Posts Tagged ‘kundalini kriyas’
Honoring God’s “Holy Fools”
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight.”
~ 1 Corinthians 3:19
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”
~ Deuteronomy 6:4-5
“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
~ 1 John 4:7-8
“Full of love for all things in the world;
practicing virtue in order to benefit others,
this man alone is happy.”
~ Buddha
“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.”
~ Rumi
“Love is the highest, the grandest, the most inspiring,
the most sublime principle in creation.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“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
“Only if one knows the truth of Love,
which is the real nature of Self,
will the strong entangled [ego] knot of life be untied.
Only if one attains the height of Love will liberation be attained.
Such is the heart of all religions.
The experience of Self is only Love,
which is seeing only Love, hearing only Love, feeling only Love,
tasting only Love and smelling only Love, which is bliss.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
Honoring God’s “Holy Fools” ~ Ron’s Memoirs
Introduction
Dear Friends,
Prior memoirs have recounted my midlife transformation from “Secular Hebrew” social justice litigation lawyer to “Born-again Hindu” devotional-emotional lover of God, and then to “Uncertain Undo” seeking ‘relief from belief’, because ‘on the path of Undo, we’ll never be through, ’til we’re and undone ONE!’.
[See e.g. Crying For God and other ‘Kundalini Kriyas’]
This memoirs chapter tells how, as a newly awakened ‘lover of God’ (Bhakta), I’ve discovered and honored “Holy Fools” – rare ascetic and eccentric lovers of God, who don’t live in ordinary worldly ways.
I’ve learned that throughout human history there have been very famous “Holy Fools”. Only after first ‘discovering’ such famous “Holy Fools”, did I later learn that in all human societies there are countless more unknown God intoxicated “Holy Fools”; and that they timelessly bless this world as LOVE.
In some Eastern societies they are called “masts”, a word which originates from the Sufi term mast-Allah, meaning “intoxicated with God”.
In Hindu societies they are called Avadhutas, who are overwhelmed with inner love for God. For millennia India has honored Avadhutas, as self-realized bhakti mystics living beyond worldly ego-mind consciousness and concerns, and without adhering to accepted social standards. (See e.g. Advadhuta Gita)
To help you understand why I have honored spiritual “heretics” and “holy fools” as lovers of God, here is a summary of my devotional history:
Ron’s Devotional history
Until my profound midlife spiritual awakening, I hadn’t shed tears as an adult. But then I cried for twenty four hours. Thereafter, I began wondering why I was crying so much. But soon I realized with amazement that I was crying with intense longing for God. (See Beholding The Eternal Light Of Consciousness.) And I became and remained an extremely devotional, and frequent crier for God – often ecstatically longing and calling for the Divine.
After meeting my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, and receiving his shaktipat initiation into the path of kundalini yoga as “Rasik: one engrossed in devotion”, I gradually learned that my continual longing and profuse crying for God was an immense transformative blessing – recognized not only in the bhakti Hindu devotional tradition, but also in:
1) Sufism epitomized by enlightened Muslim mystical poets Rumi and Hafiz who realized that all appearances in our seemingly complex earthly “reality” are manifestations of ONE eternal LOVE; and
2) in the Orthodox/Catholic “gift of tears” tradition of St. Isaac of Ninevah, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina.
Thus, when not crying I often had what I called ‘alternative LSD experiences’ of spontaneous (and sometimes ecstatic) Laughing, Singing, and Dancing. And even as an octogenarian “Uncertain Undo” I still often privately experience spontaneous outbursts of laughing, crying, and calling to God.
Guruji’s explanation was that:
“There are two kinds of kriyas, one is for purification and the other for the manifestation of joy. ..
Whenever one experiences great joy or bliss, this also manifests physically as crying or laughing.”
~ Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
Learning about devotional spirituality
Not until my 1976 spiritual awakening, did I begin learning about spirituality.
On moving from Chicago to San Francisco in 1960, I was ignorant about spiritual subjects, or religions other than Judaism.
I knew nothing about Christian saints, or core Christian teachings. I didn’t even realize that my new “San Francisco” home city was named for history’s most popular Christian saint. Moreover, apart from Christianity, I was ignorant of Eastern spiritual and religious teachings.
Growing up in Chicago, I had become familiar with Judaism’s core teachings:
“ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is One”; and
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”
~ Deuteronomy 6:4-5
However, I had no idea of their supremely profound sacred significance.
But my midlife spiritual awakening experiences triggered an unprecedented interest in spiritual subjects. Initially – sparked by inner experiences and amazing synchronicities – I experienced great curiosity about Saint Francis of Assisi, and about Christian teachings which inspired him.
Later I began reading hagiographic stories about other Eastern and Western saints and sages. Gradually, I learned that – apart from Jesus and a few other world-famous paragons of Divine LOVE – the Divine devotional path has been followed by countless unknowns, especially in certain societies which for centuries have honored and emphasized devotional Love.
And gradually I became inspired by genuine “lovers of God” as exemplars of an important spiritual tradition, with which I had instinctively joined.
Lovers of God as “Heretics”
On discovering Rumi’s poetry, I learned that Muslim culture has long encompassed all aspects of love, culminating with Sufism’s mystical Self-realization as Divine LOVE as life’s ultimate goal. And, similarly, that Sufi philosophy has so honored eccentric lovers of God that it has specifically identified many of them as “masts” – persons so overwhelmed with love for God, that they appear externally disoriented.
Also, during my 1982 pilgrimage to India I learned that for millennia India has honored avadhutas, self-realized bhakti mystics living beyond usual egoic consciousness and worldly concerns, without adhering to accepted social standards. (See e.g. Advadhuta Gita, and Avadhuta – Wikipedia)
I indelibly remember seeing a peacefully smiling elderly man sitting stark naked on a rock in freezing temperatures midst ice and snow near the Himalayan headwaters of the holy Ganges river.
Like Sufi “masts” and Indian avadhutas, worldwide there have been countless unknowns societally honored as God intoxicated ‘holy fools’ with extraordinarily unconventional behaviors inconsistent with social norms.
Famous “Heretic” Prophets
Supremely eminent Greek philosopher Socrates, who taught the Delphic oracle’s fundamental transformative spiritual maxim “Know Thyself”, was considered an heretic and was sentenced to death after being unjustly tried and convicted for allegedly corrupting the youth of Athens. He was an archetypal wise ‘fool’ whose distinctive teaching method consisted in exposing foolishness of the world. For example, just before Socrates died of a coerced suicide, by drinking hemlock, he declared that fear of death was fear of the unknown.
In Western Christianity Paul the Apostle proclaimed that
“The wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight.”
(1 Corinthians 3:19)
So, Christianity has at times rejected as foolishness “the wisdom of this world”. And it has endorsed the ‘Imitation of Jesus Christ’ – who preached “Love your neighbors” and even “your enemies”. And ‘heretically’ repudiated socially condoned hypocrisy, brutality, greed, and selfish desire for worldly power and gains; forgivingly endured crucifixion, mockery and humiliation from ignorant crowds; and even audaciously proclaimed the ultimately ‘forbidden mystical Truth’ – that “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).
In learning about Jesus’ “heretic” teachings – especially his Sermon on the Mount – I instinctively recognized him as an outspoken social justice reformer, and Truth telling political and religious nonconformist. And I intuitively honored him as a paragon of virtue, like prophets of other great religions, but not as God’s “only Son”.
I always conceived of “God” as ONE universally immanent nameless, formless, nonjudgmental Supreme Power. So I rejected any idea of a personal or judgmental God, and considered the Bible a collection of metaphoric legends – not as ‘the word of God’ who spoke only through special messengers.
And just as I always rejected Torah teachings about Jews as “chosen people”, I could never accept Christian dogma that Jesus was God’s “only Son” because he declared “I and the Father are one”.
Nor – like Gandhi – could I morally accept non-egalitarian Hindu scriptures justifying socially stratified caste systems, with some people deemed “untouchables”.
But I accepted that especially in historically dark and threatening eras of rampant world materialism, decadence, and violence, there have often appeared renowned sages or incarnate avatars to prophetically guide Humankind to societal and spiritual renaissance. And as religious nonconformists and social dissidents these famous reformers – like Jesus and Socrates – often were considered as “heretics”, and severely punished by contemporary worldly authorities.
‘Discovering’ Saint Francis of Assisi and Sri Ramakrishna as heretic “holy fools”.
Most famous Christian emulator of Jesus was Saint Francis of Assisi who in midlife – as an unconventional apostle of Love – renounced and relinquished all his worldly possessions and privileges as son of a wealthy merchant, to live reclusively in the Umbrian countryside; and later to establish an exemplary order of Franciscan Friars who gave away all possessions and survived only on alms while preaching in the streets to common people. Francis so completely identified with Jesus that, near the end of his earthly life, he became the first saint in history to miraculously receive crucifixion stigmata.
St. Francis of Assisi
Perhaps the best known Indian saint of the nineteenth century was Indian Holy Man Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa – an extraordinarily charismatic and eccentric ascetic, sometimes compared to St. Francis of Assisi.
(See Sri Ramakrishna and St. Francis of Assisi, by Sister Devamata, 1935)
Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa
February 18, 1836 – August 16, 1886
After my midlife spiritual awakening, I felt increasing egalitarian affinity and harmony with people living unconventionally ‘from inside out’, rather than with outer-directed worldly and conventional people.
And in learning about many famous saints and mystics, I felt most affinity with Saint Francis of Assisi and Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa.
Both of them were extraordinarily charismatic ascetics, having relinquished and renounced all worldly pleasures and privileges, to live in utter simplicity. Both were remarkably unconventional and seemingly “God intoxicated” exemplars of Divine Love and devotional faith – blessed with the ‘gift of tears’ and of spontaneously praying, singing, conversing and calling to the Divine, which as egalitarians they beheld everywhere and in every being. Both saints eschewed punditry and were simple, unschooled and unscholarly, yet with vast innate wisdom imparted conversationally and recorded by others.
Both historically helped to reform world religions by charismatically living their teachings. And both were so eccentrically unconventional that they were even considered insane by some worldly people, including a few friends and relatives.
Perhaps I found exceptional rapport with both St. Francis and Ramakrishna because my own private devotional tendencies and unconventional behaviors seemed similar to theirs, and especially because of inner and synchronistic experiences, including amazing and unforgettable déjà vu of their still palpable divine energies (shakti) during pilgrimages to India and Assisi.
Later, I learned that that renowned mystical poet-masters Hafiz and Rumi, were Supreme exemplars of the Sufi-Persian path of love. But that even in their societies which honored Love, they were considered by Moslem authorities to be “heretics” or “holy fools” because – like Jesus – they realized and truthfully proclaimed their mystical self-identity as Divine LOVE – a fundamentally forbidden heresy to ruling mullahs. Thus, though Hafiz was not executed, his remains could not be entombed in a Moslem cemetery in his beloved birthplace and cultured home city, Shiraz, Iran.
LOVE as the unseen Source of the worlds we see
Following the midlife spiritual rebirth and awakening, I’ve gradually discovered that LOVE is all that is, was, or will be; that LOVE is our true SELF-identity, and the unseen timeless Source of all worlds we see.
So I’ve realized that all God’s “holy fools” bless this world as living LOVE. And that their eccentricities and ‘heresies’ can help reveal that societal sanity requires radical reform of orthodox worldly rules and beliefs.
Dedication and Invocation – Love for all, Hatred for none!
This memoirs chapter is deeply dedicated to inspiring a critical mass of humanity increasingly to honor each other and all life as ONE LOVE – beyond the endless ego-mind illusion of a space/time duality universe
And let us ever remember that we are the unseen Source of all worlds we see!
So let us love GOD with all our heart and soul and with all our might.
And with firm faith, may our guiding motto ever be
‘Love for all, Hatred for none!’
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Synchronistic “Manifestation Miracles”
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“From wonder into wonder existence opens.”
~ Lao Tzu
“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
~ Buddha
“Life will give you whatever experience
is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“Whatever we think, do, or say,
changes this world in some way.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Synchronistic “Manifestation Miracles”
After many years of reflection, I’ve become convinced that my life has unfolded and evolved perfectly, as if a Divine novelist was writing Ron’s life-plan script. Accordingly my attitude toward life’s inevitable ups and downs has become that everything happens for the best – to promote our evolution; that in every adversity there is an evolutionary opportunity. (See https://sillysutras.com/ive-found-a-faith-based-life/)
Also, I now believe that I’ve been and am now continually blessed and guided by frequent ‘miraculous’ synchronicities – premonitions and meaningful or noteworthy apparent coincidences in time – which Western science can’t yet explain. Therefore, in these memoirs I’m sharing with you some of those synchronicities.
For many years after my midlife spiritual awakening – beginning with a three month period of extraordinarily high energy – such synchronicities have included numerous amazing mystical and psychic experiences elsewhere described.
I learned from my Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, that many of these experiences could be considered manifestations of an autonomic kundalini purification process; an evolutionary process enabling us – each in our own unique way – to live happier and more meaningful lives, and thereby to further evolution of all life on our precious planet with which we are inseparably connected.
Virtually all of my many synchronistic experiences have happened unexpectedly. They have been noteworthy because they were surprising, and often meaningful.
But, in recent years, one type of synchronicity experience – manifestation of desired circumstances or artifacts – has happened so often that I am no longer so surprised by such experiences. However, they remain for me frequent meaningful reminders of our miraculous relative reality and of our blessed life therein, for which I am unspeakably ever grateful.
I haven’t sought psychic powers – and am wary that they can be ego traps – so I haven’t consciously willed such experiences. Yet, frequently some circumstance has fortuitously arisen, or some person or artifact has appeared in my life, fulfilling a wish or perceived need. And sometimes I have perceived such synchronicities as significant spiritual experiences.
The most important of such spiritual experiences was the inner appearance of Guruji and my later synchronistic meeting with him. This happened only after I wholeheartedly began seeking answers to spiritual mysteries arising in my life, had discovered a deep inner yearning for God, and had intuitively begun reciting a Sanskrit Ram mantra.
Probably my most amazing synchronicity experience happened while I was taking a daily walk toward San Francisco Bay, more than twenty years after my 1982 “trip of a lifetime” spiritual pilgrimage to India. At a time when I was trying to recall details of that journey, I found in a garbage dumpster a rare documentary video about that pilgrimage of which I was previously unaware. See https://sillysutras.com/synchronicity-story-miraculously-manifesting-memories-of-a-spiritual-pilgrimage-to-india-and-nepal/
One of the most noteworthy synchronistic circumstances not apparently associated with my spiritual longing, but with an aesthetic longing, was the fortuitous manner in which I found my spectacular San Francisco view condominium and later acquired it as an almost free gift from the Universe. I have now resided in that apartment for over forty years, as a high-rise hermitage, and it has been the happiest dwelling place of my adult life. So elsewhere I’ve shared the story of how it was virtually given to me.
Also, I now have in my lovely dwelling place dozens of previously desired items: plants, furniture and clothing items, other artifacts, and (formerly) even a ‘stash of cash’, all of which I unexpectedly found or received after wanting them. I call these experiences “manifestation miracles”.
Such “miracles”, which are happening continually and with ever increasing frequency, are far too numerous for me to recall and recount. But, in addition to my dumpster and condominium stories, I have recounted other memorable synchronistic “manifestation miracles” which are emblematic of this phenomenon, and which have been especially noteworthy for me.
(* See footnote)
These spiritual memoirs stories are shared, as requested by my Guruji, to help inspire our faith that life always gives us whatever experiences are appropriate for advancement of our happiness and spiritual evolution.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Footnote
*For example, see my previously posted essays on synchronicity. These include A Stash of Cash For Y2K – a “Manifestation Miracle”. And see Apples and The Road Not Taken, a synchronicity story about a “manifestation miracle” involving my unforgettable friend Carol Schuldt.
“Kundalini Kriyas” – A Potpourri Of “Peek” Experiences ~ Ron’s Memoirs
“There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The self, harmonized by yoga,
sees the Self abiding in all beings,
all beings in the Self, everywhere he sees the same.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 6, Krishna to Arjuna
“He who sees Me everywhere, and sees everything in Me,
of him will I never lose hold, and he shall never lose hold of Me.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 6, Krishna to Arjuna
“Kundalini Kriyas” – A Potpourri Of “Peek” Experiences
Especially during the first few years following my self-realization rebirth experience, which cracked – but didn’t dissolve – my self-woven karmic cocoon, I was given numerous glimpses of psychic and clairvoyant phenomena previously unknown to me. These experiences emphatically confirmed to me that the universe didn’t work the way I’d been taught or thought.
Here is my attempted categorization of these fleeting experiences, which looks like an index to a treatise on psychic phenomena:
Out of body experiences; Remote viewing; Astral traveling; Pre-cognition; Synaesthesia; Clairsentience; Seeing past nature scenes; Seeing apparent past life scenes; Exceptional energy experiences; Tantric merging of energy field with others; Seeing otherworldly inner light; Seeing auras from different dimensions; Seeing everyone as angelic; Seeing cosmic ‘perfection’; Seeing causal dimensions; Seeing astral dimensions; Visions (inner and outer); Microscopic vision; Remote diagnosis of medical conditions; Seeing and conversing with Ghandi as inner guide; ‘Channeling’ inner voice information from higher dimensions; Psycho-kinetic manifestations of desired artifacts; Conversing with inner guides and with birds and animals; Ecstatic trance dancing; Ecstatic meditative moods; Ecstatic crying and laughter; Continuing serendipities and synchronicities.
I considered all these psychic phenomena as “miraculous” natural occurrences which conventional science can’t yet explain, not as hallucinations of a deranged psyche. They were valuable insofar as they helped shatter prior paradigms and egoic beliefs, and revealed a deep longing and yearning for God – a yearning which sparked an irresistible curiosity for answers to ultimate philosophical questions, like “Who am I?”, “What is reality?”, “What is death?”, and “What is life’s purpose, if any?”
But these experiences were pitfalls to my spiritual evolution insofar as they fed ego illusions of my being a separate, specially gifted person, rather than universal consciousness – as revealed by my realization rebirth experience.
I was initiated by Guruji into the path of kundalini yoga two years after I began experiencing these spontaneous psychic phenomena. Thereafter, I learned that what I had considered psychic phenomena were called “kriyas” in kundalini yoga – spontaneous physical, mental, or emotional activities initiated by the awakened evolutionary kundalini life-force energies which purify the body and nervous system, thus allowing increasing experience of subtler states of consciousness.
But Guruji taught that each person was unique with unique evolutionary impediments. So different people experienced different “kriyas”, and no particular “kriya” was necessarily required for spiritual evolution. And
I learned from Guruji and others that the evolutionary purpose of spiritual ‘practice’ is to reveal experientially that there is no separate ‘practitioner’; not that the practitioner is in some way a separate, special person with special powers.
Thus, since the evolutionary process is leading us to expression of one Life – one LOVE – amidst the infinite diversity of ephemeral forms, spiritual evolution does not require any particular clairvoyant or psychic abilities (“siddhis”) and evolutionary progress can be impeded by psychic powers which feed rather than diminish ego’s illusion of separateness.
I have learned that perhaps the best universal indicators of spiritual evolution are not psychic experiences or mental powers, but spontaneously compassionate and loving behavior, while skillfully living in the present moment with deep non-reactive awareness, and cessation of unwanted thoughts.
Please remember this as you read stories of my “miraculous” experiences. Each of us is unique with a unique perspective and spiritual path in this world. So, as you follow your Heart – your Bliss – your inner path differs from mine, but is equally authentic.
