Peace
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.]
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
Divine Harmony
~ by Swami Paramahansa Yogananda
“Harmony is the secret principle of life.”
~ Swami Paramahansa Yogananda
“You are walking on the earth as in a dream.
Our world is a dream within a dream; you must realize
that to find God is the only goal, the only purpose, for which you are here.
For Him alone you exist. Him you must find.”
~ Swami Paramahansa Yogananda
Swami Paramahansa Yogananda January 5, 1893 – March 7, 1952
Ron’s Introduction to “Divine Harmony”
Dear Friends,
To honor Swami Paramahansa Yogananda on the anniversary of his 1952 mahasamadhi, it is my grateful privilege to share with you Swami Yogananda’s enlightened aphorisms titled “Divine Harmony” as excerpted verbatim from his “Journey To Self-Realization: Collected Talks And Essays On Realizing God In Daily Life, Volume III”.
Swami Yogananda’s profound wisdom words about “Divine Harmony” are shared to help heal the world, by awakening Humankind to our spiritual Oneness and Harmony with Nature and Universal Awareness, as LOVE.
May Paramahansa Yogananda’s Divine message inspire us to BE harmonious with ourselves, with each other, and with all of Nature of which we are part.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
“Divine Harmony” ~ by Paramahansa Yogananda
Excerpted from Journey To Self-Realization: Collected Talks And Essays On Realizing God In Daily Life, Volume III.
· Disharmony is misery and death; harmony is the joy of life.
· We Live in Two Worlds
· The outside world is the one in which your life engages in action and interaction. The world inside of you determines your happiness or unhappiness, and also your fitness or unfitness, expressed in the world outside. The hand of the One who made these worlds tuned them to harmonize with each other. Harmony is their inherent nature. If they seem discordant, that is the fault of those who misuse and abuse the potentials of these divine creations.
· People are convinced that their own personal perceptions are “fact” until contrary evidence eventually proves otherwise. Who can persuade biased individuals that the whole universe moves in an eternal cosmic rhythm, and that all irregularities are misconceptions due to limited or distorted vision? Those who can hear, hear; those who can see, see; those who have a perceptive heart perceive the divine harmony that runs through all creation.
· To penetrate into the soul of creation, yoga insight is required.
· There Is Harmony at the Core of Disharmony
· Things are not what they seem.
· Consider everything that happens as a note in the symphony of the Cosmic Conductor.
· Only those who partake of the harmony within their souls know the harmony that runs through nature. Whosoever lacks this inner harmony feels also a lack of it in the world. The mind in chaos finds chaos all around.
· How can one know what peace is like if he has never tasted it?
· But he who has inner peace can abide in this state even in the midst of outer discord.
· Harmony is born of love and wisdom. These, in turn, are offspring of a heart that is pure and outreaching. A pure heart is the result of pure thoughts.
· Mental purity comes from a selective process by which the mind sorts good thoughts from bad, rejecting the latter and dwelling always on the former.
· By repetition, and by reinforcement through application to action, discrimination becomes a virtuous habit. When the mental conflict of divergent thoughts ceases, owing to the elimination of wrong thinking, there arises in one’s life an outward as well as an inward harmony. Therefore, whenever your thoughts engage in a family quarrel among themselves, mediate their differences with wisdom and behold! Distressing conflicts will disturb you no more.
· The mind is nature’s incinerator wherein you can burn to ashes all mental dross that is not worthy to be saved: your waste thoughts and desires, your misconceptions and grievances, and your discords in human relationships. There is not a single relationship, however estranged, you cannot reconcile, provided you do so first in your own mind. There is not a single problem in life you cannot resolve, provided you first solve it in your inner world, its place of origin. Be not intimidated by consequences, even though they be drastic. Before you act, if you first harmonize the situation with the discriminative wisdom in your mind, the outcome will take care of itself. A harmonized mind produces harmony in this world of seeming discord.
· Inner harmony is a prolific source of power; it breeds strength. Things that you think you are unable to bear, you can not only bear but change and improve. To you is given the power that can move the world and alter the face of fate despite inharmonious outer circumstances.
· Harmony conserves mental energy; disharmony dissipates it.
· Harmony manifests itself as a natural goodness. A man who cannot get along with others is one who does not get along with himself, he is always at war inwardly, ill at ease with his own nature.
· Those who cannot find peace in their own hearts will not find it elsewhere either.
· Harmony is the Secret Principle of Life
· Good judgment is a natural expression of wisdom; but it is directly dependent on harmony within, which is poise of mind. When the mind lacks harmony, it has no peace; and without peace it lacks both judgment and wisdom. Life is full of bumps and knocks. In the hours of trials, which demand your keenest judgment, if you preserve your mental equilibrium you will attain victory.
· This is equally true in any type of organization – any structure that has interacting parts, from nature as a whole to human relationships to corporate businesses and spiritual societies. Harmony is the soul of organization; disharmony is death.
· Harmony is the fruit of common understanding.
· Efforts to establish harmony among human beings or nations solely on the basis of economic equality of equivalence of military preparedness are sure to fail.
· What is necessary is an understanding of the common higher necessities for the preservation and true happiness of the bodies, minds, and souls of all beings.
· Love and forbearance are essential to the growth of harmony. Love nurtures all things that grow; it harmonizes and unites. Hatred agitates and separates; and indifference destroys what could have been made good and beneficial. Love is harmony and harmony is love.
· “People have time to worry and to suffer, but feel they have no time to meditate and work toward being truly happy.” Throw off difference and cultivate love, forbearance, and wisdom. Build your joys on the sure foundation of inner harmony. Cherish no thought that does not harmonize with the love and lawful ideals of God. Thus will your whole life be flooded with the light and bliss of the Divine Harmony.
Invocation
May Swami Paramahansa Yogananda’s Divine message inspire us to BE
harmonious with ourselves, with each other, and with all of Nature of which we are part.
May we thereby cooperatively coexist, peacefully, harmoniously and happily, with each other and with all other life on our precious planet,
for the welfare of the World and all life.
Until ultimately we realize our common Divine Self-identity
As the Eternal light of timeless LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Honoring Abraham Lincoln
~ on Presidents’ Day
“We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain –
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom –
and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
~ Abraham Lincoln – Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863
“With malice toward none, with charity for all,
with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,
let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
~ Abraham Lincoln – Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865
“I am a firm believer in the people.
If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis.
The great point is to bring them the real facts.”
~ Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln (Feb 12, 1809 – Apr 15, 1865)
Honoring Abraham Lincoln on Presidents’ Day
Dear Friends,
We are about to honor US Presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln whose February birthdays are commemorated annually on the U.S. “Presidents’ Day” national holiday. They are leaders who who successfully fought the US revolutionary war for Independence from Great Britain, and the US Civil War to end human chattel slavery. Both wars were fought in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence to secure human life, liberty, and happiness pursuant to “the laws of nature and of nature’s God”.
The US founding fathers recognized, that governments and their chartered transnational organizations do not exist by Divine right; that they are established by people to serve people – not to unfairly tax, exploit or oppress them – and that they are illegitimate unless they serve human rights and happiness.
In the US Civil War over 600,000 non-indigenous Americans died; more than during all other US wars, from the Revolution through Vietnam.
Thereafter, in his famous address dedicating a Gettysburg national cemetery, President Lincoln eloquently invoked divine providence, and called for a national rebirth of equal rights, liberty and representative government, proclaiming:
“We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain –
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom –
and that government of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.”
~ Abraham Lincoln – Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863
Representative government and empire cannot coexist.
Contrary to President Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg aspiration and dedication, and to the Declaration of Independence, the USA has paradoxically become history’s most colossal and hegemonic world empire.
Instead of peacefully furthering human life, liberty, and happiness the vast American empire has been perpetually involved in wars, either directly or vicariously, in ways Washington and Lincoln could have never imagined. It is possible that the US has killed more than 20 million people in 37 “victim nations” just since World War II, including millions of non-combatant civilian women and children.
Moreover, the American government is no longer a republic or democracy. Lincoln’s egalitarian ideal of a US government “of the people, by the people, for the people” has been insidiously co-opted by and for obscenely wealthy worldwide plutocrats, trillionaire transnational hedge funds, and global corporations constituting a mere tiny fraction of 1% of Humankind. (*see Footnote)
Furthermore, in recent years there has been much American civil and political discord, concurrent with unprecedented worldwide turmoil, social unrest and adversity. Countless people are experiencing serious deprivations of human rights and necessities. Accordingly they are angrily and anxiously displaying polarized and violent behaviors and emotions. Moreover, many justifiably fear nuclear, climate, or biological catastrophe ending life on Earth as we’ve known it.
Thus, while some Americans may celebrate their past presidents during the Presidents’ Day holiday weekend, others will be deeply concerned about current edicts, dangers, deprivations, and disappearance of purported American democracy.
Whether or not we are citizens of the American empire, whatever may be our political, cultural, generational, or geographical perspectives, we all share overriding common needs and aspirations which are critically threatened by imminently disastrous world crises involving U.S. policies. So it is appropriate for us all to seriously reflect on Presidents’ Day about the current state of our precious planet.
[*Footnote Even ex-president Jimmy Carter has publicly recognized that the US is no longer a democracy. Eg. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/jimmy-carter-is-correct-t_b_7922788.html
https://theintercept.com/2015/07/30/jimmy-carter-u-s-oligarchy-unlimited-political-bribery/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/09/13/jimmy-carter-speaks-out-against-us-oligarchy-and-trumps-diplomatic-failures]
Evolutionary opportunity.
These are obviously critical times of immense worldwide jeopardy and suffering. But they can also afford us extraordinary evolutionary opportunities for conscientiously promoting world peace and social justice, and for equitably redistributing limited planetary resources which are now greedily and unsustainably monopolized, hidden or hoarded by a few obscenely rich billionaires. And thereby we have opportunities for rededicating Humanity to the sanctity of all life on Earth.
As His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama has observed:
“It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others.”
Thus, it is appropriate for us to collectively consider how we can do most good for ourselves and others.
And how our precious planet’s societies, institutions and enterprises can be guided for common good by humble, harmonious, and compassionate people, rather than unsustainably dominated top-down by and for obscenely greedy and malignantly exploitive billionaire bankers, sociopaths, technocrats or plutocrats.
Dedication.
This posting is dedicated to our reflecting, recognizing and honoring our immense evolutionary opportunities, to advance Lincoln’s eloquently articulated timeless aspirations:
“With malice toward none, and empathy for all,
Let us end the iniquity of inequity in our society,
So “that government of the people, by the people,
for the people, shall not perish from the Earth”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Invocation.
May we thereby honor the sanctity of universal peace and justice,
for the welfare of the World and all life.And may we cooperatively coexist, peacefully, harmoniously and happily, with each other and with all other life on our precious planet,
until ultimately we shall realize our common Self-identity
As the Eternal light of timeless LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Remembering Wisdom Beyond Words And Mind With Mystical Music ~ 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.
“Nothing escapes the Principle of Cause and Effect,
but there are many Planes of Causation,
and one may use the laws of the higher
to overcome the laws of the lower.”
– The Kybalion
“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.” .
“Human beings in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free
but are as causally bound as the stars in their motions.”
~ Albert Einstein
“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.”
~ Albert Einstein
“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
“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.”
~ George Orwell, “1984”
“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
~ 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
“Perception is a mirror, not a fact.
And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.”
~ A Course In Miracles
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”.
~ Shakespeare [ Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2]
“Reality cannot be found except in One single source,
because of the interconnection of all things with one another.”
~ Gottfried Leibniz, 1670
“Though One, Brahman is the cause of the many.”
~ Rig Veda, 1500–1200 BCE
“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
“Nothing Real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.”
~ A Course In Miracles
“Forgiveness is the demonstration that you are the light of the world.
Through your forgiveness does the truth about your Self return to your memory.
Therefore, in your forgiveness lies your salvation.”
~ A Course in Miracles
When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter.
As you see him, you will see yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself.
As you think of him, you will think of yourself.
Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose sight of yourself.”
~ A Course in Miracles
“I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt.”
~ A Course In Miracles
“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
“Love blesses the world; fear afflicts it.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“As we lose our fear of leaving life,
we gain the art of living life.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“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
“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
Remembering Wisdom Beyond Words And Mind
With Mystical Music ~ Ron’s Memoirs
Introduction
Dear Friends,
Several recent memoirs postings have demonstrated with musical performances, the spiritual importance of mystical music .
Today’s posting again features the beautiful song “Somewhere” from the 1957 Broadway musical “West Side Story” (which contemporizes the “Romeo and Juliet” story) with masterly music by Leonard Bernstein and transcendent spiritual lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
Both the original Romeo and Juliet story and the contemporized West Side Story version of the romantic tragedy involve young heterosexual lovers from clans feuding over domination of disputed territory. Only after tragic deaths of the lovers and many others do the grieving groups tribally agree to end their feuds.
In this memoirs chapter, I’ll first display and sing the “Somewhere” lyrics. Then I’ll briefly explain how that mystical music communicates deep perennial wisdom beyond words, and how our musical “mirror of mind” has evolved since the 1987 West Side Story opened. Please listen and consider “Somewhere” with a receptive mind and open heart.
“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) sung by Ron Rattner
“Somewhere” (West Side Story) explained by Ron Rattner
Dear Friends,
In the “Somewhere” lyrics the young lovers (Maria and Tony) long to live in peace and quiet, with time together to learn and care, while forgiving all others, without feuding and fighting with them – with distrust, fear, and hatred. They affectionately hold hands to comfort each other from anxiety and fear of imminent tragedy.
Maria and Tony intuit and long for a completely peaceful, loving and harmonious existence that doesn’t yet exist in our predominantly low and fearful 3D earth energies of time, space and duality. But subconsciously (as Divine souls) they remember and can intuit the possibility of such an existence.
After eons of existing physically and fearfully in low third dimension energies humans are now in an ascension process from low third dimension to fourth dimension energies described or implied in the “Somewhere” lyrics.
Such energy ascension cannot be attained, until we transcend all fears and fighting with one another, to become harmonious with loving elevated energy planes.
Deep within ourselves we have always known that we were created as, and always have been, ONE Divine LOVE. And that any separation from Mother, Father, God is an ego illusion.
But long ago, with free choice, we began an experiment in time, space and duality, in which we intentionally forgot our true Divinity, and existed as seemingly separate and mortal physical forms – in an unreal and illusory mental reality, which we each created, perceived and projected from unique perspectives, with our thoughts and behaviors.
In choosing an Earth plane experiment in time, space and duality, seemingly separate from our Divine Source and true identity, we subjected ourselves to suffering from inescapable law of karmic cause and effect. But now after eons of fearful suffering we have an unusually auspicious opportunity to ascend to loving elevated energy plane behaviors because of favorable cosmic energies and astrological planetary alignments.
Therefore many humans, like Maria and Tony, can now intuit that our perceived Earth-life separation from eternal Mother/Father/God and Nature is a mental illusion that never happened; that our that true eternal identity and Reality is ONE Divine LOVE, from which we never separated; and, that any seeming separation from Mother, Father, God is an ego illusion. So we have nothing to fear – EVER.
Thereby together we can choose to end our fearful and hurtful separation thoughts and behaviors, with which we’ve created this illusion. And with our loving thought energy vibrations we can transcend any more low energy sufferings. (See above key quotations.)
Thus, I now optimistically foresee humankind’s imminent “critical mass” empathetic awakening to our instinctive caring for one-another, and ascension to elevated new dimensions beyond current space/time sufferings – wherein we will follow our hearts to co-create a prophesied New Earth era of long-lasting happiness beyond space/time sufferings.
Recent evolution of our musical “mirror of mind”
Our musical “mirror of mind” has clearly evolved since the West Side Story opened on Broadway over thirty years age.
Maria and Tony (like Romeo and Juliet) were portrayed as heterosexual young lovers from racially similar tribally feuding clans. And (presumably) the peace and happiness they longed for “Somewhere” wasn’t available to other young lovers with differing racial and sexual labels.
But e.g. as evidenced by Matt Leisy’s heart-felt singing of “Somewhere” at a 2015 gay pride benefit, those illusory racial and sexual labels are being transcended everywhere on our precious planet.
In the Romeo and Juliet story the young lovers’ human sexuality was only determined by their mortal physical bodies, in our “either this or that” illusory duality reality.
But perennial wisdom tells us that sex is merely a manifestation of gender on the physical plane of organic life. “Gender” is much broader and more general than “sex”. Gender manifests in everything on all planetary planes. And everything and everyone has masculine and feminine principles. They have both assertive masculine “I”, and receptive feminine “Me” energies – regardless of their physical bodies.
Thus, e.g. a physically embodied soul with male genitalia may have predominantly receptive feminine “Me” energies, whereas an embodied soul with female genitalia may have predominantly assertive masculine “I” energies.
And in the past thirty years we have clearly evolved to openly express much more truth, with much less taboo hypocrisy, about sex and gender on Earth.
Evolution Beyond Anthropocentrism
Anthropocentrism is the belief that human beings are the central or most important entities in the universe. From an anthropocentric perspective, humankind are seen as separate from nature and superior to it, and other entities (animals, plants, minerals, etc.) are viewed as resources for humans to use.
Many humans view the universe from an anthropocentric perspective, and imagine non-human entities as humanoids, with human form or characteristics, versus hominids or “Great apes”, which are considered as human anthropological predecessors.
Although anthropocentrism isn’t important in the Romeo and Juliet stories, it is relevant to spiritually elevated perspectives of the mental Universe which humankind may soon experience in our process of evoluton from low third dimension to fourth dimension energies described or implied in the “Somewhere” lyrics.
As divine souls we mentally evolve to endlessly elevated causal planes of creation as seemingly ego-separated from Nature and Mother/Father/God – our common Source. And we may exist in infinitely expanding potential forms from infinite perspectives which are well beyond human conception, imagination or intuition, but which are all energetically subject to karmic cause and effect until our predestined transcendence of ego-mind as ONE Divine LOVE – Eternally NOW.
In this extraordinarily rare period of human awakening from eons of past fearful beliefs and behaviors, it is highly probable that we are being assisted by totally benevolent extraterrestrial beings who (if judged anthropocentrically) may appear to humans as bizarre and terrifying.
It is very important that we avert any such anthropocentrism and gratefully accept any such benevolent extraterrestrial assistance or appearance everywhere – and not just “Somewhere”.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Invocation
May we ever remember and never forget
That our true identity is immortal LOVE;
That all that is, was, or ever can be
is the Eternal Light of Divine Love – NOW!
That as embodied Human Souls
we’ve fleetingly appeared through the
Mirror of the Mind
As illusionary space/time energy forms,
to always follow our Heart
Everywhere – and not just “Somewhere”,
Until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE
within Mother/Father/God and Nature –
our Eternal Source.
May we ever remember and never forget
That our separation from Source never happened.
So we’ve nothing to fear – EVER.
That all that is, was, or ever can be
is the Eternal Light of Divine Love – NOW!
And so may it ever be!
Ron Rattner
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
Synchronicity Story: Dr. King, Alice Walker, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and “If I Was President”
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,
tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
“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.
“If I was President
The first thing I would do
is call Mumia Abu-Jamal.”
~ Alice Walker
Dare to be a nonconformist.
Society rewards conformers.
But, posterity honors reformers.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Let us elevate our aspirations,
from the bottom line to the highest good.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
In these critical times,
we need a critical mass
to solve our critical mess.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968
Ron’s Introduction.
Dear Friends,
Today’s posting honors American hero and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on his 94th birthday anniversary.
Sixty years have passed since Dr. King’s 1963 “dream” speech, and his later assassination at age 39. Yet, as discussed in my following commentary, the US population still endures most of the flagrant societal injustices Dr. King addressed – and which were noted by Alice Walker in today’s synchronicity story about her poem “If I Was President”, including unjust imprisonment of countless political truth-tellers and societal reformers, like Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Nonetheless, I again share this amazing synchronicity story with the deepest faith that together we can and will awaken the world from its present fearful ‘nightmare’ to realize Dr. King’s prophetic ‘dream’:
That ‘free at last’, we will honor the equality and divinity of everyone everywhere, and thereby transcend exploitation and discrimination against the world’s most vulnerable people, using our common-wealth for our common-weal to end the iniquity of inequity in our society.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Synchronicity Story.
One January morning I received an email notice of an archived lecture about departed hero Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr. given by poet, author, and Buddhist peace activist Alice Walker, in Atlanta in 2006. The lecture was entitled “We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For.” [a YouTube video is linked below]
Because of my great respect for Dr. King as a national hero, and for Alice Walker’s wisdom, artistic genius and exemplary engagement in non-violent peace activism, I listened to the lecture. It was eloquent and moving.
At one point Alice Walker noted the posthumous persistence of social problems addressed by Dr. King before he was assassinated, and she cited as emblematic of our continuing societal injustices the political incarceration and threatened execution of brilliant truth teller journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, following his eggregiously wrongful political conviction for a crime committed by someone else.
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Especially, because I regard Abu-Jamal as an unjustly imprisoned ‘great soul’ who was subjected to an extraordinarily unjust trial, I had been amongst the millions world-wide protesting his political incarceration and threatened execution.
Synchronistically, a couple of hours after I listened to the Alice Walker lecture mentioning Abu-Jamal, I received a rare phone call from Prison Radio, a charitable organization dedicated to recording and distributing worldwide weekly radio commentaries by Abu-Jamal then telephoned from death row. (If interested you can listen to those commentaries at the Prison Radio website http://www.prisonradio.org/.)
The caller, Sharyn, invited me to a house party at which Abu-Jamal’s current legal situation was to be be discussed in depth. I told Sharyn that I had just been thinking about Mumia because of Alice Walker’s reference to him in her eloquent Atlanta talk about Dr. King. In response, Sharyn told me that shortly before she called me, Prison Radio had that day just received a new poem written and sent by Alice Walker from Mexico about Mumia and other prominent political prisoners.
Entitled, “If I Was President”, the opening lines of the poem say:
“If I was President
The first thing I would do
is call Mumia Abu-Jamal.”
Alice Walker
Synchronicity Questions and Reflections.
So why did the universe decide to synchronistically communicate with me that day through Dr. King, Alice Walker and Prison Radio about Mumia Abu-Jamal? It is a mystery, and a reminder of how little we understand our miraculous world “reality”.
From space/time perspective, synchronicities are noteworthy or meaningful coincidences in time. But from a cosmic perspective serial time is just an illusory way we think. So Albert Einstein has said:
“People … who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
Inspired by Einstein I have tentatively explained such synchroncities this way:
“Synchronicities are noteworthy “coincidences” in time,
which show us that in Nature,
there is no time and there are no “coincidences –
that everything that is, was, or will be is NOW;
that everything happens in harmony and synchrony
concurrently, not coincidentally.
Synchronicities are like Nature’s positive “bio-feedback’ or ‘radar’ signals showing when we are existing out of time and in the eternal NOW.”
And here is an interesting quote from Deepak Chopra:
“According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don’t bother you anymore. You become light hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous.”
How do you explain synchronicities in your life?
Whether or not we can ever really explain mysterious synchronicities, may they ever infuse us with feelings of awe and gratitude for our interdependence with all miraculous and mysterious Life on this precious planet.
Alice Walker: “We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For.”
Ron’s Commentary Honoring Dr. King.
Dear Friends,
On the 94th birthday anniversary of departed hero Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., let us join countless others worldwide in honoring and ardently following his visionary legacy of nonviolently seeking world peace and social justice with forgiveness and Love.
Regrettably realization of Dr. King’s vision of world harmony still seems distant, as societal problems he addressed more than half a century ago perilously persist. Moreover, threats of nuclear and ecological holocaust appear more imminent than ever before, as the US empire continues to insanely squander more than than half its budget on wars and weapons, while neglecting the human rights of most of its own citizens, as well as countless other innocent victims worldwide.
Dr. King’s history.
Dr. King was a fourth generation Baptist preacher and non-violent peace and social justice activist especially inspired by Jesus and Mahatma Gandhi. He honored and followed Gandhi as “guiding light …. of nonviolent social change’’, and in 1959 journeyed to India to study Gandhian methods. On arrival there, King said:
“To other countries, I may go as a tourist,
but to India, I come as a pilgrim.”
Afterwards, inspired by Jesus and Gandhi, Dr. King ardently preached non-violence, saying
“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.”
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Ultimately, Dr. King’s life paralleled Gandhi’s life. Each began as an outspoken advocate of inter-racial equality and social justice in racially segregated societies: Gandhi as a South African civil rights lawyer; and King as a Southern-Baptist preacher. Gradually their missions expanded to encompass universal peace, freedom and social justice for everyone everywhere.
Gandhi ultimately inspired independence of the entire Indian subcontinent from almost a century of colonial domination and exploitation by the British raj.
Dr. King conscientiously and eloquently decried the fraudulent and immoral US war in Viet Nam, and the entire exploitive US corporate capitalist economic system which fostered perpetual war for perpetual profit of a privileged few, to the undemocratic detriment of an impoverished majority. He said:
“I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.”
“Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.”
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
“Don’t let anybody make you think God chose America as His divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.” .. “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.”
Like Jesus and Gandhi, Reverend King preached love and forgiveness, saying:
“At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.”
“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.”
“The time is always right to do what is right.”
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
1964 Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1964 Dr. King was awarded and humbly accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, as ‘trustee’ for countless unknown others. And he cited Mahatma Gandhi’s success in India as a key precedent encouraging nonviolent civil rights activism in the USA, saying:
“This [nonviolent] approach to the problem of racial injustice …. was used in a magnificent way by Mohandas K. Gandhi to challenge the might of the British Empire and free his people from the political domination and economic exploitation inflicted upon them for centuries.”
And Dr. King described how (because of technological advances which threaten global nuclear/ecological catastrophe) the survival of humanity depends upon our nonviolently solving
“the problems of racial injustice, poverty, and war” by “living in harmony” with “all-embracing and unconditional love for all men”.
Eloquently he explained unconditional love as
“that force which all of the great religions [Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist] have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. . . . the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate Reality.”
Dr. King’s 1968 Martyrdom.
Like Jesus and Gandhi, Reverend King was martyred at the pinnacle of his powers. Dr. King (like President John F. Kennedy) was assassinated by the US military/industrial secret government when his expanding influence became an intolerable barrier to their psychopathic war plans for Viet Nam and beyond.
Concluding Dedication and Invocation.
To honor Dr. King’s lasting legacy as one of the greatest Americans who ever lived, I have shared this posting with deepest faith that together we can and will awaken the world from its present fearful ‘nightmare’ to realize Dr. King’s visionary ‘dream’ of worldwide peace and justice, with love and forgiveness.
That ‘free at last’, we will honor the equality and divinity of everyone everywhere, and thereby transcend immoral exploitation and discrimination against the world’s most vulnerable people, using our common-wealth for our common-weal to end the iniquity of inequity in our society.
So that as Abraham Lincoln envisioned:
“Under God, [we] shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Remembering the Mirror of the Mind
With Passionate Love Songs
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“Loving you is not a choice
It’s who I am
Loving you is not a choice
This is why I live
You are why I live”
~ Stephen Sondheim, Passion
Remembering the Mirror of the Mind
With Passionate Love Songs
~ Ron’s Memoirs
Introduction
Dear Friends,
My last memoirs postings explained with words, a mirror exhibit, and a mystical music performance, the spiritual importance of remembering the Mirror of the Mind.
Today’s posting demonstrates how hearing and seeing a passionate song, sung from a heart-space attuned to universal love energy, can help us remember the mirror of the mind to bless everyone everywhere.
It was inspired by “Passion” a musical play with lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim, which is briefly described below.
“Passion” Background and history
Passion is notable for being one of the few projects that Stephen Sondheim himself conceived. The story was adapted from an Italian film, Passione d’Amore, which Sondheim first viewed in 1983.
The plot is about how a handsome young soldier (in 19th century Italy), Giorgio, falls in love with a homely and ailing woman, Fosca, who has obsessively pursued him.
Sondheim’s masterly lyrics and music tell how a previously reluctant and selfish person can ultimately accept and reciprocate persistently powerful pure love feelings.
Passion opened and ran on Broadway from May 1994 to January 1995. After winning the Tony Award for Best Musical, the original cast performance was filmed and televised on PBS
Original Cast “Passion” Best Musical Performance
Original Loving You Performance by Donna Murphy, Best Actress
Loving You Lyrics
Loving you is not a choice
It’s who I am
Loving you is not a choice
And not much reason to rejoice
But it gives me purpose
Gives me voice to say to the world:
This is why I live
You are why I live
Conclusion and Dedication
Today’s posting reminds us that even previously selfish people,
can ultimately accept and reciprocate persistently powerful pure love feelings.
So may it help bless everyone everywhere, with openness to passionate songs,
attuned to heart-felt universal LOVE.
And so may it ever be!
Ron Rattner
Loving You Epilogue
Dear Friends,
The above posting features 1994 original cast recordings from Stephen Sondheim’s masterful lyrics and music in his award winning musical “Passion”. My foregoing comments emphasize the original story’s message that even previously selfish people, can ultimately accept and reciprocate persistently powerful pure love feelings in a single lifetime.
Since then I’ve realized that the “Passion” story reflects expansive mirror of mind perennial wisdom, which applies at different times to spiritually evolving people reincarnating and karmically learning timeless truths of Divine Grace and LOVE, which are ever present blessings in all human lifetimes.
For example the wisdom of Sondheim’s “Loving You” lyrics can be experienced in different ways, even by talented professional actors. To demonstrate this, I’ve embedded two more YouTube performances of “Loving You”; the first by actress Elana Rogers at a 2011 Olivier Awards ceremony; and the second a 2012 performance by Melissa Errico emotionally dedicated and sung to her husband.
May our continuing openness to such passionate songs, help us bless everyone everywhere attuned to heart-felt universal LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
2011 “Loving You” Performance by Elana Rogers at Olivier Awards ceremony
2012 “Loving You” Performance by Melissa Errico Dedicated to Her Husband.
Remembering the Mirror of the Mind by Loving
The Most Dangerous Animal in the World
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“You are looking at the most dangerous animal in the world.
It alone of all the animals that ever lived
can exterminate (and has) entire species of animals.
Now it has the power to wipe out all life on earth.”
~ 1963 Bronx Zoo Mirror Exhibit
The Most Dangerous Animal in the World
Remembering the Mirror of the Mind
by Loving The Most Dangerous Animal in the World
~ Ron’s Memoirs
Introduction
Dear Friends,
My last memoirs postings explained with words and music the spiritual importance of remembering the Mirror of the Mind.
Today’s posting tells how we can Remember the Mirror of the Mind by pardoning and loving everyone everywhere.
It is based upon prior postings and inspired by a 1963 exhibit at the Bronx Zoo, New York City, that was boldly titled “The Most Dangerous Animal in the World”. It featured a mirror and text describing the dangers humans pose to life on earth. In 1968 the exhibit was duplicated at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago.
The original bold red text under the exhibit read: “You are looking at the most dangerous animal in the world. It alone of all the animals that ever lived can exterminate (and has) entire species of animals. Now it has the power to wipe out all life on earth.”
The Bronx Zoo curator of mammals when asked in 1963 about visitors’ reactions, said: “They take it the way we want them to. It gets them to stop and think.”
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Dangerous_Animal_in_the_World
Prior postings
Prior postings have explained how we each create our earthly reality with our unique ego thoughts, and why our perceived “reality” is only a mental illusion, which we reflect like mirrors. And how by understanding the mirror of our mind we can we can inwardly control it to advance (and not deter) our spiritual evolution.
Those postings have shown why fearful self-identification as a separate mortal physical body is our greatest evolutionary deterrent, and how we can energetically overcome all such mortal fear. That to transcend such mortal fears we should mindfully control our thoughts, and behave with forgiveness, kindness and compassion; and no longer confuse non-dual projected pure awareness as a separate objective world.
Optimistic future
I optimistically foresee that because of post-pandemic global disruptions of our “normal” lives we’ve reached a critical turning point in human history, when our species is awakening to a prophesied new elevated and enlightened Earth age, beyond worldwide fears and sufferings from mentally imagined absence of innate and eternal God-given LOVE.
In 2023 we are experiencing unprecedented global deprivations of normal economic and physical needs, strange terminal illnesses, and insane threats of nuclear, ecological, radiological or biological wars which would catastrophically end earth-life as we’ve known it.
I foresee that Mother/Father/God will imminently honor Nature to preserve it, rather than allow human insanity to catastrophically end Earth-life. And that a “critical mass” of our species will soon remember our long-forgotten Divine identity to transcend such insanity.
I’m also optimistic because our 3D Earthly fears and sufferings were not chosen by Human free-will, nor Divinely planned. And because our perceived earth-life separation from Nature and Mother/Father/God never happened.
So we have nothing to fear – EVER.
And so may it ever be!
Invocation
May these memoirs
encourage and inspire us
to ever remember the mirror of our ego-mind.And so to behave lovingly,
unselfishly and compassionately,
beyond all fears, blame, or judgments,Toward everyone/everywhere
with whom we gratefully co-exist
on our precious blue planet Earth.And so to ever remember
and never forgetThat we are and forever will BE
Eternal Divine Souls whose
perceived earth-life separation
from Nature and Mother/Father/God never happened.So we have nothing to fear – EVER.
And so may it ever 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
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
The best things in Life are Forever FREE!
~ Ron’s Memoirs
Dear Friends,
At age ninety, I’m still learning from ever-changing life experiences as an elder seeker of Self-Realization. So (while still physically incarnate) I’m updating my memoirs to emphasize and explain my following most crucial spiritual life perspectives and insights learned so far from this precious human lifetime:
Never forget that our true human identity is immortal Cosmic Consciousness; that as embodied Human Souls we appear as illusionary space/time energy forms, until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE within Mother/Father/God – the Eternal Source from which we’ve never separated. So never fear or psychologically accept as “real” any perceived Earth-life threats to our immortality. Always follow your Heart, remembering that our separation from ONE LOVE never happened. So 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 inner pathless path to solving that energy experiment by forever following their Heart.
Today and in my most recent memoirs posting, I’m 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 by evil entities, which cannot survive in energies beyond illusionary fearful lower realm space/time separation. I foresee that Mother/Father/God will soon honor Nature to preserve it, rather than cataclysmically end Earth-life as we’ve known it.
I’m optimistic because our separate 3D Earth-world of mental fears and sufferings is not chosen by Human free-will, nor Divinely planned. And, especially since miraculously surviving deadly taxicab rundown injuries at age eighty one, I’ve realized that Human souls have nothing to fear – EVER, because our illusionary perceived earth-life separation from ONE LOVE never happened.
While honoring all art and artists until we gratefully Awaken as ONE LOVE beyond time, I’ve shown how all musical art communicates deep feelings of instinctive perennial wisdom beyond words, by cantorially singing edited lyrics from “Till the End of Time”, a song composed in 1945 for the timeless music of Frederic Chopin’s Polonaise No.6, in A Flat-Major, Op. 53.
Similarly in today’s memoirs chapter I hereafter cantorially sing edited lyrics from “The Best Things In Life Are Free”, an often vocally or instrumentally performed 1927 “hit parade” song, which also communicates deep feelings of instinctive perennial wisdom beyond words. Please enjoy and listen below with an open heart.
And as you listen, consider the following perennial reasons why
“The Best Things In Life Are Forever FREE!”.
Ron’s Explanation of The Best Things In Life Are Forever FREE!
1) What Humans call “Life” is a mentally created concept in space and time.
“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
“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 a karmic illusion, of every incarnate human soul’s separation from its Source. Each human soul is an eternal being of LIGHT, which appears unique in time as a polarized and mentally created energy-entity:
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
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 future in space and time is always 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
“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 space and time, the soul persists Forever in form as a potentially infinitely expanding energy entity, until dissolved as formless into the Source Light of the Whole – of Mother/Father/God.
5) Psychological fear is the greatest impediment and deterrent to each soul’s evolution to ever ascending energy planes. Such inner fear subjects souls to thralldom by evil entities, which cannot survive in energies beyond illusionary fearful lower realm space/time separation from Source.
“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
“[D]eep down, at our cores, there are only two emotions:
love and fear.
All positive emotions come from love,
all negative emotions from fear.
From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy.
From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt.”
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross & David Kessler
“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
“[D]eep down, at our cores, there are only two emotions:
love and fear.
All positive emotions come from love,
all negative emotions from fear.
From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy.
From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt.”
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross & David Kessler
6) The unique key for each soul’s transcendence of fear is found only Within each One’s Heart – within the One Creator.
“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
“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
“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 ONE LOVE 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
“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
Ron’s Recitation of The Best Things In Life Are FREE!*
The Best Things In Life Are FREE!*
The moon belongs to everyone
The best things in life are free
The stars belong to everyone
They gleam there for you and for me
The flowers in spring, the robins that sing
The moonbeams that shine
They’re yours, they’re mine
And LOVE can come to everyone
The best things in life are free . . .
The best things in life are FREE!
And so may it FOREVER be!
Ron Rattner
*Footnote From the 1927 play “Good News”, with music by Ray Henderson and lyrics by Buddy DeSylva and Lew Brown.
Awakening as LOVE, Till the end of time
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“Be thankful for everything at all times.
Realize that all power to think,
and speak, and act comes from God.
And that S/He is with you now, guiding and inspiring you.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“Be thankful for everything at all times.
Realize that all power to think,
and speak, and act comes from God.
And that S/He is with you now, guiding and inspiring you.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
Awakening as LOVE, Till the end of time
~ Ron’s Memoirs
Dear Friends,
At age ninety, on November 8th, 2022, I became the longest lived male member of my Rattner surname Ukrainian Jewish lineage. All other Rattner men died in their 70’s, except for my father and maternal grandfather who lived until 89.
But my family’s Ukrainian Rattner women, have lived much longer than the men. And I’ve discovered that Mother/Father/God always controls our 3D experiment in time. That our illusionary perceived earth-life separation from ONE LOVE never happened. So we’ve nothing to fear – EVER.
Also, I’ve optimistically learned that our earthly experiment in time is soon ending, as a “critical mass” of human souls imminently awakens from eons of matrix thralldom by evil entities, which cannot survive in energy realms beyond illusionary fearful lower realm space/time separation.
Family History
In the mid-1950’s, at age 41, my dear Mother Sue had two serious heart attacks, and a cardiologist then predicted she’d soon die. She didn’t die as predicted, but with God’s Grace she lived until Thanksgiving day 2007, a few weeks before her 100th birthday in January, 2008. This helped me realize that God’s in charge of our lives, not expert doctors.
And despite a very difficult life history, my Mother’s youngest sister Florence is still living gratefully and independently with sharp mental acuity at age 106, in a Los Angeles senior care facility where the majority of other elderly residents are senile.
My life experience helps explain why I NOW optimistically anticipate that our thought-formed separate 3D Earth-world of fears and sufferings is neither appropriately chosen by Humankind, nor Divinely planned. That Mother/Father/God will soon honor Nature to preserve it, rather than cataclysmically end Earth-life as we’ve known it.
Previous Memoirs
In recent memoirs, I’ve demonstrated how music communicates deep feelings of instinctive perennial wisdom beyond words. Until now I’ve focussed on traditional Jewish musical themes, of Kol Nidré and Sunrise Sunset.
But historically societies which honor all their artists, whether musical, visual, literary, theatrical, photographic, or other arts, enjoy loving energies beyond separate fearful evil-entity lower realms.
So in this memoirs chapter, I’m optimistically demonstrating the importance of honoring all art and artists until we gratefully Awaken as ONE LOVE beyond time.
In 1945 the timeless music of Frederic Chopin’s Polonaise No.6, in A Flat-Major, Op. 53, was set to words titled “TILL THE END OF TIME”, by lyricist Buddy Kaye.
To show how all musical art communicates deep feelings of instinctive perennial wisdom beyond words, I’m hereafter cantorially singing edited lyrics from “Till the End of Time”. Please enjoy and listen with an open heart.
Ron’s recitation of “Till the end of time”
Till the end of time
Till the end of time,
Long as stars are in the blue,
Long as there’s a spring, a bird to sing,
I’ll go on loving you.
Till the end of time,
Long as roses bloom in May,
My love for you will grow deeper,
With every passing day.
Till the wells run dry,
And each mountain disappears,
I’ll be there for you, to care for you,
Through laughter and through tears.
So, with your Heart in sweet surrender,
Tenderly Know that I’m,
The ONE LOVE you’ve lived for,
Till the end of time . .
Till the end of time.
Dedication
May these memoirs ever honor
ONE DIVINE LOVE
“Till the end of time”;
While we remember through all artists
that until then, nothing else is possible;
So there’s nothing to fear – EVER.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
