Poetry
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
Awakening to the “Secret of Secrets”
“If you could get rid of yourself just once,
the secret of secrets would open to you.
The face of the unknown, hidden beyond the universe
would appear on the mirror of your perception.”
~ Rumi
“You will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.”
~ John 8:32
“You are “gods”;
you are all children of the Most High.”
~ Psalm 82: 6
“You cannot teach an ego to be anything but egotistic,
even though egos have the subtlest ways of pretending to be reformed.
The basic thing is therefore to dispel, by experiment and experience, the illusion of oneself as a separate ego.”
~ Alan Watts
“People can’t be talked out of illusions. If a person believes that the earth is flat, you can’t talk him out of that, he knows that it’s flat. He’ll go down to the window and see that its obvious, it looks flat. So the only way to convince him that it isn’t is to say, “Well let’s go and find the edge”
~ Alan Watts
“The individual is separate from his universal environment only in name. When this is not recognized, you have been fooled by your name. Confusing names with Nature, you come to believe that having a separate name makes you a separate being.
This is—rather literally—to be spellbound”.
~ Alan Watts
“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything,
you are essentially conscious of yourself.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
Awakening to the “Secret of Secrets”
For millennia there has been a tacit taboo or ‘conspiracy of silence’ against disclosing to all Humankind our true spiritual and immortal identity.
Except for those raised in so-called ‘primitive’ or indigenous societies, or those imbued with Eastern religious philosophy, most people have been acculturated from time immemorial into societies with “an unrecognized but mighty taboo — our tacit conspiracy to ignore who, or what, we really are.” (Alan Watts: The Book, On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Preface.)
From childhood we are taught to self-identify only with an illusory and disempowering ego image; with a separate name, gender, and story about who and what we are. We are taught that we are each born into Nature as limited beings; but, not that Nature is our nature, or that we are Beings of Light sharing limitless immortal common consciousness with all life-forms.
Nor are we ever taught the greatest “secret of secrets”: that we are not mere powerless perceivers of our “reality”, but also its co-creators – 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.
To experientially realize that greatest “secret of secrets” is to Know Thyself. And to Know Thyself, is to know the Whole – the Truth that will set us free.
For countless ages sages, seers and mystics have been trying to tell us that we are not what we think we are! That we suffer from perception-deception – with self-identity and reality not what they appear to be; that it is possible to experientially transcend the inevitable suffering of ordinary human existence through self-realization of and self-identification with an undivided eternal spiritual reality – which is the common essence of all space-time causality reality.
Mystics say that we share common Self identity – as Cosmic Consciousness or Non-Duality Reality; that we are not merely our mortal bodies – their names, genders, features, colors, religions, beliefs, emotions, habits or stories – or the ‘voices in our heads’. We are non-dual immortal spirit experiencing fleeting earth lives from infinite perspectives in transitory physical vehicles. But we’re all the same ‘under the hood’.
Yet until now that greatest secret has been mostly concealed or denied: predominantly by subconscious suppression or psychological inability of humankind to accept or entertain non-experienced facts which contradict or threaten their cherished illusionary beliefs about “reality”; sometimes by institutions and individuals seeking selfish hierarchical exploitation of our precious planet and all its life-forms and resources.
Until now ignorance of our true identity and immortality, has resulted in humanity’s hallucination of separation from Nature, from each other, and from our sole Self and spirit, with consequent destructive insanity, selfishness and suffering.
But now, facing ominous and enormous ecological, interpersonal and international crises which cannot be resolved from the same levels of consciousness which created them, we are at long last being awakened from our delusion of separateness and powerlessness. Spurred by increasing suffering and awareness of imminent catastrophe, we are finally dispelling the ignorance which has spawned these crises.
And we shall soon reach a tipping point, when a critical mass of Humankind will have awakened to the “secret of secrets”, uplifting all human consciousness and resolving harmoniously and compassionately the critical mess created by our prior unawareness of that “secret”.
Thus awakened, we shall harmoniously, cooperatively and lovingly resolve our common crises for our common good.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Ron’s commentary on the taboo against knowing who we really are.
The foregoing essay was inspired by the above Rumi “secret of secrets” quote, and by Alan Watts’:
“The Book, On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”, ©1966.
Watts was a brilliantly insightful, erudite and articulate UK philosopher, author, and teacher, with post-graduate degrees in Theology and Divinity. After five years as an ordained Episcopal priest, he ‘converted’ to Zen Buddhism and in 1951 moved to Marin County, California from the UK. Thereafter, until his death in 1973, Watts became a counterculture icon,
best-known for introducing Eastern philosophical and religious thought to Westerners.
I first learned about Watts’ teachings listening to KPFA Pacifica radio, Berkeley, which posthumously broadcast his lectures on Sunday nights, while I was driving for visits with my aged parents. Those broadcasts helped me to learn about Eastern wisdom and philosophy of spiritual evolution – of which I was previously ignorant.
Only after launching the Silly Sutras website in 2010 did I discover and read Watt’s 1966 “The Book, On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”. By then I concurred with Watts’ assertions about origins of the illusion of a separate ego self, and how that illusion is central to our ominous and enormous ecological, interpersonal and international crises.
Moreover, before 2010 I’d already learned about extreme psychological reluctance of most people to entertain or accept true facts contrary to their cherished beliefs about “reality”. And soon after President Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, I’d become quite aware of powerfully insidious Orwellian propaganda techniques used to ‘brainwash’ people about alleged truth of outrageous government lies, and to marginalize truth-telling dissidents by ridiculing them as “conspiracy theorists”, “kooks”, “foreign agents”, “communists”, or “socialists”, and blatantly censoring or dishonestly denying their ‘inconveniently’ truthful revelations.
So I concurred with Alan Watts’ contentions concerning a tacit taboo or conspiracy of silence against revealing our true identity and infinite potentiality. Thus I have composed the foregoing essay, and endorse Watts’ book “On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”, linked below as an audio book file.
Invocation
May these writings inspire our awakening to “the secret of secrets”, and thereby to irreversibly realize ourselves as uniquely interdependent expressions of ONE universal, ineffable and eternal Reality – the cosmic Self matrix of all Life everywhere.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Audio: Alan Watts: The Book, On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.
https://youtu.be/h5hLnNRxYqc
Other links:
https://binged.it/2E3SoYK
https://binged.it/2GzTYmG
Let’s Leap To Quantum Consciousness
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong.
What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.”
“There is no place in this new kind of physics both for the field and matter, for the [Quantum] field is the only reality.”
~ Albert Einstein
“With quantum theory we have to leave behind our naive picture of reality as an intricate clockwork. We are challenged by quantum theory to build new ways in which to picture reality, a physics, moreover, in which consciousness plays a central role, in which the observer is inextricably interwoven in the fabric of reality.”
~ Adam McLean
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
Ron’s Introduction to Let’s Leap To Quantum Consciousness
The following visionary poem was composed many years ago as I was imagining blessings to be enjoyed when, at long last, with elevated quantum consciousness human societies, institutions and enterprises function democratically, holistically and cooperatively for the benefit of all life everywhere.
Let’s Leap To Quantum Consciousness
Imagine how blessed our lives would be
If everyone could really See
How everything is energy.
So, let’s take a quantum leap:
From particle to wave,
From lost to saved,
From I to Thou,
From then to Now,
From doing to Being,
From having to Seeing,
From ego to Soul,
From part to Whole.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Let’s Leap To Quantum Consciousness”
Ron’s explanation and dedication of
“Let’s Leap To Quantum Consciousness”
Dear Friends,
For millennia mystics have recognized the permanent impermanence of all forms and experiences in our space/time energetic ‘reality’ – an insight now confirmed by quantum physicists.
Quantum science shows us that everything in space/time is energy (e=mc2); that all forms and phenomena are merely vibrating and radiating immaterial energies endlessly and inevitably appearing (from unknown causes and conditions) out of and disappearing into an ineffable matrix of mystery.
A century has passed since Einstein’s revolutionary relativity theory revealed to us that “reality” can’t be reduced to objects or entities in space. Yet culturally we’ve kept acting as if this is so – habitually clinging to a false Newtonian materialistic worldview that sees everyone and everything as discrete and separated by apparently immutable boundaries.
Nonetheless, we are inevitably evolving into the light of creation: from a Newtonian “reality” of polarized duality, to a quantum “reality” of holistic connectedness; from either this or that, to this and that are ONE.
Synchronistically, current unprecedented worldwide dystopian restrictions of civil and human rights, and threats of imminent ecological, biological or nuclear catastrophe jeopardizing earth-life as we’ve known it, also provide to our species (which allowed or caused these dire problems) exceptionally urgent incentives to resolve them forthwith from elevated heart levels of quantum consciousness.
Invocation.
May the above poetic vision help inspire and encourage our evolutionary transformation and realization of open-hearted human societies infused with loving quantum consciousness, blessing and benefiting all life everywhere.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
What is “Reality”?
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
“There is no place in . . [Quantum] physics both for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything, you are
essentially conscious of yourself.”
~ Ramana Maharshi
“This whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once: scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic.”
~ Carl Gustav Jung
“The world, indeed, is like a dream
and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage!”
~ Buddha
“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion,
does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.”
~ Buddha
“What appears to be a stable, tangible, visible, audible world, is an illusion.
It is dynamic and kaleidoscopic — not really “there”.
What we normally see is the explicit, or unfolded, order of things, rather like watching a movie.
But there is an underlying order that is mother and father to this second-generation reality.”
~ David Bohm, Quantum Physicist
What is “Reality”?
“Reality” isn’t REAL!
“Reality” – like beauty –
is in the eye of the beholder.
It is a mental concept arising in consciousness,
and projected by the beholding self-awareness
onto certain perceived objects.
As rays of sunlight are in essence
the same as the emitting sun source,
perceived “reality” is in essence
the same as the Awareness
from which it originates.
But, because of the “magic mirror” of mind,
“reality” is mistakenly perceived
and objectified as separate and distinct
from the perceiving subject.
So, isn’t it NOW
time to really realize
that “reality” isn’t really real;
That only Awareness is REAL?
Ron’s Reflections on What is “Reality”?
Dear Friends,
Have you ever wondered what is really “Real”? – or “unreal”?
These are crucial questions because our beliefs about “reality” determine our Earth-life experiences.
Today’s What is “Reality”? posting focusses on mystical perspectives of “Reality”. It can help explain how in our world of duality – of apparent opposites – our projected mental perspectives determine our experience of “reality”.
“Reality” and “the real world” are common concepts; frequently used but rarely deeply considered. They mean different things to different people.
According to dictionary definitions, “reality” is that which actually exists as distinguished from that which is merely apparent. So what in this world actually exists? And what in this world is merely apparent, like a non-existent mirage or a dream? – or a virtual or simulated reality?
Albert Einstein realized that cosmically everything is energy – e=mc2; so that when we experience as reality our perceived separation from other life-forms, it is is an “optical illusion of consciousness”. And Einstein said that
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”;
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,
they are modes in which we think”.
Similarly, Eastern mystics have long revealed from inner exploration that this world is not actually real, but an ‘unreal’ illusion:
“The world, indeed, is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage!”
“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.”
~ Buddha
Also for millennia, indigenous shamans and mystics everywhere have told us that there is only ONE eternal and immutable Source, of the seemingly countless impermanent forms we perceived as “reality”; that therefore this world of apparent multiplicity and separation is merely an ever impermanent dream-like mental projection of That ONE matrix.
“All things come out of the One, and the One out of all things.”
~ Heraclitus, 500 BCE
“Reality cannot be found except in One single source,
because of the interconnection of all things with one another.”
~ Gottfried Leibniz, 1670
“Though One, Brahman is the cause of the many.”
~ Rig Veda, 1500–1200 BCE
“We did not weave the web of life. We are merely strands in it.
All things are bound together. All things connect.”
~ Chief Seattle
“At the center of the Universe dwells the Great Spirit and —
this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”
~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux
“This separation between man and man, between nation and nation, between earth and moon, between moon and sun.
Out of this idea of separation – – comes all misery.
But the Vedanta says that this separation does not exist,
it is not real.
~ Swami Vivekananda
Shakespeare wisely told us that
“there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”.
[ Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2]
Similarly, cutting edge scientists increasingly confirm that what appears to us as “real” or “unreal” depends upon our thinking – the projected mental perspectives of those concepts. Also, that the supposedly ‘solid’ Earth reality of our limited perceptions is an ever impermanent energetic illusion – only a virtual, simulated, or relative ‘reality’. (https://sillysutras.com/our-mentality-is-our-reality-quotations-and-reflections/)
Conclusion.
Our spiritual evolution is greatly advanced if we realize and remember our true self-identity and “Reality” as universal Awareness or Eternal spirit, not just as mere separate and mortal physical body/minds. Such realization will dramatically transform our Earth-life experience. If we stop separately self-identifying and labeling everyone and everything, it will bestow happier and more fulfilled human lives, with ever expanding compassion for all other life-forms, and with less suffering from unhelpful worldly emotions, desires and attachments.
In the current “new normal” era, it is particularly important that we end our immensely limiting illusions of self-identity as merely mortal separate entities.
As presciently explained in 1980 by brilliant quantum physicist and Einstein protege David Bohm, our
“widespread and pervasive distinctions between people (race, nation, family, profession, etc., etc.) .. are now preventing mankind from working together for the common good, and indeed, even for survival.”
~ David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 1980
Thus transcendence of our “optical illusion” of separation has become especially crucial in the current 2020 “new normal” coronavirus era of unprecedented worldwide human deprivations, suffering and turmoil, with extremely imminent threat to survival of life as we’ve known it.
Dedication and Invocation.
Realization that our precious planet is only a virtual or simulated ‘reality’ need not in any way diminish our immense awe and thankfulness for Earth’s magnificence as part of Nature’s miraculous manifestations, well beyond our comprehension or imagination.
Nor need it detract from our unspeakable gratitude for our experiences in “space/time soul suits” as precious human body/minds – harmonious life-form manifestations of Nature, to be lovingly and skillfully nurtured from our unique perspectives.
So may we find growing happiness and fulfillment in this precious human lifetime, as we ever evolve toward Self-identity as universal Eternal spirit, not just as mere separate and mortal life-forms.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Crazy World
“‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ said Alice.
‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the cat.
‘We’re all mad here.’”
~ Lewis Carroll
“I have lived on the lip of insanity,
wanting to know reasons,
knocking on a door.
It opens.
I’ve been knocking from the inside.”
~ Rumi
Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
~ Carl Jung
“When the world goes mad,
one must accept madness as sanity;
since sanity is, in the last analysis,
nothing but the madness on which the whole world happens to agree.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. —– They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.”
~ Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited
“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority,
but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination” ….
“When we remember that we are all mad,
the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”
~ Mark Twain
“To recognize one’s own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“It’s no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
~ J Krishnamurti
In this crazy world normality’s insanity,
and silliness is sanity.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Ron’s Introduction
The following four-line whimsical poem was composed during a brief midlife period when I felt I didn’t belong here. After you consider it, I’ll hereafter try to explain it.
Crazy World
I feel like a stranger in a strange world.
This crazy world has driven me sane!
I seek refuge from this crazy world;
I seek a sane asylum.
Ron’s 2020 explanation and dedication of “Crazy World”
Dear Friends,
During childhood my life seemed like a waking dream, most of which I forgot.
Then during adulthood I became a social justice seeker in a perceived unjust and insane society. But now (at age 87), as I prepare to bid Bye-Bye to the 21st century, I’m again often experiencing this life as an illusory waking dream of an insane world. Yet I still deeply aspire to help those who are suffering in this dream world.
During the 1950’s, I was deeply influenced on reading “The Sane Society” a best-selling book by then prominent German-born psychotherapist Erich Fromm. In it Fromm analyzed the pathology of ‘normalcy’ in Western materialistic societies. He proposed that inequities and disharmonies inherent in entire industrial societies were pathological and lacking in sanity. That they thereby cause alienation, stress and mental illnesses of people comprising such societies. Fromm’s essay synchronistically confirmed my long-time views of the insanity of materialistic society, with its inevitable injustices.
Long before my spiritual awakening, I had a deep inner instinct to pursue social justice causes, with considerable sensitivity to the “insanity and iniquity of inequity in our society”. So, in becoming a lawyer and throughout my professional career, my main motivation was to help others; not to become rich or famous.
Then, following my midlife spiritual awakening, I began feeling like Moses in Egypt – like a stranger in a strange land. [Exodus 2:22] For a short time, I felt like I no longer belonged in this crazy world.
But I needed to support my young children, and gradually realized that maybe I might continue helping others better than ever before, because of my discovery of happiness and sanity beyond space/time “reality” normality. As the bible says, eternal happiness or “the Kingdom of Heaven” is beyond this world. [e.g. John 15:19]
The foregoing four-line whimsical poem was composed during the brief midlife period when I felt I didn’t belong here. I’ve shared it aspiring to help expand our experience of inner happiness.
Invocation
May the foregoing whimsical poem and serious quotations encourage and inspire each of us to seek and find refuge from this crazy world in an Eternally “sane asylum”.
Thereby may we irreversibly realize that our precious lives here, are like waking dreams – fleeting episodes in an endless play of ever joyous Universal Awareness, our ultimate shared eternal Self–identity.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Ron’s oral explanation and recitation of “Crazy World”
Know Death to Know Life;
Know Death to Know That
There is No Death
“Death is truly part of life … ‘what we called death is merely a concept’.”
“This happens at the gross level of the mind.
But neither death nor birth exist at the subtle level of consciousness that we call ‘clear light.’”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama, citing Tibetan Book of the Dead.
“Everything is changeable, everything appears and disappears; there is no blissful peace until one passes beyond the agony of life and death.”
~ Gautama Buddha
“And it is in dying [to ego life] that we are reborn to eternal life.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi, peace prayer, edited by Ron Rattner
“Normally we do not like to think about death. We would rather think about life. Why reflect on death? When you start preparing for death you soon realize that you must look into your life now… and come to face the truth of your self.
Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected.”
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
“Birth and death are virtual,
but Life is perpetual.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“As we lose our fear of leaving life,
we gain the art of living life.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Know Death to Know Life;
Know Death to Know That There is No Death.
In phenomenal polarity reality
the idea of life, implies the idea of death.
All that appears disappears.
So, to live and to know earth-life,
we must experience and know earth-death.
But to Know and to Be that Consciousness
which is eternally aware of both earth-life and earth-death,
is to know that, beyond all appearance and disappearance,
There is no death –
only THAT which Knows.
So, to truly know Life
is to Know Death.
And to truly know death
is to Know that there is no death.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Know Death to Know Life; Know Death to Know That There is No Death”.
Ron’s Commentary on Knowing Death to Know Life.
Dear Friends,
Most Silly Sutras postings are dedicated to helping raise our spiritual consciousness, and thereby to enabling us to live happier lives, both individually and societally. Paradoxically many such postings intended to help us live happier lives, address death and dying.
Enduring religious and spiritual traditions reveal that “our deepest fears hide our highest potentials”, and that “as we lose our fear of leaving life, we gain the art of living life.”
So to help us transcend our fears of death and dying, I have today posted the foregoing poem Know Death to Know Life; Know Death to Know That There is No Death, plus an excellent embedded video documentary “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”, narrated by poet Leonard Cohen, together with its narrative text, which includes this key insight:
Physical death is inevitable and natural. But most people fear death, believing it ends life.
Thus, in much of American society dying is largely a taboo subject, with euphemistic and sorrowful language used to describe death and dying. And Americans usually die in hospitals or other institutions, and not at home surrounded by loved-ones. In the current extraordinary 2020 coronavirus pandemic era, billions of people worldwide seriously suffer from fear of death or disease, and loved-ones are often prevented from being with and consoling sick and dying people.
For millennia traditional societies have recognized physical death as an inevitable part of life, and have evolved elaborate traditions and teachings about death. For example, ancient Egyptians and Tibetans have codified such teachings in ‘Books of the Dead’. My beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, ran away from home at age thirteen in search of experiential answers to the interrelated perennial questions of “Who am I?” and “What is death?”.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead documentary video embedded below can help us transcend fear of death and dying. It was produced by NHK Japanese TV, and includes statements by the Dalai Lama, and authentic footage of Tibetan death teachings and practices in Ladakh. Whether or not you watch it, I recommend you read the posted narrative which is eloquently expressed in the film by poet Leonard Cohen.
Invocation
May these teachings about death and dying
help enable us to live ever happier lives,
both individually and societally,
as we lose the fear of leaving life, and gain the art of living life.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
NHK documentary “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”, narrated by Leonard Cohen.
Documentary Narrative*.
Although everything on Earth seems stable and solid, nothing here is permanent. Like water, snow and ice, life is always shifting and changing form. All existence is one kind of state or another. This means living in an atmosphere of uncertainty – moving without a place to rest.
In this world, we pass through the spiritual state of physical existence. Here, we want to make something lasting and secure, but no one has been able to accomplish this. Our life is always in the hands of death. At death, our experience is completely out of our control. Our experience is completely naked.
What is the best path through this spiritual state? It is a question of waking up right now, looking at our own mind. Look at it when it is calm and still and when it is running wild. This is what Buddha did and what he taught. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”
Soon we all will die. All our hopes and fears will be irrelevant.
Out of luminous continuity of existence, which has no origin and which has never died, human beings project all the images of life and death, terror and joy, demons and gods. These images become our complete reality. We submit without thinking to their dance. In all the movements to this dance, we project our greatest fears on death and we make every effort to ignore it.
Illusions are as various as the moon reflecting on a rippling sea. Beings become easily caught in the net of confused pain. We must develop compassion as boundless as the sky so that all may rest in the clear light of our own awareness.
At death, we lose everything we thought was real. Unless we can let go of all the things we cherished in our life we are terrified. We cannot stop struggling to hold on to our old life. All our fear and yearning will drag us into yet another painful reality.
We are always wandering through transitional spiritual states. Difficulty in leaving behind our old life can cause us to wander in painful uncertainty.
The spiritual state of dying lasts from the beginning of the body’s physical collapse until the body and consciousness separate.
While we are living, the elements of Earth, water, fire and air together support and condition our consciousness. Death occurs when this is no longer the case. Now, without the screens and filters of daily life, at this time, mind itself can be seen directly. In the spiritual state of dying, it is important to recognize our own true nature.
At death, there is an experience of piercing luminosity, pure white light, the clear radiance that rises directly from our own basic nature. Now, there is no darkness, no separation, no direction and no shape, only brilliant light. This boundless sparkling radiance is mind, free from the shadows of birth and death – free from any boundaries of any kind.
Now all pervasive light engulfs us completely. All of space is dissolved into pure light. This radiance is the mind of God, the mind of all the awakened ones. Recognizing this is all that is necessary for liberation from birth and rebirth. If we do not recognize our divine nature, a dreamless sleep will happen.
In three days time, all emotions will be vivid and intense. Though it seems we are entering into a new reality, it is still the reality of our own mind.
Wandering back to the familiar sites and people of our old life, our own mind will arise before us in unfamiliar ways. We may not know if we are alive or dead. Even so, we may see our family crying. We must leave our former life behind if we are to progress.
If the we are unable to recognize the luminosity of mind itself, our experience now takes the shape of random imagery of our former life. We see our friends and relatives calling out to us and they cannot hear our replies. Death has cut us off from them and sorrow strikes our heart. We see our family and relatives crying. We can see our bed but we are no longer the one lying there. Instead, there is a corpse.
Soon we will experience the intense presence of our own emotional states as peaceful and raging light forms. Now, we will meet our mind in the form of projections which seem vivid and entirely real. Now we will see penetrating blue light shining all around us. This is the essence of consciousness, God (Buddha). The wisdom of God is like a mirror reflecting everything. God is the form of consciousness in its complete purity. This wisdom is inseparable from our own heart. But also we will see a diffused white light which we must avoid if we are to achieve liberation. If we follow the allure of the soft white light, we will find ourselves ensnared in the temporary pleasures of being born as a god, living in Lordly ignorance of the passage of time and subject to unexpected death.
If this path is taken, the wisdom of our very heart and mind takes the form of spiritual entities. There will be peaceful spiritual entities that emanate from our heart and wrathful ones that emerge from our brain.
They will appear one by one and then all together. The peaceful spiritual entities are complete and immovable. If we cannot bear to enter their vast benevolent space, if we cannot let go of self-centeredness and fear, these deities will become terrifying wrathful ones. If we recognize them as an expression of our own mind, they are the unsparing face of wakefulness.
The wrathful forms emerging from the brain appear before us actually and clearly as if they were real in their own right. The terror and anger we feel are our own efforts to evade from being completely awake. We wander uncertainly in the landscape of our own mind. If we recognize this as our own projections, liberation is instantaneous.
These wrathful forms are the presence of our innate wisdom, the vivid form of our own wakefulness. We must recognize them as a reflection of our own mind. Recognition and liberation are simultaneous.
All of us feel sparks of anger, flickers of passion, and twinges of jealousy during brief moments. From these seeds, we grow to become the jealous person. We say “this is what I am” and we act accordingly. But these are just our masks and we forget that we are wearing them. We run from the masks that others wear. The wrathful spiritual entities are our own mind and it is impossible to run away from them. They are the sharpness of our own clarity. They are all in our mind.
Then altogether and all at once, the peaceful and wrathful spiritual entities come before us. If we do not recognize them as our own projections, then they transform into the terrifying image of the Lord of Death. This too is our own projection. But if we don’t accept that, our fear and turmoil force us to wander on in terror to the spiritual state of rebirth. We leave the spiritual state of the nature of mind. Again we are lost and wandering, so now we seek to end our suffering by being born into a solid and familiar place.
Now in the spiritual state of rebirth, all our senses have become extremely acute. Our consciousness is like a body without substance. In this body, we can, by a mere thought, travel to anywhere. As if we have miraculous powers, we can pass through mountains and circle the universe. We can enter anywhere but nowhere can we rest.
In the pain of our endless wandering, the thought of being born now promises great relief. We can still see our family, but we no longer know we are with them. We are driven on the winds of hope and fear like a leaf that is carried in the wind.
If we are still unable to recognize our own nature, our anger, lust and confusion become ever more intense, ever more solid. They at last appear to us as entire realms where we may stop and dwell. The image of our former body becomes faint and the image of our future body becomes clear. Any birth seems better than his current pain.
Since everyone is caught in these spiritual states of suffering, what can we do? People make hell realms out of their own anger. They make worlds out of passion. We project our emotional states and believe it is the real world. But no matter what, everyone longs for compassion. Everyone wishes to be awake. The best thing is to develop genuine compassion for all living things and for ourselves too. If we do not truly care for others we cannot know our own mind. We can have lofty insights and pure impulses, but then return to our old habits without even noticing it. We must work all the time to open our hearts and look for the truth. Otherwise there is neither understanding nor a purpose for understanding. Also, as life goes by, it is a good idea to keep your sense of humor.
We are now coming to the end of our journey. As we reach the end of the spiritual state of rebirth, the features of the world we are to enter will become very clear to us. If we pay attention now, we will find our way to a favorable rebirth.
We are now on the path to rebirth. We must choose carefully where we are to be born. In all the possibilities that are present before us, we must choose our new life. If we choose a good human birth in a good place, we can continue on the path of recognizing our own mind. Even though we are desperate for a home, a dark cave in a forest can lead to a birth in the animal realm. If we are consumed by yearning, the realm of hungry ghosts can become a never-ending realm of hunger and thirst for us. Rage, bitterness, and anger open all the images of hell. It is best to avoid the extremes of pleasure or pain when selecting a new birth. It is best to be born where we can still recognize the luminous essence of our own mind.
We will not remember much of our journey when we are born again. It will be like starting out new. Though death is always something to be mourned, being born is not something to be celebrated. There is an old saying: “When we are born, we cry, but the whole world is overjoyed. When we die, the world cries and we can become overjoyed when we find the great liberation.”
*Source: Kevin Williams, http://www.near-death.com/religion/buddhism/commentary.html
Certainty and Uncertainty
“The whole problem with the world is that
fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves,
and wiser people so full of doubts.”
~ Bertrand Russell
“When questioning begins, certainty ends.
When certainty ends, wisdom begins.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“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
“We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.”
~ Albert Einstein
“There is no certainty, there is only adventure.”
~ Roberto Assagioli
“The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning.
Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.”
~ Erich Fromm
Certainty and Uncertainty
Q. Is anything certain in life?
A. In space/time “reality”, the only certainty is impermanence or change.
Thus in this world, uncertainty is the only certainty.
But, in Absolute Reality beyond relativity there is only Mystery – the Mystery of Life.
So, ultimately, the only certainty in life, is the Mystery of Life itself.
For further consideration of uncertainty and Mystery here are a few apt sutra sayings:
Sutra sayings about certainty and uncertainty
Uncertainty is the mother of Mystery
– Mystery of Divinity.
In relative reality nothing’s certain but uncertainty.
Certainty certainly masks Mystery.
As we open to Mystery,
we transcend shackles of certainty,
ever enhancing possibilities
of realizing our potentialities.
The fewer our certainties, the greater our possibilities.
With complete uncertainty, we have infinite potentiality.
Everything is possible when nothing is inevitable.
So, absolutely, we seek absolution from absolutism.
Ron’s recitation of Certainty and Uncertainty sayings
Ron’s Comments About Certainty and Uncertainty :
Dear Friends,
Have you ever been absolutely certain about something or someone,
and later learned that your certainty was mistaken?
If so, especially in these turbulent times of worldwide pandemic panic, controversy and divisiveness, please consider the foregoing writings about certainty and uncertainty.
Throughout recorded history, in order to evolve, human societies have been compelled to abandon previously cherished inflexible beliefs about religion, science, philosophy etc. which motivated evil and harmful behaviors, limited learning, and impeded progress.
How could we have advanced believing that the earth was flat, or that it was the center of our solar system?
Thanks to ‘uncertainty’ theory, we’ve learned from quantum physicists that what we’ve believed to be physical ‘reality’ isn’t really real; that ultimate “Reality” is indescribable consciousness emanating from an ever mysterious matrix.
“Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.”
~ Niels Bohr, quantum physicist
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
~ Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
Although some fallible world “leaders” may seem insanely overconfident and “certain” of themselves, Earth’s suffering citizens can best address critical crises by carefully questioning and nonviolently resisting all “official” certainties which can cause harm or deter needed advancement.
For example, multi-billionaire Bill Gates, a software technocrat and eugenicist, with absolutely no medical or biological academic or clinical training, is currently asserting with certainty (as a self-proclaimed health authority) that all humans worldwide must be vaccinated against current coronavirus pandemic pathogens, though no such vaccine exists, and it would take years to properly develop and scientifically test such a vaccine. But numerous expert research virologists, epidemiologists, biologists, health academics and clinicians have challenged Gates’ assertions. And independent researchers have adduced factual evidence controverting Gates, including reports by his former family physician that Gates refused to have his own children vaccinated. (See e.g. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/)
Similarly, many world governments and autocratic bureaucrats, especially in the USA, are rushing to install admittedly untested so-called 5G wireless networks, drones, and satellites as ‘certainly’ needed for progress, despite overwhelming independent scientific studies implicating these technologies as dangerously harmful to health of all humans and other bio-forms on this planet. (See e.g. We Have No Reason to Believe 5G Is Safe.)
Thus, to preserve all life on our precious planet and to evolve beyond imminently threatened cataclysms we must open-mindedly and nonviolently, but unrelentingly, resist all deluded autocrats and bureaucrats who could insanely and ignorantly end earth-life as we have known it.
Invocation
With quiet minds and open hearts may we ever remember that Nature is our nature, and compassionately honor the spiritual essence and equality of everyone everywhere.
May we thereby nonviolently resist and transcend all mistaken ‘certainties’ that create harm and greed.
And thus may we democratically overcome all insanely unsustainable and greedy exploitation of our precious planet, and unjust discrimination against vulnerable sentient beings, and the iniquity of inequity in our societies.
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
Paradise Paradoxities
“He who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy.”
“… joy and sorrow are inseparable. . .
together they come and when one sits alone with you . . .
remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.”
~ Carl Jung
“None can reach Heaven who has not passed through hell”
~ Sri Aurobindo -“Savitri,” Book II, Canto VIII.
“Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny.
They learn what to do and what to avoid.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise.
~ William Blake
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls;
the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
~ Khalil Gibran
Paradise Paradoxities
We can not reach heaven
without passing through hell.
In duality domain
ev’ry pleasure’s
wrapped in pain.
Within each joy
is an oy/oy/oy.
So, when you’re feeling forlorn,
remember this:
Misery is the mother of Bliss.
Ron’s comment and recitation of “Paradise Paradoxities”.
Ron’s explanation and dedication of “Paradise Paradoxities”
Dear Friends,
The foregoing whimsical verses about paradox, pain and sorrow were composed after I began realizing that the most psychologically challenging experiences of my life had resulted in its greatest blessings.
I was an ‘up-tight’ secular litigation lawyer, until a heartbreaking midlife divorce sparked a previously unimaginable spiritual awakening, which proved a supreme blessing leading to meeting my beloved Guruji on the luckiest day of my life – and thereafter to previously unimagined happiness and fulfillment.
In retrospectively remembering the most difficult experiences of this lifetime I have adopted a philosophy that Cosmic harmony assures that (knowingly or unknowingly) everything happens in our best interests, because it affords us incentive and opportunity to evolve spiritually – which is our life’s purpose.
I have realized that though we may not be free to choose sometimes difficult or painful outer circumstances in our life, we are always free to choose our psychological attitude about those circumstances.
Thus every painful earth-life experience which arouses an elevated attitude can prove to be a disguised blessing, furthering our spiritual evolution toward ultimate transcendence of psychological suffering. And, the greater our suffering, the greater its potential blessing.
We’ve become students on the ‘Earth branch of the great Cosmic university’ to learn to open our hearts with kindness and compassion, and in universal communion with divine LOVE.
“[W]hen our hearts are authentically open to universal
communion, this sense of fraternity excludes nothing and no one.”
~ Pope Francis (from Laudato Si climate encyclical message)
So paradoxically, life’s most painful and difficult experiences can often prove the biggest blessings, because they bestow greatest evolutionary incentives and opportunities. For most of us suffering is an indispensable incentive to spiritual evolution – “no pain, no gain”.
“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.”
~ Carl Jung
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls;
the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
~ Khalil Gibran
“None can reach Heaven who has not passed through hell”
~ Sri Aurobindo -“Savitri,” Book II, Canto VIII.
And our spiritual evolution requires non-resistant acceptance or ‘surrender’ to earth-life’s inevitable ups and down. Instead of resisting life’s ever changing currents, we must learn to “go with the flow”. Everyone wants happiness. But we must learn to avoid attachment to pleasures which will inevitably bring pain.
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
~Lao Tzu
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise.
~ William Blake
The foregoing quotations and whimsical “Paradise Paradoxities” lines can remind us of the foregoing principles.
May they spur our spiritual ascensions to higher dimensions – to universal communion with divine LOVE!
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
True Vision
“If the doors of perception were cleansed
everything would appear to man as it is,
infinite.”
~ William Blake
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.
What is essential, is invisible to the eye.”
~ Antoine de Saint Exupery
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
~ Michelangelo
“Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.”
~ Jonathan Swift
“Nothing’s impossible for the Invisible.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Perception is a mirror, not a fact.
And what I look on is my state of mind,
reflected outward.”
~ A Course In Miracles
“For light I go directly to the Source of light, not to any of the reflections.”
~ Peace Pilgrim
“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.
Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”
~ Carl Jung
True Vision
True vision is insight,
Not eyesight.
Eyesight is mind–sight.
Insight is soul-sight.
Eyesight is from mental movement.
Insight is from mental stillness.
Eyesight is then;
Insight is NOW.
Eyesight sees separation;
Insight reveals unity of Reality.
Enlightened vision is –
Eyesight with Insight.
Ron’s audio recitation of True Vision
Ron’s 2020 “True Vision” Epilogue –
Explanation, Dedication and Invocation
Dear Friends,
Ron’s Vision History.
Soon after my 1932 birth, I learned that “20/20” referred to visual acuity; that if you could discern certain eye chart symbols at a distance of twenty feet your visual acuity was deemed “normal”. Never then, nor until very recently, did I ever imagine living until now as an 87 year old octogenarian, when “20/20” also means the first year of the third decade of the 21st century, during an extraordinarily turbulent era of human history.
At age three, an ophthalmologist, testing a misaligned eye, diagnosed me with astigmatism and farsightedness and prescribed thick eyeglasses – which I’ve always needed, but never liked. Gradually, I grudgingly accepted ever stronger lens prescriptions for correction to “20/20” acuity.
But forty five years ago, on New Year’s Eve, 1974-5, at a San Francisco ‘pot luck’ New Year’s Eve party, I had an unprecedented and unforgettable out of body experience (OOB). While lying face down on a bed in a small dark room, “I” floated out of my body and up to the ceiling. And from the ceiling, with my glasses on a bedside table, I beheld my body lying face down on the pillow. For the first time in my life I experienced 20/20 vision without eyeglasses, and without even using my eyes – or maybe my brain. [See https://sillysutras.com/vision-quest-from-eyesight-to-insight-rons-memoirs/ ]
The New Year’s OOB experience soon led to a pivotal rebirth experience at age forty three, which, opened an emotional/intuitive flood-gate closed since childhood – unleashing for the first time in my adult life numerous synchronistic inner and outer experiences which radically changed my beliefs about “reality”, “self-identity” and “vision”. [See https://sillysutras.com/vision-quest-from-eyesight-to-insight-rons-memoirs/ ]
Thereafter, during a ten year post-retirement reclusive period, I continued to philosophically reflect, pray and sometimes write about my newly awakened world-views.
Today’s post and “20/20”epilogue.
Today I’ve published the above brief poem (composed then) titled: “True Vision”, and the foregoing deeply insightful quotations which encapsulate my transformative discovery of “Vision” as “insight, not eyesight”; insight revealing fundamental unity of “Reality” beyond illusory human perception of our supposed separation.
My recent “Happy New Year” message proposed that we join as a global family to envision, imagine and see our precious planet as we wish and intend it to be, rather than accept this extraordinarily turbulent era of human history merely as supposedly separate powerless perceivers of our “reality”.
Consistent with that recommendation, I’m today supplementing the True Vision poem and quotes with this “20/20” epilogue, explaining and dedicating the poem’s insights for resolving our common crises for our common good.
Invocation.
In the Bible (1 Corinthians 13:11-12), Paul observes that “now we see through a glass darkly”, but that some day we shall fully know, as we are fully Known now by the Divine. Now, we view our “reality” through the ‘mirror of the mind’, which imperfectly refracts and reflects the unseen light of Eternal Awareness onto the screen of our human consciousness.
But, we can and shall evolve and transform our mental mirror from opacity to translucency to transparency. And thereby, with ever expanding human consciousness and ever deepening insight, we shall ‘see’ more and more – we shall see what we couldn’t see before.
Thus, with ultimate insight, may we collectively realize that “Reality” is much more ‘than meets the eye’; that beyond this phenomenal world of ever passing supposedly separated appearances is one changeless Reality – One unseen Source and Essence of all appearances, all phenomena, and all ideas: Infinite Potentiality – our Eternal SELF.
And so it shall be!
Ron Rattner
