Posts Tagged ‘Consciousness’
Surrender and Let Go of Ego
~ Quotations and Sutra Sayings
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“Ego is the biggest enemy of humans.”
~ Rig Veda
“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 the end these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you love?
How deeply did you learn to let go?”
~ The Buddha
By letting it go it all gets done.
The world is won by those who let it go.
But when you try and try,
the world is beyond the winning.
~ Lao Tzu
“They are the chosen ones who have surrendered.”
~ Rumi
“Surrender is faith
that the power of Love can accomplish anything,
even when you cannot foresee the outcome.”
~ Deepak Chopra
Love is the sacrifice of will.
If you cannot leave will behind
You have no will at all.
~ Rumi
Q. How much “ego” do you need?
A. Just enough so that you don’t step in front of a bus.
~ Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
We have nothing to surrender
But the idea
That we’re someone,
With something
To surrender.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Ron’s Introduction to Surrender and Let Go of Ego
Dear Friends,
Beginning thirty years ago, during a long post-retirement secluded period of meditation, introspection, and prayer, I began wondering and writing about the evolutionary spiritual significance of surrendering and letting go of ego. [See https://sillysutras.com/?p=2411]
At age ninety, as I update my memoirs with perspectives learned so far from this precious human lifetime, surrendering and letting go of our false separate ego-mind identity remains fundamental to our individual and collective karmic and dharmic spiritual evolution.
So I’m republishing the above and following quotations and large collection of sutra sayings (with recorded mp3 recitation), and my explanatory comments concerning the critical importance of surrendering and transcending ego.
May these writings help us, individually and as a global family, let go of ego to reveal and heal all sufferings from unfulfilled and futile ego-mind ideas and desires.
And so may it be!
Ron’s Sutra Sayings on Surrendering Ego.
We have nothing to surrender
but the idea that
we’re someone,
with something
to surrender.
Let’s let go
and
let life live us,
as Love.
Let’s leave it to the
Lone Arranger.
Let’s let go, and “go with the flow”.**Being “in the flow” is thought-free, effortless, and focused
merging of intention, action, and awareness
as consciousness – consciously letting Life happen through you.
Tao is Now,
Tao is One,
Tao is Doer,
Tao will be done.
Tao will be done.
So let Tao do it.
Give your spiritual
‘power of attorney’
to God.
“Let go, and let God.”**Unity Church maxim
Leave it to the Lone Arranger.
Ego Antidote:
The root of all problems is
I/me/mine.
End it with antidote,
Thy/Thee/Thine.
Ego: Use it to lose it!
Immolate ego
in the fire of faith.
As ego goes
consciousness grows
until it Knows –
Itself.
Ego is free to choose,
but is never free.
Self does not choose,
but is ever free.
Our only choice
is to accept
or reject
“what is”.
Acceptance is pleasure;
rejection is suffering.
Acceptance is freedom;
rejection is bondage.
Acceptance is NOW;
rejection is then.
So, if choose you must,
then with faith and trust,
say “yes” to Life.
With radical trust
we do as we must.
The more we trust
the less we try.
Enter a state of enlightened amnesia:
Be now;
forget then.
Remember God;
forget the rest.
Forget who you think you are,
to remember what you really are.
Ron’s audio recitation of Sutra Sayings- Surrender and Let Go of Ego
Ron’s explanation of Sutra Sayings– Surrender and Let Go of Ego
Dear Friends,
I consider of critical importance to our spiritual evolution the surrendering and transcending of our false separate self/identity with our ego-mind “I” thoughts.
In many prior postings I’ve explained that the greatest obstacle to our spiritual evolution is ego-mind, our “phantom self” misidentification with thoughts and labels, rather than with Eternal infinite existence as Divine LOVE, our true immortal SELF.
Ancient Rig Veda scripture says that “Ego is the biggest enemy of humans”. And transcending ego is the fundamental message of all enduring spiritual teachings.
Therefore at age ninety, and while we are now experiencing exceptionally advantageous cosmic energies and auspicious astrological planetary alignments favorable to spiritual evolution, I’m updating and republishing postings which can most help us benefit from that energy.
Previously in “Words About Wishes” I’ve explained that ego-mind’s futile pursuit of illusory and impermanent external pleasures and desires can never give lasting happiness. So this posting discusses the most effective ‘antidotes’ to such futile pursuit of external pleasures and desires – viz. the letting go, surrendering and thought-free acceptance of those egoic desires.
In “The Power of Now” Eckhart Tolle defines “ego” as a “phantom self” and explains that transcending ego is of universally pre-eminent importance, because as long as we are identified with our mind the ego runs our life.
I agree with Tolle and have composed many silly sutras about surrendering ego, including those published above. They are respectfully offered to remind us to follow our eternal inner guidance and always “go with the flow” for the benefit of others.
This message is especially important in current turbulent times, which have disrupted and jeopardized earth-life for billions of people worldwide.
If we let life live us as LOVE, these challenging times can afford us immense evolutionary opportunities to co-create not just a better world, but a radically transformed world – with constant kindness and compassion for all life-forms everywhere.
Dedication
May these writings help us,
individually and as a global family,
let go of ego to reveal and heal all sufferings
from unfulfilled and futile ego-mind ideas and desires.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Choosing to Live in Hard Times
as The Best of Times
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear,
. . . . and the one who fears is not perfected in love.”
~ 1 John 4:18
“Deep down, at our cores, there are only two emotions:
love and fear.
All positive emotions come from love,
all negative emotions from fear.
From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy.
From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt.”
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler – When You Don’t Choose Love You Choose Fear
“The choice that frees or imprisons us
is the choice of love or fear.
Love liberates. Fear imprisons.”
~ Gary Zukav
“Fear and Love cannot coexist.”
“So choose Love
And ever BE
Fearlessly FREE!”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha
“As far, verily, as this world-space extends,
so far extends the space within the heart…”
~ Chandogya Upanishad 8.1.3
“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”
~ Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
“Forces beyond our control can take away
our freedom to choose how we will respond to an outer situation.”
“When we are no longer able to change that situation –
we are challenged to change ourselves.”
~ Viktor E. Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning [edited by Ron Rattner]
“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 prayers should be for blessings in general,
for God knows best what is good for us.”
~ Socrates
“Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.”
~ Matthew 21:22
Remember with gratitude,
Life is beatitude –
Even its sorrows and pain;
For we’re all in God’s Grace,
Every time, every place, and
Forever (S)HE will reign!
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Ron’s Introduction to Choosing to Live in Hard Times as The Best of Times
Dear Friends,
At age ninety, my mortal physical body has been considerably weakened by age, symptoms from near death taxicab rundown injuries nine years ago, and post-pandemic lock-down restrictions closing public toilets and preventing my daily walks by SF Bay, and other usual activities.
However, though so weakened by body age, edicts and injury symptoms, I’m gratefully happier than ever before in this long precious human lifetime, with every day a bonus, and every breath a blessing.
Therefore, this memoirs posting explains with the above sutras and quotations, and the following comments how I’m able to psychologically and behaviorally live happily in current post-pandemic hard times.
Regardless of illusory but unavoidable Earthly ego-mind fears, I’ve remembered my eternal identity as infinitely powerful Divine LOVE. And that such ego fears and Love cannot coexist here.
So I’ve gratefully chosen to awaken each day by remembering and BEING Fearlessly FREE as Divine LOVE, in the following new ways:
1) All my daily procedures and practices prioritize spiritual over material activities, with nonjudgmental intention to help all other sentient Earth-beings.
2) They include simplification of usual routines, and undoing unneeded ideas and behaviors.
3) Daily practices include meditations, prayers, and mantras, blessing all sentient beings, and bestowing increased happiness for all people with whom I have face to face, telephone or internet customer service contacts.
Therefore, the above sutras and quotations and the following explanatory comments are posted to encourage and help us live happily in hard times.
Ron’s unusual ancestral and birthday background
Over a century ago both my maternal and paternal ancestors fled Ukraine to escape from Tsarist persecutions for their Jewish religious practices. Each of my parents were Rattner surname first cousins, whose families all lived near Kiev. And my father and his extended family fled for their lives from a Ukrainian village similar to the fictional village portrayed in Fiddler on the Roof, the popular Broadway play and film.
Into that unusual Rattner surname Ukrainian lineage, I was born on election day November 8th, 1932, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was first elected 32nd President of the USA, during “hard times” of the 1930’s and a great global depression, when many were unemployed hungry and suffering from intense fear and exploitation.
In his first inaugural address FDR wisely observed that
“The only thing we have to fear is…fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
Roosevelt’s New Deal programs
The “hard times” of the 1930’s led to Roosevelt’s pioneering New Deal programs (like Social Security) benefiting most Americans, public works projects, financial reforms and beneficial regulations.
For example, the WPA (Works Project Administration) was established and federally funded to employ most unemployed people not only on crucial public works projects, but also to further the arts. Hence there were projects employing artists, musicians, actors, and writers.
In prior postings, I’ve shown that the most spiritually advanced societies have honored all their art and artists, who communicate deep feelings of instinctive spiritual wisdom beyond words.
And Roosevelt’s New Deal era programs wisely began by honoring Nature, art and artists in those hard times. As 20th century precedents they can inspire our chosen behaviors in current 21st century hard times.
Instead of following our “leaders”, we can each claim our unlimited power as ONE Eternal LOVE to fearlessly and lovingly follow our Sacred Heart until each unique sacred soul is dharmically dissolved in timeless Eternal ONENESS as Divine LOVE.
Our “leaders”
For eons, masses of Earthly humans (experimentally forgetting their common Divine birthright as Eternal beings of love and light, and thus fearfully believing themselves separate in space and time from each other and Nature), have been hierarchically exploited and ruled through religious, military, or political dogma by very few self-proclaimed leaders who’ve been obscenely rich, or allegedly infallible royal beings.
As psychopaths without morality, they’ve become dominant in most major human governments and empires. And most people have accepted and followed these leaders without questioning their psychopathically selfish motives even though they constitute less than 1% of Earthly humanoids.
But gradually an increasing number of people have morally refused to follow these rulers, unless apathetic, indoctrinated, or intimidated.
And such refusals are becoming crucial since these autocrats can exist only in low energy matrix biospheres, like Earth’s third density illusory world of space/time and duality. They cannot exist in elevated biosphere energies of infinitely potential fifth dimensions and above. So these evil rulers keep frightening and intimidating people to prevent their energetic ascensions to higher dimensions.
Reasons for choosing to live lovingly in current hard times
Even in this ominous era, I’m spiritually optimistic about survival of Human Earth-life, despite unprecedented global warfare, suffering and turmoil, dire “end times” predictions of cataclysmic climate collapse, and Earth’s domination by evil autocrats, because:
1) I’ve realized that “Our destiny is Divinity” since we’re not what we think we are, but Infinite Eternal Awareness!
2) As unique immortal souls we are each dharmically destined to be dissolved in timeless Eternal ONENESS as Divine LOVE beyond unavoidable third dimension space/time duality[3D] Earthly ego-mind fears and illusions. We each transcend inescapable ego-mind fears and illusions at rates dependent upon whether our unique thoughts and behaviors are loving or selfish – helpful or harmful.
3) Moreover, there is no death. Death is just an energy transition, until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE. It’s an illusory belief that our lives end when our mortal bodies no longer function.
4) Karmically, as each unique soul evolves to ever ascending energy planes, it transcends all ego-mind fears to exist lovingly and dharmically, forever free of unhappiness and disharmony until dissolved in timeless Eternal ONENESS as Divine LOVE beyond unavoidably fearful Earthly third dimension space/time duality[3D] “realty”.
5) While subjected to ever fearful ego-mind, we inevitably exist with karmic cause and effect sufferings from the earthly illusion of space/time/duality “realty”. But the more we intentionally lovingly follow our Sacred Heart the more we enjoy happy lives, and the less we suffer from perpetually unknown karmic causes and conditions.
6} Ultimately, we’ve never been separated from our Eternal Source Mother/Father/God. So we have nothing to fear – EVER
Conclusion, Dedication, and Invocation
We now live in an inevitably illusory and fear-pervaded low energy earthly biosphere of third dimension [3D] space/time and duality, where love and fear cannot co-exist.
As each unique soul inevitably evolves from the illusory space/time duality third dimension [3D] to ever ascending energy planes, it transcends all ego-mind fears to exist lovingly and dharmically, forever free of unhappiness and disharmony until it is dissolved as destined into Mother/Father/God,
as ONE LOVE.
The spiritual insights about Love and Fear, expressed in the above key quotations, sutras and explanatory comments, are deeply dedicated to advancing and elevating our dharmically destined transcendence of all infinitely potential ego/mind biospheres to our Eternal existence as ONE Divine LOVE.
Invocation
May these writings about choosing to live lovingly and fearlessly in current hard times inspire and advance our dharmically destined Eternal Self-identification as ONE Divine LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Only Breath ~ by Rumi
“That which permeates all,
which nothing transcends and which,
like the universal space around us,
fills everything completely from within and without,
that Supreme non-dual Brahman —
that thou art.”
~ Shankaracharya
Only Breath ~ by Rumi
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, not
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
the placeless, a trace
of the traceless.
Neither body or 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 being.
(Translation by Coleman Barks, from Essential Rumi)
Cartesian Critique:
On Confusing Thinking With Being:
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“If you correct your mind,
the rest of your life will fall into place.”
~ Lao Tzu
“The mind is a bundle of thoughts.
The thoughts arise because there is the thinker.
The thinker is the ego.
The ego and the mind are the same.
The ego is the root-thought from which all other thoughts arise.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“Ego is the biggest enemy of humans. ”
~ Rig Veda
“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
“To think or not to think,
that is the question!”“Thinking and Being can’t coexist.
So stop thinking and start Being. ”“Forget who you think you are
to BE what you really are. ”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Lau Tzu
Cartesian Critique: On Confusing Thinking With Being ~ Ron’s Memoirs
Introduction to Cartesian Critique
Dear Friends,
At age ninety, I’ve updated and again posted the following “Cartesian Critique” essay to encourage and inspire our transcendence of fearful and harmful egotistic thoughts and behaviors, so that we’ll live happily and in harmony with each other and Nature.
The essay challenges the formerly well-known philosophical proposition deduced and assumed by influential 17th century French philosopher René Descartes –
“I think, therefore I am”.
Descartes’ philosophy, known as Cartesian dualism, incorrectly assumed separation between the human body and mind. Although it became very influential in Western philosophy, Cartesian dualism ignored contradictory ancient Eastern non-dualist philosophies of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism, which have been scientifically validated by 20th century quantum physicists.
This Cartesian Critique essay (with above and following quotations and comments) explains how Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” proposition confused ego/mind thinking with Being as thoughtless universal awareness.
The essay’s message is particularly important in current fearful times, when we humans are the only species creating huge crises which disrupt and threaten life on our precious planet by mistakenly self-identifying with our unique thoughts rather than with Universal Consciousness of all Reality.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
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 Comments on Confusing Thinking With Being.
Dear Friends,
The above Cartesian Critique essay questions French philosopher René Descartes’ famous proposition “I think, therefore I am”, and it explains how Descartes confused thinking with being; and the ego/mind with universal thoughtless awareness.
This essay was composed following my midlife spiritual awakening as universal consciousness, and acceptance of Eastern non-duality philosophy which contradicts Descartes’ duality philosophy of body-mind separation. Thereafter, I realized that “Ego is the biggest enemy of humans”, and that our transcendence of Ego is the ultimate aim of all enduring spiritual teachings.
So on learning about Descartes’ incorrect “I think, therefore I am” assertion, I composed the above critique.
From a non-duality perspective, Descartes mistakenly deduced his supposed separate existence with egotistic-thought, which paradoxically placed Descartes before his Source, and violated both Eastern and Western wisdom teachings cautioning against reversing the natural order of things.
For example a Western proverb cautions: “Don’t put the cart before the horse.”
And ancient Taoist wisdom enjoins us to go with the flow, without mental resistance:
Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.
Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow.
Let reality be reality.
Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
“If you correct your mind,
the rest of your life will fall into place.”
~ Lao Tzu
Conclusion and Dedication
Honoring Nature is especially important in current troubled times, when we humans are the only species creating huge ecological and other crises which are disrupting and threatening life on our precious planet by mistakenly self-identifying with our fearful egotistic beliefs and behaviors of existing separately from each other and Mother Earth, rather than as the Eternal Source of our existence.
So this posting is deeply dedicated to inspiring us to transcend our fearful beliefs and behaviors, and to BE in harmony with each other and Mother Nature.
Invocation.
May these writings inspire and encourage us
to BE beyond thought;
and thereby to transcend fearful
egotistic beliefs and behaviors,
enabling us to live in harmony
with each other and Nature.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Remember!
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“Remember God, forget the rest.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Forget who you think you are,
to know what you really are.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Just BE Divinity –
Ego-Free LOVE!.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Remember! ~ Ron’s Memoirs
Ron’s Introduction to “Remember!”
Dear Friends,
Thirty years ago, during a long post-retirement period of meditation, prayer, and introspection after my spiritual awakening, I remembered that as egos we continually exist as different illusionary separate space/time energy forms, until we’re dissolved as ONE LOVE within Mother/Father/God – our Eternal Source.
Whereupon I “channelled” (and later recorded and posted) the following sutra-poem, “Remember!”, which at age ninety I’ve re-recorded and republished today with updated sutra-sayings, quotations, and invocation.
This sutra-poem is dedicated to inspiring our heart-felt remembrance that as ego-embodied Human Souls we continuously appear and re-appear as space/time energy forms, until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE within Mother/Father/God – our Eternal Source from which we’ve never separated.
As we deeply consider “Remember!”, may we gratefully and faithfully recall that being alive is being Love; that beyond the ego’s illusion of separation from Mother/Father/God, we eternally exist as ONE ‘dazzling Divinity’.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Remember!
Don’t forget what you knew
before you withdrew,
from dwelling in Heaven’s domain.
Recall your affinity,
with dazzling Divinity,
and in that Presence remain.
Remember with gratitude,
life is beatitude,
even its sorrows and pain;
For we’re all in God’s Grace,
every time, every place,
and
FOREVER (S)HE will reign!
Ron’s audio singing of “Remember!”
Invocation
May we ever remember and never forget
That our true identity is Divine LOVE;
That as ego-embodied Human Souls
we’ve appeared as illusionary space/time energy forms,
to faithfully follow our Heart
Until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE
within Mother/Father/God –
our Eternal Source.
May we ever remember and never forget
That our separation from Mother/Father/God never happened.
So we’ve nothing to fear – EVER.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Farewell Carol:
Tribute to an Unforgettable Friend
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“May the Lord give you peace.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi
“You are not a drop in the ocean.
You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
~ Rumi
Carol Schuldt, ‘Queen of the Beach’, (6/26/33–12/01/18)
Ron’s Introduction to “Farewell Carol”.
Dear Friends,
While living we keep learning. Even Sri Ramakrishna often said
“As long as I live, so long do I learn.”
So at age ninety, I am continually blessed with helpful new spiritual insights and perspectives.
Therefore, I’ve updated and am reposting my “Farewell Carol” memoirs tribute to Carol Schuldt, a departed dear friend who was one of the most unforgettable persons I’ve known in this precious human lifetime. (This posting and my other stories about Carol are linked here.)
Carol was an extraordinarily intuitive free spirit, whose authentic and inner directed spiritual life was an inspiration for me and countless others.
Spiritually I’ve learned and written a lot about my friendship with Carol. Although she had many obvious flawed behaviors and habits, her spontaneous continuing communion with nature and constant concern for helping others, especially special needs children and adults, and troubled souls, was spiritually inspiring.
Recent prior postings explain that upon physical incarnation in low energy Third Dimension [3D] space/time and duality, we experience unavoidable sufferings from fearful ego illusions, but that we can choose to hasten our elevation to higher dimensions beyond such sufferings with loving and helpful behaviors, like Carol’s, where our instinctive caring for one-another, will bless Earth-life with an unprecedented era of Universal LOVE.
Background
“Farewell Carol” was first posted on June 26, 2022 on Carol’s 89th birthday anniversary.
Previously Carol painlessly left her body on December 1st, 2018, diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and heart failure at age 85. A week later her body was interred in a wild nature place overlooking the Pacific Ocean, after spontaneous rituals and stories were shared by Carol’s friends on a beautiful sunny afternoon.
In tribute to Carol, this posting has recounted my memoirs of our friendship, outlined Carol’s extraordinary spiritual history, told a miraculous synchronicity story about how I tearfully bid her farewell through our shared synchronistic harmony with St. Francis of Assisi, and concluded with my eulogy to Carol.
Carol Schuldt & Ron Rattner, @ Ron’s 80th birthday party, 11/11/’12
Carol was a legendary San Franciscan, sometimes known as ‘Queen of the Beach’ or ‘Mother Teresa of the Sunset’. She lived as a life-long nature lover and natural born shaman, authentically, intuitively, generously and spontaneously. (See Carol’s SF Chronicle obituary)
Carol and I had many synchronistic encounters, after we first met in the 1980’s. And we repeatedly shared our many ‘miraculous’ synchronicity stories (a few of which are posted here on SillySutras.com).
Before meeting Carol, I’d miraculously ‘discovered’ and become a lover of St. Francis of Assisi. And soon after meeting Carol, I learned that she too was a St. Francis lover, who constantly communed with Nature, even with the sun, the moon, and many nonhuman lifeforms.
So in tribute to Carol’s transition, I’ve writen about her spiritual history, and how I tearfully bid her farewell through our shared synchronistic harmony with St. Francis of Assisi.
Summary of Carol’s spiritual history.
Carol and I first met long ago while sitting at Aquatic Beach on San Francisco Bay (across from Ghirardelli Square), where I walked and where she often came to escape ocean fog and swim in the sun (without a wet suit). Afterwards we exchanged many “miracle” stories about our lives stemming from our countless experiences of synchronicities, or meaningful ‘coincidences’.
I deeply appreciated Carol as an amazingly free spirit with great instinctive wisdom and generosity. Before we met, she’d already become a ‘living legend’ throughout and beyond her San Francisco ocean front neighborhood. And many stories were written or told about her. For example, an excellent story: “A Benevolent Queen of the Beach” appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on September 25, 2000. And in 2005 Carol was interviewed on film by the SF Public Library, about her history and life in the ‘hippie’ 1960’s.
The Chronicle article told of Carol’s exceptional inner wisdom even from childhood, when at Catholic school she adamantly refused to worship a bloody Christ on a crucifix, and was the only child exempted therefrom by the nuns, who recognized her wisdom.
The article also told how Carol’s dedication to helping special needs children and adults, and troubled souls, was spiritually inspiring. But that paradoxically Carol experienced great family tragedy with all of her three children: her two daughters whose lives were lastingly impacted by drug addiction, and her son Pete who was permanently brain damaged in a childhood car accident. Because of her great generosity, especially toward needy young people, Carol was sometimes known as the “Mother Teresa of the Sunset District”. And as a daily swimmer/surfer she also became known as ‘Queen of the Beach’.
From childhood Carol was an extraordinarily intuitive free spirit. She never knowingly followed any prescribed Western or Eastern religious path, despite attempted childhood Catholic inculcation. Instead, she instinctively followed her own unique spiritual path of communing with Nature while surfing, swimming, sunning, hiking, biking, organic gardening, and helping troubled souls – especially young people.
Carol’s muraled house and organic garden.
Carol’s muraled house and aesthetic organic garden have symbolized her unique lifestyle as a St. Francis lover. Especially noteworthy is an artistically beautiful St. Francis of Assisi “Peace & Joy” mural at her home’s entryway – a delightfully surprising tourist attraction for visitors to San Francisco’s ocean beach area. On Carol’s roof top (above the mural) is an artistic portrayal of ‘Brother sun’, her main deity, and unfurled above the roof is a red Tibetan prayer flag, symbolizing Carol’s respect for the Tibetan culture and Dalai Lama.
Thus Carol’s house has eloquently exemplified her simple inner-directed life of instinctively communing with Nature, often without concern for outer–directed societal standards.
Carol’s St. Francis mural
Ron’s Synchronicity Story: “Goodbye St. Francis”= Farewell Carol
During forty years of living in the same San Francisco high-rise hermitage, my apartment has been adorned with many pictures and portrayals of St. Francis, my favorite saint, and of the peace prayer which he inspired. And until five years ago St. Francis in a stone statue also presided over my outside deck garden.
But in July 2018, I was obliged to remove everything from my outdoor deck so it could be renovated and repainted. Thereafter, I realized that I could no longer physically maintain my deck-top garden. So I decided to give away the plants and planters blessed by my St. Francis statue. While I was looking for new homes for my plants, the St. Francis statue was kept in an inconspicuous corner of my bedroom which was temporarily filled with many deck plants.
On December 1, 2018, my long-time neighbor and community gardener friend, Jan Monaghan, came to take pictures of my plants and planters, to help me find a new home for them. While showing Jan the St. Francis statue, I suddenly and inexplicably started crying, thinking and saying “goodbye Saint Francis”. Thereafter for several hours I kept crying,
The next day, Sunday December 2nd, I learned (via email) that Carol’s soul had departed her body Saturday evening, and I intuited that while Ron was tearfully saying goodbye to St. Francis Carol’s soul was astrally bidding Ron ‘adieu’.
On Monday morning, realizing that my St. Francis statue needed a proper and prominent new place to stand, I decided to move it to my my high-rise hermitage view living room, where I spend most indoor waking hours. So I telepathically told the saint in the statue that (on returning from a brief walk) I was moving him to a perfect place on my living room wool carpet, and that I would find an appropriate indoor pedestal for him there ASAP.
Soon thereafter, I took a brief walk on nearby Vallejo street. After walking for about fifteen minutes I beheld an amazing manifestation miracle. Amongst a curbside pile of discarded objects, I saw a perfect pedestal for St. Francis, which I carried home. On returning home, I moved St. Francis to a new perfect place on my living room carpet where he now resides on that miraculously manifested pedestal. And just as Carol’s St. Francis mural appears below a red Tibetan roof-top prayer flag, my St. Francis statue stands beneath a red Tibetan Kalachakra thangka mandala, symbolizing respect for the Tibetan culture, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
St. Francis statue on pedestal in Ron’s high-rise hermitage
Eulogy to Carol Schuldt
After briefly blessing this world
as a lover of St Francis of Assisi,
the divine soul we’ve known as Carol Schuldt,
has returned to the Sun,
from whence she’ll reappear eternally
for endless new lifetime adventures,
in countless new forms, of
LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Advaita-Vedanta For Dummies
~ You are not what you think you are!
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything, you are essentially conscious of yourself.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“Personal entity and enlightenment cannot go together.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
~ John 8:32
“You are “gods”; you are all children of the Most High.”
~ Psalm 82: 6
“Your own will is all that answers prayer,
only it appears under the guise of different religious conceptions to each mind.
We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, but it is only the Self, the ‘I’.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
Essence Of Advaita
E = mc2 = Consciousness
Subject = Object = Consciousness
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Theory of Everything:
E = mc2 = Consciousness = SELF.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Sri Ramana Maharshi
Ron’s Introduction to “Advaita-Vedanta For Dummies”
Dear Friends,
Thirty years ago, after my midlife spiritual awakening and during a long post-retirement period of meditation, prayer, and introspection I “channelled” the following sutra-poem about Advaita-Vedanta.
Advaita-Vedanta means non-dualism, and is the oldest extant school of Hindu philosophy.
With the above quotations, and following explanations, this sutra-poem expresses my previously unimagined insights about our true spiritual Self-identity and ultimate Reality.
These insights are especially important now because of auspicious astrological planetary alignments, and quickened cosmic energies favorable to spiritual evolution, which are elevating a “critical mass” of humanity toward unprecedented 5D lasting happiness beyond suffering in illusory 3D matrix reality,
So I have updated this posting and dedicate it to our inclusion in the awakening “critical mass”, and attainment of lasting happiness in these extraordinary times.
May we consider and enjoy it accordingly!
Ron Rattner
“You are not what you think you are!”
You are not what you think you are:
You are not a person, or a personality.
You are not a body, or a nobody.
You are not your mind, or your thoughts.
You are infinite Eternal Awareness.
You are the screen, not the movie.
You are Rama, not the drama.
You are the glory, not the story.
You are the Whole, not your role.
So, wake up, and –
Transcend entity identity!
Ron’s audio recitation of “You are not what you think you are!”
Ron’s explanation and dedication of Advaita-Vedanta For Dummies
Dear Friends,
As revealed by the foregoing quotations and sutra-verses, we’re not what we think we are, but Infinite Eternal Awareness!
Until midlife I self-identified only with my mortal physical body, its thoughts and story, and believed that bodily death ended life.
But I was then blessed with ever increasing happiness and peace of mind, after a synchronistic spiritual awakening, which revealed previously unimagined insights about our true Self-identity and ultimate Reality. The foregoing quotations and sutra-poem summarize these insights.
Since launching the SillySutras website in 2010, I’ve been sharing these insights to inspire and encourage our ever increasing happiness and peace of mind by realizing and choosing our ultimate reality as non-duality, beyond the ego-mind illusion of being supposedly separate persons apart from each other and all sentient life-forms on our precious planet.
Such insights are especially important in current turbulent and troubled times, because they provide a rare opportunity for a “critical mass” of humankind to compassionately transform the world, by elevating us to unprecedented lasting 5D happiness beyond suffering in the illusory 3D matrix reality.
And such a “critical mass” can transcend current insanely unsustainable ecological desecration of precious planet Earth, and end barbaric exploitation of vulnerable beings and other life-forms, which threaten Earth life as we’ve known it.
Moreover, such a “critical mass” of humanity is furthered by current auspicious astrological planetary alignments, and by exceptionally quickened cosmic energies favorable to spiritual evolution.
Concluding observations and dedication
Although much of humanity continues to suffer illusory separation from each other and Nature, many others are awakening.
Deeply disturbed by irrational and immoral interruptions of their normal lives, more and more people are compassionately awakening to our sacred connection with, and deep moral responsibility to cherish and lovingly preserve, all life on our precious planet Earth.
Therefore, this updated Advaita-Vedanta For Dummies posting is dedicated to inspiring the spiritual awakening of a “critical mass” of our global family, and thereby our attainment of unprecedented happiness in these unusually troubled times, until our ultimate spiritual Self Realization – as Infinite Non-Duality Reality.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Awakening
“Spiritual awakening is the most essential thing in man’s life, and it is the sole purpose of being. Is not civilization, in all its tragic forms, a supreme motive for spiritual awakening?”
~ Khalil Gibran
“Your own Self-realization is the greatest service you can render the world.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“The greatest obstacle to enlightenment is getting past your delusion that you are not already enlightened.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“A quiet mind is all you need. All else will happen rightly, once your mind is quiet. As the sun on rising makes the world active, so does self-awareness affect changes in the mind. In the light of calm and steady self-awareness, inner energies wake up and work miracles without any effort on your part”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.”
~ Lao Tzu
“When you demand nothing of the world, nor of God, when you want nothing, seek nothing, expect nothing, then the supreme state will come to you uninvited and unexpected.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Meditation is the process of understanding your own mind.”
~ J Krishnamurti
“In Buddhism, mindfulness is the key. Mindfulness is the energy that sheds light on all things and all activities, producing the power of concentration, bringing forth deep insight and awakening. Mindfulness is the base of Buddhist practice”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“The discipline which I have imparted to you will lead you when I am gone. Practice mindfulness diligently, to attain the goal of awakening.”
~ Gautama Buddha
“All the Buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact:
Be — don´t try to become.
Within these two words, be and becoming, your whole life is contained.
Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance.”
~ Osho”
“NOW is the only reality. All else is either memory or imagination.”
~ Rajneesh
“God is not in heaven – God is in the present moment.
If you are also in the present moment you enter the temple.”
~ Rajneesh
“God is the ultimate experience of silence, of beauty, of bliss, a state of inner celebration.”
~ Rajneesh
“In meditation, silently and serenely, all words are transcended.
In Illumination, all things appear as is.
Silence is the ceasing of ego-grasping. Illumination is the functioning of the wonder of wisdom.
The unity of these two is awakening to Buddha Nature.”
~ Zen Master Sheng-yen
“Those whose spiritual awareness has been awakened never make a false move. They don’t have to avoid evil. They are so replete with love that whatever they do is a good action. They are fully conscious that they are not the doer of their actions, but only servants of God.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa
“When the love of God comes to you,
it will overwhelm your heart with a fulfillment
unequaled by the nectar of a thousand million human loves.
Overflowing all boundaries, that Love embraces everyone and everything.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“Divine desperateness is the beginning of spiritual awakening
because it gives rise to the aspiration for God-realisation.”
~ Meher Baba
“Love has to spring spontaneously from within And it is no way amenable to any form of inner or outer force. Love and coercion can never go together; But though love cannot be forced on anyone, It can be awakened in him through love itself. Love is essentially self communicative; Those who do not have it catch it from those who have it. True love is unconquerable and irresistible, And it goes on gathering power and spreading itself, Until eventually it transforms everyone whom it touches.”
~ Meher Baba
“You are a Buddha, and so is everyone else. I didn’t make that up. . . the Buddha himself said so. He said that all beings have the potential to become awakened.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“To go from mortal to Buddha, you have to put an end to karma,
nurture your awareness, and accept what life brings.”
~ Bodhidharma
“There is a power now slumbering within us, which if awakened would do to evil what light does to darkness.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“What we usually call human evolution is the awakening of the divine nature within us.”
~ Peace Pilgrim
“That is the real spiritual awakening, when something emerges from within you that is deeper than who you thought you were. So, the person is still there, but one could almost say that something more powerful shines through the person.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“Only by awakening can you know the true meaning of that word.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“Spiritual Awakening is awakening from the dream of thought.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“All arts lie in man, though not all are apparent.
Awakening brings them out.
To be taught is nothing; everything is in man waiting to be awakened.”
~ Paracelsus
“The purpose of our lives is to give birth to the best that is in us. It is only through our own personal awakening that the world can be awakened. We cannot give what we do not have.”
~ Marianne Williamson
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
~ Carl Jung
“The path of awakening is not about becoming who you are. Rather it is about unbecoming who you are not.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
“Awakening is not changing who you are, but discarding who you are not.”
~ Deepak Chopra
“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be”
~ Alan Watts
“Enlightenment or awakening is not the creation of a new state of affairs but the recognition of what already is.”
~ Alan Watts
“There is none dwelling in the house but God.
When a man is awakened he melts and perishes.”
~ Rumi
“We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh
“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.
Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”
~ Carl Gustav Jung
My friends, it is through the establishment of the clarity of mindfulness
that you let go of grasping after past and future,
overcome attachment and grief,
abandon all clinging and anxiety,
and awaken an unshakable freedom of heart,
here and now.
~ Buddha [the Awakened One]
“Those who awaken never rest in one place.
Like swans, they rise and leave the lake.
On the air they rise and fly an invisible course.
Their food is knowledge.
They live on emptiness.
They have seen how to break free.
Who can follow them?
~ Buddha [the Awakened One]
“If you want to awaken all of humanity,
then awaken all of yourself.
If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world,
then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself.”
~ Lao Tzu , Hua Hu Ching
“The most fundamental message of Gautama the Buddha is
. . . freedom: freedom absolute, total, unconditional.
He does not want to give you an ideology,
because every ideology creates its own slavery.”
~ Osho
“An Awakened person is someone who finds freedom in good fortune and bad.”
~ Bodhidharma
Introduction to “Awakening”
Dear Friends,
Thirty years ago, during a long post-retirement secluded period of meditation, prayer, and introspection, I “channelled” the following sutra-poem about “Awakening” to Buddhahood.
It was inspired by very rare beings (like Jesus, Gautama Buddha, and Krishna) who intentionally incarnated in mortal earthly bodies to teach and help Humanity.
They appeared as Awakened beings in an Infinite Ocean of Divine LOVE, rather than as mere Ego “I”-drops in that limitless Divine Ocean.
Because we’re now experiencing extraordinary global wars, fears, and sufferings, the “Awakening” verses seem more crucial now than when they were “channelled” thirty years ago. So they are re-published today with additional explanatory sutras, quotes, and comments, consistent with most recent postings about “Interdependence” and “Egocide”.
Those postings explained that although we can’t avoid ego illusion upon physical incarnation in low energy Third Dimension [3D] space/time and duality, we can choose to hasten our elevation to higher dimensions beyond fear and suffering with thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that are loving and helpful, not selfish and harmful.
Therefore, let us now choose to live loving and helpful lives, so that with all life forms everywhere we can consciously exist cooperatively and interdependently, not selfishly and exploitively; and so may we hasten our destined realization of Being immortally ONE with Divine SELF as LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Awakening
Through eons of ignorance,
we have been asleep –
Dreaming “I am a body,
a name, a form, a story” separate from
the rest of “reality”.
Now, blessed with a precious human
existence and truth teachings,
we are awakening gradually,
And experiencing ever more
moments of living truth.
But still, from the habits of countless
lives of ignorance,
we suffer a kind of spiritual narcolepcy –
involuntarily falling asleep again and again.
Only when those habits are
totally transcended,
will we awaken –
FOREVER!
Ron’s audio recitation of “Awakening”
Ron’s “Awakening” Sutra Sayings
“Bliss abides when thought subsides.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Mind and memory are “then”,
But– Life is NOW,
ever NOW,
n ever then!”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Life is NOW or never,
Life is NOW forever.
Life is NOW
Ever NOW
Never then.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“There’s nothing to say,
but words point the way.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
When no one’s a “doer”
nothing’s undone.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Tao is now,
Tao is one,
Tao is doer,
Tao will be done.
Tao will be done,
So let Tao do it.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Everything’s NOW,
So nothing is new.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Time is how we measure NOW,
and spaces
are for places
where we think we are in time.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Remember God, forget the rest.
Forget who you think you are,
to know what you really are.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“We are not merely mortal drops
in an ocean of ephemeral forms,
but the eternally Infinite Ocean of Universal Awareness,
appearing as drops!”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“As ego goes,
consciousness grows,
until it Knows –
Its-SELF.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Cultivate compassion; harvest happiness.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Love blesses the world; fear afflicts it.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“You are not a mortal; you are immortal.
So never fear being a non-being.”
***
“Our deepest fears hide our highest potentials.”
***
“As we lose our fear of leaving life,
we gain the art of living life.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“The Witness and the witnessed are ONE.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“This world is wrought with naught but thought.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Thought divides Awareness as a prism divides light.”
~ 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
“Spirit speaks when mind is mute.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Theory Of Everything:
Consciousness = Subject = Object = Self”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“We’re whole,
we’re whole,
we’re whole.
Nothing ever
can dissever our soul.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“We are shackled by illusory bonds of belief.
Freedom is beyond belief.”
~ Ron Rattner – Sutra Sayings
“May we bless the whole
as we play our role
in the cosmic theater of life.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Ron’s Dedication of “Awakening”
As recognized by the above sutras and quotes, awakening from the illusion of existing separate from our innate Divinity is the essential purpose of spiritual evolution.
Thus the word “Buddha” is not just a name but an honorific title, meaning in Sanskrit “one who is awake” to Reality.
So the foregoing verses gratefully honor and are dedicated to all “awakened” boundless beings – whether historically known or unknown – who help other beings awaken from a fearfully persistent illusion of individual mortality to joyous realization of our deathless ONENESS as Eternal Divinity.
May such ‘Awakened Ones’ inspire our uniquely destined realizations of eternal oneness of Life as LOVE, in this precious lifetime.
Embedded below is four minute YouTube video of H.H. the Dalai Lama’s July 6th, 2023, 88th Birthday Message that eloquently expresses The Buddhist Bodhisattva’s aspiration for happiness of all sentient beings and powerfully summarizes the purpose of this “Awakening” posting.
Let us enjoy and deeply reflect on it.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s 88th Birthday Message, July 6th, 2023
Interdependence Way,
On Independence Day
~ A Revolution of Consciousness
“At the center of the Universe dwells the Great Spirit and —
this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”
~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux
“We did not weave the web of life.
We are merely strands in it.
All things are bound together. All things connect.”
~ Chief Seattle
“All things are our relatives;
what we do to everything, we do to ourselves.
All is really One.”
~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux
“Independence is impossible!”
“Whatever we think, do, or say,
changes this world in some way.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Remember God, forget the rest.
Forget who you think you are,
to know what you really are.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“We are not merely mortal drops
in an ocean of ephemeral forms,
but the eternally Infinite Ocean of Universal Awareness,
appearing as drops!”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Nothing Real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.”
~ A Course In Miracles (ACIM)
“You are “gods”;
you are all children of the Most High.”
~ Psalm 82:6
“You are the light of the world.”
~ Matthew 5:14
“Hear O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE”
~ Deuteronomy 6:4; Mark 12:29
“Though One, Brahman is the cause of the many…
The One manifests as the many,
the formless putting on forms.”
~ Rig Veda, 1500–1200 BCE
“All things come out of the One and the One out of all things.”
~ Heraclitus, 500BC
“Reality cannot be found except in One single source,
because of the interconnection of all things with one another.”
~ Leibniz, 1670
“That which permeates all,
which nothing transcends and which,
like the universal space around us,
fills everything completely from within and without,
that Supreme non-dual Brahman— that thou art.”
~ Shankaracharya
Interdependence Way, On Independence Day
~ A Revolution of Consciousness
Dear Friends,
Happy July 4th, 2023, US Independence Day holiday!
Almost 250 years ago on July 4th, 1776, our founding fathers declared their independence from British royal rule. Their declaration later led to the founding of the United States of America, which has become the richest and most powerful empire in the history of our precious planet Earth.
July 4th has become a popular American national holiday now celebrated by many US citizens without their mindful contemplation of its deeper meaning.
But today’s July 4th, 2023 SillySutras posting – like thousands of other prior SS postings – is dedicated to our mindful contemplation of how these Independence events can help us lead ever happier and more fulfilling lives while our eternal souls are incarnate on planet Earth in mortal physical bodies, which inevitably deteriorate and die.
As explained in the the recent “Egocide” posting, it is impossible to avoid some ego identification with consequent karmic suffering when existing incarnate on Earth, as supposedly separate from each other and all other life-forms. Only when we end our beliefs and behaviors as supposedly separate “I”-Egos, do all our sufferings end. That happens when we are ONE as an infinite Ocean of Divine LOVE, rather existing as mere separate “I”-drops in that Infinite Ocean.
As revealed by Sri Ramakrishna Paramanansa, although ego is unavoidable on Earthly incarnations, we quicken our transcendence thereof by choosing beliefs and behaviors which are loving and helpful, rather than selfish.
This posting is dedicated to inspiring our realization that until we so transcend Ego, worldly independence is impossible.
Ancient Vedic and Buddhist non-dualist scriptures have revealed that this Earth world arose from, and is interdependently part of, only ONE Eternal spiritual Source or GOD.
Therefore, until they disappear forever, all life-forms in this world always exist interdependently, not independently.
Long prior to Mid-East monotheism, the ancient Rig Veda revealed that
“Though One, Brahman [God] is the cause of the many…
The One manifests as the many, the formless putting on forms.”
And the Buddhist Heart Sutra said that everything originates only “interdependently” from emptiness [“anatta”].
July 4th, 1776, Background
On July 4, 1776, thirteen American colonies declared their independence from British royal rule, in an historic document inspired by Thomas Paine’s Deist philosophy and written by Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that under “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” government is established by people to secure their life, liberty, and happiness, and is to be overthrown as illegitimate if it no longer does that.
The US founding fathers recognized, that governments and their chartered transnational organizations do not exist by Divine right; that they are established by people to serve people – not to exploit or oppress them – and that they are illegitimate unless they serve human rights and happiness.
Since July 4, 1776, “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” have prevailed, but the world has changed immensely: The thirteen North American colonies have become the richest most powerful empire in world history, much vaster than the British empire which it succeeded. Human population has grown meteorically, from approximately 800 million (with 2.5 million people inhabiting American colonies) to over 7.9 billion and growing rapidly.
Through amazing technological and scientific advances the world has become much smaller and most humans have become part of an instantly interconnected and largely interdependent global community, sharing critical information in an unprecedented new age of world-wide ecologic, economic, political and social crises and opportunities. Yet despite this amazing technological advancement much of humanity continues to suffer illusionary psychological separation from each other and Nature, fostering insanely unsustainable ecological desecration of our precious planet, and barbaric exploitation of vulnerable beings and other life-forms, which threaten extinction of all Earth life as we’ve known it.
Yet as in 1776 such psychopathic insanity is still initiated and perpetrated by a few “rulers” or “leaders”, and by greedy transnational institutions evading equitable taxation and distribution of wealth who all self-destructively thrive on always increasing their power and control over others.
Nonetheless they are still allowed by most of humankind to insanely exploit and desecrate our world.
However, in the almost 250 years since 1776, there has been an unprecedented awakening of humanity, and we are now experiencing a revolution of human consciousness with unprecedented worldwide social and cultural unrest.
Deeply disturbed by irrational and immoral interruptions of their normal lives more and more people are psychologically awakening to our sacred connection with, and deep moral responsibility to cherish and preserve, all life on our precious planet Earth.
Moreover today’s July 4, 2023, Independence Day holiday coincides with the the first of four consecutive full super-moons after the 2023 summer solstice, which spiritually and energetically is extremely sacred for both Hindus and Buddhists, as Guru Purnima (the first Guru’s birthday) and as the day when the Buddha gave his first sermon.
Beyond today’s day of spiritual sanctity, we are also experiencing exceptionally advantageous cosmic energies, and rare cyclical and astrological planetary alignments, which are energetically elevating a “critical mass” of humankind to ascend beyond illusionary Third Dimension ego consciousness toward previously unimagined Fifth Dimension heart/mind telepathic awareness.
And currently confronted with apparently imminent global catastrophe, humankind are realizing on July 4, 2023, (as did visionary English-born Deist philosopher Thomas Pain) that under “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” independence is impossible; that everything and everyone is interdependent, not independent.
So faced with possible catastrophe ending Earth-life as we’ve known it, our global human family can awaken to avert extinction by transcending critically mistaken and illusory Ego-mind beliefs in separate independence, with realization that independence is impossible; that everyone/everything is interconnected and interdependent, with no-one/nothing existing independently, except Nature’s God.
Therefore, let us use this rare opportunity to revolutionarily and compassionately transform the world, so that all life forms everywhere consciously exist cooperatively and interdependently, not selfishly and exploitively.
Closing Invocations
May we revolutionarily and compassionately transform the world!
May all life forms everywhere exist interdependently,
As uniquely conscious and cooperative instruments of Light and Love,
May we so interdependently co-create an ever better world as ONE Eternal LOVE
– Happy, Harmonious and Peaceful –
As Nature’s God ever intended it to BE!
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New Worldview:
Our urgent need for a new interdependent worldview – how we need to collectively change our beliefs to change our world – is expertly explained and portrayed in this excellent one hour documentary movie, already viewed online by over one million concerned people.
Egocide
“Ego is the biggest enemy of humans. ”
~ Rig Veda
“All troubles come to an end when the ego dies”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa
“The mind is a bundle of thoughts.
The thoughts arise because there is the thinker.
The thinker is the ego.
The ego, if sought, will automatically vanish.
The ego and the mind are the same.
The ego is the root-thought from which all other thoughts arise.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“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
“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
“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
– Its-SELF.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“The choice that [mentally] frees or imprisons us
is the choice of love or fear.
Love liberates. Fear imprisons.”
~ Gary Zukav
“Bondage and Liberation are of the mind alone.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa
“The supreme purpose and goal for human life… is to cultivate love.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa
“Have love for everyone, no one is other than you.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa
Introduction to “Egocide”
Dear Friends,
We are now experiencing exceptionally advantageous Age of Aquarius cosmic energies, and auspicious astrological planetary alignments, favorable to spiritual evolution. I optimistically foresee that these unprecedented energies and rare alignments are elevating a ‘critical mass’ of Humankind to ascend from low illusory Third Dimension Ego-mind consciousness to previously unimagined Fifth Dimension (5D) heart/mind telepathic awareness.
Therefore I’m updating and republishing postings like “Egocide” which can best benefit us from these unprecedented evolutionary opportunities.
Transcending ego is the fundamental message of all spiritual teachings, because Ego-mind is the greatest obstacle to human spiritual evolution.
According to Sri Ramana Maharshi
“The ego and the mind are the same”.
“The ego is the root-thought from which all other thoughts arise.”
So, if recognized, the ego “will automatically vanish”.
Thus today’s “Egocide” posting includes above key quotations, and the following sutra-poem (with mp3 recitation), which was composed after I’d realized the crucial importance of undoing ego to transcend inevitable karmic suffering in this illusory low energy Third Dimension (3D) space/time causality duality ‘reality’.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Ron’s explanation of “Egocide”
Dear Friends,
The following whimsical “Egocide” poem was composed after I’d realized the crucial importance of undoing ego to transcend inevitable karmic suffering in this space/time causality ‘reality’.
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.”
Every incarnate Human (except for extraordinary and incorruptible Buddha-like, Krishna-like, or Christ-like beings) is in some evolutionary stage of transcending mistaken ego identity.
When required to preserve life on our precious planet, such beings rarely appear in mortal human bodies as exemplars or avatars to teach with their words and deeds.
For example as a rare exemplar of Divine LOVE, Jesus Christ inspired millions with his words and deeds of non-judgmental and merciful forgiveness, of even enemies and persecutors. So even while suffering excruciating pain on a crucifixion cross He beseeched:
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Upon Earthly incarnation, Human ego-identity is unavoidable
In the 19th Century, Hindu Holy Man and Avatar Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa appeared to demonstrate and teach how “all troubles .. end when the ego dies” , during an extraordinary fifty year lifetime in what is now West Bengal, India. By following traditional devotional practices Ramakrishna’s Eternal soul attained Hinduism’s highest God realization spiritual goal to BE dissolved and liberated into the unity of everything.
But rather than exist as Eternal bliss, Sri Ramakrishna chose to return to his mortal human body to help inspire and teach others.
Whereupon he revealed that ego-identity as a supposedly separate life-form in our low energy third dimension reality is unavoidable. But that we can choose lives and behaviors which are either loving and helpful, or selfish and harmful to others.
So, the following “Egocide” sutra-verses and above quotations are shared to inspire and encourage us to live loving and helpful lives, so we can realize and BE what we truly are – immortally ONE with Divine SELF as LOVE..
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
“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”
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
