Posts Tagged ‘Pope Francis’
2022 Earth Day Message:
Cherish or Perish
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence
but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”.
In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us.
“Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs”. . .
“This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.”
~ Pope Francis – Climate encyclical message
“Look how the caravan of civilization
has been ambushed.
Fools are everywhere in charge.
Do not practice solitude like Jesus.
Be in the assembly, and take charge of it.”
~ Rumi
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment must come from the human heart. . [from] a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.”
“Compassion, in which all ethics must take root,
can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces
all living creatures, and does not limit itself to mankind.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
“When fear becomes collective, when anger becomes collective, it’s extremely dangerous. It is overwhelming… The mass media and the military-industrial complex create a prison for us, so we continue to think, see, and act in the same way… We need the courage to express ourselves even when the majority is going in the opposite direction… because a change of direction can happen only when there is a collective awakening… Therefore, it is very important to say, ‘I am here!’ to those who share the same kind of insight.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power
“In the present circumstances, no one can afford to assume
that someone else will solve their problems. Every individual has a responsibility to help guide our global family in the right direction. Good wishes are not sufficient; we must become actively engaged.”
~ Dalai Lama, “The Path to Tranquility: Daily Wisdom”
Ron’s Introduction.
Dear Friends,
I greet you on Earth Day 2022 to honor all life on our precious planet at an extraordinarily pivotal time for Humanity.
This posting explains how Humankind are now paradoxically confronted with self-inflicted cataclysmic threats to all Earth life as we’ve known it, while concurrently (but unknowingly) able to compassionately co-create previously unimagined evolutionary advancements to peaceful and cooperative global societies existing beyond all current fears, afflictions and sufferings.
To avert unprecedented calamity, we must urgently and actively realize that more world wars (using advanced weapons technologies) will end earth-life as we’ve known it. Yet, that paradoxically we can sustainably and peacefully survive and thrive using advanced technologies and instinctive simple wisdom to end sentient beings’ sufferings with reciprocal respect and empathy.
Above all we must no longer harm others, or continue to despoil life on our precious planet; but we must treat all sentient beings with the same dignity we wish for ourselves, and that they wish for themselves. (See https://sillysutras.com/go-for-the-gold-the-golden-rule-for-a-golden-age/ )
As a compassionate global family we must live lovingly and harmlessly, in harmony and synchrony with Nature and with all life on our precious planet.
And so may it be!
Background
When a reporter once asked Mahatma Gandhi, “What do you think of Western civilization?” Gandhi supposedly replied, “I think it would be a good idea”.
Whether that story is actual or apocryphal, it raises key insights into our allegedly ‘advanced’ societies.
We have undemocratically degenerated into an insane and warlike Orwellian world dominated by totalitarian “leaders” committing mass suicide by ecocide and threatening global climate collapse and potential World War III nuclear holocaust which would destroy Earth life as we know it.
Though heretofore there have been seemingly isolated instances of self-inflicted human societal collapses – like that at Easter Island – never before have we confronted such a planet-wide imminent climate collapse. Yet without planet Earth’s favorable ecology, humanity can not survive.
So we must seriously consider whether humans are now ignorantly and unsustainably doing to our precious “Turtle Island” or “Earth Island” what they did to Easter Island. And whether or not we will avert repeating worldwide that disastrous history of ecological collapse.
In my view, our insanely illogical ecological, political and social behaviors are but symptoms of widespread psychological disease – not its cause; that to end this mental illness we must address and transcend its root cause, rather than merely decry its symptoms.
At the root of our present ecologically omnicidal insanity is a scientifically disproved and long outmoded reductionist, materialistic and mechanistic worldview belief system which sees everything and everyone as solid and separate, while disregarding our non-local common Cosmic consciousness.
We have forgotten what indigenous peoples have always known and remembered – our inextricably interrelated spiritual connectedness to mother Earth and to everything/everyone/everywhere; that what we think we do to apparent ‘others’ we do to ourselves.
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together … all things connect.”
~ Chief Seattle
Hence to avert calamitous ecological breakdown we must NOW breakthrough to a new and higher heart-centered worldview before it is too late; thereby we can see, solve and resolve our problems from levels of psychological awareness beyond those which created and perpetuated them.
This a crucial time for compassionate human awakening.
We have undemocratically degenerated into insane societies, unconsciously committing mass suicide by ecocide, and threatening nuclear catastrophe.
Unrestrained transnational corporate-capitalism perpetually and unsustainably seeking ‘profits’ is insanely pillaging, plundering, depleting and corrupting finite planetary resources which support Earth life, and insidiously and coercively exploiting countless vulnerable people and creatures worldwide. Thus, billions of people suffer needless poverty, starvation and avoidable disease or death, while a tiny group of privileged financial, corporate, political and religious oligarchs immorally acquire and misuse power and obscenely excessive material wealth, far beyond their conceivable needs.
Life as we’ve known it is imminently threatened by environmental catastrophe or nuclear annihilation, possibly precipitated by criminally psychopathic world “leaders”; people so corrupt and crazy that they are myopically scuttling Spaceship Earth; destroying the life support systems which sustain us; pillaging and poisoning our precious planet’s ecology; and, harming human health, with countless chemically, biologically, and radiologically polluting processes and products – even including foods, drinks, cosmetics, medicines, vaccines and pharmaceuticals.
Even in purportedly “advanced” countries, it is virtually impossible now to breath air or drink water which is not in some way polluted by our species. Agricultural soils have been depleted and corrupted. Global weather patterns and hydrologic systems have been irreversibly disrupted, and protective atmospheric ozone is being depleted by undisclosed “government classified” weapons and geoengineering projects, and by many other human activities.
Glaciers are melting and long frozen Arctic tundra is thawing, to elevate ocean levels and release immensely hazardous methane greenhouse-gasses much more dangerous than CO2 emissions.
Though non-polluting and sustainable alternative energy technologies are available and feasible they are suppressed as allegedly “economically” impractical, or “proprietary”, or “government classified”.
No one is protected. From birth (and even prenatally) every person’s body/mind is polluted and threatened by numerous and ubiquitous man-made chemical, biological and radiological materials, many of which are carcinogenic. By “bio-engineering” living organisms, we are even tampering and blindly experimenting with our genetic origins.
Many species are rapidly becoming extinct. Around the world, most insects have disappeared, thousands of birds are suddenly falling dead out of the sky, and countless dead fish and marine mammals are appearing on shores of poisoned rivers, lakes and oceans. Ecologically indispensable marine species are depleted and endangered. Honey bee and butterfly colonies crucial to pollination of food crops are disappearing; nearly one-third of all honey bee colonies in the US have vanished, and Monarch butterflies are becoming extinct. The oceans are polluted with our detritus, and much marine life is threatened. Even remote Arctic polar bears are becoming hermaphroditic because of of chemical poisons dispersed by humankind, and they are threatened with imminent destruction of the ecosystem on which they depend for survival.
So, how should compassionately conscious people live and exist in this Orwellian/dystopian world, in which timeless ethical values are forgotten and flagrantly transgressed? Do we not observe obvious omens of impending catastrophe?
As we commemorate Earth Day 2022, all lifeforms on our precious planet Earth are threatened by potentially imminent ecological catastrophe attributable to insane human behaviors. These are critical times of immense jeopardy and suffering, yet immense opportunity.
Perhaps more than ever before in recorded human history people who are awakening to our spiritual common essence and nature realize not only that humankind are collectively threatening our “reality”, but that together we have the capacity to resolve our critical problems from heart levels of human consciousness above and beyond lower psychological states which created and perpetuated current crises.
Hence this a crucial time for compassionately aware people to become politically and socially aware and engaged.
Ron’s 2022 Earth Day Addendum.
Dear Friends,
We live in an age of extreme mental malaise; the Hindus call it Kali-Yuga.
Many humans have egotistically forgotten their true Divine Self-identity, and thereby have flagrantly transgressed the perennial wisdom Golden Rule of ethics shared by all enduring religious, spiritual, indigenous, and ethical traditions that we do no harm; but that with reciprocal empathy we treat all beings with the same dignity we wish for ourselves, and that they wish for themselves.
Accordingly, our precious planet has become pervasively polluted by human ignorance and greed, which imminently threatens all Earth life with nuclear cataclysm or climate catastrophe. Yet paradoxically because of elevated cosmic energies, and advanced Earth technologies, these are also times of unprecedented opportunity for human advancement to peaceful and cooperative societies beyond present afflictions and sufferings.
Throughout human history, life’s most painful and difficult experiences have often proved the greatest evolutionary opportunities and blessings, because they’ve most motivated surrender and transcendence of our illusionary ego-mind separation from Nature and each other, which is the root cause of ignorantly insane beliefs and behaviors which jeopardize Earth-life.
Moreover, in the darkest and most threatening eras of rampant world materialism and decadence, there invariably have appeared synchronistic circumstances to guide Human societies to, “a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
Furthermore, many mystics suggest that everything that happens to us, societally or individually – until we transcend ego’s “optical illusion” of separateness – is in our best interest, because it affords opportunity and incentive to evolve.
Thus, current turbulence and political polarization (beyond evoking anger, fear or despondency) can be a great “red pill” awakening opportunity, motivating humanity to at long-last recognize and resolve its current critical problems from elevated intuitive Heart levels of consciousness, beyond those fearful lower psychological states which created and perpetuated them.
Optimistic observations.
Perennially, in the darkest and apparently most threatening eras of rampant world materialism and decadence, there invariably appear synchronistic circumstances to guide Human societies.
So paradoxically, life’s most painful and difficult experiences often prove the greatest evolutionary opportunities, and biggest blessings, because they most challenge and motivate surrender of egoic misidentification and provide greatest transcendence incentives.
Hence we can see present world turmoil as transitionally arising from inevitable disintegration of a prior reductionist, mechanistic and materialistic scientific paradigm that has become painfully and harmfully anachronous – to make way for a more enlightened and elevated new age that blesses all life on our precious planet and beyond.
Such an elevated intuitive perspective will motivate and enable us to transcend current environmental and political insanity. And it will advance our spiritual evolution until ultimately we realize that – beyond our illusory separation from all we perceive – we are ONE Universal spirit eternally encompassing all life, and everything everywhere and beyond as infinite LOVE.
Concluding invocations.
May we become actively engaged as a global human family to wisely resolve the immense ecological challenges facing us; not merely as a matter of morality, but for survival of Earth-life as we’ve known it.
Ever mindful of our Oneness with all Life on our precious planet and beyond, may we behave with loving-kindness and compassion to always embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Rather than worry or be afraid, may we ever remember that
“The only thing we have to fear is…fear itself.”
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt, first inaugural address
“For God sends hope in the darkest moments.
The heaviest rain comes from the darkest clouds.”
~ Rumi
“When I despair, I remember that all through history
the way of truth and love has always won.
There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible,
but in the end they always fall — think of it. Always.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
And so it shall be!
Ron Rattner
All We Need is Love
“Life is love and love is life.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“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
“Love is joyous consciousness.
That consciousness is the Creator,
and it is out of Love and joy
that (S)He creates.”
~ Swami Amar Jyoti
“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
“God is love;
and he that dwelleth in love
dwelleth in God, and God in him.”
~ 1 John 4:16
“There is only one religion,
the religion of Love.”
~ Sathya Sai Baba
“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”
~ Sri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
~ Dalai Lama
“When one realizes that life,
even in the middle of so many contradictions, is a gift,
that love is the source and the meaning of life,
how can they withhold their urge to do good to another fellow being?”
~ Pope Francis – 2017 TED Talk
“Our purpose is process –
Metamorphic process.
Gleaning meaning in matter,
We learn all that matters –
We learn all that matters is LOVE!”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Let us let go of ego, and
Let Life live us as LOVE!
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
All We Need is Love
Dear Friends,
To brighten our equinox season – and the rest of our lifetimes –
today I’m privileged to share a sure cure for all our earthly sufferings –
a true panacea for transmuting all our sorrows and sufferings to eternal Joy.
Thanks to The Beatles, I have ‘discovered’ an open-Source solution for all of Humanity’s problems – problems which cannot be solved from the same levels of consciousness that created them.
All of our problems and sufferings have arisen from apparent lack of LOVE.
So, to solve and cure them
“All we need is LOVE, LOVE, LOVE.”
Accordingly, I have posted the above wisdom quotes about “Love” and have embedded below a video of the original 1968 Beatles recording session of their classic song, “All You Need Is Love”, followed by the lyrics composed by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Dedication
May these inspiring “Love” messages help brighten our equinox season
– and the rest of our lives.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Video: The Beatles – “All You Need Is Love”
Lyrics – “All You Need Is Love”
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, loveThere’s nothing you can do that can’t be done
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.
Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game
It’s easy.
Nothing you can make that can’t be made
No one you can save that can’t be saved
Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time
It’s easy.
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love,
Love is all you needAll you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you needNothing you can know that isn’t known
Nothing you can see that isn’t shownThere’s nowhere you can be,
that isn’t where you’re meant to be
It’s easy.
All you need is love
All you need is love~ John Lennon, Paul McCartney, The Beatles
Honoring Nature
~ Quotes and Video
“One touch of nature
makes the whole world kin.”
~ William Shakespeare
“Nature is our nature;
Honoring Nature is honoring Self.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Introduction
Dear Friends,
In this critical era of worldwide violence and turmoil, our amazingly beautiful planet is imminently and insanely threatened (by immensely destructive technologies) with possible human caused omnicidal nuclear or climate catastrophe, ending Earth life as we’ve known it.
Therefore we must urgently awaken humanity’s instinctive primal awareness that Nature is our nature; that Nature knows best and will have its Way; that we are not dependent upon exploitation of our precious planet or its lifeforms, but interdependent with it and all life thereon; that we can no longer unsustainably exploit Nature and others without dire consequences; that we must honor – not desecrate – Nature.
The following profound “Nature” quotation collection and beautiful “Creation Calling” embedded video are offered to help awaken our minds and open our hearts to realization of Humankind’s urgent need to avert calamity by Honoring Nature, NOW!
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Honoring Nature ~ Quotation Collection
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
~ William Shakespeare
But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
or the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
or let the fish of the sea inform you.
Which of all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
~ Job 12:7-9
“Look deep into nature, and then
you will understand everything better.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The entire world we apprehend through our senses
is no more than a tiny fragment in the vastness of Nature.”
~ Max Planck
“Human subtlety will never devise an invention
more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature;
because in her inventions nothing is lacking,
and nothing is superfluous.”
~ Leonardo da Vinci
“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”
“All art, all education, can be merely a supplement to nature.”
~ Aristotle
“If one truly loves nature one finds beauty everywhere.”
~ Vincent Van Gogh
“In nature we never see anything isolated,
but everything in connection with something else
which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Every particular in nature,
a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time
is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Lose yourself in nature and find peace.”
“Nature is made to conspire with spirit to emancipate us.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature.”
~ Rachel Carson
“It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth
and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.”
~ Rachel Carson
“When we pay attention to nature’s music,
we find that everything on the Earth contributes to its harmony.”
~ Hazrat Inayat Khan
“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”
~ Frank Lloyd Wright
“Nature is the living, visible garment of God.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity;
so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
“Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion
to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things,
man will not himself find peace.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
“There are no passengers on spaceship earth.
We are all crew.”
~ Marshall McLuhan
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors;
we borrow it from our children”
~ Chief Seattle
“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment
must come from the human heart,
[from] a genuine sense of universal responsibility
that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister,
Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us,
and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs”
“This sister now cries out to us
because of the harm we have inflicted on her
by our irresponsible use and abuse
of the goods with which God has endowed her.”
~ Pope Francis – Climate encyclical message
“Nature is neither pleasant nor painful.
It is all intelligence and beauty.
Pain and pleasure are in the mind.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Deviation from Nature is deviation from happiness.”
~ Samuel Johnson
“Each thing tends to move towards its own nature.
I always desire happiness which is my true nature.
My nature is never a burden to me.
Happiness is never a burden to me, whilst sorrow is.”
~ Adi Shankara
“Because after all, you ARE a symptom of nature.
You . . . grow out of this physical universe
in exactly the same way an apple grows off an apple tree.”
~ Alan Watts
“I thank you God for this most amazing day,
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees,
and for the blue dream of sky
and for everything which is natural,
which is infinite, which is yes.”
~ e. e. cummings
“I see trees of green, red roses too.
I see them bloom for me and you.
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.
I see skies of blue and clouds of white.
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night.
And I think to myself what a wonderful world”
~ Louis Armstrong
Honoring Nature ~ Creation Calls — are you listening?
Invocation
May Humankind Awaken NOW
from our long-inculcated illusion
of separation from Nature.
So Awakened,
may we deeply realize that Nature is our nature;
that what we unsustainably do to Nature
we do to ourselves; and
that it is our responsibility
to honor, cherish and preserve
Earth-life as we’ve known it.
And so Awakened,
may we urgently honor
Nature’s uniquely precious ecology and environment,
with a “genuine sense of universal responsibility
that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
And so shall it be!
!
Ron Rattner
Reflections on Religious Beliefs
“Today, … any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal,
and so will be inadequate.” . . .
“[T]he time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
~ Dalai Lama
“I consider myself a Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, and Confucian.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“I have learned so much from God
That I can no longer call myself
a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew”
~ Hafiz
“Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not any religion, or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, nor out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all.
I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story.
My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body nor soul. I belong to the Beloved have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know,
First, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human.”
~ Rumi, ‘Only Breath’
“Irrevocable commitment to any one religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world.”
~ Alan Watts
“The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“We are shackled by illusory bonds of belief.
Freedom is beyond belief.
So, we seek relief from belief.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Follow dharma, not dogma.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Reflections on Religious Beliefs
Q. What is religion?
A. “Religion” is a word with many meanings.
Here we define it as “any belief system about Divinity or immortality often including rules, rituals, codes of ethics, and philosophies of life.”
Q. Why do we have religions?
A. There is a subtle Cosmic law of ‘supply and demand.’ Religions have arisen in response to our perennial quest for lasting peace and happiness, and our desire to transcend inevitable earthly psychological sufferings.
Knowingly or unknowingly, everyone seeks Happiness, Wholeness, and Love. Consciously or subliminally, we intuit and long for a state of Being which transcends inevitable Earthly cares and suffering. Knowingly or unknowingly we seek timeless Truth.
Religious belief is a form of attempted life guidance, and psychological self-protection from fear of inevitable physical death and uncertain life experience before death. Though many find transient consolation in accepting religious beliefs about divinity and immortality, such beliefs can’t permanently provide such protection. We can’t find freedom from fear of death and from life’s uncertainties through theories, thoughts or beliefs, but only through direct experiential Knowledge.
Thus the Buddha, who legendarily realized such freedom while meditating beneath a Banyan tree, counseled:
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
~ Buddha
When twentieth century Indian sage, J. Krishnamurti, was asked
“Is belief in God necessary or helpful?” he said:
“[B]elief 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…” …
“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.”
Similarly 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 [mistaken] identification of pure awareness with the mind and its creations
causes the 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
Q. Why is a silent mind important?
A. Through thought we self identify as entities separate from the Whole – as separate perceivers of a supposedly objective world. But this is an ego illusion. So, attempted psychological self-preservation through perpetuation of an illusionary self-image is futile. What never was can never be preserved. Thus, religious beliefs that seek psychological self protection from identification with an illusion of separateness from Self are ultimately futile.
The object of all spiritual practice is to transcend such illusionary ego identity. Such transcendence happens only when thought ceases and the universal intelligence which has been mistakenly regarded as a separate experiencer of sensations and emotions, and a separate performer of actions, exists by itself and as itself, and is not mentally divided.
Q. What about instinctive physical acts of self-protection, as distinguished from religious beliefs aimed at psychological self-preservation?
A. According to J.Krishnamurti:
“Physical self-protection is sane, normal and healthy but every other form of self-protection, inwardly, is resistance and it always gathers, builds up strength which is fear.”
Q. Are religious beliefs important?
A. Our ethical behaviors – not our religious beliefs – are most important.
As the Dalai Lama reportedly has said:
“There is no religion higher than the Truth. … What really is important is our behavior with peers, family, work, community, and in the world. …. Whether or not we follow a religion, what is important is that we become more compassionate, more sensible, more detached, more loving, more humanitarian, more responsible, more ethical.” https://sillysutras.com/your-religion-is-not-important/
So grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate:
“[T]he reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate.
This is why I believe the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ H.H. the Dalai Lama – Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World
Ron’s Comments on Urgently Needed Ethical Behaviors
Beyond Religious Beliefs
Dear Friends,
Without universal ethical behavior beyond conflicting religious beliefs, humanity cannot survive.
As explained in the foregoing essay, throughout human history, people have adopted or accepted “religious” beliefs, practices and institutions, in exploring the mystery and meaning of life and existence. About 84% of the world’s population is affiliated with Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or with some form of folk religion. Also there are now an estimated 10,000 distinct religions worldwide.
Paradoxically, some leaders and devotees of religions organized to teach universal “Truth” realized by Great Beings have perpetuated and acted on mistaken egoic ideas of separateness, which the sages transcended. Thus, throughout human history countless people and other precious life forms – all manifestations of that same Universal “Truth” – have been victims of demonic wars, crusades, inquisitions, persecutions, and ‘terrorism’ initiated and perpetrated in the name of “true” religion or God.
Although religious beliefs and practices have also inspired immeasurable good, advances in technological and scientific knowledge now reveal that Humankind urgently need to transcend such behaviors which have spawned immense misery and even threaten all Earth life as we have known it.
But how can this happen?
Inspired by the wisdom of Dr. Seuss that “sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple,” I have long reflected on on this question, seeking simple answers to the immensely complicated crises confronting us.
Perhaps one of the simplest but most powerful answers I’ve found is:
“There is only one God,
the same God regardless of the labels applied by religion. …
There is only one religion, the religion of Love;
There is only one language, the language of the Heart;
There is only one caste, the caste of Humanity”
~ Sathya Sai Baba
But most people are not yet sufficiently evolved to understand and act in accordance with that profound observation.
So I was delighted when His Holiness the Dalai Lama published an important self-help book – “Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World” – which H.H. introduced with this important insight:
“[T]he reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate.
This is why I believe the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.”
~ H.H. the Dalai Lama – Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (2011)
And I have been deeply inspired and encouraged by similar sentiments addressed to all Humankind by Pope Francis, e.g.:
“When one realizes that life, even in the middle of so many contradictions, is a gift, that love is the source and the meaning of life, how can they withhold their urge to do good to another fellow being?”
“[W]e all need each other, none of us is an island, an autonomous and independent “I,” separated from the other . . . .we can only build the future by standing together, including everyone”. . . .
“[E]verything is connected, and we need to restore our connections to a healthy state.”
“We have so much to do, and we must do it together.”
~ Pope Francis – 2017 TED Talk
And so we must realize that
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
~ Dalai Lama
Invocation
With silenced minds and ever opened hearts
may we practice the “golden rule” of reciprocal empathy;
do no harm, and compassionately see and treat all sentient beings
as spiritual siblings.
May everyone everywhere treat all beings and all Life
with the same dignity that they wish for themselves.
And so shall it be.
Ron Rattner
“Pale Blue Dot”– An Ode to Mother Earth
~ by Carl Sagan
“There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot,
the only home we’ve ever known.”
~ Carl Sagan
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” .. “The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Sit, be still, and listen,
because you’re drunk
and we’re at the edge of the roof.”
~ Rumi
“Cherish or Perish.
Co-exist cooperatively, or
Co-expire catastrophically.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”.
In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us.
“Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs”. . .
“This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.”
~ Pope Francis – Climate encyclical message
Introduction.
In 1990, when the Voyager space craft was nearly four trillion (4,000,000,000,000) miles from Earth, beyond the orbit of Pluto, NASA finally acceded to legendary astronomer Carl Sagan’s desperate pleas, and turned Voyager’s camera back toward Earth to photograph our precious planet as no human had ever before seen it.
From that distance, the Earth appears as just a tiny blue speck illuminated by sunlight.
Video Recitation of Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” message.
In this video, called “Pale Blue Dot”, Carl Sagan eloquently recites a poignant ode to our precious planet, Mother Earth, which he composed while humbly reflecting on that unique NASA photo (text below):
Text of Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” message:
“From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Look again at that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
Concluding Comment and Invocation.
Especially in these critical “new normal” times, it is imperative that Humankind honor, preserve and cherish Earth Mother and all life she births and sustains; never forgetting that her Nature is our nature; that we are inextricably interconnected with mother Earth, so what we do to her we do to ourselves; and that it is only our human species which is responsible for, and must urgently redress, all crises and conflicts which now imminently threaten Earth-life as we’ve known it.
Thus we must relentlessly resist and vigilantly redress all insanely unsustainable pillaging, plundering and poisoning of Nature’s bountiful resources and miraculous life support systems, which are our only true wealth.
Invocation
As a united global family, may we thereby –
each from our unique perspective and in our unique way –
lovingly restore, preserve and protect our beloved planet,
the only home we’ve ever known.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Paradise Paradoxities
“He who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy.”
“… joy and sorrow are inseparable. . .
together they come and when one sits alone with you . . .
remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.”
~ Carl Jung
“None can reach Heaven who has not passed through hell”
~ Sri Aurobindo -“Savitri,” Book II, Canto VIII.
“Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny.
They learn what to do and what to avoid.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise.
~ William Blake
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls;
the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
~ Khalil Gibran
Paradise Paradoxities
We can not reach heaven
without passing through hell.
In duality domain
ev’ry pleasure’s
wrapped in pain.
Within each joy
is an oy/oy/oy.
So, when you’re feeling forlorn,
remember this:
Misery is the mother of Bliss.
Ron’s comment and recitation of “Paradise Paradoxities”.
Ron’s explanation and dedication of “Paradise Paradoxities”
Dear Friends,
The foregoing whimsical verses about paradox, pain and sorrow were composed after I began realizing that the most psychologically challenging experiences of my life had resulted in its greatest blessings.
I was an ‘up-tight’ secular litigation lawyer, until a heartbreaking midlife divorce sparked a previously unimaginable spiritual awakening, which proved a supreme blessing leading to meeting my beloved Guruji on the luckiest day of my life – and thereafter to previously unimagined happiness and fulfillment.
In retrospectively remembering the most difficult experiences of this lifetime I have adopted a philosophy that Cosmic harmony assures that (knowingly or unknowingly) everything happens in our best interests, because it affords us incentive and opportunity to evolve spiritually – which is our life’s purpose.
I have realized that though we may not be free to choose sometimes difficult or painful outer circumstances in our life, we are always free to choose our psychological attitude about those circumstances.
Thus every painful earth-life experience which arouses an elevated attitude can prove to be a disguised blessing, furthering our spiritual evolution toward ultimate transcendence of psychological suffering. And, the greater our suffering, the greater its potential blessing.
We’ve become students on the ‘Earth branch of the great Cosmic university’ to learn to open our hearts with kindness and compassion, and in universal communion with divine LOVE.
“[W]hen our hearts are authentically open to universal
communion, this sense of fraternity excludes nothing and no one.”
~ Pope Francis (from Laudato Si climate encyclical message)
So paradoxically, life’s most painful and difficult experiences can often prove the biggest blessings, because they bestow greatest evolutionary incentives and opportunities. For most of us suffering is an indispensable incentive to spiritual evolution – “no pain, no gain”.
“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.”
~ Carl Jung
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls;
the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
~ Khalil Gibran
“None can reach Heaven who has not passed through hell”
~ Sri Aurobindo -“Savitri,” Book II, Canto VIII.
And our spiritual evolution requires non-resistant acceptance or ‘surrender’ to earth-life’s inevitable ups and down. Instead of resisting life’s ever changing currents, we must learn to “go with the flow”. Everyone wants happiness. But we must learn to avoid attachment to pleasures which will inevitably bring pain.
“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
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise.
~ William Blake
The foregoing quotations and whimsical “Paradise Paradoxities” lines can remind us of the foregoing principles.
May they spur our spiritual ascensions to higher dimensions – to universal communion with divine LOVE!
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Pope Francis’ Call For A Planetary Revolution of Love and Tenderness
“When one realizes that life, even in the middle of so many contradictions, is a gift, that love is the source and the meaning of life, how can they withhold their urge to do good to another fellow being?”
[W]e all need each other, none of us is an island, an autonomous and independent “I,” separated from the other . . . .we can only build the future by standing together, including everyone.. . . .
[E]verything is connected, and we need to restore our connections to a healthy state.
“We have so much to do, and we must do it together.”
~ Pope Francis – 2017 TED Talk
Pope Francis
Ron’s Introduction.
Dear Friends, I am deeply privileged to share with you below an embedded video of a deeply inspiring TED talk, with English subtitles and transcript, given from the Vatican by His Holiness Pope Francis, which applies to everyone everywhere regardless of religious, spiritual, or ethical beliefs.
This TED talk has inspired me more than any other I’ve ever heard. And I urge you to deeply consider the Pope’s message with an open heart and an open mind as he reminds us that we have so much to do, and we must do it together.
May it inspire all of us to become collective participants in a transformative planetary revolution of love and tenderness.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Pope’s 2017 TED Talk Video.
Pope’s 2017 TED Talk Transcript.
Good evening – or, good morning, I am not sure what time it is there. Regardless of the hour, I am thrilled to be participating in your conference.
I very much like its title – “The Future You” – because, while looking at tomorrow, it invites us to open a dialogue today, to look at the future through a “you.” “The Future You:” the future is made of you’s, it is made of encounters, because life flows through our relations with others. Quite a few years of life have strengthened my conviction that each and everyone’s existence is deeply tied to that of others: life is not time merely passing by, life is about interactions.
As I meet, or lend an ear to those who are sick, to the migrants who face terrible hardships in search of a brighter future, to prison inmates who carry a hell of pain inside their hearts, and to those, many of them young, who cannot find a job, I often find myself wondering: “Why them and not me?” I, myself, was born in a family of migrants; my father, my grandparents, like many other Italians, left for Argentina and met the fate of those who are left with nothing. I could have very well ended up among today’s “discarded” people. And that’s why I always ask myself, deep in my heart: “Why them and not me?”
First and foremost, I would love it if this meeting could help to remind us that we all need each other, none of us is an island, an autonomous and independent “I,” separated from the other, and we can only build the future by standing together, including everyone. We don’t think about it often, but everything is connected, and we need to restore our connections to a healthy state. Even the harsh judgment I hold in my heart against my brother or my sister, the open wound that was never cured, the offense that was never forgiven, the rancor that is only going to hurt me, are all instances of a fight that I carry within me, a flare deep in my heart that needs to be extinguished before it goes up in flames, leaving only ashes behind.
Many of us, nowadays, seem to believe that a happy future is something impossible to achieve. While such concerns must be taken very seriously, they are not invincible. They can be overcome when we don’t lock our door to the outside world. Happiness can only be discovered as a gift of harmony between the whole and each single component. Even science – and you know it better than I do – points to an understanding of reality as a place where every element connects and interacts with everything else.
And this brings me to my second message. How wonderful would it be if the growth of scientific and technological innovation would come along with more equality and social inclusion. How wonderful would it be, while we discover faraway planets, to rediscover the needs of the brothers and sisters orbiting around us. How wonderful would it be if solidarity, this beautiful and, at times, inconvenient word, were not simply reduced to social work, and became, instead, the default attitude in political, economic and scientific choices, as well as in the relationships among individuals, peoples and countries. Only by educating people to a true solidarity will we be able to overcome the “culture of waste,” which doesn’t concern only food and goods but, first and foremost, the people who are cast aside by our techno-economic systems which, without even realizing it, are now putting products at their core, instead of people.
Solidarity is a term that many wish to erase from the dictionary. Solidarity, however, is not an automatic mechanism. It cannot be programmed or controlled. It is a free response born from the heart of each and everyone. Yes, a free response! When one realizes that life, even in the middle of so many contradictions, is a gift, that love is the source and the meaning of life, how can they withhold their urge to do good to another fellow being?
In order to do good, we need memory, we need courage and we need creativity. And I know that TED gathers many creative minds. Yes, love does require a creative, concrete and ingenious attitude. Good intentions and conventional formulas, so often used to appease our conscience, are not enough. Let us help each other, all together, to remember that the other is not a statistic or a number. The other has a face. The “you” is always a real presence, a person to take care of.
There is a parable Jesus told to help us understand the difference between those who’d rather not be bothered and those who take care of the other. I am sure you have heard it before. It is the Parable of the Good Samaritan. When Jesus was asked: “Who is my neighbor?” – namely, “Who should I take care of?” – he told this story, the story of a man who had been assaulted, robbed, beaten and abandoned along a dirt road. Upon seeing him, a priest and a Levite, two very influential people of the time, walked past him without stopping to help. After a while, a Samaritan, a very much despised ethnicity at the time, walked by. Seeing the injured man lying on the ground, he did not ignore him as if he weren’t even there. Instead, he felt compassion for this man, which compelled him to act in a very concrete manner. He poured oil and wine on the wounds of the helpless man, brought him to a hostel and paid out of his pocket for him to be assisted.
The story of the Good Samaritan is the story of today’s humanity. People’s paths are riddled with suffering, as everything is centered around money, and things, instead of people. And often there is this habit, by people who call themselves “respectable,” of not taking care of the others, thus leaving behind thousands of human beings, or entire populations, on the side of the road. Fortunately, there are also those who are creating a new world by taking care of the other, even out of their own pockets. Mother Teresa actually said: “One cannot love, unless it is at their own expense.”
We have so much to do, and we must do it together. But how can we do that with all the evil we breathe every day? Thank God, no system can nullify our desire to open up to the good, to compassion and to our capacity to react against evil, all of which stem from deep within our hearts. Now you might tell me, “Sure, these are beautiful words, but I am not the Good Samaritan, nor Mother Teresa of Calcutta.” On the contrary: we are precious, each and every one of us. Each and every one of us is irreplaceable in the eyes of God. Through the darkness of today’s conflicts, each and every one of us can become a bright candle, a reminder that light will overcome darkness, and never the other way around.
To Christians, the future does have a name, and its name is Hope. Feeling hopeful does not mean to be optimistically naïve and ignore the tragedy humanity is facing. Hope is the virtue of a heart that doesn’t lock itself into darkness, that doesn’t dwell on the past, does not simply get by in the present, but is able to see a tomorrow. Hope is the door that opens onto the future. Hope is a humble, hidden seed of life that, with time, will develop into a large tree. It is like some invisible yeast that allows the whole dough to grow, that brings flavor to all aspects of life. And it can do so much, because a tiny flicker of light that feeds on hope is enough to shatter the shield of darkness. A single individual is enough for hope to exist, and that individual can be you. And then there will be another “you,” and another “you,” and it turns into an “us.” And so, does hope begin when we have an “us?” No. Hope began with one “you.” When there is an “us,” there begins a revolution.
The third message I would like to share today is, indeed, about revolution: the revolution of tenderness. And what is tenderness? It is the love that comes close and becomes real. It is a movement that starts from our heart and reaches the eyes, the ears and the hands. Tenderness means to use our eyes to see the other, our ears to hear the other, to listen to the children, the poor, those who are afraid of the future. To listen also to the silent cry of our common home, of our sick and polluted earth. Tenderness means to use our hands and our heart to comfort the other, to take care of those in need.
Tenderness is the language of the young children, of those who need the other. A child’s love for mom and dad grows through their touch, their gaze, their voice, their tenderness. I like when I hear parents talk to their babies, adapting to the little child, sharing the same level of communication. This is tenderness: being on the same level as the other. God himself descended into Jesus to be on our level. This is the same path the Good Samaritan took. This is the path that Jesus himself took. He lowered himself, he lived his entire human existence practicing the real, concrete language of love.
Yes, tenderness is the path of choice for the strongest, most courageous men and women. Tenderness is not weakness; it is fortitude. It is the path of solidarity, the path of humility. Please, allow me to say it loud and clear: the more powerful you are, the more your actions will have an impact on people, the more responsible you are to act humbly. If you don’t, your power will ruin you, and you will ruin the other. There is a saying in Argentina: “Power is like drinking gin on an empty stomach.” You feel dizzy, you get drunk, you lose your balance, and you will end up hurting yourself and those around you, if you don’t connect your power with humility and tenderness. Through humility and concrete love, on the other hand, power – the highest, the strongest one – becomes a service, a force for good.
The future of humankind isn’t exclusively in the hands of politicians, of great leaders, of big companies. Yes, they do hold an enormous responsibility. But the future is, most of all, in the hands of those people who recognize the other as a “you” and themselves as part of an “us.” We all need each other. And so, please, think of me as well with tenderness, so that I can fulfill the task I have been given for the good of the other, of each and every one, of all of you, of all of us.
Thank you.
How St. Francis of Assisi Inspires Pope Francis
“[W]hen our hearts are authentically open to universal
communion, this sense of fraternity excludes nothing and no one.”
“Francis helps us to see . . .the heart of what it is to be human ”
“Saint Francis shows us just how inseparable the bond is . . . .
between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace.”
“The poverty and austerity of Saint Francis were no mere veneer of asceticism, but something much more radical:
a refusal to turn reality into an object simply to be used and controlled.”
~ Pope Francis (from Laudato Si* climate encyclical message)
Saint Francis of Assisi
Ron’s Introduction.
Like millions of others worldwide I was deeply moved and inspired by Pope Francis’ 2015 visit to the USA. On conclusion of that visit I wondered why the Pope – a Jesuit from Latin America – had been inspired to become first in history to take the papal name Francis.
I soon discovered a probable answer to this question in introductory paragraphs of the Pope’s recent profound climate encyclical message, Laudato Si, or “Praised Be” [*see footnote] specifically referring to the exemplary and inspiring life of the Pope’s namesake Saint Francis of Assisi. Those paragraphs explain why the Saint is revered not only by the Pope and countless Christians, but by numerous others world-wide for his simple life of heartfelt universal love and oneness with Nature.
To honor Saint Francis and the Pope I am sharing with you below those inspiring words of Pope Francis expressing reverence for his namesake.
Encyclical message.
The encyclical message opens with these words:
1. “LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”. In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured
flowers and herbs”.[1]
2. This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.
Then, after briefly summarizing apt teachings of his papal predecessors, the Pope explicitly explains his inspiration from St. Francis of Assisi as follows:
10. I do not want to write this Encyclical without turning to that attractive and compelling figure, whose name I took as my guide and inspiration when I was elected Bishop of Rome. I believe that Saint Francis is the example par excellence of care for the vulnerable and of an integral ecology lived out joyfully and authentically. He is the patron saint of all who study and work in the area of ecology,
and he is also much loved by non-Christians. He was particularly concerned for God’s creation and for the poor and outcast. He loved, and was deeply loved for his joy, his generous self-giving, his openheartedness. He was a mystic and a pilgrim who lived in simplicity and in wonderful harmony with God, with others, with nature and with himself. He shows us just how inseparable the bond is
between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace.
11. Francis helps us to see that an integral ecology calls for openness to categories which transcend the language of mathematics and biology, and take us to the heart of what it is to be human. Just as happens when we fall in love with someone, whenever he would gaze at the sun, the moon or the smallest of animals, he burst into song, drawing all other creatures into his praise. He communed with
all creation, even preaching to the flowers, inviting them “to praise the Lord, just as if they were endowed with reason”.[19] His response to the world around him was so much more than intellectual appreciation or economic calculus, for to him each and every creature was a sister united to him by bonds of affection. That is why he felt called to care for all that exists. His disciple Saint Bonaventure
tells us that, “from a reflection on the primary source of all things, filled with even more abundant piety, he would call creatures, no matter how small, by the name of ‘brother’ or ‘sister’”.[20] Such a conviction cannot be written off as naive romanticism, for it affects the choices which determine our behaviour. If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if
we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs. By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously. The poverty and austerity of Saint Francis were no mere veneer of asceticism, but something much more radical: a refusal to turn reality into an object simply to be used and controlled.
12. What is more, Saint Francis, faithful to Scripture, invites us to see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness. “Through the greatness and the beauty of creatures one comes to know by analogy their maker” (Wis 13:5); indeed, “his eternal power and divinity have been made known through his works since the creation of
the world” (Rom 1:20). For this reason, Francis asked that part of the friary garden always be left untouched, so that wild flowers and herbs could grow there, and those who saw them could raise their minds to God, the Creator of such beauty.[21] Rather than a problem to be solved, the world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise.
Later the Pope cites the Saint as inspiring us to commune with Nature in open hearted compassion for for all beings and all Life:
91. A sense of deep communion with the rest of nature cannot be real if our hearts lack tenderness, compassion and concern for our fellow human beings. It is clearly inconsistent to combat trafficking in endangered species while remaining completely indifferent to human trafficking, unconcerned about the poor, or undertaking to destroy another human being deemed unwanted. This compromises the
very meaning of our struggle for the sake of the environment. It is no coincidence that, in the canticle in which Saint Francis praises God for his creatures, he goes on to say: “Praised be you my Lord, through those who give pardon for your love”. Everything is connected. Concern for the environment thus needs to be joined to a sincere love for our fellow human beings and an unwavering commitment
to resolving the problems of society.
92. Moreover, when our hearts are authentically open to universal communion, this sense of fraternity excludes nothing and no one.
221. May the power and the light of the grace we have received also be evident in our relationship to other creatures and to the world around us. In this way, we will help nurture that sublime fraternity with all creation which Saint Francis of Assisi so radiantly embodied.
Footnote.
*“Laudato Si”, or “Praised Be.” is a refrain from “The Canticle of the Creatures,” a hymn composed by St. Francis of Assisi.
Conclusion.
While remembering and honoring Saint Francis, let us deeply consider and heed the Pope’s wise and profound words addressed to all Humankind, not just to Catholic hierarchy and laity.
Thereby may every one of us – each from our unique perspective and in our unique way – help Humankind urgently address and peacefully resolve immense ecological, political, and economic crises and conflicts confronting us internationally and interpersonally.
And so may it be!
