Now

Faith-Based Surrender:
Comments and Predictions
~ Ron’s Memoirs

“Setting aside all noble deeds,
just surrender completely to the will of God.

I shall liberate you from all sins. Do not grieve.”

~ Bhagavad Gita 18:66

“They are the chosen ones who have surrendered.”

~ Rumi
Grace is ever present.

All that is necessary is that you surrender to it.”

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“By letting it go it all gets done.

The world is won by those who let it go.

But when you try and try,
the world is beyond the winning.”

~ Lao Tzu
“Two things are necessary for the realization of God;
faith and self-surrender.”
“Surrender everything at the feet of God. …
Give Him the power of attorney.
Let Him do whatever He thinks best.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
“Surrender is faith
that the power of Love
can accomplish anything,
even when you cannot foresee the outcome.”

~ Deepak Chopra
We have nothing to surrender

But the idea

That we’re someone,

With something

To surrender.

~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings




Ron’s Introduction to Faith-Based Surrender: Comments and Predictions

Dear Friends,

Because we are experiencing an illusory low energy Earth ‘reality’ of third dimension [3D] space/time/and duality separation from each other and Nature, most SillySutras postings have separately considered fundamental spiritual principles such as God, Love, Faith, Surrender, Ego, Devotion, Humility, Karma, Evolution and Transformation.

However, as a ninety year old faith-based optimist, I now foresee our imminent quantum-leap ascension to a New Reality beyond unavoidable Earthly ego-mind illusions of seeming separation from Source.

So today’s posting is dedicated to inspiring our newly elevated view of the above seemingly separate spiritual concepts, as interdependent appearances of Divine Grace, Faith, and Love, beyond all ego-mind illusions; thereby encouraging us to instinctively and irreversibly surrender such illusions with supreme Faith in our Eternal existence as ONE Divine LOVE.

Spiritual stories or parables have often metaphorically likened each of us as a traveler on an evolutionary journey, each with a unique dharmic path and perspective. In truth we are ONE non-dual Divinity which has incarnated into unique ’space/time soul-suits’ to experiment in time the infinite possibilities of such separate existence.

However, forgetting our true immortality and Divinity, we’ve egoically self-identified as separate and fallible mortal beings. And while mistakenly believing ourselves mortal, we have feared death, acted selfishly and suffered karmically.

But now, after countless reincarnations with countless trials and tribulations, we are remembering and realizing our Eternal Divinity as ONE Infinite LOVE. And to hasten our return process, many of us are skillfully and fearlessly using our thoughts as servants to our souls, instead of ignorantly suffering from ego-mind psychic domination.

And as we approach our return ‘destination’ we are realizing that everything and everyone is equally Divine, though each is in an apparently differing stage of returning to ONENESS. We are remembering that “In the beginning was the word and the word was God” ( John 1:1 ) And that “With our [human] thoughts, [we’ve made] the world.” ( Buddha )

Thus, as a global family of empathetic humans we are about to achieve a “critical mass” transformation enabling us to resolve our apparent Earth-life ‘critical mess’, by following our Sacred Heart’s innate empathy, compassion and LOVE for all people and all Life everywhere.

And with irreversible intuitive Faith, we shall surrender all ego-mind fears and separation illusions, to our heartfelt Eternal existence as ONE Divine LOVE.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

Choosing to Live in Hard Times
as The Best of Times
~ Ron’s Memoirs

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear,
. . . . and the one who fears is not perfected in love.”
~ 1 John 4:18

“Deep down, at our cores, there are only two emotions:
love and fear.
All positive emotions come from love,
all negative emotions from fear.
From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy.
From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt.”
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler – When You Don’t Choose Love You Choose Fear

“The choice that frees or imprisons us
is the choice of love or fear.
Love liberates. Fear imprisons.”
~ Gary Zukav

“Fear and Love cannot coexist.”
“So choose Love
And ever BE
Fearlessly FREE!”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha

“As far, verily, as this world-space extends,
so far extends the space within the heart…”
~ Chandogya Upanishad 8.1.3

“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”
~ Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas

“Forces beyond our control can take away
our freedom to choose how we will respond to an outer situation.”
“When we are no longer able to change that situation –
we are challenged to change ourselves.”
~ Viktor E. Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning [edited by Ron Rattner]

“When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing — nothing.”

“We should seek not so much to pray, but to become prayer.”

~ Saint Francis of Assisi



“Our prayers should be for blessings in general,

for God knows best what is good for us.”

~ Socrates

“Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.”
~ Matthew 21:22

Remember with gratitude,
Life is beatitude –
Even its sorrows and pain;
For we’re all in God’s Grace,
Every time, every place, and
Forever (S)HE will reign!
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings





Ron’s Introduction to Choosing to Live in Hard Times as The Best of Times

Dear Friends,

At age ninety, my mortal physical body has been considerably weakened by age, symptoms from near death taxicab rundown injuries nine years ago, and post-pandemic lock-down restrictions closing public toilets and preventing my daily walks by SF Bay, and other usual activities.

However, though so weakened by body age, edicts and injury symptoms, I’m gratefully happier than ever before in this long precious human lifetime, with every day a bonus, and every breath a blessing.

Therefore, this memoirs posting explains with the above sutras and quotations, and the following comments how I’m able to psychologically and behaviorally live happily in current post-pandemic hard times.

Regardless of illusory but unavoidable Earthly ego-mind fears, I’ve remembered my eternal identity as infinitely powerful Divine LOVE. And that such ego fears and Love cannot coexist here.

So I’ve gratefully chosen to awaken each day by remembering and BEING Fearlessly FREE as Divine LOVE, in the following new ways:

1) All my daily procedures and practices prioritize spiritual over material activities, with nonjudgmental intention to help all other sentient Earth-beings.

2) They include simplification of usual routines, and undoing unneeded ideas and behaviors.

3) Daily practices include meditations, prayers, and mantras, blessing all sentient beings, and bestowing increased happiness for all people with whom I have face to face, telephone or internet customer service contacts.

Therefore, the above sutras and quotations and the following explanatory comments are posted to encourage and help us live happily in hard times.

Ron’s unusual ancestral and birthday background

Over a century ago both my maternal and paternal ancestors fled Ukraine to escape from Tsarist persecutions for their Jewish religious practices. Each of my parents were Rattner surname first cousins, whose families all lived near Kiev. And my father and his extended family fled for their lives from a Ukrainian village similar to the fictional village portrayed in Fiddler on the Roof, the popular Broadway play and film.

Into that unusual Rattner surname Ukrainian lineage, I was born on election day November 8th, 1932, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was first elected 32nd President of the USA, during “hard times” of the 1930’s and a great global depression, when many were unemployed hungry and suffering from intense fear and exploitation.

In his first inaugural address FDR wisely observed that

“The only thing we have to fear is…fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt


Roosevelt’s New Deal programs

The “hard times” of the 1930’s led to Roosevelt’s pioneering New Deal programs (like Social Security) benefiting most Americans, public works projects, financial reforms and beneficial regulations.

For example, the WPA (Works Project Administration) was established and federally funded to employ most unemployed people not only on crucial public works projects, but also to further the arts. Hence there were projects employing artists, musicians, actors, and writers.

In prior postings, I’ve shown that the most spiritually advanced societies have honored all their art and artists, who communicate deep feelings of instinctive spiritual wisdom beyond words.

And Roosevelt’s New Deal era programs wisely began by honoring Nature, art and artists in those hard times. As 20th century precedents they can inspire our chosen behaviors in current 21st century hard times.

Instead of following our “leaders”, we can each claim our unlimited power as ONE Eternal LOVE to fearlessly and lovingly follow our Sacred Heart until each unique sacred soul is dharmically dissolved in timeless Eternal ONENESS as Divine LOVE.

Our “leaders”

For eons, masses of Earthly humans (experimentally forgetting their common Divine birthright as Eternal beings of love and light, and thus fearfully believing themselves separate in space and time from each other and Nature), have been hierarchically exploited and ruled through religious, military, or political dogma by very few self-proclaimed leaders who’ve been obscenely rich, or allegedly infallible royal beings.

As psychopaths without morality, they’ve become dominant in most major human governments and empires. And most people have accepted and followed these leaders without questioning their psychopathically selfish motives even though they constitute less than 1% of Earthly humanoids.

But gradually an increasing number of people have morally refused to follow these rulers, unless apathetic, indoctrinated, or intimidated.

And such refusals are becoming crucial since these autocrats can exist only in low energy matrix biospheres, like Earth’s third density illusory world of space/time and duality. They cannot exist in elevated biosphere energies of infinitely potential fifth dimensions and above. So these evil rulers keep frightening and intimidating people to prevent their energetic ascensions to higher dimensions.

Reasons for choosing to live lovingly in current hard times

Even in this ominous era, I’m spiritually optimistic about survival of Human Earth-life, despite unprecedented global warfare, suffering and turmoil, dire “end times” predictions of cataclysmic climate collapse, and Earth’s domination by evil autocrats, because:


1) I’ve realized that “Our destiny is Divinity” since we’re not what we think we are, but Infinite Eternal Awareness!

2) As unique immortal souls we are each dharmically destined to be dissolved in timeless Eternal ONENESS as Divine LOVE beyond unavoidable third dimension space/time duality[3D] Earthly ego-mind fears and illusions. We each transcend inescapable ego-mind fears and illusions at rates dependent upon whether our unique thoughts and behaviors are loving or selfish – helpful or harmful.

3) Moreover, there is no death. Death is just an energy transition, until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE. It’s an illusory belief that our lives end when our mortal bodies no longer function.

4) Karmically, as each unique soul evolves to ever ascending energy planes, it transcends all ego-mind fears to exist lovingly and dharmically, forever free of unhappiness and disharmony until dissolved in timeless Eternal ONENESS as Divine LOVE beyond unavoidably fearful Earthly third dimension space/time duality[3D] “realty”.

5) While subjected to ever fearful ego-mind, we inevitably exist with karmic cause and effect sufferings from the earthly illusion of space/time/duality “realty”. But the more we intentionally lovingly follow our Sacred Heart the more we enjoy happy lives, and the less we suffer from perpetually unknown karmic causes and conditions.

6} Ultimately, we’ve never been separated from our Eternal Source Mother/Father/God. So we have nothing to fear – EVER

Conclusion, Dedication, and Invocation

We now live in an inevitably illusory and fear-pervaded low energy earthly biosphere of third dimension [3D] space/time and duality, where love and fear cannot co-exist.

As each unique soul inevitably evolves from the illusory space/time duality third dimension [3D] to ever ascending energy planes, it transcends all ego-mind fears to exist lovingly and dharmically, forever free of unhappiness and disharmony until it is dissolved as destined into Mother/Father/God,
as ONE LOVE.

The spiritual insights about Love and Fear, expressed in the above key quotations, sutras and explanatory comments, are deeply dedicated to advancing and elevating our dharmically destined transcendence of all infinitely potential ego/mind biospheres to our Eternal existence as ONE Divine LOVE.

Invocation

May these writings about choosing to live lovingly and fearlessly in current hard times inspire and advance our dharmically destined Eternal Self-identification as ONE Divine LOVE.



And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


The best things in Life are Forever FREE!
~ Ron’s Memoirs

The soul of man has been separated from its source,

wandering in exile in a strange land –

“I am stranger on earth” (Psalm 119:19-20) –

ever yearning to return to that from which it first sprang,

and cleave to the Soul of all souls.”

~ Ba’al Shem Tov, Hasidic master




Introduction to “The best things in Life are Forever FREE!
~ Ron’s Memoirs”


Dear Friends,

At age ninety, I’m updating my memoirs to emphasize my most significant spiritual perspectives and insights learned so far during this precious human lifetime.

Today’s “Forever FREE!” posting was originally inspired by “The Best Things in Life Are Free”, a frequently popular song composed in 1927 for the musical play “Good News” during the economic stock market boom that preceded the 1929 Wall Street stock market crash, which led to a worldwide great economic depression.

In prior postings, I’ve shown how all musical art can communicate deep feelings of instinctive wisdom beyond words, until we gratefully Awaken Spiritually as ONE LOVE beyond time.

And I’ve found these lyrics to be spiritually insightful and inspiring:

Prelude

“There are so many kinds of riches,
And only one of them is gold.
Though wealth you miss,
Remember this :
Worthwhile things cannot be bought or sold.
The best things in Life are FREE!”

Refrain

“The moon belongs to everyone—
The best things in life are free
The stars belong to everyone
They gleam there for you and me
The flowers in spring, the robins that sing
The sunbeams that shine
They’re yours!—They’re mine!
And love can come to everyone—
The best things in life are free!


My following summary and comments about today’s post will help explain the spiritual prescience of these lyrics; that although we are each unique, we are each dharmically destined to Awaken Spiritually as ONE LOVE beyond time.

Summary

Always remember that our ultimate identity is immortal Cosmic Consciousness as ONE LOVE.

We’ve appeared on Earth to experimentally experience illusionary time, space and duality as ego-embodied supposedly separated forms, but we’ve never really been separate from Mother/Father/God – our Eternal Source.

To be alive is to BE LOVE. Infinite Eternal LOVE is all that exists.  As Jesus taught ‘We and our Mother/Father/God are One’.

There is no death. Death is just an energy transition, until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE. It is an illusory belief that our lives end when our mortal bodies no longer function.

So we’ve nothing to fear. Nor need we accept as “real” any perceived Earth-life threats to our immortality.

Remembering that our separation from ONE LOVE never happened, we’ve nothing to fear – EVER.


Background

Over forty five years ago, I began seeing Earth-life as an experiment in dense 3D space/time, with each human soul on a unique dharmic path to solving that energy experiment by forever following their Heart.

Recently, I’ve been optimistically predicting that our Earthly experiment in time will soon end, as a “critical mass” of human souls imminently awakens from eons of matrix thralldom. I foresee that Mother/Father/God will (as destined) soon honor Earth-Mother’s Nature to preserve it, rather than allow it to cataclysmically end.

I’m optimistic because our separate 3D Earth-world of mental fears and sufferings was not Divinely planned, but collectively chosen by human souls to experimentally experience illusionary time, space and duality, as an imagined separate reality.

And I’m especially optimistic since I’ve realized that Human souls have nothing to fear – EVER, because our illusionary perceived earth-life separation from Mother/Father/God as Infinite Eternal LOVE never happened.

Ron’s explanations of why The Best Things In Life Are Forever FREE!

1) What Humans call “Life” is an illusory concept in space/time and duality.

“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.”

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

~ Albert Einstein

2) Time is an illusion, of every Earthly human soul’s separation from its Eternal Source.

The soul of man has been separated from its source,

wandering in exile in a strange land –
“I am stranger on earth” (Psalm 119:19-20) –

ever yearning to return to that from which it first sprang,

and cleave to the Soul of all souls.”

~ Ba’al Shem Tov, Hasidic master

3) The human soul’s fate in space and time is subject to free-will karmic cause and effect.

“Every Cause has its Effect;

Every Effect has its Cause;

Everything happens according to Law;

Chance is but a name for Law not recognized;

There are many planes of causation,

But nothing escapes the Law.”

~ The Kybalion

4) In illusory space/time and duality, the soul remains in form as a potentially infinitely expanding energy entity, until dissolved as destined into Mother/Father/God, its Source.

5) As each unique soul evolves to ever ascending energy planes, it transcends all ego-mind fears to exist lovingly and dharmically, forever free of unhappiness and disharmony.

“Love is what we were born with.

Fear is what we learned here.

The spiritual journey is the relinquishment – or unlearning – of fear
and the acceptance of love back into our hearts.”

~ Marianne Williamson

“The world is a prison and we are the prisoners:

Dig a hole in the prison and let yourself out!”

~ Rumi

“You have been a prisoner of a little pond,

I am the ocean and its turbulent flood.

Come merge with me, leave this world of ignorance.

Be with me, I will open the gate to your love.”

~ Rumi

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear,
. . . . and the one who fears is not perfected in love.”

~ 1 John 4:18


6) The unique key for each soul’s transcendence of fear is found within each One’s Sacred Heart.

“The way is not in the sky.

The way is in the heart.”

~ Buddha

“

You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

~ Rumi

“There is a light that shines beyond all things on Earth,
…
beyond the highest, the very highest heavens.

This is the light that shines in your Heart.”

~ Chandogya Upanishad 3.13.7

7) Until dissolved as formless ONENESS, each soul is a multi-dimensional fractal hologram, appearing infinitely in form.

“There is an endless net of threads throughout the universe.

The horizontal threads are in space.

The vertical threads are in time.

At every crossing of the threads, there is an individual.

And every individual is a crystal bead. 

And every crystal bead reflects not only the light 
from every other crystal in the net,

but also every other reflection throughout the entire universe.”

~ Indra’s Net – from the Vedas of Ancient India, 7000 years old

“Objective reality does not exist” ….

“the universe is fundamentally a gigantic … hologram”

~ David Bohm

“Every particle of the world is a mirror.

In each atom lies the blazing light of a thousand suns.”

~ Mahmud Shabestari, Sufi Mystic, 15th century

8) Ultimately, Humanity’s illusionary perceived earth-life separation from Mother/Father/God – our Eternal Source never happened. So we’ve nothing to fear – EVER.


“Nothing Real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.”

~ A Course In Miracles



“Perception is a mirror not a fact.

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

~ A Course In Miracles



“Time, space and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen.

In the Absolute there is neither time, space nor causation.”

~ Swami Vivekananda


Conclusion and Dedication

As each unique soul evolves from the illusory space/time duality third dimension [3D] to ever ascending energy planes, it transcends all ego-mind fears to exist lovingly and dharmically, forever free of unhappiness and disharmony.

This “Forever Free” posting is deeply dedicated to inspiring each of us
to lovingly follow our Sacred Heart until it is dissolved as destined into Mother/Father/God,
as ONE LOVE

Invocation


May these writings inspire and encourage
each of us to lovingly follow our unique Sacred Heart
until it is dissolved as destined into Mother/Father/God
as ONE LOVE.


And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


Al Jolson, Mario Lanza, and Frank Sinatra Singing The best things in Life are FREE!



Remember!
~ Ron’s Memoirs

“Remember God, forget the rest.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Forget who you think you are,
to know what you really are.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Just BE Divinity –
Ego-Free LOVE!.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings



Remember! ~ Ron’s Memoirs

Ron’s Introduction to “Remember!”

Dear Friends,

Thirty years ago, during a long post-retirement period of meditation, prayer, and introspection after my spiritual awakening, I remembered that as egos we continually exist as different illusionary separate space/time energy forms, until we’re dissolved as ONE LOVE within Mother/Father/God – our Eternal Source.

Whereupon I “channelled” (and later recorded and posted) the following sutra-poem, “Remember!”, which at age ninety I’ve re-recorded and republished today with updated sutra-sayings, quotations, and invocation.

This sutra-poem is dedicated to inspiring our heart-felt remembrance that as ego-embodied Human Souls we continuously appear and re-appear as space/time energy forms, until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE within Mother/Father/God – our Eternal Source from which we’ve never separated.

As we deeply consider “Remember!”, may we gratefully and faithfully recall that being alive is being Love; that beyond the ego’s illusion of separation from Mother/Father/God, we eternally exist as ONE ‘dazzling Divinity’.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


Remember!

Don’t forget what you knew
before you withdrew,
from dwelling in Heaven’s domain.

Recall your affinity,
with dazzling Divinity,
and in that Presence remain.

Remember with gratitude,
life is beatitude,
even its sorrows and pain;

For we’re all in God’s Grace,
every time, every place,

and

FOREVER (S)HE will reign!



Ron’s audio singing of “Remember!”

Listen to



Invocation

May we ever remember and never forget

That our true identity is Divine LOVE;

That as ego-embodied Human Souls
we’ve appeared as illusionary space/time energy forms,
to faithfully follow our Heart

Until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE
within Mother/Father/God –
our Eternal Source.

May we ever remember and never forget

That our separation from Mother/Father/God never happened.

So we’ve nothing to fear – EVER.



And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


The Unanswered Question”
~ Gustav Mahler’s Ninth Symphony


“Music is the language of God.”

“Music can change the world.”

~ Ludwig van Beethoven




“Rise again, yes, rise again,

Will you, my dust, after a brief rest!

Immortal life! Immortal life

Will he who called you, give you.

“You are sown to bloom again!

The lord of the harvest goes

And gathers sheaves,

Us, who have died.

“O believe, my heart, O believe:

Nothing is lost to you!

Yours, yes yours, is what you desired

Yours, what you have loved

What you have fought for!

“O believe,

You were not born for nothing!

Have not lived for nothing,

Nor suffered!

“What was created

Must perish;

What perished, rise again!

Cease from trembling!

Prepare yourself to live!

“O Pain, you piercer of all things,

From you, I have been wrested!

O Death, you conqueror of all things,

Now, are you conquered!

“With wings which I have won for myself,

In love’s fierce striving,

I shall soar upwards

To the light which no eye has penetrated!

“I shall die in order to live.

“Rise again, yes, rise again,

Will you, my heart, in an instant!

That for which you suffered,

To God shall it carry you!”



~ Gustav Mahler – “Resurrection” Symphony No. 2

Gustav-Mahler- ~ July 7, 1860 – May 18, 1911

Ron’s Introduction to “The Unanswered Question”
~ Gustav Mahler’s Ninth Symphony


Dear Friends,

Last month – to demonstrate how passionate mystical music elevates us beyond earthly cares and fears, and to so experience the eternal Light of timeless LOVE – I posted three YouTube video performances of one of the greatest symphonies of all time, Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony No. 2 (composed between 1888-1894) including a performance conducted by Leonard Bernstein, a long-time Mahler enthusiast and interpreter.

The concluding choral fifth movement of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony ends with the above-quoted words written by Mahler characterizing inevitable physical death, as a rebirth to the eternal Divine Light of God.

Mahler’s Ninth Symphony (composed in 1909), was his last completed symphony. Like his “Resurrection” Symphony No. 2, it can be conducted and interpreted, as an ode to spiritual rebirth, but also as prophetic of inevitable and unavoidable physical death.

Today, to augment the Mahler “Resurrection” Symphony posting, I’ve posted below as “The Unanswered Question”, Leonard Bernstein’s interpretation of Mahler’s music given in a 1973 Harvard University public lecture titled: “The Twentieth Century Crisis”.

In that lecture, Bernstein interprets Mahler’s music as a reflection of Mahler’s fifty year life and times (from 1860 to 1911), as well as prophetic of current times. Bernstein has even further believed that this Mahler Ninth symphony was a foreboding of the end of musical tonality, and end of honoring artists as European cultural heroes of Mahler’s era, and even of fascist world wars.

In 1973 Bernstein had become the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard. This prestigious position had previously been awarded to such notable musical figures as Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland, and to poets such as e.e. cummings and W.H. Auden. The professorship required Bernstein to deliver a series of six public lectures. Bernstein, a “Harvard man”, was honored to become a part of this distinguished tradition.

Bernstein’s “Twentieth Century Crisis” lecture began with his explanation of how during the twentieth century there had been gradually increasing and ultimately excessive musical ambiguity, that had destroyed the essential balance between clarity and ambiguity.

This “The Unanswered Question” lecture concluded with Bernstein’s deep discussion of Gustav Mahler’s Ninth Symphony.

Bernstein described the Ninth symphony as Mahler’s prediction of his imminent physical death at age 50. It was Mahler’s last full symphony, completed soon after the death of his young daughter Maria, and when he’d been diagnosed with a very serious heart condition. After talking, Bernstein showed a video with him conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the concluding Adagio from this Mahler masterpiece.

One of those attending “The Twentieth Century Crisis” lecture was Zen Master Hyon Gak Sunim, whose Zen center organization extracted Bernstein’s discussion of Mahler and posted it on their cagin YouTube channel as “The Unanswered Question”.

In cooperation with that Zen center organization, I have copied and reposted below “The Unanswered Question”.

May we view and deeply enjoy this video. May Gustav Mahler’s passionate 9th Symphony spiritually elevate us beyond earthly cares and fears, to experience the eternal Light of timeless LOVE.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

“The Twentieth Century Crisis” and Gustav Mahler’s Ninth Symphony

Death? Afterlife? Rebirth?
~ Easter Reflections on Resurrections

At my death do not lament our separation …
as the sun and moon but seem to set,
in reality this is a rebirth.
~ Rumi
“I tell you the truth,
no one can see the kingdom of God
unless he is born again.”
~ John – 3:3
“The soul is eternal, all-pervading, unmodifiable, immovable and primordial.”
“The soul never takes birth and never dies at any time,
nor does it come into being again when the body is created.
The soul is birthless, eternal, imperishable and timeless,
and is never destroyed when the body is destroyed.
Just as a man giving up old worn out garments accepts other new apparel, in the same way the embodied soul giving up old and worn out bodies verily accepts new bodies.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Krishna to Arjuna
“I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as a plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was man.
Why should I fear?
When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as man,
To soar with angels blest;
But even from angelhood I must pass on …”
~ Rumi
death, as men call him, ends what they call men
–but beauty is more now than dying’s when…
~ e. e. cummings
“The dewdrop belongs to the sea.
Separated, it is vulnerable to the sun and wind and other elements of nature;
but when the droplet returns to its source, it becomes magnified in oneness with the sea.
So it is with your life.  United to God you become immortal.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
Eternal Life is gained by utter abandonment of one’s own life.
When God appears to His ardent lover the lover is absorbed in Him,
and not so much as a hair of the lover remains.
True lovers are as shadows, and when the sun shines in glory
the shadows vanish away.
He is a true lover to God to whom God says,
“I am thine, and thou art mine! ”
~ Rumi


Tree of Life

The Last Supper



The biblical story of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection raises crucial issues about life and death – about afterlife and rebirth – and about our true identity and reality.

As countless millions traditionally commemorate the rebirth and resurrection of Jesus Christ following his physical death by crucifixion, let us contemplate the deep significance of that story.  Whether we regard it as historic or metaphoric, the story raises crucial issues about life and death – about afterlife and rebirth – and about our true identity and reality.

Physical death is inevitable, but Life is perpetual.

Death of the physical body is inevitable and unavoidable. After birth, “no matter how we strive, no body leaves alive.” Uncertainty exists only about time of death, and about whether there is conscious life after physical death.

For millennia seers, saints, philosophers and mystics have addressed perennial questions of life after physical death and of our true identity and reality. Since the beginning of the 20th century when Albert Einstein revolutionized Western science with his theories of special and general relativity, quantum physicists and other non-materialistic scientists have begun confirming ancient mystical insights.

Raymond A. Moody, Jr., PhD, MD coined the term ‘Near Death Experience’ [NDE] in his 1975 best-selling book “Life After Life”. Since then NDE’s have become widely considered, especially by millions who claim to have experienced them. And some leading-edge non-materialist scientists have cited testimonies about NDE’s and other extraordinary mystical experiences as evidence that consciousness survives physical death.

For example, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, world renowned scientist, teacher, author and pioneering authority on death and dying, believed in survival of spirit after physical death, and used butterflies as symbols of the death process.

Soon after World War II, she visited the children’s barracks at the Maidanek concentration camp in Poland. There, amazingly, she observed hundreds of butterfly images drawn by the inmate children on the walls, even with pebbles and fingernails. Spellbound by the sight of butterflies drawn on the walls, she wondered why they were there and what they meant.

Twenty-five years later, after listening to hundreds of terminally ill patients, she finally realized that the imprisoned children must have known that they were going to die, and intuitively were using butterflies as images of the physical death process. Dr. Kubler-Ross thus explained in The Wheel of Life, A Memoir of Living and Dying:

“They knew that soon they would become butterflies. Once dead, they would be out of that hellish place. Not tortured anymore. Not separated from their families. Not sent to gas chambers. None of this gruesome life mattered anymore. Soon they would leave their bodies the way a butterfly leaves its cocoon. And I realized that was the message they wanted to leave for future generations. . . .It also provided the imagery that I would use for the rest of my career to explain the process of death and dying.”


Dr. Kubler-Ross’s writings have inspired many other non-materialist scientists, authors, and teachers who have followed her lead. Also, of great importance in helping us understand whether spirit survives physical death were the ground-breaking scientific studies by Dr. Ian Stevenson, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, who for forty years studied children world-wide who spontaneously remembered past lives. Dr. Stevenson objectively validated and documented about twelve hundred such cases.

Thanks to the ‘leading edge’ work of Dr. Kubler-Ross and Dr. Stevenson, and of distinguished non-material scientists inspired by them, there now exists overwhelming scientific evidence that consciousness and mind are independent of physical bodies; that our physical bodies and brains are not originators of consciousness and mind, but their receptors, tuners and transducers.  And that until we evolve beyond space/time duality reality, apparent reincarnation or rebirth may happen after death of the brain and physical body.

What survives physical death?

If – like snowflakes – each of us manifests as an absolutely unique physical form, what is it about us that can survive death of that unique form, and be “born and reborn”?

“Reincarnation” is often understood to be the transmigration of a “soul” – viz. apparently uniquely circumscribed spirit – to another body after physical death.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism’s most cited ancient scripture, Divine Avatar Krishna instructs Prince Arjuna that:

“The soul is eternal, all-pervading, unmodifiable, immovable and primordial.”; “The soul never takes birth and never dies” but “when the body is destroyed” or when “giving up old and worn out bodies . . [it] accepts new bodies.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2


Though in Buddhism there is no concept of separate soul or individual self that survives death, Buddhists believe in rebirth. Like most mystics, Buddhists say that in addition to our physical body, we are enveloped by subtle astral and mental bodies, which survive death of the physical body and become consciously associated with successive physical bodies.

Thus the Dalai Lama says that:

“We are born and reborn countless number of times, and it is possible that each being has been our parent at one time or another.  Therefore, it is likely that all beings in this universe have familial connections.”


A detailed and compelling description of afterlife can be found in “Autobiography of a Yogi”, by Paramahansa Yogananda, Chapter 43 – The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar .   There Yogananda credibly recounts a long discussion with his physically deceased Guru, Sri Yukteswar, who – like Jesus – resurrected to explain to his disciple Yogananda many details of afterlife.  [You can read that extraordinarily fascinating story at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_a_Yogi/Chapter_43

Many psychics say that on physical death “we” survive and enter different realms. eg. http://www.victorzammit.com/Whenwedie/whatdoeshappen.htm

But ancient Vedic and Buddhist non-dualism philosophies (“Advaita”;”Advaya”) have for millennia taught that this impermanent and ever changing world is an unreal illusion called maya or samsara; and, that “all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream”… .

“The world, indeed, is like a dream
and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage!”
~ Buddha

“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


Notwithstanding the Buddha’s non-dualist teachings, the Dalai Lama says he practices death and rebirth eight times daily. And, as Tibetan Bodhisattva of Compassion, he intends to return until all sentient beings are liberated from suffering.

If you had the option of a one-way exit pass to ‘heaven’, would you volunteer as a Bodhisattva to come back to this crazy world?

Vivekananda and Einstein.

The ancient Eastern non-dualism teachings were first brought to large Western audiences by Swami Vivekananda, principal disciple of nineteenth century Indian Holy Man Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, at and after the 1893 Parliament of World Religions in Chicago.

In an eloquent New York City lecture called “The Real and the Apparent Man”, Vivekananda equated maya or samsara with “time, space, and causation” and presciently predicted scientific confirmation of the ancient Vedic non-dual philosophy of One Infinite Existence. He said:

“According to the Advaita philosophy, ..this Maya or ignorance–or name and form, or, as it has been called in Europe, time, space, and causality–is out of this one Infinite Existence showing us the manifoldness of the universe; in substance, this universe is one. So long as any one thinks that there are two ultimate realities, he is mistaken. When he has come to know that there is but one, he is right. This is what is being proved to us every day, on the physical plane, on the mental plane, and also on the spiritual plane.”


“What then becomes of all this threefold eschatology of the dualist, that when a man dies he goes to heaven, or goes to this or that sphere, and that the wicked persons become ghosts, and become animals, and so forth? None comes and none goes, says the non-dualist. How can you come and go? You are infinite; where is the place for you to go?
 
“So it is with regard to the soul; the very question of birth and death in regard to it is utter nonsense. Who goes and who comes? Where are you not? Where is the heaven that you are not in already? Omnipresent is the Self of man. Where is it to go? Where is it not to go? It is everywhere. So all this childish dream and puerile illusion of birth and death, of heavens and higher heavens and lower worlds, all vanish immediately for the perfect. For the nearly perfect it vanishes after showing them the several scenes up to Brahmaloka. It continues for the ignorant.”


“Your own will is all that answers prayer, only it appears under the guise of different religious conceptions to each mind. We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, but it is only the Self, the ‘I’.”


~ Swami Vivekananda – Jnana Yoga


Revered 20th century Indian sage, Sri Ramana Maharshi – who was a renowned exponent of non-dualism – taught that for self-realized beings there is no reincarnation, but that reincarnation exists until self-realization – that self-realization reveals this entire world of space/time/duality as illusionary maya or samsara. Thus, responding to the question: “Is reincarnation true?”,  he said: 

“Reincarnation exists only so long as there is ignorance. There is really no reincarnation at all, either now or before. Nor will there be any hereafter. This is the truth.”


Einstein’s revolutionary non-mechanistic science and unconventional religious ideas were consistent with highest non-dualistic Eastern religious teachings, because they questioned the substantiality of matter, the ultimate reality of space, time and causality, and reincarnation. Like Vivekananda, Einstein said:

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”



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



“Space and time are not conditions in which we live, they are modes in which we think”

“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.”

“There is no place in this new kind of physics for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality.”




“That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.”

“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, …Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism.”

~ Albert Einstein


Ron’s Explanations and Reflections on Reincarnations and Resurrections.

Dear Friends,

At age ninety, I have long reflected upon crucially important perennial questions concerning life, death, afterlife, and rebirth. And thereby I’ve been blessed to realize that consciousness we call “life” continues eternally after inevitable physical death.

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

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

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

Inspired by Guruji, I developed a deep curiosity and philosophical interest in the spiritual significance of death and dying, reincarnation and karma. Elsewhere, on SillySutras.com I have shared many experiences, essays, quotes and poems on these subjects. (See, e.g., https://sillysutras.com/category/afterlife/ ;https://sillysutras.com/category/life-and-death/; https://sillysutras.com/category/reincarnation/ )

Ultimately I’ve concluded that cosmically there is no death; that “birth and death are virtual, while Life is perpetual” and that “as we lose our fear of leaving life, we gain the art of living life.” (See e.g. https://sillysutras.com/know-death-to-know-life-know-death-to-know-that-there-is-no-death/ )

Consequently, I’ve become ever less fearful about my own inevitable and perhaps imminent bodily death, and often witness Earth-life like an illusionary play or movie, rather than Reality – which I now consider timeless LOVE as Infinite Potentiality beyond comprehension, imagination or description.

Moreover, I’ve become persuaded that from a Self–realized ‘Buddha’s eye view’ all our supposedly separate lifetimes, incarnations, emanations or appearances can be Seen timelessly and concurrently – formed like ink blots in a ‘big bang’ Rorschach test; but that (except for rare Avatars or Buddhas) we are karmically challenged to live each supposed space/time lifetime as lovingly and empathetically as possible, while ever mindful that we are not separate mortal entities but indivisible formless and eternal Infinite Potentiality as LOVE.

To encourage our deep insights on perennial questions of afterlife and reincarnation, like “Who am I?” and “What is death?”, I have shared the foregoing writings.

May Easter and every day help us attain destined inner fulfillment and happiness during our ephemeral lifetimes on precious planet Earth.

And so may it be!

2023 Epilogue.

Dear Friends,

During recent equinox holidays we have experienced an unprecedented era of social, psychological, political, and economic turbulence, violence, and polarity, with seemingly imminent nuclear war or other omnicidal catastrophe ending earth-life as we’ve known it.

More people than ever before are suffering fears of death, illness, impoverishment, or imminent calamity, and are unable to live normally. They feel deprived of God-given human rights and necessities, and prevented from engaging in customary economic and social activities. Some are homeless or ‘sheltering’ unable to reverently commemorate the equinox holidays with others. 

Nonetheless, our species is still insanely plundering, polluting and pillaging our planet’s limited resources and and unsustainably destroying it’s precious ecosystem and climate.

But, paradoxically, this is also a time of epochal opportunity, not only a time of apparently imminent catastrophe caused or condoned by our species.

Thus, this an especially appropriate time for us to deeply reflect upon our fundamental life purposes, priorities and responsibilities as sentient Earth beings.

Because ignorance of humanity’s immortal Self-Identity causes continual fearful sufferings which impede evolution and progress, it is crucial that we transcend fears. So the foregoing writings are offered to help us overcome our fears, and thereby enter an unprecedented new era of peace and prosperity on earth.

Dedication

These writings are deeply dedicated to encouraging reflection about our Eternal Self-identity as timeless Divine LOVE.

May they help us experience ever expanding fulfillment and inner happiness during our ephemeral lifetimes on precious planet Earth, whatever we believe about death, afterlife or rebirth.

Invocation.

May we – in this ephemeral human lifetime
on our precious planet Earth –
realize our common dream for a new reality,
where everyone everywhere is happy.

May Everyone Everywhere Be Happy!
“Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu!”



And so shall it be!!

Ron Rattner

“Finding Freedom” as the Spiritual message of the Passover story


“Be empty of worrying,
Think of Who Created Thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?”
~ Rumi

“You will know the truth,

and the truth will set you free.”

~ John 8:32

“Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt land
Tell old Pharaoh to let my people go.”
~ Afro-American Spiritual Song

“Free at last, free at last.
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

“We are shackled by illusory bonds of belief.

Freedom is beyond belief.”

~ Ron Rattner – Sutra Sayings

“There is only one central issue, crisis, or challenge for man,
which is, that he must be completely free.
As long as the mind is holding on to a structure, a method, a system, there is no freedom.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

“Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice.
Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness
of our daily existence and activity.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

“Bondage is of the mind; freedom too is of the mind.
If you say ‘I am a free soul.
I am a son of God who can bind me’
free you shall be.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa

“The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him–
that moment I am free from bondage,
everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.”
~ Swami Vivekananda

All life is an effort to attain freedom from self-created entanglement;
it is a desperate struggle to undo what has been done under ignorance,
to throw away the accumulated burden of the past,
to find rescue from the debris left by a series of temporary achievements and failures.”
~ Meher Baba

“Freedom is of the nature of the soul, it is its birthright:
.. real freedom of the soul shines through veils of matter
in the form of the apparent freedom of man.”
~ Swami Vivekananda

“To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe;
it cannot be found here. ….
The only way to come out of bondage
is to go beyond the limitations of [karmic] law,
to go beyond causation.”
~ Swami Vivekananda

“Liberation is our very nature. We are that.
The very fact that we wish for liberation
shows that freedom from all bondage is our real nature.”
~ Ramana Maharshi

“Spiritual freedom is freedom from all wanting. . .
When the soul breaks asunder the shackles of wanting,
it is emancipated from bondage to body, mind, and ego.
This freedom brings realization of the unity of all life
and puts an end to all doubts and worries.”
~ Meher Baba

“True freedom and the end of suffering
is living in such a way as if you had completely chosen
whatever you feel or experience at this moment.
This inner alignment with Now is the end of suffering.”
~ Eckhart Tolle

“The most fundamental message of Gautama the Buddha is not God, is not soul… it is freedom: freedom absolute, total, unconditional. He does not want to give you an ideology, because every ideology creates its own slavery. He does not want to give you a religion, because religion binds you.”
~ Osho

“We are shackled by illusory bonds of belief.
Freedom is beyond belief.”
~ Ron Rattner – Sutra Sayings

“You are truly free when you are not a person.”
~ Deepak Chopra – The Book of Secrets

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual,
“Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr. — “I Have a Dream” speech, August 28, 1963

 

“Finding Freedom”




Ron’s introduction to “Finding Freedom” as the spiritual message of the biblical Passover story
 
Dear Friends,

Happy Easter/Passover/Ramadan/Navratri/Nowruz etc. vernal holiday season!

As Passover begins today, this posting explains why metaphorically “Finding Freedom” as Eternal LOVE is the spiritual message of the biblical Passover story, and the transcendental inner goal of all non-dual religious, ethical and perennial wisdom paths.

Most people associate “freedom” with personal, political, and economic liberty.  But spiritual freedom is an extraordinarily rare transcendental state which can be inwardly attained even by those who do not enjoy external freedoms, like slaves or prison inmates.

Only after my 1976 spiritual awakening, did I begin reflecting upon and discovering inner spiritual freedom. 

My Background in “Finding Freedom”


I first deeply reflected on transcendental concepts of “freedom” during the 1950’s on learning of Abraham Maslow’s humanistic psychology theories concerning self-actuated people, and when I read “Escape From Freedom” by German-born psychotherapist Erich Fromm, who endorsed the fundamental importance of not submitting to outer-dictates from an authoritarian societal system that prescribes inauthentic beliefs and behaviors.

Though I’ve always been instinctively inner-directed, after becoming a lawyer I rarely reflected about inner “freedom” until I had a memorable face-to-face exchange with my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, just prior to his 1980 return to India. 

While then residing in my apartment, Guruji told me: “Rasik, a yogi’s body is like a baby’s body. Your body is like a prison. I am like a jailer with the prison key. I come and go as I please.”

Thereupon, I became intensely curious about Guruji’s surprising revelation that my body was “like a prison”. And I wondered how and why ‘I’ was ‘imprisoned’, and how ‘I’ could get out of ‘jail’ – free like Guruji. So I began deeply exploring inner spiritual freedom, as distinguished from personal, political, and economic freedoms.  



Soon, I was reminded of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legendary  “I Have a Dream” speech, and wondered why his words “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last” were so deeply powerful. 



Ultimately, I realized that those words were rooted in the biblical Exodus Passover story; and I intuited that spiritual “freedom” is the essential mythical message of that story.  I concluded that the Passover story symbolically emphasizes escape from outer bondage to a Divinely ‘promised land’ within – viz. escape from enslavement by mistaken beliefs in false external idols, Gods or goals to an inner ‘promised land’ of ONE eternal Divinity imminent in each of us.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is ONE!”

~ Deuteronomy 6:4


Later, I noted that Jesus powerfully alluded to spiritual freedom by prophesying:

“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

~ John 8:32


So Jesus was teaching that we will find freedom (from psychologically self-imposed worldly slavery) only when we transcend entity identity, and commonly self-identify as ONE Divine spirit – the kingdom of heaven within – rather than as embodied personalities, 
supposedly separate from each other and Nature.


Ultimately, I concluded that our limited and limiting ego ideas about separate self-identity and reality confine each of us within a kind of psychological prison in which suffering is inevitable, and which restricts realization of our infinite potentialities.  



However, the masters teach and demonstrate that we can each mentally transcend that “prison” and emerge “free at last” from our self-woven karmic cocoons, no matter what our outer circumstances.  



Thus, Rumi reminded us:

“Be empty of worrying,

Think of Who Created Thought!

Why do you stay in prison

when the door is so wide open?”

~ Rumi



The ultimate possibility of getting out of thought-jail FREE is explained in the foregoing quotations and following sutra-essay.  May these writings encourage our evolution to precious inner freedom, our divine birthright.



And so may it be!

Ron Rattner


Sutra-essay: How can we find “Freedom”?

Q. What is “freedom”, and how can we experience it?



A. “Freedom” is a word with different meanings.
Here we define “freedom” as ultimate spiritual Reality beyond thought or ego – beyond human comprehension, imagination, description or belief – which can only be known experientially, not rationally or mentally.



Ultimate “freedom” is our divine birthright, our nature and our destiny. Freedom is ever NOW, never then. Knowingly or unknowingly, all people – including atheists, non-theists, and agnostics – long for “freedom”.



After mystically experiencing “freedom”, great beings like Jesus, the Buddha and Krishna have encouraged us to aspire to this ultimate transcendent experience. Mystics say that as long we self-identify only with our thoughts in ever changing space/time/causality reality we are inescapably ‘imprisoned’ in a state of psychological bondage, with inevitable suffering; that we experience ultimate “freedom” only in the present moment – the NOW – as we choicelessly self-identify with timeless universal awareness or spirit immanent in each of us. And essential non-dualistic wisdom teachings of all enduring spiritual, mystical and mythic paths allude to spiritual “freedom”.



Thus, the most important Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, is a teaching by Divine Avatar Krishna about the ultimate spiritual goal (“moksha”) of liberation or “freedom” from the cycle of death and rebirth (“samsara”).



Similarly, all of Gautama Buddha’s teachings were aimed at ending human suffering through attainment of “freedom” from mental fetters or chains (samyojana) of mistaken self-identification with samsara.



When Jesus said: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32) he meant that we will experience “freedom” on realizing our true self-identity as eternal soul or spirit. And in declaring: “I and the Father are One” (John 10:30), Jesus showed that we can only find such freedom when we self-identify with ONE Divine spirit – the kingdom of heaven within – rather than as supposedly separate embodied personalities.



“Finding Freedom” is the spiritual message of the biblical Passover story.

Many Jews and Christians annually remember and ritually observe the biblical Exodus story about God miraculously rescuing Jews from bondage as slaves in Egypt, with Christians recalling that a Passover Seder dinner was Jesus’ last supper.   Some Afro-American Christians celebrate by singing the popular spiritual song “Go Down Moses”

.

The Exodus story symbolizes humanity’s eternal quest for spiritual freedom – for societal escape from enslavement by mistaken beliefs in false external Gods or goals to an inner ‘promised land’ of ONE eternal Divinity universally imminent as LOVE within each of us, regardless of religious or spiritual beliefs.  So Passover rituals of lighting outer candles, can symbolically remind us of humanity’s perpetual quest for the eternal inner light of universal freedom.



Conclusions



1) We find and experience ultimate freedom only in choiceless awareness that we are ONE Universal LOVE, beyond our apparent subject/object separateness; and beyond our beliefs, religions, ideologies or philosophies.

2) By recognizing and transcending illusory belief barriers which seem to imprison us, we are –

“Free at last, free at last!”

~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


3) The current era of worldwide turmoil and war, with global fear and suffering is paradoxically a time of both our species’ apparent catastrophic threat to all Earth-life, and an unprecedented opportunity for a wonderful new era of peace and prosperity.

4) This is impelling a “critical mass” of humankind to deeply reconsider our life purposes and priorities as sentient Earth beings instinctively seeking “freedom” as our Divine birthright.

5) Whatever our outer life circumstances, there always exists within us a God-given egoless state of “freedom” as LOVE, attainable by all humans.

Dedication

This “Finding Freedom” posting is deeply dedicated to inspiring our destined spiritual realization of that wonderful world, beyond fear and suffering, where we shall be “Free at last, free at last!”


Please enjoy and consider it’s key quotations, sutra-essay and comments, and embedded spiritual music explaining that ultimate “Freedom”, is spiritual freedom as Eternal LOVE, which is the transcendental goal of all perennial wisdom paths.

Invocation



May today’s writings and music

inspire our instinctive and destined realization
of 
a wonderful world of LOVE
where we are “Free at last, free at last.”


And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

“Go Down Moses”

Afro-American spiritual about exodus story, sung by Louis Armstrong and chorus.




Remembering the Resurrection of Jesus Christ with Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony No. 2


“Music is the language of God.”
“Music can change the world.”
~ Ludwig van Beethoven

“Music is a moral law.
It gives a soul to the universe,

wings to the mind,
flight to the imagination,
a charm to sadness,

and life to everything.
It is the essence of order.”

~ Plato



”Music then is simply the result of
the effects of Love on rhythm and harmony.”
~ Plato


”Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God
and the permissible delights of the soul.”

”Harmony is next to Godliness”
~ Johann Sebastian Bach


“If only the whole world could feel the power of harmony.”
~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

“

Every element has a sound,
an original sound from the order of God;
all those sounds unite like the harmony from harps and zithers.”
~ Hildegard of Bingen

Gustav-Mahler- ~ July 7, 1860 – May 18, 1911


Ron’s Introduction to Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony No. 2

Dear Friends,

In prior memoirs chapters I have explained and demonstrated how open-hearted listening to mystical music, attuned to the eternal Light of timeless LOVE, elevates our earth-energies (beyond the fearful ego-mind) to impart deep wisdom, regardless of whether we self-identify as being religious or spiritual, or with a gender, ethnicity, or as any other separate entity label.

Also, as my recent Vernal Equinox Blessings posting explains, happiness in life comes to all those who lovingly live for the happiness of others, regardless of their supposed separate self-identity.

Today’s posting features embedded YouTube video passionate performances of one of the greatest symphonies of all time, Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony No. 2 composed between 1888-1894. These performances demonstrate how mystical music elevates us beyond earthly cares and fears, to experience the eternal Light of timeless LOVE.

They are:

1) A May 2011 BBC Proms performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony No.2 at the Royal Albert Hall in London by world-renowned Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel leading the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra. [English translations of Mahler’s German lyrics are visually displayed for choral and solo vocal passages.]

2) A June 1995 performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection”Symphony No.2 at the Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki, Japan, by the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, plus 10 members of the Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, in a “Concert for Peace” arranged and led by world-renowned Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa.
[Only Japanese translations of Mahler’s German lyrics are visually displayed for choral and solo vocal passages. English translations are posted below.]

3) A May 1974 performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection”Symphony No.2 at the Edinburgh Festival by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Bernstein with the Edinburgh Festival Chorus with soloists – soprano: Sheila Armstrong, mezzo-soprano: Janet Baker

4) A separate YouTube video of only the triumphant conclusion of the LSO Edinburgh Festival performance which includes visually displayed English translations of Mahler’s German lyrics for choral and solo vocal passages

Although Mahler’s music is timeless, its resurrection theme is relevant to the current pre-Easter 40 day period of Lent, to prepare for celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ at Easter.

And paradoxically the Nagasaki Cathedral venue for the 1995 Japanese performance can be regarded as the symbolic resurrection of a great industrial city with 263,000 people, which was totally destroyed by a US plutonium nuclear bomb on August 9th, 1945.

What is Lent?

Lent is a 40 day period of preparation to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ at Easter. It is a season of faithful prayer, fasting, and alms-giving intended to open the inner Sacred Heart.

In the New Testament, Jesus went into the desert to fast and pray for forty days and forty nights. It was during this time that Satan unsuccessfully tried to tempt him ( Matthew 4:1–3).

Also in the Old Testament, the prophet Moses went into the mountains for forty days and forty nights to pray and fast “without eating bread or drinking water” before receiving the Ten Commandments (Exodus 34:28). Likewise, the prophet Elijah went into the mountains for forty days and nights to fast and pray “until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God” when “the word of the Lord came to him” ( 1 Kings 19:8–9).

The forty day and night fasts of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus prepared them for their work. And those who observe the forty day Lent period honor that tradition.

Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony No. 2

Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony No. 2 is one of the most popular symphonies of all time. Composed between 1888-1894, it was Mahler’s first major work that established his lifelong view of the beauty of afterlife and resurrection.

A current 5 movement version of this symphony was produced and first performed at the Royal Albert Hall London in October 2005.

It featured the following (translated to English) choral and solo vocal lyrics originally written in German by Mahler himself:

Fourth Movement

Primeval Light

O little red rose!
Man lies in greatest need!

Man lies in greatest pain!

How I would rather be in heaven.



There came I upon a broad path

when came a little angel and wanted to turn me away.

Ah no! I would not let myself be turned away!

I am from God and shall return to God!

The loving God will grant me a little light,

Which will light me into that eternal blissful life!

Fifth Movement

Rise again, yes, rise again,
Will you, my dust, after a brief rest!
Immortal life! Immortal life
Will he who called you, give you.

You are sown to bloom again!
The lord of the harvest goes
And gathers sheaves,
Us, who have died.
  
O believe, my heart, O believe:
Nothing is lost to you!
Yours, yes yours, is what you desired
Yours, what you have loved
What you have fought for!

O believe,
You were not born for nothing!
Have not lived for nothing,
Nor suffered!

What was created
Must perish;
What perished, rise again!
Cease from trembling!
Prepare yourself to live!

O Pain, you piercer of all things,
From you, I have been wrested!
O Death, you conqueror of all things,
Now, are you conquered!

With wings which I have won for myself,
In love’s fierce striving,
I shall soar upwards
To the light which no eye has penetrated!

I shall die in order to live.

Rise again, yes, rise again,
Will you, my heart, in an instant!
That for which you suffered,
To God shall it carry you!

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._2_(Mahler)

Dedication

This posting of Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony No. 2 is deeply dedicated to elevating our earth-energies (beyond the fearful ego-mind) by imparting deep wisdom, regardless of whether we self-identify as being a religious or spiritual person, or with a gender, ethnicity, or as any other separate personality or entity label.

May this commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ thereby inspire all of us to live lovingly for the happiness of others, regardless of our supposed separate self-identities.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

May 2011 BBC Proms performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony No.2




June 1995 performance at the Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki, Japan, of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony No.2



May 1974 performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection”Symphony No.2 at the Edinburgh Festival



Conclusion of the LSO Edinburgh Festival performance with English translations of Mahler’s German lyrics


Remembering the Mirror of the Mind
With Passionate Love Songs
~ Ron’s Memoirs

There’s a place for us,
Somewhere a place for us.
Peace and quiet and open air
Wait for us, somewhere.

There’s a time for us,
Some day a time for us,
Time together with time to spare,
Time to learn, time to care.

Some day!
Somewhere!

~ West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein music, Stephen Sondheim lyrics.



Remembering the Mirror of the Mind
With Passionate Love Songs
~ Ron’s Memoirs


Introduction

Dear Friends,

My recent memoirs postings have emphasized the fundamental spiritual importance of Remembering the Mirror of the Mind, because we create our “optical illusion” of reality with our thoughts and projections of our perceptions.

Some of these postings have explained this with words and demonstrated it with music. Their intent is to show how open-hearted listening to the sounds of mystical music (whether or not vocalized) can communicate deep inner wisdom.

My last postings were inspired by “Passion” a musical play with lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim.

Today’s posting was inspired by the 1957 Broadway musical West Side Story, (a contemporized version of the Romeo and Juliet story) with masterly music composed by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

It features a heart-felt performance of the West Side Story song “Somewhere” sung by Matt Leisy at a 2015 gay pride benefit, and a West Side Story “Maria” cello solo, by Hajime Mizoguchi and “Somewhere” vocal solo by Hayley Westenra – sung in Japan, March 2012.

Today’s posting demonstrates the timeless power of “Somewhere” when sung from a heart-space attuned to universal love energy, by anyone, regardless of gender, religion, ethnicity, or other labels.

Thus, the performances of “Somewhere” embedded below show how we can remember the Mirror of the Mind by intuitively listening to mystical music which (beyond words) conveys deep wisdom of timeless LOVE.


Somewhere (West Side Story) Lyrics

There’s a place for us,
Somewhere a place for us.
Peace and quiet and open air
Wait for us, somewhere.

There’s a time for us,
Some day a time for us,
Time together with time to spare,
Time to learn, time to care.

Some day!
Somewhere!

We’ll find a new way of living,
We’ll find a way of forgiving.
Somewhere,
Somewhere . . .

There’s a place for us,
A time and place for us.
Hold my hand and we’re halfway there.
Hold my hand and I’ll take you there

Somehow,
Some day,
Somewhere!



Somewhere (West Side Story) -“2015 Performance of “Somewhere” by Matt Leisy

Somewhere (West Side Story) – Matt Leisy




West Side Story “Maria” cello solo by Hajime Mizoguchi , and “Somewhere” vocal solo by Hayley Westenra – performed in Japan March 2012



Dedication

May the above performances of “Somewhere” and “Maria” help us remember the Mirror of the Mind when listening to mystical music which (beyond words) conveys deep wisdom of timeless LOVE.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner