Posts Tagged ‘Reality’
Harmony ~ Quotations and Sayings
“Harmony is the secret principle of life.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“Love is the energizing elixir of the Universe,
the cause and effect of all Harmony.”
~ Rumi
“When there is harmony between the mind, heart and resolution
then nothing is impossible.”
~ Rig Veda
Introduction to Harmony Quotations and Sayings
Dear Friends,
To commemorate the 2021 Vernal Equinox season, I’ve augmented and posted below a treasury of inspiring quotations about “Harmony”, which express enduring spiritual ideas and ideals of fundamental significance.
This collection of quotations and sayings about “Harmony” is dedicated to helping heal the world, by awakening us to our spiritual Oneness with Nature and Universal Awareness, as LOVE.
Please deeply reflect upon this perennial wisdom.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Harmony Quotations and Sayings
“Harmony is the secret principle of life.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“When there is harmony between the mind, heart and resolution
then nothing is impossible.”
~ Rig Veda
”Neither human wisdom nor divine inspiration
can confer upon man any greater blessing than
[to live a life of happiness and harmony here on earth].”
~ Plato
“Clothe yourselves with compassion,
kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Bear with each other and forgive one another . .
And over all these virtues put on LOVE,
which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
~ Colossians 3: 12-17
“(A)ll problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony.”
~ Sri Aurobindo
“The heart and mind can find peace and harmony
by contemplating the transcendental nature
of the true Self as supreme effulgent life.”
~ Patanjali
“Where the heart is full of kindness which seeks no injury to another,
either in act or thought or wish, this full love creates an atmosphere of harmony,
whose benign power touches with healing all who come within its influence.
Peace in the heart radiates peace to other hearts,
even more surely than contention breeds contention.”
~ Patanjali, Yoga Sutra
“Affirm divine calmness and peace,
and send out only thoughts of love and goodwill
if you want to live in peace and harmony.
Never get angry, for anger poisons your system.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“A harmonized mind produces harmony
in this world of seeming discord.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“Go forth in every direction –
for the happiness, the harmony, the welfare of the many.
Offer your heart, the seeds of understanding,
like a lamp overturned and re-lit, illuminating the darkness.”
~ Buddha
“The life ahead can only be glorious
if you learn to live in total harmony with the Lord.”
~ Shirdi Sai Baba
“Happiness is when what you think,
what you say,
and what you do are in harmony.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Virtue is harmony.”
~ Pythagoras
“God reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed.
Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“The sage is one with the world,
and lives in harmony with it.”
~ Lao Tzu
”One who lives in accordance with nature
does not go against the way of things,
but moves in harmony with the present moment.”
~ Lao Tzu
“He who lives in harmony with himself
lives in harmony with the universe.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
“The essence of saintliness
is total acceptance of the present moment,
harmony with things as they happen.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
”The superior person is in Harmony,
but does not follow the crowd.
The lesser person follows the crowd,
but is not in Harmony.”
~ Confucius
“Love is the energizing elixir of the Universe,
the cause and effect of all Harmony.”
~ Rumi
“Love opens all doors, no matter how tightly closed they may be, no matter how rusty from lack of use. Your work is to bring unity and harmony, to open all those doors which have been closed for a long time. Have patience and tolerance. Open your heart all the time.”
~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
“The life of this world is nothing but the harmony of opposites”
~ Rumi
“Where there is discord,
let us sow Harmony.”
~ Peace Prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi
”Without law or compulsion,
men would dwell in harmony.”
~ Lao Tzu
As soon as laws are necessary for men,
they are no longer fit for freedom.
~ Pythagoras
”Happy the man whose lot it is to know The secrets of the earth.
He hastens not To work his fellows hurt by unjust deeds,
But with rapt admiration contemplates
Immortal Nature’s ageless harmony,
And how and when the order came to be.”
~ Euripides
”To have a positive religion is not necessary.
To be in harmony with yourself and the universe is what counts,
and this is possible without positive and specific formulation in words.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“The unlike is joined together,
and from differences results the most beautiful harmony.”
~ Heraclitus
”Mutual respect and mutual listening
are the foundations of harmony within the family.”
~ Buddha
“Harmony can not thrive in a climate of
mistrust, cheating, bullying;
mean-spirited competition.”
~ Dalai Lama
”Wherever I go meeting the public…
spreading a message of human values …
[and] harmony, is the most important thing.”
~ Dalai Lama
”If you want peace and harmony in the world,
you must have peace and harmony in your hearts and minds.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Happiness is not a matter of intensity
but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.”
~ Thomas Merton
”Harmony sinks deep into the recesses of the soul
and takes its strongest hold there,
bringing grace also to the body and mind as well.
Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe,
wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness,
and life to everything. It is the essence of order.”
~ Plato
”Music then is simply the result of
the effects of Love on rhythm and harmony.”
~ Plato
”Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God
and the permissible delights of the soul.”
”Harmony is next to Godliness”
~ Johann Sebastian Bach
“If only the whole world could feel the power of harmony.”
~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
“Every element has a sound, an original sound from the order of God;
all those sounds unite like the harmony from harps and zithers.”
~ Hildegard of Bingen
“A life in harmony with nature,
the love of truth and virtue,
will purge the eyes to understanding her text.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony,
and the deep power of joy,
we see into the life of things.”
~ William Wordsworth
“Life’s errors cry for the merciful beauty that
can modulate their isolation
into a harmony with the whole.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
“The highest education is that
which does not merely give us information
but makes our life in harmony with all existence.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
“Training the intellect does not result in intelligence.
Intelligence comes into being when one acts in perfect harmony,
both intellectually and emotionally.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures
there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people.
Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.”
~ Isaac Bashevis Singer
”I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind…”
~ Albert Einstein
”The harmony of natural law reveals an Intelligence of such superiority that,
compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings
is an utterly insignificant reflection.”
~ Albert Einstein
“In art, and in the higher ranges of science,
there is a feeling of harmony which underlies all endeavor.
There is no true greatness in art or science
without that sense of harmony.”
~ Albert Einstein
“My feeling is religious insofar as I am imbued
with the consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind
to understand more deeply the harmony of the Universe
which we try to formulate as “laws of nature”
~ Albert Einstein
”Today wherever you go, carry the intention of peace, love, and harmony in your heart.” “Just as light brightens darkness, discovering inner fulfillment can eliminate any disorder or discomfort. This is truly the key to creating balance and harmony in everything you do.”
~ Deepak Chopra
”There is great freedom in simplicity of living, and after I began to feel this, I found harmony in my life between inner and outer well-being.
There is a great deal to be said about such harmony, not only for an individual life but also for the life of a society.
It’s because as a world we have gotten ourselves so far out of harmony,
so way off on the material side, that when we discover something like nuclear energy we are still capable of putting it into a bomb and using it to kill people!
This is because our inner well-being lags so far behind our outer well-being.”
~ Peace Pilgrim
”Everyone has the perfect gift to give the world-
and if each of us is freed up to give our unique gift,
the world will be in total harmony.”
~ R. Buckminster Fuller
“Beauty of style and harmony
and grace and good rhythm
depend on simplicity.”
~ Plato (The Republic)
“Out of clutter find simplicity.
From discord make harmony.
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The simplification of life is one of the steps to inner peace.
A persistent simplification will create an inner and outer well-being
that places harmony in one’s life.”
~ Peace Pilgrim
“Adversity draws men together and produces beauty and harmony in life’s relationships, just as the cold of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes, which vanish with the warmth.”
~ Soren Kierkegaard
“Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend;
you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left”
~ Aldo Leopold
“Live harmlessly in Harmony.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“How can there be harm in me,
when I’m in harmless Harmony?”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Let us live in harmless harmony,
and stay in cosmic synchrony,
as we play in Nature’s symphony.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Don’t disrupt and polarize,
but syncretize and harmonize.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Invocation
Imbued with heartfelt “Harmony”,
May we help heal the world –
by Awakening NOW
To the Eternal inner Light
Of our ONENESS
with Nature and Universal Awareness,
as LOVE.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
How Shall We Solve Our Planetary Problems?
“No problem can be solved
from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
~ Albert Einstein
“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
~ Buddha
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
~ Proverbs 23:7
“The release of atom power.. changed everything
except our way of thinking…the solution to this problem
lies in the heart of mankind.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment
must come from the human heart.
The key point is a call for a genuine sense of universal responsibility
that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
~ Dalai Lama (From “Humanity and Ecology”)
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift
and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant
and has forgotten the gift.”
~ Albert Einstein
“I think with intuition.
The basis of true thinking is intuition.
Indeed, it is not intellect,
but intuition which advances humanity.
Intuition tells a man his purpose in life.
One never goes wrong following his feelings.
I don’t mean emotions, I mean feelings,
for feelings and intuition are one.”
~ Albert Einstein
How Shall We Solve Our Planetary Problems?
Q. How can humankind resolve its critical planetary problems?
A. By addressing them intuitively from elevated heart levels of awareness.
The critical problems now confronting humanity have arisen from low ego-mind levels of human consciousness, which must be transcended for our peaceful survival on planet Earth.
As Albert Einstein aptly observed:
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
To resolve critical human problems we must elevate Humanity’s level of consciousness, from the human mind – which is thought – to the human heart, which is intuition. And then, with “a genuine sense of universal responsibility that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness” [Dalai Lama], we can intuitively and cooperatively resolve our problems.
Only with feelings, insights and actions arising from loving kindness and compassion for all Life everywhere, shall humankind truly transcend and cooperatively resolve its critical ecologic and economic problems.
With opened hearts we can and we shall resolve our critical planetary problems.
Invocation
May we open our hearts
to our innate empathy, kindness and compassion.
And with benevolent and focused intention,
may we so realize our ONENESS with everyone and everything;
And thereby lovingly resolve our critical planetary problems
to bless all Life everywhere – as LOVE!
And so it shall be!
Ron Rattner
Honoring Nature
~ Quotes and Video
“One touch of nature
makes the whole world kin.”
~ William Shakespeare
“Nature is our nature;
Honoring Nature is honoring Self.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Introduction
Dear Friends,
In this critical era of worldwide violence and turmoil, our amazingly beautiful planet is imminently and insanely threatened (by immensely destructive technologies) with possible human caused omnicidal nuclear or climate catastrophe, ending Earth life as we’ve known it.
Therefore we must urgently awaken humanity’s instinctive primal awareness that Nature is our nature; that Nature knows best and will have its Way; that we are not dependent upon exploitation of our precious planet or its lifeforms, but interdependent with it and all life thereon; that we can no longer unsustainably exploit Nature and others without dire consequences; that we must honor – not desecrate – Nature.
The following profound “Nature” quotation collection and beautiful “Creation Calling” embedded video are offered to help awaken our minds and open our hearts to realization of Humankind’s urgent need to avert calamity by Honoring Nature, NOW!
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Honoring Nature ~ Quotation Collection
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
~ William Shakespeare
But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
or the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
or let the fish of the sea inform you.
Which of all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
~ Job 12:7-9
“Look deep into nature, and then
you will understand everything better.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The entire world we apprehend through our senses
is no more than a tiny fragment in the vastness of Nature.”
~ Max Planck
“Human subtlety will never devise an invention
more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature;
because in her inventions nothing is lacking,
and nothing is superfluous.”
~ Leonardo da Vinci
“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”
“All art, all education, can be merely a supplement to nature.”
~ Aristotle
“If one truly loves nature one finds beauty everywhere.”
~ Vincent Van Gogh
“In nature we never see anything isolated,
but everything in connection with something else
which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Every particular in nature,
a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time
is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Lose yourself in nature and find peace.”
“Nature is made to conspire with spirit to emancipate us.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature.”
~ Rachel Carson
“It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth
and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.”
~ Rachel Carson
“When we pay attention to nature’s music,
we find that everything on the Earth contributes to its harmony.”
~ Hazrat Inayat Khan
“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”
~ Frank Lloyd Wright
“Nature is the living, visible garment of God.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity;
so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
“Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion
to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things,
man will not himself find peace.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
“There are no passengers on spaceship earth.
We are all crew.”
~ Marshall McLuhan
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors;
we borrow it from our children”
~ Chief Seattle
“Ultimately, the decision to save the environment
must come from the human heart,
[from] a genuine sense of universal responsibility
that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister,
Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us,
and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs”
“This sister now cries out to us
because of the harm we have inflicted on her
by our irresponsible use and abuse
of the goods with which God has endowed her.”
~ Pope Francis – Climate encyclical message
“Nature is neither pleasant nor painful.
It is all intelligence and beauty.
Pain and pleasure are in the mind.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Deviation from Nature is deviation from happiness.”
~ Samuel Johnson
“Each thing tends to move towards its own nature.
I always desire happiness which is my true nature.
My nature is never a burden to me.
Happiness is never a burden to me, whilst sorrow is.”
~ Adi Shankara
“Because after all, you ARE a symptom of nature.
You . . . grow out of this physical universe
in exactly the same way an apple grows off an apple tree.”
~ Alan Watts
“I thank you God for this most amazing day,
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees,
and for the blue dream of sky
and for everything which is natural,
which is infinite, which is yes.”
~ e. e. cummings
“I see trees of green, red roses too.
I see them bloom for me and you.
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.
I see skies of blue and clouds of white.
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night.
And I think to myself what a wonderful world”
~ Louis Armstrong
Honoring Nature ~ Creation Calls — are you listening?
Invocation
May Humankind Awaken NOW
from our long-inculcated illusion
of separation from Nature.
So Awakened,
may we deeply realize that Nature is our nature;
that what we unsustainably do to Nature
we do to ourselves; and
that it is our responsibility
to honor, cherish and preserve
Earth-life as we’ve known it.
And so Awakened,
may we urgently honor
Nature’s uniquely precious ecology and environment,
with a “genuine sense of universal responsibility
that is based on love, compassion and clear awareness.”
And so shall it be!
!
Ron Rattner
What Is Life?
~ Quotations and Sutras
“Life is everything. Life is God.
Everything changes and moves,
and that movement is God. . .
To love life is to love God.”
~ Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
Introduction to “What Is Life?” ~ Quotations and Sutras
Dear Friends,
Throughout human history philosophers have wondered about perennially puzzling questions of life’s meaning or purpose, if any. For example, Aristotle declared that “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”
Most SillySutras writings are offered to help us live happier lives; and some address questions about possible purpose or meaning of human existence. (E.g. see “Is Earth-life Purposeful?”)
For those who wonder why we’re here, this posting shares many noteworthy philosophical and mystical quotations about “Life”, plus a collection of Ron Rattner’s Sutra Sayings about “What Is Life?”.
Please consider and enjoy these quotations and sutras, not as spiritual truths but as philosophical speculations about human life on Earth. And don’t forget that with a completely silent mind there are no philosophical questions or answers – just choiceless Universal Awareness.
Ron Rattner
“What Is Life?” ~ Quotations
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
“The end of life is to be like unto God;
and the soul following God, will be like unto Him;
He being the beginning, middle, and end of all things.”
~ Socrates
“Life is a pilgrimage.
The wise man does not rest by the roadside inns.
He marches direct to the illimitable domain of eternal bliss,
his ultimate destination.”
~ Swami Sivananda
“One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.”
~ Sophocles
“Life without love, is no life at all.”
~ Leonardo da Vinci
“Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.”
“Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving”
~ Khalil Gibran
“Life is not a problem to be solved,
but a reality to be experienced.”
~ Soren Kierkegaard
“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
“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life,
the whole aim and end of human existence.”
~ Aristotle
“Be happy for this moment.
This moment is your life.”
~ Omar Khayyam
“You are not ‘in the now;’ you are the now.
That is your essential identity-
the only thing that never changes.
Life is always now. Now is consciousness.
And consciousness is who you are.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
Every man’s life is a fairy tale written by God’s fingers.
~ Hans Christian Andersen
“Life is God’s novel. Let him write it.”
~ Isaac Bashevis Singer
Life is a process. We are a process.
The universe is [an evolutionary] process.
~ Anne Wilson Schaef (edited)
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.
Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow.
Let reality be reality.
Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
~ Lao Tzu
“Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard.
Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry.
Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death.
Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life.
The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail.”
~ Lao Tzu
“The history of our spiritual life is a continuing search
for the unity between ourselves and the world.
Religion, art, and science follow, one and all, this aim.”
~ Rudolf Steiner
“Life is a perpetual instruction in cause and effect.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life is a succession of lessons
which must be lived to be understood.
All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Death is a stripping away of all that is not you.
The secret of life is to “die before you die” —
and find that there is no death.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“The two most important days in your life are
the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
~ Mark Twain
Life is a dream for the wise,
a game for the fool,
a comedy for the rich,
a tragedy for the poor.
~ Sholom Aleichem
What Is Life? ~ Sutra Sayings
What Is Life?
Life is a word – an idea –
with many meanings
which are mental,
not fundamental.
As beauty is in the eye of the beholder,
the meaning of “life” is what we think it to be.
But beyond our Earth-life “reality”
Life is not mental,
but Transcendental:
Life is Eternal Mystery.
What Is Life?
Life is awakened Awareness.
What Is Life?
Life is aliveness.
What Is Life?
Life is BEING, not doing.
Life is BEING, not becoming.
What Is Life?
Life is infinite experience
Of Infinite Potentiality
From infinite perspectives.
What Is Life?
What is death?
In duality ‘reality’
the meaning of life,
depends upon the meaning of death.
When we Know the meaning
of both life and death,
we shall Know no death
– only awakened Awareness.
What Is Life?
Life is an “in a body” experience.
What Is Life?
Life is an ongoing identity crisis:
An endless opportunity to
transcend entity identity.
What Is Life?
Life is an idea game
in which we’re challenged
to make ideal
our ideas of what’s “real”.
What Is Life?
Life is endless exploration in time.
Until we discover that:
Life is NOW,
Ever NOW,
Never then!
What Is Life?
Life is an exploration-experience-experiment in space/time..
What Is Life?
Life is a semantic space/time sojourn.
What Is Life?
Life is a round trip metaphoric journey,
on which we are destined to return to point of origin.
On return, we learn – we never left.
What Is Life?
Life is a journey: an ego trip.
Life is a journey: a mind trip.
What Is Life?
Life is a workshop for ego addicts; an ego trip.
What Is Life?
Life is a healing/wholing gnosis process.
What Is Life?
Life is an evolutionary learning process.
Gleaning meaning in matter,
we learn all that matters —
we learn all that matters is
LOVE!
What Is Life?
Life is a mind field –
a field of dreams,
where all we ever see or seem
is but a dream within a dream.
What Is Life?
Life is a cosmic game of hide and seek.
Self hides in plain insight
and, knowingly or unknowingly,
we seek Self.
We seek and seek
until we find
beyond the mind,
that we are what we seek –
that what we seek is the seeker.
What Is Life?
Life is a learning laboratory
for discovering immortality –
experimentally and experientially.
What Is Life?
Life is suffering;
Life is mystery.
Life’s miseries are mental,
while it’s mystery is Transcendental.
What Is Life?
Life is a cosmic masquerade;
an endless comedy/tragedy/mystery drama.
The masquerade play continues with countless acts and scenes.
Each actor must participate in innumerable roles,
until each is ultimately unmasked,
with true identity revealed as
Common “I-ness”.
What Is Life?
Life is a mystery school
in which knowingly or unknowingly
we are all students –
each learning about,
and seeking to solve,
the same Mystery –
the mystery of Divinity.
Though we may never solve it,
we shall ever evolve it –
NOW!
Ron’s Comments about “What Is Life” ~ Quotations and Sutras
Dear Friends,
The foregoing quotations and whimsical sutra speculations about Earth-life may help point to ways for us to live happier lives.
Throughout human history philosophers have wondered – and keep wondering – about the purpose or significance of “life” on Earth.
And for millennia rare avatars, saints, sages and other mystical inner explorers have reported discovering within an infinitely potential Universal Awareness – which is the sole Source of all we call “Life” in the “real world” – that can be experienced in deep meditation, but not described. Some of their quotations are shared above.
Though I’ve irreversibly accepted the existence of an indescribable Divine Life Source, I have nonetheless shared the foregoing quotations and sutras about “Life” – which are based on philosophical theories and mystical musings – as helpful hints for living happier Earth-lives.
Invocation
May the foregoing “What Is Life?” quotations and sutra sayings help all of us find increasing happiness and fulfillment of our deepest inner aspirations, as we live our lives from ever elevated perspectives.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Is Earth-life Purposeful?
“One great question underlies our experience,
whether we think about it or not:
what is the purpose of life?”
~ Dalai Lama
“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life,
the whole aim and end of human existence.”
~ Aristotle
“What are we here for?
We are here for freedom, for knowledge.
We want to know in order to make us free.
That is our life; one universal cry for freedom.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
“The world is so unhappy because it is ignorant of the true Self.
Man’s real nature is happiness. Happiness is inborn in the true Self.
Man’s search for happiness is an unconscious search for his true Self.
The true Self is imperishable; therefore, when a man finds it,
he finds a happiness which does not come to an end.”
~ Ramana Maharshi
“Our purpose is process –
evolutionary process.
Gleaning meaning in matter,
we learn all that matters –
we learn all that matters is LOVE!”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished.
If you’re alive, it isn’t.
~ Richard Bach
Is Earth-life Purposeful?
Q. Is Earth-life purposeful?
A. Yes! We are here to learn and evolve.
Though some Eastern mystics may call this ever changing “reality” a dream, maya, samsara,or illusion, it is a marvelous and miraculous mental creation.
So how can anyone ever imagine Earth-life to be without purpose?
Our purpose is process – evolutionary process.
Like unique facets of an infinitely faceted jewel,
each Earth being has a unique perspective, but a common Source [*see Footnote] – which transcends this world, while everywhere immanent herein.
So, our purpose is harmoniously to realize and experience,
and to actualize from infinite perspectives,
our ONE transcendent Self identity.
As long as we believe ourselves to be seemingly circumscribed
and separated from each other the rest of our reality,
We incarnate to realize and to actualize
our common spiritual Self identity.
We learn until we leave.
But, we don’t leave until we learn –
LOVE!
Footnote.
*Innumerable names – God, Love, Nature, etc. – may be used to signify that Source or any of its infinite aspects. Or as in the Jewish tradition it may be acknowledged that no name can denominate “That” which is beyond conception or expression – since naming limits the illimitable and ineffable Infinite Reality.
Ron’s Comments on Life’s Purpose
Dear Friends,
Have you ever reflected on whether human life is purposeful – individually or collectively?
Or have you wondered:
“Why was I born? Why am I living?”
Or “What is the meaning of life?”
According to the Dalai Lama “What is the purpose of life?” is the “one great question [which] underlies our experience, whether we think about it or not”. And since my midlife change of life, I’ve found that reflecting about our life’s purpose, if any, has sparked a very helpful process of finding ever expanding happiness.
So today I’m sharing the foregoing quotations and essay/poem to help us consider perennial questions about ‘purpose’ or ‘meaning’ of life.
Background
Not until my midlife awakening did I ever wonder whether Earth-life is purposeful.
But since then I’ve continued to reflect and write about it.
Tentatively, I’ve hypothesized that, as students matriculating on the ‘Earth branch of the great cosmic University’, we’re learning to let life live us as LOVE, until ultimately we realize that LOVE is our common Self-identity and Universal Reality; that beyond this conceptual space/time relative reality, there are no philosophical questions or concepts or purposes, just infinitely potential Cosmic Consciousness as a ‘maha-matrix’ Source of all samsaric illusory mirage-like ‘realities’.
While growing up in 20th century America – like millions of others – I greatly enjoyed popular New York musical theater songs. Many of my favorite lyrics were composed by Master lyricist/librettist Oscar Hammerstein II, mostly in collaboration with great musical talents like Richard Rodgers with whom he wrote Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music.
Until midlife I understood Hammerstein’s lyrics to encompass only worldly subjects, like romantic love. But, after spiritually awakening, I began to realize that Hammerstein’s lyrics often esoterically encompassed mystical perspectives. And I started referring to him as “Sri Oscar Hammerstein”.
When I was born in 1932, one the “top ten” popular songs was “Why Was I Born”, for which Hammerstein (with composer Jerome Kern) had written lyrics in 1929, beginning with these perennial questions: “Why was I born? Why am I living?” “What do I get? What am I giving?” And Hammerstein’s lyrics concluded with this enduring answer: “Why I was born? To love you!”
Fifty years after Hammerstein’s composition of the “Why Was I Born” lyrics, I began to realize that as an ultimate goal of Human life Hammerstein’s lyrics esoterically could refer to Divine LOVE, beyond just romantic love – e.g. to the ecstatic devotional spiritual path exemplified by Sufi-Persian Mystic Masters Rumi and Hafiz.
So with poetic license I pluralized Hammerstein’s lyric questions and edited his answer to suggest our true Earth-life purpose:
Q. Why were we born? Why are we living?
What do we get? What are we giving?
A. Why were we born? To love THEE!
Thus I’ve learned that reflecting on life’s purpose, can help us gradually realize that we are not who or what we were taught or ‘labeled’ to be by society, or by our mistaken mental reification of our projected-perceptions:
That we are not merely our mortal bodies – their genders, features, colors, religions, beliefs, emotions, habits or stories, or the ‘voices in our heads’. We are non-dual immortal spirit experiencing fleeting Earth lives from infinite perspectives in transitory physical vehicles. But ultimately ‘under the hood’ we’re all the same Cosmic Consciousness. We are all Eternal LOVE.
Invocation
May we help transform and transcend this world of suffering,
by realizing and compassionately actualizing our common spiritual identity, as LOVE.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Why Does Everyone Want Happiness?
“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life,
the whole aim and end of human existence.”
~ Aristotle
“The purpose of our lives is to be happy.”
~ Dalai Lama
“From the moment of birth every human being wants happiness and does not want suffering. Neither social conditioning nor education nor ideology affects this. From the very core of our being, we simply desire contentment. Therefore, it is important to discover what will bring about the greatest degree of happiness.”
~ Dalai Lama
“The world is so unhappy because it is ignorant of the true Self. Man’s real nature is happiness. Happiness is inborn in the true Self. Man’s search for happiness is an unconscious search for his true Self. The true Self is imperishable; therefore, when a man finds it, he finds a happiness which does not come to an end.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi.
“The purpose of religious lectures and sermons is to awaken in you that irresistible soul-longing for Him.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“The desire to be one with God is the greatest of all.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“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
“O God, you are my God – for you I long! For you my body yearns; for you my soul thirsts, like a land parched, lifeless and without water.”
~ Psalm 63:1
“The longing to go back to the source is present in each being from the very time that it is separated from the source by the veil of ignorance.”
~ Meyer Baba
Why Does Everyone Want Happiness?
Q. Why do all people want to be happy?
A. In seeking happiness, everyone is really seeking Self.
Knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or subconsciously, no matter who or where we are, no matter our age, gender or culture, all humans share a universal and irresistible instinct and desire to return to a soul-remembered original state of Divine Love, Peace and Oneness – a transcendent state beyond words or thoughts so marvelous that its subliminal memory magnetically attracts every sentient being to merge and be At-One with It.
No matter how spiritually evolved we may become, all incarnate human life-forms experience limitation and separation from Source. Though rare beings in deep meditation may transcend this state of seeming separation and limitation, it recurs when they are impelled to return to physicality or subtle form.
Thus great devotional beings like Rumi and Hafiz constantly yearned to return to the Beloved; ever longed for eternal transcendence of the inevitable limitations and sufferings of physical existence.
Rumi said:
From my first breath I have longed for Him –
This longing has become my life.
This longing has seen me grow old. . . .
Hafiz expressed his endless longing thusly:
“My soul endures a magnificent longing. … My pen does not have the ability to describe my condition of intense longing due to separation.”
Sri Ramana Maharshi, renowned twentieth century non-dualist sage, even after attaining self realization, reported regularly shedding tears of longing and devotion during visits to the ancient Meenakshi temple in Madurai. In recounting his experience, Maharshi explained that:
“The spirit therefore longed to have a fresh hold and hence the frequent visits to the temple and the overflow of the soul in profuse tears.”
This phenomenon of infinite longing of even “enlightened” beings was explained by Mother Meera in dialogue with spiritual author and teacher Andrew Harvey, and recounted as follows:
“Even avatars have to desire to be in God in every moment. And when avatars die, they desire with all their being to be united with God. ….. Look at Ramakrishna. How much he wept and prayed for the Divine Mother.”
~ Mother Meera to Andrew Harvey, “Hidden Journey”, Page 236
Thus, incarnation is limitation, and knowingly or unknowingly all beings – even sages – long for transcendence of that limitation. For most humans longing for transcendence is subliminal and experienced as wanting worldly contentment. But what we really seek is return to a soul-remembered state of timeless Oneness beyond any state of mind, beyond conception or imagination.
So, in seeking happiness, what we really seek is Source or Self.
Ron’s Explanation of “Why Does Everyone Want Happiness?”
Dear Friends,
The foregoing quotations and essay help explain why (knowingly or unknowingly) everyone wants lasting happiness.
For millennia wisdom teachers have counseled that
“The purpose of our lives is to be happy” (Dalai Lama).
And to find timeless happiness they tell us e.g. to
“Seek first the kingdom of heaven, which is within.” (Matthew 6:33; Luke 17:20-21)
Most incarnate humans perceive and project their self-identity reality only as impermanent mortal beings supposedly separate from Nature and eternally indivisible inner Self-awareness. And thus we futilely seek – but cannot find – lasting happiness through ever passing worldly pleasures and satisfactions, rather than through inner Self-identity as immortal spirit.
“Why Does Everyone Want Happiness?” suggests that all beings at least subliminally long for eternal happiness and transcendence of inevitable earthly limitations; that knowingly or unknowingly what we all really seek is return to a soul-remembered state of timeless Oneness as LOVE – beyond mental description, conception or imagination.
Thus, even elevated mystics like supreme Sufi poet masters Rumi and Hafiz reveal (in above quotations) their life-long tearful yearnings and longings for return to God.
Perhaps such life-long yearnings, by even the most elevated mystics or sages, can help us understand why inevitably incarnation is limitation.
And, perhaps our inevitable longings will inspire a new earthly era, as envisioned by Indian Sage Sri Aurobindo, who said:
“The goal is not to lose oneself in the Divine Consciousness. The goal is to let the Divine Consciousness penetrate into Matter and transform it.”
~ Sri Aurobindo – The Mother 15: p.191
Invocation
As each of us is drawn by irresistible inner longing toward Oneness with Eternal Light,
may we become instruments of Divine Consciousness on Earth.
And, let us thereby envision and exemplify an era of lasting peace of mind and happiness
for everyone everywhere.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Discovering Sri Ramana Maharshi’s Non-dual Devotion
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“The end of all wisdom is love, love, love.”
“Love is verily the heart of all religions.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“Investigation into the Self is nothing other than devotion.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi — Vivekachudamani, verse 32
“On scrutiny, supreme devotion and jnana are in nature one and the same. To say that one of these two is a means to the other is due to not knowing the nature of either of them. Know that the path of jnana and the path of devotion are interrelated. Follow these inseparable two paths without dividing one from the other.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“Only if one knows the truth of Love, which is the real nature of Self, will the strong entangled [ego] knot of life be untied. Only if one attains the height of Love will liberation be attained. Such is the heart of all religions. The experience of Self is only Love, which is seeing only Love, hearing only Love, feeling only Love, tasting only Love and smelling only Love, which is bliss.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“Pure knowledge and pure love are one and the same thing.
Both lead the aspirants to the same goal. The path of love is much easier.”
~ Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
“Love is seeing the unity under the imaginary diversity.
“Love says ‘I am everything’. Wisdom says ‘I am nothing’. Between the two, my life flows. Since at any point of time and space I can be both the subject and the object of experience, I express it by saying that I am both, and neither, and beyond both.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
“He who loves me is made pure; his heart melts in joy.
He rises to transcendental consciousness by the rousing of his
higher emotional nature. Tears of joy flow from his eyes; his
hair stands on end; his heart melts in love. The bliss in that
state is so intense that forgetful of himself and his surroundings he sometimes weeps profusely, or laughs or sings, or dances; such a devotee is a purifying influence upon the whole universe.”
~Srimad Bhagavatam 11.8 – supreme devotion (para-bhakti) as described by Sri Krishna to His disciple Uddhave.
“[I]f you weep before the Lord, your tears wipe out the mind’s impurities of many births, and his grace immediately descends upon you. It is good to weep before the Lord.” … “Devotional practices are necessary only so long as tears of ecstasy do not flow at hearing the name of Hari. He needs no devotional practices whose heart is moved to tears at the mere mention of the name of Hari.”
~ Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Sri Ramana Maharshi
Introduction
Dear Friends,
The following stories (about my memorable pilgrimage to Tiruvannamalai, South India), illustrate fundamental spiritual Truths about every human being. They tell how I resolved (as illusory) a seeming paradoxical conflict between my deep devotional tendencies (as a “frequent crier”) to spontaneously cry and call out-loud to God, and my irreversible intellectual and intuitive acceptance of Sri Ramana Maharshi’s non-duality wisdom path of constant silent self-enquiry of “who am I?”.
These memorable pilgrimage stories recount how my mental dilemma was resolved, with realization of the following spiritual principles:
Just as every snowflake temporarily manifests a unique crystalline form but shares an enduring watery essence, so too every human (including Self-realized saints, sages, and seers) impermanently manifests a uniquely limited physical form and perspective in each mortal lifetime, but shares ONE immortal and infinitely potential, spiritual Source – non-dual Universal Awareness as LOVE.
The stories also reveal as ultimately illusory any apparent conflict between different spiritual paths, religious rituals, or behaviors – like Sri Ramana Maharshi’s wisdom path of silent self-enquiry and Ramakrishna Paramahansa’s devotional path of praying and crying to God, or between strict priestly conformance with religious rituals and their utter disregard by avadhutas; that all such apparent conflicts are transcended by LOVE; that even Sri Ramana Maharshi declared that “the end of all wisdom is love, love, love.”
Please read, reflect and enjoy these stories.
Ron Rattner
Discovering Non-dualism
During my early days as a “born-again Hindu”, I discovered wisdom teachings of legendary twentieth century sage Sri Ramana Maharshi about the Vedic path of Advaita, the oldest extant school of Indian Philosophy. Advaita means non-dualism and its teachings are aimed at experiencing non-dual Reality via relentless self-inquiry – incessantly asking “Who am I?”.
Intellectually I soon became convinced of the ultimate Truth of Sri Ramana’s non-dualistic teachings. Non-dualism even seemed quite consistent with my early Jewish acculturation with the fundamental prayer: “Hear O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE” ~ Deuteronomy 6:4; Mark 12:29
Yet, seemingly paradoxically, I displayed preponderantly devotional propensities of calling and crying to the Divine. And I identified with Shri Ramakrishna, as a bhakta – a devotional practitioner – more than with Sri Ramana Maharshi, who was an exemplar of the silent inner wisdom path – a jnani.
Until retirement, while maintaining my busy law practice I found only limited time to read and reflect on non-duality and other spiritual wisdom teachings, mostly on weekends. So I used to jokingly tell spiritual friends that I prayed and cried as a bhakta on weekdays but on weekends I became a “Seventh Day Advaitist”
On retirement from law practice in January 1992, I journeyed to India, intending to further explore the Advaita path of non-duality. After planned visits to see my Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, in Ahmedabad and my daughter Jessica at Ammachi’s Kerala ashram, the India trip itinerary concluded with a spiritual sojourn in the Tamil Nadu town of Tiruvannamalai, near sacred Mount Arunachala, where Sri Ramana Maharshi had resided for most of his adult life. This would be an opportunity to me to become an every day – not just a seventh day – advaitist.
Pilgrimage to Tiruvannamalai
So, in February 1992, together with my daughter Jessica I traveled by train from Ammachi’s ashram in sultry Kerala to the Ramana ashram at the much more arid Tamil Nadu town of Tiruvannamalai. While I stayed at Ammachi’s ashram, Jessica had been so busy doing her assigned daily tasks (seva) that we had very few opportunities to visit together alone. So, I was hoping to spend ‘quality time’ with her and to have her as my Tiruvannamalai guide, since she had previously visited the Ramana ashram. But that didn’t happen.
Nonetheless, I had a wonderful stay in Tiruvannamalai with memorable experiences on and near Mount Arunachala. And at the Ramana ashram I largely resolved my confusion about the imagined conflict between non-dualism and devotion. Here’s what happened:
Ramana ashram
On our arrival at the Ramana ashram Jessica and I were assigned a pleasant cottage room with private toilet which, though quite basic, was much more comfortable than my small noisy cell at Ammachi’s ashram. Moreover, I immediately had much more vitality at the Ramana ashram than at the Kerala ashram, where I had experienced diminished energy.
But to my surprise, Jessica informed me that instead of being my guide and companion she wished to dedicate her stay in Tiruvannamalai to solitary spiritual practices. She told me that as a spiritual austerity she had decided to daily circumambulate barefooted sacred Mount Arunachala and its adjoining holy sites – an ancient practice known as giri pradakshina encouraged by Sri Ramana Maharshi and practiced for centuries by him and many other saints and pilgrims.
Ambivalently, I was pleased that Jessica was prioritizing such spiritual practices, but disappointed at not having anticipated ‘quality time’ with her. So every morning well before sunrise, while I still slept, Jessica left our cottage and each day I was on my own, except in evenings before we retired in our shared cottage.
Virupaksha cave
Most days while Jessica was walking barefooted around Mount Arunachala I walked in sandals up the mountain – from the ashram to Virupaksha cave, a shrine place where Sri Ramana had lived for sixteen years. Though the cave was a public shrine, I was always there in solitude with no other visitors present. As I meditated there, I gratefully experienced and communed with Sri Ramana’s subtle peaceful presence.
One day I departed the cave in a dream-like ‘altered state of awareness’ and began slowly walking down the mountain with a stilled mind. Dressed in white I was so descending the narrow rocky path to the ashram, when – as if in a dream – I beheld coming up the path toward me three very elderly men, with long gray hair and long beards each wearing a white robe or dhoti. Each appeared as an archetypical ‘holy man’.
When we met on the mountain path, as if in a waking dream, each of the old men silently kneeled and kissed my sandaled feet. No word was uttered. After this silent ritual they continued walking up the Arunachala path and I continued descending to the ashram with a perfectly stilled mind.
Though that experience was unforgettable, I can’t specify its significance . However, I felt I had received inexpressible blessings from those holy men; that only in such a spiritually elevated environment could such a boon occur. But, presumably, from Sri Ramana’s non-dual perspective, attachment to any such outer illusionary experience impedes ultimate inner experience of Oneness with All.
Sri Ramana’s samadhi shrine
When not on Mount Arunachala, most of my time spent at the ashram was at the large samadhi shrine hall, where Sri Ramana is entombed. There I continued to often experience the subtle peaceful presence of Sri Ramana, though not as powerfully as at Virupaksha cave.
The samadhi shrine is a memorable place which, since Sri Ramana’s mahasamadhi in 1950, has continued to magnetically attract devotees from all over the world. Sometimes I meditated sitting there, sometimes I meditatively walked around the hall, and sometimes on the porch I read books about Sri Ramana which I obtained at the ashram office.
Reconciling Ron’s Devotion with Sri Ramana’s Non-duality
Another blessing of my stay at the Ramana ashram was that while there I largely resolved the seeming dichotomy between my deep devotional tendencies and non-dual self-identity. I learned that Ramana had taught that “supreme devotion and jnana are in nature one and the same”. And I realized that perception of paradox depends on an illusory ego-mind perspective; while from an elevated perspective ultimate devotion (Divine love, bhakti) and ultimate Self awareness (wisdom, jnana) are “one and the same” – like obverse sides of the same coin.
Though not permanently abiding in a state of elevated awareness, like Sri Ramana or Guruji, I had previously been blessed with unforgettable ‘peek’ experiences of Self-identification as pure Awareness and of seeing everyone and everything as Divine. And at the ashram I read a Sri Ramana biography that sparked the bhakti/jnana insight which helped me reconcile the seeming conflict between my distinct devotional tendencies and my irreversible acceptance of advaita non-duality philosophy.
As I read about Sri Ramana’s “enlightenment” experience I discovered that, contrary to popular belief, which usually associates Sri Ramana only with advaita wisdom, the great Sage also displayed and acknowledged the bhakti emotion of devotion.
At the time of his absorption in the Self, Sri Ramana was in his seventeenth year and living in the Indian city of Madurai. Thereafter he experienced dramatic daily life changes. With the emotion of devotion, Sri Ramana began to regularly visit the renowned Meenakshi temple in Madurai. As much later he recalled for his biographer:
“One of the new features related to the temple of
Meenakshi sundaresvrar. Formerly I would go there rarely with
friends, see the images, put on sacred ashes and sacred
vermillion on the forehead and return home without any
perceptible emotion. After the awakening into the new life, I
would go almost every evening to the temple. I would go alone and stand before Siva or Meenakshi or Nataraja or the sixty-three saints for long periods. I would feel waves of emotion
overcoming me. The former hold (Alambana) on my body had been given up by my spirit, since it ceased to cherish the idea I-am-the-body (Dehatma-buddhi). The spirit therefore longed to have a fresh hold and hence the frequent visits to the temple and the overflow of the soul in profuse tears. This was God’s (Isvara’s) play with the individual spirit. I would stand before Isvara, the Controller of the universe and the destinies of all, the omniscient and omnipresent, and occasionally pray for the descent of His grace upon me so that my devotion might increase and become perpetual like that of the sixty-three saints. Mostly I would not pray at all, but let, the deep within flow on and into the deep without. Tears would mark this overflow of the soul and not betoken any particular feeling of pleasure or pain.”
~ Self Realization, The Life and Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, by B.V. Narasimha Swami pp. 23-24.1
Thus, even after his Self Realization, Sri Ramana had prayed for devotion. And his prayers were often accompanied by, and answered with, copious tears. Sri Ramana’s experience shows that highest knowledge is the same as the highest devotion; that jnana and Para bhakti are the same.
On reading Sri Ramana’s dramatic experience I was reminded that devotional tears are the ‘language of the heart’; that tears can express our ineffable joy in ephemerally becoming one with THAT, while also they may betoken our ceaseless longing to be merged forever as THAT.
As Mother Meera has observed:
“Even avatars have to desire to be in God in every moment. And when avatars die, they desire with all their being to be united with God. …..Look at Ramakrishna. How much he wept and prayed for the Divine Mother.”
~ Mother Meera to Andrew Harvey, “Hidden Journey”, Page 236
Thus, intense feelings of the heart, which are otherwise inexpressible, are communicated by tears; and, as we soulfully pray to the Beloved with love and longing, our tears may say what words can not say; and our Heart of Hearts may answer us with tears more eloquent than any other language.
Yogi Ramsuratkumar
Yogi Ramsuratkumar
When I visited Tiruvannamalai I was already aware that – like each snowflake – every human is absolutely unique; that thus each supposedly Self-realized spiritual teacher, seer, saint, guru, yogi, or even avatar uniquely manifests and expresses different aspects of our infinitely potential common Cosmic consciousness. While in Tiruvannamalai I was unforgettably reminded of the uniqueness of each supposedly enlightened teacher on meeting a respected local living saint, Yogi Ramsuratkumar.
People at the Ramana ashram urged me to visit this Yogi, saying that he was was an avadhuta, a mystic living simply beyond worldly social standards. I was told that he was giving morning darshans at his small house near the great Annamalaiyar temple in the center of town.
So one morning, instead of communing with Sri Ramana, I walked into town, bought fruit to offer as prasad [a divine gift] to Ramsuratkumar, and came to his house where already standing outside there was a line of devotees awaiting admittance, each also holding food or flowers to offer him. Especially noteworthy was a richly attired middle aged Indian woman, who was holding a large round silver tray laden with an elaborate array of beautiful fruits and flowers.
I took my place at the end of the line and waited with curiosity in the hot sun. Ultimately, when there were about twenty or more people standing in line, the door opened and Yogi Ramsuratkumar appeared with an attendant to greet each devotee, one by one. With most people he exchanged a few words, accepted their offering and sent them on. Only occasionally did he invite a devotee to enter his house for darshan.
Amazingly, when the woman with the silver tray proffered her elaborate offering, he not only rejected it but seemed to sternly chastise her in Telegu and peremptorily sent her away. (Whereupon I surmised that Ramsuratkumar had determined from her subtle field that the woman was an unworthy aspirant with defiled motives.)
When I reached the head of the line, the Yogi kindly accepted my modest offering and invited me to enter his house parlor with only a few others – an Indian family of mother and father with two young children and a young western woman. Each of us was invited to sit in the parlor on a plain folding chair facing the swami who was standing in front of us.
To my surprise, the house appeared to be very dusty and dirty, and the Yogi looked as if he hadn’t bathed or washed his clothes for a while. Notwithstanding his unkempt appearance and environment my subtle ‘radar’ detected this yogi’s inner purity and I began softly weeping. Later, I concluded that while an attitude of “cleanliness is next to Godliness” might be appropriate for most people, Ramsuratkumar demonstrated that in spirituality it is inner purity rather than outer appearance that is crucial.
After we were seated in his parlor, and offered tea, the yogi enquired of each guest our origins and reasons for visiting him. Thus, he asked me in English from whence and why I had come to India. With tears still seeping I explained that I had come as a spiritual pilgrim to honor my beloved Guruji in Gujurat; and that I was in Tiruvannamalai to honor Sri Ramana Maharshi.
Thereupon, while standing before me the Yogi raised his right hand in blessing pose and in English he intermittently and repeatedly decared “my Father blesses you”. While so blessing me with his raised right hand, the yogi held between the fingers of his left hand and puffed alternately on three lighted bidis (Indian hand-rolled cigarettes, like those sold and smoked by Nisargadatta Maharaj).
Though it didn’t surprise me to see a smoking saint, never before had I imagined a holy man smoking three cigarettes concurrently. So it was apparent – as I had been informed – that Ramsuratkumar was an avadhuta, who lived simply and unconventionally without concern for social standards. In all events, I was and remain ever grateful for his blessings.
Conclusion
Since my 1992 pilgrimage to Tiruvannamalai (and more than ever before as an octogenarian), I have remained unspeakably grateful for my continuing “gift of tears” as a supreme devotional blessing ultimately consistent with highest wisdom of non-duality Self-identity. (See e.g. https://sillysutras.com/crying-for-god-and-other-kundalini-kriyas-rons-memoirs/ ) And especially since darshan with Yogi Ramsuratkumar I have gratefully appreciated the infinite human manifestations of non-duality Reality as LOVE.
Hallucinations or Reincarnations?
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“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.”
~ H. H. Dalai Lama, from ‘The Path to Tranquility: Daily Wisdom”
“Reincarnation is not an exclusively Hindu or Buddhist concept,
but it is part of the history of human origin.
It is proof of the mindstream’s capacity to retain knowledge of physical and mental activities.
It is related to the theory of interdependent origination and to the law of cause and effect.”
~ H. H. Dalai Lama (Preface to “The Case for Reincarnation”)
“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.” “The soul is eternal, all-pervading, unmodifiable, immovable and primordial.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Krishna to Arjuna
Hallucinations or Reincarnations?
Until my mid-life change of life, I identified solely with my physical body, its thoughts and its story and assumed that physical death ended our existence. Until then, stories of afterlife, reincarnation, ghosts or other disincarnate spirits were fanciful fiction for me.
But after my transformative mid-life spiritual awakening I became clairsentient and began having many extraordinary clairvoyant experiences, including seeing apparent apparitions and visions of what seemed ‘past lives’.
So with great curiosity I wondered about this new apparent ‘reality’ of ephemeral forms and phenomena which I’d begun to perceive. Even though I had realized that my ultimate identity is pure awareness – and not my physical body or its story, I wanted to understand the nature and meaning of our apparent individuality as energy entities in space/time reality.
Through synchronistic inner and outer experiences I was gradually given answers to my questions about phenomenal ‘reality’, and became convinced of the relative reality of reincarnation and afterlife, while still realizing that ultimately all such phenomena are mental projections of universal consciousness; that “birth and death are virtual, while Life is perpetual”.
Early experiences
Hereafter I’ll tell you about some of my earliest memorable experiences of apparent afterlife and reincarnation. [See also https://sillysutras.com/pilgrimage-to-assisi-communing-with-saint-francis-rons-memoirs/]
The first of these experiences happened when I was alone one weekend in an attic room of our family house, where I was living separately from my wife during the traumatic divorce period shortly before moving out. Never do I recall feeling more miserable and heartbroken.
Then while seated in an armchair and gazing out of the attic window, I felt a comforting presence seemingly embracing me from behind the chair. Momentarily I glanced behind me and perceived my deceased grandfather, Morris, who had died five years earlier in 1971. He had silently come to console me. I was quite sober then, and this experience seemed very ‘real’ – not an hallucination.
Months later, I again saw Grandpa Morris in inner – rather than outer – images while in meditative or ‘alpha’ states of consciousness, after attending a Silva Mind Control seminar. [See https://sillysutras.com/silva-mind-control-rons-memoirs/ ] During and after the Silva seminar Mahatma Gandhi had begun appearing within as my first inner spirit guide. But sometimes, instead of Gandhi, Grandpa Morris also came to guide me.
Other lifetimes
During the same period of inner and outer encounters with Grandpa and Gandhi, I began having dreams and visions of apparent other lifetimes. [See https://sillysutras.com/visions-of-past-and-future-rons-memoirs/]
These visions radically challenged my prior Newtonian paradigm of ‘reality’. But still I remained skeptical about their meaning. So the universe kept giving me synchronistic experiences which answered my questions and confirmed new ideas of reality.
The first of my memorable experiences which seemed to authenticate an apparent past life vision began during the period of my traumatic divorce, when a broken heart had opened my heart.
Here is what happened:
In the early 1970’s my wife and I were San Francisco neighbors of a prominent family living across the street. Both we and our neighbors had children the same age attending the same private schools. Our youngest children attended a pre-school kindergarten. The mothers, who were both professionally busy, agreed to carpool our children to school on alternate days. I assisted in carpooling, on days when my wife was teaching at City College.
Mysteriously, while driving our children to school I kept feeling an extraordinarily strong attraction or affinity to my neighbors’ darling little four or five year old daughter Tara as she sat in the back seat of my car, especially noting her beautiful dark eyes and charismatic energy.
*[See Footnote]
During this period, I had begun having many extraordinary clairvoyant experiences, including precognition and seeing apparent ‘past lives’. While wondering about my mysterious attraction to Tara, I saw myself in a ‘past life’ vision as a pre-Christian era Chinese male farmer with several children, one of whom – a darling little girl – was ‘the apple of my eye’. It was Tara.
Shortly after having this past life vision, I synchronistically met Tara’s mother while attending a program at the Masonic Auditorium. Briefly I alluded to my inner experience and, at her request, afterwards I sent her a confirming note recounting the story.
Soon she sent me a reply note saying that Tara “has said several things to me that suggest she has access to information from other times” and she suggested I question Tara about my vision.
So thereafter, with her mother’s approval, I told Tara that I had a vision of her as my daughter in another lifetime in Asia. Tara’s spontaneous response, which I immediately noted, was “Yes, I know.”
There was no further discussion.
As a long-time lawyer, I immediately accepted Tara’s guileless statement as ‘corroborating evidence’ validating my past life vision of her.
Epilogue
Years later, I learned that there is considerable empirical evidence of very young children with memories of other lifetimes, beginning with ground breaking scientific studies by Dr. Ian Stevenson, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. For forty years Dr. Stevenson studied children world-wide who spontaneously remembered past lives, and objectively validated and documented about twelve hundred such cases.
I have elsewhere posted quotations, aphorisms, poetry and essays about afterlife and reincarnation, to help readers overcome fear of death and mitigate grief from loss of loved ones. I have learned from experience that as we lose our fear of leaving life we gain the art of living life – authentically and lovingly; that we lose fear of death as we self-identify with eternal spirit rather than our temporary space/time soul suits.
*Footnote
Tara’s actual name and some identifying details have been changed to protect her privacy. She is now internationally known for her artistry.
How Can We Become Immortal?
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 [ego] 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
“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
What is birth? Is it of the “I-thought” or of the body?
Is “I” separate from the body or identical? How did this “I-thought” arise?
Is the “I-thought” your nature? Or is something else your nature?
The “I” of the wise man includes the body but he does not identify himself with the body. For there cannot be anything apart from “I” for him.
If the body falls, there is no loss for the “I”. “I” remains the same.
If the body feels dead, let it raise the question. Being inert, it cannot “I”.
“I” never dies and does not ask.
Who then dies? Who asks?
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
Sri Ramana Maharshi
Introduction
Today’s Q and A essay, quotations, and comments about immortality are shared to help those who fear death avert and transcend inevitable suffering by remembering that we are not merely our mortal bodies and stories, but ONE immortal spirit experiencing fleeting lives from infinite perspectives in transitory earthly space/time vehicles, which are all the same ‘under the hood’!
Though based upon perennial wisdom, these writings are particularly important in current critical times, which insanely, unsustainably and catastrophically threaten all Earth Life as we’ve known it.
So it is especially appropriate for us to now deeply reflect upon these writings.
How Can We Become Immortal?
Q. How can we become immortal?
A. To become immortal,
BE more than a mortal.
Consider:
What lives? What dies?
What exists? What persists?
Observe:
That every thing and every phenomenon
that arises and appears on the screen of our consciousness
Is but a fleeting holographic mirage projected in space/time,
by and within the Infinite Light of Eternal Awareness;
That nothing is permanent in the ever changing universe,
where all that appears, disappears.
Be aware:
That only Eternal Awareness
exists and persists beyond time.
So, to be immortal,
just don’t be a mortal –
BE:
Eternal Awareness
NOW!
Ron’s explanation and dedication of “How Can We Become Immortal?”
Dear Friends,
To reveal important information yet unknown to those who fear death, today’s Q and A essay (with quotations) asks and answers a deliberately deceptive rhetorical question:
“How Can We Become Immortal?”
In Truth we’re already immortal – we are ONE eternal spirit. But (except for rare Buddha-like beings), we’ve forgotten our immortality, and suffer societally from universally mistaken identity.
From childhood we were taught to self-identify only with an illusory and disempowering ego-mind image: with a separate name, gender, and story about who and what we are. We were taught that we were each born into Nature as limited beings; but, not that Nature is our nature, or that we are Beings of Light sharing limitless immortal common consciousness with all life-forms.
Sages, seers and mystics have been trying to tell us for millennia that we’re not what we were taught or think we are. That our self-identification as merely mortal physical bodies, seemingly condemned to inevitable death in space/time, is an ego-mind illusion – like a mirage; that we suffer from perception-deception; and, that our True Self-identity and Reality is not what it impermanently appears to be.
“We are not merely mortal drops
in an ocean of ephemeral forms,
but the eternally Infinite Ocean of Universal Awareness,
appearing as drops!”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
So today’s writings are dedicated to helping us remember that we are not merely our mortal bodies – their names, genders, features, colors, religions, beliefs, emotions, habits or stories – or the ‘voices in our heads’. That we are ONE immortal spirit experiencing fleeting earth lives from infinite perspectives in transitory physical vehicles. But that we’re all the same ‘under the hood’! And that we can transcend inevitable suffering of ordinary human existence through Self-realization of our universal spiritual essence.
Urgency
After insanely and unsustainably pillaging and plundering our precious planet, humans are now confronting possibly imminent end of earth life as we have known it. Such potentially omnicidal ecological catastrophe can be averted only from elevated human consciousness, beyond that which created this dire insanity. So today’s writings are especially important in these critically crazy times.
We must at long last awaken from our delusion of separateness and powerlessness, to transcend the ignorance of our immortality which has spawned these crises. And we must resist control by a few hierarchic psychopaths who promote fear to dominate and greedily exploit Humankind.
Dedication
Whatever our ethical, religious, or spiritual path, if any, let us together deeply reflect upon today’s quotes and verses about our true immortality. May they spur our inevitable awakening as the “kingdom of heaven within” – as eternal LOVE.
Thus Awakened, may we harmoniously, cooperatively and compassionately lovingly resolve our common crises for the common good.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Mute The Mind
“Yoga is the cessation of mind.”
~ Patanjali, Yoga Sutras
“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
“I think with intuition.
The basis of true thinking is intuition.
Indeed, it is not intellect,
but intuition which advances humanity. ”
~ Albert Einstein
To think or not to think,
that is the question!
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Life is not a problem to be solved,
but a reality to be experienced.”
~ Soren Kierkegaard
Introduction
The following sutra verses, with mp3 recitation, quotations and explanations, are about the importance of stilling the mind.
They are shared to encourage us to honor intuition over intellect, and to still our mind, so we can hear and follow our Heart.
Please consider and enjoy them!
Mute The Mind
Bliss abides when thought subsides.
When all thoughts cease, we are at peace.
Spirit speaks when mind is mute.
Mute your mind to hear your heart.
The power to think is a great gift;
but, the power to not think is a greater gift.
So, to think or not to think, that is the question.
Ron’s audio recitation of “Mute The Mind”
Ron’s explanation of “Mute The Mind”
Dear Friends,
When we hear the word “yoga”, what do we think of?
We probably think of a widely practiced art of physical postures and related practices (not necessarily associated with religion), for harmonizing body, mind and spirit. But few think of mental stillness or mind control.
However, according to Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the most ancient and central Sanskrit yoga text, yoga is defined as “cessation of mind”, not merely as methods to achieve such a state of thoughtless awareness.
The word “yoga” is rooted in an ancient Sanskrit term meaning to unite or integrate. And for millennia Vedic seers called Yogis have followed various disciplines – such as wisdom enquiry, devotion, meditation, service, body postures, austerities and breathing techniques – attempting to merge their limited human consciousness with Universal Awareness or Brahman.
Until meeting my Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, who was a great Yogi, I knew virtually nothing about yoga or yogic science. But inspired by his teachings and example I gradually have experienced countless blessings from an often silent mind.
Before meeting Guruji I was philosophically mostly influenced by the world’s ‘great thinkers’. But now I’m mostly inspired by the world’s greatest non-thinkers — mystics, intuitives and shamans (from various traditions), and others who have lovingly, authentically and instinctively lived a secular life, like Albert Einstein.
From his life experience, Einstein taught that we can best solve human problems by emphasizing intuition over intellect, thereby raising our level of consciousness beyond that which created our problems. Thus he observed that:
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift
and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant
and has forgotten the gift.”
~ Albert Einstein
Dedication
Today’s writings are dedicated to helping us still our mind, so we can hear and follow our Heart, until we achieve “enlightened” states of awareness.
May we thereby enjoy lives of ever increasing fulfillment and happiness.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
