Posts Tagged ‘Albert Einstein’
Honoring Nature
~ Quotes and Video
“One touch of nature
makes the whole world kin.”
~ William Shakespeare
“Nature is our nature;
Honoring Nature is honoring Self.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Introduction
Dear Friends,
In this critical era of worldwide violence and turmoil, our amazingly beautiful planet is imminently and insanely threatened (by immensely destructive technologies) with possible human caused omnicidal nuclear or climate catastrophe, ending Earth life as we’ve known it.
Therefore we must urgently awaken humanity’s instinctive primal awareness that Nature is our nature; that Nature knows best and will have its Way; that we are not dependent upon exploitation of our precious planet or its lifeforms, but interdependent with it and all life thereon; that we can no longer unsustainably exploit Nature and others without dire consequences; that we must honor – not desecrate – Nature.
The following profound “Nature” quotation collection and beautiful “Creation Calling” embedded video are offered to help awaken our minds and open our hearts to realization of Humankind’s urgent need to avert calamity by Honoring Nature, NOW!
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Honoring Nature ~ Quotation Collection
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
~ William Shakespeare
But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
or the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
or let the fish of the sea inform you.
Which of all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
~ Job 12:7-9
“Look deep into nature, and then
you will understand everything better.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The entire world we apprehend through our senses
is no more than a tiny fragment in the vastness of Nature.”
~ Max Planck
“Human subtlety will never devise an invention
more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature;
because in her inventions nothing is lacking,
and nothing is superfluous.”
~ Leonardo da Vinci
“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”
“All art, all education, can be merely a supplement to nature.”
~ Aristotle
“If one truly loves nature one finds beauty everywhere.”
~ Vincent Van Gogh
“In nature we never see anything isolated,
but everything in connection with something else
which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Every particular in nature,
a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time
is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Lose yourself in nature and find peace.”
“Nature is made to conspire with spirit to emancipate us.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature.”
~ Rachel Carson
“It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth
and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.”
~ Rachel Carson
“When we pay attention to nature’s music,
we find that everything on the Earth contributes to its harmony.”
~ Hazrat Inayat Khan
“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”
~ Frank Lloyd Wright
“Nature is the living, visible garment of God.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity;
so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
“Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion
to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things,
man will not himself find peace.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
“There are no passengers on spaceship earth.
We are all crew.”
~ Marshall McLuhan
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors;
we borrow it from our children”
~ Chief Seattle
“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment
must come from the human heart,
[from] a genuine sense of universal responsibility
that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister,
Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us,
and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs”
“This sister now cries out to us
because of the harm we have inflicted on her
by our irresponsible use and abuse
of the goods with which God has endowed her.”
~ Pope Francis – Climate encyclical message
“Nature is neither pleasant nor painful.
It is all intelligence and beauty.
Pain and pleasure are in the mind.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Deviation from Nature is deviation from happiness.”
~ Samuel Johnson
“Each thing tends to move towards its own nature.
I always desire happiness which is my true nature.
My nature is never a burden to me.
Happiness is never a burden to me, whilst sorrow is.”
~ Adi Shankara
“Because after all, you ARE a symptom of nature.
You . . . grow out of this physical universe
in exactly the same way an apple grows off an apple tree.”
~ Alan Watts
“I thank you God for this most amazing day,
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees,
and for the blue dream of sky
and for everything which is natural,
which is infinite, which is yes.”
~ e. e. cummings
“I see trees of green, red roses too.
I see them bloom for me and you.
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.
I see skies of blue and clouds of white.
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night.
And I think to myself what a wonderful world”
~ Louis Armstrong
Honoring Nature ~ Creation Calls — are you listening?
Invocation
May Humankind Awaken NOW
from our long-inculcated illusion
of separation from Nature.
So Awakened,
may we deeply realize that Nature is our nature;
that what we unsustainably do to Nature
we do to ourselves; and
that it is our responsibility
to honor, cherish and preserve
Earth-life as we’ve known it.
And so Awakened,
may we urgently honor
Nature’s uniquely precious ecology and environment,
with a “genuine sense of universal responsibility
that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
And so shall it be!
!
Ron Rattner
Atheists Beware!
~ Verses, Quotations and Explanations
“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.”
~ Ramakrishna Paramahansa
“I don’t try to imagine a personal God;
it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world,
insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it.”
~ Albert Einstein
“I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself
in the orderly harmony of what exists,
not in a God who concerns himself
with fates and actions of human beings.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Atheism is a disease of the soul,
before it becomes an error of the understanding.”
~ Plato
“There are few people so stubborn in their atheism who,
when danger is pressing in, will not acknowledge the divine power.”
~ Plato
“Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism,
but larger amounts bring us back to God.”
~ Francis Bacon
“The Atheist is God playing at hide and seek with Himself;
but is the Theist any other?
Well, perhaps; for he has seen the shadow of God and clutched at it.”
~ Sri Aurobindo
The worst moment for the atheist
is when he is really thankful
and has nobody to thank.
~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti
“Atheism is a non-prophet organization”
~ George Carlin
“I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.”
~ Albert Camus
“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”
~ Frank Lloyd Wright
“Since no one really knows anything about God,
those who think they do are just troublemakers.”
~ Rabia of Basri (First female Sufi saint)
Atheists Beware!
We reify what we resist.
And as we persist in resisting,
We attract and become what we resist.
So atheists, beware!
In vehemently denying Divinity,
you are reifying and deifying “God”.
And as you opine,
you’re becoming Divine.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Atheists Beware!”
Ron’s explanation of “Atheists Beware!”
The foregoing whimsical “Atheists Beware” verses were composed after I’d begun to sometimes see our space/time ‘reality’ as an ever paradoxical play of Divine ONENESS.
Before my midlife awakening to Self identity as Awareness, I don’t remember thinking about existence (or non-existence) of a creator “God”. However, I tacitly accepted the core Hebrew precept: “Hear O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE” (Deuteronomy 6:4), and considered “God” as ONE universally immanent, nameless, formless, nonjudgmental Supreme Power. And I rejected ideas of a humanoid, personal or judgmental God. Hence, after childhood I always interpreted Bible legends metaphorically – not as ‘the word of God’ explicitly spoken through special messengers.
Until my midlife awakening, I hadn’t shed tears as an adult. But upon awakening to a new life at age forty three, I cried for twenty four hours. Thereafter, while others were frequent flyers, I became a ‘frequent crier’. And I wondered why I was crying so much, until experientially realizing with utter amazement that I was crying with intense longing for “God”. (See Beholding The Eternal Light Of Consciousness.)
Since then, I’ve spent much time reflecting about “God”. And I’ve found that my beliefs and ideas about “God” have evolved as I’ve opened spiritually; that my curiosity about God has emanated from a universal human longing (conscious or subliminal) for a state of ONENESS with THAT.
Curiosity about “God” soon sparked interest in “atheism” and “atheists”. (See Monistic Musings – Reflections and Questions on “God” and Divinity) Also, I soon realized that – as the Bible says – “God” is word – used by different people to designate their different ideas of a transcendent power; that, whether or not the “universe” was created by God, “God” is a concept created by man. (See God is a Word.)
And ultimately I irreversibly accepted and honored the perennial mystery of Divine Reality beyond space/time duality.
(See e.g. Mystery of Divinity)
Thus it paradoxically appeared to me that worldly people who adamantly professed with certainty to be most religious – or atheistic – were usually most intolerant of those with other religious, spiritual or philosophic views; that their professed fundamentalist certainty about superiority of their philosophy – masked deep doubt, ignorance or insecurity about the transcendent Divine mystery.
Ultimately, my reflections about “God” resulted in my living a faith-based life. After years of questioning, I found faith beyond belief, beyond dogmas or theology. I found faith in everything everywhere, and in the impenetrable Mystery beyond every form or phenomenon. I found faith in my Self and in Nature. And faith to devotionally follow my Heart. So I became a non-dualist lover of God – a Bhakta – especially inspired by by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, who taught and demonstrated that
“[A]ll one’s confusion (about God) 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.”
(See I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life and Discovering and Honoring Devotional “Holy Fools”)
So the foregoing whimsical “Atheists Beware” verses were composed from a faith-based perspective of Divine ONENESS; that “it is God who manifests …. as [both] the atheist and the believer.”
The poem ironically reveals that, in adamantly resisting “God”, worldly atheists are unable to realize their ultimate divinity – that paradoxically they are what they resist; a realization that is transcendentally Knowable only by rare beings, like Ramakrishna.
Dedication and Invocation of “Atheists Beware”
Inspired by deep curiosity, reflection and intuition about “God”,
may we gradually discover and experience our common inner Divine Source,
Until ultimately our ego-minds melt and merge with THAT:
Universal Spirit, Being, Awareness, Bliss;
Eternal Peace, Life, Light, LOVE
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Mute The Mind
“Yoga is the cessation of mind.”
~ Patanjali, Yoga Sutras
“When the mind is completely empty –
only then is it capable of receiving the unknown.” ……
“Only when the mind is wholly silent, completely inactive,
not projecting, when it is not seeking and is utterly still –
only then that which is eternal and timeless comes into being.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“I think with intuition.
The basis of true thinking is intuition.
Indeed, it is not intellect,
but intuition which advances humanity. ”
~ Albert Einstein
To think or not to think,
that is the question!
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Life is not a problem to be solved,
but a reality to be experienced.”
~ Soren Kierkegaard
Introduction
The following sutra verses, with mp3 recitation, quotations and explanations, are about the importance of stilling the mind.
They are shared to encourage us to honor intuition over intellect, and to still our mind, so we can hear and follow our Heart.
Please consider and enjoy them!
Mute The Mind
Bliss abides when thought subsides.
When all thoughts cease, we are at peace.
Spirit speaks when mind is mute.
Mute your mind to hear your heart.
The power to think is a great gift;
but, the power to not think is a greater gift.
So, to think or not to think, that is the question.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Mute The Mind”
Ron’s explanation of “Mute The Mind”
Dear Friends,
When we hear the word “yoga”, what do we think of?
We probably think of a widely practiced art of physical postures and related practices (not necessarily associated with religion), for harmonizing body, mind and spirit. But few think of mental stillness or mind control.
However, according to Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the most ancient and central Sanskrit yoga text, yoga is defined as “cessation of mind”, not merely as methods to achieve such a state of thoughtless awareness.
The word “yoga” is rooted in an ancient Sanskrit term meaning to unite or integrate. And for millennia Vedic seers called Yogis have followed various disciplines – such as wisdom enquiry, devotion, meditation, service, body postures, austerities and breathing techniques – attempting to merge their limited human consciousness with Universal Awareness or Brahman.
Until meeting my Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, who was a great Yogi, I knew virtually nothing about yoga or yogic science. But inspired by his teachings and example I gradually have experienced countless blessings from an often silent mind.
Before meeting Guruji I was philosophically mostly influenced by the world’s ‘great thinkers’. But now I’m mostly inspired by the world’s greatest non-thinkers — mystics, intuitives and shamans (from various traditions), and others who have lovingly, authentically and instinctively lived a secular life, like Albert Einstein.
From his life experience, Einstein taught that we can best solve human problems by emphasizing intuition over intellect, thereby raising our level of consciousness beyond that which created our problems. Thus he observed that:
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift
and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant
and has forgotten the gift.”
~ Albert Einstein
Dedication
Today’s writings are dedicated to helping us still our mind, so we can hear and follow our Heart, until we achieve “enlightened” states of awareness.
May we thereby enjoy lives of ever increasing fulfillment and happiness.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Quotations About Religion
“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”
~ Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
Introduction
Throughout human history, countless beings have died and suffered in the name of religion, which is often asserted to hypocritically justify immoral partisan political or economic desires.
Because of advanced technologies, wars and other violent behaviors which for centuries have caused immense misery, now threaten all planetary life as we have known it. So – at long last – humans urgently need to abandon wars and warlike behaviors, including those waged in the name of religion.
The following quotations and comments about religion, are deeply dedicated to helping us achieve that urgent necessity.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Quotations About Religion
“My religion is very simple.
My religion is kindness.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Today, … any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate.”
“The time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ Dalai Lama
“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”
~ Dalai Lama
“This is a time for us to remember that in the name of religion more people have died than in all the wars and natural calamities put together. Now more than ever we must understand that the purpose of religion is not to separate us.
True faiths don’t preach hatred and killing, nor did any of the prophets.
It is the people who interpret the scriptures who create the divisions.
Division comes if we put our ego into the teachings of these religions.
Let us strive to be free of that kind of egoism”
~ Swami Satchidananda
“People often ask me, “What religion are you?
You talk about the Bible, Koran, Torah. Are you a Hindu?”
I say, I am not a Catholic, a Buddhist, or a Hindu, but an Undo.
My religion is Undoism. We have done enough damage (with religious dogma). We have to stop doing any more and simply undo the damage we have already done.”
~ Swami Satchidananda – Beyond Words
“The great religions are the ships,
Poets the life boats.
Every sane person I know has jumped overboard.”
~ Hafiz
“I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, and Confucian.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or Zen. Not any religion, or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, nor out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body nor soul. I belong to the beloved have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, First, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human.”
~ Rumi, ‘Only Breath’
“I have learned so much from God
That I can no longer call myself
a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew.”
~ Hafiz
“There is one Cosmic Essence, all-pervading, all-knowing, all-powerful.
This nameless formless essence can be approached by any name, any form, any symbol that suites the taste of the individual.
Follow your religion, but try to understand the real purpose behind all of the rituals and traditions, and experience that Oneness.”
~ Swami Satchidananda
“Let us accept all the different paths as different rivers running toward the same ocean.”
~ Swami Satchidananda
“Your daily life is your temple and your religion.”
~ Khalil Gibran – “The Prophet”
“True religion is real living;
living with all one’s soul,
with all one’s goodness and righteousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. ”
~ Albert Einstein
“A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in.
No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow.
They know it is going to rise tomorrow.
When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.”
~ Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
“Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think.
Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
~ George Orwell, 1984
“Irrevocable commitment to any one religion is not only intellectual suicide;
it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world.
Faith is, above all, open-ness—an act of trust in the unknown.”
~ Alan Watts
“Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“Religion is the opium of the masses.”
~ Karl Marx
“Religion is confining and imprisoning and toxic
because it is based on ideology and dogma.
But spirituality is redeeming and universal.”
~ Deepak Chopra
“In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”
~ Mark Twain – Autobiography, 1959
At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.”
~ Aldous Huxley
“There is only one God,
the same God regardless of the labels applied by religion. …
There is only one religion, the religion of Love;
There is only one language, the language of the Heart;
There is only one caste, the caste of Humanity”
~ Sathya Sai Baba
“Wherever I look, I see men quarrelling in the name of religion —
Hindus, Mohammendans, Brahmos, Vaishnavas, and the rest.
But they never reflect that He who is called Krishna is also called Siva, and bears the name of the Primal Energy, Jesus, and Allah as well — the same Rama with a thousand names.
A lake has several ghats. At one the Hindus take water in pitchers and call it ‘jal’; at another the Mussalmans take water in leather bags and call it ‘pani’. At a third the Christians call it ‘water’. Can we imagine that it is not ‘jal’, but only ‘pani’ or ‘water’? How ridiculous! The substance is One under different names, and everyone is seeking the same substance; only climate, temperament, and name create differences.
Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him! He will surely realize Him.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
“Among all my patients in the second half of life …
there has not been one whose problem in the last resort
was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.”
~ Carl Jung
Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
~ John Lennon, “Imagine”
Ron’s comments on urgent necessity of nonviolent reciprocal empathy,
beyond religion-based behaviors
Dear Friends,
The foregoing quotations about religion have been posted to help us avert worldwide catastrophe from false religious interpretations of prophets’ teachings about peace and unity.
Religious prophets have always preached against killing and violence. And every enduring religious, spiritual or ethical tradition has endorsed the “golden rule” of reciprocal empathy and kindness.
For example,
“What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole of the Torah; all the rest of it is commentary.” ~ Rabbi Hillel – Judaism
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”
~ Matthew 7:12 – Christianity
“Hurt not others in ways you yourself would find hurtful.”
~ Udana-Varga, 5:18 – Buddhism
“This is the sum of duty: do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.”
~ The Mahabharata, 5:1517 – Hinduism
“Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”
~ Fortieth Hadith of an-Nawawi,13 – Islam
Yet, countless people have died and suffered throughout human history in the name of religion, which is often cited to hypocritically justify immoral partisan political or economic desires. Because of advanced technologies, wars and other violent behaviors which for centuries have caused immense miseries, now threaten all planetary life as we have known it. So – at long last – humans urgently need to abandon wars and warlike behaviors.
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,
but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
~ Albert Einstein
Humanity can no longer survive, without practicing nonviolent universal ethical behaviors which transcend divisive religious beliefs cited to justify immorally violent activities.
“Today, … any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate.”
“The time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ Dalai Lama
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
~ Dalai Lama
To end wars and warlike behaviors, it is imperative that we honor our sacred heart’s inner wisdom over divisive religious, political or economic beliefs, so as to transcend problems of violence created from lower ego levels of human consciousness.
With opened hearts let us stop treating others as we don’t wish to be treated ourselves,
by practicing the ‘do no harm’ “golden rule” of reciprocal empathy.
May we begin treating all sentient beings with kindness, compassion and empathy –
with the same dignity that they wish for themselves.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Seek Relief From Belief!
Q. “Is belief in God necessary or helpful?”
A. “Belief in any form is a hindrance.
A man who believes in God can never find God.
If you are open to reality, there can be no belief in reality.
If you are open to the unknown, there can be no belief in it.
… belief is a form of self-protection…”
“When the mind is completely empty –
only then is it capable of receiving the unknown.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“In the pursuit of learning every day something is gained.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.”
~ Lao Tzu
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
~ Buddha
Introduction to “Seek Relief From Belief!”
Dear Friends,
Today’s “Seek Relief From Belief!” posting epigrammatically encapsulates many crucial wisdom concepts with key quotations, comments, and sutra verses (with mp3 recitation) which can help us find ever expanding happiness.
Please consider and enjoy these writings.
Ron Rattner
Seek Relief From Belief!
As conception is body/mind’s inception,
Its imprisonment begins with conviction.
We are shackled
by illusory bonds of belief.
Freedom is beyond belief.
So, seek relief
from belief;
and get out of jail —
FREE.
Let us end our universal malaise –
our chronic belief syndrome.
Believing is deceiving.
To know what’s so,
Question credo.
Follow your faith,
But “dis” your belief,
Lose your illusions, and
Drop your dogmas.
Follow dharma, not dogma.
Seek relief from belief,
And find clarity
beyond doctrinairity.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Seek Relief From Belief!”
Ron’s explanation of “Seek Relief From Belief!”
My midlife awakening started a spiritual metamorphosis process from “Secular Hebrew”, to “Born-again Hindu”, to “Uncertain Undo”. Gradually I began letting go of previously accepted beliefs and concepts about Self-identity and Reality. Since it began over forty years ago, that process continues. And I’m still learning as an “Uncertain Undo”. In this posting I’m sharing some of my most important discoveries, so far.
Whimsically I’ve often proclaimed that I’m yet an ‘uncertain undo’ because
“on the path of Undo we’ll never be through
’til we’re an undone ONE”.
And as key motivational reminders my mottos became:
“Seek relief from belief”; and
“Undo Ego!”
So far I’ve discovered that “ego” is the greatest impediment to Self realization. Thus overcoming ego’s illusory self-identification as a supposedly separate entity is essential for realization of Absolute Reality.
Egoic misidentification can’t exist and persist without illusory beliefs about separate self-identity and perceived “reality”. And transcendance of ego requires learning truth from life experience. As Einstein asserted:
“The only source of knowledge is experience; … learning is experience, everything else .. just information.”
Thus Gautama Buddha taught that to Know Truth, we must each observe and investigate; that true wisdom can’t come from unquestioningly accepting and believing information from others:
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
~ Buddha
So today’s “Seek Relief From Belief!” posting includes important wisdom writings about experientially overcoming “belief” and resulting “ego”. For example, when twentieth century Indian sage, J. Krishnamurti, was asked “Is belief in God necessary or helpful?” , he responded:
“Belief in any form is a hindrance.
A man who believes in God can never find God.”
And Taoist master Lao Tzu epigrammatically revealed that we evolve toward attaining timeless states of being – sometimes called Tao or Zen – when gradually we give up our mistaken beliefs, saying
“In the pursuit of learning every day something is gained.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.”
~ Lao Tzu
Although often the words “belief” and “faith” are used synonymously, they are not so equated on SillySutras. In these writings, “belief” means adopting or accepting ideas of others that something or someone is true or exists, whereas “faith” means intuitive trust or confidence in Life, especially in the miraculous and mysterious Unknown. (See Belief or Faith?)
Thus, my memoirs explain that while ‘seeking relief from belief’ I’ve found a faith-based life, with ever growing gratitude and reverence for this precious life on our beautiful planet.
Dedication
May today’s “Seek Relief From Belief!” writings (and mp3 recitation) encourage and inspire our deep reflections upon mistaken beliefs about our perceived earthly Reality, and illusory separate Self identities, and thereby hasten our experiential realization of eternally timeless states of being, beyond this ever impermanent world of time and space.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Spiritual Psychotherapy
“It is no measure of health
to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“The ego is a psychological prison
in which suffering is inevitable.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Be empty of worrying,
Think of Who Created Thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?”
~ Rumi
“You were born with wings.
Why prefer to crawl through life?”
~ Rumi
“The world is a prison and we are the prisoners:
Dig a hole in the prison and let yourself out!”
~ Rumi
“Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?”
~ Rumi
“You have been a prisoner of a little pond,
I am the ocean and its turbulent flood.
Come merge with me, leave this world of ignorance.
Be with me, I will open the gate to your love.”
~ Rumi
“I long to escape the prison of my ego
and lose myself in you.”
~ Rumi
“The foundation of the Buddha’s teachings lies in compassion,
and the reason for practicing the teachings
is to wipe out the persistence of ego,
the number-one enemy of compassion.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama
Spiritual Psychotherapy
The ego is a psychological prison
in which suffering is inevitable.
Secular psychology attempts to alleviate that suffering.
Spiritual psychotherapy aims at ending our imprisonment.
Ron’s comments about “Spiritual Psychotherapy”
Dear Friends,
The foregoing quotations and sutras epigrammatically express my post-awakening perspectives about secular versus spiritual psychotherapies.
We live in an age of mental malaise – in an extremely stressful, disharmonious and crazy world, with widespread psychological suffering, individually and societally.
From a spiritual perspective this entire space/time world and all its disharmonies and sufferings originate mentally, and can only be healed by lovingly clearing egotistically agitated human minds, with opened hearts:
“The mind is nature’s incinerator wherein you can burn to ashes all mental dross that is not worthy to be saved: your waste thoughts and desires, your misconceptions and grievances, and your discords in human relationships. There is not a single relationship, however estranged, you cannot reconcile, provided you do so first in your own mind. There is not a single problem in life you cannot resolve, provided you first solve it in your inner world, its place of origin. . . . A harmonized mind produces harmony in this world of seeming discord.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda – Journey To Self-Realization: Collected Talks And Essays On Realizing God In Daily Life
“We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. . . . a kind of prison for us. . . Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
~ Albert Einstein (edited excisions)
‘All that we are arises with our thoughts [which] make the world. But the world and its treasures are an illusion – like an alluring mirage. So to escape suffering we must recognize that illusion, and not act [egotistically] as if the world is real.’
~ Buddha (edited)
Spiritually, “ego” is our mistaken mental identification with, and reification of, this illusory world of separation from Nature. Thus the foregoing Spiritual Psychotherapy sutra metaphorically describes “ego” as “a psychological prison in which suffering is inevitable.”
So psychotherapies aimed at transcending all egotistic sufferings are defined as spiritual and preferable.
May these Spiritual Psychotherapy concepts and foregoing quotations hasten our spiritual healing process, freeing us from subconscious psychological imprisonment, as we harmoniously uncover and discover our Wholeness, Holiness, SELF!
And as we transcend our “optical delusion” of imagined separation from each other and Nature, may we thereby help heal the world for everyone and everything everywhere.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
States of Consciousness
“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything,
you are essentially conscious of yourself.”
~ Ramana Maharshi
“Consciousness is the basis of all life and the field of all possibilities.
Its nature is to expand and unfold its full potential.
The impulse to evolve is thus inherent in the very nature of life.”
~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts
in Eternal awareness or
Pure consciousness without objectification,
knowing without thinking,
merging finitude in infinity.
~ Voltaire
“Yoga is the cessation of mind.”
~ Patanjali, Yoga Sutras
Thought divides Universal Awareness as a prism divides light.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Human consciousness is conditioned consciousness;
it is pure Awareness conditioned by conceptions.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings 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. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security.”
~ Albert Einstein ( N. Y. Times , March 29, 1972)/h5>
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
~ Albert Einstein
States of Consciousness
Q. How can we enter higher states of consciousness?
A. All states of consciousness arise and subside in Universal Awareness. We are never in states of consciousness; they are in us.
We increasingly experience elevated consciousness of Universal Awareness, and gradually free ourselves from the optical ego illusion of separation from Nature and other life-forms, as we open our hearts, still our minds, and “widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty”.
What’s New?
“What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.”
~ Ecclesiastes 1:9 *
Tao and Zen
are NOW,
not then.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Everything’s NOW,
So nothing is new.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“I have realized that the past and future are illusions,
that they exist in the present,
which is what there is and all there is.”
~ Alan Watts
“People .. who believe in physics,
know that the distinction between past, present, and future
is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
~ Albert Einstein
Time is how we measure NOW,
and spaces
are for places where we think we are in time.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Life is NOW or never,
Life is NOW forever.
Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
What’s New?
“There is nothing new under the sun.”*
Everything’s NOW,
So nothing is new.
Discovering is but uncovering –
Timeless Truth.
Ron’s audio recitation of “What’s New?”
Ron’s reflections on “What’s New?”
Dear Friends,
The above verses, sutras, and quotations offer uncommon answers to a common worldly question, “What’s New?”.
After my midlife awakening I wondered whether past and future are mere mental illusions occurring in the eternal NOW. And I concluded that from a cosmic perspective, Einstein was right about space/time/reality – that
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one”; that “the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”; and, that “space and time are not conditions in which we live, [but] modes in which we think.”
Amazing synchronicities about illusion of serial time
In February, 1977, I spent a miraculously transformative week in New York City, so filled with amazing synchronicities and precognitive experiences, that I became convinced it was possible to mystically transcend serial time perception; but that while on Earth we must experience our lives serially, even though there is no time cosmically. (See e.g. An Amazing Experiment With Time)
Since then – while still experiencing serial time – I’ve begun seeing earth-life like a perpetual play of universal consciousness on the world’s “stage” – with continuing ‘performances’ of perennial story plots, only featuring different players, acts and scenes. And I’m now mostly experiencing this lifetime like a pre-scripted movie filled with constant synchronicities.
Inspired by these mystical perspectives, I’ve composed and shared the foregoing verses and sutra sayings.
Dedication
These writings are dedicated to inspiring our ever growing happiness and peace of mind, as we evolve beyond serial time toward timeless Being as eternal Universal Awareness.
Thus may we increasingly live moment by moment in the timeless NOW, accepting “what is” as the inevitable consequence of ever mysterious karmic causes and conditions.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
*Footnote re Ecclesiastes 1:9
The above intuitive interpretation of Ecclesiastes 1:9 is inconsistent with some theological interpretations. Those who disagree are free to reject it.
What’s really “Real”?
“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”.
~ Albert Einstein
“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 laureate physicist
“The very study of the physical world leads to the conclusion that consciousness is an ultimate reality and, all the possible knowledge, concerning objects can be given as its wave function”
~ Eugene Wigner, Nobel laureate physicist and co-founder of quantum mechanics
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness”
; “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”.
“That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.” ….“Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe.”
~ Albert Einstein
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, Physicist and Einstein protegé
Theory of Everything:
E = mc2 = Consciousness = Self.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Introduction to What’s really “Real”?
Dear Friends,
Have you ever wondered what’s really “Real”? Or what isn’t “Real”?
Do you see “reality” as only physical, measurable, perceptible, or comprehensible? Where for you does earthly “reality” end, and ‘unreality’ or illusion begin – if anywhere?
Mystics say that we’re experiencing life on Earth to learn what’s really Real; that experientially we discover that in this always changing three dimensional world only unchanging consciousness persists; that our inner I AM observer is Absolute Reality and Source of all our thoughts, experiences and perceived forms and phenomena.
Thus the nature of “reality” is a spiritually crucial question, addressed for us herein, with numerous quotations and detailed explanatory discussion.
May these writings and reflections help inspire our ever increasing happiness, as we lovingly and harmoniously ascend spiritually toward THAT which is really “Real”.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Explanation of What’s really “Real”?
Our ideas of reality are spiritually crucial. Knowingly or unknowingly they deeply affect our beliefs about who and what we are; and, our beliefs about who and what we are determine our thoughts, behaviors, experiences and philosophies of life, both individually and societally.
Thus, human reality paradigms which do not recognize our essential Unity with Nature and all its life-forms have proved environmentally, economically, internationally and inter-personally disastrous.
“…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
How different would be our behaviors if we truly realized and always remembered that we are part of Nature, deeply connected and unified with all life-forms; that our apparent separation from each other and Nature is a perceptual illusion!
“Our separation of each other
is an optical illusion of consciousness.” .
~ Albert Einstein
Jesus legendarily told us that with faith human potentialities are unlimited:
“All things are possible for one who believes.”
~ Mark 9:23
“If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
~ Matthew:17-20
But limited beliefs about “reality” are conceptual cages confining us in a kind of psychological prison, restricting realization of our unlimited potentialities.
“The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveals itself in nature. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.”
~ Albert Einstein
Culturally, our concepts of “reality” are an unspoken consensus abstraction dependent upon predominantly shared beliefs about what is “real”.
“Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.”
~ Alan Watts
“Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.”
~ Lily Tomlin
Until now, most of us have been unconsciously acculturated and indoctrinated with restrictive ideas of self-identity and “reality”, without ever reflecting upon or intuiting who or what we really are and what’s really Real.
Our ideas about “reality” – both individually and societally – differ with different people at different times and different places.
But beyond our ever changing ideas of relative “reality”, isn’t there an ultimate transcendent Reality – which is the eternal Source of all relative realities? Beyond thought can we experience such ultimate Reality?
In universally seeking happiness, doesn’t everyone knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or subconsciously, remember and intuitively long for the experience of Divine Oneness?
Mystical “inner explorers” have answered all of the foregoing questions affirmatively. Shamans and Mystics – from both East and West – have for millennia reported their discovery of ONE ultimate, unchanging non-duality Reality; THAT which is beyond definition, comprehension or imagination – yet, everywhere invisibly immanent in and Source of our space/time polarity/causality relative reality.
“Though One, Brahman is the cause of the many…
The One manifests as the many,
the formless putting on forms.”
~ Rig Veda, 1500–1200 BCE
“All things come out of the One and the One out of all things.”
~ Heraclitus, 500BC
“Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another.”
~ Leibniz, 1670
“We are a part of Nature as a whole whose order we follow.”
~ Spinoza, Ethics, 1673
“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
“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
And now more and more scientists are agreeing with the mystics. Matter has melted into Mystery. Physics and metaphysics are merging.
Both science and spirituality agree that Reality is undivided Wholeness.
And for some Quantum physicists – like Nobel laureate Max Planck – beyond “uncertainty” about reality of “matter” there is only consciousness and Divinity.
“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, as quoted in The Observer (25 January 1931)
“There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter. ”
~ Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
“Both Religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all considerations… To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view.”
~ Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist – Religion and Natural Science (Lecture Given 1937) Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, trans. F. Gaynor (New York, 1949)
Thousands of years ago, Eastern seers called this permanently impermanent and ever changing world of countless forms and phenomena a dreamlike illusion, maya or samsara; a mere projection of the One Reality – of Infinite and Eternal Existence.
“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
Einstein intuited that:
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
Now many other scientists are agreeing with mystics and affirming Einstein’s observation about the illusion of physical “reality”.
For example, Einstein protege and distinguished physicist David Bohm has questioned any objective tangible reality. Bohm theorized that the universe is fundamentally like a gigantic hologram; that underlying apparent reality is a deeper order of existence, from which all the objects and appearances of our physical world arise and appear in much the same way that a two dimensional holographic film gives birth to a three dimensional hologram in space.
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
Until his death in 1955, Einstein maintained his intuitive view, consistent with ancient mystical insights but challenged by some quantum physicists, that “God does not play dice with the universe”; that the principle of cause and effect (or karma) pervades the phenomenal Universe without exception; that the ideas of chance or “uncertainty” arise from causes not yet recognized or perceived.
Since Einstein’s death, some physicists like his protege David Bohm have advanced theories which reconcile apparent contradictions between universal “causality” and quantum “uncertainty” and “non-locality” and they are thereby ever narrowing remaining apparent disparity between scientific and mystical views of “Reality”.
“Science and religion will meet and shake hands…When the scientific teacher asserts that all things are the manifestation of one force, does it not remind you of the God of whom you hear in the Upanishads? Do you not see whither science is tending?”
~ Swami Vivekananda, London talk, 1896
As presciently envisioned by Swami Vivekananda, science and religion will ultimately agree on the ONENESS of phenomenal “reality”. And realizing such ONENESS, Humanity will at long last – as it must – discard destructive illusionary beliefs and behaviors which have brought it to the brink of ecologic, economic, inter-personal and international disaster.
“Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.”
~ Niels Bohr
“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena,
it will make more progress in one decade
than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”
~ Nikola Tesla
Thereupon, Humankind and all other life-forms on our precious planet, will harmoniously and peacefully flourish and evolve with Nature with ever increasing happiness, until we spiritually ascend to transcend this wonderful world, as Universal LOVE.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
What Are Illusions?
“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.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
“The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
“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.”
~ Albert Einstein
“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions,
that they exist in the present,
which is what there is and all there is.
~ Alan Watts
“Time, space and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen. In the Absolute there is neither time, space nor causation.”
“…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
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
“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
“The less we’re illusioned,
the more we’re illumined.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Introduction
Dear Friends,
Have you ever wondered: “What are illusions?” and “What is “real?“?
Spiritually, these are crucial questions. So today’s posting esoterically answers them for us, with the foregoing quotations and following Q and A essay and explanatory comments.
May these writings and reflections help bring us ever-growing life fulfillment and happiness, until we lose all illusions and transcend this wonderful world as LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
What Are Illusions?
Q. What are illusions?
A. Illusions are false ideas, conceptions, or beliefs,
accumulated and aggregated in the memory bank
that we call the “mind”.
Illusions are projections from the past
which obscure or obstruct our experience of the present.
We can’t live fully in the present,
when we are living partly in the past.
Illusions are mental obscurations.
They cloud or conceal our insight into
That which is Real.
But, as we clear the ‘mirror of our mind’
of old illusory ideas and paradigms of
who and what we think we are,
We can and shall become ever more present,
insightful and illuminated –
about what we really are.
So let us choose to lose our illusions.
For, the less we’re illusioned,
the more we’re illumined.
Ron’s audio recitation of “What are Illusions?”
Ron’s explanation of “What Are Illusions?”
According to dictionaries, “illusions” are misperceptions or misconceptions of reality, fact, or truth. Whereas “reality” is that which factually exists.
For millennia, non-dualist Buddhists and Vedantists have taught that our entire space/time ‘reality’ is a mental mirage or illusion, and not true Reality; that what we perceive and believe to be ‘real’ material forms in space and time, are mentally projected misperceptions from misconceptions of our conditioned ego-minds, which see “through a glass darkly”.
We assume that we are independent human beings, separated from each other and Nature, and acting based on our own free-will. But according to non-dualist mystical philosophies, all of this is mere illusion – samsara or maya. Even our supposed free will is an illusion, because we are inseparable from Nature which determines all we experience, via mysterious karmic causes and conditions. Thus, perceived worldly events or phenomena are always determined by invisible cosmic forces which are as yet unknown to our conditioned ego-minds. (see e.g. Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 18, verses 60-61)
A century has passed since Einstein’s revolutionary relativity theory revealed that “reality” can’t be reduced to objects or entities in space/time. Since then, quantum science has confirmed 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 ineffable mystery.
Thus, Western science has more and more shown what ancient shamans, seers, and indigenous societies have known throughout history:
That there is a cosmic web of life connecting everything and everyone in Nature from the greatest galaxies to the tiniest sub-atomic particles; that we are each an integral inter-connected and interdependent part of Nature’s web of life – not separate from it; and that, as Einstein observed:
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness”; “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”.
Inspired by Einstein, I have composed the foregoing poetic Q & A essay titled: “What Are Illusions?”, as preceded by apt quotations.
These teachings are deeply dedicated to helping us find relief from belief,
and thereby bringing us ever-growing life fulfillment and happiness.
Invocation
From seeing everyone and everything as discrete,
and separated by apparently immutable boundaries,
may we increasingly realize that all forms and phenomena
are ever-changing energies appearing from a common origin
of Universal Awareness – our true Nature and Source,
which is LOVE.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
