Peace
What is “Enlightenment”?
“Strictly speaking there are no enlightened people,
there is only enlightened activity.”
~ Suzuki Roshi
“There is no such thing as
enlightenment,
the realization of that fact is
itself enlightenment.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
Introduction
This is the first of two related articles about “enlightenment”. This posting defines “enlightenment”; the second posting contains key quotations from spiritual teachers, and explanatory comments about “enlightenment”, linked here.
Both of these postings are offered to help us realize ever increasing inner happiness, by finding and following our Sacred Heart.
What is “Enlightenment”?
Q: What is enlightenment?
A: “Enlightenment” is a word, – an idea with different meanings for different people;
it is a mental concept resulting from thought. So, the meaning of “enlightenment” is in the mind of the thinker.
Here we call “enlightenment” a perpetual evolutionary process, not an ultimate destination.
In always evolving toward an “enlightened” destination,
we approach an ever-distant horizon in the Sacred Heart of Humankind.
Q. What are some signs of progress in the evolutionary enlightenment process?
A. Less and less ego, more and more humility and authenticity;
less and less thought, more and more mental stillness and peace.*
*Further comments and quotations and about “enlightenment” are posted here.
John Lennon at 80: One Man Against the Deep State ‘Monster’ ~ By John W. Whitehead
“You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one”
~ John Lennon, “Imagine”
“A man of humble origin, [John Lennon] brought light and hope to the whole world with his words and music. He tried to be a good power for the world, and he was. He gave encouragement, inspiration and dreams to people regardless of their race, creed and gender.”
~ Yoko Ono
Ron Rattner’s Introduction to “John Lennon at 80”.
My last SillySutras posting honored departed hero John Lennon on his October 9, 2020, eightieth birthday anniversary. It featured a poetic essay and two embedded live video performances of Lennon singing “Imagine”, shortly before he died at age forty.
The posting’s introduction stated that John Lennon artistically bequeathed to us music and songs that continue to inspire countless people worldwide, like his legendary “Imagine”. (See Envisioning a Better World ~ With Imagination and Faith)
It also mentioned, but didn’t explain, that – like Dr. King and Malcolm X – Lennon was martyred at age forty at the pinnacle of his powers.
Today’s posting helps explain why John Lennon was murdered but is still remembered and honored as a politically influential peace advocate. It is especially shared for those who are inspired by Lennon’s music, but who haven’t yet learned or don’t remember that he was murdered as a nonviolent crusader for peace and social justice, and for relentlessly opposing US empire foreign policies – such as the notoriously immoral false-flag war in Viet Nam.
Like Mahatma Gandhi, Lennon’s life (as well as his music) was his message. Especially in these extraordinarily turbulent times, when millions of people (and other lifeforms) are being killed, harmed or threatened by unconscionably immoral acts of violence, it seems crucial that humankind at long last learn from departed heroes like Jesus, Gandhi, Dr. King and John Lennon to live inner-directed loving lives dedicated to revealing spiritual truth as well as to pursuing political and social justice.
So I’m hereafter sharing with you an excellent article by skilled and erudite Constitutional Law attorney and author John W. Whitehead explaining why Lennon’s life remains legendary long since he was murdered after becoming “enemy number one — of the U.S. government”.
In concluding his article, Whitehead observes that:
“For those of us who joined with John Lennon to imagine a world of peace,
it’s getting harder to reconcile that dream with the reality of the American police state.”
I respectfully concur with Whitehead’s characterization of “the American police state” based on his skilled legal perspectives, and I appreciate his historic analyses. However, I will conclude this posting with an optimistic spiritual perspective, which is harmonious with John Lennon’s imagination that with Truth and LOVE “the world will live as one”.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
John Lennon at 80: One Man Against the Deep State ‘Monster’
~ By John W. Whitehead
“You gotta remember, establishment, it’s just a name for evil.
The monster doesn’t care whether it kills all the students or whether there’s a revolution. It’s not thinking logically, it’s out of control.”
~ John Lennon (1969)
John Lennon, born 80 years ago on October 9, 1940, was a musical genius and pop cultural icon.
He was also a vocal peace protester and anti-war activist, and a high-profile example of the lengths to which the Deep State will go to persecute those who dare to challenge its authority.
Long before Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning were being castigated for blowing the whistle on the government’s war crimes and the National Security Agency’s abuse of its surveillance powers, it was Lennon who was being singled out for daring to speak truth to power about the government’s warmongering, his phone calls monitored and data files illegally collected on his activities and associations.
For a while, at least, Lennon became enemy number one in the eyes of the U.S. government.
Years after Lennon’s assassination it would be revealed that the FBI had collected 281 pages of files on him, including song lyrics. J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI at the time, directed the agency to spy on the musician. There were also various written orders calling on government agents to frame Lennon for a drug bust. “The FBI’s files on Lennon read like the writings of a paranoid goody-twoshoes”, observed reporter Jonathan Curiel.
As the New York Times notes, “Critics of today’s domestic surveillance object largely on privacy grounds. They have focused far less on how easily government surveillance can become an instrument for the people in power to try to hold on to power. ‘The U.S. vs.John Lennon’ … is the story not only of one man being harassed, but of a democracy being undermined.”
Indeed, all of the many complaints we have about government today—surveillance, militarism, corruption, harassment, SWAT team raids, political persecution, spying, over criminalization, etc.—were present in Lennon’s day and formed the basis of his call for social justice, peace and a populist revolution.
For all of these reasons, the U.S. government was obsessed with Lennon, who had learned early on that rock music could serve a political end by proclaiming a radical message. More importantly, Lennon saw that his music could mobilize the public and help to bring about change. Lennon believed in the power of the people. Unfortunately, as Lennon recognized: “The trouble with government as it is, is that it doesn’t represent the people. It controls them.”
However, as Martin Lewis writing for Time notes: “John Lennon was not God. But he earned the love and admiration of his generation by creating a huge body of work that inspired and led. The appreciation for him deepened because he then instinctively decided to use his celebrity as a bully pulpit for causes greater than his own enrichment or self-aggrandizement.”
For instance, in December 1971 at a concert in Ann Arbor, Mich., Lennon took to the stage and in his usual confrontational style belted out “John Sinclair,” a song he had written about a man sentenced to 10 years in prison for possessing two marijuana cigarettes. Within days of Lennon’s call for action, the Michigan Supreme Court ordered Sinclair released.
What Lennon did not know at the time was that government officials had been keeping strict tabs on the ex-Beatle they referred to as “Mr. Lennon.” Incredibly, FBI agents were in the audience at the Ann Arbor concert, “taking notes on everything from the attendance (15,000) to the artistic merits of his new song.”
The U.S. government, steeped in paranoia, was spying on Lennon.
By March 1971, when his “Power to the People” single was released, it was clear where Lennon stood. Having moved to New York City that same year, Lennon was ready to participate in political activism against the U. S. government, the “monster” that was financing the war in Vietnam.
The release of Lennon’s Sometime in New York City album, which contained a radical anti-government message in virtually every song and depicted President Richard Nixon and Chinese Chairman Mao Tse-tung dancing together nude on the cover, only fanned the flames of the conflict to come.
The official U.S. war against Lennon began in earnest in 1972 after rumors surfaced that Lennon planned to embark on a U.S. concert tour that would combine rock music with antiwar organizing and voter registration. Nixon, fearing Lennon’s influence on about 11 million new voters (1972 was the first year that 18-year-olds could vote), had the ex-Beatle served with deportation orders “in an effort to silence him as a voice of the peace movement.”
Then again, the FBI has had a long history of persecuting, prosecuting and generally harassing activists, politicians, and cultural figures. Most notably among the latter are such celebrated names as folk singer Pete Seeger, painter Pablo Picasso, comic actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin, comedian Lenny Bruce and poet Allen Ginsberg.
Among those most closely watched by the FBI was Martin Luther King Jr., a man labeled by the FBI as “the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country.” With wiretaps and electronic bugs planted in his home and office, King was kept under constant surveillance by the FBI with the aim of “neutralizing” him. He even received letters written by FBI agents suggesting that he either commit suicide or the details of his private life would be revealed to the public. The FBI kept up its pursuit of King until he was felled by a hollow-point bullet to the head in 1968.
While Lennon was not —as far as we know— being blackmailed into suicide, he was the subject of a four-year campaign of surveillance and harassment by the U.S. government (spearheaded by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover), an attempt by President Richard Nixon to have him “neutralized” and deported. As Adam Cohen of the New York Times points out, “The F.B.I.’s surveillance of Lennon is a reminder of how easily domestic spying can become unmoored from any legitimate law enforcement purpose. What is more surprising, and ultimately more unsettling, is the degree to which the surveillance turns out to have been intertwined with electoral politics.”
As Lennon’s FBI file shows, memos and reports about the FBI’s surveillance of the anti-war activist had been flying back and forth between Hoover, the Nixon White House, various senators, the FBI and the U.S. Immigration Office.
Nixon’s pursuit of Lennon was relentless and in large part based on the misperception that Lennon and his comrades were planning to disrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention. The government’s paranoia, however, was misplaced.
Left-wing activists who were on government watch lists and who shared an interest in bringing down the Nixon Administration had been congregating at Lennon’s New York apartment. But when they revealed that they were planning to cause a riot, Lennon balked.
As he recounted in a 1980 interview, “We said, we ain’t buying this. We’re not going to draw children into a situation to create violence so you can overthrow what? And replace it with what? . . . It was all based on this illusion, that you can create violence and overthrow what is, and get communism or get some right-wing lunatic or a left-wing lunatic. They’re all lunatics.”
Despite the fact that Lennon was not part of the “lunatic” plot, the government persisted in its efforts to have him deported. Equally determined to resist, Lennon dug in and fought back. Every time he was ordered out of the country, his lawyers delayed the process by filing an appeal. Finally, in 1976, Lennon won the battle to stay in the country when he was granted a green card. As he said afterwards,
“I have a love for this country…. This is where the action is. I think we’ll just go home, open a tea bag, and look at each other.”
“I have a love for this country…. This is where the action is. I think we’ll just go home, open a tea bag, and look at each other.”
Lennon’s time of repose didn’t last long, however. By 1980, he had re-emerged with a new album and plans to become politically active again.
The old radical was back and ready to cause trouble. In his final interview on Dec. 8, 1980, Lennon mused, “The whole map’s changed and we’re going into an unknown future, but we’re still all here, and while there’s life there’s hope.”
The Deep State has a way of dealing with troublemakers, unfortunately. On Dec. 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman was waiting in the shadows when Lennon returned to his New York apartment building. As Lennon stepped outside the car to greet the fans congregating outside, Chapman, in an eerie echo of the FBI’s moniker for Lennon, called out, “Mr. Lennon!”
Lennon turned and was met with a barrage of gunfire as Chapman—dropping into a two-handed combat stance—emptied his .38-caliber pistol and pumped four hollow-point bullets into his back and left arm. Lennon stumbled, staggered forward and, with blood pouring from his mouth and chest, collapsed to the ground.
John Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. He had finally been “neutralized.”
Yet where those who neutralized the likes of John Lennon, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy and others go wrong is in believing that you can murder a movement with a bullet and a madman.
Thankfully, Lennon’s legacy lives on in his words, his music and his efforts to speak truth to power. As Yoko Ono shared in a 2014 letter to the parole board tasked with determining whether Chapman should be released:
“A man of humble origin, [John Lennon] brought light and hope to the whole world with his words and music. He tried to be a good power for the world, and he was. He gave encouragement, inspiration and dreams to people regardless of their race, creed and gender.”
Sadly, not much has changed for the better in the world since Lennon walked among us.
Peace remains out of reach. Activism and whistle blowers continue to be prosecuted for challenging the government’s authority. Militarism is on the rise, with local police dressed like the military, all the while the governmental war machine continues to wreak havoc on innocent lives across the globe.
For those of us who joined with John Lennon to imagine a world of peace, it’s getting harder to reconcile that dream with the reality of
the American police state.
Meanwhile, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, those who dare to speak up are labeled dissidents, troublemakers, terrorists, lunatics, or mentally ill and tagged for surveillance, censorship, involuntary detention or, worse, even shot and killed in their own homes by militarized police.
As Lennon shared in a 1968 interview:
“I think all our society is run by insane people for insane objectives… I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal means. If anybody can put on paper what our government and the American government and the Russian… Chinese… what they are actually trying to do, and what they think they’re doing, I’d be very pleased to know what they think they’re doing. I think they’re all insane. But I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.”
So what’s the answer?
Lennon had a multitude of suggestions.
“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.”
“War is over if you want it.”
“Produce your own dream…. It’s quite possible to do anything, but not to put it on the leaders…. You have to do it yourself.
That’s what the great masters and mistresses have been saying ever since time began. They can point the way, leave signposts and little instructions in various books that are now called holy and worshiped for the cover of the book and not for what it says, but the instructions are all there for all to see, have always been and always will be. There’s nothing new under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome. And people cannot provide it for you. I can’t wake you up. You can wake you up. I can’t cure you. You can cure you.”
“Peace is not something you wish for; It’s something you make, something you do, something you are, And something you give away.”
“If you want peace, you won’t get it with violence.”
And my favorite advice of all:
“Say you want a revolution
We better get on right away
Well you get on your feet
And out on the street
Singing power to the people”
* Source:
This article was originally published by The Rutherford Institute. Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People! is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.Copyright © John W. Whitehead, Global Research, 2020
Ron Rattner’s Concluding Comments about “John Lennon at 80”.
John Lennon was a charismatic and inspiring populist leader and peace advocate, who presciently envisioned a peaceful planet fulfilling our common needs and deepest desires for a radically new era when our “world will live as ONE.”
But since John Lennon’s death forty years ago, the Deep State satanic forces which he relentlessly opposed still persist. The world remains afflicted with insane and immoral wars, militarism, and violence. The US police state continues its unjust persecution of dissenting truth tellers, whistle blowers and peace proponents, while turning a blind eye to those responsible for dastardly crimes against humanity and Nature. Ubiquitous US economic inequality is more extreme than ever before, unjustly favoring the super-rich 1% at the expense of almost everyone else.
Thus, the US government has become an autocratic and exploitive “police state”, with much more hypocrisy than democracy, especially as its post–WWII imperial hegemony is being challenged (and imminently ended) by China and other non-allied competitive nations.
Thus author John W. Whitehead observes in his above article:
“Sadly, not much has changed for the better in the world since Lennon walked among us.” “For those of us who joined with John Lennon to imagine a world of peace, it’s getting harder to reconcile that dream with the reality of the American police state.”
Moreover Whitehead, who is a skilled and erudite constitutional law expert, has repeatedly an persuasively identified the US an authoritarian “police state” in his previously published articles and books.
For example Whitehead has metaphorically compared the Roman dominated land of Jesus’ birth with the present American nation as a “police state”, in Jesus Was Born in a Police State. And in The Slippery Slope to Despotism: Paved with Lockdowns, Raids and Forced Vaccinations he explains how the pretense of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic emergency has allowed the US and other governments to unconstitutionally and unlawfully oppress their constituents with “power grabs” possibly leading “to outright despotism”
As a still dedicated former social justice attorney, I concur with Mr. Whitehead’s description of the US government as an “American police state”.
However, as a spiritual author and philosopher, I respectfully wish offer this foreseeable alternative outcome of unjust worldwide coronavirus “emergency” edicts:
That, rather than leading us to global dystopian “despotism”, they will awaken humankind to awareness of our God-given powers and inherent rights, resulting in our nonviolently resisting and successfully overcoming psychopathic Deep State despotism, so that (at long last) “the world will live as one”.
In my view, we are inevitably destined to experience an urgently needed ‘tipping point’ in which a critical mass of awakened humanity will transcend parasitically divisive anger, anxiety, and fear to adamantly resist evil edicts with Truth and Love. Thereby we will begin to co-create a much more compassionate world, with bottom-up societies serving people and planet over profits, as envisioned by John Lennon.
This perspective is inspired by inner and outer experiences and observation, and by great social justice reformers like Lennon, and by Mahatma Gandhi who reminds us that:
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won.
There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible,
but in the end they always fall—think of it. Always.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
‘Silence” ~ Sayings and Quotes
“Silence is the language of God,
all else is poor translation.”
~ Rumi
“Love said to me,
there is nothing that is not me.
Be silent.”
~ Rumi
“Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.”..
“Let silence take you to the core of life.”
~ Rumi
Introduction.
The following timeless quotations about silence, are shared to help all of us keep calm, without harmful anxieties, emotions or fears, in these difficult times.
‘Silence” ~ Sayings and Quotes
“Silence is a true friend who never betrays.”
~ Confucius
“There is something greater and purer than what the mouth utters.
Silence illuminates our souls, whispers to our hearts, and brings them together.
Silence separates us from ourselves, makes us sail the firmament of spirit, and brings us closer to heaven.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“If you don’t know what God’s guidance for your life is,
you might try seeking in receptive silence.
I used to walk receptive and silent amidst the beauties of nature.
Wonderful insights would come to me which I then put into practice in my life.”
~ Peace Pilgrim
Silence is the communing of a conscious soul with itself.
If the soul attend for a moment to its own infinity,
then and there is silence.
She is audible to all men, at all times, in all places,
and if we will
we may always hearken to her admonitions.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
“It is as though he listened
and such listening as his
enfolds us in a silence
In which at last
We begin to hear
What we are meant to be.”
~ Lao-Tzu
“In the silence of the heart God speaks.
If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you.
Then you will know that you are nothing.
It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness,
that God can fill you with Himself.
Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.”
~ Mother Teresa
“One opens the inner doors of one’s heart to the infinite silences of the Spirit,
out of whose abysses love wells up without fail and gives itself to all.”
~ Thomas Merton
“My friend, I am not what I seem.
Seeming is but a garment I wear — a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence.
The “I” in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark.
The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
“We search for Him here and there, while looking right at Him
Sitting by his side, we ask:
Oh Beloved, where is the Beloved?
Enough with such questions
Let silence take you to the core of life
All your talk is worthless when compared with one whisper of the beloved”
~ Rumi
“Each one of us is called to become that great song that comes out of the silence,
and the more we let ourselves down into that great silence the more we become capable of singing that great song.”
~ David Steindl-Rast
”After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
~ Aldous Huxley
“The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.”
~ Baruch Spinoza
“Live laconically –
Speak little; say much.”
~ Ron Rattner (aka Swami Onandonananda)
“Eschew pedantry, punditry, and prolixity,
and seek profundity –
in silence, simplicity and serenity.”
~ Ron Rattner – Sutra Sayings
Ron’s comments about the power of silent minds
Dear Friends,
Have you ever noticed how it feels to be “in the zone” with a stilled or focussed mind? Or noticed how star athletes perform at their highest levels while “in the zone”?
Being in the zone implies a state of consciousness in which increased focus and attention support highest levels of physical or mental performance.
The secret of our success while “in the zone” is a thoughtless or focussed mind. And a thoughtless or focussed mind is often considered crucial to progress on the spiritual path.
That’s why spiritual teachers invariably endorse meditation and other mind-stilling techniques.
According to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras – a sacred Hindu treatise – “yoga” is much more than postures and exercises to keep the physical body strong and flexible:
“Yoga is the cessation of mind.”
By following my Guruji’s key advice to “meditate regularly” I have learned the importance of a stilled mind, and have written extensively on that subject.
Here are some of my “sutra sayings” about a silent mind:
“Bliss abides when thought subsides.”
“When all thoughts cease, we are at peace.”
“Spirit speaks when mind is mute.”
“Mute your mind to hear your heart.”
“The power to think is a great gift;
but, the power to not think is a greater gift.”
“So, to think or not to think, that is the question.”
Invocation
May today’s timeless quotations about silence,
help us remember and experience through silent minds
the crucial power of NOW –
to enable our wise behaviors in these difficult times,
so as to help ourselves and all life everywhere.
May everyone everywhere be happy!
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Thoughts About Thought:
~ Quotes and Sutra Sayings
“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
~ Buddha
“A man is but the product of his thoughts;
what he thinks, he becomes.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Nothing’s either good or bad,
but thinking makes it so.”
~ Shakespeare
Great souls are they who see
that spiritual is stronger than material force,
that thoughts rule the world.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thought divides Awareness as a prism divides light.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
All thoughts,
are thoughts
about thoughts.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
When all thoughts cease,
we are at peace.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Yoga is the cessation of mind.”
~ Patanjali, Yoga Sutras
Introduction.
Humankind are now facing enormous ecological, interpersonal and international crises which we have caused or allowed, that cannot be resolved from the same levels of consciousness which created them. The above quotations and following “thoughts about thought” are dedicated to helping us consciously resolve our critical problems as a global family from elevated intuitive levels of awareness beyond those that caused them.
Also these writings are optimistically offered, with enduring faith that everything happens for the best, and that we are are nearing a “critical mass” of democratic resistance to current dystopian edicts, which will miraculously end these insanely dark times.
Thoughts About Thought: Sutra Sayings
This world is wrought with naught but thought.
Everything’s energy:
E=mc2.
Mind is matrix.
Consciousness is context.
Whatever we think, do, or say,
changes this world in some way.
Thoughts are thinks;
thoughts are things.
Thoughts form thought-forms.
All forms are thought-forms.
Body/minds are thinking thought-forms.
“Reality” is what we think it is.
“Reality” will never be what we wish it to be,
yet it ever will be what we think it to be.
Inner infinity projects outer “reality”.
Everything’s energy in Awareness.
Each thought is a notion,
ever in motion,
in an infinite ocean –
of Being.
Love-thoughts bless the world,
but fear-thoughts afflict it.
Space/time is thought;
no thought, no time, no place.
Problems are thought;
no thought, no problems.
We live optimally
when we live presently,
but think optionally –
not constantly or compulsively.
Thoughts are then;
Life is NOW.
Life is perpetual;
thought is optional.
Bliss abides, when thought subsides.
Ron’s audio recitation of his “Thoughts About Thought”:
Ron’s Comments on his “Thoughts About Thought”
Until mid-life, I self-identified only with my physical body, its story and thoughts, and I never deeply considered what we call the ‘mind’ or its miraculously creative thought processes.
Then, on New Year’s Eve 1974/5, I had an unforgettable out of body [OOB] experience in which from a bedroom ceiling I perceived each of my thoughts as a separate surreally colored kaleidoscopic form above my body, which was face-down on a bed. These perceptions seemed very real – not dreamlike or hallucinatory. And they irresistibly raised for me an urgent new question: “Who or what am I?”
I reasoned that if “I” was on the ceiling of the room, while my body was face-down on a bed, I couldn’t be the body; and that if I was on the ceiling of the room, while my thoughts were appearing below me, I couldn’t be the thoughts. And if not my body and not my thoughts, “Who or what am I?”
Thereafter, irresistibly and persistently, I began pursuing this previously unexamined enquiry with intense longing for an answer – which was bestowed fifteen months later. [See “At Mid-life, a Rebirth to a New Life ~ Ron’s Memoirs”]
Thus my self-identity enquiry and awakening, have blessed and changed my life forever. They began a process which has convinced me that happiness is a choice; that we’re not mere powerless perceivers of our “reality”, but that we co-create our reality with our thoughts, words and deeds; that everything we think, do or say changes this world in some way; and, that this worldly “reality” is dependent upon the awareness with which we envision, experience and co-create it.
Conclusion
Our heartfelt thoughts can be powerfully important as we consciously co-create a loving and peaceful world. As conscious co-creators of our earthly “reality” we can resolve our critical problems from elevated intuitive levels of awareness.
Invocation
May today’s Thoughts About Thought encourage us to consciously find and choose ever growing happiness, with the abiding realization and remembrance that with our projected thoughts we are compassionately co-creating our earthly “reality”.
And may our compassionate creation-realization inspire and enable us to establish human societies, institutions and enterprises which function democratically, holistically and cooperatively for the benefit of all sentient beings and all life everywhere.
May everyone everywhere be happy!
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Seek More Than Meets The Eye
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal,
but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor rust consumes
and where thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
~ Matthew 6:19-21
“For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
~ Luke:18:25 ; Matthew 19:24
“Fools follow the desires of the flesh
and fall into the snare of all-encompassing death;
but the wise, knowing the Self as eternal,
seek not the things that pass away.”
~ Katha Upanishad 2:1:2
“Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold;
happiness dwells in the soul.”
~ Democritus
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions,
but in having few wants.”
~ Epictetus
“What really counts in life can’t be counted.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury – to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for both the body and the mind.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. The trite subjects of human efforts, possessions, outward success, luxury have always seemed to me contemptible.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The most precious things in life are not those one gets for money”. . . . . Money only appeals to selfishness and always irresistibly tempts its owner to abuse it. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus or Gandhi with the moneybags of Carnegie?”
~ Albert Einstein
Seek More Than Meets The Eye
Do not cherish
that which will perish.
Do not treasure
fleeting pleasure –
Or what you can measure.
Do not believe
what you perceive;
And do not seek
what you can speak.
Seek the ineffable
and it is inevitable
That you will know
the Unknowable –
The Inconceivable!
That you will find –
Beyond your mind –
Eternal Peace!
Ron’s audio recitation of Seek More Than Meets The Eye
Ron’s Explanation and Dedication of “Seek More Than Meets The Eye”
Dear Friends,
The foregoing poem, “Seek More Than Meets The Eye” was inspired by Jesus’ teaching to lay up “treasures in heaven”, rather than earthly treasures. [Matthew 6:19-21].
Before discovering that scriptural passage, my midlife spiritual awakening had apparently revived previously subdued ascetic propensities – perhaps from other contemplative lifetimes. So, I had begun following a life-style much simpler and more reclusive than during my married years. And I became evermore convinced of the wisdom of living a simple and virtuous life, largely detached from worldly pleasures and treasures, while focusing on infinite spiritual riches within.
Hence after discovering Jesus’ teaching about forgoing worldly treasures I was inspired to poetically share its essence, which was consistent and harmonious with my deepest intuitions and tendencies. And soon I found many more inspiring parallel teachings in all other enduring wisdom traditions, like the quotations (preceding the poem) about renouncing worldly wealth.
These perennial teachings are especially important today in affluent corporate-capitalist societies where people are importuned and ‘brain washed’, via insidious advertising and marketing techniques, to greedily seek unneeded things and experiences, as our species insanely and unsustainably pillages, plunders, and poisons our precious planet’s finite resources crucial to sustaining life on Earth as we’ve known it.
But pleasures from such possessions and experiences are always fleeting, and can never bring enduring happiness and peace of mind.
As the Dalai Lama observes:
“Physical comforts cannot subdue mental suffering, and if we look closely, we can see that those who have many possessions are not necessarily happy.
In fact, being wealthy often brings even more anxiety.
So the foregoing poem and quotes are offered to remind us to lay up “treasures in heaven”, rather than futilely pursuing transient earthly possessions and pleasures.
May they help us discover that the enduring happiness we all (knowingly or unknowingly) seek is never in superfluous possessions or pleasures, but ever in our sacred hearts and souls.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
2020 Epilogue
Living a virtuous life, detached from worldly pleasures and treasures, may be more important now than ever before in modern recorded human history.
On January 23, 2020 the ‘Doomsday’ clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was reset to 100 seconds to midnight, symbolizing potential human destruction by nuclear catastrophe or climate collapse as nearer than ever before.
To explain, the atomic scientists said to leaders and citizens of the world that:
“Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers—nuclear war and climate change—that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond. The international security situation is dire, not just because these threats exist, but because world leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode.”
“Public engagement and civic action are needed and needed urgently. Science and technology can bring enormous benefits, but without constant vigilance, they bring enormous risks as well.”
Invocation.
May the foregoing “Seek More Than Meets The Eye” poem and wisdom teachings inspire our enhanced collective vigilance and awareness that the enduring happiness we all (knowingly or unknowingly) seek is never found in superfluous diversions, possessions or pleasures, but ever abides in our eternal hearts and souls.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“Faith is different from proof;
the latter is human, the former is a gift from God.”
~ Blaise Pascal
“The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. …To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”
~ Albert Einstein – The Merging of Spirit and Science
I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life
My life has become faith-based.
I follow my faith,
but I’m not affiliated
with any organized religion or other belief system.
After many years of questioning,
I’ve found faith beyond belief,
beyond dogmas or theology.
I’ve found faith in everything everywhere,
and in the impenetrable Mystery
beyond every form or phenomenon.
I’ve found faith in my Self and in Nature.
I’ve found the faith to follow my Heart.
Mine is not a blind faith based on fear or doubt,
or on inculcated or adopted ideas of others.
It is an abiding inner knowledge,
flowing from a long life
of reflective personal and trans-personal
experience and observation;
An insight arising from – but transcending – reason,
consistent and harmonious with
the highest welfare and unity of all Life.
My life experience has shown that our universe
is a magnificent, marvelous, miraculous and awe-inspiring “reality”;
That immanent in each life-form and in all manifestation
is an ineffable eternal Awareness:
An Intelligence or Divinity
which is the mysterious matrix,
Essence and Source of our reality.
My life experience has thus
indelibly instilled in me
an abiding faith in that Source*
As a purposeful evolutionary impetus in each of us;
A faith that from that Source
we get what we need when we need it,
Assuring that ultimately everything happens for the best,
to promote our evolution;
A faith that we are inevitably evolving toward
harmonious universal expression of greatest good –
As Peace, Truth, Joy, Love, and Compassion.
With such Faith, I am empowered to follow my Heart,
without worry, fear or doubt;
To accept inevitable and inescapable
life difficulties and uncertainties,
and yet to live openly, spontaneously and authentically.
So, without any religious affiliation,
I’ve become a faithful follower:
I follow my Faith;
I follow the Way;
I follow my Heart.
And this above all,
It is my Faith that enables me to be true to my Self.
Footnote.
*Innumerable names – God, Love, Nature, etc. – may be used to signify that Source or any of its infinite aspects. Or as in the Jewish tradition it may be acknowledged that no name can denominate “That” which is beyond conception or expression – since naming limits the illimitable and ineffable Infinite Reality.
Ron’s audio recitation of “I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life”
Ron’s 2019 memoir epilogue to “I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life”
Dear Friends,
The foregoing poem explains insights arising from previously unimagined paradigms of “reality” and “self-identity”, experienced following a profound 1976 midlife awakening. It was composed during a post-retirement reclusive period, and first posted soon after the 2010 launching of SillySutras.com.
Since composing “I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life”, I’ve kept experiencing an evolutionary awakening process, and sharing further spiritual insights therefrom. And since then I have continued to be more than ever blessed with a “faith-based life”.
My miraculous survival and healing from a 2014 near death taxicab rundown, has sparked subtly significant attitudinal changes, bringing unprecedented happiness and gratitude for this precious human lifetime, with evolutionary acceptance of Life even beyond that described in the above original essay/poem.
With enhanced faith in the Divine, rather than mere belief, I have now given my ‘irrevocable power of attorney” to The Lone Arranger to resolve all worldly problems and sufferings, and to forgivingly ‘adjudge’ all those who ignorantly cause them.
And more than ever before, I now see this world mostly as a Divine play of consciousness – like a marvelous movie, or mental mirage or simulated holographic ‘reality’ – without fear of physical death, and with absolute Faith in its ultimate Divine denouement.
These verses are respectfully offered to inspire our ever expanding
faith-based acceptance of Life, as it is,
With ever growing Peace, Truth, Joy, Love, and Compassion.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
In Silence Sweet
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“Yoga is the cessation of mind.”
~ Patanjali, Yoga Sutras
“Silence is the language of God,
all else is poor translation.”
~ Rumi
“Love said to me, there is nothing that is not me.
Be silent.”
~ Rumi
“When the mind is completely empty – only then is it capable of receiving the unknown.” …… “Only when the mind is wholly silent, completely inactive, not projecting, when it is not seeking and is utterly still – only then that which is eternal and timeless comes into being.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“Silence is the communing of a conscious soul with itself.
If the soul attend for a moment to its own infinity,
then and there is silence.
She is audible to all men, at all times, in all places, and if we will
we may always hearken to her admonitions.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
There is something greater and purer than what the mouth utters. Silence illuminates our souls, whispers to our hearts, and brings them together. Silence separates us from ourselves, makes us sail the firmament of spirit, and brings us closer to heaven.
~ Kahlil Gibran
“Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.”..
“Let silence take you to the core of life.”
~ Rumi
In Silence Sweet
In silence sweet
we may retreat
from every care and woe,
and there we’ll learn in perfect peace
all we need to know.
In silence sweet
we shall meet
the thrill of ecstasy.
and thus we’ll learn in perfect peace
we’ve nothing more to be.
In silence sweet
we shall find
all we’ve ever sought.
And thus we’ll learn in perfect peace
that all our wants were naught.
In silence sweet
we shall see
that everything is light.
And thus we’ll learn in perfect peace
there’s naught to fear but fright.
In silence sweet
we shall greet
our own true Self and Soul.
And thus we’ll learn in perfect peace
we are the timeless Whole.
In silence sweet
we shall enjoy
Eternity’s repose.
For perfect peace we e’er shall be,
Peace no mortal knows.
Ron’s audio recitation of “In Silence Sweet”
Ron’s dedication and explanation of “In Silence Sweet”
Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusundandas
Dear Friends,
The foregoing poem “ In Silence Sweet” is dedicated to my beloved Guruji, Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusundandas, whose blessings inspired and permitted its composition.
In recent “Why Be Here Now?” memoirs I proposed that the essence of all spiritual teachings is to exist in thoughtless presence (as Universal Awareness or Cosmic Consciousness) rather than in the past or future, as an ego-mind story of a supposedly limited and separate mortal being. And I recounted how by faithfully following (for many years) my beloved Guruji’s emphatic instructions to “meditate regularly” I’m learning about living with a stilled mind.
Today to clarify those memoirs I’ll try to explain why much more important than Guruji’s spoken words to ‘meditate regularly’ was his immense and intense spiritual Presence, demonstrating his realization of Truth; his silent cosmic energy emanations from an infinitely enormous life-force energy field, which Hindus call Kundalini “Shakti” .
“Kundalini is the cosmic power in individual bodies.
It is not a material force like electricity, magnetism, centripetal or centrifugal force.
It is a spiritual potential, Shakti, or cosmic power.
In reality it has no form.”
~ Sri Swami Sivananda
Experiencing Guruji’s Shakti.
After my midlife spiritual awakening experience I became claresentient, and e.g. began seeing and sensing human auras. (See https://sillysutras.com/kundalini-kriyas-a-potpourri-of-peek-experiences-rons-memoirs/) So on meeting Guruji two years later, I was immediately impressed with his extraordinarily powerful emanations of “shakti”, and his extremely luminous silvery subtle aura unlike any other I’d ever before perceived.
Gradually thereafter I learned that Guruji’s energy field was independent of his physical vitality, and even his physical presence. Moreover, I learned that Guruji not only emanated intense shakti but that he was one of those rare yogis who could intentionally transfer it to others not only by touch, gaze, or mantra sound, but also by thought. Thus on occasion I experienced Guruji’s shakti even when not in his physical proximity. And I have experienced intense shakti emanating from Guruji’s body even when it was very weak.
My most amazing and memorable experience of Guruji’s immense energy Presence happened two years after Guruji had left my San Francisco apartment in 1980, and returned (physically debilitated) to India.
In January/February, 1982, for the first time in this lifetime I had journeyed to India on a guided spiritual pilgrimage tour with Sant Keshadavadas, a devotional Indian spiritual teacher then known as a ‘singing saint’. That guided tour was, and remains for me, the most important trip of this lifetime. (See https://sillysutras.com/synchronicity-story-miraculously-manifesting-memories-of-a-spiritual-pilgrimage-to-india-and-nepal/ )
Throughout the pilgrimage tour I was constantly seeking to advance my spiritual sadhana , as a quest for “enlightenment”. By the time the tour ended in New Delhi, I was quite weary from following the intense travel schedule. But I was determined and anxious to remain in India to pay my respects to my beloved Guruji, and to receive his guidance and blessings for my sadhana.
Guruji’s body was then approximately 104 years old and physically very weak. So he was living reclusively with Indian devotees, who cared for him as he recuperated. Because of his debility Guruji’s whereabouts were kept confidential, and known to only by a few trusted devotees. Only after ‘miraculously’ overcoming an amazing series of extraordinary obstacles was I finally able to locate and visit Guruji in a small Gujarati town, Godhra.
There my aspirations for his guidance and blessings were fulfilled in an amazing silent satsang where Guruji spoke only two unforgettable words: “Meditate regularly.”
(For details see https://sillysutras.com/a-long-but-short-guruji-satsang-story-rons-memoirs/; satsang is a sanskrit word meaning being with a sat guru or being with “highest Truth” – https://endless-satsang.com/nondual-advaita-satsang.htm)
On arrival at the house where Guruji was staying, I was pleasantly greeted and told that Guruji was then in the garden, but that he would soon come in to greet me. I was brought into a lovely altar room with fresh cut flowers and a prominent throne-like seat for Guruji. As I waited there, my ‘monkey mind’ became quite active.
Despite many wondrous spiritual experiences during the pilgrimage tour, I was busily dialoguing with “the voice in my head” about my possible questions for Guruji. So when Guruji entered the altar room to sit enthroned in front of me, I was feeling far from mentally peaceful, as I sat there waiting for him to entertain my anticipated questions.
He appeared much weaker than when I first met him four years earlier. But he was emanating indescribably intense ‘shakti’ life-force energy, which seemed as powerful as ever. His energy field was so extraordinarily immense that it soon enveloped mine, and transformed my previously agitated state of mind. So, as I sat there gazing at Guruji, I began harmoniously resonating with his supernal ‘shakti’ life-force, and thereby feeling unusual peace of mind.
Thus my questions for Guruji gradually seemed to melt into silent infinite awareness. But they didn’t all dissolve. So after sitting there in silence for a while, I asked Guruji a preliminary question. But he remained silent, and kept intently gazing at me without answering the question.
Whereupon, supposing that he might not have understood me, I asked Guruji another question. But he still remained silent. Finally, as my appointment time was about to expire, I desperately exclaimed:
“Guruji, I’ve come halfway around the world to see you.
Please tell me what I should do for my sadhana.”
After a pregnant pause, Guruji at long last replied:
“Meditate regularly!”
We had no further dialogue. And soon I was politely informed by Guruji’s host that it was time to leave.
Afterwards.
As you might imagine, the unforgettable memory of Guruji’s profoundly silent ‘satsang’ has remained indelibly imprinted in my heart and on my ‘mental software’. His words “Meditate regularly!” were not merely spiritual instructions, but a timeless heartfelt blessing or sankalpa that my deepest aspirations for Truth might be fulfilled through regular meditation!
Moreover, beyond words but only with deep mental silence, Guruji eloquently demonstrated that the eternal LOVE we all seek is within each of us; and he ineffably validated Rumi’s profound observation that
“Silence is the language of God,
all else is poor translation.”
~ Rumi
Since 1982, by faithfully following my beloved Guruji’s emphatic instructions and blessing for me to “meditate regularly”, I’ve been learning about living with a stilled mind.
Perhaps fifteen years after that unforgettable satsang, my ‘monkey mind’ seemed to cease its ceaseless chatter, permitting me the option of using it or not, and of choosing to enjoy moments of choiceless awareness. Instead of constantly swinging backwards and forwards, like a pendulum, between the past and the future, it seemed to rest in a sort of ‘default position’ when not activated by conscious thoughts.
Whereupon I’ve enjoyed precious moments of Being with a stilled mind which have transformed my experience and deep understanding of incarnate human life, in previously unimagined ways.
In 1996 (after Guruji’s 1994 mahasamadhi and during my extended post-retirement period of reclusiveness), I was inspired to compose the above poem “In Silence Sweet”, which only hints at Guruji’s profound blessing bestowed in that unforgettable silent ‘satsang’.
In grateful dedication to Guruji, I have republished the poem today with the foregoing authoritative explanatory quotations.
May everyone everywhere enjoy the blessings of Silence Sweet and of those quotations.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Why Be Here Now?
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“That which is timeless is found NOW.”
~ Buddha
“Life can be found only in the present moment.
The past is gone, the future is not yet here,
and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment,
we cannot be in touch with life.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“Always say ‘yes’ to the present moment…
Surrender to what is. Say ‘yes’ to life –
and see how life starts suddenly ..
working for you, rather than against you.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
And if not now, when?
~ Hillel
Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Tao and Zen
are NOW,
not then.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Remember then: there is only one time that is important – Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power.”
~ Leo Tolstoy
“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions,
that they exist in the present,
which is what there is and all there is. ”
~ Alan Watts
The only time you ever have in which to learn anything or see anything or feel anything, or express any feeling or emotion, or respond to an event, or grow, or heal, is this moment, because this is the only moment any of us ever gets. You’re only here now; you’re only alive in this moment.
~ Jon Kabat-Zinn
Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity. Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge which are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
Why Be Here Now?
Introduction.
Today’s memoirs posting “Why Be Here Now?” explains how the memorable book title “Be Here Now” became for me an inspirational spiritual slogan, encapsulating the essence of all spiritual teachings: viz. to live in thoughtless presence (as Universal Awareness) rather than in the past (as an ego-mind story of a separate mortal being); because Life is NOW, ever NOW, never Then!
This universal teaching has so significantly advanced my spiritual awakening process, that I am now experiencing life in ways I couldn’t imagine when I first learned about being in the present moment. So I often share it to help others (as hereafter explained).
Learning to live moment by moment, ever NOW.
Here is a summary of my process of learning about living NOW, as Universal Awareness:
Soon after my midlife spiritual awakening, I attended “est”, an impactful self-help seminar, on the urging of a long-time friend. There I was first exposed to certain (unsourced) Eastern spirituality principles cleverly collected and presented by Werner Erhard, est’s founder, to motivate participants to radically transform their lives by ‘getting IT’. The key est teaching was to:
Always accept “what is”. [See Ron’s Memoirs: Getting “IT” at est]
After attending est in 1977, I started to learn that for millennia there have been spiritual teachings about thoughtlessly accepting “what is” {sometimes called “letting go” or “surrender”). This began happening when I read an extraordinary book called “Be Here Now”, which told about the spiritual transformation of Dr. Richard Alpert, Ph.D, psychologist, into Baba Ram Dass, a Western teacher of Eastern wisdom, after meeting his Hindu guru – Neem Karoli Baba.
Discussion re “Be Here Now” as Root Spiritual Teaching.
“Be Here Now” was my first memorable exposure to Hindu and other sourced Eastern spiritual teachings. It was an extraordinary book, unlike any other I’d ever before seen or read. Filled with beautiful calligraphy, art, and photos, it imaginatively presented a fascinating melange of Eastern ideas previously unknown to me, with many suggestions or ‘recipes’ for spiritual practices, some of which I later followed, though I didn’t immediately adopt any of them.
Apart from the book’s contents, its “Be Here Now!” title gradually became a memorable guide for my spiritual awakening process; a reminder to live with a quiet mind in the present moment. Gradually, I found this reminder repeated so often in other spiritual teachings and books that, ultimately, I considered it to be the root essence of all spiritual teachings. I deemed this teaching so crucial that (with poetic license) I once called it “The Sacred Secret of Life”. (See https://sillysutras.com/secret-of-life/)
“Be Here Now” by Ram Dass
My realization about the crucial importance of living as thoughtless presence, was especially advanced by the teachings of world renowned spiritual philosopher J. Krishnamurti, that
“Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
Much later I approvingly concurred with the writings and lectures of contemporary author/teacher Eckhart Tolle, which skillfully emphasized “The Power of Now.” (Another memorable book title which became a popular spiritual slogan.)
Probably I best learned about living with a stilled mind by faithfully following for many years my beloved Guruji’s emphatic instructions to “meditate regularly”. Ultimately, after thus meditating regularly, my ‘monkey mind’ finally ceased its ceaseless chatter, permitting me the option of using it or not, and of choosing to enjoy moments of choiceless awareness.
These chosen moments of living with a stilled mind changed my experience and deep understanding of incarnate human life, in previously unprecedented ways. For example, they bestowed new insight into Patanjali’s root aphorism that
“Yoga is the cessation of mind.”
~ Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras
Also I realized that many people (like French philosopher René Descartes) have mistakenly confused “thinking” with “being”. So I wrote an essay critique of that mistaken belief, to remind us that “being” as Awareness exists and persists perpetually, whether or not we are thinking. (See https://sillysutras.com/cartesian-critique/)
And precious moments of thought-free awareness confirmed and validated spiritual insights from other mystical experiences. For example, they were reminders that human consciousness remains beyond death of human bodies and brains; that consciousness creates brains and subtle thought bodies which inevitably survive death of physical bodies. (See https://sillysutras.com/brains/)
Whereby I observed that most people (like Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet) mistakenly believe that death of the physical body and brain, ends all consciousness and thought.
Thus Prince Hamlet incorrectly equated physical mortality with timeless Awareness in his famous “To be, or not to be” soliloquy contemplating his possible suicide. (William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1)
And to share this realization about Hamlet’s confused suicide speculations,
I composed this sutra:
“To think or not to think, that is the question.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
which implies that Being is perpetual, not optional, whereas thinking is optional and does not end on bodily ‘death’; but that paradoxically the less we think, the more we are Being (‘here now’) as perpetual Awareness.
Essential Message of “Be Here Now”.
Through the process of learning to live with a stilled mind in the present moment, I’ve discovered that:
Being is timeless. But thought is time (and space). So, when we egoically think of ourselves merely as entities separate (in space) from each other and Nature, we mistakenly preclude or deter our realization of spiritual Freedom as eternal Being beyond space/time.
Instead, we experience our existence only as an ever impermanent past illusion, or mental mirage, but never NOW. However as we self-identify moment by moment as thoughtless, choiceless awareness, we are Being NOW.
And we learn that
“The more we live moment by moment,
the more momentous our lives;” and that
“When all thoughts cease, we are at peace.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Ultimately we discover
“That which is timeless is [only] found NOW”
~ Buddha
Conclusion.
Each of us has a unique karmic history and space/time perspective. So each of us has unique challenges and a unique karmic ‘recipe’ for spiritual opening. But the ‘ingredients’ in every such ‘recipe’ are the same– only proportions differ.
And Presence – ‘being here now’ – is crucially important for everyone, not just for spiritual aspirants. For example, being present is sometimes called being “in the zone” with a stilled or focussed mind. Have you ever noticed how star artists or athletes perform at their highest levels while “in the zone”?
Thus today’s quotations, memoirs and discussion are offered to inspire our ever expanding realization that “life can be found only in the present moment”, and that ultimately the Eternal happiness we all (knowingly or unknowingly) seek is beyond space and time, but paradoxically immanent ever here NOW.
Peanuts by Charles Schulz
Dedication.
May everyone everywhere experience ever expanding happiness by increasingly living moment by moment in precious presence, with ever quieter minds.
Thereby may we all radiate love and joy, which blesses the world, ever NOW.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Imagine – The World Will Live As One
“Imagine… the world will live as one ”
~ John Lennon (October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980)
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.
For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand,
while imagination embraces the entire world,
and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
~ Albert Einstein
Imagine – The World Will Live As One
Dear Friends,
Almost forty years ago our great ex-Beatles visionary ancestor, John Lennon was too soon taken from us (at age forty). But the luminous light of his eternal soul continues to bless and inspire us.
In this holy season of Eternal Light, it is especially appropriate that we remember and honor him.
So I have posted below lyrics and two live video performances of John singing “Imagine”,
his inspired and inspiring expression of our shared aspiration for enduring planetary peace and happiness.
May these classic performances inspire us to remember that together we can and must
“live as one” with compassion for everyone everywhere, while never forgetting that
“All we need is LOVE, LOVE, LOVE.”
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
John Lennon – “Imagine” (live performance)
“Imagine”
Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
~ John Lennon
Life is For Giving
“For it is in giving that we receive.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi, peace prayer
“You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” …
“For in truth it is life that gives unto life –
while you, who deem yourself a giver,
is but a witness.”
~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
“You can give without loving,
but you can never love without giving.”
~ Robert Louis Stevenson and/or
~ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
The value of a man resides in what he gives
and not in what he is capable of receiving.
~ Albert Einstein
The wise man does not lay up his own treasures.
The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.
~ Lao Tzu
It’s not how much we give
but how much love we put into giving.
~ Mother Teresa
“If you wish to experience peace,
provide peace for another.”
~ Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama
St. Francis of Assisi
Life is For Giving
Life is for giving, not getting;
For Being, not having.
Love gives and forgives.
Ego gets and forgets.
It is in giving that we receive.
So, let us end our obsession with possession,
And live to give, and to be –
LOVE.
Ron’s audio comments and recitation of “Life is For Giving”
Ron’s Commentary on Giving Not Getting:
Dear Friends,
For many years I have regularly recited [with amendments] the peace prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi, declaring in conclusion that:
“it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and, . . it is in dying – to ego life – that we are reborn to Eternal Life”.
Those oft-repeated lines have inspired many of my writings, including the above “Life is For Giving” poem. In the above posted quotes about giving, I have excerpted these lines from Kahlil Gibran’s perennial wisdom in “The Prophet”:
“You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”
“For in truth it is life that gives unto life –
while you, who deem yourself a giver, is but a witness.”
~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, “On Giving”
As we consider and reconsider those wisdom quotes and prayer lines, more and more it seems that each human lifetime is part of a cosmic process of transcending ego’s optical illusion of our imagined separation from each other, and from our true spiritual nature; a mysterious process of our returning psychologically to a state of “At-one-ment” and self-identity with Universal Intelligence or Awareness, as our ultimate Essence and our ultimate destiny.
In that evolutionary process, as we transcend mistaken ideas of who we think we are, we gradually realize what we truly are. We learn that apparent separation of ‘giver’ and ‘receiver’, or ‘pardoner’ and ‘pardoned’, or ‘I’ and ‘others’, is a persistent perceptual delusion – like a mirage.
And we find that by spontaneously giving of ourselves and forgiving others with LOVE our spiritual Self-awareness process is furthered, bestowing ever-more fulfilling life experience.
Today’s writings about giving and forgiving are offered with the aspiration they will help us realize – like Kahlil Gibran – that “it is life that gives unto life”, not “I” or “me” giving to others. And that we may so live ever happier lives.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
