Oppenheimer called Bohm’s ideas, “juvenile deviationism,” saying that, “if we cannot disprove Bohm, then we must agree to ignore him.”
Dr. David Bohm, Quotations Collection Concerning Physical Reality, Spiritual Philosophy, and Cosmology
“That which is truly alive in the living being is the energy of spirit,
and this is never born and never dies.”
”The essential quality of the infinite… is its subtlety, its intangibility.
This quality is conveyed in the word spirit, whose root meaning is ‘wind or breath.’ This suggests an invisible but pervasive energy to which the manifest world of the finite responds.”
“Consciousness is never static or complete but is an unending process of movement and unfoldment.”
“Space is not empty. It’s full. It is the ground for the existence of everything, including ourselves”
“We could say that practically all the problems of the human race are due to the fact that thought is not proprioceptive.”
“To change your reality you have to change your inner thoughts.”
“Thought creates our world, and then says ‘I didn’t do it”
“If our troubles originate in a kind of ‘ocean’ of thought and language, in which we are submerged, but of which we are only dimly aware, it would seem reasonable to begin immediately to inquire into the actual function of our thought and language. To do this requires, of course, that we give this function our serious attention. We do give such attention to a vast range of things, including nature, technology, politics, economics, society, psychological problems, and so forth. Why should thought and language be the one field left to function automatically and mechanically, without serious attention, so that the resulting confusion vitiates most of what we try to do in all other fields?”
“Objective reality does not exist” …. “the universe is fundamentally a gigantic … hologram”
“What appears to be a stable, tangible, visible, audible world, is an illusion. It is dynamic and kaleidoscopic — not really “there”. What we normally see is the explicit, or unfolded, order of things, rather like watching a movie. But there is an underlying order that is mother and father to this second-generation reality.”
“It is proposed that the widespread and pervasive distinctions between people (race, nation, family, profession, etc., etc.) which are now preventing mankind from working together for the common good, and indeed, even for survival, have one of the key factors of their origin in a kind of thought that treats things as inherently divided, disconnected, and “broken up” into yet smaller constituent parts. . . . . Each part is considered to be essentially independent and self-existent.”
“The notion that all these fragments is separately existent is evidently an illusion, and this illusion cannot do other than lead to endless conflict and confusion. Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today.”
“Thus, as is now well known, this way of life has brought about pollution, destruction of the balance of nature, over-population, world-wide economic and political disorder and the creation of an overall environment that is neither physically nor mentally healthy for most of the people who live in it.”
“Individually there has developed a widespread feeling of helplessness and despair, in the face of what seems to be an overwhelming mass of disparate social forces, going beyond the control and even the comprehension of the human beings who are caught up in it.”
“some might say: ‘Fragmentation of cities, religions, political systems, conflict in the form of wars, general violence, fratricide, etc., are the reality. Wholeness is only an ideal, toward which we should perhaps strive.’ But this is not what is being said here. Rather, what should be said is that wholeness is what is real, and that fragmentation is the response of this whole to man’s action, guided by illusory perception, which is shaped by fragmentary thought.”
“From the point of view of the species, death is part of this whole process. You could say that species have evolved in such a way that individual members last a certain time. Perhaps a certain kind of species would be better able to survive if the individuals didn’t last too long. Other kinds could last longer.”
“Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today.”
“During the past few decades, modern technology, with radio, TV, air travel, and satellites, has woven a network of communication which puts each part of the world in to almost instant contact with all the other parts.”
Yet, in spite of this world-wide system of linkages, there is, at this very moment, a general feeling that communication is breaking down everywhere, on an unparalleled scale.
“We are all linked by a fabric of unseen connections. This fabric is constantly changing and evolving. This field is directly structured and influenced by our behavior and by our understanding.”
“We are internally related to everything, not [just] externally related. Consciousness is an internal relationship to the whole, we take in the whole, and we act toward the whole. Whatever we have taken in determines basically what we are. Wholeness is a kind of attitude or approach to the whole of life. If we can have a coherent approach to reality then reality will respond coherently to us.”
“Ultimately, the entire universe…has to be understood as a single undivided whole.”
“The question is how our own meanings are related to those of the universe as a whole. We could say that our action toward the whole universe is a result of what it means to be us.”
“[T]here is a universal flux that cannot be defined explicitly but which can be known only implicitly, as indicated by the explicitly definable forms and shapes, some stable and some unstable, that can be abstracted from the universal flux. In this flow, mind and matter are not separate substances. Rather, they are different aspects of our whole and unbroken movement.”
“We could say that practically all the problems of the human race are due to the fact that thought is not proprioceptive.”
“The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.”
“Space is not empty. It is full, a plenum as opposed to a vacuum, and is the ground for the existence of everything, including ourselves. The universe is not separate from this cosmic sea of energy.”
“Ultimately, all moments are really one, therefore now is an eternity.”
“Thought runs you. Thought, however, gives false info that you are running it, that you are the one who controls it. Whereas actually thought is the one which controls each one of us.”
“In Nature nothing remains constant. Everything is in a perpetual state of transformation, motion and change.”
“In the long run, it is far more dangerous to adhere to illusion than to face what the actual fact is.”
“Individuality is only possible if it unfolds from wholeness.”
“Dialogue is a space where we may see the assumptions which lay beneath the surface of our thoughts, assumptions which drive us, assumptions around which we build organizations, create economies, form nations and religions. These assumptions become habitual, mental habits that drive us, confuse us and prevent our responding intelligently to the challenges we face every day.”
“Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture.”
“Deep down the consciousness of mankind is one. This is a virtual certainty because even in the vacuum matter is one; and if we don’t see this, it’s because we are blinding ourselves to it.”
“In some sense man is a microcosm of the universe; therefore what man is, is a clue to the universe. We are enfolded in the universe.”
“There is a difficulty with only one person changing. People call that person a great saint or a great mystic or a great leader, and they say, ‘Well, he’s different from me – I could never do it.’ What’s wrong with most people is that they have this block – they feel they could never make a difference, and therefore, they never face the possibility, because it is too disturbing, too frightening.”
“Perhaps there is more sense in our nonsense and more nonsense in our ‘sense’ than we would care to believe.”
“Consciousness is much more of the implicate order than is matter… Yet at a deeper level [matter and consciousness] are actually inseparable and interwoven, just as in the computer game the player and the screen are united by participation.”
“…consciousness is a coherent whole, which is never static or complete, but which is in an unending process of movement and unfoldment.”
“If you engage in positive thinking to overcome negative thoughts, the negative thoughts are still there acting. That’s still incoherence. It’s not enough just to engage in positive thoughts when you have negative thoughts registered, because they keep on working and will cause trouble somewhere else.”
“Thought is constantly creating problems that way and then trying to solve them. But as it tries to solve them it makes it worse because it doesn’t notice that it’s creating them, and the more it thinks, the more problems it creates.”
“Similarly, thought is a system. That system not only includes thought and feelings, but it includes the state of the body; it includes the whole of society – as thought is passing back and forth between people in a process by which thought evolved from ancient times.”
“When you are thinking something, you have the feeling that the thoughts do nothing except inform you the way things are and then you choose to do something and you do it. That’s what people generally assume. But actually, the way you think determines the way you’re going to do things. Then you don’t notice a result comes back, or you don’t see it as a result of what you’ve done, or even less do you see it as a result of how you were thinking. Is that clear?”
“Dialogue is really aimed at going into the whole thought process and changing the way the thought process occurs collectively. We haven’t really paid much attention to thought as a process. We have engaged in thoughts, put we have only paid attention to the content, not to the process. Why does thought require attention? Everything requires attention, really. If we ran machines without paying attention to them, they would break down. Our thought, too, is a process, and it requires attention, otherwise its going to go wrong.”
“We have the idea that after we have been thinking something, it just evaporates. But thinking doesn’t disappear. It goes somehow into the brain and leaves something-a trace-which becomes thought. And thought then acts automatically.”
“We haven’t really paid much attention to thought as a process. we have engaged in thoughts, but we have only paid attention to the content, not to the process.”
“In nature nothing remains constant. Everything is in a perpetual state of transformation, motion, and change. However, we discover that nothing simply surges up out of nothing without having antecedents that existed before. Likewise, nothing ever disappears without a trace, in the sense that it gives rise to absolutely nothing existing in later times.”
“The notion of a separate organism is clearly an abstraction, as is also its boundary. Underlying all this is unbroken wholeness even though our civilization has developed in such a way as to strongly emphasize the separation into parts.”
“Then there is the further question of what is the relationship of thinking to reality. As careful attention shows, thought itself is in an actual process of movement.”
“If we can be cheered up by positive images we can be depressed by negative ones. As long as we accept images as realities we are in that trap, because you can’t control the images.”
“It is proposed that a form of free dialogue may well be one of the most effective ways of investigating the crisis which faces society, and indeed the whole of human nature and consciousness today. Moreover, it may turn out that such a form of free exchange of ideas and information is of fundamental relevance for transforming culture and freeing it of destructive misinformation, so that creativity can be liberated.”
“Ego-centeredness is not individuality at all.”
“Thought reflexes get conditioned very strongly, and they are very hard to change. And the also interfere. A reflex may connect to the endorphins and produce an impulse to hold that whole pattern forther. In other words, it produces a defensive reflex. Not merely is it stuck because it’s chemically so well built up, but also there is a defensive reflex which defends against evidence which might weaken it. Thus it all happens, one reflex after another after another. It’s just a vast system of reflexes. And they form a ‘structure’ as they get more rigid.”
“What is needed is to learn afresh, to observe, and to discover for ourselves the meaning of wholeness.”
“Thus, in a dialogue each person does not attempt to make common certain ideas or items of information that are already known to him. Rather, it can be said that collectively they are making something in common”
“Yet, in spite of this world-wide system of linkages, there is, at this very moment, a general feeling that communication is breaking down everywhere, on an unparalleled scale.”
“Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today.”
“The system [of thought] doesn’t stay with the difficult problem that produces unpleasant feelings. It’s conditioned somehow to move as fast as it can toward more pleasant feelings, without actually facing the thing that’s making the unpleasant feeling.”
“Another problem of fragmentation is that thought divides itself from feeling and from the body. Thought is said to be the mind; we have the notion that it is something abstract or spiritual or immaterial. Then there is the body, which is very physical. And we have emotions, which are perhaps somewhere in between. The idea is that they are all different. That is, we think of them as different. And we experience them as different because we think of them as different.”
“Thought is creating divisions out of itself and then saying that they are there naturally.”
“This is another major feature of thought: Thought doesn’t know it is doing something and then it struggles against it is doing. It doesn’t want to know that it is doing it.”
“My suggestion is that at each state the proper order of operation of the mind requires an overall grasp of what is generally known, not only in formal logical, mathematical terms, but also intuitively, in images, feelings, poetic usage of language, etc.”
“individual thought is mostly the result of collective thought and of interaction with other people. The language is entirely collective, and most of the thoughts in it are. Everybody does his own thing to those thoughts – he makes a contribution. But very few change them very much.”
“We have reversed the usual classical notion that the independent “elementary parts” of the world are the fundamental reality, and that the various systems are merely particular contingent forms and arrangements of these parts. Rather, we say that inseparable quantum interconnectedness of the whole universe is the fundamental reality, and that relatively independent behaving parts are merely particular and contingent forms within this whole.”
“And thought struggles against the results, trying to avoid those unpleasant results while keeping on with that way of thinking. That is what I call ‘sustained incoherence.”
“There is no reason why an extra-physical general principle is necessarily to be avoided, since such principles could conceivably serve as useful working hypotheses. For the history of scientific research is full of examples in which it was very fruitful indeed to assume that certain objects or elements might be real, long before any procedures were known which would permit them to be observed directly.”
“Then there is the further question of what is the relationship of thinking to reality. As careful attention shows, thought itself is in an actual process of movement. That is to say, one can feel a sense of flow in the stream of consciousness not dissimilar to the sense of flow in the movement of matter in general. May not thought itself thus be a part of reality as a whole? But then, what could it mean for one part of reality to ‘know’ another, and to what extent would this be possible?”
“A new kind of mind thus beings to come into being which is based on the development of a common meaning that is constantly transforming in the process of the dialogue.”
“Real dialogue is where two or more people become willing to suspend their certainty in each other’s presence.”
“People are no longer primarily in opposition, nor can they be said to be interacting, rather they are participating in this pool of common meaning which is capable of constant development and change.”
“We can’t simply take the way things seem and just work on that, because that would be another kind of mistake thought makes-taking the surface and calling it the reality.”
“Anybody can use science and technology without fundamentally altering his own frame of mind which governs how they are used.”
“The treatment of the indeterminacy principle as absolute and final can then be criticized as constituting an arbitrary restriction on scientific theories, since it does not follow from the quantum theory as such, but rather from the assumption of the unlimited validity of certain of its features, an assumption that can in no way ever be subjected to experimental proof.”
“The question of relevance comes before that of truth, because to ask whether a statement is true or false presupposes that it is relevant (so that to try to assert the truth or falsity of an irrelevant statement is a form of confusion).”
“If each one of us can give full attention to what is actually ‘blocking’ communication while he is also attending properly to the content of what is communicated, then we may be able to create something new between us, something of very great significance for bringing to an end the at present insoluble problems of the individual and of society.”
“In relativity, movement is continuous, causally determinate and well defined, while in quantum mechanics it is discontinuous, not causally determinate and not well defined.”
“One thus sees that a new kind of theory is needed which drops these basic commitments and at most recovers some essential features of the older theories as abstract forms derived from a deeper reality in which what prevails in unbroken wholeness.”
“Thus, in scientific research, a great deal of our thinking is in terms of theories. The word ‘theory’ derives from the Greek ‘theoria’, which has the same root as ‘theatre’, in a word meaning ‘to view’ or ‘to make a spectacle’. Thus, it might be said that a theory is primarily a form of insight, i.e. a way of looking at the world, and not a form of knowledge of how the world is.”
“But what is [the] quality of originality? It is very hard to define or specify. Indeed, to define originality would in itself be a contradiction, since whatever action can be defined in this way must evidently henceforth be unoriginal. Perhaps, then, it will be best to hint at it obliquely and by indirection, rather than to try to assert positively what it is.
One prerequisite for originality is clearly that a person shall not be inclined to impose his preconceptions on the fact as he sees it. Rather, he must be able to learn something new, even if this means that the ideas and notions that are comfortable or dear to him may be overturned.
“But the way people commonly use the word nowadays it means something all of whose parts are mutually interdependent – not only for their mutual action, but for their meaning and for their existence.”
“A corporation is organized as a system – it has this department, that department, that department… they don’t have any meaning separately; they only can function together. And also the body is a system. Society is a system in some sense. And so on.”
“So one begins to wonder what is going to happen to the human race. Technology keeps on advancing with greater and greater power, either for good or for destruction.”
“From the outset, however, this whole controversy has been plagued by tacit assumptions, very often of a philosophical rather than a physical character.”
“This kind of overall way of thinking is not only a fertile source of new theoretical ideas: it is needed for the human mind to function in a generally harmonious way, which could in turn help to make possible an orderly and stable society.”
“violence doesn’t stop merely by saying, ‘we’ll act based on love’, because that can become just an idea that gets absorbed into the system.”
“If you are going to ask what state of feeling goes with understanding, I am afraid that it will have to be described by the word “love”. This word has unfortunately been used in so many false ways that it hardly means anything nowadays. Yet, I think that by implication, the meaning will come across. For example, some parents claim they “love” their children, but do not understand them. Is this really possible? If they do not understand what their children actually are, then the beings for whom they feel love must be imaginary, just projections of the parent’s own minds. Thus, what the parents actually “love” is not their actual children, but rather, some projections of themselves. Such a love is evidently false. Evidently, there can be no real love without understanding. Vice versa, can there be understanding without love? If we hate something, we reject it and do not understand it. . . . If we are indifferent to something, we will never undertake the arduous task of understanding it. If something pleases us, we will be afraid to look at its dark side, and again we won’t understand it, i.e., see it wholly and totally. So it seems that the only feeling that will lead to the action of understanding is love.”