Posts Tagged ‘Mind’
Time, Place and Name?
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,
they are modes in which we think”
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“According to the Advaita philosophy, ..this Maya or ignorance–or name and form, or, as it has been called in Europe, time, space, and causality– is out of this one Infinite Existence showing us the manifoldness of the universe; in substance, this universe is one. So long as any one thinks that there are two ultimate realities, he is mistaken. When he has come to know that there is but one, he is right. This is what is being proved to us every day, on the physical plane, on the mental plane, and also on the spiritual plane.”
~ Swami Vivekananda – Jnana Yoga: The Yoga of Knowledge
Thought divides Awareness as a prism divides light.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Visible and invisible are indivisible;
Perceptible and imperceptible are inseparable;
Material and immaterial are integral.
Self subsumes ALL.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
We’re whole,
We’re whole,
We’re whole!
Nothing ever
can dissever
our soul.~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Albert Einstein
Introduction
The following sutra poem was composed during my extended post-retirement reclusive period of prayer and meditation. Its spiritual significance is implied and explained in the above quotations and in related postings.
This posting, like many other SillySutras postings, is about the ancient Advaita-Vedanta non-duality philosophy of ONE Infinite Existence. From inner experiences and reflections, I have long been persuaded of the ultimate verity of that Vedic non-duality philosophy.
And acceptance of that philosophy has inspired previously unimagined and ever expanding happiness in my life. Hence, in sharing these writings I’m hoping they will inspire your similar happiness.
So, please read, listen, reflect, and be happy!
Ron Rattner
Time, Place and Name?
Time, place, and name
Are how mind mistakenly
Measures the Immeasurable,
Divides the Indivisible, and
Names the Unnameable –
Futilely seeking to comprehend
The Incomprehensible.
Ron’s audio recitation of Time, Place, and Name?
Invocation
May precious Advaita-Vedanta non-duality wisdom teachings
increasingly inspire and guide countless people worldwide.
Particularly in current critical times,
may they encourage and motivate us
to fearlessly be inner – not outer – directed;
and thereby to compassionately follow our hearts with LOVE,
rather than our minds with mistaken anxieties and fears,
from illusionary thoughts of separation from each other and Nature.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
‘Silence” ~ Sayings and Quotes
“Silence is the language of God,
all else is poor translation.”
~ Rumi
“Love said to me,
there is nothing that is not me.
Be silent.”
~ Rumi
“Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.”..
“Let silence take you to the core of life.”
~ Rumi
Introduction.
The following timeless quotations about silence, are shared to help all of us keep calm, without harmful anxieties, emotions or fears, in these difficult times.
‘Silence” ~ Sayings and Quotes
“Silence is a true friend who never betrays.”
~ Confucius
“There is something greater and purer than what the mouth utters.
Silence illuminates our souls, whispers to our hearts, and brings them together.
Silence separates us from ourselves, makes us sail the firmament of spirit, and brings us closer to heaven.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“If you don’t know what God’s guidance for your life is,
you might try seeking in receptive silence.
I used to walk receptive and silent amidst the beauties of nature.
Wonderful insights would come to me which I then put into practice in my life.”
~ Peace Pilgrim
Silence is the communing of a conscious soul with itself.
If the soul attend for a moment to its own infinity,
then and there is silence.
She is audible to all men, at all times, in all places,
and if we will
we may always hearken to her admonitions.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
“It is as though he listened
and such listening as his
enfolds us in a silence
In which at last
We begin to hear
What we are meant to be.”
~ Lao-Tzu
“In the silence of the heart God speaks.
If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you.
Then you will know that you are nothing.
It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness,
that God can fill you with Himself.
Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.”
~ Mother Teresa
“One opens the inner doors of one’s heart to the infinite silences of the Spirit,
out of whose abysses love wells up without fail and gives itself to all.”
~ Thomas Merton
“My friend, I am not what I seem.
Seeming is but a garment I wear — a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence.
The “I” in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark.
The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
“We search for Him here and there, while looking right at Him
Sitting by his side, we ask:
Oh Beloved, where is the Beloved?
Enough with such questions
Let silence take you to the core of life
All your talk is worthless when compared with one whisper of the beloved”
~ Rumi
“Each one of us is called to become that great song that comes out of the silence,
and the more we let ourselves down into that great silence the more we become capable of singing that great song.”
~ David Steindl-Rast
”After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
~ Aldous Huxley
“The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.”
~ Baruch Spinoza
“Live laconically –
Speak little; say much.”
~ Ron Rattner (aka Swami Onandonananda)
“Eschew pedantry, punditry, and prolixity,
and seek profundity –
in silence, simplicity and serenity.”
~ Ron Rattner – Sutra Sayings
Ron’s comments about the power of silent minds
Dear Friends,
Have you ever noticed how it feels to be “in the zone” with a stilled or focussed mind? Or noticed how star athletes perform at their highest levels while “in the zone”?
Being in the zone implies a state of consciousness in which increased focus and attention support highest levels of physical or mental performance.
The secret of our success while “in the zone” is a thoughtless or focussed mind. And a thoughtless or focussed mind is often considered crucial to progress on the spiritual path.
That’s why spiritual teachers invariably endorse meditation and other mind-stilling techniques.
According to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras – a sacred Hindu treatise – “yoga” is much more than postures and exercises to keep the physical body strong and flexible:
“Yoga is the cessation of mind.”
By following my Guruji’s key advice to “meditate regularly” I have learned the importance of a stilled mind, and have written extensively on that subject.
Here are some of my “sutra sayings” about a silent mind:
“Bliss abides when thought subsides.”
“When all thoughts cease, we are at peace.”
“Spirit speaks when mind is mute.”
“Mute your mind to hear your heart.”
“The power to think is a great gift;
but, the power to not think is a greater gift.”
“So, to think or not to think, that is the question.”
Invocation
May today’s timeless quotations about silence,
help us remember and experience through silent minds
the crucial power of NOW –
to enable our wise behaviors in these difficult times,
so as to help ourselves and all life everywhere.
May everyone everywhere be happy!
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Thoughts About Thought:
~ Quotes and Sutra Sayings
“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
~ Buddha
“A man is but the product of his thoughts;
what he thinks, he becomes.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Nothing’s either good or bad,
but thinking makes it so.”
~ Shakespeare
Great souls are they who see
that spiritual is stronger than material force,
that thoughts rule the world.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thought divides Awareness as a prism divides light.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
All thoughts,
are thoughts
about thoughts.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
When all thoughts cease,
we are at peace.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Yoga is the cessation of mind.”
~ Patanjali, Yoga Sutras
Introduction.
Humankind are now facing enormous ecological, interpersonal and international crises which we have caused or allowed, that cannot be resolved from the same levels of consciousness which created them. The above quotations and following “thoughts about thought” are dedicated to helping us consciously resolve our critical problems as a global family from elevated intuitive levels of awareness beyond those that caused them.
Also these writings are optimistically offered, with enduring faith that everything happens for the best, and that we are are nearing a “critical mass” of democratic resistance to current dystopian edicts, which will miraculously end these insanely dark times.
Thoughts About Thought: Sutra Sayings
This world is wrought with naught but thought.
Everything’s energy:
E=mc2.
Mind is matrix.
Consciousness is context.
Whatever we think, do, or say,
changes this world in some way.
Thoughts are thinks;
thoughts are things.
Thoughts form thought-forms.
All forms are thought-forms.
Body/minds are thinking thought-forms.
“Reality” is what we think it is.
“Reality” will never be what we wish it to be,
yet it ever will be what we think it to be.
Inner infinity projects outer “reality”.
Everything’s energy in Awareness.
Each thought is a notion,
ever in motion,
in an infinite ocean –
of Being.
Love-thoughts bless the world,
but fear-thoughts afflict it.
Space/time is thought;
no thought, no time, no place.
Problems are thought;
no thought, no problems.
We live optimally
when we live presently,
but think optionally –
not constantly or compulsively.
Thoughts are then;
Life is NOW.
Life is perpetual;
thought is optional.
Bliss abides, when thought subsides.
Ron’s audio recitation of his “Thoughts About Thought”:
Ron’s Comments on his “Thoughts About Thought”
Until mid-life, I self-identified only with my physical body, its story and thoughts, and I never deeply considered what we call the ‘mind’ or its miraculously creative thought processes.
Then, on New Year’s Eve 1974/5, I had an unforgettable out of body [OOB] experience in which from a bedroom ceiling I perceived each of my thoughts as a separate surreally colored kaleidoscopic form above my body, which was face-down on a bed. These perceptions seemed very real – not dreamlike or hallucinatory. And they irresistibly raised for me an urgent new question: “Who or what am I?”
I reasoned that if “I” was on the ceiling of the room, while my body was face-down on a bed, I couldn’t be the body; and that if I was on the ceiling of the room, while my thoughts were appearing below me, I couldn’t be the thoughts. And if not my body and not my thoughts, “Who or what am I?”
Thereafter, irresistibly and persistently, I began pursuing this previously unexamined enquiry with intense longing for an answer – which was bestowed fifteen months later. [See “At Mid-life, a Rebirth to a New Life ~ Ron’s Memoirs”]
Thus my self-identity enquiry and awakening, have blessed and changed my life forever. They began a process which has convinced me that happiness is a choice; that we’re not mere powerless perceivers of our “reality”, but that we co-create our reality with our thoughts, words and deeds; that everything we think, do or say changes this world in some way; and, that this worldly “reality” is dependent upon the awareness with which we envision, experience and co-create it.
Conclusion
Our heartfelt thoughts can be powerfully important as we consciously co-create a loving and peaceful world. As conscious co-creators of our earthly “reality” we can resolve our critical problems from elevated intuitive levels of awareness.
Invocation
May today’s Thoughts About Thought encourage us to consciously find and choose ever growing happiness, with the abiding realization and remembrance that with our projected thoughts we are compassionately co-creating our earthly “reality”.
And may our compassionate creation-realization inspire and enable us to establish human societies, institutions and enterprises which function democratically, holistically and cooperatively for the benefit of all sentient beings and all life everywhere.
May everyone everywhere be happy!
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Awakening to the “Secret of Secrets”
“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
“You will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.”
~ John 8:32
“You are “gods”;
you are all children of the Most High.”
~ Psalm 82: 6
“You cannot teach an ego to be anything but egotistic,
even though egos have the subtlest ways of pretending to be reformed.
The basic thing is therefore to dispel, by experiment and experience, the illusion of oneself as a separate ego.”
~ Alan Watts
“People can’t be talked out of illusions. If a person believes that the earth is flat, you can’t talk him out of that, he knows that it’s flat. He’ll go down to the window and see that its obvious, it looks flat. So the only way to convince him that it isn’t is to say, “Well let’s go and find the edge”
~ Alan Watts
“The individual is separate from his universal environment only in name. When this is not recognized, you have been fooled by your name. Confusing names with Nature, you come to believe that having a separate name makes you a separate being.
This is—rather literally—to be spellbound”.
~ Alan Watts
“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything,
you are essentially conscious of yourself.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
Awakening to the “Secret of Secrets”
For millennia there has been a tacit taboo or ‘conspiracy of silence’ against disclosing to all Humankind our true spiritual and immortal identity.
Except for those raised in so-called ‘primitive’ or indigenous societies, or those imbued with Eastern religious philosophy, most people have been acculturated from time immemorial into societies with “an unrecognized but mighty taboo — our tacit conspiracy to ignore who, or what, we really are.” (Alan Watts: The Book, On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Preface.)
From childhood we are taught to self-identify only with an illusory and disempowering ego image; with a separate name, gender, and story about who and what we are. We are taught that we are each born into Nature as limited beings; but, not that Nature is our nature, or that we are Beings of Light sharing limitless immortal common consciousness with all life-forms.
Nor are we ever taught the greatest “secret of secrets”: that we are not mere powerless perceivers of our “reality”, but also its co-creators – that we co-create our reality with our thoughts, words and deeds; that everything we think, do or say changes this world in some way; and, that this worldly “reality” is dependent upon the awareness with which we envision, experience and co-create it.
To experientially realize that greatest “secret of secrets” is to Know Thyself. And to Know Thyself, is to know the Whole – the Truth that will set us free.
For countless ages sages, seers and mystics have been trying to tell us that we are not what we think we are! That we suffer from perception-deception – with self-identity and reality not what they appear to be; that it is possible to experientially transcend the inevitable suffering of ordinary human existence through self-realization of and self-identification with an undivided eternal spiritual reality – which is the common essence of all space-time causality reality.
Mystics say that we share common Self identity – as Cosmic Consciousness or Non-Duality Reality; that we are not merely our mortal bodies – their names, genders, features, colors, religions, beliefs, emotions, habits or stories – or the ‘voices in our heads’. We are non-dual immortal spirit experiencing fleeting earth lives from infinite perspectives in transitory physical vehicles. But we’re all the same ‘under the hood’.
Yet until now that greatest secret has been mostly concealed or denied: predominantly by subconscious suppression or psychological inability of humankind to accept or entertain non-experienced facts which contradict or threaten their cherished illusionary beliefs about “reality”; sometimes by institutions and individuals seeking selfish hierarchical exploitation of our precious planet and all its life-forms and resources.
Until now ignorance of our true identity and immortality, has resulted in humanity’s hallucination of separation from Nature, from each other, and from our sole Self and spirit, with consequent destructive insanity, selfishness and suffering.
But now, facing ominous and enormous ecological, interpersonal and international crises which cannot be resolved from the same levels of consciousness which created them, we are at long last being awakened from our delusion of separateness and powerlessness. Spurred by increasing suffering and awareness of imminent catastrophe, we are finally dispelling the ignorance which has spawned these crises.
And we shall soon reach a tipping point, when a critical mass of Humankind will have awakened to the “secret of secrets”, uplifting all human consciousness and resolving harmoniously and compassionately the critical mess created by our prior unawareness of that “secret”.
Thus awakened, we shall harmoniously, cooperatively and lovingly resolve our common crises for our common good.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Ron’s commentary on the taboo against knowing who we really are.
The foregoing essay was inspired by the above Rumi “secret of secrets” quote, and by Alan Watts’:
“The Book, On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”, ©1966.
Watts was a brilliantly insightful, erudite and articulate UK philosopher, author, and teacher, with post-graduate degrees in Theology and Divinity. After five years as an ordained Episcopal priest, he ‘converted’ to Zen Buddhism and in 1951 moved to Marin County, California from the UK. Thereafter, until his death in 1973, Watts became a counterculture icon,
best-known for introducing Eastern philosophical and religious thought to Westerners.
I first learned about Watts’ teachings listening to KPFA Pacifica radio, Berkeley, which posthumously broadcast his lectures on Sunday nights, while I was driving for visits with my aged parents. Those broadcasts helped me to learn about Eastern wisdom and philosophy of spiritual evolution – of which I was previously ignorant.
Only after launching the Silly Sutras website in 2010 did I discover and read Watt’s 1966 “The Book, On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”. By then I concurred with Watts’ assertions about origins of the illusion of a separate ego self, and how that illusion is central to our ominous and enormous ecological, interpersonal and international crises.
Moreover, before 2010 I’d already learned about extreme psychological reluctance of most people to entertain or accept true facts contrary to their cherished beliefs about “reality”. And soon after President Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, I’d become quite aware of powerfully insidious Orwellian propaganda techniques used to ‘brainwash’ people about alleged truth of outrageous government lies, and to marginalize truth-telling dissidents by ridiculing them as “conspiracy theorists”, “kooks”, “foreign agents”, “communists”, or “socialists”, and blatantly censoring or dishonestly denying their ‘inconveniently’ truthful revelations.
So I concurred with Alan Watts’ contentions concerning a tacit taboo or conspiracy of silence against revealing our true identity and infinite potentiality. Thus I have composed the foregoing essay, and endorse Watts’ book “On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”, linked below as an audio book file.
Invocation
May these writings inspire our awakening to “the secret of secrets”, and thereby to irreversibly realize ourselves as uniquely interdependent expressions of ONE universal, ineffable and eternal Reality – the cosmic Self matrix of all Life everywhere.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Audio: Alan Watts: The Book, On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.
https://youtu.be/h5hLnNRxYqc
Other links:
https://binged.it/2E3SoYK
https://binged.it/2GzTYmG
Crazy World
“‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ said Alice.
‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the cat.
‘We’re all mad here.’”
~ Lewis Carroll
“I have lived on the lip of insanity,
wanting to know reasons,
knocking on a door.
It opens.
I’ve been knocking from the inside.”
~ Rumi
Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
~ Carl Jung
“When the world goes mad,
one must accept madness as sanity;
since sanity is, in the last analysis,
nothing but the madness on which the whole world happens to agree.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. —– They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.”
~ Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited
“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority,
but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination” ….
“When we remember that we are all mad,
the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”
~ Mark Twain
“To recognize one’s own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“It’s no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
~ J Krishnamurti
In this crazy world normality’s insanity,
and silliness is sanity.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Ron’s Introduction
The following four-line whimsical poem was composed during a brief midlife period when I felt I didn’t belong here. After you consider it, I’ll hereafter try to explain it.
Crazy World
I feel like a stranger in a strange world.
This crazy world has driven me sane!
I seek refuge from this crazy world;
I seek a sane asylum.
Ron’s 2020 explanation and dedication of “Crazy World”
Dear Friends,
During childhood my life seemed like a waking dream, most of which I forgot.
Then during adulthood I became a social justice seeker in a perceived unjust and insane society. But now (at age 87), as I prepare to bid Bye-Bye to the 21st century, I’m again often experiencing this life as an illusory waking dream of an insane world. Yet I still deeply aspire to help those who are suffering in this dream world.
During the 1950’s, I was deeply influenced on reading “The Sane Society” a best-selling book by then prominent German-born psychotherapist Erich Fromm. In it Fromm analyzed the pathology of ‘normalcy’ in Western materialistic societies. He proposed that inequities and disharmonies inherent in entire industrial societies were pathological and lacking in sanity. That they thereby cause alienation, stress and mental illnesses of people comprising such societies. Fromm’s essay synchronistically confirmed my long-time views of the insanity of materialistic society, with its inevitable injustices.
Long before my spiritual awakening, I had a deep inner instinct to pursue social justice causes, with considerable sensitivity to the “insanity and iniquity of inequity in our society”. So, in becoming a lawyer and throughout my professional career, my main motivation was to help others; not to become rich or famous.
Then, following my midlife spiritual awakening, I began feeling like Moses in Egypt – like a stranger in a strange land. [Exodus 2:22] For a short time, I felt like I no longer belonged in this crazy world.
But I needed to support my young children, and gradually realized that maybe I might continue helping others better than ever before, because of my discovery of happiness and sanity beyond space/time “reality” normality. As the bible says, eternal happiness or “the Kingdom of Heaven” is beyond this world. [e.g. John 15:19]
The foregoing four-line whimsical poem was composed during the brief midlife period when I felt I didn’t belong here. I’ve shared it aspiring to help expand our experience of inner happiness.
Invocation
May the foregoing whimsical poem and serious quotations encourage and inspire each of us to seek and find refuge from this crazy world in an Eternally “sane asylum”.
Thereby may we irreversibly realize that our precious lives here, are like waking dreams – fleeting episodes in an endless play of ever joyous Universal Awareness, our ultimate shared eternal Self–identity.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Ron’s oral explanation and recitation of “Crazy World”
Know Death to Know Life;
Know Death to Know That
There is No Death
“Death is truly part of life … ‘what we called death is merely a concept’.”
“This happens at the gross level of the mind.
But neither death nor birth exist at the subtle level of consciousness that we call ‘clear light.’”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama, citing Tibetan Book of the Dead.
“Everything is changeable, everything appears and disappears; there is no blissful peace until one passes beyond the agony of life and death.”
~ Gautama Buddha
“And it is in dying [to ego life] that we are reborn to eternal life.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi, peace prayer, edited by Ron Rattner
“Normally we do not like to think about death. We would rather think about life. Why reflect on death? When you start preparing for death you soon realize that you must look into your life now… and come to face the truth of your self.
Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected.”
~ Sogyal Rinpoche
“Birth and death are virtual,
but Life is perpetual.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“As we lose our fear of leaving life,
we gain the art of living life.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Know Death to Know Life;
Know Death to Know That There is No Death.
In phenomenal polarity reality
the idea of life, implies the idea of death.
All that appears disappears.
So, to live and to know earth-life,
we must experience and know earth-death.
But to Know and to Be that Consciousness
which is eternally aware of both earth-life and earth-death,
is to know that, beyond all appearance and disappearance,
There is no death –
only THAT which Knows.
So, to truly know Life
is to Know Death.
And to truly know death
is to Know that there is no death.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Know Death to Know Life; Know Death to Know That There is No Death”.
Ron’s Commentary on Knowing Death to Know Life.
Dear Friends,
Most Silly Sutras postings are dedicated to helping raise our spiritual consciousness, and thereby to enabling us to live happier lives, both individually and societally. Paradoxically many such postings intended to help us live happier lives, address death and dying.
Enduring religious and spiritual traditions reveal that “our deepest fears hide our highest potentials”, and that “as we lose our fear of leaving life, we gain the art of living life.”
So to help us transcend our fears of death and dying, I have today posted the foregoing poem Know Death to Know Life; Know Death to Know That There is No Death, plus an excellent embedded video documentary “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”, narrated by poet Leonard Cohen, together with its narrative text, which includes this key insight:
Physical death is inevitable and natural. But most people fear death, believing it ends life.
Thus, in much of American society dying is largely a taboo subject, with euphemistic and sorrowful language used to describe death and dying. And Americans usually die in hospitals or other institutions, and not at home surrounded by loved-ones. In the current extraordinary 2020 coronavirus pandemic era, billions of people worldwide seriously suffer from fear of death or disease, and loved-ones are often prevented from being with and consoling sick and dying people.
For millennia traditional societies have recognized physical death as an inevitable part of life, and have evolved elaborate traditions and teachings about death. For example, ancient Egyptians and Tibetans have codified such teachings in ‘Books of the Dead’. My beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, ran away from home at age thirteen in search of experiential answers to the interrelated perennial questions of “Who am I?” and “What is death?”.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead documentary video embedded below can help us transcend fear of death and dying. It was produced by NHK Japanese TV, and includes statements by the Dalai Lama, and authentic footage of Tibetan death teachings and practices in Ladakh. Whether or not you watch it, I recommend you read the posted narrative which is eloquently expressed in the film by poet Leonard Cohen.
Invocation
May these teachings about death and dying
help enable us to live ever happier lives,
both individually and societally,
as we lose the fear of leaving life, and gain the art of living life.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
NHK documentary “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”, narrated by Leonard Cohen.
Documentary Narrative*.
Although everything on Earth seems stable and solid, nothing here is permanent. Like water, snow and ice, life is always shifting and changing form. All existence is one kind of state or another. This means living in an atmosphere of uncertainty – moving without a place to rest.
In this world, we pass through the spiritual state of physical existence. Here, we want to make something lasting and secure, but no one has been able to accomplish this. Our life is always in the hands of death. At death, our experience is completely out of our control. Our experience is completely naked.
What is the best path through this spiritual state? It is a question of waking up right now, looking at our own mind. Look at it when it is calm and still and when it is running wild. This is what Buddha did and what he taught. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”
Soon we all will die. All our hopes and fears will be irrelevant.
Out of luminous continuity of existence, which has no origin and which has never died, human beings project all the images of life and death, terror and joy, demons and gods. These images become our complete reality. We submit without thinking to their dance. In all the movements to this dance, we project our greatest fears on death and we make every effort to ignore it.
Illusions are as various as the moon reflecting on a rippling sea. Beings become easily caught in the net of confused pain. We must develop compassion as boundless as the sky so that all may rest in the clear light of our own awareness.
At death, we lose everything we thought was real. Unless we can let go of all the things we cherished in our life we are terrified. We cannot stop struggling to hold on to our old life. All our fear and yearning will drag us into yet another painful reality.
We are always wandering through transitional spiritual states. Difficulty in leaving behind our old life can cause us to wander in painful uncertainty.
The spiritual state of dying lasts from the beginning of the body’s physical collapse until the body and consciousness separate.
While we are living, the elements of Earth, water, fire and air together support and condition our consciousness. Death occurs when this is no longer the case. Now, without the screens and filters of daily life, at this time, mind itself can be seen directly. In the spiritual state of dying, it is important to recognize our own true nature.
At death, there is an experience of piercing luminosity, pure white light, the clear radiance that rises directly from our own basic nature. Now, there is no darkness, no separation, no direction and no shape, only brilliant light. This boundless sparkling radiance is mind, free from the shadows of birth and death – free from any boundaries of any kind.
Now all pervasive light engulfs us completely. All of space is dissolved into pure light. This radiance is the mind of God, the mind of all the awakened ones. Recognizing this is all that is necessary for liberation from birth and rebirth. If we do not recognize our divine nature, a dreamless sleep will happen.
In three days time, all emotions will be vivid and intense. Though it seems we are entering into a new reality, it is still the reality of our own mind.
Wandering back to the familiar sites and people of our old life, our own mind will arise before us in unfamiliar ways. We may not know if we are alive or dead. Even so, we may see our family crying. We must leave our former life behind if we are to progress.
If the we are unable to recognize the luminosity of mind itself, our experience now takes the shape of random imagery of our former life. We see our friends and relatives calling out to us and they cannot hear our replies. Death has cut us off from them and sorrow strikes our heart. We see our family and relatives crying. We can see our bed but we are no longer the one lying there. Instead, there is a corpse.
Soon we will experience the intense presence of our own emotional states as peaceful and raging light forms. Now, we will meet our mind in the form of projections which seem vivid and entirely real. Now we will see penetrating blue light shining all around us. This is the essence of consciousness, God (Buddha). The wisdom of God is like a mirror reflecting everything. God is the form of consciousness in its complete purity. This wisdom is inseparable from our own heart. But also we will see a diffused white light which we must avoid if we are to achieve liberation. If we follow the allure of the soft white light, we will find ourselves ensnared in the temporary pleasures of being born as a god, living in Lordly ignorance of the passage of time and subject to unexpected death.
If this path is taken, the wisdom of our very heart and mind takes the form of spiritual entities. There will be peaceful spiritual entities that emanate from our heart and wrathful ones that emerge from our brain.
They will appear one by one and then all together. The peaceful spiritual entities are complete and immovable. If we cannot bear to enter their vast benevolent space, if we cannot let go of self-centeredness and fear, these deities will become terrifying wrathful ones. If we recognize them as an expression of our own mind, they are the unsparing face of wakefulness.
The wrathful forms emerging from the brain appear before us actually and clearly as if they were real in their own right. The terror and anger we feel are our own efforts to evade from being completely awake. We wander uncertainly in the landscape of our own mind. If we recognize this as our own projections, liberation is instantaneous.
These wrathful forms are the presence of our innate wisdom, the vivid form of our own wakefulness. We must recognize them as a reflection of our own mind. Recognition and liberation are simultaneous.
All of us feel sparks of anger, flickers of passion, and twinges of jealousy during brief moments. From these seeds, we grow to become the jealous person. We say “this is what I am” and we act accordingly. But these are just our masks and we forget that we are wearing them. We run from the masks that others wear. The wrathful spiritual entities are our own mind and it is impossible to run away from them. They are the sharpness of our own clarity. They are all in our mind.
Then altogether and all at once, the peaceful and wrathful spiritual entities come before us. If we do not recognize them as our own projections, then they transform into the terrifying image of the Lord of Death. This too is our own projection. But if we don’t accept that, our fear and turmoil force us to wander on in terror to the spiritual state of rebirth. We leave the spiritual state of the nature of mind. Again we are lost and wandering, so now we seek to end our suffering by being born into a solid and familiar place.
Now in the spiritual state of rebirth, all our senses have become extremely acute. Our consciousness is like a body without substance. In this body, we can, by a mere thought, travel to anywhere. As if we have miraculous powers, we can pass through mountains and circle the universe. We can enter anywhere but nowhere can we rest.
In the pain of our endless wandering, the thought of being born now promises great relief. We can still see our family, but we no longer know we are with them. We are driven on the winds of hope and fear like a leaf that is carried in the wind.
If we are still unable to recognize our own nature, our anger, lust and confusion become ever more intense, ever more solid. They at last appear to us as entire realms where we may stop and dwell. The image of our former body becomes faint and the image of our future body becomes clear. Any birth seems better than his current pain.
Since everyone is caught in these spiritual states of suffering, what can we do? People make hell realms out of their own anger. They make worlds out of passion. We project our emotional states and believe it is the real world. But no matter what, everyone longs for compassion. Everyone wishes to be awake. The best thing is to develop genuine compassion for all living things and for ourselves too. If we do not truly care for others we cannot know our own mind. We can have lofty insights and pure impulses, but then return to our old habits without even noticing it. We must work all the time to open our hearts and look for the truth. Otherwise there is neither understanding nor a purpose for understanding. Also, as life goes by, it is a good idea to keep your sense of humor.
We are now coming to the end of our journey. As we reach the end of the spiritual state of rebirth, the features of the world we are to enter will become very clear to us. If we pay attention now, we will find our way to a favorable rebirth.
We are now on the path to rebirth. We must choose carefully where we are to be born. In all the possibilities that are present before us, we must choose our new life. If we choose a good human birth in a good place, we can continue on the path of recognizing our own mind. Even though we are desperate for a home, a dark cave in a forest can lead to a birth in the animal realm. If we are consumed by yearning, the realm of hungry ghosts can become a never-ending realm of hunger and thirst for us. Rage, bitterness, and anger open all the images of hell. It is best to avoid the extremes of pleasure or pain when selecting a new birth. It is best to be born where we can still recognize the luminous essence of our own mind.
We will not remember much of our journey when we are born again. It will be like starting out new. Though death is always something to be mourned, being born is not something to be celebrated. There is an old saying: “When we are born, we cry, but the whole world is overjoyed. When we die, the world cries and we can become overjoyed when we find the great liberation.”
*Source: Kevin Williams, http://www.near-death.com/religion/buddhism/commentary.html
Hydrologic Logic:
What People Can Learn From Snowflakes
“Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.”
~ Rumi
“Love is the water of life,
jump into this water.”
~ Rumi
“To understand water is to understand the cosmos,
the marvels of nature, and life itself.”
~ Masaru Emoto
Hydrologic Logic: What People Can Learn From Snowflakes
Perennial wisdom says we can learn about ourselves by closely observing all of Nature’s manifestations and processes.
“As above, so below; as below, so above.”
~ The Kybalion, Hermetic axiom
“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”
~ Albert Einstein
So, what can we learn about ourselves by studying snowflakes and hydrologic processes?
Science tells us that though countless trillions of snowflakes have fallen on earth each has a unique form; that each snowflake is an hexagonally symmetrical crystalline form which begins around a tiny speck of dust – as each pearl forms around a sand particle – but that no two snowflakes are exactly alike.
How amazing!!! http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/faqs/faqs.htm
Yet, despite this wondrous and unimaginable diversity of forms, all snowflakes have a common essence – frozen water – H20.
When a snowflake melts, it returns to and merges with its watery source, which is perpetually recycled. So, each snowflake’s essence is the same – recycled water, which has formed countless unique prior snowflakes.
Not only do miraculously unique snowflakes originate from their common watery essence, but science says that such essence is indestructible. Water – a liquid – is a form of ‘matter’ which is merely manifest energy: E=mc2. And energy can’t be destroyed. It just recycles endlessly from formlessness to differing forms and phenomena. So, in their essence, snowflakes are immortal energy.
People are like snowflakes
Like miraculously unique snowflakes, each of the countless humans who has inhabited Earth has had a unique form and genetic makeup. Like snowflakes, human physical bodies are composed of common elemental earth constituents, including mostly water. People’s physical bodies – like snowflakes – appear for a twinkling of time, die and ‘melt’ back into the watery Earth.
But, presumably unlike snowflakes, each of us is aware of our environment and of our life’s experiences; and this awareness is our entire existence. So, while unique snowflakes are united in glorious diversity by their common watery essence, physically unique human beings, are unified not only by their common elemental earthly constituents but, also, by their by their common essence – consciousness, which is the sole context of human beingness.
Snowflakes appear in Nature and, apparently, are peacefully at one with Nature until they disappear. Humans appear in Nature but – unlike snowflakes – we have great intelligence and we think a lot. And through thought we identify ourselves as our perceived separate forms. Thus, we think that we are entities “condemned” by nature to inevitable bodily death. But we don’t know what will happen to us upon such death.
So, we become afraid of dying; of giving up the known for the unknown. And, through thought, we try to “protect” and preserve our ephemeral physical forms and to deter or psychologically deny their inevitable demise. Accordingly, our lives are often marked by mental afflictions causing conflicts, problems and suffering, which disturb our peace and awareness of at-one-ment with Nature.
What people can learn from snowflakes
Q. So, what can people learn from snowflakes?
A. To let go and ‘go with the flow’; to ‘cool it’ and to not worry about our inevitable disappearance.
We can realize that we are much more than our unique physical forms, or our thoughts. That like snowflakes we are inextricably interdependent essential elements of Nature; that Nature is our nature, until we melt into Mystery and disappear into Nature’s Eternal Essence.
Realizing this, we can begin more and more to self-identify with Nature as our immortal Essence rather than with our ephemeral forms and thoughts; and, gradually, we can expand our perceived boundaries, to ever evolve as these boundaries dissolve.
Thus, we can more and more live with less and less anxiety, fear and worry. Though in this life we may never totally transcend entity identity, often we can just be at peace – as immortal awareness.
And so,
“As we lose our fear, Of leaving life, We shall gain the art of living life.”
And – like snowflakes – maybe some day we’ll be ‘recycled’ some way. e.g. http://www.victorzammit.com/Whenwedie/whatdoeshappen.htm
Or maybe not. e.g. http://tinyurl.com/mlw6erq
In all events, – like snowflakes – we need not worry about leaving. For
“It is in dying [to ego life] that we are reborn to Eternal Life.”
~ Saint Francis of Assisi, peace prayer
Conclusion
People can learn from snowflakes to let go and go with Nature’s flow, until we become immortal; we can learn that
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
~ Lao Tzu
And that:
“The dewdrop belongs to the sea. Separated, it is vulnerable to the sun and wind and other elements of nature; but when the droplet returns to its source, it becomes magnified in oneness with the sea. So it is with your life. United to God you become immortal.’
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
So, as elements of Nature, we need not worry, and can be happy and peaceful as we melt into our immortal Source – like snowflakes!
Namaste!
Ron Rattner
Hydrologic Logic Epilogue, May, 2020, Honoring Dr. Masaru Emoto .
Dear Friends,
In recent messages and postings I’ve optimistically opined that the current coronavirus pandemic emergency has given us an unprecedented opportunity to co-create a new and wonderful world of happiness, harmony and health for everyone everywhere. And I’ve tried to suggest how that can happen, if we follow our hearts, instead of being paralyzed by propaganda provoked fear and panic.
Did you know that the Earth is 70 percent water, and that people are 70 percent water; and, that according to NASA, “Water is the fundamental ingredient for life on Earth” ?
The foregoing essay was originally inspired by the ancient hermetic axiom, ‘as above, so below’ and by advice of my Guruji and other wisdom teachers to learn from Nature. Later in 2004, via the film “What the Bleep Do We Know?”, I was deeply impressed on discovering the pioneering research of Dr. Masaru Emoto whose astonishing discoveries, documented photographically, have led to awakened awareness about water as Earth’s most precious resource.
Dr. Emoto discovered that molecules of water are affected by our thoughts, words, and feelings, so that that humans can positively impact the earth and our personal health through loving, grateful and harmonious attitudes and actions, especially with attention to water; that since the Earth is 70 percent water and people are 70 percent water, he theorized that we can heal our planet and ourselves by consciously expressing love and goodwill to and through water.
He explained and demonstrated that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific concentrated thoughts are directed toward them; that water from clear springs and water that has been exposed to loving words shows brilliant, complex, and colorful hexagonal snowflake patterns, whereas polluted water, or water exposed to anger or other negative thoughts, forms incomplete, asymmetrical patterns with dull colors.
Also Dr. Emoto described the ability of water – like a liquid computer – to absorb, hold, and even retransmit human feelings and emotions. Using high-speed photography, he found that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific, concentrated thoughts are directed toward it. Music, visual images, words written on paper, and photographs also have an impact on the crystalline structures. These methods even experimentally worked on asymmetrical Tokyo tap water. Dr. Emoto theorized that since water has the ability to receive a wide range of frequencies, it can also reflect the universe in this manner.
Especially in these unprecedented times of worldwide pandemic panic when insanely delusional human behaviors imminently threaten Earth-life as we have known it, we have unprecedented opportunity to gratefully and lovingly cherish and harmoniously heal our precious watery world, which appears blue from outer space, and was thus eloquently described by legendary astronomer Carl Sagan as a “pale blue dot” in this vast universe.
Invocation
Instead of being paralyzed by fear and panic, may we follow our hearts, rather than unfounded official edicts, to collectively and cooperatively realize an abiding “new normal” era of cooperation, harmony and peace on our precious planet.
So let us gratefully and lovingly be guided by these wise words from Paramahansa Yogananda:
“Every day should be a day of Thanksgiving for all the gifts of Life — sunshine, water, the luscious fruits and greens, which we receive as indirect gifts from the Great Giver.”
“Affirm divine calmness and peace, and send out only thoughts of love and goodwill if you want to live in peace and harmony.
Never get angry, for anger poisons your system.”
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
“The Secret Life of Water”
Embedded below are three brief videos:
A memorable two minute scene from “What the Bleep Do We Know?”;
A one minute+ video showing hexagonal crystals forming in Tokyo tap water;
And a beautiful nine minute video with healing music, watery photography, and with words from Dr. Emoto titled “The Secret Life of Water” . ENJOY!
Bi-Polar Paradigm Disorder
“‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ said Alice.
‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the cat. ‘We’re all mad here.’”
~ Lewis Carroll
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“When the world goes mad,
one must accept madness as sanity;
since sanity is, in the last analysis,
nothing but the madness on which the whole world happens to agree.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
Wassily Kandinsky – Black Lines
Bi-Polar Paradigm Disorder
We live in an age of mental malaise.
The world now suffers an epidemic
of bi-polar paradigm disorder.
This condition begins to arise when people
futilely try to divide the Indivisible,
by everywhere drawing imaginary border lines –
like “us and them”, “good and evil”, “God and Satan” etc..
These border-line people then get mentally unbalanced
and feel dis-eased and threatened by people
‘on the other side’ of their imaginary lines.
Their border-line thinking is not logical, but pathological.
Bi-polar paradigm disorder is closely related to another
wide-spread mental disorder now afflicting
most of Humankind – Chronic Belief Syndrome.
Researchers are looking for a common cure for both afflictions;
a cure which will provide Humankind with “relief from belief”.
However, they are presently unable to secure federal funding for their research project and don’t believe that such a cure is imminent.
Ron’s audio recitation of Bi-Polar Paradigm Disorder
Ron’s Commentary on “Bi-Polar Paradigm Disorder” and “Chronic Belief Syndrome”.
Dear Friends,
We live in an age of mental malaise.
In some commentaries I have darkly described world society as insanely dystopian and Orwellian – as symptomatic of pandemic societal sickness. And I’ve attributed our suffering to human ignorance, fear and greed fomented and exploited by psychopathic world financial, political and corporate billionaire “leaders” selfishly serving interests of power and profits over people for a ‘Big Brother’ “deep state”.
But today I offer a sure cure for all such sufferings – a true panacea and formula for alchemically transmuting dystopia to utopia. Instead of complaining, today I’m explaining how we can and shall resolve our political problems.
Inspired by Dr. Seuss, I have identified and ‘diagnosed’ above as the fundamental causes of our societal insanity two widespread mental disorders: “Bi-Polar Paradigm Disorder” and “Chronic Belief Syndrome”.
Delusionally believing ourselves separate from and mortally threatened by apparently perceived ‘others’, we compulsively fear them and fight ‘them’. But we suffer from perception projection deception; what we think we see are merely mental mirages – seemingly apparent but nonexistent.
Our hallucinatory mental problems cannot be solved from the same levels of consciousness that created them.
So, rather than prescribing new pills for our mental ills – offering only temporary symptomatic relief – today I am privileged to reveal natural and ‘open-source’ mental mood and awareness elevators, which are sure cures for all of Humankind’s illogical psychological problems.
Amazingly these sure cures are freely available – infinitely and eternally – within everyone and everything everywhere. They are:
Universal Spirit, Being, Awareness, Bliss; Eternal Peace, Life, Light, LOVE.
By uncovering, accessing and compassionately emanating these sure cures, we will inevitably solve and resolve all world problems and crises arising from Human ignorance and greed.
And so it shall BE!
Ron Rattner
What is the human “mind”?
Is it best friend or worst enemy?
One must elevate – and not degrade – oneself with one’s own mind, as the mind is both a friend and an enemy.
For those who have subdued and conquered the mind, it is the best of friends.
But for those who fail to do so, the mind remains the greatest of enemies.
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter Six, Lord Krishna to Arjuna (6.05-06)
Bhagavad Gita – Krishna teaching Arjuna
Q. What is the human “mind”?
A. “Mind” is a word-concept with many meanings. In answering this question, we define the human “mind” as a conditioned egoic space/time energy process, which we also call “mortal-mind”, or “ego–desire mind”, or “conditioned mind”.
Religious philosophies sometimes equate “Mind” with God, or ultimate Reality beyond space/time. But we distinguish and exclude those concepts of ultimate Reality in answering this question about the human “mind”, as the conditioned perceiver and projector of space/time samsaric ‘reality’ .
In the Bhagavad Gita, an important Hindu scripture, Divine Avatar Lord Krishna informs warrior Arjuna that the conditioned human mind
“is both a friend and an enemy”; that “for those who have subdued and conquered the mind, it is the best of friends. But for those who fail to do so, the mind remains the greatest of enemies.”
Q. How can the human mind be either our best friend or worst enemy?
A. The human mind can be either our best friend or worst enemy, depending on whether we use it skillfully to advance, or egotistically to deter, our spiritual evolution – to either terminate or perpetuate mistaken ego entity-identity.
The above Bhagavad Gita passage epitomizes the essential spiritual teaching of the entire Scripture: Attaining freedom from saṃsāra, the karmic cycle of death and rebirth, through spiritual liberation or Moksha. Metaphorically this scripture portrays (in an epic battle) the perpetual conflict between good and evil – between satisfying ego’s endless desires for ephemeral worldly gratifications, or transcending ego to achieve realization as God – the Absolute eternal spirit beyond all impermanent energy forms and phenomena.
When it identifies and perpetuates itself as ego, the human mind can be our worst enemy.
For millennia spiritual sages have identified “ego” as the greatest impediment to spiritual evolution and Self realization. Thus, the ancient Vedic seers told us that “Ego is the biggest enemy of humans.” (Rig Veda ) And the Dalai Lama says that in Buddhism ego is the “number-one enemy of compassion.”
“Ego” is conditioned mind’s mistaken self-identity as an entity separate from God – as a separate mortal perceiver of a supposedly objective world. But this is an unreal illusion – a mental mirage. Nonetheless ego-mind fearfully and constantly attempts to perpetuate its unreal existence. But such attempted self-preservation is ultimately futile. What never was can never be preserved.
Thus, while conditioned-mind attempts to perpetuate itself as illusionary ego-mind it impedes spiritual evolution, and thereby becomes “our worst enemy”.
When used skillfully to transcend ego, the human mind can be our best friend.
Except for rare Avatars and Bodhisattvas virtually all incarnate humans have not yet completed the process of spiritual evolution from humanity to divinity. So they remain subject to the karmic cycle of death and rebirth through ego misidentification. But the human mind can skillfully be subdued and used to transcend and conquer ego, and thereby to advance spiritual evolution toward achieving spiritual liberation or Moksha .
Ultimately, such transcendence happens when mind and thought cease and Universal Awareness which has been mistakenly regarded as a separate experiencer of sensations and emotions, and a separate performer of actions, exists by itself and as its Self, and is not mentally divided.
Thus, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a sacred Hindu text, state:
“Yoga is the cessation of mind.”
“The witness is Self, pure awareness, which,
though boundless and unchanging,
appears to perceive creation through the construct of mind.”
“The identification of pure awareness with the mind and its creations causes the [mistaken] apprehension of both an objective world and a perceiver of it.”
“When the mind withdraws attention from sense experience,
the senses receive no impressions from sense objects,
and awareness rests in its essential nature.”
“When he is not in the state of yoga, man remains [mistakenly] identified with the thought-waves in the mind.”
~ Patanjali – Yoga Sutras
Similarly, when twentieth century Indian sage J. Krishnamurti was asked
“Is belief in God necessary or helpful?”, he replied (in part):
“Belief in any form is a hindrance. A man who believes in God can never find God.
If you are open to reality, there can be no belief in reality.
If you are open to the unknown, there can be no belief in it. … belief is a form of self-protection…” …“The mind is the product of the past.”
“There can be reality only when the mind understands the total process of itself and comes to an end.
When the mind is completely empty – only then is it capable of receiving the unknown.”
“Only when the mind is wholly silent, completely inactive, not projecting, when it is not seeking and is utterly still – only then that which is eternal and timeless comes into being.”
Conclusion.
Until the human mind is psychologically de-conditioned and emptied, and no longer confuses projected pure awareness as a separate objective world, it can be gradually subdued and used skillfully to advance spiritual evolution. We can use it to lose it. Like using a thorn to remove another thorn’s sliver, we can use ego-mind to end ego-mind. We can quiet, control and dis-identify with the ‘voice in the head’, and we can behave dharmically and compassionately.
Thereby the human mind can become our ‘best friend’, by hastening transcendence of illusionary ego identity to allow Self realization as timeless thoughtless Universal Awareness.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
2020 Epilogue.
As we consider the nature and function of the conditioned human mind process, the following further information may be helpful.
Body, mind and soul are inseparable abstractions.
Every conditioned human incarnation necessarily includes body, mind and soul as concepts which cannot be separated, without destroying their spiritual significance.
They all connote an entity or energy process seemingly separate from its Source. Thus, in the Bhagavad Gita “body”, “mind”, and “soul” are all denoted by the same Sanskrit word: “atma” or “self”. So in investigating the human mind it is imperative to consider it as only one connotation of “atma” or “self” and, in all events, to consider it as a conditioned subtle energy process experienced as separate from its Source.
Metaphorically, each incarnate person can be described as a systemic earthly energy process (or vortex), with enveloped mysterious layers of perceptible and subtly imperceptible energies. What we call the “mind” includes both conscious and subconscious energy processes. When subconscious, the mind autonomically operates and regulates countless systemic functions. Consciously, conditioned mind is like a subtle energy processor of conceptual thought, intellect, memory, intention, and communication.
Death of physical bodies and brains does not end consciousness and conditioned mind. They remain to perpetuate the karmic cycle of death and rebirth.
All mental perceptions, memories and tendencies associated with physical bodies are stored in subtle mental energy bodies which survive death of those physical bodies. Contrary to pseudo-scientific materialist beliefs, brains do not create consciousness and mind; consciousness creates brains and mind to function like tuner/transducers decoding karmic cosmic energies for human interpretation.
For millennia seers and mystics have revealed that subtle mental energy bodies associated with physical bodies survive death of those physical bodies. Just as computers need an operating system to function, so do physical bodies. Like computers which operate via software, physical bodies are controlled by subtle mind-stuff energies (chitta). And when – like computers – physical bodies inevitably deteriorate and ‘die’, their ‘mental software’ survives, and is reused.
Thus, just as I am able to use with a new iMac the same OS X software system that operated an old iMac, I can (and may for eons) operate other physical bodies with the same mind-stuff energy that is animating this one. And those other physical bodies which will be using my pre-existing mental software, will probably display many of the same ‘operating features’ as my prior physical bodies. These mental operating systems can be gradually ‘up-dated’. But this usually requires a very slow process of intentional self-discovery and removal of conditioned mental obscurations and defilements.
Like computer software systems, all mental conditioning comes from the past – from this or prior lifetimes.
Thus twentieth century sage J. Krishnamurti, has declared:
“Mind is memory, at whatever level, by whatever name you call it; mind is the product of the past, it is founded on the past,
which is memory, a conditioned state.”
“The timeless can be only when memory, which is the `me’ and the`mine’, ceases.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
Transcendence of past mental conditioning is essential to achieving spiritual liberation or Moksha as the Eternal NOW.
The goal of all enduring spiritual traditions is to transcend past mental conditioning.
Such transcendence is achieved only when thoughts cease and Universal Awareness, which has been mistakenly regarded as a separate experiencer of sensations and emotions and a separate performer of actions, exists by itself as Self, and is not mentally divided.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Eckhart Tolle ~ Spiritual Awakening Story and Teachings
“In essence there is and always has been only one spiritual teaching,
although it comes in many forms.”
~ Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now
“A true spiritual teacher does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of the word, does not have anything to give or add to you, such as new information, beliefs, or rules of conduct. The only function of such a teacher is to help you remove that which separates you from the truth …
The words are no more than signposts.”
~ Eckhart Tolle – Stillness Speaks
Eckhart Tolle.
Ron’s Introduction.
Eckhart Tolle is an influential contemporary spiritual writer and teacher, whose teachings have reached millions worldwide. On the brink of suicide, at age 29 Tolle had a miraculous spiritual awakening which ended his lifelong psychological sufferings and suicidal thoughts, rather than his precious human life. Thereafter he synchronistically became renowned as a spiritual teacher and author of The Power of Now and other noteworthy books.
I first discovered Tolle only after I had transitioned from a “born again Hindu” life phase to becoming an “uncertain Undo” – relying on inner rather than outer authority. (see e.g. “I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life”)
By then, I understood and appreciated the authenticity of Tolle’s spiritual awakening story, and the cogency of his teachings, which are now often quoted on SillySutras.com.
Tolle’s transformative epiphany was triggered by the profoundly simple insight that he wasn’t his constant negative thoughts, but the timeless awareness/witness and matrix of those thoughts.
Especially in this age of mental malaise when countless millions of people suffer from deep despondency and depression, and suicides are rife, Eckhart Tolle’s inspiring near-suicide spiritual awakening story can help those of us feeling despondent or psychologically challenged find inner peace by self-identifying as eternal universal awareness, rather than ego-mind’s “voice in the head”.
So Eckhart Tolle’s history and authentic awakening story are posted below to help inspire our crucially important Self discovery that we are eternal awareness; not mere mortal entities suffering from mistaken ego-mind self identification. And I enthusiastically encourage deep reflection upon it.
Tolle’s History of Anxiety, Fear and Depression Before His Spiritual Awakening.
Tölle was born on February 16, 1948 in Lünen, a small German town near Dortmund in the Ruhr Valley. He grew up in a dysfunctional household, where his incompatible Catholic parents were constantly bickering. Tölle’s early childhood was fraught with anxiety and fear, and he felt alienated from a perceived hostile school environment. Sometimes instead of going to school he would bicycle to the woods and sit amidst nature, which he loved.
Eventually his parents separated, and his father left Germany to live in Spain. Later, at the age of thirteen, Tölle moved to Spain to live with his father. In Spain, Tölle refused to go to school any longer. Though not rebellious he could no longer tolerate a hostile school environment. Tolle’s unconventional ‘open minded’ father did not insist that his son attend high school, and permitted him to elect home studies of literature, astronomy and various languages.
At the age fifteen, Tolle synchronistically received and read several books written by a German mystic known as Bô Yin Râ, which “very deeply” affected him. With an aptitude for languages, he quickly learned Spanish, English, and some French. Still, he spent much solitary time, free of the external pressures of the environment or the culture.
At age nineteen, about ten years before his “inner awakening”, Tölle moved to England, where he lived for about thirty years until emigrating to Canada in the mid-1990’s. During his first three years in England, he had no formal education, and supported himself by teaching German and Spanish at a London school for language studies.
Then, troubled by “depression, anxiety and fear”, he began “searching for answers” which he believed he could find only through intellect rather than intuition.
In his early twenties, Tolle decided to pursue his search by studying philosophy, psychology, and literature. After taking preparatory evening classes, he was ‘fast-tracked’ and permitted to enroll in the University of London. Upon graduating, he was offered and accepted a scholarship to do postgraduate research. Soon thereafter, at age twenty nine, he experienced a profound spiritual awakening and dropped out of academic studies.
Tolle’s Spiritual Awakening Story.
(Excerpted from The Power of Now: A Guide To Spiritual Enlightenment )
Until my thirtieth year, I lived in a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. It feels now as if I am talking about some past lifetime or somebody else’s life.
One night not long after my twenty-ninth birthday, I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread. I had woken up with such a feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense than it had ever been. The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train – everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless that it created in me a deep loathing of the world. The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this continuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live.
“I cannot live with myself any longer.” This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. `Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the `I’ and the `self’ that `I’ cannot live with.” “Maybe,” I thought, “only one of them is real.”
I was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped. I was fully conscious, but there were no more thoughts. Then I felt drawn into what seemed like a vortex of energy. It was a slow movement at first and then accelerated. I was gripped by an intense fear, and my body started to shake. I heard the words “resist nothing,” as if spoken inside my chest. I could feel myself being sucked into a void. It felt as if the void was inside myself rather than outside. Suddenly, there was no more fear, and I let myself fall into that void. I have no recollection of what happened after that.
I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window. I had never heard such a sound before. My eyes were still closed, and I saw the image of a precious diamond. Yes, if a diamond could make a sound, this is what it would be like. I Opened my eyes. The first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains. Without any thought, I felt, I knew, that there is infinitely more to light than we realize. That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself. Tears came into my eyes. I got up and walked around the room. I recognized the room, and yet I knew that I had never truly seen it before. Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marveling at the beauty and aliveness of it all.
That day I walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if I had just been born into this world.
For the next five months, I lived in a state of uninterrupted deep peace and bliss. After that, it diminished somewhat in intensity, or perhaps it just seemed to because it became my natural state. I could still function in the world, although I realized that nothing I ever did could possibly add anything to what I already had.
I knew, of course, that something profoundly significant had happened to me, but I didn’t understand it at all. It wasn’t until several years later, after I had read spiritual texts and spent time with spiritual teachers, that I realized that what everybody was looking for had already happened to me. I understood that the intense pressure of suffering that night must have forced my consciousness to withdraw from its identification with the unhappy and deeply fearful self, which is ultimately a fiction of the mind. This withdrawal must have been so complete that this false, suffering self immediately collapsed, just as if a plug had been pulled out of an inflatable toy. What was left then was my true nature as the ever-present I am: consciousness in its pure state prior to identification with form. Later I also learned to go into that inner timeless and deathless realm that I had originally perceived as a void and remain fully conscious. I dwelt in states of such indescribable bliss and sacredness that even the original experience I just described pales in comparison. A time came when, for a while, I was left with nothing on the physical plane. I had no relationships, no job, no home, no socially defined identity. I spent almost two years sitting on park benches in a state of the most intense joy.
But even the most beautiful experiences come and go. More fundamental, perhaps, than any experience is the undercurrent of peace that has never left me since then. Sometimes it is very strong, almost palpable, and others can feel it too. At other times, it is somewhere in the background, like a distant melody.
Later, people would occasionally come up to me and say: “I want what you have. Can you give it to me, or show me how to get it?” And I would say: “You have it already. You just can’t feel it because your mind is making too much noise.”
Ron’s Comments.
Tolle’s profound awakening experience credibly demonstrates how our greatest fears and sufferings can hide our highest potentials, yet provide immense evolutionary opportunities – revealing that beyond our minds we can find intuitive fulfillment of our deepest aspirations for love, peace and joy, and realization of previously unimagined human potentials.
Tolle’s teachings focus on transforming self identity “from being the content of [the] mind to being the awareness in the background”. While Tolle says he experienced a permanent awakening to Self-identity as awareness, such one-time epiphanies are extremely rare. However, numerous people’s mystical awakening experiences – like mine – can trigger a gradual transformative process of evolutionary purification and ego attrition, with ever increasing benefits.
At age forty two – like Tolle – I experienced previously unimagined and transformative Self identity as universal Awareness, followed by unprecedented experiences of peace and ecstasy. But my mistaken ego-mind identity was not thereby permanently dissolved, and it kept recurring. Therefore, instead of experiencing permanent peace of mind, I have been enjoying gradual ego attrition with ever growing happiness and fulfillment. So today I am happier than ever before, but still learning and transforming.
At the time of Tolle’s awakening experience he was largely unfamiliar with spiritual texts and spiritual teachers. But after exploring such literature for several years, he concluded “that what everybody was looking for had already happened to me.” And that: “In essence there is and always has been only one spiritual teaching, although it comes in many forms.”
Intuitively I regard Tolle as authentic and well-intentioned. So I endorse his teachings as valuable and have posted them on SillySutras.com. to help others.
For example, I have especially appreciated Tolle’s humble and intriguing above introduction to his excellent second book, Stillness Speaks:
“A true spiritual teacher does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of the word, does not have anything to give or add to you, such as new information, beliefs, or rules of conduct. The only function of such a teacher is to help you remove that which separates you from the truth … The words are no more than signposts.”
Moral of the Story and Invocation.
“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
May the foregoing stories and teachings help inspire and point the way for discovery of our true spiritual Self-identity.
May everyone, everywhere be peaceful and happy!
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
