Posts Tagged ‘George Orwell’
Our Mentality is Our Reality:
~ Quotations and Reflections
“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.”
~ George Orwell, “1984”
“Perception is a mirror, not a fact.
And what I look on is my state of mind,
reflected outward.”
~ A Course In Miracles (ACIM)
“We do not see things as they are;
we see things as we are.”
~ Talmud
“Our mentality is our reality.
Our “reality” is what we think it to be.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“All appearances are verily one’s own concepts, self-conceived in the mind, like reflections seen in a mirror. To know whether this be so or not, look within thine own mind.”
~ Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche)
“Objective reality does not exist” ….
“the universe is fundamentally a gigantic … hologram”
~ David Bohm
“Reality” isn’t REAL!
“Reality” is an holographic theater of the mind.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“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
“If the doors of perception were cleansed
everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
~ William Blake
“If you could get rid of yourself just once,
the secret of secrets would open to you.
The face of the unknown, hidden beyond the universe
would appear on the mirror of your perception.”
~ Rumi
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.
What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
~ Antoine de Saint Exupery
“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.
Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”
~ Carl Jung
“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror;
then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part;
then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
~ 1 Corinthians 13:12
“True vision is insight, not eyesight.
‘[N]ow we see through a glass darkly’,
but with ever expanding human consciousness and ever deepening insight,
we can and shall ‘see’ more and more –
we can and shall see what we couldn’t see before.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“When your sense of self is no longer tied to thought, is no longer conceptual, there is a depth of feeling, of sensing, of compassion, of loving, that was not there when you were trapped in mental concepts. You are that depth.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“There are two ways of spreading light –
to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it.”
~ Edith Wharton
“And we, with our unveiled faces reflecting like mirrors the glory of the Lord, all grow brighter and brighter as we are turned into the image that we reflect.”
~ 2 Corinthians 3:18
“Reality’s essence is Divine luminescence.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Nothing Real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.”
~ A Course In Miracles (ACIM)
Introduction to “Our Mentality is Our Reality”.
Dear Friends,
The foregoing quotations, and following poetic essay and comments, describe and explain how Humankind mistakenly conceive, label and self-identify ourselves as supposedly separate mortal entities in a misperceived space/time “reality”, through persistent ego/mind thought processes.
These writings are dedicated to helping us recognize and reverse those thought processes, which inevitably subject us to karmic-causal sufferings and limit our inconceivably infinite potentialities.
[See e.g. The Way In, Is The Way Out ]
And so may it be!
Our Mentality is Our Reality
Through the ‘mirror of the mind’
we think we see space/time “reality” –
as multiplicity of seemingly separate
beings, objects, forms and phenomena.
But our perceptions and self-identifications
as separate mortal entities is a mere mirage;
“an optical illusion of consciousness” .
What we think see is merely our state of mind
reflected and projected outward.
Such illusory vision is invariably obscured and distorted;
it arises from our personal and cultural mental conditioning – our ego/minds.
Ego/minds distortedly refract, reflect and project
onto the ‘reflective’ screen of human consciousness
the unseen light of Eternal Awareness – our true Self.
As Eternal Awareness, what we really see
are ego-minds’ ever conditioned
misperceptions, reflections, and projections.
As a mirror’s reflection depends not only on its optical transparency and precision , but also on the angle from which it is viewed,
our perception and response to the space/time world,
depends not only on our state of mind,
but on our unique point of view – each from a different place in time and space.
As still, clear water best reflects light –
while permitting perception of its depths,
a still, clear mind best reflects and reveals
the invisible Light of Self-awareness.
The fewer our thoughts,
the clearer and calmer our mind,
and the deeper and more transparent our awareness.
The more we think,
the more conditioned, disturbed and perturbed is the mind,
and the more it refracts, distorts and dims the eternal light of pure Awareness.
The clearer and calmer our mind,
the more skillfully we experience
ever changing quantum energies,
without attachment or reflexively reacting to them.
With meditation and other attentive mind-stilling modes,
we can clear and enlighten our mind –
From opacity to translucency to transparency –
from mental mirror to window of the soul.
Thereby, with ever expanding awareness
and ever deepening insight,
We can and shall ‘see’ and be,
more and more –
what we couldn’t see or be
before.
We can and shall see and BE:
Wholeness, Holiness, SELF –
Infinite Potentiality, Awareness, Bliss;
Eternal Peace, Life, Light – LOVE!
And so it shall be!
Ron Rattner
Ron’s Commentary on Our Mentality as Our Reality.
Dear Friends,
Have you ever wondered why the world seems so insane? Why countless people worldwide fearfully suffer from wars, poverty, illness, lack of basic life-sustaining necessities? Why suffering is everywhere, even in the richest nations on Earth? Why even materially super-rich people are often fearful, depressed, addicted or mentally disturbed?
For millennia mystic teachers and spiritual scriptures have consistently identified ego/mind as the “biggest enemy of humans”. Therefore recognizing and eliminating ego has always been of supreme spiritual importance.
But in current “new normal” times of unprecedented global turmoil, violence and suffering, it is crucial that a “critical mass” of Humankind now realize (at long last) how we are ignorantly and unsustainably creating enormous problems by habitually misidentifying ourselves with our thoughts.
After my mid-life awakening, I began deeply reflecting on root causes of our pervasive pathologies, both individually and societally. In the above essay/poem and quotes, I’ve shared my perspectives about how and why our illusionary human projected perceptions and thoughts are causing or allowing extremely psychopathic behaviors which threaten life on earth as we have known it.
If you agree, please consider sharing these insights, to help heal the world.
Conclusion.
In the Bible (1 Corinthians 13:11-12), St. Paul observes that “now we see through a glass darkly”,
but that some day we shall fully know, as we are fully Known now by the Divine. Now, we view our “reality” through the ‘mirror of the mind’, which imperfectly refracts and reflects the unseen light of Eternal Awareness onto the screen of our human consciousness.
But, with meditation and other mind-stilling methods, we can and shall evolve and transform our mind mirror, from opacity to translucency to transparency (as ‘window of the soul’). And thereby, with ever expanding human consciousness and ever deepening insight, we can and shall ‘see’ more and more – what we couldn’t see before.
Ultimately, we shall SEE that Infinite LOVE is the only Reality; that
“Nothing Real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.”
~ A Course In Miracles (ACIM)
Invocation.
As ever more we inwardly SEE
May we ever-more inwardly BE:
Wholeness, Holiness, SELF –
Infinite Potentiality, Awareness, Bliss;
Eternal Peace, Life, Light – LOVE!
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Words About Words
““No more words. Hear only the voice within.”
“Learn to speak by listening.”
~ Rumi
“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
~ Buddha
“Better than a thousand useless words is one useful word,
hearing which one attains peace.
Better than a thousand useless verses is one useful verse,
hearing which one attains peace.”
~ Buddha
“In the beginning was the word
and the word was with God
and the word was God”
~ John 1:1
“The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of God stands forever.”
~ Isaiah 40:8
“True communication” is neither verbal nor mental –
but transcendental.
True communication is communion –
Heart to Heart.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Speak little; say much.”
~ Ron Rattner (aka Swami Onandonananda)
Ron’s Introduction to Words about Words
Dear Friends,
Today’s “Words About Words” posting, is deeply dedicated to preserving, advancing and blessing all miraculous Earth-life with our compassionate and empathetic thoughts, words, and deeds, as co-creators of our perceived space/time reality.
With the foregoing apt quotations, “Words About Words” is a collection sutra-sayings and verses about words, and follwing explanatory comments which supplement other related SillySutras postings about silence, words, and thoughts.
These writings reveal important reasons (especially in these Orwellian post-pandemic times), for us to consciously consider how and why our thoughts, words and behaviors karmically cause our Earth-life experiences.
They accept ancient Eastern non-duality and karma philosophies as well as Einstein’s revolutionary scientific insights revealing that our world is a thought created mental illusion, like a wonderful mirage, where “reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else”. [George Orwell “1984”]
According to mystic masters, the more elevated and compassionate our thought emanations, the further and faster we advance our spiritual evolution. (See e.g. Thoughts About Thought) So this posting is deeply dedicated to thus elevating and advancing our spiritual awakening process, and to helping us live ever happier lives.
May these writings encourage and inspire us, as spiritually awakening beings, to ever emanate elevating word and thought energies of kindness, compassion and empathy which help transform the world, and advance our spiritual evolution toward ultimate Self-realization of our true non-duality identity and infinite Reality – as Universal Life, Light and LOVE.
And so may it be!
Words About Words
Words are thoughts.
Words are mind symbols uttered or inscribed
to denominate and communicate ideas.
Words are then,
Life is NOW.
Life is a word game:
Adding a few syllables to the Ineffable,
we play the word game of life
until we find and become THAT –
Silence that says ALL.
Language can be a ladder for ascent to the Ineffable.
With wisdom words
we implicate
that Truth
words never explicate.
Truth transcends wisdom:
Wisdom is primordial;
but,
Truth is pre-primordial.
There’s nothing to say, but words point the way.
So, let’s elevate our spiritual “lexi-consciousness.”
Cosmic contra-diction:
In the beginning was the Word,
but in the end Silence says all.
We maximize the impact of our words
when we minimize the number of our words.
The epigrammatic is most dramatic.
Better than any words is experience.
As the Bible says, “God” is a word – a noun –
with countless connotations,
different for different people –
all believing or disbelieving in “God”.
“God” is a word designating different ideas of a Transcendent Power.
Thus, “God” did not create man,
but man created the word “God” –
with thoughts from ruminations, revelations, intuitions, and speculations,
trying to identify THAT which is beyond words, beyond all thought.
When words are inscribed or uttered with deep insight
and heartfelt compassion, they can be very powerful.
Such words are imbued with the energy of their originator.
So, words from an ‘enlightened being’ are like sun rays;
they radiate the light of their Source.
Live laconically, and
Walk your talk:
Join “The Society of Laconic Walk/Talkers”, where –
The less we talk,
the further we go.
The further we go,
the more we Know.
The more we Know,
the less we say,
’Til as Silence we are the Way.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Words About Words”
Ron’s explanation of “Words About Words”
Our space/time world is an ever impermanent and illusory ‘reality’ in which everything and everyone is flowing energy. All supposedly separate forms and phenomena are energy vortexes or information systems constantly vibrating and oscillating within a continuum, field or range of frequencies. Most energies are imperceptible to humans. But some energy vibrations, like those of perceived physical matter, are slow enough for us to detect.
Thoughts and emotions are vibrating energy-forms which humans don’t normally see. They have a vibratory range from lower negative to higher positive. Negative thoughts of anger, anxiety or fear afflict us, while thoughts of kindness, compassion and love, bless us. Therefore, according to mystic masters, elevating our thought vibrations and emanations can be of fundamental evolutionary importance. Because:
We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
~ Buddha
Thus the more elevated our thought emanations, the further we advance our evolution toward realization of our true self-identity as Life, Light and LOVE. See: Thoughts About Thought
Thoughts from mistaken beliefs of separateness from each other and Nature cause slow vibrations and low emanations. As we evolve spiritually we gradually quicken and elevate our thought energies. And we thereby progressively transcend supposed separateness, and increasingly understand and experience our Oneness with all Life everywhere. Integral to a divine ‘design plan’, we are graced with infinite potentiality to collectively advance all life on planet Earth, through our loving and compassionate thoughts, words, and deeds, even while we still experience illusionary perceptual separation from Universal Awareness – our shared essence and ultimate identity as Absolute Reality.
It is with words that we mostly express and communicate our beliefs, thoughts and consequent mistaken concepts of perpetual separateness. So words are at the root of our thought-created illusionary space/time world and its inevitable karmic suffering. Thus, the Bible metaphorically tells us that
“In the beginning was the word”.
But, as destined, we inevitably evolve from thinking to loving; from living mentally, to Being consciously. In our evolutionary process, thoughts are obstacles if they muffle or mute our eternal inner voice of conscience, intuition and Love. And ultimately we learn experientially that, whereas in the beginning was the word, in the end it is silence that says all.
Also, we learn that as we gradually clear our conceptual conditioning, we may consciously communicate by various means other than words: that, without words or thoughts, we can powerfully communicate through gestures, touch, tears, smiles, music, and even telepathically.
And we learn that, however it is shared, LOVE is a ‘contagious’ blessing, for all Life everywhere. So, whereas in the the beginning we mostly communicate mentally to share our ideas and emotions, in the end we mostly commune silently to share Love; as we learn that true communication is neither verbal nor mental, but transcendental – that true communication is communion – Heart to Heart.
Thus, as spiritually awakening beings, we are ‘contagiously’ transforming the world by Being and emanating the Eternal Light of Truth and LOVE.
Dedication
The above sutras about words are shared and dedicated to advancing the human awakening process. They are especially important during current extraordinary polarized and turbulent times, when we must transcend fearful and hostile communications and emanations to avert impending calamity, and to co-create a blessed world of Peace and Love.
Invocation
May these Words about Words
encourage and inspire us,
as spiritually awakening beings,
to ever emanate elevating word and thought energies
of kindness, compassion and empathy
which help transform the world,
and advance our spiritual evolution
toward ultimate Self-realization
of our true non-duality identity and infinite Reality –
as Universal Life, Light and LOVE.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
From co-dependent exploitation,
to co-creative realization
~ A rare turning point in Human history
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won.
There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible,
but in the end they always fall — think of it. Always.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood,
and I — I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
~ Robert Frost – The Road Not Taken
Dear Friends,
We have reached a rare turning point in modern human history. Confronted by apparent dire threats to survival of life on Earth as we’ve known it, our species is awakening to a prophesied new enlightened Earth age. After eons of imagined darkness, we are now realizing our infinite potential as timeless wholeness and Oneness with Source – as LOVE beyond comprehension, imagination or description.
Thus a “critical mass” of Humankind will soon be energetically (not spatially) uplifted to a compassionate new world, dynamically harmonious with Nature and all life everywhere – a “new reality” foreseen for millennia by non-materialist mystic seers.
Accordingly this essay is dedicated to inspiring our awakened inclusion in that uplifted “critical mass”.
Historic Background
Throughout recorded history, in order to evolve, human societies have been compelled to abandon previously cherished inflexible beliefs about “reality” (our cosmology, religion, science, philosophy etc.) which limited learning, impeded progress, and facilitated evil and harmful behaviors.
How could we have advanced believing that the earth was flat, or that it was the center of our solar system? And now, because of unprecedented anthropogenic threats to survival of Earth life as we’ve known it, we are again urgently compelled to transcend cherished beliefs about our perceived (three dimensional) illusionary “reality”.
Refusing Ruling Class Exploitation
Human societies have mostly been undemocratically governed by self-proclaimed elite rulers. But for eons our earthly human societies have been secretly dominated and energetically exploited by psychopathic “leaders” representing a few unimaginably malevolent and unknown astral “rulers”.
Thus, until now we’ve lived unaware of our existence in addictive codependent relationships with our “leaders” and “rulers”, which relationships are parasitically exploitive and dysfunctional. And so far this tiny ruling class has cleverly and selfishly used their understanding of our subliminal Oneness with Source (and all other perceived energy forms) to successfully exploit us.
Currently, using controlled mainstream media of mass deception, they have subliminally “brainwashed”, indoctrinated, and inculcated most of humanity into erroneously and fearfully accepting parasitic servitude to them. Such subliminal servitude has precluded us from realizing our infinite power to fearlessly co-create elevated energetic realities, beyond all domination or exploitation, and thereby to fulfill our deepest evolutionary aspirations.
But in recent “new normal” times our ruling “leaders” have enacted immoral laws, orders and edicts which are so flagrantly outrageous that they are painfully awakening many people to our innate human rights and freedoms. Accordingly, those people are resisting and refusing to follow such insanely immoral and unlawful decrees, rather than degenerate into a locked-down Malthusian global 3D society of unprecedented and insidious human control and enslavement by a few malignant psychopaths.
Thus by their civil disobedience and adamant moral refusal to bear such insanity, a critical mass of humankind are about to be energetically uplifted to co-create a wonderful new era in human history.
Though we appear separate, we are all One with Source
“Human beings are made of body, mind and spirit.
Of these, spirit is primary, for it connects us to the source of everything,
the eternal field of consciousness.”
~ Deepak Chopra
All is a play in consciousness. All divisions are illusory.
You can know the false only. The true you must yourself be.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“You are awareness, disguised as a person.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks
Although each human is unique in apparent physical form, (like hexagonal crystalline snowflakes) we all subliminally share the same mysterious spiritual Source, which is inconceivable and indescribable. Because we are so subliminally connected we are all affected by a lack of harmony or morality anywhere in our perceived 3D “reality”. Therefore, we are awakening globally to resist immoral edicts which wickedly violate our innate human rights and freedoms.
Until now our subconscious oneness with all Earth life has permitted subliminal matrix control over our species. But growing human awareness of such Oneness with Source is paradoxically enabling us to irreversibly escape from our current codependent bondage in an imperceptible matrix “prison”.
The following quotations and explanations are about how and why we can soon escape:
Escaping from co-dependent exploitation, to co-creative realization.
“When fear becomes collective, when anger becomes collective,
it’s extremely dangerous. It is overwhelming…
The mass media and the military-industrial complex create a prison for us,
so we continue to think, see, and act in the same way…
We need the courage to express ourselves even when the majority is going in the opposite direction…
because a change of direction can happen only when there is a collective awakening…
Therefore, it is very important to say, ‘I am here!’ to those who share the same kind of insight.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power
“The choice that frees or imprisons us is the choice of love or fear.
Love liberates. Fear imprisons.”
~ Gary Zukav
“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 & David Kessler – When You Don’t Choose Love You Choose Fear
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” . . .
~ 1 John 4:18
Discussion: Until now parasitic lower realm entities have been able to subliminally exploit third dimension humans, only by cleverly fomenting widespread divisive beliefs, fears, anger and other negative emotions. Without such fears and emotions these evil entities can not exploit us. They cannot function in energetically loving dimensions. Fear and Love can’t coexist. And love is “contagious”.
So provoked by outrageously immoral orders and edicts, and aided by unprecedentedly propitious Earth energy cycles, we are now remembering and choosing our true Self identity as Divine LOVE, beyond comprehension, imagination or description.
And as we realize that as eternal LOVE we have nothing to fear, but fear itself, we will inevitably irreversibly escape from captured codependence to fearlessly co-create a wonderful new era in human history.
Methods which are hastening our escape from matrix imprisonment:
1) Living lovingly and gratefully
“Love Is The Law Of Life:
All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction.
Love is therefore the only law of life.
He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying.
Therefore, love for love’s sake,
because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
“It is not joy that makes us grateful;
it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”
~ Brother David Steindl-Rast
“Thankfulness is the soul of beneficence …
For thankfulness brings you to the place where the Beloved lives.”
~ Rumi
2) Becoming mindfully conscious of eternal LOVE
“By the definite science of meditation known for millenniums to the yogis and sages of India, and to Jesus,
any seeker of God can enlarge the caliber of his consciousness to omniscience to receive within himself the Universal Intelligence of God.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“Meditation is one of the most direct and powerful ways to awaken to who we really are and to experience happiness as a state of consciousness that already exists within us.”
~ Deepak Chopra
A focused or stilled mind is crucial to spiritual evolution. With stilled minds we access intuition and imagination, and are uplifted beyond darkness of negative emotions.
With stilled minds we telepathically ‘hear’ and follow our Sacred Heart’s message of Love.
With stilled minds we follow our heart – not our ego.
With stilled minds we instinctively reject dark “leaders” who’ve betrayed and ‘imprisoned’ us.
“The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.”
~ Blaise Pascal
“Faith is a knowledge within the heart,
beyond the reach of proof.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift,
and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant
and has forgotten the gift.”
~ Albert Einstein
3) Practicing nonviolent Gandhian civil disobedience.
“Satyagraha means resisting untruth by truthful means”
“It is a religious duty to fight untruth.
If one remains steadfast in it in a spirit of dedication,
it always brings success.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
Those of us who already realize how humans are being psychopathically dominated and immorally imprisoned in an invisible ‘matrix’, must now morally and truthfully act to preserve inherent human rights and protect our planet and progeny. With righteous courage, we must speak out and nonviolently disobey unlawful and immoral edicts.
4) Being the change we wish to see.
“[T]he world will not change if we don’t change.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“If we are to make progress,
we must not repeat history but make new history.
We must add to inheritance left by our ancestors.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
~ Buddha
“The world is a projection of our collective consciousness.
If our collective consciousness reaches that place of peace, harmony, laughter and love,
it will be a different world.”
~ Deepak Chopra
Energetically we live in a labyrinth of thoughts, intentions, feelings and behaviors which create our “reality”. “Whatever we think, do, or say, is changing this world in some way.”
Accordingly, as we prioritize our intention to mindfully radiate loving and forgiving thoughts, behaviors, and emotions we are inevitably and irreversibly elevating and enlightening our earthly “reality” beyond malevolent darkness.
5) Turning off mainstream media.
“Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.”
~ Edward Bernays
“Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated
are confident they are acting on their own free will.”
~ Joseph Goebbels
“The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”
~ Aldous Huxley
“All propaganda is lies, even when one is telling the truth.”
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
~ George Orwell
All mainstream information media have become propagandist instruments dishonestly dominated and controlled by our “leaders”. Whenever possible we must turn them off, even if they seem to publish information with which we agree. We must not be diverted or confused by information or speculation, which is published with insidious motives.
If we seek information (not speculation) about purported current events or history, we need to investigate non-mainstream sources, especially those which are ridiculed, slandered or censored by mainstream media – like Robert F. Kennedy’s Children’s Health Foundation. However, in reviewing such alternative information outlets we must carefully consider their facts and sources, and not assume their accuracy or credibility.
6) Mindfully recognizing that this world is a mere mental illusion
“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
“…this separation between man and man, between nation and nation,
between earth and moon, between moon and sun.
Out of this idea of separation between atom and atom comes all misery.
But the Vedanta says that this separation does not exist, it is not real.”
“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 – Jnana Yoga
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“What appears to be a stable, tangible, visible, audible world, is an illusion.”
“Objective reality does not exist” …. “the universe is fundamentally a gigantic … hologram.”
~ David Bohm, Quantum Physicist
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won.
There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible,
but in the end they always fall — think of it. Always.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
We now exist in a perceived relative “reality” where everything is energy (e=Mc2), and suffering is omnipresent. But enlightened mystics and scientists remind us that our “reality” and its seeming separation of perceived thought forms is merely “an optical illusion of consciousness” and that we avert suffering by “recognizing that the world is but an illusion.”
As we consciously identify our comparative “reality” as merely an illusion, we will transcend suffering from negative intentions, actions, thoughts and emotions. And thereby we’ll live with ever growing kindness, and with compassion for others who are still suffering.
Inevitably our kindness will quicken and elevate our subtle energy emanations, until we irreversibly experience our lives from higher dimensions where there is no suffering, just oneness with Source – as LOVE.
Like Gandhi and other great souls we’ll then perceive this world like a metaphoric good versus evil “movie” in which Divine Truth and Love always prevail.
7) Laughter and humor are always uplifting
“When you realize how perfect everything is
you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.”
~ Buddha
“Sing because this is a food our starving world needs.
Laugh because that is the purest sound.”
~ Hafiz
“What is soap to the body, laughter is to the soul.”
~ Yiddish Proverb
“Time spent laughing is time spent with the Gods.”
~ Japanese proverb
“I laugh when I think how I once sought paradise as a realm outside of the world of birth.
It is right in the world of birth and death that the miraculous truth is revealed.
But this is not the laughter of someone who suddenly acquires a great fortune;
neither is it the laughter of one who has won a victory.
It is, rather, the laughter of one who; after having painfully searched for something for a long time,
finds it one morning in the pocket of his coat.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh
“If a person can laugh totally, wholeheartedly, not holding anything back at all,
in that very moment something tremendous can happen
because laughter, when it is total, is absolutely egoless,
and that is the only condition in which to know God, to be egoless.”
~ Osho
“If honesty were suddenly introduced into American life, the whole system would collapse.”
“That’s why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
~ George Carlin
Invocation
At this unprecedented turning point in modern human history,
may we mindfully recognize and intentionally radiate
truth of our common Self-identity as LOVE.
May we thereby be part of an irreversibly uplifted “critical mass” of Humankind,
which will co-create a prophesied compassionate new world,
dynamically harmonious with Nature and all life everywhere.
And so shall it be!
Namasté!
Ron Rattner
Spirituality, Religion and Politics
~ Quotations and Sayings
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you;
for this is the law and the prophets.”
~ Matthew 7:12
“Judge not, that you be not judged.
For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged;
and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”
~ Matthew 7:1-5
“Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics
do not know what religion is.”
“I claim that human mind or human society is not divided
into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
Introduction
Dear Friends,
In my memoirs about Spirituality, Religion and Politics I recounted the history of my egalitarian social justice politics and Gandhian political philosophy. And I explained how my political/philosophical and spiritual/moral perspectives have helped me become an ever vigilant and concerned spiritual citizen of our beautiful blue planet Earth, with ever expanding happiness and gratitude for this hallowed human lifetime.
Hereafter posted is a collection of political/moral quotations which have helped me. They are shared with the deep aspiration that they may help all of us remember the sanctity of Earth-life, until ultimately we realize that everything’s holy; and, that nothing’s really Real, but Divine LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Quotation Collection concerning “Spirituality, Religion and Politics”
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”
~ President John F. Kennedy, quoting Philosopher Edmond Burke
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
~ Plato
“Wanting to reform the world without discovering one’s true self is like
trying to cover the world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on
stones and thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.”
~ Plato
“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion
that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends,
than that good men should look on and do nothing.”
~ John Stuart Mill, Philosopher
“In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”
~ George Orwell – “Politics and the English Language,” 1946
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”
~ Abraham Lincoln
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
~ Joseph Goebbels
“Naturally the common people don’t want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or fascist dictorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
~ Hermann Goering, at the Nuremberg Trials
“An oligarchy of private capital cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society because under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information.”
~ Albert Einstein
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Where is the justice of political power if it… marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?
~ Kahlil Gibran
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Don’t let anybody make you think God chose America as His divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.” .. “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.
In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.
~ Mark Twain, Autobiography
“At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.”
~ Aldous Huxley
“Many ancient Indian masters have preached nonviolence as a philosophy. That was a more spiritual understanding of it. Mahatma Gandhi, in this twentieth century, produced a very sophisticated approach because he implemented that very noble philosophy of nonviolence in modern politics, and he succeeded. That is a very great thing. It has represented an evolutionary leap in political consciousness, his experimentation with truth.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama, from “The Dalai Lama, A Policy of Kindness”
“What is a wife and what is a harlot? What is a church and what
Is a theatre? are they two and not one? can they exist separate?
Are not religion and politics the same thing? Brotherhood is religion,
O demonstrations of reason dividing families in cruelty and pride!”
~ William Blake
“Your daily life is your temple and your religion. …
Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
And that which is neither deed nor reflection,
but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul,
even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?
Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?
~ Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”
“The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!”
~ Swami Vivekananda
“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both natural and spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual and a meaningful unity.”
~ Albert Einstein
“True religion is real living; living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and righteousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness”“There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”
~ H.H. the Dalai Lama
You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it is going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.
~ Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?… Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?…The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now.”
“Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
~ George Orwell, “1984”
Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance.
~ Vaclav Havel
“Don’t let anybody make you think God chose America as His divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.” .. “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.
“Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“It is important that we conduct our… life with compassion, with kindness.
Without compassion, you can’t be happy, no matter how rich you are.
You become isolated and trapped within your own world,
unable to relate to people or understand them.
Running after profit at the expense of compassion hurts you as much as it hurts other people.”
“When you look deeply, you see the pain and suffering in the world, and
recognize your deep desire to relieve it. You also recognize that bringing joy to
others is the greatest joy you can have, the greatest achievement. In choosing to
cultivate true power, you do not have to give up your desire for the good life.
Your life can be more satisfying, and you will be happy and relaxed, relieving
suffering and bringing happiness to everyone.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power, Introduction
“When fear becomes collective, when anger becomes collective, it’s extremely dangerous. It is overwhelming… The mass media and the military-industrial complex create a prison for us, so we continue to think, see, and act in the same way… We need the courage to express ourselves even when the majority is going in the opposite direction… because a change of direction can happen only when there is a collective awakening… Therefore, it is very important to say, ‘I am here!’ to those who share the same kind of insight.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power
“The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right… The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”
~ John Stuart Mill, Philosopher, On Liberty
Conclusion and dedication
The foregoing quotations confirm that fundamental issues of spirituality, morality and politics are often inextricably intertwined. Each of us must morally resolve such issues from our unique perspectives of “reality”, as seemingly separate souls.
Particularly in this pivotal “new normal” era in human history, these writings are deeply dedicated to uplifting everyone everywhere to higher states of consciousness, spiritual freedom, and happiness.
May they so guide us, and thereby help us remember the sanctity of all Earth-life, as we inevitably return to our ONE inner Source, and realize that nothing’s really Real, but Divine LOVE!
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Spirituality, Religion and Politics
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics
do not know what religion is.”
“I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious.
All act and react upon one another.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“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
“In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.”
All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”
~ George Orwell – “Politics and the English Language,” 1946
“When fear becomes collective, when anger becomes collective, it’s extremely dangerous. It is overwhelming… The mass media and the military-industrial complex create a prison for us, so we continue to think, see, and act in the same way… We need the courage to express ourselves even when the majority is going in the opposite direction… because a change of direction can happen only when there is a collective awakening… Therefore, it is very important to say, ‘I am here!’ to those who share the same kind of insight.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power
Mahatma Gandhi
Introduction.
After my mid-life spiritual awakening, my lifestyle changed radically. While publicly maintaining my professional life as a lawyer, privately I soon began living a simple monk-like existence, withdrawing from prior involvement in worldly entertainments and pastimes. For the first time in many years, I was living alone without a partner to influence my way of life. So, following inner inclinations, I stopped watching TV and rarely went to movies or concerts. I became a largely raw-food vegetarian and ate mostly at home rather than in restaurants. Retaining very few pre-divorce friends, I spent more time alone and began associating mainly with people interested in spirituality.
And especially after meeting Guruji in 1978, I felt for the first time an intense longing to return to Divinity. So I began praying fervently for a way to exchange my life of litigation for a life of meditation. But I felt confused and conflicted because I needed income from lawyering to help support my young children.
Whereupon, synchronistically I was given an unforgettable mystical experience which helped resolve that confusion. In a crowded courtroom, I was shown that the Divine is immanent in everyone everywhere – even in crafty lawyers; that experiencing nearness to God is mostly dependent on our state of mind rather than our physical environment. (See https://sillysutras.com/beholding-divine-light-in-a-worldly-courtroom-rons-memoirs/ )
So I became resigned to carrying on my life as a lawyer. However, I remained uncertain about continuing my life-long social justice activities when I yearned to devote more quiet time for meditation, prayer and spiritual practices.
Ultimately, after much soul searching, I honored inner impulses and persisted in pursuing an egalitarian path of politically engaged spirituality, rather than a path of monk-like withdrawal from worldly concerns. Though I respected the reclusive spiritual masters, monks and nuns who elevate human consciousness through their spiritual light and devotional practices, I felt greatest affinity with Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesus, and the Dalai Lama, whose non-violent pursuit of social justice greatly inspired me.
My Social Justice Politics.
Though neither of my parents was politically engaged, growing up I felt early affinity with traditional Jewish social justice values. The Torah (old Testament) admonishes Jews not just to give to the poor but to advocate on their behalf. For example, Proverbs 31:9 tells Jews to “speak up, judge righteously, champion the poor and the needy.”
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 egalitarian sensitivity to the “insanity and iniquity of inequity in our society”. For many years I symbolically kept on my desk a placard with this inspiring biblical language:
“He shall rescue the needy from rich oppressors,
The distressed who have no protector.
He will have pity on the needy and poor,
And redeem them from oppression and violence.”
~ Psalm 72:12-14
In the late 1950’s I was deeply influenced and persuaded by then prominent author-psychotherapist Erich Fromm, about the pathology of ‘normalcy’ in our materialistic society. In “The Sane Society” Fromm suggested that materialistic Western society was lacking in sanity; that the inequities and disharmonies of the entire society were pathological, not just the mental illnesses of people therein. Like Karl Marx, Fromm saw capitalistic greed and exploitation of workers at the root of societal pathology, and persuasively he advocated for democratic socialism. (Much later I learned that my heroes Dr. King, Albert Einstein and the Dalai Lame held similar views.)
Fromm’s essay confirmed and enhanced my instinctive reluctance to selfishly follow materialistic societal goals. And it encouraged me to endorse egalitarian political and economic solutions for redressing indiscriminate imposition of inequality in our capitalistic society. Often I became quite passionate and outspoken about my political views that “the more that money rules the world, the more that money ruins the world”.
Especially after the traumatically shocking 1963 “deep state” assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the soon ensuing ‘false flag’ alleged Gulf of Tonkin attack as pretense for escalated and patently insane 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”. And ultimately I perceived that, despite Eisenhower’s warning, ruling power had indeed been misappropriated by people who are ruling and ruining the world, in concert with the military-industrial complex or “deep state”, while presiding over serious curtailments of US constitutional protections and civil liberties.
I saw that just as Hitler in Nazi Germany had molded an insane society to support his pathological pretensions and plans, sociopathic Western leaders of all political parties have used insidious propaganda about contrived enemies and fomented “terrorists” as a pretense to create insane societies which have fearfully condoned or acquiesced in outrageously immoral wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, drone killings of innocent civilians, and plans for attacking Iran, Libya, Syria and other Moslem countries, with radically expanded US military budgets and executive powers, while obscenely enriching entrenched vested interests.
Politically Engaged Spirituality.
After my mid-life spiritual awakening, my radical political views persisted. But, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and others, I sought to ‘spiritualize’ my legal advocacy and social justice pursuits, so as to foster rather than impede optimal evolutionary advancement. Though outwardly little changed, inwardly I more and more accepted challenges of my lawyer’s life as opportunities to fulfill moral responsibilities to society, my clients, my family and others, while elevating my spiritual awareness.
But, especially after inauguration of the Bush/Cheney administration and the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 – which (based upon indisputable evidence) I deemed ‘false-flag’ operations perpetrated to foment hatred against intended Moslem targets of the military industrial complex – I became so caught up in polarized political issues that I clearly was experiencing more combative (rajasic) and less elevated (sattvic) energy than before meeting Guruji. However, instead of taking responsibility for my own agitated and combative state of mind, I often complained that Bush and Cheney and deep state ‘neocons’ had ‘brought me down’ from higher states of consciousness.
Gradually, I came to see that it was my own disturbed, judgmental and reactive ego/mind – not Bush and Cheney et al – that was psychologically bringing me down. Thus, I also could see (as Mahatma Gandhi observed) that the human mind and human society are “not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.” And I began viewing apparent injustices with more and more detached compassion for the wrongdoers’ egotistic ignorance – yet never abandoning nonviolent Gandhian pursuit of social justice.
Further, during recent “new normal” global sufferings, I’ve realized that most spiritually evolved people are empathetically awakening with deep concern about resisting and ending current needless hardships caused by unprecedented alleged health edicts fraudulently curtailing normal human activities, and by inequitable and unsustainable human exploitation of vulnerable beings and limited planetary resources insanely initiated by transnationally powerful “leaders” and institutions.
Because our hallowed Mother Earth is now experiencing an Aquarian age of “once-in-a-lifetime” favorable cosmic energies and auspicious cyclical and astrological planetary alignments, and because the Eternal Light of Divine Truth always prevails over malignant darkness, I now optimistically foresee humankind’s imminent “critical mass” empathetic awakening to our instinctive caring for one-another, and ascension to elevated new dimensions beyond current space/time sufferings – wherein we will follow our hearts to co-create a prophesied New Earth era of long-lasting happiness beyond space/time sufferings.
Thus I believe that this is an historically unprecedented pivotal time, when much of humankind will ‘quantum leap’ to lovingly higher states of consciousness and spiritual freedom. And that we are immensely fortunate to witness and cooperatively participate in so raising humanity’s collective consciousness, as – at long last – we return to living life as unseen Source of all we see.
Conclusion and Dedication
Hence my Gandhian political philosophy has helped me experience ever expanding gratitude for this hallowed human lifetime, and to remember and revere the Divine Holiness of everyone, everything, everywhere.
May these memoirs about the politics of spirituality and morality similarly inspire all of us, individually and collectively, to gratefully become ever vigilant and concerned spiritual citizens of our beautiful blue planet Earth. And may we non-judgmentally and forgivingly remember the holiness of all Earth-life, until ultimately we realize that everything’s holy; and, that nothing’s really Real, but Divine LOVE.
In arriving at crucial insights about the politics of spirituality and morality, I received much inspiration from the lives and words of others. A collection of quotations which have especially helped me is now posted at https://sillysutras.com/spirituality-religion-and-politics-quotations-and-sayings/.
And so may it be!
Namasté!
Ron Rattner
Quotations About Religion
“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”
~ Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
Introduction
Throughout human history, countless beings have died and suffered in the name of religion, which is often asserted to hypocritically justify immoral partisan political or economic desires.
Because of advanced technologies, wars and other violent behaviors which for centuries have caused immense misery, now threaten all planetary life as we have known it.
So – at long last – humans urgently need to abandon wars and warlike behaviors,
including those waged in the name of religion.
The following quotations and comments about religion, are deeply dedicated to helping us achieve that urgent necessity.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Quotations About Religion
“My religion is very simple.
My religion is kindness.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Today, … any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect
of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate.”
“The time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics
that is beyond religion.”
~ Dalai Lama
“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”
~ Dalai Lama
“This is a time for us to remember that in the name of religion more people have died than in all the wars and natural calamities put together. Now more than ever we must understand that the purpose of religion is not to separate us.
True faiths don’t preach hatred and killing, nor did any of the prophets.
It is the people who interpret the scriptures who create the divisions.
Division comes if we put our ego into the teachings of these religions.
Let us strive to be free of that kind of egoism”
~ Swami Satchidananda
“People often ask me, “What religion are you?
You talk about the Bible, Koran, Torah. Are you a Hindu?”
I say, I am not a Catholic, a Buddhist, or a Hindu, but an Undo.
My religion is Undoism. We have done enough damage (with religious dogma). We have to stop doing any more and simply undo the damage we have already done.”
~ Swami Satchidananda – Beyond Words
“The great religions are the ships,
Poets the life boats.
Every sane person I know has jumped overboard.”
~ Hafiz
“I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, and Confucian.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“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’
“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
“There is one Cosmic Essence, all-pervading, all-knowing, all-powerful.
This nameless formless essence can be approached by any name, any form, any symbol that suites the taste of the individual.
Follow your religion, but try to understand the real purpose behind all of the rituals and traditions, and experience that Oneness.”
~ Swami Satchidananda
“Let us accept all the different paths as different rivers running toward the same ocean.”
~ Swami Satchidananda
“Your daily life is your temple and your religion.”
~ Khalil Gibran – “The Prophet”
“True religion is real living;
living with all one’s soul,
with all one’s goodness and righteousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. ”
~ Albert Einstein
“A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in.
No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow.
They know it is going to rise tomorrow.
When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.”
~ Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
“Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think.
Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
~ George Orwell, 1984
“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.
Faith is, above all, open-ness—an act of trust in the unknown.”
~ Alan Watts
“Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“Religion is the opium of the masses.”
~ Karl Marx
“Religion is confining and imprisoning and toxic
because it is based on ideology and dogma.
But spirituality is redeeming and universal.”
~ Deepak Chopra
“In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”
~ Mark Twain – Autobiography, 1959
At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.”
~ Aldous Huxley
“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
“Wherever I look, I see men quarrelling in the name of religion —
Hindus, Mohammendans, Brahmos, Vaishnavas, and the rest.
But they never reflect that He who is called Krishna is also called Siva, and bears the name of the Primal Energy, Jesus, and Allah as well — the same Rama with a thousand names.
A lake has several ghats. At one the Hindus take water in pitchers and call it ‘jal’; at another the Mussalmans take water in leather bags and call it ‘pani’. At a third the Christians call it ‘water’. Can we imagine that it is not ‘jal’, but only ‘pani’ or ‘water’? How ridiculous! The substance is One under different names, and everyone is seeking the same substance; only climate, temperament, and name create differences.
Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him! He will surely realize Him.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
“Among all my patients in the second half of life …
there has not been one whose problem in the last resort
was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.”
~ Carl Jung
Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
~ John Lennon, “Imagine”
Ron’s comments on urgent necessity of nonviolent reciprocal empathy,
beyond religion-based behaviors
Dear Friends,
The foregoing quotations about religion have been posted to help us avert worldwide catastrophe from false religious interpretations of prophets’ teachings about peace and unity.
Religious prophets have always preached against killing and violence. And every enduring religious, spiritual or ethical tradition has endorsed the “golden rule” of reciprocal empathy and kindness.
For example,
“What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole of the Torah; all the rest of it is commentary.” ~ Rabbi Hillel – Judaism
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”
~ Matthew 7:12 – Christianity
“Hurt not others in ways you yourself would find hurtful.”
~ Udana-Varga, 5:18 – Buddhism
“This is the sum of duty: do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.”
~ The Mahabharata, 5:1517 – Hinduism
“Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”
~ Fortieth Hadith of an-Nawawi,13 – Islam
Yet, countless people have died and suffered throughout human history in the name of religion, which is often cited to hypocritically justify immoral partisan political or economic desires. Because of advanced technologies, wars and other violent behaviors which for centuries have caused immense miseries, now threaten all planetary life as we have known it. So – at long last – humans urgently need to abandon wars and warlike behaviors.
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,
but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
~ Albert Einstein
Humanity can no longer survive, without practicing nonviolent universal ethical behaviors which transcend divisive religious beliefs cited to justify immorally violent activities.
“Today, … any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate.”
“The time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ Dalai Lama
“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.
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
~ Dalai Lama
To end wars and warlike behaviors, it is imperative that we honor our sacred heart’s inner wisdom over divisive religious, political or economic beliefs, so as to transcend problems of violence created from lower ego levels of human consciousness.
With opened hearts let us stop treating others as we don’t wish to be treated ourselves,
by practicing the ‘do no harm’ “golden rule” of reciprocal empathy.
May we begin treating all sentient beings with kindness, compassion and empathy –
with the same dignity that they wish for themselves.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Our Mentality Is Our Reality:
~ Sutra Sayings
“The greatest discovery of any generation
is that human beings can alter their lives
by altering the attitudes of their minds.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
“We do not see things as they are;
we see things as we are.”
~ Talmud
“Our mentality is our reality.
Our “reality” is what we think it to be.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.”
~ George Orwell, 1984
Introduction.
The following verses were inspired by Dr. Albert Schweitzer’s crucial assertion that:
“human beings can alter their lives by altering the attitudes of their minds”
.
They are shared to remind us that our entire space/time “reality” arises only from thought. And that, with vigilant awareness, we can vastly improve our lives by observing, stilling and emptying our minds – our constant thoughts.
Our Mentality Is Our Reality
Our mentality
is our reality.
Change your mentality,
to change your reality.
Learn to observe,
and to still your mind.
Open your mind and see its Source.
Still your mind and Be its Source.
Change your mentality
and Be –
Reality.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Our Mentality Is Our Reality”
Ron’s Explanation and Dedication of “Our Mentality Is Our Reality”
Dear Friends,
My understanding of the foregoing key philosophic concepts began experientially with an unforgettable 1976 out-of-body experience [OOB] in which I observed every thought as a kaleidoscopic form. Thereafter I gradually deduced that our mistaken mental reification of a seemingly separate space/time “reality” subjects us to inevitable karmic problems and sufferings.
Following the OOB, my investigations leading to this realization began with reading published statements of J. Krishnamurti, such as those quoted e.g. in De-condition the Mind.
Now, after over four decades of validating observations and philosophic reflections, I continue to affirm the crucial importance of our mistaken ego-mind self-identification with perceptions and thoughts; that since our problems and sufferings arise mentally, we can gradually transcend them by observing and stilling our minds.
Since thought alone creates our problems and sufferings, thought alone can help us gradually transcend them.
May these writings help us transcend our identification with thought, and thereby to live ever happier and soul fulfilling lives.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Transmutation Beyond Computation
“What really counts in life can’t be counted.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“When one loves, one does not calculate.”
~ St. Therese of Lisieux
Transmutation Beyond Computation
Computers are great
and demonstrate
technology that’s fine.
But we can’t compute
the Absolute —
The Mystery Divine.
We’ll never measure
our greatest treasure –
The gift of Life sublime.
But without computation —
in meditation —
To Heaven we may climb,
And find elation
beyond calculation –
Transcending space and time.
Ron’s spoken explanation and recitation of “Transmutation Beyond Calculation”
Ron’s written explanation of “Transmutation Beyond Calculation”
Dear Friends,
After retiring from legal practice in 1992, I immensely enjoyed many years of introspective semi-seclusion in my San Francisco high-rise hermitage, without a computer, TV, or daily newspaper. Rather than following worldly “news”, I preferred to pray, meditate and reflect about perennial spiritual wisdom.
Until then, my public behavior mostly continued to appear “normal” by worldly standards, though inwardly I was processing a radically zen-like change of life.
So many friends and relatives believing that Ron was still a “normal” worldly person, kept urging me to get a computer and go online. Especially because my beloved Guruji had encouraged my intention to “think about God” after retirement, I adamantly refused to go online with the rest of the world.
And privately I wrote these lines”, which I shared with few others:
Inner Net, Not Internet
Ron’s going off-line,
out-of-line, out of linearity.
While the world wants ever more information,
Ron seeks infinite inspiration:
In the Unknown, in the Mystery –
The Mystery of Divinity.
Ultimately, in 2004 I bought a computer to help my son Josh resolve legal problems with his corporate landlord. Soon afterwards I wrote and shared online the foregoing whimsical poem, “Transmutation Beyond Computation”, which I’ve posted above with spoken explanation and recitation, for your enjoyment and possible edification.
Fourteen years after reluctantly going online, I now greatly appreciate miraculous computer technology which has become an essential tool in my life. But still I adamantly endorse prioritizing mindfulness and introspection over following fake “news” or gossip or online worldly trivial pursuits like twittering, tweeting, messaging etc..
So the essential message of “Transmutation Beyond Computation” remains valid, and I hope you’ll consider it.
As George Orwell accurately observed in his prescient classic “1984”,
“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.”
So especially in these dystopian times it is crucial that our mental programming come from the Sacred Heart of Humanity, and not from monopolistic corporate media.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
