Learning From Life ~ Ron’s Memoirs

Dear Friends of Ron Rattner and Silly Sutras,

We are writing to let you know that our father, Ron, died unexpectedly on May 13th. He was at home in his beloved “High Rise Hermitage,” in the living room overlooking the San Francisco Bay and Golden Gate Bridge.

Ron was 91 years old and, as he loved to say these past few years, “good to go but glad to stay.” Even more so since he was nearly killed a decade ago, when he was hit by a taxicab, Ron considered every day to be a blessing.

Until the end, Ron was passionately and energetically devoted to working on his Silly Sutra postings and spiritual memoirs. This work — his art, and life’s purpose — gave him great joy. He was happier at 91 than ever before. “In this precious human lifetime,” he wrote, “I’ve been blessed with an exceptionally long incarnation, permitting over nine decades of ‘continuing education’ about that ‘Life School – Experience.’ ”

We are deeply saddened by the loss of our father, and sad for him that his earthly work was interrupted so suddenly. But we’re quite certain that our dad would not have had it any other way. There were no hospitalizations, not even a visit to a doctor.

Ron was happy and engaged with life until he took his last breaths. He had drafted a Silly Sutra posting that he did not have the opportunity to complete. We’re sure he would want us to share it with all of you.

And so may it be!

With love,
Jessica & Josh Rattner

Jessica: jessicaeverattner@gmail.com
Josh: salvage.sound@gmail.com

Jessica Eve Rattner
www.lifelikethisphotography.com
510.520.9870

“Shri Ramakrishna use to say,
“As Long as I Live, so long do I learn”.
That man or that society which has nothing to learn
is already in the jaws of death.”
~ Swami Vivekananda

“Love Is The Law Of Life:
All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction.
Love is therefore the only law of life.
He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying.
Therefore, love for love’s sake,
because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.”
~ Swami Vivekananda

“This separation between man and man, between nation and nation,
between earth and moon, between moon and sun.
Out of this idea of separation between atom and atom comes all misery.
But the Vedanta says that this separation does not exist, it is not real.”
~ Swami Vivekananda [Jnana Yoga]

‘Time, space and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen…In the Absolute there is neither time, space, nor causation.’
~ Swami Vivekananda [Jnana Yoga]

“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]

“In order to know through experience what happens beyond death,
you must go deep within yourself.
In meditation, the truth will come to you.”
~ Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas

“Intuition is the whisper of the soul.”
~ J Krishnamurti

“So you have to be your own teacher and your own disciple,
and there is no teacher outside, no saviour, no master;
you yourself have to change, and therefore you have to learn to observe, to know yourself.
This learning about yourself is a fascinating and joyous business.”
~ J Krishnamurti

“What brings order in the world is to love and let love do what it will.”
~ J Krishnamurti

“Freedom and love go together. . . . To love is not to ask anything in return,
not even to feel that you are giving something-
and it is only such love that can know freedom.”
~ J Krishnamurti

“Face death to live life.”
“As we lose our fear of leaving life,
we gain the art of living life.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“Death is a vacation –
Eternal Life-force vacating a transient vehicle –
“a space-time soul suit”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“It is in dying to ego life,
that we are reborn to Eternal Life.”
~ Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi (edited by Ron Rattner)

“A life filled with wonder is a wonderful life.
With wonder, faith and praise,
we glorify our days.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

Ron’s Introduction to Learning From Life

Dear Friends,

For millennia my beloved Guruji and other advanced spiritual teachers have observed that thought is the genesis of all our phenomenal earth-life reality; that incarnation is limitation; and that inevitably we learn as long as we exist as seemingly separate beings.

Beginning thirty years ago, during many years of solitude, prayer, and reflection after retirement from legal practice, I intuitively received and wrote down numerous spiritual aphorisms, essays and poems, some which I’ve called “sutra sayings”.

Thereafter as requested by my Guruji these writings have been published online to inspire our reflections about who and what we are and our incarnate life’s purpose and plan, if any.

In composing certain aphorisms called “sutra sayings” I realized that

“Life is a perpetual continuing education course from which we never graduate.”

And as hints for happiness, I wrote a list of “sutra sayings” which are republished today as “Life School – Experience” together with apt quotations and explanatory comments.

In this precious human lifetime, I’ve been blessed with an exceptionally long incarnation, permitting over nine decades of “continuing education” about that “Life School – Experience”.

So now, at age ninety one, I’m gratefully privileged to share with you my present perspectives, from inner and outer spiritual experiences, of how the universal spiritual path is an ever impermanent process of seemingly separate sentient entities becoming conscious of Cosmic Consciousness; and how

“Life is a perpetual continuing education course from which we never graduate.”

Please consider that conclusion as you read the following hints for happiness:

Life School – Experience

The Universe is our university;
Life is our teacher.

Life is for learning.
When you stop learning, you’re dead.

Earth life is a learning laboratory
for discovering immortality –
experimentally and experientially.

Life is a perpetual continuing education course
from which we never graduate.

All studies are consciousness studies –
consciousness studying its phenomenal self.

There’s just one subject – the Self.
So, there’s just this to know – Thy SELF!
That’s ALL!

On the Earth branch
Of the great Cosmic University,
We are all students,
And we are all teachers.
We are all learning love.

Gleaning meaning in matter,
We learn all that matters-
We learn all that matters is LOVE!

Look out for Noumenon Uno.

In the school of life we suffer
to learn compassion for those who suffer.

Suffering spurs seeking.

Misery and mortality are monumental motivators.

No pain, no gain.