Posts Tagged ‘Consciousness’
Life Is Perpetual; Happiness Is Optional
”Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it.
What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.”
~ Chuang-Tzu
“The soul is eternal, all-pervading, unmodifiable, immovable and primordial.”
“The soul never takes birth and never dies at any time
nor does it come into being again when the body is created.
The soul is birthless, eternal, imperishable and timeless
and is never destroyed when the body is destroyed.
Just as a man giving up old worn out garments accepts other new apparel, in the same way the embodied soul giving up old and worn out bodies verily accepts new bodies.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2
Life Is Perpetual; Happiness Is Optional
Life is perpetual;
Happiness is optional.
God gives Life eternal.
Humankind makes it sublime or infernal.
Timeless delight,
or endless night:
However we choose it,
we never can lose it.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Life Is Perpetual; Happiness Is Optional”
Ron’s commentary on “Life Is Perpetual; Happiness Is Optional”
Dear Friends,
Have you ever wondered why the world seems so crazy? Why billions of people worldwide suffer unnecessarily from wars, poverty, illness, lack of basic life-sustaining necessities? Why even in the richest nation on Earth, suffering is ubiquitous? Why even materially rich people are often depressed, addicted or mentally ill?
Long before my mid-life spiritual awakening, I attributed societal suffering to societal insanity. But only afterwards, did I begin deeply reflecting on root causes of such societal insanity and unhappiness. With continuing curiosity, I began asking many new questions about our true identity and reality. That process of constant questioning has proved immeasurably helpful.
Thereby, I’ve often been blessed with simple spiritual answers to seemingly complicated questions about crazy behaviors in a crazy world; answers which have brought me ever-increasing happiness. Like Dr. Seuss, I’ve discovered that: “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple”; that seemingly complicated questions about living a happy life often can be resolved with simple answers from elevated levels of inner awareness.
I have found that societal suffering arises from ignorance of our true nature and spiritual Self-identity; that we inevitably suffer karmically while seeking happiness through satisfaction of ephemeral worldly desires, because lasting happiness can only be found within; and, that our experience of happiness depends upon our self-identification as eternal spirit rather than as only impermanent mortal bodies and their stories.
So inspired by my beloved Guruji, I’ve shared many SillyStutras writings about happiness, to help us discover within that eternal happiness is our true nature.
The foregoing pithy poem “Life Is Perpetual; Happiness Is Optional” and preceding quotations emphasize the crucial truth that Life is eternal, though suffering is optional. I hope you’ll reflect upon them.
May these writings help inspire us to experience ever more inner happiness in a seemingly insane world.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
My Life of “Prayer” – Ron’s Memoirs
“Our prayers should be for blessings in general,
for God knows best what is good for us.”
~ Socrates
“When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing — nothing.”
“We should seek not so much to pray, but to become prayer.”
~ Saint Francis of Assisi
“[Our] own will is all that answers prayer,
only it appears under the guise of different religious conceptions to each mind.
We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna,
but it is only the Self, the ‘I’.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
Introduction.
After a midlife spiritual awakening at age forty three, prayer became essential to my spiritually conscious life process. So my spiritual memoirs appropriately include the following description and explanation of “prayer” in my life, both before and since the midlife awakening.
My history with “prayer”.
I don’t recall spontaneously praying or crying to God prior to midlife. But I do remember feeling emotionally moved while singing collective prayers, and on hearing chanted cantorial prayers, at organized Jewish high holy day services. Even though I didn’t understand the words, I was especially affected by “Kol Nidre” (“All Vows”), an emotively powerful prayer with a hauntingly beautiful melody which is chanted and recited in ancient Aramaic, to begin Yom Kippur services.
Only after the midlife awakening did I synchronistically begin regularly praying with daily recitations of the “make me an instrument of Thy peace” prayer attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi – heartfelt recitations which have continued for over forty years.
Before the midlife awakening I hadn’t shed tears as an adult. But thereupon, I cried for twenty four hours, and soon realized with amazement that I was crying with intense longing for God. (See Beholding The Eternal Light Of Consciousness.)
Two years after the midlife awakening, I met my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, and received shaktipat initiation into the path of kundalini yoga. Thereupon I was given a sacred “Rama” mantra and spiritual name “Rasik: one engrossed in devotion”. Afterwards, as Guruji presciently had foreseen, I became and have ever since remained “engrossed in devotion”, intensely yearning for the Divine, and often spontaneously calling and weeping for “Rama” with deep longing.
Also, in addition to the Saint Francis prayer, I began regularly reciting prayers and mantras recommended by Guruji, and soon became a “born-again Hindu”. Though some Hindu prayers were directed to mythological Hindu deities – including the legendary monkey-god Hanuman – in calling, crying or praying to the Divine, I consistently conceived of “God” as formless and invisible. Ultimately, on my acceptance of Advaita non-duality philosophy, “God” as ultimate Reality became (and remains} for me an inconceivable Mystery.
Especially during my extended post-retirement reclusive period, I daily prayed for particular people, envisioning them as enveloped by divine light, while silently praying for everyone everywhere. Sometimes I prayed for specific outcomes, like healing or wellbeing. But gradually I ceased praying for specific outcomes, while continuing to pray for all Life everywhere.
Now, although all specific loving prayers are beneficial, I instinctively pray with faith for best outcomes, without specifying desired results. Especially since miraculously surviving and recovering from a June, 2014 near-death taxicab rundown, I have gratefully given my ‘irrevocable power of attorney’ to The Lone Arranger to determine appropriate outcomes for all Life everywhere.
What is “prayer”?
On first meeting Guruji I simply thought of prayer as ‘talking to God’, and meditation as listening. So I didn’t then even consider calling and crying for God or reciting mantras as “prayers”. But since then my view of “prayer” gradually widened to include those and many other behaviors not previously regarded as “prayer”. Thus my concept of prayer now includes all heartfelt longings for eternal communion with the Divine. And I accept Mahatma Gandhi’s statement that “prayer is nothing else but an intense longing of the heart”. Also, I believe it possible for us to prayerfully open our hearts to all Life, without excluding anyone or anything, even vile enemies. (See e.g. https://sillysutras.com/how-st-francis-of-assisi-inspires-pope-francis/)
How shall we pray?
Prayer is universal – a concept recognized worldwide by all cultures and people. But it is understood and practiced in different ways at different times.
In perceived dire sudden emergencies or threats most humans spontaneously pray for help, even if they haven’t previously prayed and their instinct to pray is subliminal. Thus, once before becoming a “born-again Hindu”, I suddenly began calling and crying out to God as “Rama, Rama, Rama”, upon fearfully being lost in a jungle-like Hawaiian nature preserve. And I remember instinctively exclaiming “Jesus” when twice almost run down by crazy car drivers, though I’d never before prayed to Jesus.
All humans share a common instinct to return to our Divine Source. But, as unique beings with uniquely conditioned karmic perspectives and limitations, we each experience different evolutionary challenges and different theoretical spiritual paths. So, as we evolve toward realization of our common spiritual Source and Self identity, different practices and behaviors are most appropriate for each of us – including whether, when or how we pray. (See e.g. https://sillysutras.com/different-person-different-path/ ) In my experience, our inner insights and instincts best help us determine our unique evolutionary paths.
Thus, though I began this lifetime only praying rarely in organized religious programs, after years of evolutionary process I now instinctively pray constantly and spontaneously, with an unprecedented and all encompassing concept of “prayer”.
I am unqualified to tell others how, when or whether to pray. But it is my aspiration that SillySutras readers may find guidance about prayer and other spiritual practices from these memoirs and cited spiritual quotations. So I will hereafter share my opinions and observations about prayer in our lives.
Observations and quotations about “prayer”.
Praying is instinctive. Throughout recorded human history prayers have been offered by countless saints and sages, and by ordinary people of every religious denomination. Even Buddhists who don’t believe in a Creator God recite many mantras and pray a lot.
Different people have differing ideas about meanings and methods of “prayer”. Most often prayer involves asking for divine help or expressing gratitude to God or other higher power. But “prayer” can be broadly considered as all spontaneous, heartfelt, or worshipful longing for or communion with Universal Intelligence, Nature, or Divinity. And all such selfless loving prayer may be magically powerful. For example I’ve become gratefully convinced that heartfelt prayers of others helped my miraculous survival and healing from a 2014 near-death taxi rundown. And all our compassionate prayers are often answered. Mahatma Gandhi has said that prayer “is the most potent instrument of action”; that “with the Grace of God everything can be achieved.”
“Everything we think, do or say changes this world in some way”. So we are all co-creating our earthly mental reality. As Universal Spirit, we are ONE, and we ‘contagiously’ influence one another, positively or negatively. Every thought affects our collective consciousness. We have infinite potentiality to lovingly and prayerfully bless this world. But our fearful and worrisome thoughts and behaviors are tantamount to negative prayers, which can unknowingly afflict the world. So mental mindfulness helps us avert such worrisome thoughts.
Beyond historically helpful traditional prayer customs and practices, even Western scientific double-blind “placebo effect” studies, now support efficacy of prayer. A 2006 Washington Post article even asserted that “prayer is the most common complement to mainstream medicine, far outpacing acupuncture, herbs, vitamins and other alternative remedies.”
The stiller and more focused our minds, the more opened our hearts, and the deeper our harmony with Nature, the more impactful are our prayers. And, whether or not we intentionally “pray”, our focused awareness of conditioned mental propensities can be key to fulfilling our deepest evolutionary aspirations.
It is best to be givers, not getters. For it is in giving that we receive. So, it’s preferable to pray selflessly for peace and welfare of all others, rather than for our perceived self-interests; to ‘pray for God to do through us – not for us’.
“When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing — nothing.”
~ Saint Francis of Assisi to his Order of Friars Minor
And it’s best to leave to Supreme Authority details of how to accomplish all our prayerful wishes, rather than to specify them.
“Our prayers should be for blessings in general,
for God knows best what is good for us.”
~ Socrates
As we evolve beyond our illusionary perceptual/conceptual separation of each other, and all our other mistaken beliefs which theoretically divide ONE Reality, those illusions gradually melt into mystery. And increasingly we realize that we are THAT eternal Self to which we which we pray, and to which we intensely aspire to return. We see that
“[Our] own will is all that answers prayer,
only it appears under the guise of different religious conceptions to each mind.
We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna,
but it is only the Self, the ‘I’.”
~ Swami Vivekananda – Jnana Yoga
Becoming “prayer”.
There are now, and always have been, rare Avatars, Saints and Buddha-like beings who are completely devoted to blessing all Life, without exception or exclusion. Hence, it is possible to live life as continual prayer, not just with continual prayer. So it can be evolutionarily feasible that ultimately
“We should seek not so much to pray, but to become prayer.”
~ Saint Francis of Assisi to his Order of Friars Minor
Realization of humanity’s shared evolutionary aspiration.
Realization of such a perpetually prayerful saintly state is humanity’s deepest aspiration. Knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or subconsciously, no matter who or where we are, no matter our age, gender or culture, all humans share a universal and irresistible instinct and desire to return to a soul-remembered original state of Divine Love, Peace and Oneness – a transcendent state beyond words or thoughts, so marvelous that its subliminal memory magnetically attracts every sentient being to merge and be At-One with THAT.
Self Realization of THAT to which we pray, and for which we deeply aspire, is our ultimate destiny.
Conclusion.
May these writings on “prayer” help advance us toward realization of that ultimate destiny.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Season’s Blessings
“To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
~ Ecclesiastes 3:1
“The winds of grace are always blowing,
but you have to raise the sail.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” ..“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence, but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Cherish or Perish.
Co-exist cooperatively, or
Co-expire catastrophically.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness, a kind of prison for us. . .Our task must be to free ourselves from this [mental] prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
~ Albert Einstein (edited excisions)
“The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”; “space and time are not conditions in which we live, [but] modes in which we think.”
~ Albert Einstein
Season’s Blessings
Dear Friends,
Season’s greetings! Happy Earth-life Equinox season!
Following the September 22nd solar equinox we’ll soon be collectively sharing a new solar season. Yet as unique beings with unique conditioned karmic perspectives and limitations, we are each also experiencing different evolutionary life cycle seasons and challenges. (See video embedded below.)
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun (or heaven).”
~ Ecclesiastes 3:1
Though we are all ending and beginning new space/time solar/lunar and karmic seasons, we are also reminded by Ecclesiastes that paradoxically and Cosmically “there is nothing new under the sun”. (See Ecclesiastes 1:9 – sometimes attributed to King Solomon)
In this ever changing duality reality we experience time and seasons (with apparent “free will”) while learning from Nature that our true Source and self identity is Reality beyond space and time and our “will”, where all that is, was, or will be is NOW – an ultimate Infinite Reality where nothing is new or old or separate.
But as students on the ‘Earth branch of the Great Cosmic University’, while we orbit, rotate, and revolve with Gaia, the Earth Mother that birthed us all, we must harmoniously honor Nature’s blessings and limitations. As stewards of all Life forms on this precious planet we must protect and nurture them – not insanely and unsustainably pillage, plunder and destroy them.
We must
“Cherish or Perish.
Co-exist cooperatively, or
Co-expire catastrophically.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
So as we begin new solar, lunar, and karmic seasons, let us resolve to solve potentially catastrophic planetary disharmonies. As earthly spiritual siblings may we help solve critical interpersonal and international planetary problems, which threaten all Life forms on our precious planet, through awakened awareness of how and why we humans alone are insanely causing these crises.
Individually and collectively, let us become actively engaged as a global human family to resolve with compassionate solidarity the immense ecological challenges facing us, not just as a matter of morality or ethics but for survival of earth life as we have known it – when the doomsday clock of the bulletin of atomic scientists has been advanced to two minutes to midnight.
With conscious concern about patently imminent dangers of nuclear or ecologic omnicide, let us politically, socially and spiritually act before it is too late.
But before acting let us first mindfully calm our disturbed, judgmental and reactive states of mind. Rather than vindictively seeking retribution for perceived wrongs, or reactively condemning others, or judgmentally attempting to change them, may we first empathetically look within to see and change our own undesirable mental habits and disharmonious behaviors.
Thereby with quiet minds and open hearts may we non-violently and non-judgmentally resist injustice, while honoring the spiritual essence and universal equality of everyone everywhere.
Thus may we help bless and transform our lives and our space/time world, until we ultimately transcend it.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Egocide
“Ego is the biggest enemy of humans. ”
~ Rig Veda
“The foundation of the Buddha’s teachings lies in compassion,
and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego, the number-one enemy of compassion.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama
“The entire Buddhist path is based on the discovery of egolessness and the maturing of insight or knowledge that comes from egolessness.”
~ Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
“Free of ego, living naturally, working virtuously, you become filled with inexhaustible vitality and are liberated forever from the cycle of death and rebirth.”
~ Lao Tzu
“In essence there is and always has been only one spiritual teaching, although it comes in many forms.”
~ Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now
“As ego goes,
consciousness grows,
until it Knows
– Itself.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Egocide”
Ego’s attrition
is our mission;
Egocide’s our goal.
When ego’s dead
we’ll lose all dread,
Knowing we are Soul.
Then we’ll say
that life’s a play,
Each body/mind a role;
That we’re the Glory
and not the story,
Not just parts –
but WHOLE.
Ron’s recitation of “Egocide”
Ron’s explanation and dedication of “Egocide”
Dear Friends,
The foregoing whimsical “Egocide” poem was composed during my post-awakening reclusive period. The “Egocide” title was coined soon before or after I read Eckhart Tolle’s near-suicide spiritual awakening story recounting his permanent ego “breakdown breakthrough” to Self-realization.
Unlike Eckhart Tolle’s rare one-time awakening epiphany, the above “Egocide” verses are about our gradually ending ego, since most of us experience only incremental attrition of our mistaken “ego” self-identities, which cause us endless karmic sufferings from unskillful thoughts, words and deeds until transcended.
The verses are founded on the assumption that every Human – except for rare Buddha-like beings – knowingly or unknowingly is in some stage of an evolutionary process of undoing mistaken ego identity – a process indispensable to our inevitable evolution.
From childhood we are culturally inculcated to self-identify only with a restricted and disempowering mental self-image; as merely a separate name, gender, and story about who and what we are, based on our limited projected perceptions of “reality”. We are taught that we are each born into Nature as separate mortal beings; but, not that Nature is our nature, or that beyond any mistakenly inculcated misidentity we are immortal and eternal Universal Awareness, sharing common Self consciousness with all perceived life-forms.
Thus, for millennia spiritual teachings have identified “ego” as the fundamental impediment to spiritual evolution and realization; as “the biggest enemy of humans.” (Rig Veda ); and the “number-one enemy of compassion.” (Dalai Lama). The Dalai Lama has said that all Buddhist teachings aim “to wipe out the persistence of ego.” And Eckhart Tolle believes that transcending ego “is and always has been [the] only one spiritual teaching.”
Accordingly, the foregoing “Egocide” verses and quotations are dedicated to reminding all of us of our critical need to let go of who or what we think we are, so we can realize and BE what we really are – ONE with Nature as Infinite Potentiality.
May they encourage, inspire and quicken our discovering and ending “ego” as an illusory prison of the mind, until we’re out of ‘prison’ – free at last, free at last.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Eckhart Tolle ~ Spiritual Awakening Story and Teachings
“In essence there is and always has been only one spiritual teaching, although it comes in many forms.”
~ Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now
“A true spiritual teacher does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of the word, does not have anything to give or add to you, such as new information, beliefs, or rules of conduct. The only function of such a teacher is to help you remove that which separates you from the truth …
The words are no more than signposts.”
~ Eckhart Tolle – Stillness Speaks
Eckhart Tolle.
Ron’s Introduction.
Eckhart Tolle is an influential contemporary spiritual writer and teacher, whose teachings have reached millions worldwide. On the brink of suicide, at age 29 Tolle had a miraculous spiritual awakening which ended his lifelong psychological sufferings and suicidal thoughts, rather than his precious human life. Thereafter he synchronistically became renowned as a spiritual teacher and author of The Power of Now and other noteworthy books.
I first discovered Tolle only after I had transitioned from a “born again Hindu” life phase to becoming an“uncertain Undo” – relying on inner rather than outer authority. (see e.g. “I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life”)
By then, I understood and appreciated the authenticity of Tolle’s spiritual awakening story, and the cogency of his teachings, which are now often quoted on SillySutras.com.
Tolle’s transformative epiphany was triggered by the profoundly simple insight that he wasn’t his constant negative thoughts, but the timeless awareness/witness and matrix of those thoughts.
Especially in this age of mental malaise when countless millions of people suffer from deep despondency and depression, and suicides are rife, Eckhart Tolle’s inspiring near-suicide spiritual awakening story can help those of us feeling despondent or psychologically challenged find inner peace by self-identifying as eternal universal awareness, rather than ego-mind’s “voice in the head”.
So Eckhart Tolle’s history and authentic awakening story are posted below to help inspire our crucially important Self discovery that we are eternal awareness; not mere mortal entities suffering from mistaken ego-mind self identification. And I enthusiastically encourage deep reflection upon it.
Tolle’s History of Anxiety, Fear and Depression Before His Spiritual Awakening.
Tölle was born on February 16, 1948 in Lünen, a small German town near Dortmund in the Ruhr Valley. He grew up in a dysfunctional household, where his incompatible Catholic parents were constantly bickering. Tölle’s early childhood was fraught with anxiety and fear, and he felt alienated from a perceived hostile school environment. Sometimes instead of going to school he would bicycle to the woods and sit amidst nature, which he loved.
Eventually his parents separated, and his father left Germany to live in Spain. Later, at the age of thirteen, Tölle moved to Spain to live with his father. In Spain, Tölle refused to go to school any longer. Though not rebellious he could no longer tolerate a hostile school environment. Tolle’s unconventional ‘open minded’ father did not insist that his son attend high school, and permitted him to elect home studies of literature, astronomy and various languages.
At the age fifteen, Tolle synchronistically received and read several books written by a German mystic known as Bô Yin Râ, which “very deeply” affected him. With an aptitude for languages, he quickly learned Spanish, English, and some French. Still, he spent much solitary time, free of the external pressures of the environment or the culture.
At age nineteen, about ten years before his “inner awakening”, Tölle moved to England, where he lived for about thirty years until emigrating to Canada in the mid-1990’s. During his first three years in England, he had no formal education, and supported himself by teaching German and Spanish at a London school for language studies.
Then, troubled by “depression, anxiety and fear”, he began “searching for answers” which he believed he could find only through intellect rather than intuition.
In his early twenties, Tolle decided to pursue his search by studying philosophy, psychology, and literature. After taking preparatory evening classes, he was ‘fast-tracked’ and permitted to enroll in the University of London. Upon graduating, he was offered and accepted a scholarship to do postgraduate research. Soon thereafter, at age twenty nine, he experienced a profound spiritual awakening and dropped out of academic studies.
Tolle’s Spiritual Awakening Story.
(Excerpted from The Power of Now: A Guide To Spiritual Enlightenment )
Until my thirtieth year, I lived in a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. It feels now as if I am talking about some past lifetime or somebody else’s life.
One night not long after my twenty-ninth birthday, I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread. I had woken up with such a feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense than it had ever been. The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train – everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless that it created in me a deep loathing of the world. The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this continuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live.
“I cannot live with myself any longer.” This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. `Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the `I’ and the `self’ that `I’ cannot live with.” “Maybe,” I thought, “only one of them is real.”
I was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped. I was fully conscious, but there were no more thoughts. Then I felt drawn into what seemed like a vortex of energy. It was a slow movement at first and then accelerated. I was gripped by an intense fear, and my body started to shake. I heard the words “resist nothing,” as if spoken inside my chest. I could feel myself being sucked into a void. It felt as if the void was inside myself rather than outside. Suddenly, there was no more fear, and I let myself fall into that void. I have no recollection of what happened after that.
I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window. I had never heard such a sound before. My eyes were still closed, and I saw the image of a precious diamond. Yes, if a diamond could make a sound, this is what it would be like. I Opened my eyes. The first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains. Without any thought, I felt, I knew, that there is infinitely more to light than we realize. That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself. Tears came into my eyes. I got up and walked around the room. I recognized the room, and yet I knew that I had never truly seen it before. Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marveling at the beauty and aliveness of it all.
That day I walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if I had just been born into this world.
For the next five months, I lived in a state of uninterrupted deep peace and bliss. After that, it diminished somewhat in intensity, or perhaps it just seemed to because it became my natural state. I could still function in the world, although I realized that nothing I ever did could possibly add anything to what I already had.
I knew, of course, that something profoundly significant had happened to me, but I didn’t understand it at all. It wasn’t until several years later, after I had read spiritual texts and spent time with spiritual teachers, that I realized that what everybody was looking for had already happened to me. I understood that the intense pressure of suffering that night must have forced my consciousness to withdraw from its identification with the unhappy and deeply fearful self, which is ultimately a fiction of the mind. This withdrawal must have been so complete that this false, suffering self immediately collapsed, just as if a plug had been pulled out of an inflatable toy. What was left then was my true nature as the ever-present I am: consciousness in its pure state prior to identification with form. Later I also learned to go into that inner timeless and deathless realm that I had originally perceived as a void and remain fully conscious. I dwelt in states of such indescribable bliss and sacredness that even the original experience I just described pales in comparison. A time came when, for a while, I was left with nothing on the physical plane. I had no relationships, no job, no home, no socially defined identity. I spent almost two years sitting on park benches in a state of the most intense joy.
But even the most beautiful experiences come and go. More fundamental, perhaps, than any experience is the undercurrent of peace that has never left me since then. Sometimes it is very strong, almost palpable, and others can feel it too. At other times, it is somewhere in the background, like a distant melody.
Later, people would occasionally come up to me and say: “I want what you have. Can you give it to me, or show me how to get it?” And I would say: “You have it already. You just can’t feel it because your mind is making too much noise.”
Ron’s Comments.
Tolle’s profound awakening experience credibly demonstrates how our greatest fears and sufferings can hide our highest potentials, yet provide immense evolutionary opportunities – revealing that beyond our minds we can find intuitive fulfillment of our deepest aspirations for love, peace and joy, and realization of previously unimagined human potentials.
Tolle’s teachings focus on transforming self identity “from being the content of [the] mind to being the awareness in the background”. While Tolle says he experienced a permanent awakening to Self-identity as awareness, such one-time epiphanies are extremely rare. However, numerous people’s mystical awakening experiences – like mine – can trigger a gradual transformative process of evolutionary purification and ego attrition, with ever increasing benefits.
At age forty two – like Tolle – I experienced previously unimagined and transformative Self identity as universal Awareness, followed by unprecedented experiences of peace and ecstasy. But my mistaken ego-mind identity was not thereby permanently dissolved, and it kept recurring. Therefore,instead of experiencing permanent peace of mind, I have been enjoying gradual ego attrition with ever growing happiness and fulfillment. So today I am happier than ever before, but still learning and transforming.
At the time of Tolle’s awakening experience he was largely unfamiliar with spiritual texts and spiritual teachers. But after exploring such literature for several years, he concluded “that what everybody was looking for had already happened to me.” And that: “In essence there is and always has been only one spiritual teaching, although it comes in many forms.”
Intuitively I regard Tolle as authentic and well-intentioned. So I endorse his teachings as valuable and have posted them on SillySutras.com. to help others.
For example, I have especially appreciated Tolle’s humble and intriguing above introduction to his excellent second book, Stillness Speaks:
“A true spiritual teacher does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of the word, does not have anything to give or add to you, such as new information, beliefs, or rules of conduct. The only function of such a teacher is to help you remove that which separates you from the truth … The words are no more than signposts.”
Moral of the Story and Invocation.
“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
May the foregoing stories and teachings help inspire and point the way for discovery of our true spiritual Self-identity.
May everyone, everywhere be peaceful and happy!
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Seeing GOD
“I have now come to a stage of realization in which I see that God is walking in every human form and manifesting Himself alike through the sage and the sinner, the virtuous and the vicious. Therefore when I meet different people I say to myself, “God in the form of the saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the form of the righteous, God in the form of the unrighteous.”
~ Ramakrishna Paramahansa
“Yes, all one’s confusion comes to an end if one only realizes that it is God who manifests Himself as the atheist and the believer, the good and the bad, the real and the unreal; that it is He who is present in waking and in sleep; and that He is beyond all these.” …. “God alone is the Doer. Everything happens by His will.”
~ Ramakrishna Paramahansa
How can the divine Oneness be seen?
In beautiful forms, breathtaking wonders, awe-inspiring miracles?
The Tao is not obliged to present itself in this way.
If you are willing to be lived by it, you will see it everywhere,
even in the most ordinary things.
~ Lao Tzu
“The self, harmonized by yoga,
sees the Self abiding in all beings,
all beings in the Self, everywhere he sees the same.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 6, Krishna to Arjuna
Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Seeing GOD?
Q. What is God?
A. What isn’t God?
Q. Is it possible to see God?
A. Is it possible to not see God?
God is ONE: God is All –
God is immanent in and manifest as
everything and everyone everywhere.
So, everyone sees God everywhere.
But few know it.
Ron’s audio recitation of Seeing GOD?
Ron’s explanation of “Seeing GOD?”
Dear Friends,
Have you ever imagined seeing God? Or wondered whether that was possible? Or heard of anyone claiming to see God?
During my early Jewish acculturation, I accepted the core Bible proclamation:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is ONE.”
~ Deuteronomy 6:4
Thereafter, I consistently conceived of “God” as formless and invisible and assumed it impossible to perceive or to be enfolded in God. So I never understood Jesus’ esoteric pronouncement that “I and the Father are ONE” [John 10:30].
But after my mid-life awakening, while crying for God with total surrender on a Yosemite mountain top, I beheld within (but did not merge with) the Divine light of ten thousand suns. Thereafter I began wondering about “seeing God” after reading the Gospel and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa – famed 19th century Indian holy man who often experienced communion with the Divine.
I first learned about Sri Ramakrishna while at Dakshineshwar, his long-time residence place outside Calcutta (now Kolkata) during my 1982 ‘trip of a lifetime’ pilgrimage to India. There – almost a hundred years after Sri Ramakrishna’s death – I experienced his life-force presence with an intense feeling of déjà vu while visiting a room where he had lived; a place which felt so comfortably familiar to me that it seemed I could happily remain there forever.
On returning to the US I began reading with fascination about Ramakrishna’s life and his teachings. I learned that like Saint Francis of Assisi, he too was an ascetic mystic who completely renounced worldly pleasures and lived in utter simplicity. Ultimately, of all the saints whose stories I’d reflected on, I came to feel most intuitive affinity with Sri Ramakrishna as well as with Saint Francis of Assisi, both of whom were extraordinary ascetic exemplars of Divine devotion and blessed with ‘the gift of tears’. Though Francis had lived in a vastly different age and culture seven hundred years before Sri Ramakrishna, they had similar devotional traits with which I’ve felt great rapport.
As an enlightened mystic Sri Ramakrishna affirmed to his principal disciple Swami Vivekenanda and others that he had indeed seen God during states of spiritual ecstasy. At first he worshiped God through a personal deity as the compassionate Mother, or the all-loving Father. Thereafter, he aspired to and quickly realized the transcendental or Brahman aspect of God which is Divine communion beyond human description.
Ultimately he taught that God is All – omnipresent as all manifestation, while timelessly transcendent as unmanifest Infinite Potentiality.
Thus the foregoing whimsical verses about seeing GOD were inspired by Sri Ramakrishna and his teachings.
May those verses and teachings encourage us all to ever remember – and perhaps perceive – that everyone and everything is Divine!
And so may it be!
Namasté!
Ron Rattner
Please Call Me by My True Names
~ Thich Nhat Hahn
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
~ Thich Nhat Hahn
“When another person makes you suffer,
it is because he suffers deeply within himself,
and his suffering is spilling over.
He does not need punishment; he needs help.
That’s the message he is sending.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. “No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“To understand everything is to forgive everything.”
~ Buddha
“And Jesus said,
‘Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do.’”
~ Luke 23:34
Thich Nhat Hanh
Thich Nhat Hahn’s Introduction and Explanation.
I have a poem for you. This poem is about three of us.
The first is a twelve-year-old girl, one of the boat
people crossing the Gulf of Siam. She was raped by a
sea pirate, and after that she threw herself into the
sea.
The second person is the sea pirate, who was born
in a remote village in Thailand.
And the third person is me.
I was very angry, of course. But I could not take sides against the sea pirate. If I could have, it would have been easier, but I couldn’t. I realized that if I had been born in his village and had lived a similar life – economic, educational, and so on – it is likely that I would now be that sea pirate.
So it is not easy to take sides.
Out of suffering, I wrote this poem.
It is called “Please Call Me by My True Names,” because I have many names, and when you call me by any of them, I have to say,
“Yes.”
Please Call Me by My True Names
Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.
~ Thich Nhat Hahn
Source.
http://www.spiritualnow.com/articles/44/1/Thich-Nhat-Hahn-Poetry-Collection/Page1.html
Song Inspired by Passage From Please Call Me by My True Names.
Earth Day Message: Compassionate People In An Orwellian World
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment must come from the human heart. . [from] a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
~ Dalai Lama
“In the present circumstances, no one can afford to assume
that someone else will solve their problems. Every individual has a responsibility to help guide our global family in the right direction. Good wishes are not sufficient; we must become actively engaged.”
~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama, from “The Path to Tranquility: Daily Wisdom”
“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe’,
a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security.”
~ Albert Einstein ( N. Y. Times , March 29, 1972)
“Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.”
“Compassion, in which all ethics must take root,
can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces
all living creatures, and does not limit itself to mankind.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
“Look how the caravan of civilization
has been ambushed.
Fools are everywhere in charge.
Do not practice solitude like Jesus.
Be in the assembly, and take charge of it.”
~ Rumi
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
We’ve nothing to fear but fright;
fright which hides our light.
For just beyond our darkest fright
shines our brightest light –
The Eternal light of LOVE.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“God sends hope in the darkest moments.
The heaviest rain comes from the darkest clouds.”
~ Rumi
Ron’s Introduction.
When a reporter once asked Mahatma Gandhi, “What do you think of Western civilization?” Gandhi supposedly replied, “I think it would be a good idea”.
Whether that story is actual or apocryphal, it raises key insights into our allegedly ‘advanced’ societies.
We have undemocratically degenerated into an insane and warlike Orwellian world dominated by criminally psychopathic oligarchs committing mass suicide by ecocide and threatening immanent climate collapse and potential World War III nuclear holocaust which would destroy Earth life as we know it.
Though heretofore there have been seemingly isolated instances of self-inflicted human societal collapses – like that at Easter Island – never before have we confronted such a planet-wide immanent climate collapse. Yet without planet Earth’s favorable ecology, humanity can not survive.
So we must seriously consider whether humans are now ignorantly and unsustainably doing to our precious “Turtle Island” or “Earth Island” what they did to Easter Island. And whether or not we will avert repeating worldwide that disastrous history of ecological collapse.
In my view, our insanely illogical ecological, political and social behaviors are but symptoms of widespread psychological disease – not its cause; that to end this illness we must address and transcend its root cause, rather than merely decry its symptoms.
At the root of our present ecologically omnicidal insanity is a scientifically disproved and long outmoded reductionist, materialistic and mechanistic worldview belief system which sees everything and everyone as solid and separate, while disregarding our non-local common Cosmic consciousness.
We have forgotten what indigenous peoples have always known and remembered – our inextricably interrelated spiritual connectedness to mother Earth and to everything/everyone/everywhere; that what we think we do to apparent ‘others’ we do to ourselves.
Hence to avert calamitous ecological breakdown we must NOW breakthrough to a new and higher heart-centered worldview before it is too late; thereby we can see, solve and resolve our problems from levels of psychological awareness beyond those which created them.
This a crucial time for compassionate people to become politically and socially engaged.
As we commemorate Earth Day 2019, all lifeforms on our precious planet Earth are threatened by potentially immanent ecological catastrophe attributable to psychopathic human behaviors. These are critical times of immense jeopardy and suffering, yet immense opportunity.
Perhaps more than ever before in recorded human history people who are awakening to our spiritual common essence and nature realize not only that humans are collectively threatening our “reality”, but that together we have the capacity to solve and resolve our critical problems from heart levels of human consciousness above and beyond lower psychological states which created current crises.
Hence this a crucial time for compassionately aware people to become politically and socially engaged.
Dalai Lama’s Observations and Advice.
H.H. The Dalai Lama of Tibet wisely warns us that we must act to solve ecological crises and restore peace “before it is too late”. Here are some of his observations from which we may draw inspiration and motivation:
“Peace and the survival of life on earth as we know it are threatened by human activities that lack a commitment to humanitarian values. Destruction of nature and natural resources results from ignorance, greed and lack of respect for the earth’s living things.
This lack of respect extends even to the earth’s human descendants, the future generations who will inherit a vastly degraded planet if world peace does not become a reality, and if destruction of the natural environment continues at the present rate.
Our ancestors viewed the earth as rich and bountiful, which it is. Many people in the past also saw nature as inexhaustibly sustainable, which we know is the case only if we care for it.
It is not difficult to forgive destruction in the past which resulted from ignorance. Today, however, we have access to more information; it is essential that we re-examine ethically what we have inherited, what we are responsible for, and what we will pass on to coming generations.
Many of the earth’s habitats, animals, plants, insects and even micro-organisms that we know to be rare may not be known at all by future generations. We have the capability and the responsibility to act; we must do so before it is too late.
Just as we should cultivate gentle and peaceful relations with our fellow human beings, we should also extend that same kind of attitude towards the natural environment. Morally speaking, we should be concerned for our whole environment.
This, however, is not just a question of morality or ethics, but a question of our own survival. For this generation and for future generations, the environment is very important. If we exploit the environment in extreme ways, we will suffer, as will our future generations. When the environment changes, the climatic condition also changes. When the climate changes dramatically, the economy and many other things change. Our physical health will be greatly affected. Again, conservation is not merely a question of morality, but a question of our own survival.
Therefore, in order to achieve more effective environmental protection and conservation, internal balance within the human being himself or herself is essential. The negligence of the environment, which has resulted in great harm to the human community, resulted from our ignorance of the very special importance of the environment. We must now help people to understand the need for environmental protection. We must teach people to understand the need for environmental protection. We must teach people that conservation directly aids our survival.
If you must be selfish, then be wise and not narrow-minded in your selfishness. The key point lies in the sense of universal responsibility. That is the real source of strength, the real source of happiness. If we exploit everything available, such as trees, water and minerals, and if we don’t plan for our next generation, for the future, then we’re at fault, aren’t we? However, if we have a genuine sense of universal responsibility as our central motivation, then our relations with the environment, and with all our neighbors, will be well balanced.
Ultimately, the decision to save the environment must come from the human heart. The key point is a call for a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
(From “Humanity and Ecology”, © 1988, The Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama)
Ron’s 2019 Earth Day Commentary.
We live in an age of mental malaise; the Hindus call it Kali-Yuga.
Many humans have forgotten and flagrantly transgressed the perennial wisdom Golden Rule of ethics shared by all enduring religious, spiritual, indigenous, and ethical traditions that we do no harm; but that with reciprocal empathy we treat all beings with the same dignity we wish for ourselves, and that they wish for themselves.
Accordingly, our precious planet is pervasively polluted by human ignorance and greed.
“The more that money rules the world,
the more that money ruins the world.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
We have undemocratically degenerated into insane societies, unconsciously committing mass suicide by ecocide, and threatening nuclear catastrophe.
Unrestrained transnational corporate-capitalism perpetually seeking profits is unsustainably, insidiously and coercively, exploiting countless vulnerable people and creatures worldwide, and insanely pillaging, plundering, depleting and corrupting finite planetary resources which support life. Thus, billions of people suffer needless poverty, starvation and avoidable disease or death, while a tiny group of privileged financial, corporate, political and religious oligarchs immorally acquire and misuse power and obscenely excessive material wealth, far beyond their conceivable needs.
Life as we know it is immanently threatened by environmental catastrophe or nuclear annihilation, possibly precipitated by criminally psychopathic world “leaders”; people so corrupt and crazy that they are myopically scuttling Spaceship Earth; destroying the life support systems which sustain us; pillaging and poisoning our precious planet’s ecology; and, harming human health, with countless chemically, genetically and radiologically polluting activities and products – even including foods, drinks, medicines and pharmaceuticals.
Even in purportedly technically “advanced” countries, it is virtually impossible now to breath air or drink water which is not in some way polluted by our species. Agricultural soils have been depleted and corrupted. Global weather patterns and hydrologic systems have been irreversibly disrupted by secret government geoengineering and nuclear projects, and other human activities; protective atmospheric ozone is being depleted. Glaciers are melting; long frozen Arctic tundra is thawing. Though non-polluting and sustainable alternative energy technologies are available and feasible they are suppressed as allegedly “economically” impractical, or “proprietary”, or “government classified”.
No one is protected. From birth (and even prenatally) every person’s body/mind is polluted and threatened by numerous and ubiquitous man-made chemical and radioactive materials, many of which are carcinogenic. By “bio-engineering” living organisms, we are even tampering and blindly experimenting with our genetic origins.
Many species are rapidly becoming extinct. Around the world, most insects have disappeared, thousands of birds are suddenly falling dead out of the sky, and countless dead fish and marine mammals are appearing on shores of poisoned rivers, lakes and oceans. Ecologically indispensable marine species are depleted and endangered. Honey bee and butterfly colonies crucial to pollination of food crops are disappearing; nearly one-third of all honey bee colonies in the US have vanished, and Monarch butterflies are becoming extinct. The oceans are polluted with our detritus, and much marine life is threatened. Even remote Arctic polar bears are becoming hermaphroditic because of phthalates and other chemicals dispersed by humankind, and they are threatened with immanent destruction of the ecosystem on which they depend for survival.
So, how should compassionately conscious people live and exist in this crazy world, in which timeless ethical values are forgotten and flagrantly transgressed? Do we not observe obvious omens of impending catastrophe?
As we “widen our circle of compassion to embrace the whole of Nature and all living creatures”, doesn’t it become morally imperative for us to help solve immanent ecological crises?
If so, how?
Shouldn’t we “become actively engaged” as the Dalai Lama suggests?
If so, how?
Can’t we, with heartfelt common intention and compassionate vision, co-create salutary solutions to the immense challenges facing us?
If so, how?
Optimistic observations and speculations.
Perennially, in the darkest and apparently most threatening eras of rampant world materialism and decadence, there invariably appear divine miracles, oracles and Beings to guide Human societies to, “a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
Moreover, many mystics suggest that everything that happens to us, societally or individually – until we transcend ego’s “optical illusion” of separateness – is in our best interest, because it affords opportunity and incentive to evolve.
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 egoic misidentification and provide greatest transcendence incentives.
Thus, current turbulent ‘Trump times’ can be seen as a great “red pill” awakening opportunity, permitting Humanity to recognize and resolve current critical problems from elevated intuitive Heart levels of consciousness, above and beyond those fearful lower psychological states which created them.
Hence we can see present world problems as transitionally arising from inevitable disintegration of a prior “scientific” materialistic paradigm that has become painfully and harmfully anachronous – to make way for a more enlightened and elevated new age that blesses all life on our precious planet and beyond.
Such an elevated intuitive perspective will motivate and enable us to transcend current environmental and political insanity. And it will further our spiritual evolution until ultimately we realize that – beyond our illusory separation from all we perceive – we are ONE spirit eternally encompassing all life, and everything everywhere and beyond.
Concluding invocations.
Let us become actively engaged as a global human family to resolve the immense ecological challenges facing us, not just as a matter of morality or ethics but for survival of life as we know it – “before it is too late”.
Ever mindful of our Oneness with all Life on our precious planet and beyond,
may we act with loving-kindness and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty – on Earth Day and every day.
Rather than worry or be afraid, may we remember that
“The only thing we have to fear is…fear itself.”
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt, first inaugural address
“For God sends hope in the darkest moments.
The heaviest rain comes from the darkest clouds.”
~ Rumi
And so it shall be!
Ron Rattner
YouTube documentary about how humans threaten Earth’s ecology.
This is an excellently narrated video documentary, which includes worldwide graphic cinematography portraying many societies: like Easter Island, where humans insanely destroyed one of Earth’s most abundant ecosystems; and Dubai, U A E, which is emblematic of our current unsustainable and obsolete global fossil fuel dependency, threatening historically unprecedented global climate collapse in “ten years”. Please view and share this video!
I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life.
“The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. …To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”
~ Albert Einstein – The Merging of Spirit and Science
I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life
My life has become faith-based.
I follow my faith,
but I’m not affiliated
with any organized religion or other belief system.
After many years of questioning,
I’ve found faith beyond belief,
beyond dogmas or theology.
I’ve found faith in everything everywhere,
and in the impenetrable Mystery
beyond every form or phenomenon.
I’ve found faith in my Self and in Nature.
I’ve found the faith to follow my Heart.
Mine is not a blind faith based on fear or doubt,
or on inculcated or adopted ideas of others.
It is an abiding inner knowledge,
flowing from a long life
of reflective personal and trans-personal
experience and observation;
An insight arising from – but transcending – reason,
consistent and harmonious with
the highest welfare and unity of all Life.
My life experience has shown that our universe
is a magnificent, marvelous, miraculous and awe-inspiring “reality”;
That immanent in each life-form and in all manifestation
is an ineffable eternal Awareness:
An Intelligence or Divinity
which is the mysterious matrix,
Essence and Source of our reality.
My life experience has thus
indelibly instilled in me
an abiding faith in that Source*
As a purposeful evolutionary impetus in each of us;
A faith that from that Source
we get what we need when we need it,
Assuring that ultimately everything happens for the best,
to promote our evolution;
A faith that we are inevitably evolving toward
harmonious universal expression of greatest good –
As Peace, Truth, Joy, Love, and Compassion.
With such Faith, I am empowered to follow my Heart,
without worry, fear or doubt;
To accept inevitable and inescapable
life difficulties and uncertainties,
and yet to live openly, spontaneously and authentically.
So, without any religious affiliation,
I’ve become a faithful follower:
I follow my Faith;
I follow the Way;
I follow my Heart.
And this above all,
It is my Faith that enables me to be true to my Self.
Footnote.
*Innumerable names – God, Love, Nature, etc. – may be used to signify that Source or any of its infinite aspects. Or as in the Jewish tradition it may be acknowledged that no name can denominate “That” which is beyond conception or expression – since naming limits the illimitable and ineffable Infinite Reality.
Ron’s audio recitation of “I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life”
Ron’s 2019 epilogue to “I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life”
Dear Friends,
The foregoing poem explains insights arising from previously unimagined paradigms of “reality” and “self-identity”, experienced following a profound 1976 midlife awakening. It was composed during a post-retirement reclusive period, and first posted soon after the 2010 launching of SillySutras.com.
Since composing “I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life”, I’ve kept experiencing an evolutionary awakening process, and sharing further spiritual insights therefrom. And since then I have continued to be more than ever blessed with a “faith-based life”.
My miraculous survival and healing from a 2014 near death taxicab rundown, has sparked subtly significant attitudinal changes, bringing unprecedented happiness and gratitude for this precious human lifetime, with evolutionary acceptance of Life beyond that described in the above original essay/poem.
With enhanced faith in the Divine, rather than mere belief, I have now given my ‘irrevocable power of attorney” to The Lone Arranger to resolve all worldly problems and sufferings, and to forgivingly ‘adjudge’ all those who ignorantly cause them.
And more than ever before, I now see this world mostly as a Divine play of consciousness – like a marvelous movie, or mental mirage or simulated holographic ‘reality’ – without fear of physical death, and with absolute Faith in its ultimate Divine denouement.
These verses are respectfully offered to inspire our ever expanding
faith-based acceptance of Life, as it is,
With ever growing Peace, Truth, Joy, Love, and Compassion.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
True Communication
“Follow your heart,
even if it contradicts my words”
~ Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
“It is as though he listened
and such listening as his
enfolds us in a silence
In which at last
We begin to hear
What we are meant to be.”
~ Lao-Tzu
“Our task must be to free ourselves from this [mental] prison
by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
~ Albert Einstein
Ron’s Introduction and Explanation of “True Communication”
In our space/time world everything is energy emanating from non-dual universal consciousness – the matrix and essence of all Life – so that the more expanded and harmonious with Nature our subtle energy fields, the greater our capacities to communicate consciously. Even without words or thoughts we can powerfully communicate emotions through tears, smiles, music, and other arts. And, however it is shared, LOVE is a ‘contagious’ blessing.
Only after my mid-life spiritual awakening, did I consciously begin experiencing previously unknown subtle energies. Thereby, I learned about human capacities to intuitively impart, receive or exchange subtle information with other beings and other life-forms and even with seemingly inanimate objects like like plants, foods and manufactured objects – like my ’76 Volvo ‘lemon’ blessed to run well by my Guruji.
Thus many people communicate well with plants, pets and other conscious creatures. In 1981, I even experienced an unforgettable magical friendship with a sea gull which repeatedly visited me at my 12th floor high-rise apartment, at times when I was feeling lonely.
St. Francis of Assisi was a famous exemplar of such communications whose legendary exchanges with birds and animals were based on his constant heartfelt harmony and communion with all of Nature.
The above quotations, with these and following comments, quotes, poem, and video explain and illustrate how “True Communication” happens. May they help us become ever better communicators, harmonious with Nature.
And so may it be!
“True Communication”
True communication is neither verbal nor mental –
But transcendental.
True communication is communion –
Heart to Heart.
Ron’s audio recitation of “True Communication”
Ron’s Commentary and Dedication of “True Communication”
Dear Friends,
In this world of relativity, we are all relatives.
Have you ever considered the crucial importance of successfully communicating with other beings and life forms? Harmonious communication – rational or emotional, verbal or non-verbal – can avert or solve many earth life challenges or problems.
Since my mid-life spiritual awakening, I’ve learned that our abilities to communicate expand as our “human consciousness” expands.
Einstein revealed that in this quantum ‘reality’ everything is energy in a non-dual quantum field. He said:
“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
Our energetic ‘reality’ is described by Eckhart Tolle as:
“All things are vibrating energy fields in ceaseless motion. ….
What we perceive as physical matter
is energy vibrating (moving) at a particular range of frequencies.
Thoughts consist of the same energy
vibrating at a higher frequency than matter,
which is why they cannot be seen or touched.
Thoughts have their own range of frequencies,
with negative thoughts at the lower end of the scale
and positive thoughts at the higher.”
~ Eckhart Tolle – A New Earth
From a quantum perspective all beings and life-forms are vibrating vortices of universal awareness – each ‘receiving’ and ‘broadcasting’ energy from a unique ‘ID’ wave-length in Nature’s infinite quantum field of Cosmic Consciousness. As ‘broadcasters’ and ‘receivers’ we can expand and enhance our abilities to harmoniously communicate, by elevating, widening and focusing our vibratory consciousness fields and frequencies – viz. our energetic identities.
And the higher, subtler and more focused our energy emanations, the more we can intuitively tune-in to Nature; the more we can thereby become sensitive to our magnificently alive environment with its miraculous multiplicity of conscious life-forms.
Einstein suggests that
“Our task must be to free ourselves from this [mental] prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
As evidenced by indigenous people everywhere, our human species once shared such an intuitive sensitivity with all other sentient life-forms. But gradually we lost our conscious connection with Nature as we became less nomadic and more agrarian or industrialized; less intuitive and more egocentric as we more and more self-identified with our limited thoughts and illusory perceptions.
Thanks to Albert Einstein, Max Planck and many other great non-materialistic scientists we are again learning scientifically how there is a cosmic web of life connecting everything and everyone in Nature from the greatest galaxies to the tiniest sub-atomic particles; that we are each an integral, inter-connected and interdependent part of Nature’s web of life – not separate from it; that as Einstein observed:
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
And through meditation, concentration and other mind-stilling methods we are again expanding “human consciousness” and human sensitivity to Nature’s magnificent beauty and harmony. So more and more we are able to share universal awareness and intuitive communion and empathy with all life on our precious planet.
The foregoing brief poem reminds us that “true communication” is neither verbal nor mental, but transcendental.
And embedded below is a highly recommended and fascinating thirteen minute viral video documentary film excerpt about amazing pacification of a vicious black panther by Anna Breytenbach an extraordinary animal communicator from coastal South Africa, who received advanced training through the Assisi International Animal Institute in California, which fosters inter-species animal communications.
Today’s writings and video are offered to encourage our deep reflection and ever expanding insight into the true nature of space/time energy “reality” beyond our limited superficial perceptions. Thereby, may it help us lovingly “widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
The incredible story of how leopard Diabolo became Spirit
– Anna Breytenbach, “animal communicator”:
