Posts Tagged ‘Belief’
Justice versus Judgment:
Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged;
Resist Not Evil
“Ignorance is the root of all evil.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Resist not evil.”
~ Matthew 5:39
“Judge not, that you be not judged.
For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”
~ Matthew 7:1-5
“Judge not according to the appearance,
but judge righteous judgment.”
“Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.”
~ John 7:24; 8:15
“We cannot change anything until we accept it.
Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.”
~ Carl Jung
“Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticize my neighbor
until I have walked a mile in his moccasins.”
~ Native American prayer
“One ought to examine himself for a very long time before thinking of condemning others.”
~ Moliere
“Judge not thy neighbor until thou comest into his place.”
~ Rabbi Hillel
“But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!”
~ Amos 5:24
“Only from the heart can you touch the sky.”
“People of the world don’t look at themselves,
and so they blame one another.”
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
~ Rumi
“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see what others do.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Evil cannot be overcome by more evil.
Evil can only be overcome by good.
It is the lesson of the way of love.”
~ Peace Pilgrim
“Every action, every thought, reaps its own corresponding rewards. Human suffering is not a sign of God’s, or Nature’s, anger with mankind. It is a sign, rather, of man’s ignorance of divine law. . . .
Such is the law of karma: As you sow, so shall you reap. If you sow evil, you will reap evil in the form of suffering. And if you sow goodness, you will reap goodness in the form of inner joy.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
Introduction to Justice versus Judgment
Dear Friends,
As we enter an Aquarian age of immense opportunity with immense jeopardy, it has never before been so imperative for Humankind to heed and follow the ancient teachings of rare avatars and mystic masters to live as LOVE, in harmony with all Life everywhere.
For the first time in our recorded history we are forced to realize that because of advanced technologies any more war will probably trigger an omnicidal nuclear, ecological, biological, or radiological catastrophe insanely ending earth-life as we’ve known it.
Yet, paradoxically, we concurrently have gained unprecedented technical capacity to sustainably and peacefully transcend human suffering from injustice, exploitation, starvation and poverty. And in these very violent and politically polarized times of immense suffering, yet immense opportunity, many are awakening to our infinitely unlimited human potentialities by embracing unconditional LOVE for everyone and everything.
To help us learn to live as LOVE, the following essay and comments address often misunderstood perennial spiritual issues of justice versus judgment as demonstrated by the life and teachings of Jesus, who was a rare avatar and exemplar of Universal LOVE with social justice.
Because these teachings are extremely relevant to our unprecedented current era, I urge our deep reflection upon them.
Ron Rattner
Justice versus Judgment*
Q. In his sermon on the mount, Jesus counseled “Resist not evil.” and “Judge not, that you be not judged.” But the Bible encourages us to live righteously and seek justice. How is it possible for us to pursue justice and righteousness without judging and resisting “evil”?*
A. By following our sacred heart with love, forgiveness and empathy we can live with justice and righteousness in a manner consistent with Jesus’ teachings – his words and life example.
Jesus was a rare Divine being who – like a Buddha or Krishna – transcended the illusion of separation from God. From his Divine perspective, Jesus realized and proclaimed that “I and the Father are one” [John 10:30] , and he perceived as “evil” only that which – from ignorance of Divine law – creates disharmony with Divine order and consequent suffering. But, as a loving Divine truth teller he did not condemn beings acting with the the illusion of separation from God – only their ignorant behaviors. [John:3:17]
Jesus knew that – until realizing our unity with Divinity – we reap as we sew. [e.g. Job 4:8; Galacians 6:7]; that we suffer the karmic consequences of our unconsciously unenlightened behaviors. Thus from his rare cosmic perspective he compassionately could see that our ignorant behaviors are karmically predestined, and do not arise from presumed free will.
As a Divine being, Jesus also knew that true Vision comes from intuitive insight, not eyesight; that our perceived separation from others and from Nature is an illusion of consciousness; and, that blind to our own repressed faults we often project them upon and detect them in others.
As Rumi observed:
“People of the world don’t look at themselves, and so they blame one another.” [But,] “Only from the heart can you touch the sky.”
So Jesus cautioned the Pharisee fundamentalists of his time to
“Judge not according to the appearance,
but judge righteous judgment.” [John 7:24]
And he taught: “Judge not, that you be not judged.
For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged;
and with the measure you use,
it will be measured back to you.” [Matthew 7:1-5]
Thus, when fundamentalist Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman allegedly caught in adultery, a capital crime, Jesus challenged any one of them who was without sin to cast the first stone at her. Speaking as non-judgmental Divine Love, Jesus explained his refusal to condemn her thus:
“Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.”
[John 8:15]
Without judging beings but criticizing their disharmonious behaviors, Jesus was a passionate social reformer and redeemer who frequently decried hypocritical conduct and ethics by people who did not ‘walk their talk’ but practiced the very behaviors they decried – like those whose piety was on their tongue but not in their heart; those who claimed to love God but hated others. [John 4:20; Matthew 15:7-9]
And without judging the beings but their behaviors he cast out those hypocritically changing money and conducting commerce in the sacred temple courtyard, thereby demonstrating that we cannot serve both God and greed. [Matthew 6:24 and 21:12]
So, it appears that Jesus, who was a social reformer, did not intend to discourage us from living piously while seeking justice and righteousness for others and society. Bible passages against resisting “evil” or “judging” others are warnings against hypocritically and insensitively criticizing or opposing perceived faults or disharmonious behaviors in others which we cannot see in our own shadow selves.
Also, they are cautions against reflexive or revengeful resistance or opposition to perceived “evil”, because when we see ‘through a glass darkly’ what we resist persists.
Jesus’ admonition to not resist “evil” was given after his allusion to the Book of Exodus teaching about taking “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” [Exodus 21:23-5] which was then misunderstood and strictly interpreted by Pharisees as encouraging revenge or retribution. But when we ignorantly act with reflexive revenge, we are disharmonious with divine law and must suffer the karmic consequences.
So rather than vindictively seeking retribution for wrongs, or reactively condemning others, or judgmentally attempting to change them, it is wise to first empathetically look within to see and change our own undesirable traits. Then like Gandhi we will “not cooperate with evil” but be the non-violent change we wish to see in the world and lovingly inspire others to do likewise.
And so it shall be!
Ron Rattner
Footnote.
*Because the New Testament gospels were all ‘hearsay’ written and translated from Aramaic into Greek and various other languages long after Jesus’ death, we cannot know with certainty the meaning or accuracy of current translations of his sermon on the mount. So there are many differing interpretations of the words “Resist not evil.” and “Judge not, that you be not judged.” Their true meaning and intent can best be determined from their context and from Jesus’ own Divine actions to uplift the world rather than condemn it. Our interpretation is intuitive, not scholarly, and based on perennial principles taught by most enduring religious, spiritual and ethical traditions, not just Christianity. You are free to question or reject it.
Ron’s comments on “Justice versus Judgment”.
Dear Friends,
This posting addresses perennial spiritual issues which are extremely relevant to the present advent of an unprecedented Aquarian age of great risk but great potential. Worldwide we are living in very violent and politically polarized times.
In order to peacefully resolve current critical political and environmental threats from a spiritual perspective, we must mindfully calm our fearfully disturbed, judgmental and reactive states of mind. Rather than vindictively seeking retribution for wrongs, or reactively condemning others, or judgmentally attempting to change them, it is wise to first empathetically look within to see and change our own undesirable mental habits. Thereby with quiet minds and open hearts we can non-violently and non-judgmentally resist injustice, while honoring the spiritual essence and universal equality of everyone everywhere.
The foregoing quotations and interpretations of Jesus’ scriptural teachings can help us consider important philosophical and pragmatic perspectives about issues of justice versus judgment. Also hereafter discussed is my relevant experience as a social justice attorney.
Discussion
For much of my adult life as an egalitarian litigation lawyer, I tended to be judgmental and unforgiving of perceived wrongdoers. Thus, on retiring from legal practice in 1992 it was easy for me to stop lawyering – by deactivating my law license – but hard to stop gratuitously judging or blaming others who seemed to act hypocritically or harmfully.
But after my midlife spiritual awakening I decided that we are all here to evolve by gradually realizing and actualizing our common spiritual Oneness with all Life – beyond our mistakenly perceived separation from each other; and, that we can advance such evolution by mindful identification, observation and purification of our mental tendencies and obscurations impeding realization of Oneness.
So, with increasing mindfulness, I began identifying my particular mental challenges and evolutionary opportunities in this lifetime. And gradually I realized that – as a litigation lawyer and ardent social justice advocate – I had longtime propensities of often being outspokenly, acerbically, and reactively judgmental, unforgiving and sometimes angry about perceived injustices; that these tendencies were not helping others or me; and that they were impediments to spiritual evolution.
Since first identifying these unhelpful tendencies, it has been challenging for me to transcend them. Most challenging have been instances of apparently harmful betrayal of private or public trust. Apart from numerous flagrant betrayals of public welfare by politicians and corporations which I have resisted, there have been a few unforgettable and psychologically traumatic events which I experienced as personal betrayals, but now see with forgiveness as disguised blessings which furthered my spiritual evolution.
Ultimately I have realized that blame, rancor or vengeance never change others and are always incompatible with a peaceful mind; that all unforgiving behavior is ego trying to preserve its falsely imagined separate identity; and, that any bitterness we harbor against a perceived “other” separates us from our divine Oneness.
Thus Peace Pilgrim insightfully instructed that:
“If you are harboring the slightest bitterness toward anyone, or any unkind thoughts of any sort whatever, you must get rid of them quickly. They are not hurting anyone but you. It isn’t enough just to do right things and say right things – you must also think right things before your life can come into harmony.”
~ “Peace Pilgrim – Her Life and Work in Her Own Words”
And because human unconsciousness and ignorance of our true self-identity is the root cause of all perceived evil, the Buddha taught that:
“To understand everything is to forgive everything.”
Dedication
May these teachings help all of us learn to forgive everyone and everything,
and to not judge or condemn apparent evil,
but to nonviolently resist and transcend it
with love, righteousness and justice, and
May we thereby live ever happier, peaceful and harmonious lives.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Discovering and Escaping
an Illusory Matrix “Reality”
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“This world is wrought with naught but thought.
Mind is matrix; consciousness is context.”
“Everything we think, do or say changes this world in some way.”
“Love-thoughts bless the world, but fear-thoughts afflict it.”
~ Ron Rattner – Sutra Saysings
“Reality isn’t real.”
“Reality is a holographic theater of the mind.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won.
There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible,
but in the end they always fall — think of it. Always.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
”This earth is nothing but movies to me. Just like the beam of a motion picture.
So is everything made of shadow and light. That’s what we are. Light and shadows of the Lord.
Nothing else than that. There’s one purpose. To get to the beam.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
Introduction
After my midlife spiritual awakening I gradually recognized that space/time “reality” is an ego-mind illusion; a thought-created dream-like mirage, from which we can awaken. But as an ardent social justice legal advocate I’ve always been concerned that our world is dominated by psychopathic “leaders” with immense financial, corporate and political power who without conscience or remorse promote their delusionally perceived selfish interests. [See Is the world being ruled and ruined by psychopaths? ]
So I’ve long wondered why the majority of humanity until now have followed and allowed insane and harmful orders and edicts by such “leaders’”. And why our world is thus steadily becoming more and more dystopian and Orwellian.
This memoirs essay-story tells how, only after confinement by recent worldwide Covid 19 lockdown edicts, I synchronistically discovered compelling evidence answering my questions: amazing evidence that our societies and “leaders” are probably afflicted and dominated by subhuman malignant energies or entities which parasitically polarize, divide and exploit humankind, by provoking anger, anxiety, and fear.
Yet it also tells how and why our coronavirus suffering can become a disguised blessing awakening Humanity to triumph democratically over the fearful illusion of unavoidable confinement in a totalitarian and ‘evil’ dystopian world. How we can soon nonviolently escape this mental-matrix confinement, when an awakened “tipping point” critical mass of concerned humans transcend parasitically divisive anger, anxiety, and fear to adamantly resist evil edicts with Truth and Love.
Our “Love-thoughts bless the world, but our fear-thoughts afflict it.”
Thus, President Franklin D Roosevelt presciently told deep truth upon proclaiming almost 88 years ago that:
“The only thing we have to fear is…fear itself —
nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror
which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
~ Franklin D Roosevelt, first Presidential inaugural address
So to join the critical mass of awakened humans which will inevitably end our descent into dystopia, please read and carefully consider the following essay/story.
Background summary
Following my midlife spiritual awakening, I radically revised concepts of self-identity and reality – from being a separate physical mortal, to universal eternal awareness emanating from infinite potentiality. So, for decades I’ve recognized that space/time “reality” isn’t really real, but a thought-created dream-like mirage or holographic/fractal theater of the ego-mind. These insights came mainly from inner experiences, synchronicities, and ancient Eastern teachings, rather than from contemporary media sources.
Upon reclusively living alone after my midlife awakening and traumatic 1977 divorce, I had no computer, no longer watched movies or TV dramas, and only read about spiritual subjects. So I never saw or read about science fiction films like “The Matrix”.
Thus, I didn’t suspect until watching the Matrix movie only a few years ago that metaphorically we’re probably living in a pre-programmed digital matrix. Since then my long-time concerns about psychopathic world “leaders” have synchronistically led to recent discovery that we suffer much earthly immorality and injustice because (as portrayed in the Matrix movie) our illusory mental-matrix is like a metaphoric mental prison, subliminally programmed by unseen parasitic astral energies or entities which dominate, control and feed upon humankind through such “leaders” and sub-human technocratic and psychopathic cultists.
But after I was recently locked down by irrationally harmful worldwide Covid 19 pandemic edicts, I synchronistically discovered numerous authorities supporting the existence of such sub-human astral entities or energies which cause collective subliminal psychoses and afflict many sociopathic, psychopathic and autocratic societal ‘leaders’, transhumanists, technocrats, and bureaucrats who are causing critical and catastrophic world problems.
I’ll hereafter detail reasons for the foregoing conclusions.
Questioning how and why sociopaths or psychopaths can dominate humanity
For many years I’ve felt deep concerns about how insane “leaders” lacking normal human conscience are causing immense worldwide problems and catastrophes. [See Is the world being ruled and ruined by psychopaths? ] Because of such longtime concerns I once wrote a personal letter to the Dalai Lama asking:
“How can concerned citizens become actively engaged in helping our global family transcend critical societal problems fomented by psychopathic leaders lacking normal capacity for compassion and loving-kindness?
His Holiness didn’t answer my letter. So, I assumed that he’d advocate active engagement with love and compassion to safeguard our global family. [See e.g. 2020 Earth Day Message: Compassionate People In An Orwellian World ]
But I’ve curiously continued seeking explanations for societal problems attributable to people in positions of authority who without conscience, empathy or remorse, promote their delusional perceived self interests, amorally and often criminally and violently. [See e.g. The Psychopath/ The Mask of Sanity and The Mask of Sanity by Hervey Cleckley]
And I’ve long wondered why the majority of humanity until now have followed and allowed insane and harmful orders and edicts by such “leaders’”. And why our world is thus steadily becoming more and more dystopian and Orwellian.
Are we living in an illusory computer-generated metaphoric matrix ‘reality’?
For decades I’ve been convinced by inner experience and Eastern wisdom, that our space/time “reality” is a dream-like ego-mind illusion. But only recently did I explore the idea that the Earth and the physical universe we live in might be part of a virtual computer simulation.
Only about four years ago I began exploring the idea that the Earth and the apparently physical universe we live in, might actually be part of a metaphoric computer simulation, even though I’d long been convinced by inner experience and Eastern wisdom, that our space/time “reality” is a dream-like ego-mind illusion.
After learning of billionaire engineer/entrepreneur Elon Musk’s publicly professed belief that the world we know is just a very sophisticated computer simulation, I began thoroughly investigating that idea, already widely known as The Simulation Hypothesis. (Because this non-materialistic theory parallels mystic ideas about our ever impermanent space/time ‘reality”, I’ve called it: “Samsara 3.0”.)
On researching, I soon learned that the theory our virtual “reality” is in fact like a computer-generated digital simulation, has been proposed in science fiction stories, TV and movies for over fifty years. And that many mainstream scientists have now begun seriously entertaining – with some accepting – that what we deem “reality” is in fact like a computer-generated digital simulation.
So, for the first time, I mindfully watched the 1999 science fiction film The Matrix, which depicts a world in which artificially intelligent non-human parasitic entities have enslaved humanity within a simulated reality set in the present world. Later, I learned about and viewed a similarly themed earlier film They Live (1988). Also I heard about and viewed an apt Star Trek video about confronting hostile Archon aliens, and The Truman Show (1999) about subliminal TV ‘reality’ programming.
After watching the films I began researching writings about the legendary mental parasites to which they allude. And synchronistically I found many surprisingly credible and consistent sources (some ancient) confirming supposed existence of such parasitic entities or energies, which prevent human freedom and evolution to spiritual realms. (For convenience I’ll refer to these mental parasites as “archons”, a term used in the Gnostic traditions.)
What are archons, and how do they endanger humankind?
My research has revealed that various enduring spiritual and shamanistic traditions (like Gnosticism, Native American and Hawaiian Kahuna) have traditionally recognized and rejected (as demonic) sub-human parasitic forces, energies or entities devoid of conscience, compassion and empathy.
These forces are attracted to greedy, deceptive, cruel or controlling people and societies already emitting low thought-forms, which they infect or “possess” as vulnerable victims. Whereupon the archons exacerbate and provoke anger, controversy, panic and fear to further polarize, divide and control their human prey.
After some individual and collective victims are possessed or infected, their conscience gradually ceases to function, their spiritual light and life force dims, and they become unknowing and subconscious instruments of demonic darkness.
How archons pre-plan what happens to humans in a metaphoric Matrix.
Only after the March 11, 2020 World Health Organization’s (WHO) irrational declaration of a purported coronavirus pandemic, which was soon followed by extraordinary and unnecessary edicts against normal human activities, and threats of compulsory vaccinations, did I begin to discover overwhelmingly credible evidence that this pandemic had long been preplanned by demonic dark forces. And that the pandemic is insidiously intended as the pretense for a world-changing “new 9/11” era of unprecedented evil domination and control of humanity. (See e,g. COVID-911: From Homeland Security to Biosecurity )
In carefully analyzing incontrovertible factual and circumstantial evidence it became obvious to me that people like billionaire technocrat and eugenicist Bill Gates, with no health or medical expertise, have long-intended to control and depopulate humanity by illegally, unjustifiably and forcibly vaccinating everyone everywhere against fraudulently alleged massive health dangers of Covid-19, with an unnecessary, unnatural and toxic pathogen unquestionably created by humans in bio-weapons laboratories. So I’ve irreversibly concluded, as an expert legal evidence analyst, that the purported WHO pandemic is an evil “plandemic” pretense to intimidate and subjugate humanity.
Moreover, massive evidence already suggests that the pre-planned Covid-19 vaccinations are an immoral subterfuge intended to modify humans’ genes and brains to transform them into robotic trans-human artificial intelligence (AI) cyborgs. Apart from so-called world vaccination and depopulation authority Bill Gates, other influential people like Elon Musk and Ray Kurzweil, a top Google executive, are openly advocating and investing in transhumanist technologies for merging humans with AI, to become ‘Humans 2.0’.
Rudolf Steiner’s predictions and warnings about “spirits of darkness”.
Apart from aforementioned compellingly probative evidence, I recently discovered the following amazingly prescient statements made over 100 years ago by Western sage Rudolf Steiner in public talks about “spirits of darkness”:
“I have told you that the spirits of darkness are going to inspire their human hosts, in whom they will be dwelling, to find a vaccine that will drive all inclination toward spirituality out of people’s souls when they are still very young, and this will happen in a roundabout way through the living body.”
“The spirits of darkness are now among us. We have to be on guard so that we may realize what is happening when we encounter them and gain a real idea of where they are to be found. The most dangerous thing you can do in the immediate future will be to give yourself up unconsciously to the influences which are definitely present.”
“There are beings in the spiritual realms for whom anxiety and fear emanating from human beings offer welcome food. When humans have no anxiety and fear, then these creatures starve… If fear and anxiety radiates from people and they break out in panic, then these creatures find welcome nutrition and they become more and more powerful. These beings are hostile towards humanity.
C. G. Jung’s recognition of humanity’s ‘shadow side’ demons
Throughout much of Dr. Carl Gustav Jung’s distinguished 20th century career as an eminent and acclaimed psychotherapist he recognized and analyzed the unconscious shadow side of humanity. At various times Dr. Jung referred psychologically to the above-described demonic forces which have been known to humanity, individually and collectively, since antiquity.
Here are only a few of Dr. Jung’s apt quotes, made at different times:
“The psychic conditions which breed demons are as actively at work as ever. The demons have not really disappeared but have merely taken on another form: they have become unconscious psychic forces.”
“Possession, though old-fashioned, has by no means become obsolete; only the name has changed. Formerly they spoke of ‘evil spirits,’ now we call them ‘neurosis’ or ‘unconscious complexes.'”
“If, for a moment, we look at mankind as one individual, we see that it is like a man carried away by unconscious powers.”
“When a situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.”
How humanity can escape our illusory psychic shackles
As suggested by Dr. Jung, humanity can escape dark side demonic afflictions, by consciously recognizing and resisting them.
In The Matrix film a skilled hacker named “Neo“, feels something is wrong with the world and is puzzled by repeated online encounters with the phrase “the Matrix”.
After voluntarily ingesting a revelatory “red pill” offered by wise man Morpheus, Neo awakens to discover that his entire world is an artificial universe created by computers which have imprisoned humans who believe it to be real; that, with countless other deluded souls, he’s existed like a ‘living-battery’ whose body has been energetically charging a computer simulation/dream in a digitally pre-programmed virtual or simulated world – the Matrix. He is thereby drawn into a rebellion against the parasitic captors, along with Morpheus and a few other righteous people who have been freed from the Matrix.
Although there is much truth in the “red pill” Matrix metaphor, our resistance to demonic forces does not require any violent rebellion by a few consciously aware and righteous people, led by a single saviour – the ONE. But it does require collective awareness of our psychologically subliminal and repressed shadow side afflictions by a critical mass “tipping point” of concerned humans.
Our immoral shadow side tendencies, or evil astral entities and energies, are parasitically nurtured and exist only through our negative thoughts and emotions. Hence, by elevating our vibratory fields with consciously compassionate and loving thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, we can transcend the demonic mental Matrix which can’t subsist without negative human energies to feed on.
But bringing the shadow side into consciousness is not as easy as simply ingesting a “red pill’. It will require a dedicated and arduous effort to discover and transcend long-repressed and subliminally inculcated false ideas about our “reality” and “self-identity”.
Since each person is unique there is no collective answer to how we can discover truth about our shadow side challenges. However if we decide to see and be the truth that sets us free, we definitely can succeed in elevating our energies so that they no longer sustain parasitic forces of darkness. No violent rebellion is required, only non-judgmental and nonviolent resistance to dark energies, with our light of inner awareness which illuminates current unconscious darkness.
And we don’t have to become “enlightened” Buddhas to succeed. We can soon escape these illusory psychic shackles, even while we’re still subject to space/time karmic causality. So we can collectively create a democratic and nonviolent “new reality” rather than permit an unprecedented evil era of demonic control over humankind.
By observing and elevating our negative emanations humans can evolve to co-create a compassionately just and benevolent new space/time “reality”
Cosmically our apparent space/time duality/reality is merely vibrating energy, emanating from humans, individually and collectively. And only at elevated heart levels of consciousness, beyond the fearful levels which originated them, can we solve our earthly problems..
As Albert Einstein ingeniously observed:
“What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.”
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live, they are modes in which we think”
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
Thus, we Humans ‘create’ our illusory space/time polarity reality, and its fearful problems, with only our thoughts, behaviors and emotions.
Our fearful thoughts “create” a negative vibratory reality which nurtures parasitic archon forces that afflict us, while our loving thoughts bless us and create a positive vibratory reality which is inaccessible to such psychic vampires.
So by focusing upon and emanating positive energies we can be freed from demonic mental parasites. However, until we become collectively conscious of our subliminal negative thoughts and behaviors, we may be unable to end them.
The coronavirus emergency can be a disguised blessing, awakening Humanity to our deepest caring instincts.
Humanity is a “social species” which has survived and thrived mostly communally and interdependently. And the demonically pre-planned “new normal” coronavirus pandemic crisis of worldwide anxiety, fear and panic is a once-in-a-lifetime ‘fork-in—the-road’ opportunity for humankind to co-create a new and wonderful world of happiness, harmony and health for everyone everywhere, rather than degenerate into a locked-down dystopian/Orwellian “Big Brother” era of unprecedented human control and enslavement by a few psychopaths.
While prevented from pursuing normal activities, billions of people worldwide are observing and adamantly rejecting irrational and unwarranted edicts, fears and ‘lock-downs’, which cause enormous needless suffering. Thus we are remembering and realizing the crucial importance of compassionately caring for one-another. And we are recognizing and rejecting the utter insanity of a tiny few of our autocratic “leaders”, who until now have been allowed to thwart expression and satisfaction of humankind’s primordial need for happiness as Love.
Our unwavering determination to resist undemocratic domination, and to replace such “leaders”, with democratic societies serving people and planet over profits, has been recently reflected by spontaneous worldwide citizen protests of the undemocratic and fraudulent Covid-19 restrictions. Speaking to over a million citizen protestors in Berlin, Germany, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr eloquently articulated our collective resistance by declaring:
“We are not going to let you take our democracy away.
We are not going to let you take our health away.
We are not going to let you take our freedoms away.
We are not going to let you take our children away.”
~ Robert F. Kennedy, Jr – Berlin, 8/30/20
Thus, our coronavirus suffering is becoming a disguised blessing awakening Humanity to triumph democratically over the fearful illusion of an ‘evil’ totalitarian prison.
So awakened, and determined to evolve beyond immoral official fetters, may we nonviolently prevail with timeless Truth and Love.
Invocation
Awakened to our innate infinite powers of Truth and Love, may we be inspired by words of Mahatma Gandhi to remember that despite our lives’ inevitable ‘ups and downs’ our ultimate success is divinely destined. Gandhiji said:
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won.
There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible,
but in the end they always fall — think of it. Always.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
So with supreme faith in our ultimate triumph as Truth and Love,
let us optimistically and unrelentingly resist
all evil autocracies and psychopathic hierarchies,
ever remembering that our destiny is Divinity.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
“Samsara 3.0”: The Simulation Hypothesis
“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
“Time, space and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen.
In the Absolute there is neither time, space nor causation.”
“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 – “The Real and the Apparent Man”, 1894 lecture
“I regard consciousness as fundamental.
I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.
We cannot get behind consciousness.
Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
~ Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
“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
Introduction
This essay explains how conventional science is about to confirm ancient mystic insights about our space/time reality by validating “The Simulation Hypothesis”, a former science fiction theory. And how matrix science fiction is becoming IT and quantum science fact.
(Because this non-materialistic hypothesis parallels ancient Eastern mystical ideas about the illusory nature of our ever impermanent space/time ‘reality”, I’ve called it: “Samsara 3.0”.)
Further it tells why I optimistically believe that – as presciently envisioned by Swami Vivekananda over a century ago – science and religion will soon agree on the ONENESS of phenomenal and Absolute “reality”. And why science is about to prove we are living and learning in a metaphoric matrix – like a digitally pre-programmed virtual or simulated soul-school ‘reality’.
Finally, it discloses my intuitive insight that realizing our ONENESS with all life everywhere, a critical mass of Humankind will at long last discard destructive illusionary beliefs and behaviors which have brought us to the brink of ecologic, economic, and international catastrophe.
Space/time “reality” isn’t really REAL
For millennia, mystic masters have revealed from their inner-explorations that all we see or seem is mental illusion, ‘samsara’ or ‘maya’ – like a persistent day-dream from which we can awaken, just as we awaken from nocturnal dreams.
But during the industrial age such non-materialistic world-views were largely supplanted by materialist Newtonian science which reified and objectified human perceptions. Only for the past hundred years have revolutionary quantum scientists – like Albert Einstein and Max Planck – begun confirming perennial mystic insights that “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one”, so that “our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.” because “matter is derivative from consciousness”.
Like mystics, quantum scientists are now saying that all the forms we perceive and call “reality” are impermanent vibrating energy emanations – ever appearing and disappearing beyond time and space; and that “consciousness is fundamental”.
Although the relativity and quantum hypotheses of the last century were consistent with perennial mystical insights, most people still psychologically deny or repress non-materialistic ideas inconsistent with their deeply inculcated core beliefs about supposed material ‘reality’ or physical self-identity.
“The Simulation Hypothesis”
Thus, conventional societies and scientists have been extremely slow in accepting the revolutionary relativity and quantum hypotheses of the last century. But many mainstream scientists have now begun seriously entertaining – with some accepting – the theory known as “The Simulation Hypothesis” – that what we deem “reality” is in fact like a computer-generated digital simulation.
So this non-materialistic idea, formerly considered science fiction (as in the legendary Matrix film), is becoming accepted as mainstream science theory and probability. (Because this non-materialistic theory parallels mystic ideas about our ever impermanent space/time ‘reality”, I’ve called it: “Samsara 3.0”.)
“Science and religion will meet and ‘shake hands’.”
In 1894 Indian sage Swami Vivekananda predicted Western scientific confirmation of the ancient Vedic non-dual philosophy of ONE Infinite Existence beyond relative reality: saying that “science and religion will meet and shake hands.”
Vivekananda’s 19th century prediction is more and more proving prescient in the 21st century. Gradually, what was formerly considered science fiction is becoming accepted as mainstream science theory. Contemporary scientists are now seriously raising key questions about this theory, such as:
Are we living in a virtual reality? Is the universe appearing from an information processing system? And if so, could we ever tell? Is it possible to ‘hack’ the system and change reality?
These questions are carefully addressed in this excellent 50 minute documentary film titled “The Simulation Hypothesis” which includes contributions from leading researchers about physics, cosmology, mathematics and information sciences.
“The Simulation Hypothesis”
Ron’s comments on “The Simulation Hypothesis” as “Samsara 3.0”
Upon reclusively living alone after my midlife spiritual awakening and traumatic 1977 divorce, I had no computer, no longer watched movies or TV dramas, and only read about spiritual subjects. So I didn’t learn about science fiction ideas that our space/time world is like a digital pre-programmed simulated or virtual reality. And I neither saw nor read about science fiction films like The Matrix.
However, from unforgettable inner experiences, synchronicities, and ancient Eastern teachings, I had realized that space/time “reality” isn’t really real, but an illusory thought-created dream-like mirage or holographic/fractal theater of the ego-mind. Only after getting a computer in 2002 did I slowly began learning of and exploring science fiction ideas that our space/time world is like a digital pre-programmed simulated or virtual reality. And only a few years ago did I begin deeply reflecting upon “The Simulation Hypothesis”, after watching the classic 1999 science fiction film The Matrix.
That film depicts a world in which artificially intelligent non-human parasitic entities have enslaved humanity within a simulated reality set in the present world. Before viewing The Matrix I learned that its virtual “reality” theory about our “reality” as being like a computer-generated digital simulation, has been proposed in science fiction stories, TV and movies for over fifty years.
In The Matrix film a skilled hacker named “Neo”, feels something is wrong with the world and is puzzled by repeated online encounters with the phrase “the Matrix”. After voluntarily ingesting a revelatory “red pill” offered by wise man Morpheus, Neo awakens to discover that his entire world is an artificial universe created by computers which have imprisoned humans who believe it to be real; that, with countless other deluded souls, he’s existed like a ‘living-battery’ whose body has been energetically charging a computer simulation/dream in a digitally pre-programmed virtual or simulated world – the Matrix. Neo is thereby drawn into a rebellion against the parasitic captors, along with Morpheus and a few other righteous people who have been freed from the Matrix.
Because the film’s scenario and dialogue raise questions of perennial importance I viewed it as an artistic metaphor for our process of spiritual evolution and awakening from space/time samsara to realization of the ONE.
For example, here are a few noteworthy Morpheus quotes in dialogue with Neo:
“What is real? How do you define real?”
“If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”
“Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real?
What if you were unable to wake from that dream, Neo? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?
“The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world, built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this [ a copper-top D cell battery].”
“The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.”
“The body cannot live without the mind.”
“I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.”
The Matrix film, was consistent with my prior perspectives about the illusory nature and purpose of our world as a love-learning laboratory. So since watching the film I have continued to see our precious planet as the Earth branch of a great Cosmic University with only one evolutionary obstacle-course curriculum – LOVE.
Before viewing the Matrix I had long been deeply concerned about how insane “leaders” lacking normal human conscience, morality and empathy are causing immense worldwide problems and catastrophes. [See Is the world being ruled and ruined by psychopaths? ] So I considered the film’s evil Agents as metaphoric agents of the psychopathic billionaire “leaders” who cruelly exploit people and planet Earth. But I didn’t at first reflect about film’s portrayal of the Matrix as a psychic prison programmed by subhuman parasitic captors who feed off of our energies.
Initial “Simulation Hypothesis” Conclusions
Current scientific study of non-physical phenomena is resulting in rapid progress, as long ago envisioned by Nikola Tesla. So science fiction is becoming science fact.
Thus contemporary scientists will soon agree with ancient mystic inner explorers that humans exist in a thought created illusory vibratory reality emanating from universal consciousness; that space/time is a mere mental mirage or dreamlike optical illusion, from which we can awaken upon realization of our Source.
Until we so transcend this illusory reality as universal LOVE, we will continue living and learning in a metaphoric matrix – like a digitally pre-programmed virtual or simulated soul-school ‘reality’ subject to karmic causality. In this illusory space/time world of duality/causality, we shall reap as we sow: we’ll reap inner peace and joy from loving behaviors but inevitably suffer from selfishness.
Post-pandemic Conclusions
After being locked down by worldwide Covid 19 pandemic edicts I synchronistically found numerous authorities leading to additional conclusions that our illusory space/time universe is like a digital mental-matrix prison, pre-programmed by parasitic astral energies manifesting and dominating humans through sub-human technocratic and psychopathic satanic cultists.
I will soon explain those further conclusions in a new memoirs posting which will also explain my intuitive insight that the coronavirus emergency is a disguised blessing, awakening our deepest caring instincts.
I think that realizing our ONENESS with all life everywhere, a critical mass of Humankind will at long last discard destructive illusionary beliefs and behaviors which have brought us to the brink of ecologic, economic, and international catastrophe.
Although there is much truth in the “red pill” Matrix awakening metaphor, our resistance to demonic forces must be nonviolent, and does not require any violent rebellion by a few consciously aware and righteous people, led by a single saviour. However, the new post will explain why our evolution toward realization of our infinite ONENESS does require collective awareness of our psychologically subliminal or repressed shadow side afflictions by a critical mass “tipping point” of concerned humans.
Invocation.
Regardless of whether we seek metaphoric ‘escape’ from psychic imprisonment in a virtual computer simulation,
everyone consciously or subliminally yearns for eternal peace and happiness.
May our reflections on The Simulation Hypothesis as “Samsara 3.0”
inspire discovery of such happiness,
and end our llusionary egoic fears, beliefs and harmful behaviors
which inevitably perpetuate karmic suffering.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Awakening to the “Secret of Secrets”
“If you could get rid of yourself just once,
the secret of secrets would open to you.
The face of the unknown, hidden beyond the universe
would appear on the mirror of your perception.”
~ Rumi
“You will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.”
~ John 8:32
“You are “gods”;
you are all children of the Most High.”
~ Psalm 82: 6
“You cannot teach an ego to be anything but egotistic,
even though egos have the subtlest ways of pretending to be reformed.
The basic thing is therefore to dispel, by experiment and experience, the illusion of oneself as a separate ego.”
~ Alan Watts
“People can’t be talked out of illusions. If a person believes that the earth is flat, you can’t talk him out of that, he knows that it’s flat. He’ll go down to the window and see that its obvious, it looks flat. So the only way to convince him that it isn’t is to say, “Well let’s go and find the edge”
~ Alan Watts
“The individual is separate from his universal environment only in name. When this is not recognized, you have been fooled by your name. Confusing names with Nature, you come to believe that having a separate name makes you a separate being.
This is—rather literally—to be spellbound”.
~ Alan Watts
“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything,
you are essentially conscious of yourself.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
Awakening to the “Secret of Secrets”
For millennia there has been a tacit taboo or ‘conspiracy of silence’ against disclosing to all Humankind our true spiritual and immortal identity.
Except for those raised in so-called ‘primitive’ or indigenous societies, or those imbued with Eastern religious philosophy, most people have been acculturated from time immemorial into societies with “an unrecognized but mighty taboo — our tacit conspiracy to ignore who, or what, we really are.” (Alan Watts: The Book, On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Preface.)
From childhood we are taught to self-identify only with an illusory and disempowering ego image; with a separate name, gender, and story about who and what we are. We are taught that we are each born into Nature as limited beings; but, not that Nature is our nature, or that we are Beings of Light sharing limitless immortal common consciousness with all life-forms.
Nor are we ever taught the greatest “secret of secrets”: that we are not mere powerless perceivers of our “reality”, but also its co-creators – that we co-create our reality with our thoughts, words and deeds; that everything we think, do or say changes this world in some way; and, that this worldly “reality” is dependent upon the awareness with which we envision, experience and co-create it.
To experientially realize that greatest “secret of secrets” is to Know Thyself. And to Know Thyself, is to know the Whole – the Truth that will set us free.
For countless ages sages, seers and mystics have been trying to tell us that we are not what we think we are! That we suffer from perception-deception – with self-identity and reality not what they appear to be; that it is possible to experientially transcend the inevitable suffering of ordinary human existence through self-realization of and self-identification with an undivided eternal spiritual reality – which is the common essence of all space-time causality reality.
Mystics say that we share common Self identity – as Cosmic Consciousness or Non-Duality Reality; that we are not merely our mortal bodies – their names, genders, features, colors, religions, beliefs, emotions, habits or stories – or the ‘voices in our heads’. We are non-dual immortal spirit experiencing fleeting earth lives from infinite perspectives in transitory physical vehicles. But we’re all the same ‘under the hood’.
Yet until now that greatest secret has been mostly concealed or denied: predominantly by subconscious suppression or psychological inability of humankind to accept or entertain non-experienced facts which contradict or threaten their cherished illusionary beliefs about “reality”; sometimes by institutions and individuals seeking selfish hierarchical exploitation of our precious planet and all its life-forms and resources.
Until now ignorance of our true identity and immortality, has resulted in humanity’s hallucination of separation from Nature, from each other, and from our sole Self and spirit, with consequent destructive insanity, selfishness and suffering.
But now, facing ominous and enormous ecological, interpersonal and international crises which cannot be resolved from the same levels of consciousness which created them, we are at long last being awakened from our delusion of separateness and powerlessness. Spurred by increasing suffering and awareness of imminent catastrophe, we are finally dispelling the ignorance which has spawned these crises.
And we shall soon reach a tipping point, when a critical mass of Humankind will have awakened to the “secret of secrets”, uplifting all human consciousness and resolving harmoniously and compassionately the critical mess created by our prior unawareness of that “secret”.
Thus awakened, we shall harmoniously, cooperatively and lovingly resolve our common crises for our common good.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Ron’s commentary on the taboo against knowing who we really are.
The foregoing essay was inspired by the above Rumi “secret of secrets” quote, and by Alan Watts’:
“The Book, On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”, ©1966.
Watts was a brilliantly insightful, erudite and articulate UK philosopher, author, and teacher, with post-graduate degrees in Theology and Divinity. After five years as an ordained Episcopal priest, he ‘converted’ to Zen Buddhism and in 1951 moved to Marin County, California from the UK. Thereafter, until his death in 1973, Watts became a counterculture icon,
best-known for introducing Eastern philosophical and religious thought to Westerners.
I first learned about Watts’ teachings listening to KPFA Pacifica radio, Berkeley, which posthumously broadcast his lectures on Sunday nights, while I was driving for visits with my aged parents. Those broadcasts helped me to learn about Eastern wisdom and philosophy of spiritual evolution – of which I was previously ignorant.
Only after launching the Silly Sutras website in 2010 did I discover and read Watt’s 1966 “The Book, On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”. By then I concurred with Watts’ assertions about origins of the illusion of a separate ego self, and how that illusion is central to our ominous and enormous ecological, interpersonal and international crises.
Moreover, before 2010 I’d already learned about extreme psychological reluctance of most people to entertain or accept true facts contrary to their cherished beliefs about “reality”. And soon after President Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, I’d become quite aware of powerfully insidious Orwellian propaganda techniques used to ‘brainwash’ people about alleged truth of outrageous government lies, and to marginalize truth-telling dissidents by ridiculing them as “conspiracy theorists”, “kooks”, “foreign agents”, “communists”, or “socialists”, and blatantly censoring or dishonestly denying their ‘inconveniently’ truthful revelations.
So I concurred with Alan Watts’ contentions concerning a tacit taboo or conspiracy of silence against revealing our true identity and infinite potentiality. Thus I have composed the foregoing essay, and endorse Watts’ book “On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”, linked below as an audio book file.
Invocation
May these writings inspire our awakening to “the secret of secrets”, and thereby to irreversibly realize ourselves as uniquely interdependent expressions of ONE universal, ineffable and eternal Reality – the cosmic Self matrix of all Life everywhere.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Audio: Alan Watts: The Book, On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.
Other links:
https://binged.it/2E3SoYK
https://binged.it/2GzTYmG
Let’s Leap To Quantum Consciousness
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong.
What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.”
“There is no place in this new kind of physics both for the field and matter, for the [Quantum] field is the only reality.”
~ Albert Einstein
“With quantum theory we have to leave behind our naive picture of reality as an intricate clockwork. We are challenged by quantum theory to build new ways in which to picture reality, a physics, moreover, in which consciousness plays a central role, in which the observer is inextricably interwoven in the fabric of reality.”
~ Adam McLean
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
Ron’s Introduction to Let’s Leap To Quantum Consciousness
The following visionary poem was composed many years ago as I was imagining blessings to be enjoyed when, at long last, with elevated quantum consciousness human societies, institutions and enterprises function democratically, holistically and cooperatively for the benefit of all life everywhere.
Let’s Leap To Quantum Consciousness
Imagine how blessed our lives would be
If everyone could really See
How everything is energy.
So, let’s take a quantum leap:
From particle to wave,
From lost to saved,
From I to Thou,
From then to Now,
From doing to Being,
From having to Seeing,
From ego to Soul,
From part to Whole.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Let’s Leap To Quantum Consciousness”
Ron’s explanation and dedication of
“Let’s Leap To Quantum Consciousness”
Dear Friends,
For millennia mystics have recognized the permanent impermanence of all forms and experiences in our space/time energetic ‘reality’ – an insight now confirmed by quantum physicists.
Quantum science shows us that everything in space/time is energy (e=mc2); that all forms and phenomena are merely vibrating and radiating immaterial energies endlessly and inevitably appearing (from unknown causes and conditions) out of and disappearing into an ineffable matrix of mystery.
A century has passed since Einstein’s revolutionary relativity theory revealed to us that “reality” can’t be reduced to objects or entities in space. Yet culturally we’ve kept acting as if this is so – habitually clinging to a false Newtonian materialistic worldview that sees everyone and everything as discrete and separated by apparently immutable boundaries.
Nonetheless, we are inevitably evolving into the light of creation: from a Newtonian “reality” of polarized duality, to a quantum “reality” of holistic connectedness; from either this or that, to this and that are ONE.
Synchronistically, current unprecedented worldwide dystopian restrictions of civil and human rights, and threats of imminent ecological, biological or nuclear catastrophe jeopardizing earth-life as we’ve known it, also provide to our species (which allowed or caused these dire problems) exceptionally urgent incentives to resolve them forthwith from elevated heart levels of quantum consciousness.
Invocation.
May the above poetic vision help inspire and encourage our evolutionary transformation and realization of open-hearted human societies infused with loving quantum consciousness, blessing and benefiting all life everywhere.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Free Will or Fate?
“Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end,
by forces over which we have no control.
It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star.
Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust,
we all dance to a mysterious tune,
intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.” . . . .
“Human beings in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free but are as causally bound as the stars in their motions.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The assumption of an absolute determinism is the essential foundation of every scientific enquiry.”
~ Max Planck
“God alone is the Doer.
Everything happens by His will.”
~ Ramakrishna Paramahansa
Q. “Are only the important events in a man’s life,
such as his main occupation or profession, predetermined,
or are trifling acts also, such as taking a cup of water or
moving from one part of the room to another?”
A. “Everything is predetermined.”
~ Ramana Maharshi
“[T]here cannot be any such thing as free will; the very words are a contradiction, because will is what we know and everything that we know is within our universe, and everything within our universe is moulded by the conditions of space, time, and causation. Everything that we know, or can possibly know, must be subject to causation, and that which obeys the law of causation cannot be free.”
“The only way to come out of bondage is to go beyond the limitations of law, to go beyond causation.”
“This is the goal of the Vedantin, to attain freedom while living.”
~ Swami Vivekananda – Karma Yoga
“In Hinduism, the very idea of free will is non-existent,
so there is no word for it.
Will is commitment, fixation, bondage.” . . . .
“To be free in the world you must be free of the world.
Otherwise your past decides for you and your future.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
“There is only one central issue, crisis, or challenge for man,
which is, that he must be completely free.
As long as the mind is holding on to a structure, a method, a system, there is no freedom.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
Ultimate freedom is not
freedom of choice,
but freedom from choice.
Ego is free to choose,
but is never free.
Self does not choose,
but is ever free.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Every Cause has its Effect;
every Effect has its Cause;
everything happens according to Law;
Chance is but a name for Law not recognized;
there are many planes of causation,
but nothing escapes the Law.”
~ The Kybalion
“Every action, every thought, reaps its own corresponding rewards.
Human suffering is not a sign of God’s, or Nature’s, anger with mankind.
It is a sign, rather, of man’s ignorance of divine law. . . .
Such is the law of karma: As you sow, so shall you reap.
If you sow evil, you will reap evil in the form of suffering.
And if you sow goodness, you will reap goodness in the form of inner joy.”
~ Paramhansa Yogananda
“It is true that we are not bound.
That is to say, the real Self has no bondage.
And it is true that you will eventually return to your Source.
But meanwhile, if you commit sins, as you call them,
you have to face the consequences. You cannot escape them.”
~ Ramana Maharshi
“Nothing perceivable is real. Your attachment is your bondage.
You cannot control the future.
There is no such thing as free will. Will is bondage.
You identify yourself with your desires and become their slave.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Free-will is a non-entity, a thing consisting of name alone.”
“The will of man without the grace of God is not free at all,
but is the permanent prisoner and bond-slave of evil since it cannot turn itself to good.”
“For grace is needed, and the help of grace is given, because “free-will” can do nothing.”
~ Martin Luther – The Bondage Of The Will
In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on to infinity.
~ Baruch Spinoza
“The only difference between a human being and a stone rolling down a hill, is that the human being thinks he is in charge of his own destiny.”
~ Baruch Spinoza
“There is no such thing as chance;
and what seems to us merest accident
springs from the deepest source of destiny.”
~ Johann Friedrich Von Schiller
“There are no mistakes, no coincidences,
all events are blessings given to us to learn from.”
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“Not my will but Thy Will be done.”
~ Matthew 26:39; Luke 22:42
“We must believe in free will, we have no choice.”
~ Isaac Bashevis Singer
“Man plans, God laughs” (Mann traoch, Gott Lauch)
~ Yiddish proverb
Free Will or Fate?
Q. Do we have free will, or freedom of choice, or is our life predetermined or fated?
A. Our experience of apparent freedom of choice or of predestiny depends on our evolutionary history and perspective.
In space/time ego/mind causality/reality, most “normal” people experience freedom of choice, and make decisions and plans about ostensible options in their lives. And some people consciously choose the attitude or state of mind with which they experience earth life. Because each person is unique, with a unique evolutionary perspective and personality, we each choose our life experiences differently. And as our self awareness becomes more focused, our free will powers increase.
But according to mystics, our belief in free will is ultimately illusory. For example, both Albert Einstein and Ramana Maharshi have asserted that every detail of worldly life “is predetermined.” And Swami Vivekananda told us that “free will” is a self-contradictory concept; that with worldly will there can be no freedom, which is always constrained by the universal law of cause and effect. Similarly, Vivekananda’s master, Ramakrishna Paramahansa, taught that
“God alone is the Doer.
Everything happens by His will.”
Enlightened saints, sages, shamans and mystics for millennia have reported attitudinally transcending this ever impermanent world reality, and experiencing it as an illusory play of consciousness, sometimes called ‘samsara’ or ‘maya’. Such masters do not self-identify mentally as only mere mortal embodied beings, but experientially as non-dual universal intelligence or spirit, which is the Source and essence of this ever impermanent world.
They report realizing experientially – as Albert Einstein explained scientifically – that:
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one;” [that] “space and time are not conditions in which we live, they are modes in which we think”, and [that our separate self-identity] “is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
They define “freedom” as a timeless non-dual immutable spiritual Reality beyond thought or ego – beyond human comprehension, imagination, description or belief – which can only be known experientially, not mentally or rationally.
Free will requires ego/mind separation in space/time.
Since free will implies separation of one who wills or chooses from the objects of his/her will, there can be no free will or free choice without an imagined or conceived doer or chooser separate from objects of his/her actions or choices. And without time there can be no destiny of any supposedly separate doer or chooser.
Thus, in space/time causality/reality, as long as we self-identify as supposedly separate entities distinct from the apparent objects of our perceptions, choices or intentions, we have apparent freedom of choice, until we transcend separate self-identity and experience existence as universal choiceless and timeless awareness, or consciousness without an object. [*See footnote]
So
Ultimate freedom is not
freedom of choice,
but freedom from choice.
Ego is free to choose,
but is never free.
Self does not choose,
but is ever free.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
But, our ego/mind exercise of apparent freedom of choice creates karmic causes and conditions which can keep us believing in the “optical illusion” – that we are separate entities rather than ONE infinite Potentiality. And with the law of karma we reap as we sow. According to Swami Yogananda,
“If you sow evil, you will reap evil in the form of suffering. If you sow goodness, you will reap goodness in the form of inner joy.”
With Self realization there is transcendence of illusory separate self-identity; whereupon there remains only Being – only Infinite Potentiality – with no separate someone to will or intend or separately experience anything in time.
Thus, upon total transcendence of separate entity identity, there is no free will or free choice, nor is there time in which karmic fate or destiny unfolds –
Only choiceless “Freedom”,
Ever
NOW!
Footnote.
*According to Eastern philosophies, Karma is universal law of cause and effect applied at subtle levels to everything we think, do or say during repeated reincarnations as supposedly separate beings. A similar concept is implicit in Western teachings that we reap as we sow [e.g. Galatians 6:7-9]
Ron’s Reflections on Free Will or Fate.
After my midlife change of life, I reconsidered all prior paradigms about self-identity, reality, free choice or predestiny, and began entertaining intriguing ideas about reincarnation and karma. After experiencing my self-identity as universal consciousness, gradually I realized that space/time reality – which previously I had considered as the only reality – is an ever impermanent projection of universal intelligence which is the essence and matrix of all worldly phenomena.
Ultimately, I concluded that space/time “reality” is a digitally preprogrammed simulated world – a “holographic theater of the mind”;
so that space/time “reality isn’t really real”.
But even though it appeared to me that “reality isn’t really real”, like all other “normal” people I’ve lived this lifetime mostly behaving as if this crazy space/time world is very real – yet ever aware of a deep intuitive aspiration to be ‘in this world but not of this world’. And I’ve never stopped wondering with great curiosity about how and why space/time reality was created and why we are here.
For example, on returning to San Francisco from a February 1977 miraculous week in New York where I amazingly experienced many previously foreseen events, I began wondering:
“What is time?”
“Are there really any coincidences or accidents,
or is everything that happens to us predestined by laws of causation or karma?”
“Do we really have free will as most people believe?
And if so, what free will?”
Forty years since then, I am still uncertain about answers to those mysterious perennial questions. But many aphorisms, essays and poems reflecting my theories, intuitions and speculations about them, are posted with apt quotations on SillySutras.com.
Thus I have posted the above quotations and Q and A essay about free will or fate, proposing that karmically and cosmically our lives are predetermined, but that morally we must live as if we have freedom of choice to heal the world.
I suggest that cosmically free will is an illusionary aspect of Nature’s predetermined evolutionary ‘incentive system’; that we are subjected to inevitable earthly sufferings which motivate us to transcend them by choosing to improve or peacefully accept our life’s circumstances. Thus, I think that Nature’s determinism promotes evolution by fating us to make apparent choices, individually and collectively, which ultimately will advance human consciousness until we experientially realize our essential common self-identity beyond death as Infinite Potentiality – Universal spirit, Being, Awareness, Bliss, Eternal Life, Light, LOVE.
Mostly I agree with Einstein’s Mystical Views on Free Will or Determinism: that ‘God doesn’t play dice’, so
“Human beings in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free but are as causally bound as the stars in their motions.”
[* See commentary footnote]
Assuming predestination while always acting morally can help us find happiness.
Whether or not we agree with Einstein and rare mystics that what happens in space/time reality is like a preprogrammed dream predestined by mysterious karmic causes and conditions, I have found that assuming predestination, while always acting morally, can help us find happiness. We can experience ever growing peace of mind by more and more accepting each moment with the attitude that it could not be otherwise, and that it is happening in the best way and at the best time – as an evolutionary incentive and opportunity.
Gradually we can thereby accept inevitable difficulties as evolutionary opportunities, without remorse or regret about the past, or worry or fear of the future. This attitude of assuming everything as predestined has helped me experience ever increasing equanimity and contentment, and to enjoy countless unplanned synchronistic meetings with ordinary people as ‘holy encounters’ with divine beings wearing ‘space/time soul suits’.
Conclusion.
So, whether or not we believe in spiritual evolution or predestiny, I invite your careful consideration of the above quotations and essay. I hope these ideas can help all of us find increasing happiness by accepting inevitable difficulties as evolutionary opportunities, and by finding blessings in unplanned events and interactions with others.
And if we do accept predestined karma, let us remember that
when we sow love, we harvest happiness.
Accordingly, (whether or not predestined) I invite you to join with me frequently in the heartfelt affirmation which appears atop every SillySutras.com page.
“Infuse us, enthuse us, and use us, to bless all life as Love!”
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Commentary Footnote.
*Until his death in 1955, Albert Einstein rejected the “uncertainty” principle of quantum mechanics advanced by most respected physicists of his time. Einstein stubbornly maintained his view, consistent with ancient mystical insights, 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 and conditions not yet recognized or perceived.
Some quantum physicists now suggest that recent non-locality experiments show that Einstein erred in rejecting quantum uncertainty theory; that these experiments support what Einstein rejected as “spooky action at a distance”. However, it is still possible that quantum physicists’ ideas of chance or “uncertainty” arise from predetermined causes and conditions not yet recognized or perceived by mainstream science.
Hydrologic Logic:
What People Can Learn From Snowflakes
“Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.”
~ Rumi
“Love is the water of life,
jump into this water.”
~ Rumi
“To understand water is to understand the cosmos,
the marvels of nature, and life itself.”
~ Masaru Emoto
Hydrologic Logic: What People Can Learn From Snowflakes
Perennial wisdom says we can learn about ourselves by closely observing all of Nature’s manifestations and processes.
“As above, so below; as below, so above.”
~ The Kybalion, Hermetic axiom
“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”
~ Albert Einstein
So, what can we learn about ourselves by studying snowflakes and hydrologic processes?
Science tells us that though countless trillions of snowflakes have fallen on earth each has a unique form; that each snowflake is an hexagonally symmetrical crystalline form which begins around a tiny speck of dust – as each pearl forms around a sand particle – but that no two snowflakes are exactly alike.
How amazing!!! http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/faqs/faqs.htm
Yet, despite this wondrous and unimaginable diversity of forms, all snowflakes have a common essence – frozen water – H20.
When a snowflake melts, it returns to and merges with its watery source, which is perpetually recycled. So, each snowflake’s essence is the same – recycled water, which has formed countless unique prior snowflakes.
Not only do miraculously unique snowflakes originate from their common watery essence, but science says that such essence is indestructible. Water – a liquid – is a form of ‘matter’ which is merely manifest energy: E=mc2. And energy can’t be destroyed. It just recycles endlessly from formlessness to differing forms and phenomena. So, in their essence, snowflakes are immortal energy.
People are like snowflakes
Like miraculously unique snowflakes, each of the countless humans who has inhabited Earth has had a unique form and genetic makeup. Like snowflakes, human physical bodies are composed of common elemental earth constituents, including mostly water. People’s physical bodies – like snowflakes – appear for a twinkling of time, die and ‘melt’ back into the watery Earth.
But, presumably unlike snowflakes, each of us is aware of our environment and of our life’s experiences; and this awareness is our entire existence. So, while unique snowflakes are united in glorious diversity by their common watery essence, physically unique human beings, are unified not only by their common elemental earthly constituents but, also, by their by their common essence – consciousness, which is the sole context of human beingness.
Snowflakes appear in Nature and, apparently, are peacefully at one with Nature until they disappear. Humans appear in Nature but – unlike snowflakes – we have great intelligence and we think a lot. And through thought we identify ourselves as our perceived separate forms. Thus, we think that we are entities “condemned” by nature to inevitable bodily death. But we don’t know what will happen to us upon such death.
So, we become afraid of dying; of giving up the known for the unknown. And, through thought, we try to “protect” and preserve our ephemeral physical forms and to deter or psychologically deny their inevitable demise. Accordingly, our lives are often marked by mental afflictions causing conflicts, problems and suffering, which disturb our peace and awareness of at-one-ment with Nature.
What people can learn from snowflakes
Q. So, what can people learn from snowflakes?
A. To let go and ‘go with the flow’; to ‘cool it’ and to not worry about our inevitable disappearance.
We can realize that we are much more than our unique physical forms, or our thoughts. That like snowflakes we are inextricably interdependent essential elements of Nature; that Nature is our nature, until we melt into Mystery and disappear into Nature’s Eternal Essence.
Realizing this, we can begin more and more to self-identify with Nature as our immortal Essence rather than with our ephemeral forms and thoughts; and, gradually, we can expand our perceived boundaries, to ever evolve as these boundaries dissolve.
Thus, we can more and more live with less and less anxiety, fear and worry. Though in this life we may never totally transcend entity identity, often we can just be at peace – as immortal awareness.
And so,
“As we lose our fear, Of leaving life, We shall gain the art of living life.”
And – like snowflakes – maybe some day we’ll be ‘recycled’ some way. e.g. http://www.victorzammit.com/Whenwedie/whatdoeshappen.htm
Or maybe not. e.g. http://tinyurl.com/mlw6erq
In all events, – like snowflakes – we need not worry about leaving. For
“It is in dying [to ego life] that we are reborn to Eternal Life.”
~ Saint Francis of Assisi, peace prayer
Conclusion
People can learn from snowflakes to let go and go with Nature’s flow, until we become immortal; we can learn that
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
~ Lao Tzu
And that:
“The dewdrop belongs to the sea. Separated, it is vulnerable to the sun and wind and other elements of nature; but when the droplet returns to its source, it becomes magnified in oneness with the sea. So it is with your life. United to God you become immortal.’
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
So, as elements of Nature, we need not worry, and can be happy and peaceful as we melt into our immortal Source – like snowflakes!
Namaste!
Ron Rattner
Hydrologic Logic Epilogue, May, 2020, Honoring Dr. Masaru Emoto .
Dear Friends,
In recent messages and postings I’ve optimistically opined that the current coronavirus pandemic emergency has given us an unprecedented opportunity to co-create a new and wonderful world of happiness, harmony and health for everyone everywhere. And I’ve tried to suggest how that can happen, if we follow our hearts, instead of being paralyzed by propaganda provoked fear and panic.
Did you know that the Earth is 70 percent water, and that people are 70 percent water; and, that according to NASA, “Water is the fundamental ingredient for life on Earth” ?
The foregoing essay was originally inspired by the ancient hermetic axiom, ‘as above, so below’ and by advice of my Guruji and other wisdom teachers to learn from Nature. Later in 2004, via the film “What the Bleep Do We Know?”, I was deeply impressed on discovering the pioneering research of Dr. Masaru Emoto whose astonishing discoveries, documented photographically, have led to awakened awareness about water as Earth’s most precious resource.
Dr. Emoto discovered that molecules of water are affected by our thoughts, words, and feelings, so that that humans can positively impact the earth and our personal health through loving, grateful and harmonious attitudes and actions, especially with attention to water; that since the Earth is 70 percent water and people are 70 percent water, he theorized that we can heal our planet and ourselves by consciously expressing love and goodwill to and through water.
He explained and demonstrated that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific concentrated thoughts are directed toward them; that water from clear springs and water that has been exposed to loving words shows brilliant, complex, and colorful hexagonal snowflake patterns, whereas polluted water, or water exposed to anger or other negative thoughts, forms incomplete, asymmetrical patterns with dull colors.
Also Dr. Emoto described the ability of water – like a liquid computer – to absorb, hold, and even retransmit human feelings and emotions. Using high-speed photography, he found that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific, concentrated thoughts are directed toward it. Music, visual images, words written on paper, and photographs also have an impact on the crystalline structures. These methods even experimentally worked on asymmetrical Tokyo tap water. Dr. Emoto theorized that since water has the ability to receive a wide range of frequencies, it can also reflect the universe in this manner.
Especially in these unprecedented times of worldwide pandemic panic when insanely delusional human behaviors imminently threaten Earth-life as we have known it, we have unprecedented opportunity to gratefully and lovingly cherish and harmoniously heal our precious watery world, which appears blue from outer space, and was thus eloquently described by legendary astronomer Carl Sagan as a “pale blue dot” in this vast universe.
Invocation
Instead of being paralyzed by fear and panic, may we follow our hearts, rather than unfounded official edicts, to collectively and cooperatively realize an abiding “new normal” era of cooperation, harmony and peace on our precious planet.
So let us gratefully and lovingly be guided by these wise words from Paramahansa Yogananda:
“Every day should be a day of Thanksgiving for all the gifts of Life — sunshine, water, the luscious fruits and greens, which we receive as indirect gifts from the Great Giver.”
“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.”
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
“The Secret Life of Water”
Embedded below are three brief videos:
A memorable two minute scene from “What the Bleep Do We Know?”;
A one minute+ video showing hexagonal crystals forming in Tokyo tap water;
And a beautiful nine minute video with healing music, watery photography, and with words from Dr. Emoto titled “The Secret Life of Water” . ENJOY!
Bi-Polar Paradigm Disorder
“‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ said Alice.
‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the cat. ‘We’re all mad here.’”
~ Lewis Carroll
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“When the world goes mad,
one must accept madness as sanity;
since sanity is, in the last analysis,
nothing but the madness on which the whole world happens to agree.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
Wassily Kandinsky – Black Lines
Bi-Polar Paradigm Disorder
We live in an age of mental malaise.
The world now suffers an epidemic
of bi-polar paradigm disorder.
This condition begins to arise when people
futilely try to divide the Indivisible,
by everywhere drawing imaginary border lines –
like “us and them”, “good and evil”, “God and Satan” etc..
These border-line people then get mentally unbalanced
and feel dis-eased and threatened by people
‘on the other side’ of their imaginary lines.
Their border-line thinking is not logical, but pathological.
Bi-polar paradigm disorder is closely related to another
wide-spread mental disorder now afflicting
most of Humankind – Chronic Belief Syndrome.
Researchers are looking for a common cure for both afflictions;
a cure which will provide Humankind with “relief from belief”.
However, they are presently unable to secure federal funding for their research project and don’t believe that such a cure is imminent.
Ron’s audio recitation of Bi-Polar Paradigm Disorder
Ron’s Commentary on “Bi-Polar Paradigm Disorder” and “Chronic Belief Syndrome”.
Dear Friends,
We live in an age of mental malaise.
In some commentaries I have darkly described world society as insanely dystopian and Orwellian – as symptomatic of pandemic societal sickness. And I’ve attributed our suffering to human ignorance, fear and greed fomented and exploited by psychopathic world financial, political and corporate billionaire “leaders” selfishly serving interests of power and profits over people for a ‘Big Brother’ “deep state”.
But today I offer a sure cure for all such sufferings – a true panacea and formula for alchemically transmuting dystopia to utopia. Instead of complaining, today I’m explaining how we can and shall resolve our political problems.
Inspired by Dr. Seuss, I have identified and ‘diagnosed’ above as the fundamental causes of our societal insanity two widespread mental disorders: “Bi-Polar Paradigm Disorder” and “Chronic Belief Syndrome”.
Delusionally believing ourselves separate from and mortally threatened by apparently perceived ‘others’, we compulsively fear them and fight ‘them’. But we suffer from perception projection deception; what we think we see are merely mental mirages – seemingly apparent but nonexistent.
Our hallucinatory mental problems cannot be solved from the same levels of consciousness that created them.
So, rather than prescribing new pills for our mental ills – offering only temporary symptomatic relief – today I am privileged to reveal natural and ‘open-source’ mental mood and awareness elevators, which are sure cures for all of Humankind’s illogical psychological problems.
Amazingly these sure cures are freely available – infinitely and eternally – within everyone and everything everywhere. They are:
Universal Spirit, Being, Awareness, Bliss; Eternal Peace, Life, Light, LOVE.
By uncovering, accessing and compassionately emanating these sure cures, we will inevitably solve and resolve all world problems and crises arising from Human ignorance and greed.
And so it shall BE!
Ron Rattner
Seek More Than Meets The Eye
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal,
but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor rust consumes
and where thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
~ Matthew 6:19-21
“For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
~ Luke:18:25 ; Matthew 19:24
“Fools follow the desires of the flesh
and fall into the snare of all-encompassing death;
but the wise, knowing the Self as eternal,
seek not the things that pass away.”
~ Katha Upanishad 2:1:2
“Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold;
happiness dwells in the soul.”
~ Democritus
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions,
but in having few wants.”
~ Epictetus
“What really counts in life can’t be counted.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury – to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for both the body and the mind.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. The trite subjects of human efforts, possessions, outward success, luxury have always seemed to me contemptible.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The most precious things in life are not those one gets for money”. . . . . Money only appeals to selfishness and always irresistibly tempts its owner to abuse it. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus or Gandhi with the moneybags of Carnegie?”
~ Albert Einstein
Seek More Than Meets The Eye
Do not cherish
that which will perish.
Do not treasure
fleeting pleasure –
Or what you can measure.
Do not believe
what you perceive;
And do not seek
what you can speak.
Seek the ineffable
and it is inevitable
That you will know
the Unknowable –
The Inconceivable!
That you will find –
Beyond your mind –
Eternal Peace!
Ron’s audio recitation of Seek More Than Meets The Eye
Ron’s Explanation and Dedication of “Seek More Than Meets The Eye”
Dear Friends,
The foregoing poem, “Seek More Than Meets The Eye” was inspired by Jesus’ teaching to lay up “treasures in heaven”, rather than earthly treasures. [Matthew 6:19-21].
Before discovering that scriptural passage, my midlife spiritual awakening had apparently revived previously subdued ascetic propensities – perhaps from other contemplative lifetimes. So, I had begun following a life-style much simpler and more reclusive than during my married years. And I became evermore convinced of the wisdom of living a simple and virtuous life, largely detached from worldly pleasures and treasures, while focusing on infinite spiritual riches within.
Hence after discovering Jesus’ teaching about forgoing worldly treasures I was inspired to poetically share its essence, which was consistent and harmonious with my deepest intuitions and tendencies. And soon I found many more inspiring parallel teachings in all other enduring wisdom traditions, like the quotations (preceding the poem) about renouncing worldly wealth.
These perennial teachings are especially important today in affluent corporate-capitalist societies where people are importuned and ‘brain washed’, via insidious advertising and marketing techniques, to greedily seek unneeded things and experiences, as our species insanely and unsustainably pillages, plunders, and poisons our precious planet’s finite resources crucial to sustaining life on Earth as we’ve known it.
But pleasures from such possessions and experiences are always fleeting, and can never bring enduring happiness and peace of mind.
As the Dalai Lama observes:
“Physical comforts cannot subdue mental suffering, and if we look closely, we can see that those who have many possessions are not necessarily happy.
In fact, being wealthy often brings even more anxiety.
So the foregoing poem and quotes are offered to remind us to lay up “treasures in heaven”, rather than futilely pursuing transient earthly possessions and pleasures.
May they help us discover that the enduring happiness we all (knowingly or unknowingly) seek is never in superfluous possessions or pleasures, but ever in our sacred hearts and souls.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
2020 Epilogue
Living a virtuous life, detached from worldly pleasures and treasures, may be more important now than ever before in modern recorded human history.
On January 23, 2020 the ‘Doomsday’ clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was reset to 100 seconds to midnight, symbolizing potential human destruction by nuclear catastrophe or climate collapse as nearer than ever before.
To explain, the atomic scientists said to leaders and citizens of the world that:
“Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers—nuclear war and climate change—that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond. The international security situation is dire, not just because these threats exist, but because world leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode.”
“Public engagement and civic action are needed and needed urgently. Science and technology can bring enormous benefits, but without constant vigilance, they bring enormous risks as well.”
Invocation.
May the foregoing “Seek More Than Meets The Eye” poem and wisdom teachings inspire our enhanced collective vigilance and awareness that the enduring happiness we all (knowingly or unknowingly) seek is never found in superfluous diversions, possessions or pleasures, but ever abides in our eternal hearts and souls.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Evolutionary Impetus
“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
“I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as a plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was man.
Why should I fear?
When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as man,
To soar with angels blest;
But even from angelhood I must pass on …”
~ Rumi
“Man’s highest aspiration – his seeking for perfection, his longing for freedom and mastery, his search after pure truth and unmixed delight – is in flagrant contradiction with his present existence and normal experience. Such contradiction is part of Nature’s general method; it is a sign that she is working towards a greater harmony. The reconciliation is achieved by an evolutionary progress. Life evolves out of Matter, Mind out of Life, because they are already involved there: Matter is a form of veiled Life, Life a form of veiled Mind, May not Mind be a form and veil of a higher power, the Spirit, which would be supramental in its nature? Man’s highest aspiration would then only indicate the gradual unveiling of the Spirit within, the preparation of a higher life upon earth.”
~ Sri Aurobindo
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Cosmic consciousness is infinite evolutionary impetus in each of us.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Every adversity is an evolutionary opportunity
for everyone, everything, everywhere.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Evolutionary Impetus
Q. Is human spiritual evolution possible? If so, is it optional or inevitable?
A. Humankind are self conscious integral aspects of a conscious, orderly and harmonious universe.
As part of such conscious cosmic order, there is an evolutionary impetus in each of us for ever expanding universal consciousness to experience itself.
We are all “pre-programmed” to transcend ego’s “optical illusion” of seeming separation as body forms from all other forms (and so from the universe), by evolving from this separation illusion to experiential realization of cosmic Oneness of all forms and phenomena as undivided Awareness.
Our universe is an ever oscillating and vibrating energy “reality”.
So, our evolutionary pre-programming involves subtle vibratory vortices – or chakras – each potentially resonant with ever ascending vibratory levels of Awareness. As evolutionary energy – sometimes called kundalini – is awakened and activated in each being it gradually purifies and eventually opens these subtle energy centers, until ultimate transcendence is attained.
Everything that happens to us until we transcend ego’s “optical illusion” is in our best interest, because it affords an opportunity to evolve.
Although our evolutionary “pre-programming” assures that such transcendence is ultimately inevitable, our progress rate is optional, depending on what we think, do and say – individually and collectively – while misidentifying ourselves as separate.
For example, compassionate words, thoughts and deeds hasten spiritual evolution, while selfishness deters it.
But, cosmic consciousness will eventually provide life experiences leading to transcendence.
Paradoxically, life’s most painful and difficult experiences often prove the best evolutionary opportunities, and biggest blessings,
because they most challenge and motivate surrender of ego misidentification and provide greatest transcendence incentives.
So, human spiritual evolution is inevitable, but rate of evolutionary progress is optional.
Ron’s explanation and comments about “Evolutionary Impetus”
Dear Friends,
Throughout world history, philosophers and theologians have perennially asked:
‘How could an all loving, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Divinity have created this world with so much suffering, evil, violence, and misery?’
For example, influential German Christian philosopher Gottfried Leibniz optimistically postulated that God created Earth, though imperfect, as “the best of all possible worlds”. In his Theodicée, published in 1710, Leibniz described a harmonious universe in which all events are linked by cause and effect, and in which apparent evil is compensated by some greater good that may not be evident to the limited human mind.
French philosopher Voltaire sharply satirized and questioned that optimistic philosophy in his popular novella, “Candide”. Without addressing subtleties of Leibniz’ philosophy, or possible causes of evil, karma or ‘original sin’, Voltaire’s protagonist “Candide” discovers, after many emotional ups and downs, that everything does not seem to happen for the best; and he concludes that each person must learn from past mistakes, and proceed stoically with kindness and virtue, no matter the pain and difficulties confronted.
After many years of experience and reflection, I have adopted a philosophy more harmonious with Leibniz than Voltaire: that everything in space/time does happen for the best – to afford impetus for spiritual evolution; that human suffering, evil, and misery are not “created” by God but by mysterious karmic causes and conditions arising from unskillful Human behaviors; that what many call “God” is indescribable, impersonal and nonjudgmental Universal Awareness which is the mysterious Source and ever immanent Essence of space/time “reality”. I have also adopted the non-dualist philosophy that our ever impermanent energy “reality” is like a mental mirage, arising only from projected Human thought; that true Reality is universal Infinite Potentiality beyond the Human mind.
In many Silly Sutras postings I have shared these philosophies, to encourage others to decide for themselves about such perennial questions. So, my theories are not offered as expressing ultimate spiritual truths, but to inspire our intuitive and experiential introspection on ideas (often paradoxical), about who and what we are and our life’s purpose and plan, if any.
Retrospectively, I have become convinced that my life has unfolded and evolved perfectly, as if a Divine novelist was writing Ron’s life-plan script. Accordingly, my attitude toward life’s inevitable ups and downs became that everything happens ‘for the best’ – to promote our evolution; that in every adversity there is an evolutionary opportunity. (See e.g. I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life. ) So, paradoxically life’s most painful and difficult experiences often prove the best evolutionary opportunities, and biggest blessings, because they most challenge and motivate surrender of ego misidentification and provide greatest transcendence incentives.
The above posting, “Evolutionary Impetus”, considers whether human spiritual evolution is possible, and if so, whether it is inevitable or optional. And it elaborates my philosophy that whatever happens to us until we transcend ego’s “optical illusion” of separateness is in our best interest, because it affords incentive to evolve. It suggests that human spiritual evolution is inevitable, but that rate of progress is optional depending on our behaviors while misidentifying ourselves as separate entities.
May these philosophical theories inspire our continuing intuitive and experiential introspection about who and what we are, and our life’s purpose and plan, if any.
And may they help us find ever more joy and fulfillment in our unique life experiences.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
