Posts Tagged ‘Consciousness’
The Way In, Is The Way Out
“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha
“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
“As you grow up, you form a mental image of who you are, based on your personal and cultural conditioning. We may call this phantom self the ego. It consists of mind activity and can only be kept going through constant thinking. The term ego means different things to different people, but when I use it …it means a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind. …..
As long as you are identified with your mind, the ego runs your life.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
“Ego is the biggest enemy of humans.”
~ Rig Veda
“As long as you take yourself to be a person, a body, a mind, separate from the stream of life, having a will of its own, pursuing its own aims, you are living merely on the surface and whatever you do will be short-lived and of little value, mere straws to feed the flames of vanity.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Undo ego!
As ego goes,
consciousness grows,
until it Knows – Its Self.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Beyond Ego
The Way In, Is The Way Out
In this crazy age
of mental malaise,
we’re caught
in a mental maze.
Without a doubt,
to find our way out
we must know
the way we got in.
Ron’s Audio Recitation of “The Way In, Is The Way Out”
Ron’s Explanation and Dedication of “The Way In, Is The Way Out”
Dear Friends,
The above poem is dedicated to furthering our conscious spiritual evolution, thereby helping us live ever happier lives.
Upon birth as human lifeforms we experience amnesia about our true spiritual self-identity. Then we are acculturated to perceive and believe ourselves to be mere mortal physical bodies separate from each other and nature. So egoically we think and mistakenly behave as unconnected entities, and become subject to the universal law of cause and effect – karma.
Every Human – except for rare Buddha-like beings – knowingly or unknowingly is in some evolutionary stage of undoing mistaken ego identity – a process indispensable to our inevitable evolution. So for millennia spiritual seers have recognized “ego” as the greatest human “enemy” and impediment to our spiritual evolution.
Thus, because of ego’s supreme significance, numerous SillySutras.com writings describe “ego” and ways to transcend it. (See e.g. website archives linked here.)
In writing about ego I’ve sometimes used fanciful metaphors. For example, I have written that ego identification causes each soul to become ‘encapsulated’ and ‘entangled’ in a “self-woven karmic cocoon” arising from our unique behaviors – through which we often bring about personal and planetary sufferings. And that each “karmic cocoon” becomes a kind of “psychological prison” which restricts realization of our unlimited potentialities and makes karmic suffering inevitable. But I’ve written that by “undoing ego” we can each mentally transcend our “psychological prison” and emerge “free at last”, no matter what our outer circumstances,.
My midlife awakening sparked a spiritual metamorphosis process from “secular Hebrew”, to “born-again Hindu”, to “uncertain Undo”. Gradually I began letting go of previously accepted beliefs and concepts about Self-identity and Reality. Thus whimsically I’ve long proclaimed that I’m an ‘Uncertain Undo’ seeking relief from belief; and that “on the path of Undo, we’ll never be through, ’til we’re an undone ONE”.
In Rob Tobias’ YouTube documentary film about me, titled: “Walks With Ron (A Spiritual Memoir)”, I’ve explained how butterflies are powerful symbols of our human potential to undo inevitable earthly karmic sufferings and emerge from chrysalis-like self-woven “karmic cocoons”. And I recited the above mental maze lines about how (until then) we’re karmically caught “in a mental maze” seeking the way out.
I hope you’ll enjoy the poem online and in the video. And that it may help all of us who are still “caught by thought” and longing to escape from suffering while psychologically imprisoned in our self-woven karmic cocoons.
Invocation.
May “The Way In, Is The Way Out” help remind us all
of how we can emerge from “karmic cocoons” and transcend earthly sufferings
by letting go of who or what we mistakenly think we are,
and BEING what we really are –
ONE with Nature as its Eternal Source.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Is the world being ruled and ruined by psychopaths?
“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
“Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives.
I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends
and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that.
That’s what’s insane about it.”
~ John Lennon 6/6/68
“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.”
~ Dalai Lama (From “Humanity and Ecology”)
“There is only one perpetrator of evil on the planet: human unconsciousness. That realization is true forgiveness. With forgiveness, your victim identity dissolves, and your true power emerges – the power of Presence. Instead of blaming the darkness, you bring in the light.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’”
~ Luke 23: 34
“Ignorance is the root of all evil.”
~ Ron Rattner – Sutra Sayings
“To understand everything is to forgive everything”
~ Buddha
Is the world being ruled and ruined by psychopaths?
Introduction
Dear Friends,
Have you ever wondered why there is so much suffering in our world; why we are facing extraordinary ecological, financial, international and interpersonal crises so serious that they cause misery for millions and threaten all life on our precious planet?
Is is possible that these crises have been precipitated by sociopathic world “leaders” – obscenely privileged corporate, political and religious oligarchs – who without apparent remorse amorally acquire and misuse power, and excessive material wealth far beyond their conceivable needs; people so insane that they are unjustly and brutally harming countless people and creatures, and myopically scuttling Spaceship Earth, destroying the life support systems which sustain us?
As more and more studies emerge demonstrating the corrosive effect of psychopathy on governments and corporations, researchers have begun to explore how our society seems to have been afflictively molded in the psychopaths’ image.
One of these psychopathy researchers, Canadian author Stefan Verstappen, believes that we live in societies shaped and ruled by psychopaths – people in positions of great corporate and political power who without conscience, empathy or remorse, act to promote their delusionally perceived self interests, amorally and often violently.
Verstappen says that psychopaths often attain positions of power because, unlike the vast majority of people, they don’t play by the rules and have no qualms about cheating, lying or doing anything to anyone that gets them what they want.
Here are two recommended You Tube videos of Verstappen explaining his theories about psychopaths.
(15 minutes)
(38 minutes)
Ron’s comments:
From a limited earthly perspective, it appears that psychopaths do indeed rule the world (as Verstappen contends). As an octogenarian I have long wondered about psychopaths in power, especially because the twentieth century was blighted by over 300 million democides – government instigated or perpetrated killings of mostly non-combatant civilians – far more than in any previous century.
In my student days I learned of maniacs like Hitler in Nazi Germany, Mao in Communist China, Stalin in the U.S.S.R., Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and numerous others who were then bestially causing untold murders and misery.
Naively, I then believed that my country the USA, and its Western allies, represented only virtues of good and democratic decency, and that after the demise of World War II era psychopaths, the world would be restored to an age of peace and prosperity. But I was wrong.
Officially instigated and perpetrated amoral wars and killings – many directly or indirectly attributable to the US empire and its allies – have continued. Complicit with official governmental sanctions and support, international corporate oligarchs are insanely developing and selling weapons of mass destruction more than capable of destroying all life on earth, and insidiously and unsustainably pillaging and poisoning our precious planet’s ecology. Such insanity is impoverishing the vast majority of humankind, and pervasively harming human health, with countless chemically, genetically and radiologically polluting products – even including foods, drinks and pharmaceuticals.
After the traumatically shocking 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the soon ensuing deranged Viet Nam war devastation, I became aware of the prescience of President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 valedictory caution against dominance of the “military-industrial complex” with “potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power”.
Despite Eisenhower’s warning, it seems now apparent that ruling power has indeed been misappropriated by the military-industrial complex which, in complicity with billionaire financial, political and corporate sociopaths, is ruling and ruining the world.
As Hitler in Nazi Germany molded an insane society to support his pathological pretensions and plans, since 9/11/2001 sociopathic Western leaders have contrived and fomented alleged “terrorist” enemies as a fraudulent pretense to create an insane society which has fearfully condoned or acquiesced in outrageously immoral wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and deranged plans for attacking Iran and other Moslem countries, with radically expanded US military budgets and executive powers, and obscenely enriched entrenched vested interests, all accompanied by serious curtailments of US constitutional protections and civil liberties.
But how can humanity solve this planetary life and death problem of societal insanity and irrational fear fomented by psychopathic authorities? For many years I have been inspired by His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet, one of the world’s wisest incarnate sages, for guidance on how we can evolve beyond the critical problems stemming from governance by sociopaths and psychopaths.
Addressing our ecological crisis His Holiness has said:
“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.”
Rather than vainly appealing for heartfelt compassion from psychopaths lacking empathy, I optimistically propose that we can solve and transcend current crises by intuitively following our hearts to achieve a spiritual tipping point – a ‘critical mass that will solve our critical mess’. Moreover, we can study and emulate pre-industrial societies that have instinctively lived for millennia in sustainable harmony with Nature.
At present, most psychologists and psychiatrists are devoting research efforts and treatments to individual mental pathologies. Perhaps we need first to address societal pathologies attributable to stress caused by psychopathic and sociopathic authorities complicit with the military-industrial complex. How can people avoid individual psychological problems while they are insanely and unnecessarily subjected to constant societal stresses concerning their health, life necessities and human rights?
Recently inaugurated at the Dalai Lama’s suggestion is a “Center For Investigating Healthy Minds”, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, my undergraduate alma mater. Similarly, wouldn’t it be helpful to establish scientific centers for the study of sane societies?
Weren’t there indigenous societies whose peoples lived sane and happy lives by prioritizing sustainable harmony with Nature over it’s unsustainable exploitation, cooperation over competition, respect for prophets over lust for profits, democracy over authoritarianism? Isn’t it crucial that we learn from their experience?
Conclusion
President Eisenhower in 1961 deemed essential “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” to prevent “the disastrous rise of misplaced power”. These comments are respectfully offered in furtherance of that goal. May they help inspire “a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness” which will promote our heartfelt, sane and nonviolent transcendence of current planetary insanity.
Epilogue, Veterans Day 2019:
Dear Friends,
Happy US Veterans Day!
November 11, first became a US federal holiday as “Armistice Day”, the anniversary of the end of the first World War – “the war to end all wars”.
But, with no “end to all wars” yet in sight, the US federal holiday morphed from “Armistice Day” to “Veterans Day” .
Since Donald J.Trump’s ‘red pill’ campaign and 2016 election as 45th US President the world has experienced exceptionally tumultuous times. Many US and world citizens are experiencing and demonstrating considerable fear, anger, hatred and other polarizing negative emotions, rather than “a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness”.
Whatever our political, cultural, generational, or geographical perspectives, we share overriding common needs and aspirations. As humankind we share the same common Cosmic consciousness, the same web of life, the same precious Earth biosphere, the same aspirations for health and happiness and for just democratic societies serving basic needs of all life on a peaceful planet. Yet until now virtually all of us in varying degrees have been suffering from an illusory sense of separation from each other, from Nature, and from our ONE common spiritual essence.
Although armed conflict is behaviorally as old as humankind, for the first time in our recorded history we are now forced to realize that more wars can trigger a nuclear or ecological catastrophe insanely ending earth-life as we’ve known it.
But paradoxically we have gained unprecedented technical capacity to end all human starvation and poverty. And in these ‘red pill’ critical times of immense suffering, yet immense opportunity, we are awakening to our infinitely unlimited human potentiality.
So as we honor and remember all those who have been conscripted or enlisted into military services fighting endless wars, let us urgently and lovingly envisage and intend imminent inception – at long last – of an era with no more war on our precious planet.
Together let us join in imagining our precious planet cooperatively ruled bottom-up by humble and compassionate societies, rather than top-down by oligarchic or plutocratic billionaire sociopaths or psychopaths.
And as we envision lasting peace, let us be guided by the Dalai Lama’s wisdom that
“The essence of all spiritual life is your attitude towards others. Once you have pure and sincere motives all the rest follows.”
~ Dalai Lama – Little Book of Buddhism
And so may 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
Is space/time really REAL, or is it illusory?
For millennia, space/time 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”.
Both mystics and quantum scientists now say that all the forms we perceive and call “reality” are impermanent – ever appearing and disappearing beyond time and space; and that “consciousness is fundamental”.
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from 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
Although the relativity and quantum hypotheses of the last century were consistent with perennial mystical insights, most people psychologically deny or cognitively repress ideas inconsistent with their deeply inculcated core beliefs about supposed material ‘reality’ or 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 – a theory known as “The Simulation Hypothesis” – that what we deem “reality” is in fact a computer-generated digital simulation.
So this non-materialistic idea, formerly considered science fiction (e.g. in the Matrix film Trilogy), is becoming accepted as mainstream science theory.
In the Matrix film Trilogy a hacker named “Neo” – after digesting a revelatory “red pill” – awakens to discover that his entire world is an artificial universe created by computers which have imprisoned humans; 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.
As times change human metaphors and vernacular about perennial wisdom principles also change. But absolute principles persist permanently.
“What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.”
~ Ecclesiastes 1:9 (attributed to King Solomon)
In 1894 Swami Vivekananda predicted Western scientific confirmation of the ancient Vedic non-dual philosophy of One Infinite Existence beyond relative reality: 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.
Ron’s comments on “The Simulation Hypothesis” as “Samsara 3.0”.
Almost all wrings posted on SillySutras.com followed inner experiences and insights from my midlife spiritual awakening process. They were mostly ‘channeled’ or intuited during an extended post-retirement reclusive period of prayer and meditation without any computer, TV, or daily newspaper. Yet decades later, these experiential insights still seem timelessly true. Thus, from my post-awakening perspective, “The Simulation Hypothesis” is just another name for what the ancient Masters called samsara or maya.
Hence, I’ve called it “Samsara 3.0” while still accepting that space/time ‘reality’ is an optical ego-illusion of consciousness, in which we are seemingly separate entities. Nonetheless, I remain reverentially awed by the beauty and ever-mysterious magnificence of Nature, with which Humankind must remain mindfully harmonious until transcending as universal LOVE our separate-entity ego-illusions.
Some people who allegedly accept the simulation hypothesis (like prominent engineer/entrepreneur Elon Musk), are purportedly afraid that Humanity might inadvertently self-destruct by catastrophically mistaken use of artificial intelligence (AI). Such fears only perpetuate karmic suffering, and I reject them. As non-dual and indestructible eternal spirit, we have nothing to fear but fright.
Spiritual physicist, author and lecturer Thomas W. Campbell, also sees humans as immortal souls, and asserts that we are about to prove scientifically that humans are living and learning Love in a digitally pre-programmed matrix – a virtual or simulated ‘soul-school reality’.
After years as a self-described “born-again Hindu”, I became and remain “an Uncertain Undo” – an auto-didactic ‘student of life’ matriculating on “the Earth branch of the Great Cosmic University”. Ultimately – like Thomas Campbell – I have intuited that we are about to prove scientifically that humans are living and learning Love in a digitally pre-programmed matrix – a virtual or simulated ‘soul-school reality’. And like Campbell but unlike Elon Musk, I optimistically believe that as eternal spirits we have nothing to fear but fright, because Life is indestructible and eternal.
So I agree with Swami Vivekananda’s above prescient prediction that Western science will affirm ancient Vedic non-duality insights of ONE Absolute “Reality” beyond space/time/causality. And I believe that, realizing such ONENESS, Humanity will at long last reject destructive illusionary beliefs and behaviors which have brought our space/time ‘Love-learning-laboratory’ to the apparent brink of ecologic and nuclear catastrophe.
Further I am experientially persuaded of the timeless verity of Eastern philosophical teachings that in this space/time world of duality/causality, we suffer karmically from unskillful ego-thoughts, words and deeds, until realizing as Eternal LOVE the true non-duality nature of Reality, Self and all phenomena.
Invocation.
Regardless of whether we seek ‘escape’ from imprisonment in a theoretical matrix-like computer simulation, everyone yearns for eternal peace and happiness.
May our reflections on The Simulation Hypothesis as “Samsara 3.0”
inspire discovery of such happiness,
and transcendence of illusionary egoic fears, beliefs and disharmoniously destructive behaviors
which inevitably perpetuate karmic suffering.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
“The Simulation Hypothesis”
Highly recommended 50 minute documentary film
Cartesian Critique
“When the mind is completely empty – only then is it capable of receiving the unknown.” …… “Only when the mind is wholly silent, completely inactive, not projecting, when it is not seeking and is utterly still – only then that which is eternal and timeless comes into being.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“I think with intuition. The basis of true thinking is intuition.
Indeed, it is not intellect, but intuition which advances humanity.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The heart has its reasons which reason cannot know.”
“We know truth not by reason only, but by the heart”
“It is the heart which feels God, not the reason.
This then is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason”
~ Blaise Pascal
“Faith is different from proof;
the latter is human, the former is a gift from God.”
~ Blaise Pascal
To think or not to think,
that is the question!
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Thinking and Being can’t coexist.
So stop thinking and start Being.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Forget who you think you are
to Know what you really are.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“It is only the innocent mind . . unclouded by experience, totally free from the past; . . that can perceive what is reality.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity. Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge which are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
J. Krishnamurti
Cartesian Critique: On Confusing Thinking With Being.
Descartes deduced his presumed separate existence with thought.
He reasoned: “I think, therefore I am”.
But wasn’t that putting Descartes before his Source?
Isn’t it apparent that we exist when not thinking?
Isn’t thinking optional, while Being is perpetual?
Why are we called human “beings”, and not human “thinkings”?
Isn’t existence much more than just thinking?
Don’t we exist in thoughtless states?
Doesn’t Being encompass conscious and subconscious
phenomena beyond thought – like emotions, feelings, sounds,
tastes, sensations, moods, dreams, autonomic processes, etc.?
Don’t all thoughts comprise and concern past ideas,
whereas life is ever lived in the Now,
never in the past or the future?
Aren’t we most aware of our existence
when we are thoughtlessly/choicelessly mindful?
What might Descartes say,
if he were here today?
Ron’s Commentary on Confusing Thinking With Being.
Dear Friends,
This essay/poem questioning René Descartes’ famous philosophical proposition: “I think therefore I am.” was written during an extended period of inner reflection following my midlife change of life. Not until then did I ever wonder about how we mistakenly self-identify dualistically with the body/mind’s thoughts and story rather than its existential awareness.
Prior to my spiritual opening, I was most influenced and impressed by the world’s “great thinkers”, such as learned philosophers, professors, authors, authorities, and PhD ‘experts’.
But after my spiritual opening and discovery of Eastern non-dualistic mysticism – and especially after meeting my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas – I became and remain most inspired by the world’s greatest non-thinkers: mystics, intuitives and shamans from indigenous spiritual traditions, and those who in secular life acted humbly, intuitively, and authentically – like my heroes Mahatma Gandhi and Albert Einstein.
Guruji dropped out of school as a child and read very few books during his long life as mostly a wandering sadhu. Yet he was amazingly enlightened, pragmatically wise, intuitive, and prescient and could explain a wide variety of esoteric issues well beyond ordinary scholarly learning. Once when I asked him about an Indian pundit/professor then lecturing in the Bay Area, Guruji replied that the pundit was a very nice man – a “book yogi”.
Guruji’s “book yogi” comment piqued my curiosity about the difference between ‘book yogis’ and meditation yogis like Guruji. Soon I began learning to distinguish experiential learning from conceptual learning and belief; and I prioritized learning from life’s experiences rather than from beliefs, concepts or customs inculcated or acculturated by others. Thus I began to seek relief from belief.
By following Guruji’s instructions to ‘meditate regularly’ I learned that our existence is not dependent upon thinking; that by being “here NOW” with a stilled and thoughtless mind, we can intuitively access inner wisdom ordinarily obscured by ‘the voice in the head’; and, that our intuition facilitates and allows important insights not otherwise attained through worldly logic.
Today’s post is offered to remind us to not confuse thinking with being; that Life persists perpetually whether or not we are thinking. And to help remind us to honor and to prioritize our heart’s “sacred gift” of intuition over the rational mind – our “faithful servant”.
May we may thereby be enabled to experientially confirm Blaise Pascal’s foregoing insightful assertion that
“It is the heart which feels God, not the reason.”
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Reflections on Religious Beliefs
“I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, and Confucian.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“I have learned so much from God
That I can no longer call myself
a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew”
~ Hafiz
“Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not any religion, or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, nor out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all.
I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story.
My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body nor soul. I belong to the Beloved have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know,
First, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human.”
~ Rumi, ‘Only Breath’
“Irrevocable commitment to any one religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world.”
~ Alan Watts
“The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“We are shackled by illusory bonds of belief.
Freedom is beyond belief.
So, we seek relief from belief.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Follow dharma, not dogma.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Today, … any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate.” . . . .
“[T]he time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
~ Dalai Lama
Reflections on Religious Beliefs
Q. What is religion?
A. “Religion” is a word with many meanings.
Here we define it as “any belief system about Divinity or immortality often including rules, rituals, codes of ethics, and philosophies of life.”
Q. Why do we have religions?
A. There is a subtle Cosmic law of ‘supply and demand.’ Religions have arisen in response to our perennial quest for lasting peace and happiness, and our desire to transcend inevitable earthly psychological sufferings.
Knowingly or unknowingly, everyone seeks Happiness, Wholeness, and Love. Consciously or subliminally, we intuit and long for a state of Being which transcends inevitable Earthly cares and suffering. Knowingly or unknowingly we seek timeless Truth.
Religious belief is a form of attempted life guidance, and psychological self-protection from fear of inevitable physical death and uncertain life experience before death. Though many find transient consolation in accepting religious beliefs about divinity and immortality, such beliefs can’t permanently provide such protection. We can’t find freedom from fear of death and from life’s uncertainties through theories, thoughts or beliefs, but only through direct experiential Knowledge.
Thus, the Buddha who realized such freedom while meditating beneath a Banyan tree, counseled:
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
~ Buddha
When twentieth century Indian sage, J. Krishnamurti, was asked
“Is belief in God necessary or helpful?” he said:
“[B]elief in any form is a hindrance. A man who believes in God can never find God. If you are open to reality, there can be no belief in reality. If you are open to the unknown, there can be no belief in it. … belief is a form of self-protection…” …
“When the mind is completely empty – only then is it capable of receiving the unknown.” …… “Only when the mind is wholly silent, completely inactive, not projecting, when it is not seeking and is utterly still – only then that which is eternal and timeless comes into being.”
Similarly the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a sacred Hindu text, state:
“Yoga is the cessation of mind.”
“The witness is Self, pure awareness, which,
though boundless and unchanging,
appears to perceive creation through the construct of mind.”
“The [mistaken] identification of pure awareness with the mind and its creations
causes the apprehension of both an objective world and a perceiver of it.”
“When the mind withdraws attention from sense experience,
the senses receive no impressions from sense objects,
and awareness rests in its essential nature.”
“When he is not in the state of yoga, man remains [mistakenly] identified with the thought-waves in the mind.”
~ Patanjali – Yoga Sutras
Q. Why is a silent mind important?
A. Through thought we self identify as entities separate from the Whole – as separate perceivers of a supposedly objective world. But this is an ego illusion. So, attempted psychological self-preservation through perpetuation of an illusionary self-image is futile. What never was can never be preserved. Thus, religious beliefs that seek psychological self protection from identification with an illusion of separateness from Self are ultimately futile.
The object of all spiritual practice is to transcend such illusionary ego identity. Such transcendence happens only when thought ceases and the universal intelligence which has been mistakenly regarded as a separate experiencer of sensations and emotions, and a separate performer of actions, exists by itself and as itself, and is not mentally divided.
Q. What about instinctive physical acts of self-protection, as distinguished from religious beliefs aimed at psychological self-preservation?
A. According to J.Krishnamurti:
“Physical self-protection is sane, normal and healthy but every other form of self-protection, inwardly, is resistance and it always gathers, builds up strength which is fear.”
Q. Are religious beliefs important?
A. Our ethical behaviors – not our religious beliefs – are most important.
As the Dalai Lama reportedly has said:
“There is no religion higher than the Truth. … What really is important is our behavior with peers, family, work, community, and in the world. …. Whether or not we follow a religion, what is important is that we become more compassionate, more sensible, more detached, more loving, more humanitarian, more responsible, more ethical.” https://sillysutras.com/your-religion-is-not-important/
So grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate:
“[T]he reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate.
This is why I believe the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ H.H. the Dalai Lama – Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World
Ron’s Comments on Urgently Necessary Ethical Behavior Beyond Religious Beliefs
Dear Friends,
Without universal ethical behavior beyond conflicting religious beliefs, humanity cannot survive.
As explained in the foregoing essay, throughout human history, people have adopted or accepted “religious” beliefs, practices and institutions, in exploring the mystery and meaning of life and existence. About 84% of the world’s population is affiliated with Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or with some form of folk religion. Also there are now an estimated 10,000 distinct religions worldwide.
Paradoxically, some leaders and devotees of religions organized to teach universal “Truth” realized by Great Beings have perpetuated and acted on mistaken egoic ideas of separateness, which the sages transcended. Thus, throughout human history countless people and other precious life forms – all manifestations of that same Universal “Truth” – have been victims of demonic wars, crusades, inquisitions, persecutions, and ‘terrorism’ initiated and perpetrated in the name of “true” religion or God.
Although religious beliefs and practices have also inspired immeasurable good, advances in technological and scientific knowledge now reveal that Humankind urgently need to transcend such behaviors which have spawned immense misery and even threaten all Earth life as we have known it.
But how can this happen?
Inspired by the wisdom of Dr. Seuss that “sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple,” I have long reflected on on this question, seeking simple answers to the immensely complicated crises confronting us.
Perhaps one of the simplest but most powerful answers I’ve found is:
“There is only one God,
the same God regardless of the labels applied by religion. …
There is only one religion, the religion of Love;
There is only one language, the language of the Heart;
There is only one caste, the caste of Humanity”
~ Sathya Sai Baba
But most people are not yet sufficiently evolved to understand and act in accordance with that profound observation.
So I was delighted when His Holiness the Dalai Lama published an important self-help book – “Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World” – which H.H. introduced with this important insight:
“[T]he reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate.
This is why I believe the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ H.H. the Dalai Lama – Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (2011)
And I have been deeply inspired and encouraged by similar sentiments addressed to all Humankind by Pope Francis, e.g.:
“When one realizes that life, even in the middle of so many contradictions, is a gift, that love is the source and the meaning of life, how can they withhold their urge to do good to another fellow being?”
“[W]e all need each other, none of us is an island, an autonomous and independent “I,” separated from the other . . . .we can only build the future by standing together, including everyone”. . . .
“[E]verything is connected, and we need to restore our connections to a healthy state.”
“We have so much to do, and we must do it together.”
~ Pope Francis – 2017 TED Talk
And so we must realize that
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
~ Dalai Lama
Invocation
With silenced minds and opened hearts may we practice the “golden rule” of reciprocal empathy, do no harm, and compassionately view and treat all sentient beings as spiritual siblings.
May everyone everywhere treat all beings and all Life with the same dignity that they wish for themselves.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Asking Unanswerable Questions
“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.”
“Whence come I and whither go I?
That is the great unfathomable question,
the same for every one of us.
Science has no answer to it.”
“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature.
And that is because, in the last analysis,
we ourselves are part of nature
and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.”
~ Max Planck, Nobel laureate physicist
“The very study of the physical world leads to the conclusion that …. consciousness is an ultimate reality and, all the possible knowledge, concerning objects can be given as its wave function”
~ Eugene Wigner, Nobel laureate physicist and co-founder of quantum mechanics
“We never cease to stand like curious children before the great Mystery into which we were born.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.
It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day.
Never lose a holy curiosity.”
~ Albert Einstein

Asking Unanswerable Questions
Have you ever wondered how our space/time universe began?
Did it just appear from nothing? What is its source – its matrix? Was it created? Was it intelligently designed? Did it begin with a “big bang”? How? When? What exists beyond its beginning? Will it ever end? If so, will it begin again? What is its purpose, if any? Is it really real, or just a simulated or virtual reality – like a matrix? Is it a holographic, fractal projection of Universal Awareness – our common Cosmic Consciousness? Can it ever be explained? Can we ever discover a provable theory explaining everything [“T.E.O”]?
If you’re curious or ever have wondered about any such questions, you’re quite unusual. Except for some theoretical scientists, most people never think about them. Or they simply accept and believe what some authority, professor, preacher, or spiritual teacher tells them. Or they are in a state of psychological denial about anything or anyone challenging cherished beliefs.
Only after my mid-life spiritual awakening did I begin wondering, and sometimes writing, about the supposed philosophical meaning or purpose of earth life, if any. And sometimes I have shared such writings on-line hoping to help inspire in readers a state of curiosity and wonder beyond our everyday existence. Like a poem called “Cosmology Mythology: From Beyond The Beginning To The Beginning And Beyond” which intuitively speculates on how and why our cosmic reality might have originated.
Or like this verse:
Life is a metaphoric metamorphosis process.
Gleaning meaning in matter,
we learn all that matters —
we learn all that matters is
LOVE!
Whether or not my intuited verses seem true for you, I hope they help inspire us to reflect with wonder and amazement about our precious lives on this precious planet. Such a state of wonder and awe can help us transcend long outdated materialistic world-views about ‘reality’ which may deter reverential realization of ONE timeless spiritual reality beyond materiality – a Universal Intelligence beyond, imagination, conception, comprehension or description.
Albert Einstein died while unsuccessfully seeking a unified field theory – a ‘theory of everything’ [T.E.O.] – which might explain “the great Mystery into which we were born.” Theoretical scientists are continuing to search for such a formula. And ever more non-materialist scientists – like Einstein and nobel laureate Max Planck – are approaching acceptance of a non-dualistic universal Intelligence or cosmic consciousness as the ultimate mysterious matrix of what we call space/time causality reality.
Hopefully, they may some day fulfill Swami Vivekananda’s prescient prediction that “Science and religion will meet and shake hands”.
Meanwhile, I have become experientially persuaded by Eastern non-duality philosophy that our ever impermanent space/time duality causality reality – often called samsara or maya – is an endless illusionary projection of a mysterious Infinite Potentiality beyond conception, comprehension, imagination, or expression.
Nonetheless our reflection on unanswerable cosmic questions may help us experience life-changing gratitude, awe and wonder about our miraculous causality reality concerning which Albert Einstein observed:
“We never cease to stand like curious children before the great Mystery into which we were born.”
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Peanuts by Charles Schulz
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
