Posts Tagged ‘Rig Veda’
Transcending Ego-Suffering
“Ego is the biggest enemy of humans. ”
~ Rig Veda
Introduction to “Transcending Ego-Suffering”
Dear Friends,
Perennial spiritual teachings ascribe all human suffering to “ego” – mistaken mental self-identity as life-forms separate from non-duality Reality. Thus “ego” is considered a psychological prison in which suffering is inevitable. However, ego-suffering can be karmically mitigated as we spiritually evolve, but not ended until it is totally transcended.
To reduce our suffering and advance our spiritual evolution toward ultimate Self-Realization ending “ego”, I have posted below a poem titled “What is Ego?”, a carefully culled quotation collection about ego, and my explanatory comments which help define and explain the fundamental spiritual importance of “ego”, and why reducing and transcending ego-suffering is especially important in these troubled times.
May these writings inspire and encourage us to let go of who we mistakenly think we are, so we can enjoy more and suffer less, until ultimately we realize and BE what we truly are.
Thus, they are deeply dedicated to helping us live with ever-growing happiness, until our ultimate transcendence of ego-suffering – as ego-free LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
What is Ego?
Q. What is ego?
A. Ego is what you think you are –
If you don’t self-identify with Universal Awareness, Nature or Divinity.
And your body is your ego incarnate.
As you learn what you really are,
you’ll change what you think you are –
Until without thinking what you are
or who you are,
You just ARE.
Ron’s audio recitation of What is Ego?
Quotation Collection About “Transcending Ego-Suffering”
“Ego is the biggest enemy of humans. ”
~ Rig Veda
“Thinking without awareness is the main dilemma of human existence.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“I hold three treasures close to my heart.
The first is love;
The next simplicity;
The third, overcoming ego.”
~ Lao Tzu
“If you correct your mind,
the rest of your life will fall into place.”
~ Lao Tzu
“When I let go of what [I think] I am,
I become what I might be.”
~ Lao Tzu
“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
“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 entire Buddhist path is based on the discovery of egolessness and the maturing of insight or knowledge that comes from egolessness.”
~ Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
“A spark of truth can burn up a mountain of lies. The opposite is also true. The sun of truth remains hidden behind the cloud of self-identification with the body.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Personal entity and enlightenment cannot go together.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
”When all the false self-identifications are thrown away,
what remains is all-embracing love.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Life is love and love is life.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“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
“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha
“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.”
“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.”
“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
“This perception of division between the seer and the object that is seen,
is situated in the mind. For those remaining in the heart, the seer becomes one with the sight.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“Nothing perceivable is real. Your attachment is your bondage. You cannot control the future.
There is no such thing as free will. Will is bondage. You identify yourself with your desires and become their slave.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“In Hinduism, the very idea of free will is non-existent,
so there is no word for it.
Will is commitment, fixation, bondage.” . . . .
“To be free in the world you must be free of the world.
Otherwise your past decides for you and your future.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“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
“[T]here cannot be any such thing as free will; the very words are a contradiction, because will is what we know and everything that we know is within our universe, and everything within our universe is moulded by the conditions of space, time, and causation. Everything that we know, or can possibly know, must be subject to causation, and that which obeys the law of causation cannot be free.”
“The only way to come out of bondage is to go beyond the limitations of law,
to go beyond causation.”
“This is the goal of the Vedantin, to attain freedom while living.”
~ Swami Vivekananda – Karma Yoga
“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 [natural] law, to go beyond causation.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
“The world, indeed, is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage! Like the apparent distances in a picture, things have no reality in themselves, but they are like heat haze.”
~ 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
“A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.”
“In Buddhism, ignorance as the root cause of suffering refers to a fundamental misperception of the true nature of the self and all phenomena.”
“We must recognize that the suffering of one person or one nation is the suffering of humanity.”
~ Dalai Lama
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,
they are modes in which we think”.
~ Albert Einstein
“It is true that we are not bound. That is to say, the real Self has no bondage. And it is true that you will eventually return to your Source. But meanwhile, if you commit sins, as you call them, you have to face the consequences. You cannot escape them.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“When you think or speak about yourself, when you say, “I,” what you usually refer to is “me and my story.” This is the “I” of your likes and dislikes, fears and desires, the “I” that is never satisfied for long. It is a mind-made sense of who you are, conditioned by the past and seeking to find its fulfillment in the future. Can you see that this “I” is fleeting, a temporary formation, like a wave pattern on the surface of the water?”
~ Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks
“As you grow up, you form a mental image of who you are, based on your personal and cultural conditioning. We may call this phantom self the ego. It consists of mind activity and can only be kept going through constant thinking. The term ego means different things to different people, but when I use it …it means a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind. …..As long as you are identified with your mind, the ego runs your life.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now “
“As long as the egoic mind is running your life, you cannot truly be at ease; you cannot be at peace or fulfilled except for brief intervals when you obtained what you wanted, when a craving has just been fulfilled. Since the ego is a derived sense of self, it needs to identify with external things. It needs to be both defended and fed constantly. The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
“The individual is separate from his universal environment only in name. When this is not recognized, you have been fooled by your name. Confusing names with Nature, you come to believe that having a separate name makes you a separate being. This is—rather literally—to be spellbound.
~ Alan Watts
“When the line between myself and what happens to me is dissolved and there is no stronghold left for an ego even as a passive witness, I find myself not in a world but as a world which is neither compulsive nor capricious.”
~ Alan Watts
“The ego says that the world is vast, and that the particles which form it are tiny. When tiny particles join, it says, the vast world appears. When the vast world disperses, it says, tiny particles appear. The ego is entranced by all these names and ideas, but the subtle truth is that world and particle are the same; neither one vast, neither one tiny. Every thing is equal to every other thing. Names and concepts only block your perception of this Great Oneness. Therefore it is wise to ignore them. Those who live inside their egos are continually bewildered: they struggle frantically to know whether things are large or small, whether or not there is a purpose to joining or dispersing, whether the universe is blind and mechanical or the divine creation of a conscious being. In reality there are no grounds for having beliefs or making comments about such things. Look behind them instead, and you will discern the deep, silent, complete truth of the Tao. Embrace it, and your bewilderment vanishes.”
~ Lao Tzu
“The ego is a monkey catapulting through the jungle: Totally fascinated by the realm of the senses, it swings from one desire to the next, one conflict to the next, one self-centered idea to the next. If you threaten it, it actually fears for its life. Let this monkey go. Let the senses go. Let desires go. Let conflicts go. Let ideas go. Let the fiction of life and death go. Just remain in the center, watching. And then forget that you are there.”
~ Lao Tzu
“Free of ego, living naturally, working virtuously, you become filled with inexhaustible vitality and are liberated forever from the cycle of death and rebirth. Understand this if nothing else: spiritual freedom and oneness with the Tao are not randomly bestowed gifts, but the rewards of conscious self-transformation and self-evolution.”
~ Lao Tzu
“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 world is a prison and we are the prisoners:
Dig a hole in the prison and let yourself out!”
~ Rumi
“Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?”
~ Rumi
“Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.”
~ Rumi
“The choice that frees or imprisons us is the choice of love or fear.
Love liberates. Fear imprisons.”
~ Gary Zukav
“Deep down, at our cores, there are only two emotions: love and fear.
All positive emotions come from love,
all negative emotions from fear.
From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy.
From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt.”
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross & David Kessler – When You Don’t Choose Love You Choose Fear
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” . . .
~ 1 John 4:18
“When fear becomes collective, when anger becomes collective, it’s extremely dangerous. It is overwhelming…
The mass media and the military-industrial complex create a prison for us, so we continue to think, see, and act in the same way…
We need the courage to express ourselves even when the majority is going in the opposite direction… because a change of direction can happen only when there is a collective awakening…
Therefore, it is very important to say, ‘I am here!’ to those who share the same kind of insight.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power
“Many people are so imprisoned in their minds that the beauty of nature does not really exist for them. They might say, ‘What a pretty flower,’ but that’s just a mechanical mental labeling. Because they are not still, not present, they don’t truly see the flower, don’t feel it’s essence, it’s holiness-just as they don’t know themselves, don’t feel their own essence, their own holiness.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“The fruits of the inner man begin only with the shedding of tears. When you reach the place of tears, then know that your spirit has come out from the prison of this world and has set its foot upon the path that leads towards the new age.”
~ Isaac of Nineveh, 7th C. Orthodox Saint and Persian Mystic
”One of the marvels of the world:
The sight of a soul sitting in prison
with the key in its hand.”
~ Rumi
“I long to escape the prison of my ego and lose myself in you.”
~ Rumi
“A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security.”
~ Albert Einstein ( N. Y. Times , March 29, 1972)
“One must elevate – and not degrade – oneself with one’s own mind, as the mind is both a friend and an enemy.
For those who have subdued and conquered the mind, it is the best of friends. But for those who fail to do so, the mind remains the greatest of enemies.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter Six, Lord Krishna to Arjuna
Q: “How much “ego” do
you need?
A: Just enough so that you don’t step in front of a bus.”
~ Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
Ron’s Comments on “Transcending Ego-Suffering”
Dear Friends,
Perennial spiritual teachings ascribe all human suffering to “ego” – mistaken mental self-identity as individually separate from non-duality Reality. Thus “ego” is considered a psychological prison in which suffering is inevitable.
Before my 1976 spiritual awakening I was self-identifying only with my physical body and its story; not with Nature or our Universal Source and Eternal Essence. But since then I’ve become consciously aware that (like almost all other humans) I’m psychologically ‘imprisoned’ by mistaken ego thoughts of being separate from others, Nature, and SELF. And I’ve learned that while mentally ‘imprisoned’ by ego we inevitably suffer from karmic cause and effect.
Therefore, to reduce our ego-suffering and advance our spiritual evolution toward ultimate Self-Realization, I have posted the above quotation collection and poem, which define and explain the fundamental spiritual importance of “ego”, and how we can transcend it.
Reducing and transcending inevitable ego-suffering is especially important in these troubled times, because “ego” can be the greatest impediment to spiritual evolution and Self-realization.
However, as human consciousness ever evolves we are remembering our long forgotten true Self-identity, and universal Oneness with Nature and SELF. And thereby we are consciously reducing ego-suffering, with increasingly harmonious, loving and compassionate behaviors and emotions toward all Life everywhere.
Thus, today’s posting is deeply dedicated to encouraging our living with ever-growing happiness, until our ultimate transcendence of ego-suffering – as ego-free LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Perennial Permanence Puzzlement
“This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds .
To watch the birth and death of beings
is like looking at the movements of a dance.
A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky,
rushing by like a torrent down a steep mountain.”
~ Buddha (563 – 483 BC)
A corporeal phenomenon, a feeling, a perception, a mental formation,
a consciousness, which is permanent and persistent, eternal and not subject to change, such a thing the wise men in this world do not recognize;
and I also say that there is no such thing.
~ Buddha (563 – 483 B.C)
“In the beginning was Atman; the one without a second.”
“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 of Rig Veda
“In this ever-changing space/time world,
nothing is immutable,
but much is inscrutable.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Perennial Permanence Puzzlement
Is there anything permanent
in Heaven’s vast firmament?
Is there a Perfection
beyond all conception –
a Cause of all that’s so?
Is there a force –
an Eternal Source –
that we can ever know?
Is it our task, to seek and to ask,
and so to ever grow?
‘Tis a Perennial Puzzlement!
Ron’s recitation of Perennial Permanence Puzzlement
Ron’s Comments on Perennial Permanence Puzzlement
Dear Friends,
The foregoing written and recited sutra verses were initially inspired by actor Yul Brynner’s legendary performance of the song “A Puzzlement” in the award winning Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The King and I”. In that song Sri Oscar Hammerstein’s spiritually insightful lyrics emphasize the inevitable uncertainties about our beliefs and behaviors in an ever changing world. For example:
“There are times I almost think
Nobody sure of what he absolutely know”
“And it puzzle me to learn
That tho’ a man may be in doubt of what he know
Very quickly he will fight
He’ll fight to prove that what he does not know is so”
So (like Hammerstein’s lyrics) the above verses emphasize inescapable uncertainties in this ever impermanent duality reality. They all ask rationally unanswerable rhetorical questions, in a world of “Perennial Puzzlement”.
But beyond rational thought, all sutra verses point to immutable Eternal Awareness ever imminent in everything/everyone everywhere.
Thus, with above quotations, they are deeply dedicated to hastening Humanity’s awakening to That Eternal Source.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Be An Auto-Iconoclast
“Ego is the biggest enemy of humans. ”
~ Rig Veda
“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
~ Buddha
“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
“This perception of division
between the seer and the object that is seen,
is situated in the mind.
For those remaining in the heart,
the seer becomes one with the sight.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“One must elevate – and not degrade – oneself with one’s own mind,
as the mind is both a friend and an enemy.
For those who have subdued and conquered the mind, it is the best of friends.
But for those who fail to do so, the mind remains the greatest of enemies.”
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter Six, Lord Krishna to Arjuna
“Undo Ego!
Use it to lose it.”
“As ego goes,
consciousness grows,
until it Knows
– Itself.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Free of ego, living naturally, working virtuously,
you become filled with inexhaustible vitality
and are liberated forever from the cycle of death and rebirth.”
~ Lao Tzu
Beyond Ego
Introduction
Dear Friends,
The following written and recited sutra verses poetically declare that we are not and can never be what we think we are. Such self-identity thoughts are ego illusions, our greatest spiritual enemy.
In metaphorically suggesting that we should iconoclastically break – not make – egoic self images, I was inspired by the second of the bible’s ten commandments against deifying and bowing down to graven images.
These verses together with above quotations, and following explanatory comments, are shared to help advance our spiritual evolution by inspiring us to overcome and control illusory ego-mind self-identity.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Be An Auto-Iconoclast
Who are you? Who do you think you are?
You think you’re only an entity –
a person separate from all other entities.With such thinking you’ve created
a false ego image of what you really are.
And you’ve mistakenly identified yourself as that ego image.But you’re not that ego image.
You can never be what you think you are:
Thinking and Being can’t coexist.So stop thinking, and start Being.
Don’t be an ego-image maker.
Be an ego-image breaker.Be an auto-iconoclast.
Break your ego image.End ego identity,
and be –
ego free.BE what you really are –
Thoughtless Awareness
NOW!
Ron’s audio recitation of Be An Auto-Iconoclast
Ron’s Comments on “Be An Auto-Iconoclast”
Dear Friends,
Almost all humans at times think themselves separate from each other, Nature and Divine Self. Such thoughts are illusory ego-mind thoughts, and the greatest deterrent to our spiritual evolution.
So the foregoing verses and quotations are intended to remind us to go beyond what we think we are, and BE what we really are – ONE with eternal Universal Awareness, our immortal Source and Divine Self.
In poetically suggesting that we iconoclastically break – not make – egoic self images, I was inspired by the second of the Bible’s ten commandments against deifying and bowing down to graven images. By adulating ego-mind instead of undoing it, we glorify a supposedly separate and independent self, which is an optical illusion of consciousness – like a mirage. But by overcoming and controlling the ego-mind we advance rather than deter our spiritual evolution. (Bhagavad Gita, Chapter Six)
Thus, this “Be An Auto-Iconoclast” posting is dedicated to advancing our spiritual evolution and transcendence of illusory and disempowering ego-mind self-identity, by helping us remember again our once known, but long forgotten, true Divinity.
Please enjoy it accordingly.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
The Way In, Is The Way Out
“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha
“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.”
~ Rumi
“As you grow up, you form a mental image of who you are, based on your personal and cultural conditioning. We may call this phantom self the ego. It consists of mind activity and can only be kept going through constant thinking. The term ego means different things to different people, but when I use it …it means a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind. …..
As long as you are identified with your mind, the ego runs your life.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
“Ego is the biggest enemy of humans.”
~ Rig Veda
“As long as you take yourself to be a person, a body, a mind, separate from the stream of life, having a will of its own, pursuing its own aims, you are living merely on the surface and whatever you do will be short-lived and of little value, mere straws to feed the flames of vanity.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Undo ego!
As ego goes,
consciousness grows,
until it Knows – Its Self.”“On the path of Undo
we’ll never be through
’til we’re an undone ONE”.~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Introduction to “The Way In, Is The Way Out”
Dear Friends,
The following written and recited sutra poem is about undoing ego’s misidentification with the mind. The poem metaphorically tells how we’re each caught (by ego) in a mental maze; so that to find our way out, we must know the way we got in. It is explained by above key quotations and comments below.
In addition to the poem’s posted voice recitation. there is a brief video segment of Ron reading this sutra poem on his computer screen in “Walks With Ron”, a free YouTube spiritual memoir film about me, by Rob Tobias.
I hope you’ll enjoy and be helped by this whimsical poem and by viewing that video memoir.
Ron Rattner
The Way In, Is The Way Out
In this crazy age
of mental malaise,
we’re caught
in a mental maze.
Without a doubt,
to find our way out
we must know
the way we got in.
Ron’s Audio Recitation of “The Way In, Is The Way Out”
Ron’s Explanation of “The Way In, Is The Way Out”
Dear Friends,
Upon birth in human bodies we experience amnesia about our true spiritual self-identity. Thereafter we are acculturated to perceive and mentally believe ourselves to be mere mortal physical bodies separate from each other and Nature. So, because of “an optical illusion of consciousness” we mistakenly identify and behave as separate entities, and become subject to the karmic law of cause and effect.
Every Human – except for rare Buddha-like beings – knowingly or unknowingly is in some evolutionary stage of undoing mistaken ego-mind identity – a process indispensable to our spiritual evolution. Hence for millennia spiritual seers have recognized “ego” as the greatest human “enemy” and impediment to our spiritual evolution.
Only as a 42 year old adult did I begin learning about mistaken ego identification. My midlife awakening sparked a previously unimagined spiritual metamorphosis process from “secular Hebrew”, to “born-again Hindu”, to “uncertain Undo”. So I’ve long proclaimed that I’m an ‘Uncertain Undo’ seeking relief from belief; and that “on the path of Undo, we’ll never be through, ’til we’re an undone ONE”.
As an “uncertain Undo”, I’ve experienced an ever happier life by gradually letting go of outdated beliefs and ideas about Self-identity and Reality. And, to help others find similar happiness, I’ve often written about this process of undoing ego, because of its fundamental spiritual significance. (See e.g. website archives linked here.)
So I hope you’ll enjoy today’s metaphoric ‘mental maze’ poem. And that it may help all of us who (knowingly or unknowingly) are longing for freedom from ego’s ‘mental maze’ by finding the way we got in.
Dedication
Today’s “Way In, Is The Way Out” posting is sincerely dedicated to helping us live ever happier lives, by undoing ego until “we’re an undone ONE”.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Undo Ego!
“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.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama
In the pursuit of learning every day something is gained.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.
~ Lao Tzu
“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.”
~ Rumi
Q. How much “ego” do you need?
A. Just enough so that you don’t step in front of a bus.
~ Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
“Undo Ego!
Use it to lose it.”
“As ego goes,
consciousness grows,
until it Knows
– Itself.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Lau Tzu
Undoing
Undoing
There’s nothing to do
but undo,
Until you’re through and undone.
Then, when nothing’s undone,
there’s nothing to do,
But to BE –
Free and
ONE!
Ron’s audio recitation of “Undoing”
Ron’s explanation of “Undo Ego”
Dear Friends,
For millennia spiritual teachings have identified “ego” as a fundamental impediment to spiritual evolution and realization. Thus, the ancient Vedic seers told us that “Ego is the biggest enemy of humans.” (Rig Veda ) And the Dalai Lama says that ego is the “number-one enemy of compassion.”
Spiritual teachers refer to “ego” as mistaken human self-identity as a personality separate from eternal Infinite Potentiality – our true identity.
Ego is often described as a psychological prison, causing inevitable karmic suffering.
“The world is a prison and we are the prisoners:
Dig a hole in the prison and let yourself out!”
“Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?”
~ Rumi
I have posted the foregoing quotations, sutra sayings and poem about undoing ego to remind us of our critical need to let go of who or what we think we are, so we can realize and BE what we really are – ONE with Nature as Infinite Potentiality.
Every Human – except for rare Buddha-like beings – knowingly or unknowingly is in some evolutionary stage of undoing mistaken ego identity – a process indispensable to our spiritual evolution.
For example, in spiritual memoirs I tell how (after many years of reciting and following prescribed prayers and practices) I became an “Uncertain Undo” looking within to discover and discard remaining ego impediments to spiritual evolution and realization – as eloquently advised by Lao Tzu and Rumi.
“In the pursuit of learning every day something is gained.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.”
~ Lao Tzu
“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.”
~ Rumi
Whimsically I’ve suggested that everyone should “seek relief from belief”; because “on the path of Undo we’ll never be through ’til we’re an undone ONE”. So as an “Uncertain Undo” I’ve gradually been letting go of previously accepted beliefs and concepts about humanity, self-identity and reality.
My present paradigm is that we live earth-lives to learn from experience our essential common self-identity as LOVE – each from a unique karmic perspective.
That each of us is here to transcend suffering by uncovering and undoing our unique barriers to Self realization – our mistaken ego identities and tendencies. As we mindfully identify those mental mistakes, it becomes possible for us to use ego, to lose ego. As revealed in the Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism’s best known scripture, it is possible for our mind to become our “best friend”, rather than “worst enemy”
One must elevate – and not degrade – oneself with one’s own mind, as the mind is both a friend and an enemy.
For those who have subdued and conquered the mind, it is the best of friends.
But for those who fail to do so, the mind remains the greatest of enemies.
~ Bhagavad Gita, Chapter Six, Lord Krishna to Arjuna
Dedication
This posting is respectfully offered to help remind us of our critical need to let go of who or what we mistakenly think we are, so we can realize and BE what we really are – ONE with Nature as its Eternal Source.
Also, these undoing ego writings are sincerely intended to help us live ever happier lives, until we all become “an undone ONE”.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Let Life Live Us As Love
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”
~ Deuteronomy 6:4-5
“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
Love has befriended me so completely
It has turned to ash and freed me
of every concept and image
my mind has ever known.
~ Hafiz
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
“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.”“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“The identification of pure awareness with the mind and its creations causes the [ego] apprehension of both an objective world and a perceiver of it.”
~ Patanjali – Yoga Sutras
“Free of ego, living naturally, working virtuously, you become filled with inexhaustible vitality and are liberated forever from the cycle of death and rebirth.”
~ Lao Tzu
“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.”
~ Rumi
“Love Is The Law Of Life:
All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction.
Love is therefore the only law of life.
He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying.
Therefore, love for love’s sake,
because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
“Let us let go of ego, and
Let Life live us as LOVE!”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Maitreya – The Next Buddha
“Let Life Live Us As Love”
Einstein revolutionized Western science with his groundbreaking theory of relativity establishing equivalence between all matter and energy in the universe, quantifiable by the simple equation e=mc2.
Since then, for over a century, Western science has more and more shown what ancient shamans, seers, and indigenous societies have known for millennia:
That there is a cosmic web of life connecting everything and everyone in Nature from the greatest galaxies to the tiniest sub-atomic particles; that we are each an integral inter-connected part of Nature’s web of life – not separate from it; that as Einstein observed:
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
Though Einstein’s insights revolutionized quantum physicists’ views of space/time “reality”, most humans haven’t yet changed our way of thinking about such “reality”. Until now, most people mistakenly keep behaving as if we are separated from each other and from Nature, and not part of it. This behavior has resulted in continuing selfishness, cruelty, wars and unsustainable exploitation of our precious planet.
But gradually we are awakening. From seeing everyone and everything as discrete and separated by apparently immutable boundaries, we are more and more realizing that everyone and everything are ever-changing energy phenomena appearing from a common immutable Source of Infinite Universal Awareness, which is LOVE.
All of our selfish, disharmonious and unsustainable behaviors have arisen from human ignorance of the true non-dual nature of the Self and all phenomena as Love; and from consequent mental mis-identification with the illusion of physical separation from each other – called “ego”.
Thus, the ancient Vedic seers told us in the Rig Veda that
“ Ego is the biggest enemy of humans.”
Only rare Buddha-like beings, are said to totally transcend ego identification. So we all experience some degree of separate self-identification. But all humans are in various stages of an ultimately irresistible evolutionary process of ego attrition and transcendence.
In this world of cause and effect, Nature – not ego – is in charge and determines everything. But, while believing ourselves separate from Nature, we exercise apparent free will and seemingly make non-predestined choices.
Depending on whether we are in harmony or disharmony with Nature, these apparent choices hasten or impede our evolution, and create or mitigate crises, sufferings and problems. So, let us ever aspire to be harmonious with Nature:
Ever mindful of our ONENESS with all Life on our precious planet, as Universal Awareness, let us live with loving-kindness and compassion for everyone and everything everywhere.
Ever mindful that in space/time Nature is our nature,
let us see and cherish Nature in everything and everyone everywhere.Ever mindful that Universal Awareness, as Love,
is our ultimate identity and Source:
Let us let go of ego, and
Let Life live us as LOVE!
And So Shall It Be!
Ron’s comments and explanation of “Let Life Live Us As Love”
Dear Friends,
On moving from Chicago to San Francisco in 1960, I was ignorant about spiritual subjects, or religions other than Judaism. Growing up in Chicago, I had become familiar with Judaism’s core teachings:
“ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is One”; and
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”
~ Deuteronomy 6:4-5
But initially, I had no idea of the supremely profound esoteric importance of those teachings, or of devotional Love as crucial in all enduring religious and spiritual traditions. Not until my 1976 spiritual awakening and rebirth did I begin experientially learning about spirituality.
Whereupon, gradually I became inspired by “love of God” as a key spiritual tradition, with which I had instinctively joined in frequently crying and calling for the Divine. And ultimately I became convinced that our true nature and identity is LOVE.
That in space/time “reality” everyone, everything, everywhere is an ever-changing energy phenomenon appearing from a common immutable Source of Infinite Universal Awareness, which is LOVE.
So as Rumi profoundly tells us we need not “seek for love, but merely .. seek and find all the barriers [we] have built against it.” Those barriers are mistaken ideas about our true identity, which we can only discover and transcend by looking within.
This process of finding and letting go of ego-mind barriers to experiencing ourselves as LOVE is explained in the foregoing profound quotations and essay/poem.
May they remind us of our common Self-identity as Love with all Life on our precious planet.
And may they encourage and inspire us to live with loving-kindness and compassion for everyone and everything everywhere.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
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
What’s really “Real”?
“Reality is merely an illusion,
albeit a very persistent one.”;
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,
they are modes in which we think”.
~ Albert Einstein
“I regard consciousness as fundamental.
I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.
We cannot get behind consciousness.
Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
~ Max Planck, Nobel laureate physicist
“The very study of the physical world leads to the conclusion that consciousness is an ultimate reality and, all the possible knowledge, concerning objects can be given as its wave function”
~ Eugene Wigner, Nobel laureate physicist and co-founder of quantum mechanics
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness”
; “reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”; “space and time are not conditions in which we live, they are modes in which we think”.
“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.” ….“Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe.”
~ Albert Einstein
What appears to be a stable, tangible, visible, audible world, is an illusion. It is dynamic and kaleidoscopic — not really “there”. What we normally see is the explicit, or unfolded, order of things, rather like watching a movie. But there is an underlying order that is mother and father to this second-generation reality.
~ David Bohm, Physicist and Einstein protegé
Theory of Everything:
E = mc2 = Consciousness = Self.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Introduction to What’s really “Real”?
Dear Friends,
Have you ever wondered what’s really “Real”? Or what isn’t “Real”?
Do you see “reality” as only physical, measurable, perceptible, or comprehensible? Where for you does earthly “reality” end, and ‘unreality’ or illusion begin – if anywhere?
Mystics say that we’re experiencing life on Earth to learn what’s really Real; that experientially we discover that in this always changing three dimensional world only unchanging consciousness persists; that our inner I AM observer is Absolute Reality and Source of all our thoughts, experiences and perceived forms and phenomena.
Thus the nature of “reality” is a spiritually crucial question, addressed for us herein, with numerous quotations and detailed explanatory discussion.
May these writings and reflections help inspire our ever increasing happiness, as we lovingly and harmoniously ascend spiritually toward THAT which is really “Real”.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Explanation of What’s really “Real”?
Our ideas of reality are spiritually crucial. Knowingly or unknowingly they deeply affect our beliefs about who and what we are; and, our beliefs about who and what we are determine our thoughts, behaviors, experiences and philosophies of life, both individually and societally.
Thus, human reality paradigms which do not recognize our essential Unity with Nature and all its life-forms have proved environmentally, economically, internationally and inter-personally disastrous.
“…this separation between man and man, between nation and nation, between earth and moon, between moon and sun. Out of this idea of separation – – – comes all misery. But the Vedanta says that this separation does not exist, it is not real.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
How different would be our behaviors if we truly realized and always remembered that we are part of Nature, deeply connected and unified with all life-forms; that our apparent separation from each other and Nature is a perceptual illusion!
“Our separation of each other
is an optical illusion of consciousness.” .
~ Albert Einstein
Jesus legendarily told us that with faith human potentialities are unlimited:
“All things are possible for one who believes.”
~ Mark 9:23
“If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
~ Matthew:17-20
But limited beliefs about “reality” are conceptual cages confining us in a kind of psychological prison, restricting realization of our unlimited potentialities.
“The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveals itself in nature. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.”
~ Albert Einstein
Culturally, our concepts of “reality” are an unspoken consensus abstraction dependent upon predominantly shared beliefs about what is “real”.
“Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.”
~ Alan Watts
“Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.”
~ Lily Tomlin
Until now, most of us have been unconsciously acculturated and indoctrinated with restrictive ideas of self-identity and “reality”, without ever reflecting upon or intuiting who or what we really are and what’s really Real.
Our ideas about “reality” – both individually and societally – differ with different people at different times and different places.
But beyond our ever changing ideas of relative “reality”, isn’t there an ultimate transcendent Reality – which is the eternal Source of all relative realities? Beyond thought can we experience such ultimate Reality?
In universally seeking happiness, doesn’t everyone knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or subconsciously, remember and intuitively long for the experience of Divine Oneness?
Mystical “inner explorers” have answered all of the foregoing questions affirmatively. Shamans and Mystics – from both East and West – have for millennia reported their discovery of ONE ultimate, unchanging non-duality Reality; THAT which is beyond definition, comprehension or imagination – yet, everywhere invisibly immanent in and Source of our space/time polarity/causality relative reality.
“Though One, Brahman is the cause of the many…
The One manifests as the many,
the formless putting on forms.”
~ Rig Veda, 1500–1200 BCE
“All things come out of the One and the One out of all things.”
~ Heraclitus, 500BC
“Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another.”
~ Leibniz, 1670
“We are a part of Nature as a whole whose order we follow.”
~ Spinoza, Ethics, 1673
“We did not weave the web of life.
We are merely strands in it.
All things are bound together. All things connect.”
~ Chief Seattle
“At the center of the Universe dwells the Great Spirit and —
this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”
~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux
“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
And now more and more scientists are agreeing with the mystics. Matter has melted into Mystery. Physics and metaphysics are merging.
Both science and spirituality agree that Reality is undivided Wholeness.
And for some Quantum physicists – like Nobel laureate Max Planck – beyond “uncertainty” about reality of “matter” there is only consciousness and Divinity.
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
~ Max Planck, as quoted in The Observer (25 January 1931)
“There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter. ”
~ Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
“Both Religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all considerations… To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view.”
~ Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist – Religion and Natural Science (Lecture Given 1937) Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, trans. F. Gaynor (New York, 1949)
Thousands of years ago, Eastern seers called this permanently impermanent and ever changing world of countless forms and phenomena a dreamlike illusion, maya or samsara; a mere projection of the One Reality – of Infinite and Eternal Existence.
“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
Einstein intuited that:
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
Now many other scientists are agreeing with mystics and affirming Einstein’s observation about the illusion of physical “reality”.
For example, Einstein protege and distinguished physicist David Bohm has questioned any objective tangible reality. Bohm theorized that the universe is fundamentally like a gigantic hologram; that underlying apparent reality is a deeper order of existence, from which all the objects and appearances of our physical world arise and appear in much the same way that a two dimensional holographic film gives birth to a three dimensional hologram in space.
What appears to be a stable, tangible, visible, audible world, is an illusion. It is dynamic and kaleidoscopic — not really “there”. What we normally see is the explicit, or unfolded, order of things, rather like watching a movie. But there is an underlying order that is mother and father to this second-generation reality.
~ David Bohm
Until his death in 1955, Einstein maintained his intuitive view, consistent with ancient mystical insights but challenged by some quantum physicists, that “God does not play dice with the universe”; that the principle of cause and effect (or karma) pervades the phenomenal Universe without exception; that the ideas of chance or “uncertainty” arise from causes not yet recognized or perceived.
Since Einstein’s death, some physicists like his protege David Bohm have advanced theories which reconcile apparent contradictions between universal “causality” and quantum “uncertainty” and “non-locality” and they are thereby ever narrowing remaining apparent disparity between scientific and mystical views of “Reality”.
“Science and religion will meet and shake hands…When the scientific teacher asserts that all things are the manifestation of one force, does it not remind you of the God of whom you hear in the Upanishads? Do you not see whither science is tending?”
~ Swami Vivekananda, London talk, 1896
As presciently envisioned by Swami Vivekananda, science and religion will ultimately agree on the ONENESS of phenomenal “reality”. And realizing such ONENESS, Humanity will at long last – as it must – discard destructive illusionary beliefs and behaviors which have brought it to the brink of ecologic, economic, inter-personal and international disaster.
“Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.”
~ Niels Bohr
“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena,
it will make more progress in one decade
than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”
~ Nikola Tesla
Thereupon, Humankind and all other life-forms on our precious planet, will harmoniously and peacefully flourish and evolve with Nature with ever increasing happiness, until we spiritually ascend to transcend this wonderful world, as Universal LOVE.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
Permanent Impermanence
~ Sayings and Quotes
“All formations are `transient’ (anicca); all formations are `subject to suffering’ (dukkha); all things are `without a self’ (anattaa)”.
~ Gautama Buddha (563 – 483 B.C)
“All formations and formulations are impermanent creations.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Nothing is permanent ‘neath heaven’s vast firmament.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“In this ever-changing space/time world,
nothing is immutable, but much is inscrutable.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Life is ineffable, change is inevitable.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Introduction to Permanent Impermanence
Dear Friends,
We’re living in an extraordinarily stressful, fearful and divisive “new normal” era. Thus millions are suffering severely. But this world is always changing, and inevitably all “this, too, will pass”. So to move on it’s best that we
“Forget the former things;
[and] not dwell on the past.”
~ Isaiah 43:18–19
To help us transcend fears from the past and find blessings in the eternal present, hereafter posted are perennially pertinent quotations about living joyously in ever changing times. They are explained in my comments below the quotes. Enjoy!
Ron Rattner
Permanent Impermanence
“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
“Everything flows and nothing abides,
everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.”
~ Heraclitus (c.540 – c.475 BC)
“That nothing is static or fixed, that all is fleeting and impermanent, is the first mark of existence. It is the ordinary state of affairs. Everything is in process. Everything—every tree, every blade of grass, all the animals, insects, human beings, buildings, the animate and the inanimate—is always changing, moment to moment.”
~ Pema Chodron
“Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life. We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things.”
~ Pema Chodron
“[T}he recognition of the impermanence of all forms awakens you to the dimension of the formless within yourself, that which is beyond death. Jesus called it “eternal life.” ….It leads to…. nonresistance, non-judgment, and non-attachment .. the three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living.”
~ Eckhart Tolle – A New Earth (edited)
“The words “This, too, will pass” are pointers toward Reality. In pointing to the impermanence of all forms, by implication, they are also pointing to the eternal. Only the eternal in you can recognize the impermanent as impermanent.”
~ Eckhart Tolle – A New Earth
“Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas.”
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“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; and of that which is transient and subject to suffering and change, one cannot rightly say:
`This belongs to me; this am I; this is my Self’.
Therefore, whatever there be of corporeality, of feeling, perception, mental formations, or consciousness, whether past, present or future, one’s own or external, gross or subtle, lofty or low, far or near, one should understand according to reality and true wisdom: `This does not belong to me; this am I not; this is not my Self’.”
~ Gautama Buddha
“This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds. To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky, rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.”
~ Gautama Buddha
“A corporeal phenomenon, a feeling, a perception, a mental formation, a consciousness, which is permanent and persistent, eternal and not subject to change, such a thing the wise men in this world do not recognize; and I also say that there is no such thing.”
~ Gautama Buddha
“The First thing to understand about the universe is that no condition is “good” or “bad.” It just is. So stop making value judgments. The second thing to know is that all conditions are temporary. Nothing stays the same, nothing remains static. Which way a thing changes depends on you.”
~ Neale Donald Walsch
“In the beginning was Atman; the one without a second.” . . .
“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 of Rig Veda
Ron’s Comments on Permanent Impermanence.
Dear Friends,
Only in the past century have quantum physicists confirmed what the Buddhas, saints and sages discovered and have revealed for millennia:
that in this world everything is impermanent.
Every appearance is in a constant state of flux or ‘flow’; so everything that appears, disappears; every form eventually melts into mystery. [Not even ‘diamonds are forever’.]
Since Einstein’s groundbreaking theory of relativity, quantum scientists have confirmed that in this world of space/time duality and causality everything is energy; that every form and phenomenon, whether or not perceptible or measurable, is ephemeral; so, that this is a world of permanent impermanence.
Yet, paradoxically, in our polarity/duality ‘reality’, it is only the immutable Eternal – ever imminent in all manifestation – which can recognize and realize that every appearance is impermanent; that eternal Cosmic consciousness is Ultimate Non-duality Reality.
Hence the Persian adage “This, too, will pass”, reflecting on the evanescence of the human condition, paradoxically points us toward ultimate Reality, because it is only THAT unchanging Eternal Awareness invisibly imminent in each of us which can recognize that all which appears will pass.
“The words “This, too, will pass” are pointers toward Reality. In pointing to the impermanence of all forms, by implication, they are also pointing to the eternal. Only the eternal in you can recognize the impermanent as impermanent.”
~ Eckhart Tolle – A New Earth
Only after my spiritual awakening, and gradual exposure to Eastern mystical philosophy, did I begin to reflect on the crucial importance of experientially realizing the dream-like impermanence of this world; that Earth life can be likened to an ephemeral mental mirage from which we suffer until awakening to our true Eternal Self identity and the non-dual essence of all phenomena.
Such perennial philosophy teaches that we unavoidably suffer karmically in this transient world of samsara or maya until realizing the true nature of Self and all phenomena.
Knowingly or subconsciously everyone seeks eternal peace and happiness. But that is impossible in this world where no pleasure is forever. So our unavoidable suffering – from unskillful thoughts, words and deeds, which are subject to law of causality – is a cosmic ‘incentive system’ impelling us to overcome ignorance and discover our true non-duality self-identity and ‘reality’ – Eternal LOVE.
Suffering ends when ignorance ends; ignorance ends with experiential Self knowledge that we are immortal Infinite Potentiality beyond conception, rather than ego-identified entities which are mortal, separate and limited.
The above quotations and sutra sayings, can inspire appreciation of these perennially important ideas.
May they help us find ever expanding happiness as we less and less identify as mortally ephemeral entities and more and more identify as Eternally immutable Awareness ever imminent in everything/everyone everywhere.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
What is “Reality”?
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
“There is no place in . . [Quantum] physics both for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything, you are
essentially conscious of yourself.”
~ Ramana Maharshi
“This whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once: scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic.”
~ Carl Gustav Jung
“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
“What appears to be a stable, tangible, visible, audible world, is an illusion.
It is dynamic and kaleidoscopic — not really “there”.
What we normally see is the explicit, or unfolded, order of things, rather like watching a movie.
But there is an underlying order that is mother and father to this second-generation reality.”
~ David Bohm, Quantum Physicist
What is “Reality”?
“Reality” isn’t REAL!
“Reality” – like beauty –
is in the eye of the beholder.
It is a mental concept arising in consciousness,
and projected by the beholding self-awareness
onto certain perceived objects.
As rays of sunlight are in essence
the same as the emitting sun source,
perceived “reality” is in essence
the same as the Awareness
from which it originates.
But, because of the “magic mirror” of mind,
“reality” is mistakenly perceived
and objectified as separate and distinct
from the perceiving subject.
So, isn’t it NOW
time to really realize
that “reality” isn’t really real;
That only Awareness is REAL?
Ron’s Reflections on What is “Reality”?
Dear Friends,
Have you ever wondered what is really “Real”? – or “unreal”?
These are crucial questions because our beliefs about “reality” determine our Earth-life experiences.
Today’s What is “Reality”? posting focusses on mystical perspectives of “Reality”. It can help explain how in our world of duality – of apparent opposites – our projected mental perspectives determine our experience of “reality”.
“Reality” and “the real world” are common concepts; frequently used but rarely deeply considered. They mean different things to different people.
According to dictionary definitions, “reality” is that which actually exists as distinguished from that which is merely apparent. So what in this world actually exists? And what in this world is merely apparent, like a non-existent mirage or a dream? – or a virtual or simulated reality?
Albert Einstein realized that cosmically everything is energy – e=mc2; so that when we experience as reality our perceived separation from other life-forms, it is is an “optical illusion of consciousness”. And Einstein said that
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”;
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,
they are modes in which we think”.
Similarly, Eastern mystics have long revealed from inner exploration that this world is not actually real, but an ‘unreal’ illusion:
“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
Also for millennia, indigenous shamans and mystics everywhere have told us that there is only ONE eternal and immutable Source, of the seemingly countless impermanent forms we perceived as “reality”; that therefore this world of apparent multiplicity and separation is merely an ever impermanent dream-like mental projection of That ONE matrix.
“All things come out of the One, and the One out of all things.”
~ Heraclitus, 500 BCE
“Reality cannot be found except in One single source,
because of the interconnection of all things with one another.”
~ Gottfried Leibniz, 1670
“Though One, Brahman is the cause of the many.”
~ Rig Veda, 1500–1200 BCE
“We did not weave the web of life. We are merely strands in it.
All things are bound together. All things connect.”
~ Chief Seattle
“At the center of the Universe dwells the Great Spirit and —
this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”
~ Black Elk, Oglala Sioux
“This separation between man and man, between nation and nation, between earth and moon, between moon and sun.
Out of this idea of separation – – comes all misery.
But the Vedanta says that this separation does not exist,
it is not real.
~ Swami Vivekananda
Shakespeare wisely told us that
“there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”.
[ Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2]
Similarly, cutting edge scientists increasingly confirm that what appears to us as “real” or “unreal” depends upon our thinking – the projected mental perspectives of those concepts. Also, that the supposedly ‘solid’ Earth reality of our limited perceptions is an ever impermanent energetic illusion – only a virtual, simulated, or relative ‘reality’. (https://sillysutras.com/our-mentality-is-our-reality-quotations-and-reflections/)
Conclusion.
Our spiritual evolution is greatly advanced if we realize and remember our true self-identity and “Reality” as universal Awareness or Eternal spirit, not just as mere separate and mortal physical body/minds. Such realization will dramatically transform our Earth-life experience. If we stop separately self-identifying and labeling everyone and everything, it will bestow happier and more fulfilled human lives, with ever expanding compassion for all other life-forms, and with less suffering from unhelpful worldly emotions, desires and attachments.
In the current “new normal” era, it is particularly important that we end our immensely limiting illusions of self-identity as merely mortal separate entities.
As presciently explained in 1980 by brilliant quantum physicist and Einstein protege David Bohm, our
“widespread and pervasive distinctions between people (race, nation, family, profession, etc., etc.) .. are now preventing mankind from working together for the common good, and indeed, even for survival.”
~ David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 1980
Thus transcendence of our “optical illusion” of separation has become especially crucial in the current 2020 “new normal” coronavirus era of unprecedented worldwide human deprivations, suffering and turmoil, with extremely imminent threat to survival of life as we’ve known it.
Dedication and Invocation.
Realization that our precious planet is only a virtual or simulated ‘reality’ need not in any way diminish our immense awe and thankfulness for Earth’s magnificence as part of Nature’s miraculous manifestations, well beyond our comprehension or imagination.
Nor need it detract from our unspeakable gratitude for our experiences in “space/time soul suits” as precious human body/minds – harmonious life-form manifestations of Nature, to be lovingly and skillfully nurtured from our unique perspectives.
So may we find growing happiness and fulfillment in this precious human lifetime, as we ever evolve toward Self-identity as universal Eternal spirit, not just as mere separate and mortal life-forms.
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
