Posts Tagged ‘Sri Ramana Maharshi’
Follow Your Heart ~
Treasure Hunt Instructions
“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha
“As far, verily, as this world-space extends,
so far extends the space within the heart…”
~ Chandogya Upanishad 8.1.3
“Follow your heart – even if it contradicts my words”
“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”
~ Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.”
“These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern.”
“Beautiful people do not just happen.”
~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, (Death: The Final Stage of Growth, 1975)
“It is in the darkness that one finds the light.”
~ Meister Eckhart
“Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow,
but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.”
~ Leo Tolstoy
“Suffering is the way for Realization of God.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“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 Two
Ron’s Introduction to “Follow Your Heart ~ Treasure Hunt Instructions”
Dear Friends,
The following brief but profound “Follow Your Heart” sutra-poem was first composed and mailed to my daughter Jessica for her twenty ninth birthday anniversary, on May 27, 1995. Soon after launching the SillySutras website, it was published online.
As fatherly advice, I had previously counseled both Jessica and her brother Joshua to:
‘Follow your heart;
don’t harm other beings;
and if possible try to help them.’
And Jessica already had courageously followed her heart in dropping out of Amherst to seek wisdom of the East, even after her distinguished Professor of Buddhist studies, Dr. Robert Thurman, had recommended that she stay and graduate before going to India.
But in 1995 I wanted to assuage Jessica’s concerns, cheer her up, and encourage her to keep following her inner guidance. So I intuitively composed and sent her this ‘follow your heart’ sutra-poem which I first titled: “Birthday Treasure Hunt Instructions” (Later, in publishing the poem’s timeless advice, I excised the word “birthday”)
I don’t remember my thoughts about the poem when I intuitively composed and sent it to Jessica. Maybe my fatherly advice was supposed to summarize one of my favorite Shakespeare passages, in which Polonius emphasizes to his embarking son Laertes:
“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any [person].”
~ William Shakespeare ~ Hamlet, Act I, Scene III
And maybe my poetic advice to Jessica, was mindfully intended to encompass the essence of the Golden Rule of reciprocal empathy that:
We do no harm and treat all beings
with the same dignity we wish for ourselves,
and that they wish for themselves.
Nor do I recall whether in 1995 I was already aware of the profound scriptural passages which I have cited above. But these sutra-poem verses can be understood as consistent with them.
Only much later did I discover Mark Twain’s humorously memorable observation that
“The two most important days in your life
are the day you are born
and the day you find out why.”
~ Mark Twain
Perhaps I was unknowingly sending Jessica a message on the anniversary of the ‘first most important day of her life’ about how to discover and celebrate the ‘second most important day of her life’.
In all events, I was convinced that by following our Sacred Heart we will be in harmony with all life everywhere.
So that as my beloved Guruji revealed:
“If there is love in your heart,
you don’t have to worry about rules.”
~ Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas
Initial Dedication of “Follow Your Heart”
Thus, this sutra-poem was first deeply dedicated to inspiring us
– no matter what we experience in our worldly lives –
to always heed and follow (for us and for all others)
the Eternal inner wisdom of our shared Sacred Heart:
Follow Your Heart ~ Treasure Hunt Instructions
Follow your heart
to find what you wish.Follow your heart
to seek what you miss.Follow your heart
and you shall know this:You are your heart,
you are your bliss,You are what you seek,
you are what you miss.So follow –
and find –Your HEART.
Ron’s audio explanation and recitation of “Follow Your Heart ~ Treasure Hunt Instructions”
2023 Epilogue to “Follow Your Heart ~ Treasure Hunt Instructions”
“Follow Your Heart” was initially inspired and composed when my daughter Jessica had recently returned from seven years in India and re-enrolled at Amherst College to complete the curriculum from which she had dropped out one semester short of graduation. Since she was much older than other undergraduates she was feeling out of place, uncertain and somewhat depressed.
Thereafter Jessica graduated Amherst; attained a Smith College masters degree; met and married a ‘best friend’ husband of 23 years, and birthed two beautiful daughters one of whom is a “special needs” child who has required Jessica’s continuing personal attention.
Today, May 27, 2023, 29 years after composing the foregoing “Follow Your Heart” sutra verses I am republishing them with added above key quotations from Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, world renowned scientist, teacher, author and pioneering authority on death and dying, and others, to encourage and inspire our realization that our relative reality “inner” and “outer” space/time duality experiences are obverse perspectives of the same Absolute non-duality REALITY.
That thereby we can fearlessly endure, inwardly evolve from, and ultimately transcend previously unforeseen intense sufferings, by always remembering that
“Beautiful people do not just happen.”
~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“It is in the darkness that one finds the light.”
~ Meister Eckhart
“Suffering is the way for Realization of God.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“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 Two
.
Rededication and Invocation of “Follow Your Heart”
Thus, “Follow Your Heart” is deeply rededicated
to inspiring our fearless endurance of previously
unknown and unforeseen intense sufferings
with the intention of helping us and all others
to follow the Eternal Wisdom of our shared Sacred HEART
– no matter what happens in our worldly lives.
Invocation
May we always fearlessly follow
Our shared Sacred HEART –
As Eternal Peace, Life, Light, and LOVE,
No matter what happens in our worldly lives.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Death? Afterlife? Rebirth?
~ Easter Reflections on Resurrections
At my death do not lament our separation …
as the sun and moon but seem to set,
in reality this is a rebirth.
~ Rumi
“I tell you the truth,
no one can see the kingdom of God
unless he is born again.”
~ John – 3:3
“The soul is eternal, all-pervading, unmodifiable, immovable and primordial.”
“The soul never takes birth and never dies at any time,
nor does it come into being again when the body is created.
The soul is birthless, eternal, imperishable and timeless,
and is never destroyed when the body is destroyed.
Just as a man giving up old worn out garments accepts other new apparel, in the same way the embodied soul giving up old and worn out bodies verily accepts new bodies.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Krishna to Arjuna
“I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as a plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was man.
Why should I fear?
When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as man,
To soar with angels blest;
But even from angelhood I must pass on …”
~ Rumi
death, as men call him, ends what they call men
–but beauty is more now than dying’s when…
~ e. e. cummings
“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
Eternal Life is gained by utter abandonment of one’s own life.
When God appears to His ardent lover the lover is absorbed in Him,
and not so much as a hair of the lover remains.
True lovers are as shadows, and when the sun shines in glory
the shadows vanish away.
He is a true lover to God to whom God says,
“I am thine, and thou art mine! ”
~ Rumi
Tree of Life
The Last Supper
The biblical story of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection raises crucial issues about life and death – about afterlife and rebirth – and about our true identity and reality.
As countless millions traditionally commemorate the rebirth and resurrection of Jesus Christ following his physical death by crucifixion, let us contemplate the deep significance of that story. Whether we regard it as historic or metaphoric, the story raises crucial issues about life and death – about afterlife and rebirth – and about our true identity and reality.
Physical death is inevitable, but Life is perpetual.
Death of the physical body is inevitable and unavoidable. After birth, “no matter how we strive, no body leaves alive.” Uncertainty exists only about time of death, and about whether there is conscious life after physical death.
For millennia seers, saints, philosophers and mystics have addressed perennial questions of life after physical death and of our true identity and reality. Since the beginning of the 20th century when Albert Einstein revolutionized Western science with his theories of special and general relativity, quantum physicists and other non-materialistic scientists have begun confirming ancient mystical insights.
Raymond A. Moody, Jr., PhD, MD coined the term ‘Near Death Experience’ [NDE] in his 1975 best-selling book “Life After Life”. Since then NDE’s have become widely considered, especially by millions who claim to have experienced them. And some leading-edge non-materialist scientists have cited testimonies about NDE’s and other extraordinary mystical experiences as evidence that consciousness survives physical death.
For example, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, world renowned scientist, teacher, author and pioneering authority on death and dying, believed in survival of spirit after physical death, and used butterflies as symbols of the death process.
Soon after World War II, she visited the children’s barracks at the Maidanek concentration camp in Poland. There, amazingly, she observed hundreds of butterfly images drawn by the inmate children on the walls, even with pebbles and fingernails. Spellbound by the sight of butterflies drawn on the walls, she wondered why they were there and what they meant.
Twenty-five years later, after listening to hundreds of terminally ill patients, she finally realized that the imprisoned children must have known that they were going to die, and intuitively were using butterflies as images of the physical death process. Dr. Kubler-Ross thus explained in The Wheel of Life, A Memoir of Living and Dying:
“They knew that soon they would become butterflies. Once dead, they would be out of that hellish place. Not tortured anymore. Not separated from their families. Not sent to gas chambers. None of this gruesome life mattered anymore. Soon they would leave their bodies the way a butterfly leaves its cocoon. And I realized that was the message they wanted to leave for future generations. . . .It also provided the imagery that I would use for the rest of my career to explain the process of death and dying.”
Dr. Kubler-Ross’s writings have inspired many other non-materialist scientists, authors, and teachers who have followed her lead. Also, of great importance in helping us understand whether spirit survives physical death were the ground-breaking scientific studies by Dr. Ian Stevenson, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, who for forty years studied children world-wide who spontaneously remembered past lives. Dr. Stevenson objectively validated and documented about twelve hundred such cases.
Thanks to the ‘leading edge’ work of Dr. Kubler-Ross and Dr. Stevenson, and of distinguished non-material scientists inspired by them, there now exists overwhelming scientific evidence that consciousness and mind are independent of physical bodies; that our physical bodies and brains are not originators of consciousness and mind, but their receptors, tuners and transducers. And that until we evolve beyond space/time duality reality, apparent reincarnation or rebirth may happen after death of the brain and physical body.
What survives physical death?
If – like snowflakes – each of us manifests as an absolutely unique physical form, what is it about us that can survive death of that unique form, and be “born and reborn”?
“Reincarnation” is often understood to be the transmigration of a “soul” – viz. apparently uniquely circumscribed spirit – to another body after physical death.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism’s most cited ancient scripture, Divine Avatar Krishna instructs Prince Arjuna that:
“The soul is eternal, all-pervading, unmodifiable, immovable and primordial.”; “The soul never takes birth and never dies” but “when the body is destroyed” or when “giving up old and worn out bodies . . [it] accepts new bodies.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2
Though in Buddhism there is no concept of separate soul or individual self that survives death, Buddhists believe in rebirth. Like most mystics, Buddhists say that in addition to our physical body, we are enveloped by subtle astral and mental bodies, which survive death of the physical body and become consciously associated with successive physical bodies.
Thus the Dalai Lama says that:
“We are born and reborn countless number of times, and it is possible that each being has been our parent at one time or another. Therefore, it is likely that all beings in this universe have familial connections.”
A detailed and compelling description of afterlife can be found in “Autobiography of a Yogi”, by Paramahansa Yogananda, Chapter 43 – The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar . There Yogananda credibly recounts a long discussion with his physically deceased Guru, Sri Yukteswar, who – like Jesus – resurrected to explain to his disciple Yogananda many details of afterlife. [You can read that extraordinarily fascinating story at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_a_Yogi/Chapter_43
Many psychics say that on physical death “we” survive and enter different realms. eg. http://www.victorzammit.com/Whenwedie/whatdoeshappen.htm
But ancient Vedic and Buddhist non-dualism philosophies (“Advaita”;”Advaya”) have for millennia taught that this impermanent and ever changing world is an unreal illusion called maya or samsara; and, that “all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream”… .
“The world, indeed, is like a dream
and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage!”
~ Buddha
“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion,
does not act as if it is real,
so he escapes the suffering.”
~ Buddha
Notwithstanding the Buddha’s non-dualist teachings, the Dalai Lama says he practices death and rebirth eight times daily. And, as Tibetan Bodhisattva of Compassion, he intends to return until all sentient beings are liberated from suffering.
If you had the option of a one-way exit pass to ‘heaven’, would you volunteer as a Bodhisattva to come back to this crazy world?
Vivekananda and Einstein.
The ancient Eastern non-dualism teachings were first brought to large Western audiences by Swami Vivekananda, principal disciple of nineteenth century Indian Holy Man Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, at and after the 1893 Parliament of World Religions in Chicago.
In an eloquent New York City lecture called “The Real and the Apparent Man”, Vivekananda equated maya or samsara with “time, space, and causation” and presciently predicted scientific confirmation of the ancient Vedic non-dual philosophy of One Infinite Existence. He said:
“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.”
“What then becomes of all this threefold eschatology of the dualist, that when a man dies he goes to heaven, or goes to this or that sphere, and that the wicked persons become ghosts, and become animals, and so forth? None comes and none goes, says the non-dualist. How can you come and go? You are infinite; where is the place for you to go? “So it is with regard to the soul; the very question of birth and death in regard to it is utter nonsense. Who goes and who comes? Where are you not? Where is the heaven that you are not in already? Omnipresent is the Self of man. Where is it to go? Where is it not to go? It is everywhere. So all this childish dream and puerile illusion of birth and death, of heavens and higher heavens and lower worlds, all vanish immediately for the perfect. For the nearly perfect it vanishes after showing them the several scenes up to Brahmaloka. It continues for the ignorant.”
“Your own will is all that answers prayer, only it appears under the guise of different religious conceptions to each mind. We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, but it is only the Self, the ‘I’.”
~ Swami Vivekananda – Jnana Yoga
Revered 20th century Indian sage, Sri Ramana Maharshi – who was a renowned exponent of non-dualism – taught that for self-realized beings there is no reincarnation, but that reincarnation exists until self-realization – that self-realization reveals this entire world of space/time/duality as illusionary maya or samsara. Thus, responding to the question: “Is reincarnation true?”, he said:
“Reincarnation exists only so long as there is ignorance. There is really no reincarnation at all, either now or before. Nor will there be any hereafter. This is the truth.”
Einstein’s revolutionary non-mechanistic science and unconventional religious ideas were consistent with highest non-dualistic Eastern religious teachings, because they questioned the substantiality of matter, the ultimate reality of space, time and causality, and reincarnation. Like Vivekananda, Einstein said:
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live, they are modes in which we think”
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.”
“There is no place in this new kind of physics for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality.”
“That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.”
“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, …Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism.”
~ Albert Einstein
Ron’s Explanations and Reflections on Reincarnations and Resurrections.
Dear Friends,
At age ninety, I have long reflected upon crucially important perennial questions concerning life, death, afterlife, and rebirth. And thereby I’ve been blessed to realize that consciousness we call “life” continues eternally after inevitable physical death.
Until my mid-life spiritual awakening, I self-identified only as my mortal physical body, its thoughts and its story, and believed that inevitable death of the body ended life. I had no opinion, knowledge or belief concerning reincarnation or afterlife in ‘heaven’ or ‘hell’, or of an immortal “soul”.
Then in my early forties, I had irreversibly transformative experiences of spiritual self-identity and afterlife: I began to realize that I was not merely my mortal body, its thoughts and story, but eternal and universal awareness. And I started seeing visions of apparent past lives, and inner and outer appearances of deceased people, including my maternal grandfather and Mahatma Gandhi, who I now regard as my first perceived inner guide.
So, I began accepting Eastern ideas of reincarnation and transmigration of an eternal soul, while gradually losing fear of inevitable physical death. Then, on meeting my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, I learned that from childhood he had been preoccupied with two perennial puzzles: “Who am I?” and “What is death?”; and, that at age thirteen, inspired by irresistible inner longing, Guruji had run away from home in search of experiential answers to those eternal questions.
Inspired by Guruji, I developed a deep curiosity and philosophical interest in the spiritual significance of death and dying, reincarnation and karma. Elsewhere, on SillySutras.com I have shared many experiences, essays, quotes and poems on these subjects. (See, e.g., https://sillysutras.com/category/afterlife/ ;https://sillysutras.com/category/life-and-death/; https://sillysutras.com/category/reincarnation/ )
Ultimately I’ve concluded that cosmically there is no death; that “birth and death are virtual, while Life is perpetual” and that “as we lose our fear of leaving life, we gain the art of living life.” (See e.g. https://sillysutras.com/know-death-to-know-life-know-death-to-know-that-there-is-no-death/ )
Consequently, I’ve become ever less fearful about my own inevitable and perhaps imminent bodily death, and often witness Earth-life like an illusionary play or movie, rather than Reality – which I now consider timeless LOVE as Infinite Potentiality beyond comprehension, imagination or description.
Moreover, I’ve become persuaded that from a Self–realized ‘Buddha’s eye view’ all our supposedly separate lifetimes, incarnations, emanations or appearances can be Seen timelessly and concurrently – formed like ink blots in a ‘big bang’ Rorschach test; but that (except for rare Avatars or Buddhas) we are karmically challenged to live each supposed space/time lifetime as lovingly and empathetically as possible, while ever mindful that we are not separate mortal entities but indivisible formless and eternal Infinite Potentiality as LOVE.
To encourage our deep insights on perennial questions of afterlife and reincarnation, like “Who am I?” and “What is death?”, I have shared the foregoing writings.
May Easter and every day help us attain destined inner fulfillment and happiness during our ephemeral lifetimes on precious planet Earth.
And so may it be!
2023 Epilogue.
Dear Friends,
During recent equinox holidays we have experienced an unprecedented era of social, psychological, political, and economic turbulence, violence, and polarity, with seemingly imminent nuclear war or other omnicidal catastrophe ending earth-life as we’ve known it.
More people than ever before are suffering fears of death, illness, impoverishment, or imminent calamity, and are unable to live normally. They feel deprived of God-given human rights and necessities, and prevented from engaging in customary economic and social activities. Some are homeless or ‘sheltering’ unable to reverently commemorate the equinox holidays with others.
Nonetheless, our species is still insanely plundering, polluting and pillaging our planet’s limited resources and and unsustainably destroying it’s precious ecosystem and climate.
But, paradoxically, this is also a time of epochal opportunity, not only a time of apparently imminent catastrophe caused or condoned by our species.
Thus, this an especially appropriate time for us to deeply reflect upon our fundamental life purposes, priorities and responsibilities as sentient Earth beings.
Because ignorance of humanity’s immortal Self-Identity causes continual fearful sufferings which impede evolution and progress, it is crucial that we transcend fears. So the foregoing writings are offered to help us overcome our fears, and thereby enter an unprecedented new era of peace and prosperity on earth.
Dedication
These writings are deeply dedicated to encouraging reflection about our Eternal Self-identity as timeless Divine LOVE.
May they help us experience ever expanding fulfillment and inner happiness during our ephemeral lifetimes on precious planet Earth, whatever we believe about death, afterlife or rebirth.
Invocation.
May we – in this ephemeral human lifetime
on our precious planet Earth –
realize our common dream for a new reality,
where everyone everywhere is happy.
May Everyone Everywhere Be Happy!
“Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu!”
And so shall it be!!
Ron Rattner
“Finding Freedom” as the Spiritual message of the Passover story
“Be empty of worrying,
Think of Who Created Thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?”
~ Rumi
“You will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.”
~ John 8:32
“Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt land
Tell old Pharaoh to let my people go.”
~ Afro-American Spiritual Song
“Free at last, free at last.
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“We are shackled by illusory bonds of belief.
Freedom is beyond belief.”
~ Ron Rattner – Sutra Sayings
“There is only one central issue, crisis, or challenge for man,
which is, that he must be completely free.
As long as the mind is holding on to a structure, a method, a system, there is no freedom.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice.
Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness
of our daily existence and activity.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“Bondage is of the mind; freedom too is of the mind.
If you say ‘I am a free soul.
I am a son of God who can bind me’
free you shall be.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa
“The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him–
that moment I am free from bondage,
everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
All life is an effort to attain freedom from self-created entanglement;
it is a desperate struggle to undo what has been done under ignorance,
to throw away the accumulated burden of the past,
to find rescue from the debris left by a series of temporary achievements and failures.”
~ Meher Baba
“Freedom is of the nature of the soul, it is its birthright:
.. real freedom of the soul shines through veils of matter
in the form of the apparent freedom of man.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
“To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe;
it cannot be found here. ….
The only way to come out of bondage
is to go beyond the limitations of [karmic] law,
to go beyond causation.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
“Liberation is our very nature. We are that.
The very fact that we wish for liberation
shows that freedom from all bondage is our real nature.”
~ Ramana Maharshi
“Spiritual freedom is freedom from all wanting. . .
When the soul breaks asunder the shackles of wanting,
it is emancipated from bondage to body, mind, and ego.
This freedom brings realization of the unity of all life
and puts an end to all doubts and worries.”
~ Meher Baba
“True freedom and the end of suffering
is living in such a way as if you had completely chosen
whatever you feel or experience at this moment.
This inner alignment with Now is the end of suffering.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“The most fundamental message of Gautama the Buddha is not God, is not soul… it is freedom: freedom absolute, total, unconditional. He does not want to give you an ideology, because every ideology creates its own slavery. He does not want to give you a religion, because religion binds you.”
~ Osho
“We are shackled by illusory bonds of belief.
Freedom is beyond belief.”
~ Ron Rattner – Sutra Sayings
“You are truly free when you are not a person.”
~ Deepak Chopra – The Book of Secrets
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual,
“Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr. — “I Have a Dream” speech, August 28, 1963
“Finding Freedom”
Ron’s introduction to “Finding Freedom” as the spiritual message of the biblical Passover story
Dear Friends,
Happy Easter/Passover/Ramadan/Navratri/Nowruz etc. vernal holiday season!
As Passover begins today, this posting explains why metaphorically “Finding Freedom” as Eternal LOVE is the spiritual message of the biblical Passover story, and the transcendental inner goal of all non-dual religious, ethical and perennial wisdom paths.
Most people associate “freedom” with personal, political, and economic liberty. But spiritual freedom is an extraordinarily rare transcendental state which can be inwardly attained even by those who do not enjoy external freedoms, like slaves or prison inmates.
Only after my 1976 spiritual awakening, did I begin reflecting upon and discovering inner spiritual freedom.
My Background in “Finding Freedom”
I first deeply reflected on transcendental concepts of “freedom” during the 1950’s on learning of Abraham Maslow’s humanistic psychology theories concerning self-actuated people, and when I read “Escape From Freedom” by German-born psychotherapist Erich Fromm, who endorsed the fundamental importance of not submitting to outer-dictates from an authoritarian societal system that prescribes inauthentic beliefs and behaviors.
Though I’ve always been instinctively inner-directed, after becoming a lawyer I rarely reflected about inner “freedom” until I had a memorable face-to-face exchange with my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, just prior to his 1980 return to India.
While then residing in my apartment, Guruji told me: “Rasik, a yogi’s body is like a baby’s body. Your body is like a prison. I am like a jailer with the prison key. I come and go as I please.”
Thereupon, I became intensely curious about Guruji’s surprising revelation that my body was “like a prison”. And I wondered how and why ‘I’ was ‘imprisoned’, and how ‘I’ could get out of ‘jail’ – free like Guruji. So I began deeply exploring inner spiritual freedom, as distinguished from personal, political, and economic freedoms.
Soon, I was reminded of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legendary “I Have a Dream” speech, and wondered why his words “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last” were so deeply powerful.
Ultimately, I realized that those words were rooted in the biblical Exodus Passover story; and I intuited that spiritual “freedom” is the essential mythical message of that story. I concluded that the Passover story symbolically emphasizes escape from outer bondage to a Divinely ‘promised land’ within – viz. escape from enslavement by mistaken beliefs in false external idols, Gods or goals to an inner ‘promised land’ of ONE eternal Divinity imminent in each of us.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is ONE!”
~ Deuteronomy 6:4
Later, I noted that Jesus powerfully alluded to spiritual freedom by prophesying:
“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
~ John 8:32
So Jesus was teaching that we will find freedom (from psychologically self-imposed worldly slavery) only when we transcend entity identity, and commonly self-identify as ONE Divine spirit – the kingdom of heaven within – rather than as embodied personalities,
supposedly separate from each other and Nature.
Ultimately, I concluded that our limited and limiting ego ideas about separate self-identity and reality confine each of us within a kind of psychological prison in which suffering is inevitable, and which restricts realization of our infinite potentialities.
However, the masters teach and demonstrate that we can each mentally transcend that “prison” and emerge “free at last” from our self-woven karmic cocoons, no matter what our outer circumstances.
Thus, Rumi reminded us:
“Be empty of worrying,
Think of Who Created Thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?”
~ Rumi
The ultimate possibility of getting out of thought-jail FREE is explained in the foregoing quotations and following sutra-essay. May these writings encourage our evolution to precious inner freedom, our divine birthright.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Sutra-essay: How can we find “Freedom”?
Q. What is “freedom”, and how can we experience it?
A. “Freedom” is a word with different meanings.
Here we define “freedom” as ultimate spiritual Reality beyond thought or ego – beyond human comprehension, imagination, description or belief – which can only be known experientially, not rationally or mentally.
Ultimate “freedom” is our divine birthright, our nature and our destiny. Freedom is ever NOW, never then. Knowingly or unknowingly, all people – including atheists, non-theists, and agnostics – long for “freedom”.
After mystically experiencing “freedom”, great beings like Jesus, the Buddha and Krishna have encouraged us to aspire to this ultimate transcendent experience. Mystics say that as long we self-identify only with our thoughts in ever changing space/time/causality reality we are inescapably ‘imprisoned’ in a state of psychological bondage, with inevitable suffering; that we experience ultimate “freedom” only in the present moment – the NOW – as we choicelessly self-identify with timeless universal awareness or spirit immanent in each of us. And essential non-dualistic wisdom teachings of all enduring spiritual, mystical and mythic paths allude to spiritual “freedom”.
Thus, the most important Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, is a teaching by Divine Avatar Krishna about the ultimate spiritual goal (“moksha”) of liberation or “freedom” from the cycle of death and rebirth (“samsara”).
Similarly, all of Gautama Buddha’s teachings were aimed at ending human suffering through attainment of “freedom” from mental fetters or chains (samyojana) of mistaken self-identification with samsara.
When Jesus said: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32) he meant that we will experience “freedom” on realizing our true self-identity as eternal soul or spirit. And in declaring: “I and the Father are One” (John 10:30), Jesus showed that we can only find such freedom when we self-identify with ONE Divine spirit – the kingdom of heaven within – rather than as supposedly separate embodied personalities.
“Finding Freedom” is the spiritual message of the biblical Passover story.
Many Jews and Christians annually remember and ritually observe the biblical Exodus story about God miraculously rescuing Jews from bondage as slaves in Egypt, with Christians recalling that a Passover Seder dinner was Jesus’ last supper. Some Afro-American Christians celebrate by singing the popular spiritual song “Go Down Moses”
.
The Exodus story symbolizes humanity’s eternal quest for spiritual freedom – for societal escape from enslavement by mistaken beliefs in false external Gods or goals to an inner ‘promised land’ of ONE eternal Divinity universally imminent as LOVE within each of us, regardless of religious or spiritual beliefs. So Passover rituals of lighting outer candles, can symbolically remind us of humanity’s perpetual quest for the eternal inner light of universal freedom.
Conclusions
1) We find and experience ultimate freedom only in choiceless awareness that we are ONE Universal LOVE, beyond our apparent subject/object separateness; and beyond our beliefs, religions, ideologies or philosophies.
2) By recognizing and transcending illusory belief barriers which seem to imprison us, we are –
“Free at last, free at last!”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
3) The current era of worldwide turmoil and war, with global fear and suffering is paradoxically a time of both our species’ apparent catastrophic threat to all Earth-life, and an unprecedented opportunity for a wonderful new era of peace and prosperity.
4) This is impelling a “critical mass” of humankind to deeply reconsider our life purposes and priorities as sentient Earth beings instinctively seeking “freedom” as our Divine birthright.
5) Whatever our outer life circumstances, there always exists within us a God-given egoless state of “freedom” as LOVE, attainable by all humans.
Dedication
This “Finding Freedom” posting is deeply dedicated to inspiring our destined spiritual realization of that wonderful world, beyond fear and suffering, where we shall be “Free at last, free at last!”
Please enjoy and consider it’s key quotations, sutra-essay and comments, and embedded spiritual music explaining that ultimate “Freedom”, is spiritual freedom as Eternal LOVE, which is the transcendental goal of all perennial wisdom paths.
Invocation
May today’s writings and music
inspire our instinctive and destined realization
of a wonderful world of LOVE
where we are “Free at last, free at last.”
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
“Go Down Moses”
Afro-American spiritual about exodus story, sung by Louis Armstrong and chorus.
“Amazing Grace”
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“Amazing grace!
how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind but now i see.”
~ John Newton
“Above all the grace and the gifts
that Christ gives to his beloved,
is that of overcoming self.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi
“Every breath we draw is a gift of [God’s] love,
every moment of existence is a grace,
for it brings with it immense graces from Him.”
~ Thomas Merton
“Give up to grace.
The ocean takes care of each wave ’til it gets to shore.
You need more help than you know.”
~ Rumi
“Love cannot be learned or taught.
Love comes as Grace.”
~ Rumi
“The winds of grace are always blowing,
but you have to raise the sail.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna
“Grace is ever present.
All that is necessary is that you surrender to it.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“Grace comes to forgive and then forgive again.”
~ Rumi
“I know, to banish anger altogether
from one’s breast is a difficult task.
It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort.
It can be done only by God’s grace.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“As far as inner transformation is concerned,
there is nothing you can do about it.
You cannot transform yourself,
and you certainly cannot transform your partner or anybody else.
All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen,
for grace and love to enter.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —
and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God —
not by works, so that no one can boast.”
~ Ephesians 2:8-9
“Amazing Grace” ~ Ron’s Memoirs
Ron’s Introduction to “Amazing Grace”
Dear Friends,
At age 90, I am again reflecting on my most important spiritual insights, learned so far.
Today’s memoirs posting refers both to the idea of Divine Grace in religion, philosophy, and perennial spiritual teachings, and to the phrase “Amazing Grace” which began in 1772 with John Newton’s well-known Christian hymn. (See footnote)
This posting hereafter includes my recited sutra poem titled “Amazing Grace” (composed almost thirty years ago}, together with apt quotations, explanations and invocations. It also includes powerful embedded a cappella performances of that hymn, by internationally famed vocalists Hayley Westenra and Andrea Bocelli, and sung by by the South African Soweto Gospel Choir.
Footnote
“Amazing Grace” first became well known as the title of a powerful Christian hymn text, composed in 1772 by English poet, abolitionist, and Anglican clergyman John Newton – who wholeheartedly wrote from his genuine ‘born-again’ Christian experience, after leading an extraordinarily miserable, difficult, and dissolute life as a slave trader.
Background
Long before consciously considering the blessings of Divine Grace in my life, I remember being moved by cantorial chants during Jewish High Holy Day services. And I recall thereafter being emotionally moved on hearing the wonderfully powerful “Amazing Grace” gospel hymn.
Then in 1976 I was spiritually awakened to self-identity as much more than my mortal physical body, its thoughts and its story. That awakening initiated an evolutionary process of inner transformation bringing previously unimagined blessings of peace and happiness.
Most importantly, in 1978 I received Shaktipat initiation by my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas. Whereupon I became a self-declared “born-again HIndu”. Thereafter I gratefully began reflecting upon, and sometimes describing as “amazing grace”, what was happening in my life.
During a post-retirement period of solitude, prayer and reflection, I composed (and later recited) the following visionary sutra-poem titled “Amazing Grace”.
Because Divine Grace applies to all human spiritual experience – that poem and all online quotations about “grace” can apply to everyone everywhere whether or not they are religious ‘believers’. So I’m blessed to share with you this Amazing Grace posting, with the deep aspiration that it may open our hearts to receiving and sharing gifts of Divine Grace, which are ever-potential blessings in all our lives.
“Amazing Grace” Sutra Poem ~ by Ron Rattner
Knowingly or unknowingly we seek
Wholeness, Happiness and Love.
Consciously or subliminally,
We intuit and long for a state of being
which transcends inevitable Earthly cares and suffering.
And there is a transcendent spiritual Force
which impels and rewards our longing.
Some call it Grace –
‘Amazing Grace’.
Grace is to mind as gravity is to matter:
Grace is an inescapable centripetal force
drawing mind to its Source –
To the Sacred Heart.
Knowingly or unknowingly,
we are all seekers, and
With ‘Amazing Grace’,
we shall all be finders, of –
Wholeness, Happiness and Love.
Knowingly or unknowingly we seek
Wholeness, Happiness and Love.
Consciously or subliminally,
We intuit and long for a state of being
which transcends inevitable Earthly cares and suffering.
And there is a transcendent spiritual Force
which impels and rewards our longing.
Some call it Grace –
‘Amazing Grace’.
Grace is to mind as gravity is to matter:
Grace is an inescapable centripetal force
drawing mind to its Source –
To the Sacred Heart.
Knowingly or unknowingly,
we are all seekers, and
With ‘Amazing Grace’,
we shall all be finders, of –
Wholeness, Happiness and Love.
Ron’s recitation of “Amazing Grace”
Recent Propitious Events
This 2023 post-pandemic winter solstice season is an especially auspicious time for our reflecting upon, and opening our hearts to, Amazing Grace. We are now extraordinarily privileged to witness an unprecedented turning point in modern human history, with marvelous opportunities for realizing blessings of Divine Grace.
Countless people worldwide are awakening from believing and fearing massive untruths long told by a tiny ruling class to control, divide and exploit humankind. And they are collectively and righteously refusing to continue following their purported leaders, any longer. And with Divine grace many are remembering our true eternal identity as Divine Love.
Ron’s Reflections on Divine Grace
Rumi reminds us that our loving behaviors, rather than our theological beliefs, are most crucial in opening us to gifts of Grace.
“Love cannot be learned or taught.
Love comes as Grace.”
~ Rumi
Thus Grace comes without warning to those who have opened their hearts to receive it.
“The winds of grace are always blowing,
but you have to raise the sail.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna
So I’m blessed to share with you this Amazing Grace memoirs posting with the deep aspiration that it may help us open our hearts to receive and share gifts of Divine Grace, which are ever potential blessings in all our lives.
Ultimately, may we realize that
“Every breath we draw is a gift of love,
every moment of existence is a grace,
for it brings with it immense graces from [Mother/Father/God].”
~ Thomas Merton
Invocation
With unspeakable gratitude for our constant Divine blessings,
May we open our hearts with faith
to receive and share endless gifts of Divine Grace,
which are ever potential blessings in all our lives.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Amazing Grace vocal solo by Hayley Westenra
Andrea Bocelli: Amazing Grace – Music For Hope (Live From Duomo di Milano) – Easter Sunday April 12, 2020
“Amazing Grace” by John Newton ~ Sung By Soweto Gospel Choir
Remembering the Mirror of the Mind
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“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.”
~ Patanjali – Yoga Sutras
“All appearances are verily one’s own concepts,
self-conceived in the mind,
like reflections seen in a mirror.
To know whether this be so or not,
look within thine own mind.”
~ Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche)
Perception is a mirror, not a fact.
And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.”
~ A Course In Miracles
“When you look in the mirror, what do you see?”
Do you see the real you, or what you have been conditioned to believe is you?
The two are so, so different.
One is an infinite consciousness capable of being and creating whatever it chooses,
the other is an illusion imprisoned by its own perceived and programmed limitations.
~ David Icke
“The mind of the Sage being in repose
becomes the mirror of the universe,
the speculum of all creation.”
~ Chuang Tzŭ
“The Witness and the witnessed are ONE.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Saying
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,
they are modes in which we think.”
“The distinction between past, present, and future
is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong.
What we have called matter is energy,
whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses.”
~ Albert Einstein
‘Time, space and causation
are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen…
In the Absolute there is neither time, space, nor causation.’
~ Swami Vivekananda [Jnana Yoga]
“Every particle of the world is a mirror.
In each atom lies the blazing light of a thousand suns.”
~ Mahmud Shabestari, Sufi Mystic, 15th century
“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.”
~ Buddha
“The world, indeed, is like a dream
and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage!”
“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion,
does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.”
~ Buddha
“This separation between man and man, between nation and nation,
between earth and moon, between moon and sun.
Out of this idea of separation between atom and atom comes all misery.
But the Vedanta says that this separation does not exist, it is not real.”
~ Swami Vivekananda [Jnana Yoga]
“We are like the spider.
We weave our life and then move along in it.
We are like the dreamer
who dreams and then lives in the dream.
This is true for the entire universe.”
~ Aitareya Upanishad
“Our mentality is our reality.
Our “reality” is what we think it to be.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Whatever we think, do, or say,
changes this world in some way.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Thought divides Universal Awareness,
as a prism divides light.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Human consciousness is conditioned consciousness;
it is pure Awareness conditioned by ego conceptions.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Ego” = “Mind”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
One must elevate — and not degrade — oneself with
one’s own mind, which is one’s friend as
well as one’s enemy. The mind is the friend of those
who have control over it, and the mind acts like an
enemy for those who do not control it. (6.05-06)
~ Bhagavad Gita 6.5-6
Remembering the Mirror of the Mind ~ Ron’s Memoirs
Introduction
Dear Friends,
At age ninety I’m again updating memoirs to emphasize my most important spiritual insights learned since spiritually awakening over forty years ago.
I’ve learned that our space/time duality “reality” is an energetic mental illusion which we create with our unique “free choice” thoughts, beliefs and behaviors. And that by understanding and intuitively using and controlling our “mind” we can inwardly advance our happiness and spiritual evolution, despite challenging outer life circumstances, with inevitable fears and sufferings.
For millennia mystics, seers and sages have revealed that space/time/duality reality is an unreal mental illusion, that they’ve often called maya or samsara. And these inner discoveries have been scientifically confirmed by Albert Einstein’s revolutionary relativity discoveries that everything everywhere is endless energy – E=mc2.
As an elder seeker of Self-Realization, I’m sharing this memoirs posting to help us understand and use our minds to transform and transcend them. Therefore the posting explains how the mind functions like a mirror, which only perceives and projects reflections. These perceived reflections are mistakenly interpreted by our minds as physical or material objects, which are only optical energy illusions.
Like mirrors the clearer the mind, the clearer and more accurate are its displayed images. And minds like mirrors can identify as “reality” only via perceived light wave images. Since most humans discern only a tiny part of a vast and ever expanding electromagnetic energy spectrum, what we visually and mentally reify is only a persistent “optical illusion of consciousness.”
Yet while incarnate we cannot escape viewing our space/time duality world through the ‘mirror of the mind’. But more and more we can remember that it reflects the unseen light of Eternal Awareness onto the screen of our human consciousness its Source. And thereby we can gradually transform and transcend the mind’s persistent “optical illusion of consciousness.” by inwardly remembering and Self-identifying with that Eternal Light of Consciousness..
So by learning how human minds perceive, reflect, and project like mirrors we can better understand why our perceived reality is only a mental illusion, which we can inwardly control to advance (and not deter) our spiritual evolution.
(See What is the human “mind”? Is it best friend or worst enemy?)
(See Transcending Ego-Suffering)
Therefore, I’ve posted the above and following quotations and explanations about how human minds appear and function like mirrors, to further our spiritual evolution.
Quotations about mental unreality of time on Earth
“The world, indeed, is like a dream
and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage!”
“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion,
does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.”
~ Buddha
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,
they are modes in which we think.”
“The distinction between past, present, and future
is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Ego is the biggest enemy of humans. ”
~ Rig Veda
“The foundation of the Buddha’s teachings lies in compassion,
and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego,
the number-one enemy of compassion.” ~ Dalai Lama
“The mind is a bundle of thoughts.
The thoughts arise because there is the thinker.
The thinker is the ego.
The ego, if sought, will automatically vanish.
The ego and the mind are the same.
The ego is the root-thought from which all other thoughts arise.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“All bad qualities center round the ego. ..
There are neither good nor bad qualities in the Self.
The Self is free from all qualities. Qualities pertain to the mind only.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“The mind is only a bundle of thoughts [with] their root in the I-thought.
Whoever investigates the True “I” enjoys the stillness of bliss.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“All unhappiness is due to the ego. With it comes all your trouble.
If you would deny the ego and scorch it by ignoring it you would be free.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
One must elevate — and not degrade — oneself with
one’s own mind, which is one’s friend as
well as one’s enemy. The mind is the friend of those
who have control over it, and the mind acts like an
enemy for those who do not control it. (6.05-06)
~ Bhagavad Gita 6.5-6
“Every Cause has its Effect;
Every Effect has its Cause;
Everything happens according to Law;
Chance is but a name for Law not recognized;
There are many planes of causation,
But nothing escapes the Law.”
~ The Kybalion
Conclusions about the Mirror of the Mind as a controllable ego-mind illusion
The foregoing quotations from scriptures and seers and information on related SillySutras postings enable us to conclude that:
1) The ego = the mind; they are the same. The ego is the root I-thought from which all other thoughts arise. The mind is only a bundle of thoughts [with] their root in the I-thought.
2) Ego is what we think we are when we mistakenly self-identify as an individual mortal physical body separate from eternal non-duality Reality,
and as perceiver of a supposedly material space/time world. And our body is our ego incarnate.
3) Our Ego identification as separate forms permits our free choice. But it subjects us to the karmic cause and effect law at every energy plane of illusory separate existence. And at lower energy planes karmic suffering is inevitable. So ego can become like a psychological prison in which earthly karmic suffering or reward is unavoidable.
4) Uncontrolled ego invariably attempts to perpetuate its unreal existence. But such attempted ego self-preservation is always futile. What never existed can not be preserved.
5) Until the ego-mind is psychologically cleared, it can be controlled to gradually 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 clear ego-mind.
6) To hasten our spiritual evolution we should mindfully control our thoughts, and behave with forgiveness, kindness and compassion; and no longer confuse non-dual projected pure awareness as a separate objective world.
7) We should remember that our perceived Earth-life separation from eternal Mother/Father/God and Nature is a mental illusion that never happened.
So we have nothing to fear – EVER.
Invocation
May we ever remember and never forget
That our true identity is immortal LOVE;
That all that is, was, or ever can be
is the Eternal Light of Divine Love – NOW!
That as embodied Human Souls
we’ve fleetingly appeared through the
Mirror of the Mind
As illusionary space/time energy forms,
to always follow our Heart
Until we’re formlessly dissolved as ONE LOVE
within Mother/Father/God and Nature –
our Eternal Source.
May we ever remember and never forget
That our separation from Source never happened.
So we’ve nothing to fear – EVER.
That all that is, was, or ever can be
is the Eternal Light of Divine Love – NOW!
And so may it ever be!
Ron Rattner
“Sunrise, Sunset”
~ a Modern Melody With Ancient Meaning
“The soul of man has been separated from its source,
wandering in exile in a strange land –
“I am stranger on earth” (Psalm 119:19-20) –
ever yearning to return to that from which it first sprang,
and cleave to the Soul of all souls.”
~ Ba’al Shem Tov, Hasidic master
“Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears”
~ Sheldon Harnick, Jerry Bock – “Fiddler on the Roof”
“What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”
~ Crowfoot, 1890
“Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.”
~ Buddha: Diamond Sutra
“In the end these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you love?
How deeply did you learn to let go?”
~ Buddha
Fiddler on the Roof
“Sunrise, Sunset” ~ a Modern Melody With Ancient Meaning
Introduction
Dear Friends,
In recent postings I’ve explained verbally and demonstrated with recorded musical performances how the hauntingly beautiful melody of the ancient Kol Nidré prayer which begins Yom Kippur, the highest of Jewish High Holy Days, communicates deep feelings of instinctive perennial wisdom beyond words.
Spiritually, Kol Nidré melodies have for centuries communicated innate human awareness of our unavoidable fallibility and inability to live without inevitable life-long ‘ups and downs’ and mistakes, from which we learn Love on the Earth branch of an infinitely expanding Cosmic University.
Shortly after my 1976 spiritual awakening I experienced a melody from the play and movie Fiddler on the Roof – “Sunrise, Sunset” – as a modern analogue to Kol Nidré which to me communicated similar ancient instinctive wisdom beyond words.
During an amazing February 1977 week in New York (a time for me of great spiritual sensitivity and curiosity) after I was scheduled to return home I attended a Broadway revival performance of the play.
I was extremely interested in the fictional story because all my maternal and paternal Rattner surname ancestors over a century ago had emigrated to the USA from Western Ukraine near Kiev to escape hatred and persecution for their Jewish religious customs, and my father and his extended family had fled an actual village just like the fictional village portrayed in Fiddler on the Roof.
Now, at an historically unprecedented time, when survival of all humans – not just Jews – appears threatened globally by war and hatred in Ukraine “Sunrise, Sunset” is for me more important than ever before. So I’ve decided to explain and demonstrate it with this posting.
Although “Sunrise, Sunset” was composed to be sung by different fictional characters and a chorus i’m hereafter singing it as a cantor, for all humans at this unprecedented time of Ukrainian war world jeopardy. Also to demonstrate the power of the melody alone I will cantorially hum it in the mystical Jewish wordless song tradition of the nigun.
Please listen, enjoy and open your heart to the contemporary importance of these timeless melodies.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
“Sunrise, Sunset” Lyrics [*excerpted]
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears.
Is this the little girl I carried?
Is this the little boy at play?
I don’t remember growing older
When did they?
When did she get to be a beauty?
When did he grow to be so tall?
Wasn’t it yesterday
When they were small?
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze.
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears.
*Lyrics excerpted from Fiddler On The Roof – Broadway Musical 1964
Melody composed By Jerry Bock, Lyrics By Sheldon Harnick
“Sunrise, Sunset” ~ Lyric Excerpts and Melody Cantorially sung by Ron Rattner
Dear Friends,
Although “Sunrise, Sunset” was composed to be sung by different fictional characters and a chorus I’m hereafter singing lyric excerpts as a cantor, for all humans at this unprecedented time of Ukrainian war world jeopardy.
Also to demonstrate the power of the melody alone I will cantorially hum it in the mystical Jewish wordless song tradition of the nigun.
Please listen, enjoy and open your heart to the contemporary importance of these timeless melodies.
May they invoke Divine Grace, and soon fulfill our soul’s deepest aspirations!
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Fiddler On The Roof – “Sunrise sunset” Scene from film
Composting Life’s Sufferings
“All formations are ‘transient’ (anicca); all formations are ‘subject to suffering’ (dukkha); all things are ‘without a self’ (anatt ). Corporeality is transient, feeling is transient, perception is transient, mental formations are transient, consciousness is transient. And that which is transient, is subject to suffering. ”
~ Buddha
“Suffering is the way for Realization of God.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“There are those who say that in their heaven there is no suffering.
But if there is no suffering, how can there be happiness?
We need compost to grow flowers, and mud to grow lotuses.
If you know how to make good use of the mud, you can grow beautiful lotuses.
If you know how to make good use of suffering, you can produce happiness.”
“We do need some suffering to make happiness possible.
And most of us have enough suffering inside and around us to be able to do that.
We don’t have to create more.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“Both suffering and happiness are of an organic nature, which means they are both transitory; they are always changing. The flower, when it wilts, becomes the compost. The compost can help grow a flower again.
Happiness is also organic and impermanent by nature.
It can become suffering, and suffering can become happiness again.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“The ground’s generosity takes in our compost and grows beauty!
Try to be more like the ground.”
~ Rumi
“Earth is a world of mysterious interdependently co-arising complexities,
which we’re constantly composting, but can’t comprehend.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“No matter how we strive, no body leaves alive.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Composting Life’s Sufferings
Introduction to “Composting Life’s Sufferings”
Dear Friends,
The following comments on “Composting Life’s Sufferings” are dedicated to helping us insightfully examine and improve our lives as human beings on planet Earth, where suffering is inevitable. They metaphorically view our physical lifetimes as natural evolutionary processes, by comparing them to the composting process, well known to organic farmers and gardeners, and to urban waste processors.
They are intended and dedicated to encouraging us to skillfully process our psychological ‘garbage’, and thereby to experience ever increasing happiness, and ultimate fulfillment of our deepest inner aspirations.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Comments on “Composting Life’s Sufferings”
In Nature, everything’s energy – E=mc2. And nothing’s wasted; all energy is conserved. Eventually everything is recycled.
As part of Nature, all human bodies are recycled. Every physical body inevitably dies, disintegrates and is returned to Mother Earth.
“No matter how we strive, no body leaves alive.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
But each physical human body is survived by subtle bodies: astral, mental, and causal.
And – like all else in Nature – these subtle bodies are not wasted. After persisting in other planes, most are recycled. They are accessed and used as ‘software’ for other physical bodies, in a process known as reincarnation. In very rare cases they may transcend all worlds of form, and merge with infinite eternal Awareness – their Source.
Composting is a natural recycling process. Biodynamic farmers and organic gardeners know that organic material can be composted, recycled and re-used as mulch for growing new plants. Composting enriches the ground where new plant-life is cultivated, and so hastens Nature’s continuing recycling processes.
Just as composting physical garbage can hasten our garden’s growth, we can advance our spiritual growth process by composting our ‘psychological garbage’. Thus, Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh counsels us to metaphorically compost our anger to transform it into “peace, love, and understanding”, and our suffering to “produce happiness”.
Human life has inevitable ‘ups and downs’, difficulties, and challenges. Though we appear physically different, mentally and emotionally we all share similar ‘software’, with which we process life’s challenges.
Therefore, let us naturally and cooperatively ‘compost’ earth-life’s unavoidable challenges and sufferings by lovingly, fearlessly and faithfully following our heart.
“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha
Invocation
May we fearlessly follow our heart
to naturally and harmoniously process suffering
by “composting” our “psychological garbage”
for ever growing “peace, love, and understanding”
to “produce happiness”, and ultimate
fulfillment of our deepest aspirations.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Raising “Human Consciousness”
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“The key to growth
is the introduction of higher dimensions
of consciousness into our awareness.”
~ Lao Tzu
“Our separation of each other
is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
‘Time, space and causation
are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen…
In the Absolute there is neither time, space, nor causation.’
~ Swami Vivekananda [Jnana Yoga]
“Consciousness is the basis of all life
and the field of all possibilities.
Its nature is to expand and unfold its full potential.
The impulse to evolve is thus inherent in the very nature of life.”
~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything,
you are essentially conscious of yourself.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
Thought divides Universal Awareness,
as a prism divides light.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Human consciousness is conditioned consciousness;
it is pure Awareness conditioned by conceptions.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Lau Tzu
Raising “Human Consciousness” ~ Ron’s Memoirs
Ron’s Introduction
Dear Friends,
In these critical times when humans are the only species causing unprecedented climate collapse, warfare and other catastrophic crises which insanely, unsustainably and imminently threaten all life on our precious planet, it appears urgently imperative that we bring expanded awareness of our true immortal identity and infinite potentiality into the world. So recently I posted quotations, poetry definitions and explanations about Clearing “Human Consciousness”.
Today, to further emphasize our urgent need and unlimited potential to honor our beautiful planet and all it’s life forms by energetically elevating a “critical mass” of our species, I’m posting memoirs explaining my awakening process and perspectives about raising “human consciousness”, a concept with immense spiritual significance.
Also, I’m hereafter sharing an optimistic prediction of an energetically ascended new Earth reality beyond current fears and sufferings.
My Awakening Process
At midlife I was spiritually awakened (through Amazing Grace) to self-identity as pure awareness, rather than as a mere mortal body, its thoughts and its story. That realization initiated an inner evolutionary process, bringing previously unimagined blessings of peace and happiness, to be shared with others.
After initially self-identifying as pure awareness, I gradually surmised that Ron’s awareness must be the same as that of every other sentient being; that I’m not merely an individual consciousness separate as a person from other sentient beings, but Universal Awareness – the mysterious spiritual Source of all manifestation and all phenomena.
Thereafter I began wondering about seemingly differing space/time states of “human consciousness”, and common consciousness of all other life-forms. For example, I became curious about how “human consciousness” might differ from dog consciousness, cat consciousness, bird consciousness, fish consciousness, plant consciousness, insect consciousness, cell consciousness and perhaps even consciousness of apparently inanimate and lifeless forms like rocks and manufactured objects (like the 1976 Volvo miraculously blessed by my Guruji).
After much reflection, I decided that what we call “human consciousness” apparently differs from common consciousness of other life-forms – which seem spontaneously harmonious with Nature – because most humans mistakenly perceive and think of themselves to be separate from each other and Nature due to what Einstein called “an optical illusion of consciousness”, and what for millennia spiritual scriptures and non-duality teachings call “ego”. Hence I’ve realized that
Universal Awareness is the sole essence and Source of all life/forms; and that human ego-mind divides universal Awareness as a prism divides light.
So, “human consciousness” is an ego-mind mental conception which seemingly circumscribes Universal Awareness; it is Universal Awareness conditioned by conception.
Thus I’ve concluded that all our ideas about “human consciousness” arise and subside in Universal Awareness; that we are never in differing states of consciousness – they are in us as Universal Awareness; and, that as we “widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty”, we gradually free ourselves from our optical ego-illusion of separation from other life-forms.
Thereby we increasingly experience elevated consciousness of Universal Awareness – our true Source and Divine essence; and we are more and more blessed with infinite potential to collectively advance all life on planet Earth.
An optimistic “New Reality” prediction
Although most people are now experiencing a matrix programmed era of unprecedented post-pandemic fearful sufferings, this is also an age of immense evolutionary opportunity.
Hence I optimistically foresee that current sufferings are energetically awakening and elevating “a critical mass” of human beings to a prophesied “new reality” of egalitarian and cooperative Earth-life sharing and openness, beyond ego-mind’s optical illusion of separation from Nature and its lifeforms.
Occasionally our Earthly “doors of perception” are opened beyond ego-mind’s 3D (‘mental mirage’) illusions of space, time, and duality by psychic experiences, which can’t yet be explained by conventional material sciences. So they’re called “miracles” or biblical “signs and wonders”.
But such Earthly “miracles” (like astral projection, synchronicity, telepathy, remote viewing, prophesy, or energy-healing) are energetically ordinary in subtler energy realms of 5D and higher.
And so I optimistically predict an imminent new Earth reality, with raised “human consciousness” beyond current fears and sufferings.
Dedication
The foregoing writings and optimistic “New Reality” prediction are respectfully dedicated and offered to help encourage and inspire our collective participation in the elevation of “human consciousness” to resolve and transcend all crises on our precious planet, bringing us universal peace, light, and love.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
My ‘Near Death’ Experience
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“Birth and death are virtual, but Life is perpetual.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Birth and death are virtual, but Life is perpetual.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
My ‘Near Death’ Experience ~ Ron’s Memoirs
Introduction
Dear Friends,
The following memoirs chapter recounts an extraordinary 1979 out of body [OOB] experience, in which I initially thought I was dying of a stroke. But it soon proved not to be a stroke or a near death experience [NDE].
However, because I wasn’t afraid of dying (though not “enlightened” by the experience), I’ve compared it to the famous Self-Realization experience of renowned 20th Century Indian sage Sri Ramana Maharshi.
Since 1979 I’ve been blessed with many more amazingly related experiences, from which I’ve continued to learn.
So in 2022 I’m republishing and augmenting this memoirs story before my probably imminent transition at almost age ninety.
Like all other SillySutras postings this memoirs chapter is dedicated to helping us live ever happier earth lives. And in these extraordinary post-pandemic times, this posting is particularly intended to help console those bereaved by deaths of dear ones. May they not worry, and be happy.
May everyone everywhere be happy!
Ron Rattner
Sri Ramana Maharshi’s Self-Realization Death Experience.
A few years after the death of his father, the famous sage was suddenly overcome with a fearful premonition that he too was about to soon die, which impelled him to investigate the bodily death experience. So he introspectively imagined that he was dying, and thereby Self-Realized that he was not his mortal body, but eternal consciousness of the body and all else.
Long afterwards, in response to a devotee’s question about his “enlightenment” Sri Ramana replied as follows:
“The shock of the fear of death made me at once introspective or ‘introverted’. I said to myself mentally, ‘Now that death is come, what does it mean? Who is it that is dying? This body dies’. ….The material body dies, but the Spirit transcending it cannot be touched by death. I am therefore the deathless Spirit. … Fear of death vanished at once and for ever. The absorption in the Self has continued from that moment right up to now”.
“The shock of the fear of death made me at once introspective or ‘introverted’. I said to myself mentally, ‘Now that death is come, what does it mean? Who is it that is dying? This body dies’. ….The material body dies, but the Spirit transcending it cannot be touched by death. I am therefore the deathless Spirit. … Fear of death vanished at once and for ever. The absorption in the Self has continued from that moment right up to now”.
My Almost ‘Near Death’ Experience
In early 1979 I too had an extraordinary presumed near death experience. Unlike Ramana Maharshi’s pretended death experience, I really believed I was dying of a stroke, and decided to observe the death process without resistance. Unlike Sri Ramana’s experience, my supposed death experience didn’t result in my instant “enlightenment” or permanent absorption in the Self. But, it was an extraordinary and unforgettable event, and it spurred my gradual transformation process of more and more identifying with spirit rather than body/mind; a process which began with my 1976 realization and rebirth experience.
After receiving shaktipat initiation from Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas (Guruji) in 1978, I began following his practices. But, with Dhyanyogi’s approval, I also continued exploring spiritual mysteries by attending various other events and lectures. When asked about our seeking information from other teachers, Guruji said it was OK but unnecessary.
My supposed near death experience happened after I’d attended an inspiring lecture and experiential program given by Sufi master Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan. At the program I whole-heartedly participated in a Sufi remembrance of God ritual called Zikr, featuring repetition of names of Allah. Fervently repeating in unison with other participants: “La Ilaha Illallah” , “La Ilaha Illallah”, I vigorously rotated my body, head and neck, and became quite ‘high’ and rapturous.
The next morning I awakened feeling fine, and prepared to attend an important Federal Appeals Court hearing. I had put on my grey pinstriped suit trousers, shirt and tie, and was in the bathroom, when suddenly I collapsed and fell onto the tiled floor in a supine position. I was unable to move my head or body up or over, but discovered that I could inch along on my back like a caterpillar. In that manner with tremendous difficulty, I managed to move out of the bathroom and into my carpeted living room floor, still in a supine position.
I was not then near a phone and couldn’t call for help. Lying on my back, without pain, I said to myself mentally,
“I must have suffered a stroke and am about to die.
Now I will see what happens when I die.”
I closed my eyes and went into a deep state of relaxed awareness.
Suddenly my consciousness was astrally projected into the cosmos, where it was surrounded by magnificent luminescent silver, blue and gold heavenly bodies (like in pictures from the Hubble telescope).
Next, my inner vision shifted from outer space to vividly beautiful, luminescent and intricate geometric yantras – like mandalas associated with Vajrayana Buddhism, only more ethereal.
As I was silently sensing these celestial scenes, thought returned. First, I thought that dying was quite an interesting experience. Then, suddenly, I thought:
“I never took Naomi off my life insurance policies. I can’t die now.”
The ethereal visions immediately ended and consciousness returned to my supine body on the carpeted floor.
I don’t remember how much time had passed before my return to body consciousness. But when that happened I found that I could move easier and managed to slither supine to answer a telephone when it rang.
Synchronistically, it was a call from my friend Kusuma, who had been one of Guruji’s translators and cooks. I told her what happened, and she dispatched Stan, a disciple of Dhyanyogi then living in San Francisco, to come help me. By the time Stan arrived, I was able to crawl with difficulty to the front door to let him in. He called my doctor who said my symptoms sounded like extreme vertigo from an inner ear problem, not a stroke. Later, Kusuma asked Guruji about my dizziness symptoms. He told her that they came from “shakti”, intense kundalini spiritual energy activated in my head.
What I learned
Following my nearly ‘near death’ OOB experience, my identification with immortal spirit was immeasurably enhanced, while psychological fear of bodily death diminished.
But I didn’t become “enlightened” enough to transcend long-lingering psychological traumas of my contentious divorce. So, after reverting to usual consciousness I soon removed my former wife Naomi’s name as a beneficiary on my life insurance policies.
Also I became curious to learn about Tibetan Buddhism, and the spiritual symbolism of yantras and mandalas, like the Sri Yantra below and on SillySutras’ home page. This led to my receiving Tibetan Buddhist refuge, empowerments, and teachings from Kalu Rinpoche, a Very Venerable Tibetan Buddhist master, and then from other Tibetan lamas, including H.H. the Dalai Lama – who became a living hero for me.
Remaining Fear of Death
Because of my calm fearlessness during the assumed ‘near death’ OOB experience, I wondered whether I’d transcended all fear of death. That question was soon answered when a deranged young driver raced his car right at me as I was walking across an intersection on Broadway, the busy four lane street where I live.
Instinctively and reflexively I jumped out of the way, and screamed “Jesus!” so loudly that it probably could have been heard for a block or two away. Thereafter, for several hours I had a “fight or flight” adrenaline rush. Moreover, since then I’ve had several similar (though less intense) precarious experiences while crossing San Francisco streets.
So, despite my serenity during the assumed near death experience, some instinctive fear of bodily death or injury remains, even though I accept physical mortality as unavoidable. As Sri Ramakrishna Paramahanse revealed some ego/mind (either helpful or harmful) is inevitable even for Mahatmas returning to their bodies from nirvikalpa samadhi. Hence while incarnate on earth we cannot avoid living with egos.
While yogis in other times and places could attain and maintain elevated states of awareness by taking refuge in forests, on mountains, or in caves, such stress-free physical environments aren’t available for most humans living in present day US society.
For me attempting to live authentically and sanely in our crazy US culture has at times been quite challenging. I’ve found that in San Francisco courtrooms and environs midst societal insanity, without some ego I’d would have been metaphorically and actually run over while traversing my spiritual path, as well as while crossing streets. So I now accept physical ‘fight or flight’ bodily self-preservation instinct as “normal” and necessary.
Suzuki Shunryū, Roshi, who popularized Zen Buddhism in the United States, was once asked by a student:
“How much “ego” do you need?” He replied: “Just enough so that you don’t step in front of a bus.”
I wonder now what past spiritual masters would have done when suddenly confronted with immediate bodily threat? It’s quite unlikely that they would’ve shouted “Jesus”, with an adrenaline rush. Maybe they would have stepped quietly out of harms way. Or, like Gandhi, uttered “Ram” with their last bodily breath.
What do you think?
2022 Epilogue: More Related Learning Experiences
Since first publishing this memoirs chapter I’ve been blessed with many more related synchronistic and mystical experiences, from which I’ve continued to learn. Hereafter I’ll discuss some of them:
1) Another near death experience?
I’ll first recount to you a critical taxicab rundown experience that happened over eight years ago.
My 1979 ‘fight or flight’ fear of being hit as a pedestrian ultimately materialized thirty five years later when I was suddenly run down by a taxicab while crossing a busy San Francisco intersection which can be seen from my high-rise view apartment.
I’m unable to recall what happened immediately before and after the taxicab incident, and while I was comatose. Thus for such details I must rely on paramedic and hospital records, and on a cam video showing the taxi hitting me.
My wise expert MD friend, Dr. Solomon Sevy, (who retired after decades of Kaiser California clinical experience as a pediatric cardiologist) succinctly summarized his “diagnostic” opinion after reviewing my medical records.
Dr. Sevy told me:
“Ron, you should be dead!”
“Ron, you should be dead!”
My my medical records reviewed by Dr. Sevy revealed the following bodily injuries and symptoms, radiologically and clinically diagnosed:
Traumatic bleeding brain contusion and concussion, with extended loss of consciousness; large 2” chronic subdural hematoma pushing brain .6” out of normal alignment; massive soft tissue tears and other traumatic shoulder injuries, temporarily rendering both shoulders largely non-functional, with prosthesis recommended for left shoulder; multiple facial fractures, bruises and swelling, with broken nose, fractured sinus areas, etc.; facial lacerations requiring sutures; lacerated and bleeding liver; cracked ribs; slight spinal fracture; excessive external bleeding, with anemia requiring prompt two unit blood transfusion; tibial plateau (“bumper”) fracture and extreme swelling of right knee and leg, with large knee wound, open and seeping for over two months; continuing post-traumatic stress syndrome [PTSD]; retrograde amnesia; mental confusion, headaches, dizziness, and dyslexia.
Traumatic bleeding brain contusion and concussion, with extended loss of consciousness; large 2” chronic subdural hematoma pushing brain .6” out of normal alignment; massive soft tissue tears and other traumatic shoulder injuries, temporarily rendering both shoulders largely non-functional, with prosthesis recommended for left shoulder; multiple facial fractures, bruises and swelling, with broken nose, fractured sinus areas, etc.; facial lacerations requiring sutures; lacerated and bleeding liver; cracked ribs; slight spinal fracture; excessive external bleeding, with anemia requiring prompt two unit blood transfusion; tibial plateau (“bumper”) fracture and extreme swelling of right knee and leg, with large knee wound, open and seeping for over two months; continuing post-traumatic stress syndrome [PTSD]; retrograde amnesia; mental confusion, headaches, dizziness, and dyslexia.
Today at almost age ninety, I’m again living alone without caretakers in my high-rise hermitage. Considering my advanced octogenarian age and the multiplicity and severity of my injuries and symptoms, my survival, recovery and healing so far have been miraculous.
Moreover, I have amazingly survived without any pain drugs or brain or shoulder surgical interventions recommended by various allopathic doctors, and (until the pandemic lock-down with closure of SF Bay public toilets) I’d resumed a largely independent pre-injury life style with frequent walks, after extended convalescence, and treatment with acupuncture, organic herbs, and physical therapy. And I still don’t voluntarily take prescribed allopathic drugs.
Unlike most people who can describe their near death experiences I can’t tell you what happened while I was comatose due to residual post-traumatic stress syndrome [PTSD] and retrograde traumatic amnesia. So I don’t know if it was a conventional NDE.
But I consider my bodily survival and recovery an immense spiritual blessing and am psychologically happier than ever before in this precious human lifetime.
Further details of this Divine blessing are recounted in a prior memoirs chapter titled: “Another near death experience?”.
2) Another vertigo seizure?
The foregoing 1979 almost near-death OOB story began with a completely disabling vertigo experience, which I mistakenly thought was caused by a cerebral stroke. Since then I’ve had many episodes of varying degrees of dizziness, especially after the 2014 taxicab rundown. But not until this week (over forty years later) have I again been completely incapacitated by vertigo from a possible stroke seizure.
In 1979 my extreme dizziness was medically diagnosed as a middle-ear problem, but explained by Guruji as a kundalini cerebral “shakti” kriya. This week, without asking for assistance, I introspectively self-diagnosed the disabling dizziness as kundalini “shakti”.
Here’s what happened:
On August 12, 2022 I was composing my Cartesian Critique essay about confusing thinking with being. While writing about how most humans mistakenly self-identify with their thoughts, rather than consciousness of their thoughts and behaviors, I had a rare inner epiphany.
Whereupon I was suddenly stricken with intense vertigo, like the vertigo I experienced over forty years ago when I was young and healthy. Now at almost ninety I am physical injury and age limited and subject to recurrence of serious taxicab rundown traumatic brain injuries. Moreover, in these extraordinary post-pandemic times, ubiquitous environmental heath threats are causing even young and apparently healthy people to often experience physically fatal strokes.
Nonetheless, as I will hereafter explain, in all apparently paradoxical rational versus intuitive dilemmas, with complete faith I’ve learned to follow my heart. And my heart said:
“You’ve been immeasurably blessed; keep composing and sharing to help others”.
“You’ve been immeasurably blessed; keep composing and sharing to help others”.
My heart clearly confirmed this perennial wisdom:
“Faith is different from proof;
the latter is human,
the former is a Gift from God.”
“Faith embraces many truths
which seem to contradict each other.”
~ Blaise Pascal
“Faith is different from proof;
the latter is human,
the former is a Gift from God.”
“Faith embraces many truths
which seem to contradict each other.”
~ Blaise Pascal
In 1979, I accepted my primary care doctor’s medical diagnosis of an inner-ear problem, not a stroke. In 2022, without seeking a medical diagnosis, I’ve followed my Sacred Heart and keep composing to help others.
Explanation
1) In all space/time relative “reality” everything’s energy [E=mc2].
2) In earth’s dense three dimensional [3D] energy sphere, humans (individually and collectively) create “reality” with their thoughts.
“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
~ Buddha
“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
~ Buddha
3) Each incarnate human is individually unique, creating a unique personal “reality” with apparent freedom of choice, which subjects them to experience the karmic consequences of their unique thoughts and behaviors.
“Every action, every thought, reaps its own corresponding rewards.
Human suffering is not a sign of God’s, or Nature’s, anger with mankind.
It is a sign, rather, of man’s ignorance of divine law. . .
Such is the law of karma: As you sow, so shall you reap.
If you sow evil, you will reap evil in the form of suffering.
And if you sow goodness, you will reap goodness in the form of inner joy.”
~ Paramhansa Yogananda
“Every action, every thought, reaps its own corresponding rewards.
Human suffering is not a sign of God’s, or Nature’s, anger with mankind.
It is a sign, rather, of man’s ignorance of divine law. . .
Such is the law of karma: As you sow, so shall you reap.
If you sow evil, you will reap evil in the form of suffering.
And if you sow goodness, you will reap goodness in the form of inner joy.”
~ Paramhansa Yogananda
4) We each have freedom of choice to perceive only Divine spirit or God until we ultimately awaken from this dream-like relative “reality” to BE the eternal mystery of Divinity – as LOVE.
“You should love everyone because God dwells in all beings.”
“Have love for everyone, no one is other than you.”
“Yes, all one’s confusion comes to an end if one only realizes that it is God who manifests Himself as the atheist and the believer, the good and the bad, the real and the unreal; that it is He who is present in waking and in sleep; and that He is beyond all these.””God alone is the Doer. Everything happens by His will.”
~ Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa
Conclusion and Dedication
By following my Heart with Faith, I choose to create a new Earth “Reality”;
an elevated energy dimension beyond all current environmental catastrophes, wars, deprivations, diseases, miseries and sufferings now being inflicted upon and fearfully experienced, and condoned or denied or allowed by most humans.
Therefore I refuse to reify this illusionary mental mirage-like samsara ‘reality’ which is constantly discussed and reported on by global “leaders”, institutions and media. Instead I constantly meditate and pray for Nature, and all its life-forms on our precious planet; and for the happiness of everyone and everything everywhere.
Inspired by Jesus Christ – the historic paragon of LOVE – my prayers forgivingly include even those who insanely and selfishly despoil and unsustainably exploit earth-life through their ignorance of our common eternal Self identity as timeless LOVE.
And I deeply dedicate this memoirs chapter to inspiring a “critical mass” of other empathic humans, who together will collectively transcend current earthly psychopathic insanity, by co-creating an envisioned wonderful
New Reality.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
© The Perennial Wisdom Foundation – “From Secular Hebrew, to Born-Again Hindu, to Uncertain Undo – An ex-lawyer’s spiritual metamorphosis from Litigation to Meditation – and Beyond.”
~ by Ron Rattner
Cartesian Critique:
On Confusing Thinking With Being
“If you correct your mind,
the rest of your life will fall into place.”
~ Lao Tzu
“The mind is a bundle of thoughts.
The thoughts arise because there is the thinker.
The thinker is the ego.
The ego and the mind are the same.
The ego is the root-thought from which all other thoughts arise.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“Ego is the biggest enemy of humans. ”
~ Rig Veda
“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.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“To think or not to think,
that is the question!”“Thinking and Being can’t coexist.
So stop thinking and start Being. ”“Forget who you think you are
to Know what you really are. ”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Lau Tzu
Cartesian Critique: On Confusing Thinking With Being
Introduction to Cartesian Critique
Dear Friends,
The following Cartesian Critique essay challenges the well-known philosophical proposition deduced and propounded by influential 17th century French philosopher René Descartes –
“I think, therefore I am”.
Descartes’ philosophy, known as Cartesian dualism, assumed separation between the human body and mind. Although it became very influential in Western philosophy, Cartesian dualism ignored contradictory ancient Eastern non-dualist philosophies of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism, which have been scientifically validated by 20th century quantum physicists.
This essay (with above and following quotations and comments) explains how Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” proposition confuses thinking with being; and the ego/mind with universal thoughtless awareness.
It is particularly important in current critical times, when humans are the only species creating huge ecological and other crises which disrupt and threaten life on our precious planet by mistakenly self-identifying as thought rather than consciousness of thought.
So please reflect on these writings with open and intuitive awareness.
Ron Rattner
Cartesian Critique: On Confusing Thinking With Being.
Descartes deduced his presumed separate existence with thought.
He reasoned: “I think, therefore I am”.
But wasn’t that putting Descartes before his Source?
Isn’t it apparent that we exist when not thinking?
Isn’t thinking optional, while Being is perpetual?
Why are we called human “beings”, and not human “thinkings”?
Isn’t existence much more than just thinking?
Don’t we exist in thoughtless states?
Doesn’t Being encompass conscious and subconscious
phenomena beyond thought – like emotions, feelings, sounds,
tastes, sensations, moods, dreams, autonomic processes, etc.?
Don’t all thoughts comprise and concern past ideas,
whereas life is ever lived in the Now,
never in the past or the future?
Aren’t we most aware of our existence
when we are thoughtlessly/choicelessly mindful?
What might Descartes say,
if he were here today?
Ron’s Comments on Confusing Thinking With Being.
Dear Friends,
In these troubled times, the above “Cartesian Critique” essay is shared to encourage and inspire us to transcend harmful egotistic thoughts and behaviors, and to help us live in harmony with each other and Nature.
It questions famous French philosopher René Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” proposition, and explains how it confuses thinking with being; and the ego/mind with universal thoughtless awareness.
This essay was composed following my midlife spiritual awakening as consciousness. After that awakening, I accepted Eastern non-duality philosophy which contradicts Descartes’ duality philosophy of body-mind separation. And gradually I realized that “Ego is the biggest enemy of humans”, and that transcending Ego is the ultimate purpose of all enduring spiritual teachings.
So on learning about Descartes’ influential “I think, therefore I am” declaration, I composed the above critique.
From a non-duality perspective, Descartes mistakenly deduced his supposed separate existence with egotistic-thought, which paradoxically placed Descartes before his Source, and violated both Eastern and Western wisdom cautioning against reversing the natural order of things.
For example a Western proverb cautions: “Don’t put the cart before the horse.”
And ancient Taoist wisdom enjoins us to go with the flow, without mental resistance:
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.”
“If you correct your mind,
the rest of your life will fall into place.”
~ Lao Tzu
Conclusion
Honoring the natural order of things is especially important in current critical times, when humans are the only species creating huge ecological and other crises which disrupt and threaten life on our precious planet by mistakenly self-identifying as thought rather than consciousness – as separate from each other and Nature rather than the Source of our existence.
Invocation.
May these writings inspire and encourage us
to not confuse thinking with being;
and thereby to transcend harmful
egotistic thoughts and behaviors,
allowing us to live in harmony
with each other and Nature
in current critical times.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
