Prayer
Remembering Sri Rama as Timeless Truth
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“When I identify myself with the body, O Lord,
I am Thy creature, eternally separate from Thee.
When I identify myself with the soul,
I am a spark of that Divine Fire which Thou art.
But when I identify myself with the Atman,
I and Thou art one.”
~ Sri Hanuman as devotee of Râma – source: Swami Vivekananda, in discourse on Jnana Yoga
Therefore the Jnani strives to realize the Self and nothing else.”
~ Swami Vivekananda, Jnana Yoga discourse
“Hanuman is the breath of Rama, the breath of God.
God is not far away from us but as close as our breath.
Symbolically Hanuman represents the breath, our constant companion and aid along the spiritual path.”
~ Tulsidas
God reveals Himself in the form which His devotees love most.
His love for devotees knows no bounds.
Puranas say that God assumed the form of Rama for His heroic devotee, Hanuman.
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa
“You must have heard about the tremendous power of faith.
It is said . . that Rama, who was God Himself . . . had to build a bridge to cross the sea to Ceylon.
But Hanuman, trusting in Rama’s name, cleared the sea in one jump and reached the other side.
He had no need of a bridge.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa
“Rama was not only on the lips of Hanuman.
He was enthroned in his heart.
He gave Hanuman exhaustless strength.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Every line of the Hanuman Chalisa is a Mahamantra.”
~ Neem Karoli Baba
“The Witness and the witnessed are ONE.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Like Hanumanji remembering Sri Rama,
may we ever leap beyond belief as LOVE
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Remembering Sri Rama as Timeless Truth ~ Ron’s Memoirs
Introduction
Dear Friends,
As I’ve explained in recent postings, at age ninety I’m updating memoirs as an elder seeker of Self-Realization, to emphasize my most crucial spiritual insights learned since spiritually awakening over forty years ago.
Today’s memoirs posting supplements my last posting about Remembering Timeless Truth in which I explained how I realized from my “Born-Again Hindu” devotional prayers and practices that we are now re-experiencing prehistoric life cycles (recounted in the ancient Mahābhārata and Ramayana Vedic epics} wherein non-dual Divine justice always prevails over egoic immoral iniquity.
Upon that realization, many years ago I spontaneously composed and recorded a poetic sutra-song titled “Remember!”. In Remembering Timeless Truth I recently re-recorded and emotionally sang that sutra-song. Also I told about the legendary monkey-god Hanuman, who is venerated in the famous Hanuman Chalisa (which recounts some of Hanuman’s brave and miraculous feats) as ‘the protector of saints and sages’.
Today’s memoirs chapter “Remembering Sri Rama as Timeless Truth” emphasizes Hanuman’s importance to Guruji’s Rama devotees and Rama lineage led by Sri Anandi Ma. And I’ve recorded and included another sutra-poem titled “Who Are We?” which was especially inspired by my harmonious affinity with Hanumanji as a devotee of Lord Rama.
With the above quotations and my following comments, today’s memoirs are dedicated to furthering our common remembrance that we are all Rama as timeless “LOVE”
Who or What Are We?
We are Rama,
not the drama.
We are the Glory,
not the story.
We are the Whole,
not our role.
We are the screen,
not the movie.
We are THAT,
We are THAT,
We are THAT!
We are LOVE!
Aum Ram Sovayam,
Aum Ram Sovayam,
Aum Ram Sovayam!
Ron’s audio recitation of “Who Are We?”
Who-Are-We.mp3
Ron’s Comments on Hanumanji’s Importance in Remembering Sri Rama as Timeless Truth
As revealed in the above quotations, Hanumanji’s constant unconditional Faith in God as Sita/Rama metaphorically epitomizes the boundless power of such Faith for devotees of Lord Rama to realize God as LOVE.
May Hanumanji inspire our transcendence of all fearful karmic belief in any ego-mind separation, with a leap of Faith to our true Reality as immortal LOVE.
Conclusion
Like Hanumanji remembering Sri Rama
May we ever remember and never forget
That our true identity is immortal LOVE;
That as embodied Human Souls
we’ve appeared as illusionary space/time energy forms,
to always follow our Heart
Until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE
within Mother/Father/God – as Sita/Rama –
our Eternal Source.
May we ever remember and never forget
That our separation from Sita/Rama never happened.
So we’ve nothing to fear – EVER.
And so may it FOREVER be!
Ron Rattner
Remembering Timeless Truth
~ Ron’s Memoirs
Remember God, forget the rest.
Forget who you think you are,
to know what you really are.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter.
As you see him, you will see yourself.
As you treat him, you will treat yourself.
As you think of him, you will think of yourself.
Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself
or lose sight of yourself.”
~ A Course in Miracles (ACIM)
Remembering Timeless Truth ~ Ron’s Memoirs
Introduction
Dear Friends,
As I explained in recent postings, at age ninety I’m updating memoirs as an elder seeker of Self-Realization, to emphasize my most crucial spiritual insights learned so far, beginning with a spiritual awakening over forty years ago. Until then I was completely unaware of any spiritual reality or evolutionary goal, and I self-identified only with my mortal physical body, its labels, thoughts and story.
Then, after two decades of instinctively pursuing social justice causes as a secular litigation attorney, I was blessed with a spontaneous awakening from Newtonian reality, and previously presumed mortal self-identity as a physical body-form. Soon thereafter on the luckiest day of my life I synchronistically met a 100 year old Hindu Holy Man, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas (Guruji).* who initiated me with a Rama mantra, and a spritual name meaning “one engrossed in devotion”.
Whereupon I became a self-declared “Born-Again Hindu” and for the first time in this precious human lifetime I meditated regularly, and recited devotional Sanskrit prayers to attain a spiritual goal of of Self-Realization or Moksha. Since then, I’ve been experiencing an ongoing inner evolutionary process that is opening my intuitive Heart to formerly unimagined realizations about our eternal Self-identity and Reality as Divine LOVE.
Forty four years have now passed since I received Guruji’s spiritual initiation in April, 1978. But the kundalini evolutionary process which he initiated still continues. Thanks to Guruji’s subtle guidance, it appears to be removing my ego-mind limitations, so that there is today (self-identified with this life-form) much less “Ron” and much more “Ram”. Like ‘magical’ spiritual alchemy, the Rama kundalini energy is transmuting and transforming Ron’s humanity to Divinity.
At age one hundred sixteen Guruji consciously and intentionally left his physical body in India. But from subtle planes he continues to help humanity. So since then, with frequent tears of deep devotion and gratitude, I’ve continued to experience (at subtle levels of awareness) his profoundly transformative shakti energy.
* Footnote
See Facebook page Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas for a brief biography of Guruji, and many photos.
Remembering Timeless Truth
This memoirs chapter gratefully explains how as a devotional “Born-Again Hindu” I’ve realized that during our current karmic experiment in 3D Earthly space/time and duality, we are remembering and recycling prehistoric patterns of Divine Truth which (as recounted in ancient Hindu Vedas) can be considered as allegories for human life, helping humans attain greater understanding of God, Spiritual truth, purpose and Moksha liberation.
Hindu Vedic epics about Divine Non-duality
The two most accessed ancient epics in world literature are the Vedic Mahābhārata and Ramayana. They tell stories about Divine Avatars Krishna and Rama, who are both incarnations and icons of the same highest non-duality God.
1) Mahābhārata
In the Bhagavad Gita, which is the most influential extant Vedic spiritual scripture, Lord Krishna is charioteer for warrior Prince Arjuna in the Mahābhārata battle. On realizing that there are mutual friends and family members on both sides of the battle, Prince Arjuna refuses to fight. Whereupon Lord Krishna expounds on what constitutes right action, the meaning of life and the nature of the Divine. Thereby, with timeless and profound philosophic guidance, Lord Krishna persuades Arjuna to fulfill his moral duty or dharma. This happens even though Krishna and Arjuna have long been close cousins and friends.
2) Ramayana
This epic, narrates the life of Princess Sita, of Janakpur, and Prince Rama, of Ayodhya. It recounts Rama’s fourteen-year exile urged by Rama’s stepmother Kaikeyi upon his father King Dasharatha, and his journeys in Indian forests with his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana. They soon encounter Monkey-God Hanuman who quickly becomes the faithful servant and protector of Princess Sita and Lord Rama.
Thereafter upon kidnapping of Sita by evil Ravana – King of Lanka (Ceylon) and resulting war, Monkey-God Hanuman is pivotal to Princess Sita’s rescue. He slays demons, burns down Lanka, and rescues Sita. This enables Rama’s jubilant return to Ayodhya to be crowned king.
Thus Hanuman is key to the inevitable ultimate victory of Divine justice over immoral iniquity, and reunification of innate Divine male and female aspects of ONE Mother-Father God.
Hanuman Chalisa
For many years one of my daily Hindu practices from Guruji was recitation of the Hanuman Chalisa – a poetic ode to the legendary monkey-god Hanuman by poet-saint and philosopher Tulsidas. The Chalisa venerates Hanumanji as ‘the protector of saints and sages’ and recounts some of his brave and miraculous feats. And after many years of recitations, I assimilated some of that social justice energy.
Though I ended daily recitation of the Hanuman Chalisa decades ago, like Hanuman I’ve continued to devotionally venerate Lord Rama. Frequently I spontaneously call and tearfully cry to Ram, even during nighttime sleep periods, and I’m often repeating my Ram mantra. Also I still often devotionally sing “Shri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram”
The Sanskrit word “Shri” means auspicious, and is only used as an honorific title. The words jai or jaya mean “Victory to!” In current English vernacular they exclaim “Hooray God!”
Remembering our eternal Self-identity and Reality as Divine LOVE
After retiring from legal practice at age sixty, with Guruji’s encouragement I instinctively spent many years reclusively reflecting about God.
And I soon realized from my “Born-Again Hindu” devotional prayers and practices to Lord Rama that we are experiencing the inevitable and destined victory of Divine justice over immoral iniquity as recounted in the Ramayana. That we are again remembering and recycling prehistoric Divine Truth about our only true SELF identity beyond our common space/time ego-mind illusion of being separate forms.
As embodied Human Souls we karmically appear as illusionary separate space/time energy forms, until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE within Mother/Father/God – the Eternal Source from which we’ve never separated.
So upon remembering this timeless Truth I realized that Sri Ram, Jai Ram had again been victorious and that Divine justice had again prevailed over egoic immoral iniquity.
Whereupon I spontaneously composed and recorded a poetic sutra-song titled “Remember!”.
Today, I’ve written and recorded it again in timeless devotional homage to Sri Ram’s victory and Guruji’s Rama lineage.
Remember!
Don’t forget what you knew
before you withdrew,
from dwelling in Heaven’s domain.
Recall your affinity,
with dazzling Divinity,
and in that Presence remain.
Remember with gratitude,
life is beatitude,
even its sorrows and pain;
For we’re all in God’s Grace,
every time, every place,
and Forever (S)HE will reign!
Ron’s audio singing of “Remember!”
Conclusion
May we ever remember and never forget
That our true identity is immortal LOVE;
That as embodied Human Souls
we’ve appeared as illusionary space/time energy forms,
to always follow our Heart
Until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE
within Mother/Father/God –
our Eternal Source.
May we ever remember and never forget
That our separation from Mother/Father/God never happened.
So we’ve nothing to fear – EVER.
And so may it FOREVER be!
Ron Rattner
“Harmonic Resonation” ~ “Harmonic Coalescence”
~ Sutra Sayings
“May we live in harmless harmony,
and keep in cosmic synchrony,
as we play in Nature’s symphony.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Ron’s Introduction to “Harmonic Resonation” and “Harmonic Coalescence”
Dear Friends,
“Harmonic Resonation” and “Harmonic Coalescence” are poetic sutra-sayings composed long ago about the crucial importance of living harmoniously with each other and Nature.
As hereafter published and orally recited they still express ever enduring ideas and ideals of fundamental spiritual significance.
May these sutra-sayings encourage and inspire us to help heal the world, by living as LOVE, with our harmonious thoughts, emotions and behaviors.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Harmonic Resonation ~ Sutra Sayings
Quicken and BE,
in harmony.
The higher our entrainment,
the greater our attainment.
Don’t disrupt and polarize,
but syncretize and harmonize.
Live harmlessly
in harmony.
Stay in cosmic synchrony,
as you play in Nature’s symphony.
How can there be harm in me
when I am perfect harmony?
As harmony we stay
out of harm’s way.
Let us consciously live conflict-free
as constant cosmic Harmony.
Lovingly let us ever Be
thought-free perfect Harmony.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Harmonic Resonation” – Sutra Sayings
Harmonic Coalescence
May we harmonize,
together in unity:
Unity in diversity,
not uniformity;
Unity in equality,
not hierarchy;
Unity in integrity,
not conformity.
Unity as universal
LOVE!
Ron’s audio recitation of “Harmonic Coalescence” – Sutra Sayings
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
“Harmony”
~ Quotation Collection
“Love is the energizing elixir of the Universe,
the cause and effect of all Harmony.”
~ Rumi
“When there is harmony
between the mind, heart and resolution
then nothing is impossible.”
~ Rig Veda
“Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another . . And over all these virtues put on LOVE, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
~ Colossians 3: 12-17
“Let us live in harmless harmony,
and stay in cosmic synchrony,
as we play in Nature’s symphony.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Ron’s introduction to “Harmony” ~ Quotation Collection
Dear Friends,
Over thirty years ago I began deeply reflecting about the crucial importance of living harmoniously with each other and Nature. Since then I’ve accumulated the following treasury of inspiring quotations about “Harmony”, which express ever enduring ideas and ideals of fundamental spiritual significance.
May these quotations encourage and inspire our harmonious thoughts, emotions and behaviors to help heal the world, beyond illusory perceived separation from Nature and each other.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Quotations and Sayings about “Harmony”
“Harmony is the secret principle of life.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“When there is harmony between the mind, heart and resolution
then nothing is impossible.”
~ Rig Veda
”Neither human wisdom nor divine inspiration
can confer upon man any greater blessing than
[to live a life of happiness and harmony here on earth].”
~ Plato
“Clothe yourselves with compassion,
kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Bear with each other and forgive one another . .
And over all these virtues put on LOVE,
which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
~ Colossians 3: 12-17
“Love is the energizing elixir of the Universe,
the cause and effect of all Harmony.”
~ Rumi
“(A)ll problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony.”
~ Sri Aurobindo
“The heart and mind can find peace and harmony
by contemplating the transcendental nature
of the true Self as supreme effulgent life.”
~ Patanjali
“Where the heart is full of kindness which seeks no injury to another,
either in act or thought or wish, this full love creates an atmosphere of harmony,
whose benign power touches with healing all who come within its influence.
Peace in the heart radiates peace to other hearts,
even more surely than contention breeds contention.”
~ Patanjali, Yoga Sutra
“Affirm divine calmness and peace,
and send out only thoughts of love and goodwill
if you want to live in peace and harmony.
Never get angry, for anger poisons your system.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“A harmonized mind produces harmony
in this world of seeming discord.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“Go forth in every direction –
for the happiness, the harmony, the welfare of the many.
Offer your heart, the seeds of understanding,
like a lamp overturned and re-lit, illuminating the darkness.”
~ Buddha
“The life ahead can only be glorious
if you learn to live in total harmony with the Lord.”
~ Shirdi Sai Baba
“Happiness is when what you think,
what you say,
and what you do are in harmony.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Virtue is harmony.”
~ Pythagoras
“God reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed.
Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“The sage is one with the world,
and lives in harmony with it.”
~ Lao Tzu
”One who lives in accordance with nature
does not go against the way of things,
but moves in harmony with the present moment.”
~ Lao Tzu
“He who lives in harmony with himself
lives in harmony with the universe.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
“The essence of saintliness is total acceptance of the present moment, harmony with things as they happen.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“If only the whole world could feel the power of harmony.”
~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
”The superior person is in Harmony,
but does not follow the crowd.
The lesser person follows the crowd,
but is not in Harmony.”
~ Confucius
“Love opens all doors,
no matter how tightly closed they may be,
no matter how rusty from lack of use.
Your work is to bring unity and harmony,
to open all those doors which have been closed for a long time.
Have patience and tolerance. Open your heart all the time.”
~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
“The life of this world is nothing but the harmony of opposites”
~ Rumi
“Where there is discord,
let us sow Harmony.”
~ Peace Prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi
”Without law or compulsion,
men would dwell in harmony.”
~ Lao Tzu
As soon as laws are necessary for men,
they are no longer fit for freedom.
~ Pythagoras
”Happy the man whose lot it is to know
The secrets of the earth.
He hastens not
To work his fellows hurt by unjust deeds,
But with rapt admiration contemplates
Immortal Nature’s ageless harmony,
And how and when the order came to be.”
~ Euripides
”To have a positive religion is not necessary.
To be in harmony with yourself and the universe is what counts,
and this is possible without positive and specific formulation in words.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“The unlike is joined together,
and from differences results the most beautiful harmony.”
~ Heraclitus
”Mutual respect and mutual listening
are the foundations of harmony within the family.”
~ Buddha
“Harmony can not thrive in a climate of
mistrust, cheating, bullying; mean-spirited competition.”
~ Dalai Lama
”Wherever I go meeting the public… spreading a message of human values … [and] harmony, is the most important thing.”
~ Dalai Lama
”If you want peace and harmony in the world,
you must have peace and harmony in your hearts and minds.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Happiness is not a matter of intensity
but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.”
~ Thomas Merton
”Harmony sinks deep into the recesses of the soul
and takes its strongest hold there,
bringing grace also to the body and mind as well.
Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe,
wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness,
and life to everything. It is the essence of order.”
~ Plato
”Music then is simply the result of the effects of Love on rhythm and harmony.”
~ Plato
”Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God
and the permissible delights of the soul.”
”Harmony is next to Godliness”
~ Johann Sebastian Bach
“If only the whole world could feel the power of harmony.”
~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
“Every element has a sound, an original sound from the order of God; all those sounds unite like the harmony from harps and zithers.”
~ Hildegard of Bingen
“A life in harmony with nature,
the love of truth and virtue,
will purge the eyes to understanding her text.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony,
and the deep power of joy,
we see into the life of things.”
~ William Wordsworth
“Life’s errors cry for the merciful beauty
that can modulate their isolation
into a harmony with the whole.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
“The highest education is that
which does not merely give us information
but makes our life in harmony with all existence.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
“Training the intellect does not result in intelligence.
Intelligence comes into being when one acts in perfect harmony,
both intellectually and emotionally.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures
there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people.
Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.”
~ Isaac Bashevis Singer
”I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind…”
~ Albert Einstein
”The harmony of natural law reveals an Intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”
~ Albert Einstein
“In art, and in the higher ranges of science,
there is a feeling of harmony which underlies all endeavor.
There is no true greatness in art or science
without that sense of harmony.”
~ Albert Einstein
“My feeling is religious insofar as I am imbued
with the consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind
to understand more deeply the harmony of the Universe
which we try to formulate as “laws of nature”
~ Albert Einstein
”Today wherever you go, carry the intention of peace, love, and harmony in your heart.”
“Just as light brightens darkness, discovering inner fulfillment can eliminate any disorder or discomfort. This is truly the key to creating balance and harmony in everything you do.”
~ Deepak Chopra
”There is great freedom in simplicity of living,
and after I began to feel this,
I found harmony in my life between inner and outer well-being.
There is a great deal to be said about such harmony,
not only for an individual life but also for the life of a society.
It’s because as a world we have gotten ourselves so far out of harmony,
so way off on the material side, that when we discover something like nuclear energy we are still capable of putting it into a bomb and using it to kill people!
This is because our inner well-being lags so far behind our outer well-being.”
~ Peace Pilgrim
”Everyone has the perfect gift to give the world- and if each of us is freed up to give our unique gift, the world will be in total harmony.”
~ R. Buckminster Fuller
“Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity.”
~ Plato (The Republic)
“Out of clutter find simplicity.
From discord make harmony.
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The simplification of life is one of the steps to inner peace.
A persistent simplification will create an inner and outer well-being
that places harmony in one’s life.”
~ Peace Pilgrim
“Adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life’s relationships, just as the cold of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes, which vanish with the warmth.”
~ Soren Kierkegaard
“Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend;
you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left”
~ Aldo Leopold
“Live harmlessly in Harmony.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“How can there be harm in me,
when I’m in harmless Harmony?”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Let us live in harmless harmony,
and stay in cosmic synchrony,
as we play in Nature’s symphony.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Don’t disrupt and polarize,
but syncretize and harmonize.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Kol Nidré ritual prayer
Introduction
Dear Friends,
Concurrent with Jewish high holy days I recently posted memoirs about Forgiving the Past to Live in the Present which describe and explain “Kol Nidrei” the Jewish Yom Kippur opening prayer, that repents “sins” and seeks Divine forgiveness or rescission of the past year’s obsolete vows, intentions or behaviors. That memoirs posting describes the hauntingly beautiful “Kol Nidrei” melodies which powerfully project deep sacred meaning beyond the prayer’s vocalized Aramaic words.
However, the posting fails to include audio-visual performances of Kol Nidrei.
So as a musical epilogue to Forgiving the Past to Live in the Present I have hereafter embedded two exemplary YouTube performances of the ancient Kol Nidrei ritual prayer:
1) A an historic 2003 video recording of American Cantor Netanel Hershtik singing Kol Nidre at Amsterdam’s 17th century Portuguese Synagogue, one of the world’s most architecturally important synagogues. This performance was produced and repeatedly aired by PBS stations during Jewish holidays and fund-raising drives for years thereafter. It was part of a Jewish sacred music concert in Europe, arranged by PBS.
2) A legendary orchestral performance by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim with renowned cellist Jacqueline du Pré (his deceased wife) of German composer Max Bruch’s “Adagio after Hebrew Melodies”, Op 47, for cello and orchestra. Bruch, a Christian Protestant, was “deeply moved” by the haunting beauty of the ancient “Kol Nidrei” liturgical music. And he considered the cello’s tenor tone as ideally evoking a Jewish cantor’s voice. So In 1880 he composted his still popular Op 47, with beautiful ancient Jewish melodies.
Conclusion
Spiritually, Kol Nidrei melodies have for centuries emanated and communicated instinctive human awareness of our unavoidable fallibility as physically incarnate earth-beings unable to live without error or beyond the “sin” of missing the mark for ethically perfect behaviors.
Please enjoy these haunting melodies, accordingly.
Ron Rattner
Videos
2003 video recording of American Cantor Netanel Hershtik singing Kol Nidre at Amsterdam’s 17th century Portuguese Synagogue
Max Bruch’s “Adagio after Hebrew Melodies”, Op 47, for cello and orchestra, performed by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim with renowned cellist Jacqueline du Pré (his deceased wife)
How Shall We Pray?
“When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing — nothing.”
“We should seek not so much to pray, but to become prayer.”
~ Saint Francis of Assisi
“Our prayers should be for blessings in general,
for God knows best what is good for us.”
~ Socrates
“Prayers go up and blessings come down.”
~ Yiddish Proverb
“There is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church where I kneel.
Prayer should bring us to an altar where no walls or names exist.
Is there not a region of love where the sovereignty is illumined nothing,”
~ Rabia of Basra
“Prayer is nothing else but an intense longing of the heart.
You may express yourself through the lips;
you may express yourself in the private closet or in the public;
but to be genuine, the expression must come from the deepest recesses of the heart…”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you,
it will be enough.”
~ Meister Eckhart
“Your own will is all that answers prayer, only it appears under the guise of different religious conceptions to each mind. We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, but it is only the Self, the ‘I’.”
~ Swami Vivekananda – Jnana Yoga
How Shall We Pray?
Introduction to “How Shall We Pray?”
Dear Friends,
To augment my recent tribute to Saint Francis of Assisi and the peace prayer attributed to him, I have posted the foregoing quotations and the following written and recited sutra-poem, “How Shall We Pray?”, with explanatory comments about prayer.
These writings are deeply dedicated to encouraging our frequent loving prayers, with faith that they’ll be answered; and that, thereby, as Divine instruments we may help bless our precious planet and all life thereon.
May such prayers inspire our energetically uplifted transcendence of ego-mind’s evolutionary impediments, to hasten our inevitable spiritual transformation, beyond fearful ego-mind sufferings.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
How Shall We Pray?
Q. How Shall We Pray?
A. Pray for God to do through you –
Not for you.
Pray like Saint Francis of Assisi:
“Lord, make me an instrument of thy Peace.”
Ron’s audio recitation of “How Shall We Pray?”
Ron’s Comments on “How Shall We Pray?”
Dear Friends,
On seeing sudden dire emergencies or threats most humans instinctively pray for help, even if they didn’t previously pray, or are atheists.
People who customarily pray, have differing ideas about the meaning and methods of “prayer”. Most consider prayer as asking for divine help or expressing gratitude to God. But additionally “prayer” can be broadly considered as all spontaneous, heartfelt, or worshipful longing or communion with Divinity or Nature.
And all such loving prayer may be magically powerful. Until our Self-Realization, we have infinite prayerful-potentiality to help bless this world, because
“everything we think, do or say
changes this world in some way”.
Becoming Prayer
Saint Francis of Assisi exemplified our infinite potentiality to bless this world and everyone, everything, everywhere. He was completely devoted to blessing all Life, without exception or exclusion. His extraordinarily inspiring life demonstrated that it’s possible to live life as prayer, not just with prayer.
Thus in the rule for his Order of Friars Minor, Saint Francis instructed:
“When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing — nothing.”
“We should seek not so much to pray, but to become prayer.”
Realization of such a perpetually prayerful saintly state is humanity’s deepest instinctive aspiration.
Conclusion and Dedication
Consciously or subconsciously, no matter who or where we are, all humans universally share an irresistible instinctive aspiration to transcend ego-mind’s seeming separation of us from our inseparable Source – a transcendent state beyond words or thoughts, so marvelous that its subliminal memory attracts every sentient being to BE ONE – as Infinite LOVE.
Today’s “How Shall We Pray?” writings and recitation are deeply dedicated to encouraging our frequent loving prayers, with faith that they’ll be answered; and that, thereby, as Divine instruments we may help bless our precious planet and all life thereon.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Saint Francis of Assisi: His Life and His Prayer
“All the darkness in the world can’t extinguish the light from a single candle.”
~ Francis Of Assisi (The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi)
“If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.”
~ Francis of Assisi
“While you are proclaiming peace with your lips,
be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.”
~ Francis of Assisi
“The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today”
~ Francis Of Assisi
“Vi volglio tutti in paradisio!” [ “I wish all in heaven!”]
~ Francis of Assisi
“Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.”
~ Francis of Assisi
“When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing — nothing.”
“We should seek not so much to pray, but to become prayer.”
~ Francis of Assisi
Saint Francis of Assisi ~ September 26, 1181 – October 3, 1226
Saint Francis of Assisi
[*See footnotes]
Saint Francis of Assisi is one of history’s most beloved saints. For almost eight hundred years since his canonization by the Catholic Church (in the year 1228), he has been remembered and revered not only by Christian denominations, but by countless others world-wide, who have been inspired by his life of universal love, his teachings, and his oneness with Nature.
More than three million people come every year to his tomb in Assisi.
He is patron saint of Italy and of many other places, like San Francisco, a city blessed with his name, his spirit, and a national shrine including the Porziuncola Nuova, the only papally declared holy place in the USA. Also, he is patron saint of birds, animals and ecology and is so remembered on his annual October 4th Feast Day celebration.
Francis loved peace, communed with all living creatures, and lived a life of kindness, simplicity and poverty in contrast to the wealth and apparent corruption of the Church. He was the founder of the Franciscan order of the Catholic Church, and inspired founding of the Poor Clares order for women, and a third secular order for laity sworn to peace.
After living a worldly life of youthful revelry for the first half of his short lifespan, Francis volunteered to fight in a war between Assisi and neighboring Perugia. He was captured during a bloody battle at Collestrada, and was imprisoned and chained in solitude for a year in a dark Perugian dungeon, until ransomed by his wealthy father. Beginning during this time, and thereafter, he suffered a period of protracted physical and psychological illness, remorse and reflection. After fervent prayer, deep introspection, and profuse tears, Francis ultimately decided that money and worldly pleasures meant nothing to him, and as a traumatized battle survivor he came to abhor war. Whereupon, he devoted his life to solitude, prayer, helping the poor, caring for lepers, and promoting peace. Seeing himself as God’s troubadour or fool, he lived in absolute poverty, patterning his life after the life of Jesus and dedicating himself to God.
On returning from a pilgrimage to Rome, where he begged at Church doors for the poor, Francis received a mystical message from Jesus while praying in the ruined church at San Damiano outside of Assisi. There while he was enchantedly gazing at the painted wooden crucifix – a Byzantine image of the crucified Christ still alive on the cross – the silent voice of Jesus telepathically ‘spoke’ to Francesco, instructing him: “Francesco, Francesco, go and repair my house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins.” Thereafter, he devotedly began rebuilding San Damiano and other ruined churches.
Though Saint Francis took literally that mystical message from the crucifix, its true meaning was metaphoric and profound. And by the end of his short lifespan, Saint Francis and his orders had by their example inspired a renaissance of the Catholic Church.
Francis’ exemplary lifestyle inspired and attracted followers who joined with him in his in his Divine mission and life of poverty. Clad in ragged, gray robes with rope belts, they went out barefoot in pairs to spread the Gospel. When they needed food or shelter, they asked someone for it. It was against their rules to “own” anything. Thus, they were known as the “begging brothers”.
In 1209 Francis received permission from Pope Innocent III to form a brotherhood, a religious order of the Church called the “Friars Minor,” (littlest brothers). As “friars” they worked in communities, actively preaching and helping residents, as distinguished from “monks” who then usually lived alone in isolated places. They soon acquired the name “Franciscans”, proliferated and today remain important international symbols and instruments of Francis’ legacy.
The Franciscans’ first headquarters was a simple, tiny chapel near Assisi which Francis received from the Benedictines, and personally restored, naming it “Porziuncola” [“a small portion of land”]. The Porziuncola became Francis’ most beloved and favorite place. Because of his presence and prayers there, it was and continues to be one of the world’s rare holy places. Here, Francis lived, fervently prayed, wrote his rule, created his order of friars minor and consecrated his friend Clara (Chiara), who became Santa Clara, founder of “the poor Clares”, a female religious order dedicated to Franciscan ideals of holiness and poverty. Francis so loved this little place that he chose to die there.
In 1216, while Francis was fervently praying in the Porziuncola, a light filled the chapel and he beheld above the altar a vision of Christ, the Virgin Mary and a company of angels. They asked him what he wanted for the salvation of souls. Francis replied: “Vi volglio tutti in paradisio!” [I wish all in heaven!] And Francis then asked that all those persons who shall come to this church, may obtain a full pardon and remission of all their faults, upon confessing and repenting their sins. The request was granted based on Francis’ worthiness, and the indulgence was later officially confirmed by Pope Honorius III, and became known as “The Pardon of Assisi”.
Francis was extremely democratic and humble. He referred to himself as “little brother Francis” and called all creatures “brothers” and “sisters”. He loved Nature and pantheistically considered it to be the “mirror of God on earth.” He spoke of “Sister Water” and “Brother Tree” and in one of his writings, he referred to “Brother Sun” and “Sister Moon”. There are legends about sermons he preached to trees full of “Sister Birds” in which Francis urged them to sing their prayers of thanks to God. And it is said that rabbits would come to him for protection.
In another legendary story, Francis spoke to a wolf which had been terrifying the entire village of Gubbio, scolding “Brother Wolf” for what he was doing. That wolf not only stopped his attacks but later became a village pet, and was fed willingly by the same villagers, who missed “brother wolf” after he died.
Francis was determined to live the gospels and was strongly influenced and motivated by Jesus’ teachings. “Give to others, and it shall be given to you. Forgive and you shall be forgiven” were his frequent teachings.
Also as a traumatic battle survivor and war hostage Francis cherished peace. So, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” ~ Matthew 5:9 and “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” ~ Matthew 5:44 were often recited by him.
According to a recent biography, Francis was “the first person from the West to travel to another continent with the revolutionary idea of peacemaking.” On a mission of peace, Francis journeyed to Egypt in 1219 idealistically hoping to end the 5th Crusade by converting the Egyptian leader – Sultan Malik al-Kamil – to Christianity. Though his visionary peace mission did not succeed, it proved nonetheless a miraculous portent and important symbol of potential reconciliation between Christians and Muslims and others.
At a time when most Christians demonized Muslims as enemy “infidels”, Francis regarded and treated Muslims with respect, never echoing the negative comments or conduct of his contemporary Christians. Moreover, in Egypt Francis – a devout and gentle peacemaker – was appalled by the crusaders’ sacrilegious brutality.
Francis arrived in Egypt during an ongoing violent and bloody conflict at Damietta, an important city on the Nile, besieged by the Crusaders. There, in the midst of horrible bloodshed, Francis miraculously crossed battle lines totally unarmed and vulnerable, and was able to reach the Sultan’s encampment unharmed and welcomed. Moreover, Francis was admitted to the august presence of the sultan, who was nephew of the great Saladin who had defeated the forces of the ill-fated Third Crusade.
The Sultan was a wise and pragmatic devout Sunni Muslim, influenced by Sufi mystical teachings. He was ready to make peace, and reciprocated Francis’ peaceful and respectful attitude. For at least several days Kamil hosted and dialogued with Francis as an honored guest, before having him safely escorted back to the Crusader encampment. The Sultan – who was amenable to philosophical conversation, but not to conversion – probably noted and honored Francis’ sufi-like appearance and peaceful demeanor, and his regular greeting – “may the Lord give you peace” – uncommon for Christians, but similar to the Arabic “salam aleykum” greeting.
Reciprocally, Francis was deeply impressed by the religious devotion of the Muslims, especially by their fivefold daily call to prayer – call of the muezzin.
On returning to the crusader camp Francis desperately tried to convince Cardinal Pelagio, whom the pope had authorized to lead the 5th Crusade, that he should make peace with the Sultan. But the cardinal who was certain of victory would not listen. His eventual failure, amidst terrible loss of life, brought the barbaric age of the crusades to an ignominious end.
In 1224, near the end of his earthly life, according to legend, Francis became the first saint in history to miraculously receive crucifixion stigmata. It happened after he had been taken to Mount Alverna, a wild nature place in Tuscany, to be in solitude for a forty day retreat.
Though already in a very feeble state, he fasted and prayed intensely with deepest longing for God. In the midst of his fast, while he was so praying he beheld a marvelous vision: an angel carrying an image of a man nailed to a cross. When the vision disappeared, Francis felt sharp pains in various places on his body.
In locating the source of these pains, Francis found that he had five marks or “stigmata” on his hands, feet, and sides—like the wounds inflicted with nails and spears on Jesus during His crucifixion. Those marks remained and caused Francis great pain until his death two years later.
On October 3, 1226 A.D. Francis died in a humble cell next to the beloved Porziuncola, his favorite holy place where the Franciscan movement began. He was blind from trachoma, suffering from malaria and other illnesses, emaciated and racked with pain from the stigmata and other wounds. As he lay dying, the brothers came for his blessing. They sang “Song to the Sun”, a song which Francis had composed.
Sometime before he drew his last breath, he said, “Let us sing the welcome to Sister Death.” Francis welcomed ‘Sister Death’ knowing that “it is in dying that we are reborn to eternal life”, the concluding line of a beautifully inspiring and best known peace prayer mistakenly attributed to him. (**See Footnote)
In conclusion, we offer that prayer in grateful tribute to his blessed life and legacy. May he ever inspire countless beings to become instruments of Divine peace and love, in perfect harmony with Nature and the kingdom of heaven.
“Vi vogliamo tutti in Paradiso”; “We wish ALL in Heaven”.
And so it shall be!
Prayer Of St. Francis Of Assisi **
Beloved, we are instruments of Thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let us sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
despair, hope;
darkness, light;
discord, harmony;
sadness, joy;
Divine Mother/Father, grant
that we may seek not so much
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved, as to BE LOVE.
For it is in giving, that we receive;
It is in pardoning, that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying – to ego life –
that we are reborn to Eternal Life.
Ron’s audio recitation of the Prayer of Saint Francis Of Assisi
Footnotes
* This narrative is based on Ron Rattner’s intuitive interpretation of many disparate and sometimes conflicting historical accounts of the life of Francis of Assisi. The reader is free to accept or reject any part of it.
**This inspiring peace prayer does not appear in any of Saint Francis’ known writings. According to researchers, the first appearance of this prayer was in a French language magazine, La Clochette, in 1912; it was probably then first written by a forgotten Catholic Priest, Father Bouquerel. Later, the prayer was translated into English and widely distributed on cards with a reverse side picture of Saint Francis, without any claim that he wrote the prayer. But, because of his picture and because it invokes his spirit, the prayer thereafter became commonly known as the Prayer of Saint Francis. The foregoing version of the prayer has been edited by Ron Rattner.
From Seeing to BEING:
Wholeness, Holiness, LOVE
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness,
the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside.”
“This perfection must come through the practice of holiness and love.”. . . “Every step that has been really gained in the world has been gained by love; criticizing can never do any good, it has been tried for thousand of years. Condemnation accomplishes nothing.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
However many holy words you read,
However many you speak,
What good will they do you
If you do not act on upon them?”
~ Buddha
“Many good sayings are to be found in holy books,
but merely reading them will not make one religious.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa
“The mind, unless it is pure and holy, cannot see God.”
~ Seneca the Younger
“What the world needs today
is neither a new order, a new education,
a new system, a new society
nor a new religion.
The remedy lies in a mind and a heart filled with holiness.”
~ Shirdi Sai Baba
It’s not our longitude
Or our latitude,
But the elevation of our attitude,
That brings beatitude.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Everything can be taken away from a man but one thing:
the last of the human freedom —
to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one’s own way.”
~ Viktor Frankl
From Seeing to BEING: Wholeness, Holiness, LOVE ~ Ron’s Memoirs
Dear Friends,
At almost age 90, as an elder on the path to Self-Realization, I remain deeply motivated to help inspire others spiritually. So I’m continuing to write memoirs about my evolutionary experiences.
This memoirs chapter hereafter explains how my living room sofa became a sacrosanct spiritual altar; how I prayed and meditated there for decades; and how my worship of perceived outer images there was gradually transformed energetically to become an open hearted inner experience everywhere – a grateful and soulful process of honoring the Divinity and Holiness of “all living creatures and the whole of Nature” on our precious blue planet.
How my living room sofa became an altar
On meeting my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, I was profoundly affected by his powerful cosmic life-force energy [“shakti”]. And I learned that his extraordinary inner energy was independent of his physical vitality, and physical presence. Moreover, I learned that Guruji was one of those rare yogis who could intentionally transfer “shakti” to others not only by touch, gaze, or mantra sound, but also by thought. Thus I’ve experienced Guruji’s shakti when not in his physical proximity, and even when his physical body was very weak.
In 1980 Guruji stayed at my apartment just before returning to India. His physical body and vitality were then exceptionally weak and exhausted. He was so weak that he had to be carried out of my apartment to the van bringing him to the SFO International airport. But his cosmic shakti energy was as strong as ever. After Guruji’s departure, I soon discovered that even objects touched by Guruji had become imbued with his intense cosmic energy.
While at my apartment Guruji slept at night on a large mattress brought here from his Soquel ashram. Daytimes he often sat on a living room sofa looking out at the panoramic view of San Francisco Bay. Soon after his departure I helped carry Guruji’s mattress out of my twelfth floor apartment, via elevator to a devotee’s van parked in the basement garage to be returned to the ashram.
After only a few minutes of clutching Guruji’s mattress, I became tremendously “enshakticated” – intoxicated merely by closeness to Guruji’s cosmic life-force which had amazingly permeated the mattress, rather than by ingesting some inebriating or hallucinogenic substance.
From that amazing energy experience, I realized that my living room sofa where Guruji had sat had been transformed to be a holy relic imbued with his shakti. So I made it an altar. Afterwards for over thirty years I worshiped, prayed, cried and meditated at that altar, and no one sat on it. But sensitive visitors and I felt Guruji’s holy energy still radiating from it.
Here is 2012 photo of Ron, at age seventy, at his sofa altar:
When not then meditating at my living room sofa altar, I began and ended each day worshiping at a bedroom floor altar beside a futon.
Only after being seriously disabled by taxicab rundown injuries did I start sleeping on a bed at age eighty one.
How my sofa altar’s energy was elevated and transformed
Soon after my eightieth birthday, the life-force emanations from my sofa altar were energetically evaluated by my dear spiritual friends Gayla Yates Gordon and Barry Gordon, who are both experienced and genuine masters of Feng Sui.
They tactfully persuaded me to remove the sofa altar images, because the altar’s spiritual energies had so elevated that they’d expanded throughout my living room and beyond. So now only a few inspiring images of Guruji, Jesus Christ, Sri Ramakrishna and a few others have been moved beside my computer desk across the living room.
And especially since my miraculous survival from deadly taxicab rundown injuries eight years ago my worship, prayer and meditation has been transformed to become a continuous open-hearted inner experience of honoring the Divinity and Holiness of all life everywhere.
How I’m now viewing and living this precious human lifetime
I’ve learned from Sri Ramakrishna that ego (either helpful or harmful) is unavoidable on Earth; and that with ego we have apparent free choice of our behaviors, or at least our states of mind – our mental attitudes.
And especially inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I follow my conscience and (if possible) nonviolently refuse to actively or passively obey or condone immoral or discriminatory government activities, laws or edicts.
Further, thanks to Albert Einstein, I’m aware that everything’s energy [E=mc2] in Cosmic Consciousness, with each unique energy form vibrating at a particular rate according to its degree of consciousness. So as a unique energy entity with a unique space/time perspective my views may be inappropriate to others. But I’m sharing them now for those for whom they may be harmonious.
From my optimistic perspective we are now experiencing an unprecedented “new normal” energetic ‘quantum leap’ in human consciousness, and are ascending to a prophesied “new reality” of egalitarian and democratic sharing and openness beyond prior deprivations and sufferings. In this extraordinary era the immoral low energy vibrations of division, fear, anger, greed and deception are being overcome and transcended by the elevated energies of Self-awareness, gratitude and freedom, as more and more humans are awakening and BEING the eternal Light of LOVE.
I’m aware that with apparent freedom of choice we each create and experience a unique “reality” with unique thoughts and behaviors from unique perspectives. And I adamantly refuse to reify this insane world of immoral human caused catastrophic wars, climate collapse, illnesses, injuries, and psychopathic deprivations of God-given rights and necessities.
So I choose to see this world as an unreal, immoral and poorly programmed matrix movie in which I will not participate. Instead of reifying this matrix mirage, I’m envisioning and creating a wonderful new world beyond needless suffering, where everyone everywhere is happy – and where living is Loving.
To avoid being psychologically “brainwashed” by matrix propaganda and gossip I refuse to view all addictive “news” and social media of mass deception and distraction. And I avoid reifying “news” or “op ed” articles that evoke fear, worry, anger, or frustration.
What I’ve learned from elevating altar worship
In space/time duality relative “reality’ we have freedom to live lovingly and fearlessly.
And the more we live with energetically elevated mental attitudes the more we experience peace and happiness, and help to positively co-create an energetically elevated and wonderful world.
Accordingly, all of our fearless, forgiving, and loving thoughts, behaviors, and emotions inevitably uplift this world and everyone/everything everywhere. So:
It’s not our longitude
Or our latitude,
But the elevation of our attitude,
That brings beatitude.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Everything can be taken away from a man but one thing:
the last of the human freedom —
to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one’s own way.”
~ Viktor Frankl
Dedication and Invocation
Thus, this memoirs chapter is deeply dedicated
to encouraging all others on the path to Self-Realization
to open, listen to, and follow their Heart.
Thereby may we empathetically and lovingly
live for giving, not getting;
for helping, not harming
all beings (not just humans),
and our beautiful precious planet Earth,
which birthed us all.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Prayer For At-One-Ment
“Prayers go up and blessings come down.”
~ Yiddish Proverb
“Our prayers should be for blessings in general,
for God knows best what is good for us.”
~ Socrates
“When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing — nothing.”
“We should seek not so much to pray, but to become prayer.”
~ Saint Francis of Assisi
“Your own will is all that answers prayer, only it appears under the guise of different religious conceptions to each mind.
We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, but it is only the Self, the ‘I’.”
~ Swami Vivekananda – Jnana Yoga
“Beyond atonement theology,
Let us BE at-one-ment Reality –
as Eternal LOVE.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Introduction to “Prayer For At-One-Ment”
Dear Friends,
The following a prayer-poem is dedicated to our realization of “At-One-Ment” – a goal central to all enduring spiritual and theistic religious paths. It was composed during a reclusive period of inner focus. In Ron’s sutra lexicon –
“At-One-Ment” is realization of Wholeness, Holiness, Self;
“At-One-Ment” is the purpose of Life;
“At-One-Ment” is LOVE.
This prayer-poem and the following explanatory comments are shared to inspire and encourage our attainment of “At-One-Ment”
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
“Prayer For At-One-Ment”
In the deepest part
Of each being’s heart
Perfect peace pervades.
May we plumb these depths
And share percepts:
At-oned in common calmness,
Common being,
Common “I”-ness;
At-oned in timeless
LOVE.
Ron’s explanation and audio recitation of Prayer For At-One-Ment
Ron’s explanation and dedication of Prayer For At-One-Ment
Dear Friends,
Beyond any religious or theistic terms or traditions, returning to “At-One-Ment” is a universal and perennial process of knowingly or unknowingly transcending ego’s optical illusion of imagined separation from each other and from our true nature; of our returning psychologically to a state of self-identity with Nature, or Universal Intelligence or Awareness which is our ultimate Essence and our ultimate destiny – a process of gradually living more and more as timeless presence, not just as mortal physical bodies or their stories.
It is a process which responds to Humankind’s universal – yet paradoxically impossible – aspiration to be in this space/time world beyond inevitable human fallibility, mortality and suffering; beyond “sin” or ‘missing the mark’.
Knowingly or unknowingly we are all here to remember and to honor our Self-identity and affinity with Divinity; and, thus to wipe clean the karmic slate of past behaviors or attitudes of imagined separation which impede living in and as precious presence. Whether or not we are ‘religious’, we are all experiencing a mythological perennial process of returning to a psychological state of self-identity and “at-one-ment” with Universal Awareness, our ultimate Essence and destiny – an evolutionary process of gradually living more and more in and as the timeless NOW.
Thus, as Socrates advises, we most beneficially pray for everyone everywhere, leaving satisfaction of our prayers to God. Also those of us following the devotional path find greatest fulfillment in only praying to be instruments of the Divine.
“Father, . . not My will, but Thy will, be done.”
~ Luke 22:42.
“Make me an instrument of Thy Peace”
~ Saint Francis
“Surrender everything at the feet of God.
What else can you do?
Give Him the power of attorney.
Let Him do whatever He thinks best.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
After beholding each of my thoughts as an amazing kaleidoscopic form during an out of body experience at a 1974-5 New Year’s Eve party, I came to realize that ‘thoughts are things’ and the subtle genesis of all other energy forms that comprise our space-time ‘reality’. Thus our loving thoughts and prayers, can manifest.
Especially when our prayers are heartfelt, they can be – as Mahatma Gandhi observed – “the most potent instrument of action.”
So, as Divine instruments, may we dedicate our Earth-life prayers to exemplifying Gandhi’s view that:
“Prayer is nothing else but an intense longing of the heart.
You may express yourself through the lips;
you may express yourself in the private closet or in the public;
but to be genuine, the expression must come from the deepest recesses of the heart…
~ Mohandas K. Gandhi
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Sri Ramakrishna’s Timeless Wisdom
“God alone is the Doer.
Everything happens by His will.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Ron’s Introduction to “Sri Ramakrishna’s Timeless Wisdom”
Dear Friends,
Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was an exraordinary 19th century Indian holy man who has become likened to Krishna, Buddha, and Christ, as a Divine Incarnation. He was an extremely rare and eccentric mystical genius who taught from his direct experience. Like Jesus, in order to explain abstruse spiritual philosophy to common people, Sri Ramakrishna used parables and illustrations, culled from his observation of the daily life around him.
His exceptional life exemplified the ancient universal non-dualism truths of Advaita Hindu philosophy. However, Sri Ramakrishna’s mystical experiences transcended most precepts of Hinduism, and were similar to experiences of prophets and mystics from other enduring religions.
As a tribute to him Mahatma Gandhi has written:
“His life enables us to see God face to face. .
Ramakrishna was a living embodiment of godliness.”
Sri Ramakrishna’s spiritual teachings have been preserved and disseminated globally through “The Gospel of Sri Ramakrisha”, a unique written record of the direct words of a prophet consisting of a very detailed account of the daily life and conversations of Sri Ramakrishna interspersed with his profound and subtle utterances about the nature of Ultimate Reality. Those teachings continue to bless and benefit countless people worldwide, including me.
Sri Ramakrishna’s groundbreaking religious pluralism and spiritual non-dualism teachings were first prominently disseminated by his most important disciple Swami Vivekananda, a renowned sage and eloquent orator, who came to the West beginning in 1893 as the spokesman for Hinduism at the first Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago.
Thereafter to promote Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings, in America Vivekananda established Vedanta Societies, and in India he founded the Ramakrishna Mission. There now exists a thriving Ramakrishna spiritual revitalization movement with numerous Vedanta centers in India, America and worldwide.
My Discovery of Sri Ramakrisha’s Teachings
I first learned about Sri Ramakrishna during my 1982 pilgrimage to India, while at Dakshineshwar, his long-time residence place outside Calcutta (now Kolkata). There – almost a century after Sri Ramakrishna’s transition – I experienced his shakti life-force presence with an intense feeling of déjà vu while visiting a room where he had lived; a place which felt so pleasingly familiar to me that it seemed I could happily remain there forever.
Before visiting Dakshineshwar I knew nothing about Sri Ramakrishna. Nor was I yet aware that Swami Vivekananda, Ramakrishna’s principal disciple, had often visited him at Dakshineshwar; or that, touched and blessed by Ramakrishna, Vivekananda attained highest spiritual states, became an Indian national hero and first brought Vedantic wisdom to widespread Western audiences and spiritual practitioners. (Nor had I yet learned that Vivekananda was very important to my beloved Guruji.)
On returning home I began reading with fascination about Ramakrishna’s life and his teachings. I learned that (like Saint Francis of Assisi) he was an egalitarian ascetic mystic who completely renounced worldly pleasures and lived in utter simplicity. Ultimately, of all the saints whose stories I’d reflected on, I came to feel most intuitive affinity with Sri Ramakrishna (as well as with Saint Francis of Assisi), both of whom were extraordinary ascetics with similar Divine devotional traits with which I’ve felt great rapport, especially their “gift of tears”.
Moreover, I’ve especially appreciated Sri Ramakrishna’s simple sayings, parables, and spiritual stories, which continue to bless the world.
So to honor Sri Ramakrishna on his February 18th birthday anniversary I have gathered the following collection of his teachings.
Please enjoy and reflect upon them.
Sri Ramakrishna’s Timeless Wisdom Teachings
“The supreme purpose and goal for human life… is to cultivate love.”
“He is born in vain, who having attained the human birth, so difficult to get, does not attempt to realize God in this very life.”
“Try to cultivate love of God. You are born as a human being only to attain divine love.”
“Unalloyed love of God is the essential thing. All else is unreal.”
“You should love everyone because God dwells in all beings.”
“Have love for everyone, no one is other than you.”
“One day, it was suddenly revealed to me that everything is pure spirit.”
“I have now come to a stage of realization in which I see that God is walking in every human form and manifesting Himself alike through the sage and the sinner, the virtuous and the vicious. Therefore when I meet different people I say to myself, “God in the form of the saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the form of the righteous, God in the form of the unrighteous.”
“Yes, all one’s confusion comes to an end if one only realizes that it is God who manifests Himself as the atheist and the believer, the good and the bad, the real and the unreal; that it is He who is present in waking and in sleep; and that He is beyond all these.”
“God alone is the Doer. Everything happens by His will.”
“When the divine vision is attained, all appear equal;
and there remains no distinction of good and bad, or of high and low.”
“Men are like pillow-cases. The color of one may be red, that of another blue, and that of the third black; but all contain the same cotton within. So it is with man; one is beautiful, another is ugly, a third holy, and a fourth wicked; but the Divine Being dwells in them all.”
“The sun can give heat and light to the whole world, but he cannot do so when the clouds shut out his rays.
Similarly as long as egotism veils the heart, God cannot shine upon it.”
“God is in all men, but all men are not in God; that is why we suffer.”
“It is on account of the ego that one is not able to see God.
In front of the door of God’s mansion lies the stump of ego.
One cannot enter the mansion without jumping over the stump.”
“The water of God’s grace cannot collect
on the high mound of egotism. It runs down.”
“The ego is like the root of a banyan tree, you think you have removed it all then one fine morning you see a sprout flourishing again.”
“All troubles come to an end when the ego dies.”
“As a piece of rope, when burnt, retains its form, but cannot serve to bind, so is the ego which is burnt by the fire of supreme Knowledge.”
“Imagine a limitless expanse of water: above and below, before and behind, right and left, everywhere there is water. In that water is placed a jar filled with water. There is water inside the jar and water outside, but the jar is still there. The [ego] ‘I’ is the jar.”
“Take the case of the infinite ocean. There is no limit to its water. Suppose a pot is immersed in it: there is water both inside and outside the pot. The [wise] jnani sees that both inside and outside there is nothing but [God] Paramatman. Then what is this pot? It is [ego] ‘I-consciousness’. Because of the pot the water appears to be divided into two parts; because of the pot you seem to perceive an inside and an outside. One feels that way as long as this pot of [ego] ‘I’ exists. When the ‘I’ disappears, what is remains. That cannot be described in words.”
“The waves belong to the water. Does the water belong to the waves?”
“Bondage and Liberation are of the mind alone.”
“Bondage is of the mind; freedom too is of the mind. If you say ‘I am a free soul. I am a son of God who can bind me’ free you shall be.”
“It is the mind that makes one wise or ignorant, bound or emancipated.”
“By the mind one is bound; by the mind one is freed. … He who asserts with strong conviction: “I am not bound, I am free,” becomes free.”
“A man is truly free, even here in this embodied state, if he knows that God is the true [doer] and he by himself is powerless to do anything.”
*“God alone is the Doer.
Everything happens by His will.”
“Two things are necessary for the realization of God;
faith and self-surrender.”
“God has put you in the world. What can you do about it?
Resign everything to Him. Surrender yourself at His feet.
Then there will be no more confusion.
Then you will realize that it is God who does everything.”
“Surrender everything at the feet of God.
What else can you do?
Give Him the power of attorney.
Let Him do whatever He thinks best.”
“Have faith. Depend on God. Then you
will not have to do anything yourself.
Mother Kali will do everything for you.”
“An ocean of bliss may rain down from the heavens,
but if you hold up only a thimble, that is all you receive.”
“The winds of grace are always blowing,
but you have to raise the sail.”
“Through selfless work, love of God grows in the heart.
Then through his grace one realizes him in course of time.
God can be seen. One can talk to him as I am talking to you.”
“Great men have the nature of a child.”
“So long as one does not become simple like a child, one does not get divine illumination. Forget all the worldly knowledge that thou hast acquired and become as a child, and then will thou get the divine wisdom.”
“Only two kinds of people can attain self-knowledge: those who are not encumbered at all with learning, that is to say, whose minds are not over-crowded with thoughts borrowed from others; and those who, after studying all the scriptures and sciences, have come to realize that they know nothing.”
“Different creeds are but different paths to reach the same God.”
“As many faiths so many paths”.
“The way of love is as true as the way of knowledge. All paths ultimately lead to the same Truth. But as long as God keeps the feeling of ego in us, it is easier to follow the path of love.”
“Pure knowledge and pure love are one and the same thing.
Both lead the aspirants to the same goal. The path of love is much easier.”
“If you weep before the Lord, your tears wipe out the mind’s impurities of many births, and his grace immediately descends upon you. It is good to weep before the Lord.”
“Devotional practices are necessary only so long as tears of ecstasy do not flow at hearing the name of Hari. He needs no devotional practices whose heart is moved to tears at the mere mention of the name of Hari.”
“God cannot be realized if there is the slightest trace of pride.”
“Spirituality automatically leads to humility.
When a flower develops into a fruit, the petals drop off on its own.
When one becomes spiritual, the ego vanishes gradually on its own.
A tree laden with fruits always bends low. Humility is a sign of greatness.”
“The tree laden with fruits always bends low. If you wish to be great, be lowly and meek.”
“If you meditate on your ideal, you will acquire its nature. If you think of God day and night, you will acquire the nature of God.”
“Make your meditation a continuous state of mind. A great worship is going on all the time, so nothing should be neglected or excluded from your constant meditative awareness.”
“Man suffers through lack of faith in God.”
“Once a person has faith he has achieved everything.
There is nothing greater than faith.”
“You must have heard about the tremendous power of faith. It is said . . that Rama, who was God Himself – the embodiment of Absolute Brahman – had to build a bridge to cross the sea to Ceylon. But Hanuman, trusting in Rama’s name, cleared the sea in one jump and reached the other side. He had no need of a bridge.”
“The magnetic needle always points to the north, and hence it is that sailing vessel does not lose her direction. So long as the heart of man is directed towards God, he cannot be lost in the ocean of worldliness.”
“Dwell, O mind, within yourself; Enter no other’s home. If you but seek there, you will find All you are searching for. God, the true Philosopher’s Stone, Who answers every prayer, Lies hidden deep within your heart, The richest gem of all. How many pearls and precious stones Are scattered all about The outer court that lies before The chamber of your heart!”
“A boat may stay in water, but water should not stay in boat. A spiritual aspirant may live in the world, but the world should not live within him.”
“Sugar and sand may be mixed together, but the ant rejects the sand and goes off with the sugar grain; so pious men lift the good from the bad.”
“Sunlight is one and the same wherever it falls; but only a bright surface like that of water, or of a mirror reflects it fully. So is the light Divine. It falls equally and impartially on all hearts, but the pure and pious hearts of holy men receive and reflect that light well.”
“Forgiveness is the true nature of the ascetic.”
“The compassion that you see in the kindhearted is God’s compassion. He has given it to them to protect the helpless.”
“The Man who works for others, without any selfish motive, really does good to himself.”
“Do yourself what you wish others to do.”
“Wisdom leads to unity, but ignorance to separation.
So long as God seems to be outside and far away, there is ignorance.
But when God is realized within, that is true knowledge.”
“One must be very particular about telling the truth. Through truth one can realize God.”
“Unless one always speaks the truth, one cannot find God Who is the soul of truth.”
“Different people call on [God] by different names: some as Allah, some as God, and others as Krishna, Siva, and Brahman. It is like the water in a lake. Some drink it at one place and call it ‘jal’, others at another place and call it ‘pani’, and still others at a third place and call it ‘water’. The Hindus call it ‘jal’, the Christians ‘water’, and the Moslems ‘pani’. But it is one and the same thing.”
“So long as the bee is outside the petals of the lily, and has not tasted the sweetness of its honey, it hovers around the flower emitting the buzzing sound; but when it is inside the flower, it noiselessly drinks the nectar. So long as a man quarrels and disputes about doctrines and dogmas, he has not tasted the nectar of true faith; when he has tasted it, he becomes quiet and full of peace.”
“One should not think, ‘My religion alone is the right path and other religions are false.’ God can be realized by means of all paths. It is enough to have sincere yearning for God. Infinite are the paths and infinite are the opinions.”
“It’s enough to have faith in one aspect of God. You have faith in God without form. That is very good. But never get into your head that your faith alone is true and every other is false. Know for certain that God without form is real and that God with form is also real. Then hold fast to whichever faith appeals to you.”
“Who is whose Guru? God alone is the guide and Guru of the universe.”
“Men bound hand and foot in the endless chain of [karmic] cause and effect cannot free each other.”
“Do not be small minded. Do not pray for gourds and pumpkins from God, when you should be asking for pure love and pure knowledge to dawn within every heart.”
“If you must be mad, be it not for the things of the world. Be mad with the love of God.”
“Pray to God that your attachment to such transitory things as wealth, name, and creature comforts may become less and less every day.”
“Pray to Him anyway you like, He can even hear the footfall of an ant.”
“The truth is that you cannot attain God if you have even a trace of desire. Subtle is the way of dharma. If you are trying to thread a needle, you will not succeed if the thread has even a slight fiber sticking out.”
“Common men talk bagfuls of religion but do not practice even a grain of it. The wise man speaks a little, even though his whole life is religion expressed in action.”
“We laugh at the efforts of the musk deer to find the source of the scent which comes from itself and despair at our efforts to find the peace which is our essence.”
“One cannot be spiritual as long as one has shame, hatred, or fear.”
“Those whose spiritual awareness has been awakened never make a false move. They don’t have to avoid evil. They are so replete with love that whatever they do is a good action. They are fully conscious that they are not the doer of their actions, but only servants of God.”
“It is true that God is even in the tiger, but we must not go and face the animal. So it is true that God dwells even in the most wicked, but it is not meet that we should associate with the wicked.”
“As a boy holding to a post or a pillar whirls about it with headlong speed without any fear or falling, so perform your worldly duties, fixing your hold firmly upon God, and you will be free from danger.”
“Little children play with dolls in the outer room just as they like, without any care of fear or restraint; but as soon as their mother comes in, they throw aside their dolls and run to her crying, “Mamma, mamma.” You too, are now playing in this material world, infatuated with the dolls of wealth, honor, fame, etc., If however, you once see your Divine Mother, you will not afterwards find pleasure in all these. Throwing them all aside, you will run to her.”
“When an unbaked pot is broken, the potter can use the mud to make a new one; but when a baked one is broken, he cannot do the same any longer. So when a person dies in a state of ignorance, he is born again; but when he becomes well baked in the fire of true knowledge and dies a perfect man, he is not born again.”
“The world is impermanent. One should constantly remember death.”
“Disease is the tax which the soul pays for the body, as the tenant pays house-rent for the use of the house.”
“Meditate upon the Knowledge and Bliss Eternal , and you will also have bliss. The Bliss indeed is eternal, only it is covered and obscured by ignorance. The less your attachment is towards the senses, the more will be your love towards God.”
“If you first fortify yourself with the true knowledge of the Universal Self, and then live in the midst of wealth and worldliness, surely they will in no way affect you.”
“When one has love for God, one doesn’t feel any physical attraction to wife, children, relatives and friends. One retains only compassion for them.”
“All will surely realize God. All will be liberated. It may be that some get their meal in the morning, some at noon, and some in the evening; but none will go without food. All, without any exception, will certainly know their real Self.”
“As long as I live, so long do I learn.”
Mahatma Gandhi’s Tribute to Sri Ramakrishna
“Ramakrishna was a living embodiment of godliness. His saying are not those of a mere learned man but they are pages from the Book of Life. They are revelations of his own experiences. In this age of scepticism, Ramakrishna presents an example of bright and living faith, which gives solace to thousands of men and women who would otherwise have remained without spiritual light. Ramakrishna’s life was an object-lesson in Ahimsa. His love knew no limits, geographical or otherwise. May his divine love be an inspiration to all.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
Invocation
May Sri Ramakrishna’s Universal Divine Love
inspire us to become ego-free Lovers of God;
To Self-realize that we are all equally Divine manifestations
of ONE Universal spirit – which is timeless LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner