Perennial Puzzles
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
Tuned Out, to Tune In –
Being in the world, but not of the world
“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
Tao and Zen
are NOW,
not then.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“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
Tuned Out, to Tune In
I’ve temporarily tuned
out of temporality,
And tuned in to timelessness.
And an inner voice says silently:
Now it’s time to live
in timeless temporality –
In the world,
but not of the world –
NOW.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Tuned Out, to Tune In”
Ron’s explanation of “Tuned Out, to Tune In”
Dear Friends,
The above whimsical poem, “Tuned Out, to Tune In”, is about living timelessly in time, and thus being in the world but not of the world – a spiritually significant state.
Spiritual teachings often stress importance of living compassionately in the timeless NOW, while dispassionately letting go of ego attachments to constantly changing outcomes and occurrences.
Yogis and mystics in other times have attained and maintained elevated states of detached awareness by taking refuge in forests, on mountains, or in caves. But such stress-free environments or circumstances are now increasingly rare in wealthy materialist societies. Spiritual aspirants living in crowded and polluted urban environments are especially challenged to maintain such mindfulness, while acting skillfully and compassionately in this turbulent age of mental malaise, rife with suffering of most life forms on our precious planet.
Today’s whimsical verses were composed years ago, after I’d begun wondering about how to best live timelessly in time, in the world but not of the world.
Initially I was inspired by Jesus’ teachings to abjure earthly treasures and pleasures, but seek treasures of heaven. (See https://sillysutras.com/seek-more-than-meets-the-eye/) Thereafter, Hindu teachings about vairagya (dispassion), and Buddhist scriptures about avoiding attachments were influential.
And by observing the compassion with dispassion of my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, and other spiritual masters (like the Dalai Lama), I gleaned great inspiration.
Thus, gradually I learned that with stilled minds and opened hearts it’s possible for us to psychologically transcend ego-mind attachments to outcomes of ever impermanent and uncertain worldly happenings, even though we have deep concerns about social injustice and suffering. And I have long aspired to attain such a skilled spiritual state.
Living dispassionately, skillfully and sanely in our stressful culture is an evolutionary challenge for all of us. So, “Tuned Out, to Tune In” has been posted today to encourage us to live more and more in the timeless present, yet to follow our heart while dispassionately letting go of ego-mind’s attachments to constantly changing outcomes.
May we thereby bless all Life by compassionately and dispassionately being in the world but not of the world, while letting go of ego.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Divine Time Release Capsules
“Our destiny is Divinity.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Life is a round trip metaphoric journey,
on which we are destined to return to point of origin.
On return, we learn – we never left.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Divine Time Release Capsules
Our destiny is Divinity.
Our human body/minds are like
Divine time release capsules
Of ‘congealed’ consciousness encapsulated by karma –
Enveloped by eons of illusory thoughts, words, and deeds
of imagined separation from others, from Nature
and from our ever immanent inner Essence.
But our optical illusion of separation is being released in time,
As our imagined karmic coatings are inevitably dissolving into
The eternal inner Ocean of Universal Awareness.
So, with ever increasing awareness,
In time we are slowly melting
into the mystery of our inner Divinity,
and merging with our eternal Self.
Thus, beyond time –
Beyond ego’s optical illusion of separation –
Our common destiny is Divinity.
And so shall it Be!
Ron’s audio recitation of “Divine Time Release Capsules”
Ron’s Explanation of “Divine Time Release Capsules”
Dear Friends,
Metaphorically we are fellow spiritual space travelers – like “astronauts on a little spaceship called Earth.”
As seemingly mortal humans we are journeying on a planetary “pale blue dot” through a vast and mysterious space/time universe beyond scientific comprehension. Thus our ultimate destiny as space/time travelers is unknown.
So often we’re fearful, anxious, or stressed about our uncertain future. To help assuage inevitable anxieties, I have posted the foregoing “Divine Time Release Capsule” verses which metaphorically reveal why we never need to fear or worry. They explain that:
Until now, we have mistakenly perceived, believed and behaved as if we are somatically separated from each other and Nature, and from our sole spiritual essence – which is Infinite Awareness. Consequently, to learn our true Reality and deepest non-dual Self identity, our eternal souls have become unconsciously encapsulated in “self-woven karmic cocoons”, in which we are exploring the Cosmos in mortal human bodies on ‘spaceship Earth’.
Our human bodies are like “space/time soul suits” (comparable to astronauts’ space suits or deep sea divers’ suits). As we so explore this seemingly vast space/time universe (while encapsulated in karmic cocoons), we gradually learn that the Cosmos is but an ever impermanent mental illusion (like an ephemeral mirage).
And as we thus realize that time and space are illusory, our karmic cocoons are gradually but inevitably dissolving and melting (like time release capsules), and merging into an Eternal ocean of Infinite Awareness, which is our ultimate destination. Like beautiful butterflies we are evolving as living metaphors for metamorphosis to emerge totally transformed from self woven cocoons, and fated for ascension to a wonderful new Reality.(https://sillysutras.com/butterflies/)
Thus, we are assured to safely survive our mysterious metaphoric journey, because “Our destiny is Divinity” – eternal Reality, beyond this illusory phenomenal world of ever passing appearances.
May these metaphoric time release assurances bring us ever less stress and ever more happiness as we inevitably fulfill our destiny of divine discovery on “spaceship Earth”.
And so it shall be!
Ron Rattner
Indian Astrology, Free Will or Fate? ~ An Amazing Synchronicity Story
“Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end,
by forces over which we have no control.
It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star.
Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust,
we all dance to a mysterious tune,
intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.”
~ Albert Einstein
“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
“You are truly free when you are not a person”.
~ Deepak Chopra – The Book of Secrets
Deepak Chopra
Introduction to Indian Astrology, Free Will or Fate?
I have elsewhere shared how in February, 1977, I spent a week in New York City, so filled with amazing synchronistic and precognitive experiences, that I became convinced it was possible to mystically transcend serial time perception. ( Synchronicity Story: An Amazing Experiment With Time )
Later, on learning that Sri Yukteshwar, Paramahamsa Yogananda’s guru, was an expert Vedic astrologer, and that the father of my Guru, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, was also a Vedic astrologer, I became interested in astrological predictions and (for the first time in my life) was opened to possible validity of astrology – both Eastern and Western – as an esoteric science.
Indian or Vedic astrology is called Jyotish, which is Sanskrit for “light”; it is an ancient tradition going back thousands of years. Commonly, Indian astrologers (like those from other traditions) cast and interpret a personal chart – a ‘karmic map’ – based on each person’s unique time and place of birth.
But, there is another very rare branch of Jyotish astrology called Nadi reading in which the astrologer, a Brahmin priest, doesn’t cast a personal chart, but through analysis of one’s thumb prints locates and interprets notations supposedly first written on palm bark or leaves thousands of years ago by Indian sage Bhrigu, or a similar saint.
Few people in the world have ever heard about, much less seen, an Indian Nadi reader. On first hearing of Nadi readers, I skeptically dismissed claims of their authenticity and accuracy as too “far out” and beyond my Western programmed paradigm. But gradually I heard credible reports which began changing my mind.
First, two Harvard trained married friends recounted to me their amazing experience with a Nadi reader. Later, I learned that Swami Kriyananda
(J. Donald Walters), a well known Western teacher, author, and direct disciple of Paramahamsa Yogananda, was so impressed with the extraordinary accuracy of his Nadi readings, that in 1967 he had published a book entitled India’s Ancient Book of Prophecy.
In 2011, I was discussing questions of free will and destiny with my long-time Jyotish astrologer friend Jackie Haller, when she reminded me of Kriyananda’s Nadi reading experiences. Intrigued by Jackie’s comments, I soon did an extended internet search about Kriyananda’s prophesy book. It was out of print, but I found online summaries of his amazing story.
The next day, while visiting at the Fort Mason Italian-American Museum, I was informing my friend Joy Massa about Kriyananda’s Nadi readings, when a woman near us “coincidentally” overhead the conversation and joined us. Spontaneously she recounted lucidly and in some detail her personal amazing experience with a Nadi reading in Tamil Nadu, South India. She told us that she’d become interested in such prophesies from friends and after reading about Deepak Chopra’s extraordinary experience with Nadi readers.
Chopra was then well known to me as a knowledgeable and credible spiritual author. So I soon found and read, for the first time, his following life changing prophesy experience, in his “Book of Secrets”, pp 213-216.
“The Book of Secrets” by Deepak Chopra:
YOU ARE TRULY FREE WHEN YOU ARE NOT A PERSON
Several years ago in a small village outside New Delhi, I was sitting in a small, stuffy room with a very old man and a young priest. The priest sat on the floor swaying back and forth as he recited words inked on bark sheets that looked ancient. I listened, having no idea what the priest was intoning. He was from the far south and his language, Tamil, was foreign to me. But I knew he was telling me the story of my life, past and future. I wondered how I got roped into this and began to squirm.
It had taken strong persuasion from an old friend to get me to the small room. “It’s not just Jyotish, it’s much more amazing,” he coaxed. Indian astrology is called Jyotish, and it goes back thousands of years. Visiting your family astrologer is common practice everywhere in India, where people plan weddings, births, and even routine business transactions around their astrological charts (Indira Gandhi was a famous example of someone who followed Jyotish), but modern times have led to a fading away of tradition. I had chronically avoided any brushes with Jyotish, being a child of modern India and later a working doctor in the West.
But my friend prevailed, and I had to admit that I was curious about what was going to happen. The young priest, dressed in a wrapped skirt with bare chest and hair shiny with coconut oil—both marks of a southerner—didn’t draw up my birth chart. Every chart he needed had already been drawn up hundreds of years ago. In other words, someone sitting under a palm tree many generations ago had taken a strip of bark, known as a Nadi, and inscribed my life on it.
These Nadis are scattered all over India, and it’s pure chance to run across one that applies to you. My friend had spent several years tracking down just one for himself; the priest produced a whole sheaf for me, much to my friend’s amazed delight. You have to come for the reading, he insisted.
Now the old man sitting across the table was interpreting in Hindi what the priest was chanting. Because of overlapping birth times and the vagaries of the calendar when we are speaking of centuries, Nadis can overlap, and the first few sheets didn’t apply to me. But by the third sheet or so, the young priest with the sing-song voice was reading facts that were startlingly precise: my birth date, my parents’ names, my own name and my wife’s, the number of children we have and where they live now, the day and hour of my father’s recent death, his exact name, and my mother’s.
At first there seemed to be a glitch: The Nadi gave the wrong first name for my mother, calling her Suchinta, when in fact her name is Pushpa. This mistake bothered me, so I took a break and went to a phone to ask her about it. My mother told me, with great surprise, that in fact her birth name was Suchinta, but since it rhymed with the word for “sad” in Hindi, an uncle suggested that it be changed when she was three years old. I hung up the phone, wondering what this whole experience meant, for the young priest had also read out that a relative would intervene to change my mother’s name. No one in our family had ever mentioned this incident, so the young priest wasn’t indulging in some kind of mind-reading.
For the benefit of skeptics, the young priest had passed nearly his whole life in a temple in South India and did not speak English or Hindi. Neither he nor the old man knew who I was. Anyway, in this school of Jyotish, the astrologer doesn’t take down your birth time and cast a personal chart which he then interprets. Instead, a person walks into a Nadi reader’s house, the reader takes a thumbprint, and based on that, the matching charts are located (always keeping in mind that the Nadis may be lost or scattered to the winds). The astrologer reads out only what someone else has written down perhaps a thousand years ago. Here’s another twist to the mystery: Nadis don’t have to cover everyone who will ever live, only those individuals who will one day show up at an astrologer’s door to ask for a reading!
In rapt fascination I sat through an hour of more arcane information about a past life I had spent in a South Indian temple, and how my transgressions in that lifetime led to painful problems in this one, and (after a moment’s hesitation while the reader asked if I really wanted to know) the day of my own death. The date falls reassuringly far in the future, although even more reassuring was the Nadi’s promise that my wife and children would lead long lives full of love and accomplishment.
I walked away from the old man and the young priest into the blinding hot Delhi sunshine, almost dizzy from wondering how my life would change with this new knowledge. It wasn’t the details of the reading that mattered. I have forgotten nearly all of them, and I rarely think of the incident except when my eye falls on one of the polished bark sheets, now framed and kept in a place of honor in our home. The young priest handed it to me with a shy smile before we parted. The one fact that turned out to have a deep impact was the day of my death. As soon as I heard it, I felt both a profound sense of peace and a new sobriety that has been subtly changing my priorities ever since.
Conclusion
Chopra’s astonishing story confirmed that it is possible to mystically transcend ordinary serial time perception. And it renewed for me these perennial questions about free will and fate, which began with my February 1977 synchronicity experiences in New York:
“Are there really any coincidences or accidents, or is everything that happens to us predestined by laws of causation or karma?”
“Do we really have free will as most people believe?
And if so, what free will?”
Perhaps you, too, will wonder about these questions after reading Deepak Chopra’s fascinating story.
Addendum, 2018
The foregoing synchronicity story, mentions (without including details) Swami Kriyananda’s amazing Nadi readings.
Such details, personally written by Kriyananda, (J. Donald Walters) appear below in a summary, titled: “Astounding Predictions”. Also, (citing Sri Yukteshwar, who was an expert Vedic astrologer, and Paramahamsa Yogananda’s guru) Kriyananda’s summary addresses the perennial questions about free will and fate which conclude the foregoing story.
Accordingly, the summary is herein excerpted from a chapter titled “Experiences of Infinite Consciousness by Swami Kriyananda, (J. Donald Walters)” published in “The Akashic Experience”, by distinguished Hungarian philosopher and author Ervin László.
Swami Kriyananda (J. Donald Walters ) –
May 19, 1926– April 21, 2013
ASTOUNDING PREDICTIONS, by Swami Kriyananda,
(J. Donald Walters)
Many years ago (1959) in Paliala (Punjab), India, a son of the Maharaja of Patiala, a student who was taking a course I was giving in Raja Yoga came to me one day at the home of Balkishen Khosla, where I was staying, and asked, “Swamiji, have you ever heard of Bhrigu?”
When I couldn’t place the name, he helped me by adding, “Bhrigu is mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna [speaking in the voice of God] says, “Among saints, I am Bhrigu.”” Of course then I recognized the name. Bhrigu lived in India in very ancient times.
Raja Mrigendra Singh, my visitor, went on to say, “Bhrigu wrote a sanhita [scriptural document) predicting the lives of innumerable individuals yet to be born, some of whom are actually living today.”
This seemed to me, of course, almost too fantastic. Yet I had already encountered examples of the bizarre and the unusual in that mystical land. To preface what came next, let me recount an ancient Indian tradition, which my “spiritual grandfather” (my guru’s guru), Swami Sri Yukteswar, clarified and, so to speak, “pruned” of inaccuracies that had crept in under the disintegrating influences of time. The tradition concerns four ages, explained by Swami Sri Yukteswar as being brought about by sidereal movements within the galaxy. That system is too complex for explanation here, but it is also related to the Akashic influences.
Sri Yukteswar stated that the earth recently entered Dwapara Yuga, the second of those ages, in which human beings will come increasingly to understand that energy is the basic reality of matter. In this Dwapara age also, humans will gain insights into the essentially illusory nature of space. Thus, in the centuries to come we will learn how to travel to other planets and to demolish the sense of spatial distance. This we have accomplished already to some extent, with the invention of the telephone, radio, television, internet, and air travel.
It is said that in the third of the ascending ages, Treta Yuga, humans will develop insight into the essentially illusory nature of time. We will understand that time and space are much more elastic than they have seemed; time itself will be increasingly perceived as a continuum, comparable to a river that, when observed from a bridge, is seen to consist not only of what flows directly under the bridge but also of the water flowing down to the bridge from upstream. In other words, the future already exists, being the result of flowing influences from the past, and will not change significantly with anything added to the water- perhaps cast into it from the bridge.
Hints of this reality are suggested already even today. They will become so obvious in the third yuga as to be universally accepted. Particularly gifted individuals will be able, beyond the denials of any cynic, to predict specific events far into the future.
Even today, predictions have been made, mostly regarding the lives of individuals but also regarding world events, that have turned out to be startlingly accurate. The knowledge of enlightened sages, moreover, has always shown itself in this respect to be quite extraordinary.
I was told a story, based on the personal experience of someone I knew who had visited a saint in Howrah, West Bengal. He had asked the saint how accurate and how specific a prediction could be. The saint responded by foretelling several completely unexpected events that would occur to him that very afternoon. What he said (and here, I am able only to paraphrase) went something like this: “When you leave here. you will be obliged to take a detour because a crowd will have gathered in the street in
front of a burning building. On that detour, you will see an accident on the right side of the street. but it will not impede you. and you will have a safe journey home.” The details were not exactly as I’ve related them here, but what actually occurred was comparable. I was assured that the prediction had come to be fulfilled in every respect.
Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi contains many predictions of a similar nature. I’d like to emphasize that I myself lived with the author of that book as his close disciple and am fully convinced of its, and of his, veracity.
Back, then, to my own experience with Raja Mrigendra and Bhrigu’s text, which was extraordinary. Raja Mrigendra told me that not many miles from where we were, “in the town of Barnala, there is a partial copy of that ancient document, in manuscript form. It contains predictions of the lives of individuals, including many who are living today. I found there a reading for myself. Would you,” he continued, “be interested in going there to see whether the sanhita contains something about you?”
“Are its predictions only general?” I asked. “Might it say about me, for instance , that I’ve come from a distance and appear to be interested in spiritual matters?”
“Nothing like that!” he replied confidently. “If it says anything at all, it will be much more specific.”
Well. naturally I was intrigued! We went by car the next day to Barnala, a town that in no way suggested mystical wonders, being an assemblage of completely ordinary, somewhat dirty streets and buildings, none of them even interesting. The structure that housed the miraculous document was quite as nondescript as anything in its surroundings. We were the first to arrive. and I was introduced to the custodian, a brahmin whose name (if memory serves) was Pundit Bhagat Ram. He welcomed us, showing my friend the deference due to his social position.
Passing lightly over the formalities, a horoscope was cast for the moment when I asked for a reading. The pundit went into an inner room where the stored document was piled on many shelves in bundles. He retrieved a small bundle numbered (I vaguely recall) 54. Opening the bundle, and dividing it into three piles, he kept one himself, gave one to Raja Mrigendra, and handed the third stack of pages to me, telling the two of us to look for a page showing a horoscope similar to the one he had drawn up. We each went carefully through them. I! was I who came upon a page that seemed to me similar to his design. It was the right one.
“The readings”, Raja Mrigendra had told me, “usually tell a person his last life, his present one, and his next one”· My reading began, as he’d predicted, with my previous life. It told me that in that life I had been born in India. My name was Pujar Das, I lived in Karachi (identified by the first letter in the name of that city, and also by its geographical location), was married, and was financially well off. We had no children. There followed a brief description of my life up to the time where my wife and I went on a
pilgrimage and came to a desert (probably in Rajasthan), there reaching the place where the ancient sage Kapila (founder of the Sankhya system of philosophy) had once had his ashram. There I met my guru, I resolved to stay there and seek God, sending my wife home. A fair amount of information followed, all of it both interesting and instructive, but too personal for inclusion here. None of it was verifiable. of course, though it’s true that in my present life I have felt strangely attracted to living in the desert.
“In the present life”, it continued, “he was born in a mlecha [unclean,’ an ancient word for Western] country, is well known as a seer of Ashtanga Yoga [the teaching of Palanjali), and is traveling and teaching in this country. His name is Kriyananda.” This piece of information brought me up sharply. I was astounded.
Kriyananda is a most unusual name, though two or three monks (sannyasis) have taken it since I did. Several more people had entered the room by now. and I passed the page around to them to see if they could verify whether this name was indeed written there. They all concurred that it was. The “reading” omitted mention of my next life but made a few predictions for this one that were interesting and hope inspiring, if a little vague.
The fact that it mentioned me by name, however, was itself simply amazing. What it said about this life, also, was more or less accurate, though general. Would I have liked more specificity? I’m not so sure.
Sometimes it’s more helpful to have a general sense of one’s direction than to be burdened with too many details, whether alarming or giving comfort.
What was I to think? The reading dosed by saying. “There will be no more readings today.” Everyone in the room, accordingly, left with us.
I was fascinated enough by all this to speak about it to friends. It seemed to offer evidence, above all. that there was much more to India’s ancient civilization –as I of course already knew to be the case –than cowherds, farmers, and primitive villages. Surely what it suggests, rather, is a legacy of extraordinary wisdom. This was ammunition that would help to substantiate any book or lecture on those ancient teachings.
A few weeks later I was giving lectures and classes in New Delhi, where this new interest led to another segment of the Bhrigu sanhita. Here I received another reading. It slated , “I have already given him a reading in my Yoga Valli. That one was according to astrology. This one will be according to the power of yoga .” Instead of once again telling me my last life. it went back to an earlier life.
“In the time of Kurukshetra [the historic war described in the ancient epic the Mahabharata], he was the ruler of a small state in Bharatavarsha [India]. Fearful of having to support the wrong side in that conflict, he handed over his kingdom to his son and went into the forest for a life of seclusion and meditation. There he took initiation from a guru· The reading went on to describe that man’s life, saying that after it, owing to his good deeds. he spent some 700 years in the astral world.
Fascinating! In many ways that subtle region has always seemed more real to me than this physical world, though what remain are strong impressions rather than clear and specific memories. Again. I purposely omit here details of that past life that are personal and not germane to these pages.
What ensued then was even more astounding than the reading in Barnala. “This life,” it continued, “is the eighth since thai one during the time of Kurukshetra. In the present life he was born in Romania. lived in America, [both statements were correct], and his father named him James. [James is in fact my first name, though I was always known by my second name, Donald.] He has two brothers. but no living sister is possible, though one will die in his mothers womb. [My mother admitted to me, after my return to America. that she had had one miscarriage.] After meeting his guru, Yogananda. his name will become Kriyananda. Within two months from the time he receives this reading he will return to his own country. where he will be lovingly received by his (spiritual) brothers and sisters, and will be given [appointed to] a high position.”
Interestingly. I was in fact summoned back to America within two months. On my return voyage, while visiting Japan, I received word that Dr. M. W. Lewis, the elderly vice president of my guru’s organization, had just left his body. Shortly after my arrival in California I was appointed to replace him.
Continuing Questions
Perennial questions about free will and fate mentioned in the foregoing synchronicity story, have continued for me since I began wondering about them over forty years ago. Accordingly numerous other SillySutras.com writings deal with these questions. The most recent and comprehensive essay with numerous quotations is titled “Free Will or Fate” and is posted at https://sillysutras.com/free-will-or-fate/.
Perhaps an epigrammatic answer to esoteric perennial questions about free will and fate is suggested by the title of Deepak Chopra’s Nadi reading story:
“You Are Truly Free When You Are Not A Person”.
.
Synchronicity Story: Miraculously Manifesting Memories of a Spiritual Pilgrimage to India and Nepal
“Synchronicity is choreographed by a great, pervasive intelligence that lies at the heart of nature,
and is manifest in each of us through what we call the soul.”
~ Deepak Chopra, Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire
“There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
~ Albert Einstein
Ron Meditating On Ganges With Sant Keshadavadas, 1982
Ron’s Introduction
As explained in other posts, during a traumatic 1976 divorce, I experienced a transformative mid-life spiritual awakening. Two years later, I met a hundred year old Hindu guru, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, and evolved from being a secular Hebrew, to becoming a “born-again Hindu”. Then gradually I developed ever increasing interest and curiosity about Indian spirituality and culture. After a few years, the “universe” presented me with an ideal opportunity to satisfy that curiosity.
In 1981, soon after my beloved Guruji, Dhyanyogi, had returned to India, I met Sant Keshadavadas, a devotional Indian spiritual teacher known as a singing saint. Especially in the absence of Guruji, I appreciated Sant Keshadavadas’ loving demeanor, singing, stories and teachings. So I frequently attended programs at his Oakland, California “Temple of Cosmic Religion”. Thereafter, on learning that Sant Keshadavadas would be conducting a spiritual tour of Indian holy places, I wanted to join that tour.
So after obtaining Guruji’s approval, in January and February 1982, I journeyed with Sant Keshadavadas on a wonderful spiritual pilgrimage to Japan, India and Nepal. That guided tour was, and remains for me, the most important trip of my lifetime.
Never before had I been in a land with such a palpably spiritual ambiance as I experienced everywhere in India. Our tour group crossed the length and breadth of that vast country (mostly by airplane and local buses) visiting many spiritual shrines and meeting saintly beings, like Mother Teresa and Satya Sai Baba. And I had numerous wondrous experiences. (In other chapters I have recounted some of those experiences.)
Ron with Mother Teresa, Calcutta, 1982
Sai Baba blessing Ron, Bangalore, 1982
Ten years after that trip, in 1992 I retired from law practice and returned to India to pay my respects to Guruji, who at age 114 requested that I write and publish my spiritual memoirs. Though initially bewildered by this request, I knew that such memoirs needed to describe experiences during my 1982 ‘trip of a lifetime’. But I hadn’t kept a diary during that pilgrimage trip, and had to rely mostly on memory to tell about it.
Thereafter, many years passed during which I lived in introspective semi-seclusion, without a TV, computer, newspaper, or radio news of the “real world”, meditating, praying, seeking philosophical answers to ultimate questions, and “enlightenment”. During these years I did not yet feel ready to honor Guruji’s request that I write and publish my spiritual memoirs. But I was always mindful of the importance of fulfilling his wishes.
More than twenty years after my ‘trip of a lifetime’, while thinking about Guruji’s request, I discussed it with two long-time spiritual friends. I told them that while I was delaying in writing and publishing my spiritual memoirs they were being edited by time, as my memories waned. And I expressed concern about whether I could remember sufficient details of the 1982 pilgrimage to India, suggesting that my friends might be able to help me remember stories I had previously shared with them.
Thereafter, within a couple of weeks, the universe produced an amazing double synchronicity – two “manifestation miracles” which re-kindled memories of that momentous trip.
Synchronicity story
Here is what happened:
One afternoon while walking to the Marina Green adjoining San Francisco Bay I intended picking some dandelion and fennel leaves for my salad. But as I passed across the street from the Marina Safeway supermarket, I realized that I’d forgotten to bring a plastic bag in which to carry my ‘harvest’. After momentarily considering a detour into the Safeway, I decided instead to keep my eyes peeled for stray small bags which then commonly could be seen blowing around in the public park area where I was walking.
Soon I saw at a distance on the sidewalk ahead of me a white plastic bag, and presumed that it was just what I needed. But as I approached it, I saw that it was far too large for my purposes – a Bed & Bath bag rather than a Safeway bag. So, rather than leaving it cluttering the sidewalk where it might be blown into the water, I decided to put the plastic bag into a nearby waste dumpster.
I picked up the bag, walked a few a yards to the dumpster, and opened the dumpster lid prepared to discard the bag. But I was diverted by a surprising sight. Clearly visible, at the very top of the refuse pile in the dumpster, were about a dozen commercial VHS video tapes, which I began to examine with curiosity. If I’d come sooner, the tapes probably wouldn’t yet have been discarded; if I came later they’d probably already be covered over with much more trash, and not be visible.
As I looked at the video titles, I saw that they all seemed related to spiritual subjects that interested me, like yoga. Though never before a ‘dumpster diver’, I decided that I’d like to take all those videos home and check them out.
Thereupon, I wondered momentarily how I could carry them. Then, remembering the large plastic bag that had led me to the dumpster, I laughed as I realized that the universe had not only led me to the videos, when they were clearly visible, but also had provided me a bag perfectly sized to carry them home. So I put them in that bag, which when loaded became quite heavy.
So, unable to continue walking as planned, I returned home with the heavy bag of videos but without dandelion or fennel for my salad. At home I discovered to my amazement that the universe had just produced perhaps the most extraordinary “manifestation miracles” of my life.
On examining the videos, I found one titled “Call of the Flute – Spiritual Journey To India And Nepal”*. To my delight and amazement, I discovered that it was all about my 1982 pilgrimage to India with Sant Keshavadas.
And then I remembered that a team of professional videographers, led by a devotee of Sant Keshavadas, David Karp, had accompanied our tour group. Apparently afterwards they had produced and distributed this one hour documentary video for display on some non-network and cable television outlets. I had never acquired a copy of the video, and don’t recall ever before seeing it.
Yet somehow, over twenty years later, a copy of that video had synchronistically manifested for me in a Marina garbage dumpster which I unexpectedly visited at a rare time when videos were visible at the top of the garbage pile, and when I had just found a plastic bag large enough to carry them home.
And on viewing the video at home I found that it included numerous scenes which had been filmed when I was present, thus serendipitously rekindling memories of that momentous trip, and fulfilling my recently expressed desire for such reminders.
Concluding thoughts
Who can explain such synchronicity “miracles”? Nonetheless, despite their mysterious origins, such synchronicities can fill us with feelings of awe and gratitude for our miraculous life on this precious planet, and remind us that we are part of Nature, connected and interdependent with all Life everywhere.
Einstein once observed that: “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” As I have been ever more blessed by such noteworthy and amazing “coincidences”, they ever more inspire and infuse me with heartfelt gratitude for the grace of this lucky life, and for the omnipresent but ‘anonymous’ Divine Source – The Lone Arranger – of all appearances therein.
*Videographer David Karp has generously permitted me to share with you on You Tube this documentary video, which so miraculously manifested for me just when I was trying to recall details of our 1982 pilgrimage to India and Nepal.
We’re Just Butterflies In A Caterpillar World – A Sutra Song Synchronicity Story
Butterflies are living
metaphors for metamorphosis.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“What the caterpillar calls the end,
the master calls a butterfly.”
~ Richard Bach
Ron’s Introduction about composing “We’re Just Butterflies In A Caterpillar World”
After my mid-life spiritual awakening and newfound interest in spiritual evolution, I began to regularly and reflectively walk alone by San Francisco Bay, as a kind of informal spiritual practice.
While walking by the Bay, I synchronistically began “channeling” spiritual sayings, rhymes and poems. Often, too, I’d spontaneously sing original melodies to accompany my poems and rhymes. As I walked, I regularly wrote the words that came to me. But, mostly I forgot the melodies, which I couldn’t write.
One of the few songs with melody that I remembered, I called “Come Be Butterflies in a Caterpillar World.” It was “channelled” as I reflected on beautiful butterflies as living metaphors for metamorphosis.
After composing the butterfly song I rarely sang it, and it wasn’t otherwise performed or known to others except for a few of my friends.
Synchronicity Story about first public performances of “We’re Just Butterflies In A Caterpillar World”
But beginning in late 2008 Rob Tobias, an Oregon musician/songwriter/singer and videographer, and longtime partner of my niece Janice Medvin, started filming me for a biographical documentary record of eccentric Uncle Ron’s spiritual journey from litigation to meditation and beyond.
From many hours of raw footage, Rob created a 38 minute documentary film which he titled: “Walks With Ron (A Spiritual Memoir)” Included in the film are various archival audio-visual materials and music written and arranged by Rob. Rob has posted the film on YouTube and encourages its free sharing. (See https://sillysutras.com/walks-with-ron-a-brief-film-about-ron-rattner/)
In sharing my stories on film with Rob, I sang the butterfly song. Rob liked it, worked out musical notation, and began singing the song solo and in performances with his band, The Northwest Express. And in 2012 he released a professional CD including the song. You can find his recording at RobTobias.com.
In early July 2012, Rob repeatedly sang the song at the Oregon Country Faire, to appreciative audiences. On returning home to Eugene, he was amazed to find that someone anonymously had posted a sign on a telephone pole across from his house, that said, “Be a Butterfly in a Caterpillar World.”
Here it is:
Despite repeated inquiries, Rob could not discover the sign’s mysterious origin. But after viewing its message countless times, in September 2012 Rob decided to give a Rosh Hashanah talk about metamorphosis and transformative change as co-leader of a Jewish Renewal group in Eugene. On explaining this decision to his co-leaders, Rob offered to show them the butterfly sign which had been in place earlier that day. But on returning home with his friends, Rob discovered that the sign had suddenly disappeared, just as mysteriously as it had suddenly appeared weeks before in July.
In October 2012, during a trip to New England, Rob unexpectedly and synchronistically performed the butterfly song in Burlington, Vermont at a school assembly of over 300 enthusiastic children, and at a hipster pub where four children mysteriously appeared to do a butterfly dance. [A youtube video of Rob’s performance at the school assembly is embedded below.]
Ron’s dedication of We’re Just Butterflies In A Caterpillar World
As a heartfelt participant in our collective evolutionary transformation into an enlightened new age of harmony, peace and joy, I humbly offer this butterfly song.
May it remind us of our divine human potential to discover – like caterpillars – a previously unimaginable wonderful new life reality beyond our “self-woven karmic cocoons”.
To Life! Enjoy!!
Ron’s audio singing of We’re Just Butterflies In A Caterpillar World
Lyrics – We’re Just Butterflies In A Caterpillar World
We’re just butterflies,
We’re just butterflies,
We’re just butterflies,
In a caterpillar world.
Hey we’re flyin’ high,
See us flutter by,
Way up in the sky,
In a caterpillar world.
[1st Refrain]
After many moons
In our cocoons,
Totally transformed we’ve been,
From chrysalis to crystaline.
Then, leaving cares and apprehensions
We’ve flown to joyous new dimensions.
But the world keeps creeping and crawling,
So we’re just flying and calling.
Come be butterflies,
Come be butterflies,
Come be butterflies,
O’er a caterpillar world.
Wake up and arise,
Fly up to the skies,
Come be butterflies
From a caterpillar world.
Come now claim your prize
To be very wise
Flying through the skies
O’er a caterpillar world
[2nd Refrain]
Until bye and bye,
Never knowing why,
You’ve soared ever high
To a beautiful heaven above.
[2nd Refrain]
Rob Tobias singing We’re Just Butterflies In A Caterpillar World at Integrated Arts Academy, Burlington VT:
Brains
“The brain does not create consciousness,
but consciousness created the brain,
the most complex physical form on earth, for its expression.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
You are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”
~ Dr. Seuss
“Looking for consciousness in the brain,
is like looking inside a radio for the announcer…”
~ Nassim Haramein
Brains
Brains do not create consciousness;
consciousness creates brains.
With brains we’re ‘tuned’
to transmute Infinite Potentiality
to terrestrial “normality”.
Brains transduce and decode
‘chaotic cosmic totality’ to
ordered earth–life “reality”.
Ron’s Audio Recitation of “Brains”
Ron’s Comments about “Brains” and Human Consciousness
Dear Friends,
The foregoing poem and quotations consider a crucially important spiritual question – whether human consciousness remains beyond death of human brains.
Upon advent of Newtonian physics in the 18th century, Western science adopted a materialistic paradigm with theories of ‘reality’ based only on measurable “objective” observations. But because consciousness is purely subjective and immeasurable, materialist scientists have failed to include awareness in their theories explaining space/time “reality”. Even though quantum physicists have for over a century shown that materialist paradigms are inadequate to describe or explain our “reality”, mainstream scientists have adamantly adhered to their inflexible insistence on using only measurable allegedly “objective” data to explain important phenomena.
Unable to explain immeasurable human consciousness, which is the matrix of all experience, most mainstream scientists unscientifically assert – without any valid corroborating proof whatsoever – that human brains create human consciousness.
Gradually, this unsupported and insupportable pseudo-scientific assertion has been rejected by non-materialist scientists based on ever accumulating empirical evidence of subtle reality beyond space/time and causality; evidence that non-locality is Reality; that everything/everyone’s is connected everywhere – NOW.
There now exists overwhelming scientific evidence that human consciousness and mind can exist independent of physical bodies. For example observations of children world-wide with detailed memories of other lifetimes have indicated that reincarnation or rebirth can happen after death of the brain and physical body. And especially since development of technologies which enable resuscitation of heart attack victims, millions of people have credibly reported amazingly transformative near death experiences (NDE’s) with continuing consciousness, when according to accurate scientific instrumentation they were “brain-dead”. (See video embedded below.)
After my unforgettable OOB experience of seeing my body from a ceiling, and seeing my thoughts manifest as separate kaleidoscopic thought-forms outside my body or brain, [See Beginning a New Year and a New Life With a New Mystery] I began to realize that consciousness and mind are independent of physical bodies; that our physical bodies and brains are not originators of consciousness and mind, but their receptors, tuners and transducers. Also, my visions of apparent other lifetimes and of deceased beings, like Gandhi, my father and maternal grandfather, further supported that realization, and began to convince me of eternal life after physical death, and that reincarnation or rebirth can happen after death of the brain and physical body.
These realizations have led to an increasingly happy life with diminishing fear of death and ever increasing self-identification with eternal spirit, rather than with my mortal physical form, its thoughts and its story. Moreover, realization that we share a common consciousness with all life-forms and with our precious planet has been irreversibly transformative, and key to living an increasingly empathetic compassionate and loving lifetime.
May the foregoing poem and quotes encourage our deep reflection and transformative realization that eternal Life remains beyond our brains; that brains do not create consciousness; but that consciousness creates brains – and all other forms and phenomena.
And may such reflection and realization help us to live ever happier lives.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Video interview of Dutch cardiologist and author Pim Van Lommel about ‘Consciousness and The Near Death. Experience’
Evolutionary Impetus
“Consciousness is the basis of all life
and the field of all possibilities.
Its nature is to expand and unfold its full potential.
The impulse to evolve is thus inherent in the very nature of life.”
~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
“I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as a plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was man.
Why should I fear?
When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as man,
To soar with angels blest;
But even from angelhood I must pass on …”
~ Rumi
“Man’s highest aspiration – his seeking for perfection, his longing for freedom and mastery, his search after pure truth and unmixed delight – is in flagrant contradiction with his present existence and normal experience. Such contradiction is part of Nature’s general method; it is a sign that she is working towards a greater harmony. The reconciliation is achieved by an evolutionary progress. Life evolves out of Matter, Mind out of Life, because they are already involved there: Matter is a form of veiled Life, Life a form of veiled Mind, May not Mind be a form and veil of a higher power, the Spirit, which would be supramental in its nature? Man’s highest aspiration would then only indicate the gradual unveiling of the Spirit within, the preparation of a higher life upon earth.”
~ Sri Aurobindo
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Cosmic consciousness is infinite evolutionary impetus in each of us.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Every adversity is an evolutionary opportunity
for everyone, everything, everywhere.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Evolutionary Impetus
Q. Is human spiritual evolution possible? If so, is it optional or inevitable?
A. Humankind are self conscious integral aspects of a conscious, orderly and harmonious universe.
As part of such conscious cosmic order, there is an evolutionary impetus in each of us for ever expanding universal consciousness to experience itself.
We are all “pre-programmed” to transcend ego’s “optical illusion” of seeming separation as body forms from all other forms (and so from the universe), by evolving from this separation illusion to experiential realization of cosmic Oneness of all forms and phenomena as undivided Awareness.
Our universe is an ever oscillating and vibrating energy “reality”.
So, our evolutionary pre-programming involves subtle vibratory vortices – or chakras – each potentially resonant with ever ascending vibratory levels of Awareness. As evolutionary energy – sometimes called kundalini – is awakened and activated in each being it gradually purifies and eventually opens these subtle energy centers, until ultimate transcendence is attained.
Everything that happens to us until we transcend ego’s “optical illusion” is in our best interest, because it affords an opportunity to evolve.
Although our evolutionary “pre-programming” assures that such transcendence is ultimately inevitable, our progress rate is optional, depending on what we think, do and say – individually and collectively – while misidentifying ourselves as separate.
For example, compassionate words, thoughts and deeds hasten spiritual evolution, while selfishness deters it.
But, cosmic consciousness will eventually provide life experiences leading to transcendence.
Paradoxically, life’s most painful and difficult experiences often prove the best evolutionary opportunities, and biggest blessings,
because they most challenge and motivate surrender of ego misidentification and provide greatest transcendence incentives.
So, human spiritual evolution is inevitable, but rate of evolutionary progress is optional.
Ron’s explanation and comments about “Evolutionary Impetus”
Dear Friends,
Throughout world history, philosophers and theologians have perennially asked:
‘How could an all loving, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Divinity have created this world with so much suffering, evil, violence, and misery?’
For example, influential German Christian philosopher Gottfried Leibniz optimistically postulated that God created Earth, though imperfect, as “the best of all possible worlds”. In his Theodicée, published in 1710, Leibniz described a harmonious universe in which all events are linked by cause and effect, and in which apparent evil is compensated by some greater good that may not be evident to the limited human mind.
French philosopher Voltaire sharply satirized and questioned that optimistic philosophy in his popular novella, “Candide”. Without addressing subtleties of Leibniz’ philosophy, or possible causes of evil, karma or ‘original sin’, Voltaire’s protagonist “Candide” discovers, after many emotional ups and downs, that everything does not seem to happen for the best; and he concludes that each person must learn from past mistakes, and proceed stoically with kindness and virtue, no matter the pain and difficulties confronted.
After many years of experience and reflection, I have adopted a philosophy more harmonious with Leibniz than Voltaire: that everything in space/time does happen for the best – to afford impetus for spiritual evolution; that human suffering, evil, and misery are not “created” by God but by mysterious karmic causes and conditions arising from unskillful Human behaviors; that what many call “God” is indescribable, impersonal and nonjudgmental Universal Awareness which is the mysterious Source and ever immanent Essence of space/time “reality”. I have also adopted the non-dualist philosophy that our ever impermanent energy “reality” is like a mental mirage, arising only from projected Human thought; that true Reality is universal Infinite Potentiality beyond the Human mind.
In many Silly Sutras postings I have shared these philosophies, to encourage others to decide for themselves about such perennial questions. So, my theories are not offered as expressing ultimate spiritual truths, but to inspire our intuitive and experiential introspection on ideas (often paradoxical), about who and what we are and our life’s purpose and plan, if any.
Retrospectively, I have become convinced that my life has unfolded and evolved perfectly, as if a Divine novelist was writing Ron’s life-plan script. Accordingly, my attitude toward life’s inevitable ups and downs became that everything happens ‘for the best’ – to promote our evolution; that in every adversity there is an evolutionary opportunity. (See e.g. I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life. ) So, paradoxically life’s most painful and difficult experiences often prove the best evolutionary opportunities, and biggest blessings, because they most challenge and motivate surrender of ego misidentification and provide greatest transcendence incentives.
The above posting, “Evolutionary Impetus”, considers whether human spiritual evolution is possible, and if so, whether it is inevitable or optional. And it elaborates my philosophy that whatever happens to us until we transcend ego’s “optical illusion” of separateness is in our best interest, because it affords incentive to evolve. It suggests that human spiritual evolution is inevitable, but that rate of progress is optional depending on our behaviors while misidentifying ourselves as separate entities.
May these philosophical theories inspire our continuing intuitive and experiential introspection about who and what we are, and our life’s purpose and plan, if any.
And may they help us find ever more joy and fulfillment in our unique life experiences.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Our Mentality Is Our Reality:
~ Sutra Sayings
“The greatest discovery of any generation
is that human beings can alter their lives
by altering the attitudes of their minds.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
“We do not see things as they are;
we see things as we are.”
~ Talmud
“Our mentality is our reality.
Our “reality” is what we think it to be.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.”
~ George Orwell, 1984
Introduction.
The following verses were inspired by Dr. Albert Schweitzer’s crucial assertion that:
“human beings can alter their lives by altering the attitudes of their minds”
.
They are shared to remind us that our entire space/time “reality” arises only from thought. And that, with vigilant awareness, we can vastly improve our lives by observing, stilling and emptying our minds – our constant thoughts.
Our Mentality Is Our Reality
Our mentality
is our reality.
Change your mentality,
to change your reality.
Learn to observe,
and to still your mind.
Open your mind and see its Source.
Still your mind and Be its Source.
Change your mentality
and Be –
Reality.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Our Mentality Is Our Reality”
Ron’s Explanation and Dedication of “Our Mentality Is Our Reality”
Dear Friends,
My understanding of the foregoing key philosophic concepts began experientially with an unforgettable 1976 out-of-body experience [OOB] in which I observed every thought as a kaleidoscopic form. Thereafter I gradually deduced that our mistaken mental reification of a seemingly separate space/time “reality” subjects us to inevitable karmic problems and sufferings.
Following the OOB, my investigations leading to this realization began with reading published statements of J. Krishnamurti, such as those quoted e.g. in De-condition the Mind.
Now, after over four decades of validating observations and philosophic reflections, I continue to affirm the crucial importance of our mistaken ego-mind self-identification with perceptions and thoughts; that since our problems and sufferings arise mentally, we can gradually transcend them by observing and stilling our minds.
Since thought alone creates our problems and sufferings, thought alone can help us gradually transcend them.
May these writings help us transcend our identification with thought, and thereby to live ever happier and soul fulfilling lives.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
De-condition the Mind
“Truth is a pathless land. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique.
He has to find it through the mirror of relationship,
through the understanding of the contents of his own mind,
through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection.”
“Our problem is how to be free from all conditioning. – – – –
When the mind is completely unconditioned then only can you experience or discover if there is something real or not. A cup is useful only when it is empty; and a mind that is filled with beliefs, with dogmas with assertions, with quotations is really an uncreative mind; it is merely a repetitive mind.”
“When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience.
He will discover that this division is an illusion.
Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time.
This timeless insight brings about a deep radical mutation in the mind.”
“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
“Our conditioning determines our condition.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
J. Krishnamurti ~ May 11, 1895 – February 17, 1986
De-condition the Mind
Our search for remission
From ills of the human condition
Will find its fruition
As we de-condition –
The mind.
Ron’s audio recitation of “De-condition the Mind”
Ron’s explanation of “De-condition the Mind”
Dear Friends,
The foregoing “De-condition the Mind” pithy poem was long ago inspired by renowned twentieth century philosopher J. Krishnamurti, whose independent spiritual philosophy helped me begin understanding what was happening to me soon after my spiritual awakening. To help you understand the poem, I have culled and posted the foregoing quotations, which include some of Krishnamurti’s core teachings.
Though born in India, Krishnamurti disclaimed allegiance to any nationality, caste, religion, guru or philosophy. He spent most of his life traveling and teaching worldwide.
Soon after a midlife spiritual awakening that I was pure awareness and not just my physical body and its story, I was given numerous glimpses of previously unknown clairvoyant and psychic phenomena which also persuaded me that the universe didn’t work the way I’d been taught or thought.
So I wondered about the true nature of this supposedly “real” world and the universe which we seem to inhabit. Krishnamurti had then become known to me as a contemporary sage. And to satisfy my newly aroused cosmic curiosities, I began reading Krishnamurti’s teachings.
Though initially I was puzzled by many of his enigmatic assertions about the human mind, I was determined to understand them. And gradually that seemed to happen.
In addition to Krishnamurti’s independent philosophic teachings, I began discovering similar wisdom teachings concerning Advaita Vedanta, the oldest extant school of Indian Philosophy. Advaita means non-dualism, and its teachings are about experiencing non-dual Self Realization via focused self-inquiry.
Ultimately I inferred from these philosophic teachings and from my spiritual awakening as Awareness, that everyone and everything else in space/time was like me the same pure Awareness mentally experiencing space/time through an impermanent energy form.
But, I also realized that our misperceptions and mental misconceptions of separateness have created an illusory world of suffering – an illusory mental mirage – with which we self-identify and reify. And that as long as we mistakenly perceive and believe ourselves to be separate from each other and nature, we suffer individually and societally from the universal law of cause and effect – karma.
From long lifetime experience, I have learned that as gradually we unselfishly open our hearts with compassion beyond personal desires and affections, our karmic sufferings diminish, and we reap increasing happiness.
Most postings on the SillySutras website, including “De-condition the Mind” are sincerely dedicated to helping all of us lead ever happier lives through increasing awareness of perennial spiritual wisdom.
Mystics say that ultimately, upon Self Realization of our true divine identity, our earthly sufferings end.
Today’s profound Krishnamurti quotations and De-condition the Mind poem can help remind us that since all our space/time “reality” arises from thought – that our mentality is our “reality” – we can vastly change our lives by observing and changing our thoughts, and by stilling and emptying our minds.
May these writings thereby help us live ever happier and soul fulfilling lives, as gradually we still our minds and open our hearts to remember that we are the unseen Source of the world we see.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
