Posts Tagged ‘enlightenment’
Life is an Ego-mind Trip
Ego-life and “enlightenment” can’t coexist.
So undo ego and BE beyond entity identity.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Thinking and Being can’t coexist.
So stop thinking and start Being.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Introduction.
Dear Friends,
Posted below is a sutra-essay poem (with mp3 recitation) about ego identification and “enlightenment”, composed during my post-retirement reclusive period.
In ‘deciphering’ this poem, you may wish to review prior postings about “What is Enlightenment” at https://sillysutras.com/?p=2925 and at https://sillysutras.com/?p=1180 .
Life is an Ego-mind Trip
Futilely seeking to
Know the unknowable,
We try to think the unthinkable,
Measure the immeasurable,
Divide the indivisible, and
Speak the unspeakable.
But only beyond the mind –
beyond belief –
beyond thought –
beyond words –
beyond seeming separations –
Only as Silence that says ALL
may we Know THAT –
ONE Eternal Life –
beyond ego-life,
beyond comprehension,
beyond imagination,
beyond description.
And so it shall BE –
ETERNALLY!
Ron’s Audio Recitation of “Life is an Ego-mind Trip”
Dedication
May this sutra poem help us find ever increasing inner happiness,
as we consider how and whether
Ego-life and “enlightenment” can coexist.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
What is “Enlightenment”?
~ Quotations and Comments
“Knowing others is wisdom,
knowing your Self is enlightenment.”
~ Lao Tzu
Introduction
This is the second of two related articles about “enlightenment”. The first posting, linked here, defines “enlightenment”; this posting contains key quotations from spiritual teachers, and explanatory comments about “enlightenment”.
Both of these postings are offered to help us realize ever increasing inner happiness, by finding and following our Sacred Heart.
Quotations about “Enlightenment”
“There is no such thing as
enlightenment,
the realization of that fact is
itself enlightenment.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Personal entity and enlightenment cannot go together.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Strictly speaking there are no enlightened people,
there is only enlightened activity.”
~ Suzuki Roshi
“There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“There are many paths to enlightenment.
Be sure to take one with a heart.”
~ Lao Tzu
“Knowledge is structured in consciousness.
The process of education takes place in the field of consciousness;
the prerequisite to complete education is therefore
the full development of consciousness — enlightenment.
Knowledge is not the basis of enlightenment,
enlightenment is the basis of knowledge.”
~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
“According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don’t bother you anymore. You become light-hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous.”
~ Deepak Chopra (Synchrodestiny)
“The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply our natural state of felt oneness with being. It is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible, something that, almost paradoxically, is essentially you and yet much greater than you. It is finding true your true nature beyond name and form. The inability to feel this connectedness gives rise to the illusion of separation, from yourself and from the world around you. You then perceive yourself, consciously or unconsciously, as an isolated fragment. Fear arises, and conflicts within and without become the norm.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, Practicing the Power of Now
“Enlightenment” is Being –
beyond entity identity.
Ego and “enlightenment” cannot coexist.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Ron’s Comments about “Enlightenment”
Dear Friends,
I am privileged to share with you today the foregoing key quotations from spiritual teachers about the perennial process of inner illumination – or “enlightenment”.
In memoirs titled “Transcending Transcendence” I’ve told about my conscious pursuit of “enlightenment” as a spiritual goal, until gradually I abandoned goal oriented spiritual seeking, and – as “An Uncertain Undo” – intuitively began surrendering to the Infinite, with more and more heartfelt faith in The Lone Arranger.
I realized that “enlightenment” is only a word – a mere mental concept with different meanings for different people. So I determined that in this illusory world “enlightenment” is not an ultimate destination, but a perpetual evolutionary process; that beyond space/time/causality ‘reality’ there are no concepts – only ineffable Mystery.
As a spiritually unenlightened “Uncertain Undo”, I’ve ‘heretically’ decided that Suzuki Roshi was right in observing that
“there are no [fully] enlightened people, . . only enlightened activity”.
In my view incarnation is limitation. So no completely “enlightened” person can manifest all infinite aspects of non-duality Reality – of limitless LOVE. Therefore, as a devotional non-dualist, I’ve decided that Nisargadatta Maharaj was paradoxically right in saying that in this illusory world:
“There is no such thing as enlightenment,
the realization of that fact is itself enlightenment.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
I respectfully suggest that – except for rare Avatars, Buddhas or Bodhisattvas – we all appear here on the Earth Branch of the great Cosmic University to evolve spiritually by learning LOVE and being LOVE; and that in this ever impermanent space time “reality” our challenge is to skillfully stay in harmony with always changing energy – whether perceptible or imperceptible; that as times change our “enlightened” behaviors must change; that historically enlightened behaviors may not still be appropriate in this modern age of mental malaise.
For me perpetual change challenges us to always live life presently – ‘in the zone’ – by constantly responding appropriately, skillfully and spontaneously to ever changing earth energies. So we are learning to experience life spontaneously, like skilled master musicians in a jam session – always harmoniously responding or blending with each sensed musical sound or soundless space.
But if we had mastered that “enlightened” process of always being ‘in the zone’, we wouldn’t be here. Consider these apt quotes from popular spiritual authors:
“Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished.
If you’re alive, it isn’t.”
~ Richard Bach“If you’re not dead yet,
you’re not done yet.”
~ Elizabeth Gilbert (quoting her mother)
As long as we incarnate on Earth, participation in the “enlightenment” process entails learning mindfully “to let go, and go with the flow” – and to “leave it to the Lone Arranger.” Moreover, active pursuit of “enlightenment” can become a subtle ego trap, to be averted. So it’s best to surrender because:
“What you seek is seeking you.”
~ Rumi
Thus, while ever honoring my beloved Guruji as a guiding and inspiring ‘outer authority’, I’ve more and more relied on inner intuitive authority while experiencing the earth-life “enlightenment” process. And such reliance has brought an ever happier life.
Knowingly or unknowingly we are all on a spiritual path to discover within our true Self identity – which ‘is seeking us’. So these comments are offered to help us realize ever increasing inner happiness by finding and following our Sacred Heart.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
What is “Enlightenment”?
“Strictly speaking there are no enlightened people,
there is only enlightened activity.”
~ Suzuki Roshi
“There is no such thing as
enlightenment,
the realization of that fact is
itself enlightenment.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
Introduction
This is the first of two related articles about “enlightenment”. This posting defines “enlightenment”; the second posting contains key quotations from spiritual teachers, and explanatory comments about “enlightenment”, linked here.
Both of these postings are offered to help us realize ever increasing inner happiness, by finding and following our Sacred Heart.
What is “Enlightenment”?
Q: What is enlightenment?
A: “Enlightenment” is a word, – an idea with different meanings for different people;
it is a mental concept resulting from thought. So, the meaning of “enlightenment” is in the mind of the thinker.
Here we call “enlightenment” a perpetual evolutionary process, not an ultimate destination.
In always evolving toward an “enlightened” destination,
we approach an ever-distant horizon in the Sacred Heart of Humankind.
Q. What are some signs of progress in the evolutionary enlightenment process?
A. Less and less ego, more and more humility and authenticity;
less and less thought, more and more mental stillness and peace.*
*Further comments and quotations and about “enlightenment” are posted here.
Discovering That All is ‘Perfection’– Another Bay Bridge “Miracle”
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“Whatever we think, do, or say,
changes this world in some way.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
SF-Oakland Bay Bridge © ChristianSchd
Upon learning from Guruji about the spiritual goal of “self realization” or “enlightenment”, I decided to “seek” this goal by meditating and reciting his prescribed Sanskrit prayers and mantras. But after several years, I lost interest in pursuing “enlightenment” though I continued Guruji’s practices and attended his group meditations. Also, I continued reading many spiritual teachings of other masters, scriptures, and stories about saints (hagiographies).
Though ever inspired by Guruji’s “signs and wonders” which I had witnessed and experienced, and those attributed to saints and spiritual masters about whom I was reading, I found that my desire to personally experience these “miracles” was waning. I began realizing that these powers could become pitfalls – big ego traps impeding rather than promoting spiritual evolution.
Before meeting Guruji, I had begun entertaining egoistic ideas that I might be “special” because of all the miraculous things that were happening to me. Thus, I was egoistically forgetting the unforgettable rebirth realization that started the whole purification process – the simple insight that: “I am not my body or its thoughts, but pure awareness; I am not my role in life – lawyer, husband, father – with which I’ve identified, but pure awareness.”
But, after shakipat, as I began reading and reflecting about “enlightenment”, I became increasingly aware that “ego” and “enlightenment” could not co-exist; that anyone who egoistically thinks s/he’s ‘special’ isn’t “enlightened”. So, rhetorically I wondered: “If I am just pure Awareness, not separate from ultimate Reality, how can I be a ‘special’ person?”
My first memorable test of that crucial ‘re-realization’ insight soon came during a meditation retreat with Guruji near Santa Cruz where with extraordinary benevolence he imparted esoteric information to advanced initiates. And amongst these esoteric teachings were instructions about how to travel astrally at will.
By this time I had had spontaneously experienced various OOB’s, including my amazing New York astral projection into the future, and had experienced Guruji’s power to “visit” me in his astral body. Also I was aware of Robert A. Monroe’s teachings and writings about his “Journeys Out of the Body”.
But even though Guruji sanctioned certain initiates to acquire the extraordinary power of traveling astrally at will, I clearly wasn’t interested in it. So I chose not to practice or pursue astral projection.
I was content to let the Universe decide when and whether I would be shown or given any more such “signs and wonders”. And I didn’t have long to wait before it happened again. As I was driving home from that Santa Cruz retreat in my then ‘trusty’ Volvo, I had one of my most extraordinary and memorable OOB experiences.
I left the retreat accompanied by Saskia, the Dutch doctor and acupuncturist who had been one of my passengers during our miraculous ‘sight seeing tour’ with Guruji, which began with our toll-free passage onto the Bay Bridge. She lived in Berkeley, and I was taking her home before returning to San Francisco.
As we drove from Santa Cruz to Berkeley, Saskia and I chatted about spiritual and worldly subjects, including our apparent lack of good fortune at not yet finding worldly “soul mates”. Within minutes after we parted, I was synchronistically granted an unforgettable graphic apparent answer to our question about supposed “lack of good fortune” in certain worldly relationships.
A few minutes after dropping off Saskia, I drove the Volvo onto the Bay Bridge en route to San Francisco. Soon after passing the toll plaza, I was suddenly and unexpectedly taken out of my body. While my physical body continued guiding the Volvo across the Bay Bridge, I was given a fleeting – but amazingly unforgettable – Buddha’s eye view of space/time and causation from a very subtle causal plane of awareness.
From this subtle panoramic perspective – far above and beyond Ron Rattner’s dense physical body, driving its denser (but blessed) Volvo – I was shown an interwoven causal tapestry that is manifesting this phenomenal “reality”; that everything – every form and phenomenon – is perfectly karmically/causally connected; and, that whatever happens to us in this world arises from interdependent, interconnected, and interrelated causes.
Ever since that pivotal experience I have reflected on ideas like “perfection”, “causation”, “synchronicity”, “free will versus determinism”. And while so reflecting, I have written (and have posted on SillySutras.com) many apt sutras, like this one:
Perfect Paradox
Despite Omni-present ignorance,
selfishness, misery and suffering,
and apparent chaotic uncertainty,
perfection pervades our “Loco Loka” * –
the realm of space/time and causation;
the realm of manifest Mystery.
*”Loco Loka” = crazy world
Over thirty years have now passed since that amazing view of “reality” was bestowed. Thanks to that ‘miraculous’ experience, and to countless ensuing ‘miracles’ in my enfolding life story, my life has evolved – in ways which were once unimaginable – to a state of abiding “inner peace and happiness” beyond “any belief or religious affiliation”, just as promised by Guruji in 1978. Thus, with heartfelt gratitude, I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life.
So, without any religious affiliation,
I’ve become a faithful follower:
I follow my Faith;
I follow the Way;
I follow my Heart.
And this above all,
It is my Faith that enables me to be true to my Self.
Transcending Transcendence?
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“The goal is not to lose oneself in the Divine Consciousness.
The goal is to let the Divine Consciousness
penetrate into Matter and transform it.”
~ Sri Aurobindo – The Mother 15: p.191
“Cosmic consciousness is
infinite evolutionary impetus in each of us.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“As we experience our universality,
we transform our reality.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Maitreya Bodhisattva
Transcending Transcendence
My miraculous “sight seeing” trip with Dhyanyogi, and subsequent experiences, inspired ever increasing faith in his saintly good will and yogic powers. But questions arose for me about his Hindu path.
In writings introducing his path to Americans, Guruji said that Kundalini Maha Yoga was not a religion but a spiritual practice bringing “lasting inner peace and happiness to individuals of any belief or religious affiliation.” But his prescribed spiritual practices mostly included Sanskrit prayers and mantras associated with Hinduism, in addition to daily meditations.
At first I was uncomfortable reciting Sanskrit prayers and mantras which I didn’t understand, except for the Ram mantra with which I have always felt deep affinity. But intuitively I relied on Guruji’s extraordinary being and benevolence, and on his assurances that initiates would enjoy “a happy life”. So gradually I became more and more engaged in these practices, trusting that they would help me live a happy life.
Then, during a public meditation program, Guruji said these sanskrit practices would lead us to “the spiritual goal”. And I wondered: “what spiritual goal?” Amazingly, though I was still then an ‘uptight’ skeptical lawyer, I had taken an initiation from an unknown Hindu guru and was repeating his esoteric Sanskrit prayers and mantras not knowing what they meant or that their purpose was to achieve some “spiritual goal”.
So, after the meditation program, I asked others about this “spiritual goal”. I was told that the object of Hindu practices was to achieve “mukti” or “moksha” or “self-realization”; that the kundalini purification process, viz. the “evolutionary process taking place in [my] nervous system”, would some day in some lifetime lead to a state of Divine illumination where the Self, soul, or “Atman” would experience its Oneness with “Brahman” [Supreme Reality] – the pinnacle of human experience. Only then did I begin considering these ideas of “self realization”.
Though Guruji’s assurance of our finding lasting peace and happiness was appealing, I hadn’t consciously been drawn to him by this assurance but by a deep intuitive heartfelt connection. Before meeting Guruji I was not ‘goal oriented’. Instinctively hesitant to pursue materialistic societal goals, I was mostly inner – not outer – directed. But never before had I considered any inner ‘goals’.
In the late 1950’s I had been deeply influenced on reading “The Sane Society” by then prominent psychotherapist Erich Fromm, about the pathology of ‘normalcy’ in our materialistic society. Fromm suggested that Western society as a whole was lacking in sanity; that the inequities and disharmonies of the entire society were pathological, not just the mental illnesses of people therein. Fromm’s essay had confirmed and enhanced my instinctive reluctance to selfishly follow materialistic societal goals.
So, in becoming a lawyer and throughout my professional career, my main motivation was to help others; it was not to become rich or famous. Long before my spiritual awakening, I had a deep inner instinct to pursue social justice causes, with considerable sensitivity to the “insanity and iniquity of inequity in our society”.
But, with the Yosemite inner experience of “ten thousand suns” I realized that beyond my instinct for social justice was an extraordinarily intense longing for the Divine – to return from this crazy world back to God, back to Ram. However, not until hearing Dhyanyogi’s teachings about a spiritual “goal”, did I consider pro-actively seeking such an inner goal.
Though initially it seemed desirable to aspire to “self realization” or “enlightenment”, I was unable to relate experientially to those illumined states as ascribed to rare beings like Gautama Buddha. So, I was never clear about what to “seek” until, ultimately, I stopped seeking it, whatever it was.
After considerable reflection, I abandoned goal oriented spiritual seeking, and intuitively began with more and more heartfelt faith to surrender to the Infinite – “to let go, and go with the flow” – and to “leave it to the Lone Arranger.” * Perhaps, I transcended transcendence aspirations.
Inspired by the Buddhist Bodhisattva ideal of altruistically helping all beings end their sufferings, I stopped trying to be beyond this world, but rather to be in it in a way which might help all life everywhere. And I ceased regarding “enlightenment” as a “goal” but rather as an endless evolutionary process.
Experientially, I had realized that ‘the Kingdom of Heaven’, Buddha nature, and Love, were the Essence of everything in our phenomenal “reality”. And my core spiritual motivation became and remains:
“Infuse us, enthuse us, and use us, to bless all Life as LOVE.”
But paradoxically I have learned from experience that we cannot change others, only ourselves; that by furthering our own evolution we help elevate humanity’s common consciousness and thereby subtly help others. So, I consider it my responsibility to aspire to be the change I wish to see in the world, with the intention and dedication of so helping everyone everywhere.
And in this process, as Guruji promised, with unspeakable gratitude I am now enjoying “a happy life” beyond anything that I could have imagined when I received a shaktipat initiation in 1978.
*Footnote
Many ideas about “enlightenment” are in articles posted elsewhere on SillySutras.com. E.g. see https://sillysutras.com/?p=2925 and https://sillysutras.com/?p=1180
