I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life
~ Ron’s Memoirs

“Faith is different from proof;
the latter is human, the former is a gift from God.”
~ Blaise Pascal
“The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. …To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”

~ Albert Einstein – The Merging of Spirit and Science




I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life

My life has become faith-based.

I follow my faith,
but I’m not affiliated
with any organized religion or other belief system.

After many years of questioning,
I’ve found faith beyond belief,
beyond dogmas or theology.

I’ve found faith in everything everywhere,
and in the impenetrable Mystery
beyond every form or phenomenon.

I’ve found faith in my Self and in Nature.

I’ve found the faith to follow my Heart.

Mine is not a blind faith based on fear or doubt,
or on inculcated or adopted ideas of others.

It is an abiding inner knowledge,
flowing from a long life
of reflective personal and trans-personal
experience and observation;

An insight arising from – but transcending – reason,
consistent and harmonious with
the highest welfare and unity of all Life.

My life experience has shown that our universe
is a magnificent, marvelous, miraculous and awe-inspiring “reality”;

That immanent in each life-form and in all manifestation
is an ineffable eternal Awareness:

An Intelligence or Divinity
which is the mysterious matrix,
Essence and Source of our reality.

My life experience has thus
indelibly instilled in me
an abiding faith in that Source*

As a purposeful evolutionary impetus in each of us;

A faith that from that Source
we get what we need when we need it,

Assuring that ultimately everything happens for the best,
to promote our evolution;

A faith that we are inevitably evolving toward
harmonious universal expression of greatest good –

As Peace, Truth, Joy, Love, and Compassion.

With such Faith, I am empowered to follow my Heart,
without worry, fear or doubt;

To accept inevitable and inescapable
life difficulties and uncertainties,
and yet to live openly, spontaneously and authentically.

So, without any religious affiliation,
I’ve become a faithful follower:

I follow my Faith;
I follow the Way;
I follow my Heart.

And this above all,

It is my Faith that enables me to be true to my Self.


Footnote.

*Innumerable names – God, Love, Nature, etc. – may be used to signify that Source or any of its infinite aspects. Or as in the Jewish tradition it may be acknowledged that no name can denominate “That” which is beyond conception or expression – since naming limits the illimitable and ineffable Infinite Reality.



Ron’s audio recitation of “I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life”

Listen to



Ron’s 2019 memoir epilogue to “I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life”

Dear Friends,

The foregoing poem explains insights arising from previously unimagined paradigms of “reality” and “self-identity”, experienced following a profound 1976 midlife awakening. It was composed during a post-retirement reclusive period, and first posted soon after the 2010 launching of SillySutras.com.

Since composing “I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life”, I’ve kept experiencing an evolutionary awakening process, and sharing further spiritual insights therefrom. And since then I have continued to be more than ever blessed with a “faith-based life”.

My miraculous survival and healing from a 2014 near death taxicab rundown, has sparked subtly significant attitudinal changes, bringing unprecedented happiness and gratitude for this precious human lifetime, with evolutionary acceptance of Life even beyond that described in the above original essay/poem.

With enhanced faith in the Divine, rather than mere belief, I have now given my ‘irrevocable power of attorney” to The Lone Arranger to resolve all worldly problems and sufferings, and to forgivingly ‘adjudge’ all those who ignorantly cause them.

And more than ever before, I now see this world mostly as a Divine play of consciousness – like a marvelous movie, or mental mirage or simulated holographic ‘reality’ – without fear of physical death, and with absolute Faith in its ultimate Divine denouement.

These verses are respectfully offered to inspire our ever expanding
faith-based acceptance of Life, as it is,
With ever growing Peace, Truth, Joy, Love, and Compassion.

And so may it be!

Ron Rattner

5 Comments

  1. Nick on October 15, 2010 at 2:58 am

    Hey Ron,

    I really enjoyed this. It’s a great inspiration and consolation, and largely reflects my own feelings.

    I thank Heaven for putting you in my path.

    Love,

    Nick



  2. Lana on October 15, 2010 at 7:18 pm

    Beautiful!



  3. Gayla on January 20, 2012 at 11:40 am

    Brilliant!

    Oh, if only everyone was so wise…

    However, Barry says, “I don’t believe everything happens for the best. I believe everyone is doing the best they can, under their individual circumstances, within their ability to overcome their conditioning, so I have compassion for them. But, I don’t believe that the aerial shooting of wolves in Montana is for the best, or that millions of people dying and being maimed in wars is for the best. I refuse to believe that, even if it’s true.”



  4. Elyse Furman on March 2, 2016 at 8:58 am

    I am now living a “faith-based life.” I love our Guru and have come to a place within myself where I am living beyond organized religion. I am all religions and no religion. I live for TRUTH + LOVING KINDNESS

    INDU



  5. Jason Mierek on April 19, 2019 at 7:33 am

    “The Lone Arranger” – thanks for the much needed laugh of letting go!