Posts Tagged ‘Self Inquiry’
There’s Nothing Ahead ~ Rumi
“Come out of the circle of time
And into the circle of love.”
~ Rumi
“The Past, the Future, O dear, is from you;
you should regard both these as one.”
~ Rumi
“Fling me across the fabric of time and the seas of space.
Make me nothing and from nothing-everything.”
~ Rumi
“The Eternal looked upon me for a moment with His eye of power,
and annihilated me in His being,
and become manifest to me in His essence.
I saw I existed through Him.”
~ Rumi
“I am an ark in the swift flood of time,
and my companions, a fellowship.
Who throws in with us sails into light.”
~ Rumi
“Forget the future.”
“The day is conscious of itself.”
~ Rumi
There’s Nothing Ahead ~ Rumi
Lovers think they’re looking for each other,
but there’s only one search:
wandering this world is wandering that,
both inside one transparent sky.
In here there is no dogma
and no heresy.
The miracle of Jesus is himself,
not what he said or did about the future.
Forget the future.
I’d worship someone who could do that.
On the way, you may want to look back, or not.
But if you can say, There’s nothing ahead,
there will be nothing there.
Stretch your arms
and take hold of the cloth of your clothes
with both hands.
The cure for pain is in the pain.
Good and bad are mixed.
If you don’t have both,
you don’t belong with us.
When one of us gets lost,
is not here, he must be inside us.
There’s no place like that
anywhere in the world.
Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi,
Translation: Coleman Barks
There’s Nothing Ahead ~ Rumi
https://youtu.be/Y2BSUpUShqI
Voice: Md Taufikur Rahman
background Music:
🎵 Song: ‘Juan Sánchez – Now The Silence’ is under a Free for YouTube license.
https://soundcloud.com/juansanchezcom…
From co-dependent exploitation,
to co-creative realization
~ A rare turning point in Human history
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won.
There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible,
but in the end they always fall — think of it. Always.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood,
and I — I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
~ Robert Frost – The Road Not Taken
Dear Friends,
We have reached a rare turning point in modern human history. Confronted by apparent dire threats to survival of life on Earth as we’ve known it, our species is awakening to a prophesied new enlightened Earth age. After eons of imagined darkness, we are now realizing our infinite potential as timeless wholeness and Oneness with Source – as LOVE beyond comprehension, imagination or description.
Thus a “critical mass” of Humankind will soon be energetically (not spatially) uplifted to a compassionate new world, dynamically harmonious with Nature and all life everywhere – a “new reality” foreseen for millennia by non-materialist mystic seers.
Accordingly this essay is dedicated to inspiring our awakened inclusion in that uplifted “critical mass”.
Historic Background
Throughout recorded history, in order to evolve, human societies have been compelled to abandon previously cherished inflexible beliefs about “reality” (our cosmology, religion, science, philosophy etc.) which limited learning, impeded progress, and facilitated evil and harmful behaviors.
How could we have advanced believing that the earth was flat, or that it was the center of our solar system? And now, because of unprecedented anthropogenic threats to survival of Earth life as we’ve known it, we are again urgently compelled to transcend cherished beliefs about our perceived (three dimensional) illusionary “reality”.
Refusing Ruling Class Exploitation
Human societies have mostly been undemocratically governed by self-proclaimed elite rulers. But for eons our earthly human societies have been secretly dominated and energetically exploited by psychopathic “leaders” representing a few unimaginably malevolent and unknown astral “rulers”.
Thus, until now we’ve lived unaware of our existence in addictive codependent relationships with our “leaders” and “rulers”, which relationships are parasitically exploitive and dysfunctional. And so far this tiny ruling class has cleverly and selfishly used their understanding of our subliminal Oneness with Source (and all other perceived energy forms) to successfully exploit us.
Currently, using controlled mainstream media of mass deception, they have subliminally “brainwashed”, indoctrinated, and inculcated most of humanity into erroneously and fearfully accepting parasitic servitude to them. Such subliminal servitude has precluded us from realizing our infinite power to fearlessly co-create elevated energetic realities, beyond all domination or exploitation, and thereby to fulfill our deepest evolutionary aspirations.
But in recent “new normal” times our ruling “leaders” have enacted immoral laws, orders and edicts which are so flagrantly outrageous that they are painfully awakening many people to our innate human rights and freedoms. Accordingly, those people are resisting and refusing to follow such insanely immoral and unlawful decrees, rather than degenerate into a locked-down Malthusian global 3D society of unprecedented and insidious human control and enslavement by a few malignant psychopaths.
Thus by their civil disobedience and adamant moral refusal to bear such insanity, a critical mass of humankind are about to be energetically uplifted to co-create a wonderful new era in human history.
Though we appear separate, we are all One with Source
“Human beings are made of body, mind and spirit.
Of these, spirit is primary, for it connects us to the source of everything,
the eternal field of consciousness.”
~ Deepak Chopra
All is a play in consciousness. All divisions are illusory.
You can know the false only. The true you must yourself be.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“You are awareness, disguised as a person.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks
Although each human is unique in apparent physical form, (like hexagonal crystalline snowflakes) we all subliminally share the same mysterious spiritual Source, which is inconceivable and indescribable. Because we are so subliminally connected we are all affected by a lack of harmony or morality anywhere in our perceived 3D “reality”. Therefore, we are awakening globally to resist immoral edicts which wickedly violate our innate human rights and freedoms.
Until now our subconscious oneness with all Earth life has permitted subliminal matrix control over our species. But growing human awareness of such Oneness with Source is paradoxically enabling us to irreversibly escape from our current codependent bondage in an imperceptible matrix “prison”.
The following quotations and explanations are about how and why we can soon escape:
Escaping from co-dependent exploitation, to co-creative realization.
“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
“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
Discussion: Until now parasitic lower realm entities have been able to subliminally exploit third dimension humans, only by cleverly fomenting widespread divisive beliefs, fears, anger and other negative emotions. Without such fears and emotions these evil entities can not exploit us. They cannot function in energetically loving dimensions. Fear and Love can’t coexist. And love is “contagious”.
So provoked by outrageously immoral orders and edicts, and aided by unprecedentedly propitious Earth energy cycles, we are now remembering and choosing our true Self identity as Divine LOVE, beyond comprehension, imagination or description.
And as we realize that as eternal LOVE we have nothing to fear, but fear itself, we will inevitably irreversibly escape from captured codependence to fearlessly co-create a wonderful new era in human history.
Methods which are hastening our escape from matrix imprisonment:
1) Living lovingly and gratefully
“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
“It is not joy that makes us grateful;
it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”
~ Brother David Steindl-Rast
“Thankfulness is the soul of beneficence …
For thankfulness brings you to the place where the Beloved lives.”
~ Rumi
2) Becoming mindfully conscious of eternal LOVE
“By the definite science of meditation known for millenniums to the yogis and sages of India, and to Jesus,
any seeker of God can enlarge the caliber of his consciousness to omniscience to receive within himself the Universal Intelligence of God.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“Meditation is one of the most direct and powerful ways to awaken to who we really are and to experience happiness as a state of consciousness that already exists within us.”
~ Deepak Chopra
A focused or stilled mind is crucial to spiritual evolution. With stilled minds we access intuition and imagination, and are uplifted beyond darkness of negative emotions.
With stilled minds we telepathically ‘hear’ and follow our Sacred Heart’s message of Love.
With stilled minds we follow our heart – not our ego.
With stilled minds we instinctively reject dark “leaders” who’ve betrayed and ‘imprisoned’ us.
“The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.”
~ Blaise Pascal
“Faith is a knowledge within the heart,
beyond the reach of proof.”
~ Kahlil Gibran
“The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha
“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
3) Practicing nonviolent Gandhian civil disobedience.
“Satyagraha means resisting untruth by truthful means”
“It is a religious duty to fight untruth.
If one remains steadfast in it in a spirit of dedication,
it always brings success.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
Those of us who already realize how humans are being psychopathically dominated and immorally imprisoned in an invisible ‘matrix’, must now morally and truthfully act to preserve inherent human rights and protect our planet and progeny. With righteous courage, we must speak out and nonviolently disobey unlawful and immoral edicts.
4) Being the change we wish to see.
“[T]he world will not change if we don’t change.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“If we are to make progress,
we must not repeat history but make new history.
We must add to inheritance left by our ancestors.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.”
~ Buddha
“The world is a projection of our collective consciousness.
If our collective consciousness reaches that place of peace, harmony, laughter and love,
it will be a different world.”
~ Deepak Chopra
Energetically we live in a labyrinth of thoughts, intentions, feelings and behaviors which create our “reality”. “Whatever we think, do, or say, is changing this world in some way.”
Accordingly, as we prioritize our intention to mindfully radiate loving and forgiving thoughts, behaviors, and emotions we are inevitably and irreversibly elevating and enlightening our earthly “reality” beyond malevolent darkness.
5) Turning off mainstream media.
“Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.”
~ Edward Bernays
“Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated
are confident they are acting on their own free will.”
~ Joseph Goebbels
“The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”
~ Aldous Huxley
“All propaganda is lies, even when one is telling the truth.”
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
~ George Orwell
All mainstream information media have become propagandist instruments dishonestly dominated and controlled by our “leaders”. Whenever possible we must turn them off, even if they seem to publish information with which we agree. We must not be diverted or confused by information or speculation, which is published with insidious motives.
If we seek information (not speculation) about purported current events or history, we need to investigate non-mainstream sources, especially those which are ridiculed, slandered or censored by mainstream media – like Robert F. Kennedy’s Children’s Health Foundation. However, in reviewing such alternative information outlets we must carefully consider their facts and sources, and not assume their accuracy or credibility.
6) Mindfully recognizing that this world is a mere mental illusion
“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion,
does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.”
~ Buddha
“…this separation between man and man, between nation and nation,
between earth and moon, between moon and sun.
Out of this idea of separation between atom and atom comes all misery.
But the Vedanta says that this separation does not exist, it is not real.”
“Your own will is all that answers prayer,
only it appears under the guise of different religious conceptions to each mind.
We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, but it is only the Self, the ‘I’.”
~ Swami Vivekananda – Jnana Yoga
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“What appears to be a stable, tangible, visible, audible world, is an illusion.”
“Objective reality does not exist” …. “the universe is fundamentally a gigantic … hologram.”
~ David Bohm, Quantum Physicist
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won.
There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible,
but in the end they always fall — think of it. Always.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
We now exist in a perceived relative “reality” where everything is energy (e=Mc2), and suffering is omnipresent. But enlightened mystics and scientists remind us that our “reality” and its seeming separation of perceived thought forms is merely “an optical illusion of consciousness” and that we avert suffering by “recognizing that the world is but an illusion.”
As we consciously identify our comparative “reality” as merely an illusion, we will transcend suffering from negative intentions, actions, thoughts and emotions. And thereby we’ll live with ever growing kindness, and with compassion for others who are still suffering.
Inevitably our kindness will quicken and elevate our subtle energy emanations, until we irreversibly experience our lives from higher dimensions where there is no suffering, just oneness with Source – as LOVE.
Like Gandhi and other great souls we’ll then perceive this world like a metaphoric good versus evil “movie” in which Divine Truth and Love always prevail.
7) Laughter and humor are always uplifting
“When you realize how perfect everything is
you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.”
~ Buddha
“Sing because this is a food our starving world needs.
Laugh because that is the purest sound.”
~ Hafiz
“What is soap to the body, laughter is to the soul.”
~ Yiddish Proverb
“Time spent laughing is time spent with the Gods.”
~ Japanese proverb
“I laugh when I think how I once sought paradise as a realm outside of the world of birth.
It is right in the world of birth and death that the miraculous truth is revealed.
But this is not the laughter of someone who suddenly acquires a great fortune;
neither is it the laughter of one who has won a victory.
It is, rather, the laughter of one who; after having painfully searched for something for a long time,
finds it one morning in the pocket of his coat.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh
“If a person can laugh totally, wholeheartedly, not holding anything back at all,
in that very moment something tremendous can happen
because laughter, when it is total, is absolutely egoless,
and that is the only condition in which to know God, to be egoless.”
~ Osho
“If honesty were suddenly introduced into American life, the whole system would collapse.”
“That’s why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
~ George Carlin
Invocation
At this unprecedented turning point in modern human history,
may we mindfully recognize and intentionally radiate
truth of our common Self-identity as LOVE.
May we thereby be part of an irreversibly uplifted “critical mass” of Humankind,
which will co-create a prophesied compassionate new world,
dynamically harmonious with Nature and all life everywhere.
And so shall it be!
Namasté!
Ron Rattner
Spirituality, Religion and Politics
~ Quotations and Sayings
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you;
for this is the law and the prophets.”
~ Matthew 7:12
“Judge not, that you be not judged.
For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged;
and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”
~ Matthew 7:1-5
“Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics
do not know what religion is.”
“I claim that human mind or human society is not divided
into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
Introduction
Dear Friends,
In my memoirs about Spirituality, Religion and Politics I recounted the history of my egalitarian social justice politics and Gandhian political philosophy. And I explained how my political/philosophical and spiritual/moral perspectives have helped me become an ever vigilant and concerned spiritual citizen of our beautiful blue planet Earth, with ever expanding happiness and gratitude for this hallowed human lifetime.
Hereafter posted is a collection of political/moral quotations which have helped me. They are shared with the deep aspiration that they may help all of us remember the sanctity of Earth-life, until ultimately we realize that everything’s holy; and, that nothing’s really Real, but Divine LOVE.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Quotation Collection concerning “Spirituality, Religion and Politics”
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”
~ President John F. Kennedy, quoting Philosopher Edmond Burke
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
~ Plato
“Wanting to reform the world without discovering one’s true self is like
trying to cover the world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on
stones and thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.”
~ Plato
“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion
that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends,
than that good men should look on and do nothing.”
~ John Stuart Mill, Philosopher
“In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”
~ George Orwell – “Politics and the English Language,” 1946
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”
~ Abraham Lincoln
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
~ Joseph Goebbels
“Naturally the common people don’t want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or fascist dictorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
~ Hermann Goering, at the Nuremberg Trials
“An oligarchy of private capital cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society because under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information.”
~ Albert Einstein
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Where is the justice of political power if it… marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?
~ Kahlil Gibran
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Don’t let anybody make you think God chose America as His divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.” .. “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” ..“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.
~ Mark Twain, Autobiography
“At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.”
~ Aldous Huxley
“Many ancient Indian masters have preached nonviolence as a philosophy. That was a more spiritual understanding of it. Mahatma Gandhi, in this twentieth century, produced a very sophisticated approach because he implemented that very noble philosophy of nonviolence in modern politics, and he succeeded. That is a very great thing. It has represented an evolutionary leap in political consciousness, his experimentation with truth.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama, from “The Dalai Lama, A Policy of Kindness”
“What is a wife and what is a harlot? What is a church and what
Is a theatre? are they two and not one? can they exist separate?
Are not religion and politics the same thing? Brotherhood is religion,
O demonstrations of reason dividing families in cruelty and pride!”
~ William Blake
“Your daily life is your temple and your religion. …
Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
And that which is neither deed nor reflection,
but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul,
even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?
Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?
~ Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”
“The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!”
~ Swami Vivekananda
“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both natural and spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual and a meaningful unity.”
~ Albert Einstein
“True religion is real living; living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and righteousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness”“There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”
~ H.H. the Dalai Lama
You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it is going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.
~ Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?… Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?…The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now.”
“Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
~ George Orwell, “1984”
Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance.
~ Vaclav Havel
“Don’t let anybody make you think God chose America as His divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.” .. “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” ..“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“It is important that we conduct our… life with compassion, with kindness.
Without compassion, you can’t be happy, no matter how rich you are.
You become isolated and trapped within your own world,
unable to relate to people or understand them.
Running after profit at the expense of compassion hurts you as much as it hurts other people.”
“When you look deeply, you see the pain and suffering in the world, and
recognize your deep desire to relieve it. You also recognize that bringing joy to
others is the greatest joy you can have, the greatest achievement. In choosing to
cultivate true power, you do not have to give up your desire for the good life.
Your life can be more satisfying, and you will be happy and relaxed, relieving
suffering and bringing happiness to everyone.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power, Introduction
“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
“The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right… The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”
~ John Stuart Mill, Philosopher, On Liberty
Conclusion and dedication
The foregoing quotations confirm that fundamental issues of spirituality, morality and politics are often inextricably intertwined. Each of us must morally resolve such issues from our unique perspectives of “reality”, as seemingly separate souls.
Particularly in this pivotal “new normal” era in human history, these writings are deeply dedicated to uplifting everyone everywhere to higher states of consciousness, spiritual freedom, and happiness.
May they so guide us, and thereby help us remember the sanctity of all Earth-life, as we inevitably return to our ONE inner Source, and realize that nothing’s really Real, but Divine LOVE!
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Spirituality, Religion and Politics
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics
do not know what religion is.”
“I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious.
All act and react upon one another.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Look how the caravan of civilization
has been ambushed.
Fools are everywhere in charge.
Do not practice solitude like Jesus.
Be in the assembly, and take charge of it.”
~ Rumi
“In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.”
All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”
~ George Orwell – “Politics and the English Language,” 1946
“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
Mahatma Gandhi
Introduction.
After my mid-life spiritual awakening, my lifestyle changed radically. While publicly maintaining my professional life as a lawyer, privately I soon began living a simple monk-like existence, withdrawing from prior involvement in worldly entertainments and pastimes. For the first time in many years, I was living alone without a partner to influence my way of life. So, following inner inclinations, I stopped watching TV and rarely went to movies or concerts. I became a largely raw-food vegetarian and ate mostly at home rather than in restaurants. Retaining very few pre-divorce friends, I spent more time alone and began associating mainly with people interested in spirituality.
And especially after meeting Guruji in 1978, I felt for the first time an intense longing to return to Divinity. So I began praying fervently for a way to exchange my life of litigation for a life of meditation. But I felt confused and conflicted because I needed income from lawyering to help support my young children.
Whereupon, synchronistically I was given an unforgettable mystical experience which helped resolve that confusion. In a crowded courtroom, I was shown that the Divine is immanent in everyone everywhere – even in crafty lawyers; that experiencing nearness to God is mostly dependent on our state of mind rather than our physical environment. (See https://sillysutras.com/beholding-divine-light-in-a-worldly-courtroom-rons-memoirs/ )
So I became resigned to carrying on my life as a lawyer. However, I remained uncertain about continuing my life-long social justice activities when I yearned to devote more quiet time for meditation, prayer and spiritual practices.
Ultimately, after much soul searching, I honored inner impulses and persisted in pursuing an egalitarian path of politically engaged spirituality, rather than a path of monk-like withdrawal from worldly concerns. Though I respected the reclusive spiritual masters, monks and nuns who elevate human consciousness through their spiritual light and devotional practices, I felt greatest affinity with Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesus, and the Dalai Lama, whose non-violent pursuit of social justice greatly inspired me.
My Social Justice Politics.
Though neither of my parents was politically engaged, growing up I felt early affinity with traditional Jewish social justice values. The Torah (old Testament) admonishes Jews not just to give to the poor but to advocate on their behalf. For example, Proverbs 31:9 tells Jews to “speak up, judge righteously, champion the poor and the needy.”
So, in becoming a lawyer and throughout my professional career, my main motivation was to help others; it was not to become rich or famous. Long before my spiritual awakening, I had a deep inner instinct to pursue social justice causes, with considerable egalitarian sensitivity to the “insanity and iniquity of inequity in our society”. For many years I symbolically kept on my desk a placard with this inspiring biblical language:
“He shall rescue the needy from rich oppressors,
The distressed who have no protector.
He will have pity on the needy and poor,
And redeem them from oppression and violence.”
~ Psalm 72:12-14
In the late 1950’s I was deeply influenced and persuaded by then prominent author-psychotherapist Erich Fromm, about the pathology of ‘normalcy’ in our materialistic society. In “The Sane Society” Fromm suggested that materialistic Western society was lacking in sanity; that the inequities and disharmonies of the entire society were pathological, not just the mental illnesses of people therein. Like Karl Marx, Fromm saw capitalistic greed and exploitation of workers at the root of societal pathology, and persuasively he advocated for democratic socialism. (Much later I learned that my heroes Dr. King, Albert Einstein and the Dalai Lame held similar views.)
Fromm’s essay confirmed and enhanced my instinctive reluctance to selfishly follow materialistic societal goals. And it encouraged me to endorse egalitarian political and economic solutions for redressing indiscriminate imposition of inequality in our capitalistic society. Often I became quite passionate and outspoken about my political views that “the more that money rules the world, the more that money ruins the world”.
Especially after the traumatically shocking 1963 “deep state” assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the soon ensuing ‘false flag’ alleged Gulf of Tonkin attack as pretense for escalated and patently insane Viet Nam war devastation, I became aware of the prescience of President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 valedictory caution against dominance of the “military-industrial complex” with “potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power”. And ultimately I perceived that, despite Eisenhower’s warning, ruling power had indeed been misappropriated by people who are ruling and ruining the world, in concert with the military-industrial complex or “deep state”, while presiding over serious curtailments of US constitutional protections and civil liberties.
I saw that just as Hitler in Nazi Germany had molded an insane society to support his pathological pretensions and plans, sociopathic Western leaders of all political parties have used insidious propaganda about contrived enemies and fomented “terrorists” as a pretense to create insane societies which have fearfully condoned or acquiesced in outrageously immoral wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, drone killings of innocent civilians, and plans for attacking Iran, Libya, Syria and other Moslem countries, with radically expanded US military budgets and executive powers, while obscenely enriching entrenched vested interests.
Politically Engaged Spirituality.
After my mid-life spiritual awakening, my radical political views persisted. But, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and others, I sought to ‘spiritualize’ my legal advocacy and social justice pursuits, so as to foster rather than impede optimal evolutionary advancement. Though outwardly little changed, inwardly I more and more accepted challenges of my lawyer’s life as opportunities to fulfill moral responsibilities to society, my clients, my family and others, while elevating my spiritual awareness.
But, especially after inauguration of the Bush/Cheney administration and the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 – which (based upon indisputable evidence) I deemed ‘false-flag’ operations perpetrated to foment hatred against intended Moslem targets of the military industrial complex – I became so caught up in polarized political issues that I clearly was experiencing more combative (rajasic) and less elevated (sattvic) energy than before meeting Guruji. However, instead of taking responsibility for my own agitated and combative state of mind, I often complained that Bush and Cheney and deep state ‘neocons’ had ‘brought me down’ from higher states of consciousness.
Gradually, I came to see that it was my own disturbed, judgmental and reactive ego/mind – not Bush and Cheney et al – that was psychologically bringing me down. Thus, I also could see (as Mahatma Gandhi observed) that the human mind and human society are “not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.” And I began viewing apparent injustices with more and more detached compassion for the wrongdoers’ egotistic ignorance – yet never abandoning nonviolent Gandhian pursuit of social justice.
Further, during recent “new normal” global sufferings, I’ve realized that most spiritually evolved people are empathetically awakening with deep concern about resisting and ending current needless hardships caused by unprecedented alleged health edicts fraudulently curtailing normal human activities, and by inequitable and unsustainable human exploitation of vulnerable beings and limited planetary resources insanely initiated by transnationally powerful “leaders” and institutions.
Because our hallowed Mother Earth is now experiencing an Aquarian age of “once-in-a-lifetime” favorable cosmic energies and auspicious cyclical and astrological planetary alignments, and because the Eternal Light of Divine Truth always prevails over malignant darkness, I now optimistically foresee humankind’s imminent “critical mass” empathetic awakening to our instinctive caring for one-another, and ascension to elevated new dimensions beyond current space/time sufferings – wherein we will follow our hearts to co-create a prophesied New Earth era of long-lasting happiness beyond space/time sufferings.
Thus I believe that this is an historically unprecedented pivotal time, when much of humankind will ‘quantum leap’ to lovingly higher states of consciousness and spiritual freedom. And that we are immensely fortunate to witness and cooperatively participate in so raising humanity’s collective consciousness, as – at long last – we return to living life as unseen Source of all we see.
Conclusion and Dedication
Hence my Gandhian political philosophy has helped me experience ever expanding gratitude for this hallowed human lifetime, and to remember and revere the Divine Holiness of everyone, everything, everywhere.
May these memoirs about the politics of spirituality and morality similarly inspire all of us, individually and collectively, to gratefully become ever vigilant and concerned spiritual citizens of our beautiful blue planet Earth. And may we non-judgmentally and forgivingly remember the holiness of all Earth-life, until ultimately we realize that everything’s holy; and, that nothing’s really Real, but Divine LOVE.
In arriving at crucial insights about the politics of spirituality and morality, I received much inspiration from the lives and words of others. A collection of quotations which have especially helped me is now posted at https://sillysutras.com/spirituality-religion-and-politics-quotations-and-sayings/.
And so may it be!
Namasté!
Ron Rattner
To “Know Thyself” ask “Who Am I?”
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“Know thyself – The unexamined life is not worth living.”
“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.”
~ Socrates
“Know thyself and thou wilt know the universe.”
~ Pythagoras
“Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.”
~ Lao Tzu
“The essence of all wisdom is to know the answers to ‘who am I?’
and ‘what will become of me?’ on the Day of Judgment.”
~ Rumi
“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
~ William Shakespeare
“Ask and it shall be given; Seek and ye shall find.”
~ Matthew 7:7
“You will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.”
~ John 8:32
“What a liberation to realize that the “voice in my head” is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“That which permeates all, which nothing transcends and which, like the universal space around us, fills everything completely from within and without, that Supreme non-dual Brahman — that thou art.”
~ Shankaracharya
“The thought ‘who am I?’ will destroy all other thoughts,
and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise Self-realization.”
“The question ‘Who am I?’ is not really meant to get an answer, the question ‘Who am I?’ is meant to dissolve the questioner.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“Give up all questions except one: “Who am I?” After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are. The “I am” is certain. The “I am this” is not.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Who am I?
The quest is in the question.
The question is the answer.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“An ‘identity crisis’ can be life’s greatest opportunity,
because it raises life’s most crucial question – “Who am I?”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Ron’s Introduction To “Know Thyself” ask “Who Am I?”
Dear Friends,
Many SillySutras postings explain that “ego” is our mistaken separate self-identity, rooted in the ‘I’ thought; and that all enduring spiritual teachings are aimed at ending “ego” as the fundamental impediment to spiritual evolution and Self-realization. This posting emphasizes “Know thyself”, and asking “Who am I?” as important ancient wisdom paths for finding and ending ego’s illusory self-identity.
For millennia, rare mystics and sages have counseled us to “Know thyself”, and to question “Who am I?”. But since the industrial age few Westerners have been inspired to pursue this perennial advice. However, as a Westerner who persistently and successfully asked “Who am I?”, in today’s posting I briefly share a memoirs story and an historic description of these paths.
Historical overview.
Throughout history saints and sages of every tradition and culture – East and West – have counseled us to “Know thyself.” In the West, this fundamental injunction was attributed to the Greek oracle consulted by Socrates and carved into the Temple of Apollo as: “Gnothi Seauton”.
Eastern saints and mystics for millennia have taught that there is an ultimate goal of life – an ‘enlightened’ state of spiritual awareness bringing permanent happiness and freedom from all worldly bondage. Swami Yogananda Paramahansa, who brought Eastern wisdom to the West in the 20th century, called this spiritual goal “self-realization”.
Who is this “Self” that we are counseled to know or realize? How can we follow the advice of the saints and sages to “Know thyself”, and so experience “self-realization”?
One of the principal methods to “Know thyself” suggested by mystics and sages is to inquire: “Who am I?” For example, ancient Indian sage Shankara said that spiritual “Knowledge cannot spring up by any other means than the inquiry: Who am I?”.
In Hinduism, such self-inquiry is chiefly associated with Advaita-Vedanta, the oldest extant school of Indian Philosophy. Advaita means non-dualism and its teachings are essentially the same as those of Mahayana Buddhism. Both are aimed at experiencing non-dual Reality.
The ultimate answer to the question “Who Am I?” cannot come from intellect. We can know or realize our “self” only by intuitive experience of “Who Am I?”. However, in the Hindu and Buddhist non-duality paths, powers of discrimination are used to transcend intellect and to reveal the Self via self-realization.
Ron’s “Who Am I?” Story.
Most of us never question our true self-identity, but we assume ourselves to be mere mortal physical life-forms with unique histories, separate from everyone and everything else.
Not until age forty two, did I ever wonder “Who Am I”? Until then, I assumed that I was only my physical body, its thoughts and its story; that I was a middle-aged secular Jewish litigation lawyer, married, with two kids, born in Chicago and living in San Francisco.
But on New Year’s Eve 1974-5, these assumptions were severely shaken. After unwittingly eating a large piece of marijuana-laced cake at a ‘pot luck’ dinner party, I had a dramatically unforgettable out of body experience.
From a bedroom ceiling, I saw my body lying face down on a pillow, and saw each of my thoughts originating outside the body as a vividly colored kaleidoscopic form.
These perceptions seemed very real – not dreamlike or hallucinatory. And they irresistibly raised for me an unprecedented urgent new question: “Who or what am I?”
I reasoned that if I was on the ceiling of the room, while my body was face-down on the bed, I couldn’t be the body; and that if I was on the ceiling of the room, while my thoughts were appearing below me, I couldn’t be the thoughts. And if not my body and not my thoughts, “Who or what am I?”
Thereafter, irresistibly and persistently I began pursuing this previously unexamined question, with intense longing for an answer. This process proved an enormous blessing which changed my life forever.
It convinced me that “Who Am I?” can be the most important question that anyone can ever ask; that by deeply reflecting on our true self-identity and persistently inquiring: “Who Am I?” we can ultimately experience a profound, life-enhancing psychological transformation process.
[See “At Mid-life, a Rebirth to a New Life ~ Ron’s Memoirs”]
Here’s what happened:
After irresistibly wondering “Who am I?” for fifteen months, at age forty two, (unaware of any apt spiritual teachings) I was given the answer to that question, and realized my true self-identity as pure awareness, rather than as my physical body, its thoughts and aggregate experiences.
Whereupon I experienced a profound and unforgettable mid-life spiritual awakening and rebirth, which irreversibly ended my prior paradigms of Self-identity and Reality. But this awakening didn’t result in ‘instant enlightenment’. Instead, my epiphany began a continuing process of increasingly remembering that beyond this space/time world, we all are eternal spirit and universal awareness, not just mortal bodies and their thoughts.
Thereby I’ve enjoyed a previously unimagined new life phase of ever increasing peace of mind, happiness, gratitude, and faith in the mystery of Divinity. And since that awakening, I’ve been blessed by constantly learning from my life’s experiences.
For example, after the rebirth event, I began experiencing numerous unprecedented mystical or psychic subtle energy phenomena. And I became infused with so much vital energy that for several months I hardly needed sleep. I was puzzled and wondered what was happening to me. Only then did I synchronistically begin learning answers in teachings of Eastern mysticism, like nondualism. However, in daily life I continued to consider myself as a secular Hebrew lawyer, and remained unaware and uninspired by any supposed spiritual goal, until meeting my teacher.
Becoming a “born-again Hindu”:
Then at age forty four, after repeatedly seeing inner visions of a bearded elderly man, I synchronistically met my beloved Guruji, Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas, a venerable 100 year old Hindu meditation yogi, from whom I received shaktipat initiation. Guruji lived until age 116, and since his mahasamadhi transition in 1994 his guiding presence has remained in my heart.
After meeting Guruji, I declared myself to be a “born-again Hindu” and first began learning of the spiritual ‘goal’ sometimes called Self-realization or “enlightenment”. And, that upon Self-realization the spiritual ‘practitioner’ is dissolved into yogic union with the mystery of infinite divinity; rather than becoming a supposedly separate “enlightened” person.
According to Guruji, shaktipat initiation and his prescribed practices awakened and enhanced an evolutionary purification process of kundalini life-force energies which purify the subtle bodies and nervous system by gradually removing accumulated karmic impressions or seeds [samskaras or vasanas], which cause undesirable habits and patterns. Sometimes these awakening life-force energies manifest through spontaneous physical, mental, or emotional actions or behaviors, which Guruji called kriyas.
Since my awakening experience, for over four decades I have continued to spontaneously experience unpremeditated tears, behaviors, feelings and sensations which have helped further my spiritual evolution, and through which I have joyfully attained utmost gratitude for this blessed life.
From “born-again Hindu” to “uncertain Undo” :
For many years, I attended public satsangs and followed Guruji’s prescribed practices to advance the purification process of undoing negative karmic conditioning. Then soon after Guruji’s mahasamadhi transition, I mostly stopped relying on outer spiritual authorities and events, and reclusively focused within to intuitively advance the evolutionary kundalini purification process sparked by my shaktipat initiation of undoing negative karmic conditioning.
Whereupon, I declared myself to be an “uncertain Undo”, rather than “born-again Hindu”. And I began writing aphorisms like “Undo Ego” and composing whimsical sutras like:
“On the path of undo we’ll never be through
’til we’re an undone ONE.”
Benefits from undoing ego:
Today, over four decades since asking “Who Am I?”, and realizing my true self-identity as pure awareness, I’m still not fully ‘undone’. So ego attrition continues.
But as I’ve continued to more and more self-identify as spirit rather than body/mind, I’ve experientially found faith beyond belief, beyond dogmas or theology. And I’m happier and more grateful for this precious lifetime than ever before. (See https://sillysutras.com/ive-found-a-faith-based-life/)
Thus, from inner and outer experience, I’ve found that nondualism self-inquiry to “Know thyself” by asking “Who Am I?” can be supremely rewarding.
So today’s posting is dedicated to encouraging such self-inquiry, to discover and undo our illusory ego-mind self-identity propensities, thereby helping us find ever growing happiness.
Invocation:
By persistently questioning “Who Am I?”,
May we constantly undo ego illusions,
And thereby live ever happier lives,
Until ultimately as “An undone ONE!”
We “Know our Self”
as Eternal –
LOVE.
And so it shall be!
Ron Rattner
Who am ‘I’, and What is What?
~ Ron’s Memoirs
“The essence of all wisdom is to know the answers to ‘who am I?’
and ‘what will become of me?’ on the Day of Judgment.”
~ Rumi
“Give up all questions except one: “Who am I?”
After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are.
The “I am” is certain. The “I am this” is not.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
“By the inquiry ‘Who am I?’, the thought ‘who am I?’ will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise Self-realization.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“Who am I?
The quest is in the question.
The question is the answer.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Sri Ramana Maharshi
Introduction to “Who am ‘I’ and What is What?”
Dear Friends,
Twentieth century sage Sri Ramana Maharshi (pictured above) was renowned for his teachings of constantly asking “Who am I?” to attain Self-realization. The following “Who am ‘I’ and What is What?” sutra verses were inspired by those “Who am I?” teachings.
But I instinctively began asking “Who am I?”, when I was ignorant of ancient Eastern spiritual philosophy and identified only with my mortal physical body and its story. It happened after an unforgettably realistic out of body (OOB) experience during a 1974-5 “pot luck” New Year’s Eve party, where I unknowingly ingested marihuana.
Such “Who am I?” questioning resulted in a life changing spiritual awakening and rebirth, which eventually led to my discovery and acceptance of the non-dualism wisdom teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi.
Over forty five years since that previously unimagined midlife awakening, I continue to irreversibly accept non-dualism teachings as pointing to ultimate Truth beyond ego-mind illusion. So I’m gratefully sharing this posting so that it may help others (as it helped me) find ever greater happiness in life.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
“Who am ‘I’ and What is What?”
WHO AM ‘I’ and WHAT IS WHAT?
What lives? What dies?
What laughs? What cries?
What sleeps? What wakes?
What gives? What takes?
What thinks? What knows?
What comes? What goes?
What’s grief? What’s bliss?
What’s that?! What’s this?!
The quest is in the question; and
THE QUESTION IS THE ANSWER!
The question is the answer?
Ron’s audio recitation of “Who am ‘I’ and What is What?”
Ron’s explanation and dedication of “Who am ‘I’ and What is What?”
Dear Friends,
As stated in the introduction, “Who am ‘I’ and What is What?” was first inspired by ancient nondualism wisdom teachings of twentieth century sage Sri Ramana Maharshi, who endorsed constantly asking “Who am I?” to attain Self-realization. However, I instinctively began asking “Who am I?”, at a time when I was ignorant of ancient Eastern spiritual philosophy and identified only with my mortal physical body and its story.
After repeatedly asking “Who am I?” I experienced a previously unimagined life changing spiritual awakening and rebirth, which eventually led to my later discovery and acceptance of the non-dualism wisdom teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi.
Here is the memoir story about how my life was blessed and transformed by instinctively and irresistibly asking “Who am I?”.
Over forty five years ago, after unwittingly ingesting a marihuana-laced cake at at ‘pot-luck’ New Year’s party, I had an unforgettable out of body experience (OOB) in which from a bedroom ceiling I perceived my body and thoughts as detached below me. Thereupon, I constantly and irresistibly started wondering, if I’m not my body and thoughts, “Who am I?”.
Fifteen months later, my “Who am I?” question was amazingly answered, when I suddenly realized my true Self-identity as pure awareness, rather than as my body/mind and its story, as previously believed.
Whereupon, I experienced an unforgettable mid-life spiritual awakening and rebirth, which completely and irreversibly changed my prior ideas of Self-identity and Reality, and began a previously unimagined and continuing new life phase of ever increasing happiness, peace of mind, and gratitude, with faith in the mystery of Divinity: a continuing process of increasingly incorporating into my daily life the realization of Self-identity as eternal universal awareness, rather than as a merely mortal body/mind and its thoughts.
As a secular Jewish lawyer, I had been ignorant of any spiritual or esoteric teachings which might explain my extraordinary awakening experience. But afterwards I was soon synchronistically led to profound non-dualism teachings of twentieth century sage Sri Ramana Maharshi, who endorsed constantly asking “Who am I?” to attain Self-realization.
At the time of my awakening I hadn’t yet learned about synchronicity. But retrospectively I’ve realized that my asking “Who am I?” was a wonderful synchronicity. And that synchronicities are constantly present as important blessings in our lives. So that
“Life will give [us] whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of our consciousness.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
Identifying “Ego”as Source of all Unhappiness and Suffering
In explaining the self-inquiry (vichara) process Sri Ramana identified “ego” as the source of all human unhappiness, and taught that by transcending “ego” we are freed from all unhappiness and suffering.
He defined ego as mistaken self-identification with thought, and equated it with mind and memory. And he identified the ‘I’ thought as root of the ego-mind and, hence, source of all suffering.
For example, he said:
“All bad qualities centre 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.”
And he taught that
“By the inquiry ‘Who am I?’, the thought ‘who am I?’ will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise Self-realization.”
Sri Ramana recognized that the “Who am I?” question could never be answered rationally, but only through the inconceivable and ineffable experience of Self-realization. He explained that:
“The question ‘Who am I?’ is not really meant to get an answer; the question ‘Who am I?’ is meant to dissolve the questioner.”
Ultimately, I realized the supreme wisdom of Sri Ramana’s ancient non-dualistic method for efficiently dissolving ego, while I’ve remained mostly engrossed in the emotion of devotion. Thus as a frequent crier for God, while ever mindful that I’m only calling and crying to universal Self; that
“[Our] own will is all that answers prayer, only it appears under the guise of different religious conceptions to each mind. We may call it Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, but it is only the Self, the ‘I’.”
~ Swami Vivekananda – Jnana Yoga
Moreover, I’ve also realized that since “ego” is the apparent sole source of all human suffering, all enduring spiritual paths, scriptures and teachings are aimed at ending ego; that for millennia spiritual teachings have identified “ego” as the fundamental impediment to spiritual evolution and realization; as “the biggest enemy of humans.” (Rig Veda ); and the “number-one enemy of compassion.” (Dalai Lama). The Dalai Lama has said that all Buddhist teachings aim “to wipe out the persistence of ego.” And Eckhart Tolle believes that transcending ego is the only spiritual teaching.
And after decades of observation and experience, I still see “Who Am I?” as a key path to be considered by those with spiritual aspirations; that persistently asking “who am I”, with constant curiosity, patience and acceptance of inevitable uncertainty can significantly enhance and advance spiritual evolution.
Accordingly, many SillySutras quotations, essays and poems are dedicated to furthering our happiness by recognizing and transcending “ego” through various disciplines, including the nondualism path of self-inquiry, addressed in today’s “Who am ‘I’ and What is What?” sutra-verses.
Invocation
May today’s Who am ‘I’ and What is What? posting,
help us live ever happier lives,
and advance our spiritual evolution
until we realize that
“The end of all wisdom is love, love, love.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner.
Why Do We Suffer?
~ Quotations, Questions and Explanations
“Suffering is the way for Realization of God.”
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
“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
“All the suffering in the world comes from seeking pleasure for oneself. All the happiness in the world comes from seeking pleasure for others.”
~ Shantideva (Buddhist master)
“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.” “When you are suffering, when you are unhappy, stay totally with what is now. Unhappiness or problems cannot survive in the Now.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“No pain, no gain!”
~ Proverb
“Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.”
~ Buddhist saying
“Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon;
suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is…The only problem in your life is your mind’s resistance to life as it unfolds.”
~ Dan Millman
Q. “How Can We End Suffering?
A. Be a Buddha, be a Tara;
Say sayonara to samsara.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“In the school of life we suffer
to learn compassion for those who suffer.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Compassion is born from understanding suffering. We all should learn to embrace our own suffering, to listen to it deeply, and to have a deep look into its nature.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“Every action, every thought, reaps its own corresponding rewards. Human suffering is not a sign of God’s, or Nature’s, anger with mankind. It is a sign, rather, of man’s ignorance of divine law. . . . Such is the law of karma: As you sow, so shall you reap. If you sow evil, you will reap evil in the form of suffering. And if you sow goodness, you will reap goodness in the form of inner joy.”
~ Paramhansa Yogananda
“You may die a hundred deaths without a break in the mental turmoil. Or, you may keep your body and die only in the mind. The death of the mind is the birth of wisdom.”
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“All formations are ‘transient’ (anicca); all formations are ‘subject to suffering’ (dukkha); all things are ‘without a self’ (anatt ). Corporeality is transient, feeling is transient, perception is transient, mental formations are transient, consciousness is transient. And that which is transient, is subject to suffering. ”
~ Buddha
“When another person makes you suffer,
it is because he suffers deeply within himself,
and his suffering is spilling over.
He does not need punishment; he needs help.
That’s the message he is sending.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering.
Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“Suffering is not holding you. You are holding suffering.
When you become good at the art of letting sufferings go,
then you’ll come to realize how unnecessary it was
for you to drag those burdens around with you.
You’ll see that no one else other than you was responsible.
The truth is that existence wants your life to become a festival.”
~ Osho
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”
~ Helen Keller
“My dear son, be patient, because the weaknesses of the body
are given to us in this world by God for the salvation of the soul.
So they are of t merit when they are borne patiently.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi, The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls;
the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
~ Khalil Gibran
Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.
~ Aristotle
“[I]f the mind is attentive and does not move away from suffering at all, then you will see that out of total attention comes not only energy…but also that suffering comes to an end.”
“…when you suffer, psychologically, remain with it completely without a single movement of thought… Out of that suffering comes compassion.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
”As you would not like to change something very beautiful: the light of the setting sun, the shape of a tree in the field, so do not put obstacles in the way of suffering. Allow it to ripen, for with its flowering understanding comes. When you become aware of the wound of sorrow, without the reaction of acceptance, resignation or negation, without any artificial invitation, then suffering itself lights the flame of creative understanding.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
“It is the truth that sets you free and not your effort to be free.
Suffering is but intense clarity of thoughts and feelings which makes you see things as they are.”
“I maintain that truth is a pathless land,
and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever,
by any religion, by any sect.”
~ J. Krishnamurti
Introduction to “Why Do We Suffer?”
Dear Friends,
We are living in very difficult “new normal” times, with billions of people worldwide now enduring great stresses and sufferings. This posting is dedicated to helping us lessen our sufferings, and to enjoy increasing happiness despite unavoidable worldly problems and turmoil.
Although many of the ideas discussed in the foregoing quotations, and following Q & A essay and comments, are from Eastern teachings, they apply to all human suffering in this ever impermanent and illusory 3D world.
Q & A essay: “Why Do We Suffer?”
Q. The Buddha taught that human life entails unavoidable suffering (duhkha), but that we can be freed from suffering. Why do we suffer, and how can we be freed from suffering?
A. We suffer from ignorance (avidyâ) of our of our true self-identity and ‘reality’, and from our consequent egotistic thoughts, words and deeds, which subject us to the law of karma. Suffering ends when self-identity ignorance ends. Self-knowledge that we are Infinite Potentiality beyond conception, rather than merely mortal, separated, and limited physical persons, happens gradually as we learn from life experience.
Although enduring spiritual traditions propose different dsciplines for attaining such Self knowledge, they can not bestow it, but only point to the Self realization goal. Moreover, each person is unique, with a unique perspective and unique karmic history. So different methods may apply to different people.
An often recommended practice for overcoming such suffering is mindful introspection to identify, realize and transcend our unskillful inner tendencies. Such attention and realization can gradually decrease and ultimately free us from mental suffering.
Ron’s Commentary on “Why Do We Suffer?”
Many years ago, as I was being treated for painful left leg injuries by Taoist master and Doctor of Chinese Medicine Sifu Wei Tsuei, I had an unforgettable experience.
During an acupuncture treatment, Sifu suddenly inserted a large metal needle into my left buttock, and I loudly exclaimed in pain, “OUCH!”. Whereupon Sifu responded,
“No pain, no gain!”
Then he quietly continued his treatment, which proved quite helpful.
Afterwards I often reflected on the wisdom of Sifu’s words, “No pain, no gain”, and learned they are a popular proverb. With human bodies we experience inevitable physical pain, which can be a crucial catalyst and incentive for spiritual evolution. As stated by another popular Buddhist proverb:
“Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional”.
Though we may not be free to choose our sometimes painful outer circumstances in life, we are always free to choose our psychological attitude about those circumstances.
“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.” “When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.”
~ Viktor E. Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning
Thus every painful earth life experience can be a disguised blessing furthering our spiritual evolution, and our ultimate transcendence of psychological suffering. And, the greater such suffering, the greater its potential blessing.
The foregoing important quotations and brief essay help explain why we suffer and how we can transcend psychological suffering. They are spiritual teachings which can help us suffer less, and live ever happier lives. So I urge our deep reflection on them.
Moreover, as mindfully we experience ever less suffering and ever more happiness, it becomes possible for some of us to realize that everything in human life is an enormous blessing.
“There are no mistakes, no coincidences,
all events are blessings given to us to learn from.”
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful
for the evolution of your consciousness.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not.
The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.”
~ Joseph Campbell
Addendum: Discussion of why “Suffering is the way for Realization of God.”
Dear Friends,
Hereafter I am privileged to share with you a (little known) profound colloquy about why we suffer between two of the most renowned Eastern spiritual teachers of the 20th century: Sri Ramana Maharshi, and Paramahansa Yogananda.
On Nov. 29th, 1935, Yogananda made a pilgrimage to holy Mt. Arunachala to meet Sri Ramana. During most of that day Ramana sat silently. However, he responded to a few questions from Yogananda, as follows:
Yogananda: How is the spiritual uplift of the people to be effected?
What are the instructions to be given them?
Maharshi: They differ according to the temperaments of the individuals and the spiritual ripeness of their minds. There cannot be any instruction en masse.
Yogananda: Why does God permit suffering in the world? Should He not with His omnipotence do away with it at one stroke and ordain the universal realization of God?
Maharshi: Suffering is the way for Realization of God.
Yogananda: Should He not ordain it differently?
Maharshi: It is the way.
Yogananda: Are yoga, religion, etc., antidotes to suffering?
Maharshi: Who suffers? What is suffering?
(Without responding to these rhetorical questions, Yogananda paused, arose and, prayed for Sri Ramana’s blessings for his own mission.)
Invocation.
With ever expanding and disciplined inner acceptance of inevitable outer problems, and with heartfelt compassion for the sufferings of all other sentient beings, may we
Remember with gratitude,
life is beatitude,
even its sorrows and pain;
For we’re all in God’s Grace,
every time, every place,
and
Forever (S)HE will reign!
And so shall it be!
Ron Rattner
What is Faith? ~
Quotations and Comments
“This above all, to thy own Self be true.”
~ William Shakespeare
“The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature.
Have faith in yourselves!”
~ Swami Vivekananda
What is Faith? Quotations and Comments
Introduction
Dear Friends,
The following profound quotation collection concerns heartfelt intuitive faith, as distinguished from mental belief.
Comments below the quotations explain how inner faith can bring us previously unimagined and ever growing happiness, with continuing learning from life.
Accordingly, these quotations and comments are shared to help all of us find such happiness through inner faith. Please consider them accordingly.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
What is Faith? ~ Quotations
“I tell you the truth, 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.”
~ Matthew 17:20
Faith is the highest passion in a human being.
Many in every generation may not come that far,
but none comes further.
~ Soren Kierkegaard
“The heart has its reasons
that reason does not know.”
~ Blaise Pascal
“Faith is a knowledge within the heart,
beyond the reach of proof.”
“Faith is an oasis in the heart
which can never be reached by the caravan of thinking.”
~ Khalil Gibran
“Faith is intuitive conviction,
a knowing from the soul,
that cannot be shaken even by contradictions.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“On a long journey of human life,
faith is the best of companions;
it is the best refreshment on the journey;
and it is the greatest property.”
~ Buddha
“The most beautiful and most profound experience
is the sensation of the mystical. …
To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists,
manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty
which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms
this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”
~ Albert Einstein
“My faith runs so very much faster than my reason
that I can challenge the whole world and say,
’God is, was and ever shall be’.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Faith is different from proof;
the latter is human,
the former is a Gift from God.”
“Faith embraces many truths
which seem to contradict each other.”
~ Blaise Pascal
“Faith is much better than belief.
Belief is when someone else does the thinking.”
~ Buckminster Fuller
“Faith means living with uncertainty –
feeling your way through life,
letting your heart guide you like a lantern in the dark”
~ Dan Millman
“Faith—in life, in other people, and in oneself—
is the attitude of allowing the spontaneous to be spontaneous,
in its own way and in its own time.”
~ Alan Watts
“This above all, to thy own Self be true.”
~ William Shakespeare
“The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature.
Have faith in yourselves!”
~ Swami Vivekananda
“Intelligence must follow faith,
never precede it,
and never destroy it.”
~ Thomas Kempis
Faith follows intuition;
Faith follows the Way;
Faith follows the Self;
Faith follows the Heart.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
“Faith is a light of such supreme brilliance
that it dazzles the mind
and darkens all its visions of other realities,
but in the end when we become used to the new light,
we gain a new view of all reality
transfigured and elevated in the light itself.”
~ Thomas Merton
Ron’s Comments on “What is Faith?”
Dear Friends,
In reviewing and revising previous SillySutras postings, I’ve been wondering about the subtle circumstances which have seemed most important in furthering my spiritual evolution from age forty two to age eighty seven. And why, after over four decades of spiritual exploration, I’m blessed with previously unimagined and still growing happiness,
Forty five years ago, I was self-identifying as an uptight and unhappy middle-aged secular litigation lawyer on the brink of divorce, when I had an unforgettable “out of body” experience [OOB] which has sparked over four decades of spiritual exploration and evolution, with still ongoing learning from life.
Now I mostly self-identify as eternal spirit enjoying a brief “in a body experience” as an 87 year old retired lawyer and spiritual writer. And I feel immensely blessed with great happiness and gratitude for this precious fleeting lifetime, despite its inevitable ups and downs.
Perhaps my best explanation for being so blessed, is that I’ve enjoyed ever growing deep faith as ONE with Divine LOVE, the inner mystery of Divinity. Previously, I have explained in essays how “I’ve Found A Faith-Based Life” and defined faith as distinguished from belief.
Today I have posted the foregoing profound quotations to help inspire our deep faith in our Divine Self and Source. Please read and reflect on them accordingly.
Also I’ve embedded below a beautiful youtube video performance of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s inspiring song “You’ll Never Walk Alone” as excerpted from the film version of their classical musical play “Carousel”. The emotions we feel from that performance can also help inspire our deep realization that with faith and hope in our heart we’ll never walk alone
Invocation
May we enjoy ever growing deep inner faith and
Self-identity as ONE with Divine LOVE,
Bringing us previously unimagined and ever growing happiness,
with continuing learning from life.
And thereby may we help co-create a new Earth reality
of abiding peace, harmony and goodwill
for all life everywhere.
May everyone everywhere be happy!
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from “Carousel”.
Synchronicities Are Reminders
“Synchronicity is an ever present reality for those who have eyes to see.”
~ Carl Jung
“I am open to the guidance of synchronicity,
and do not let expectations hinder my path.”
~ Dalai Lama
How can the divine Oneness be seen?
In beautiful forms,
breathtaking wonders, awe-inspiring miracles?
The Tao is not obliged to present itself in this way.
If you are willing to be lived by it, you will see it everywhere,
even in the most ordinary things.
~ Lao Tzu
“Remember God,
forget the rest.”
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings
Introduction
Dear Friends,
The following sutra/poem declares metaphorically that synchronicities are reminders of Cosmic Consciousness, which is our ONE true Source, Self identity and Ultimate Reality.
Explanatory comments following the poem suggest that synchronicities can advance 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.
If ever you’ve wondered about ‘miraculous’ synchronicities or “coincidences”, this sutra/poem is shared to further our understanding of their spiritual significance.
Please enjoy it accordingly.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
Synchronicities Are Reminders
In our wonderful world
of space/time causality reality,
everything’s impermanent –
arising from and melting into Mystery.
The Mystery of an Infinite Potentiality Reality:
Beyond conception,
Beyond description,
Beyond comprehension,
Beyond imagination.
Some call it Cosmic Consciousness.
Cosmic Consciousness is
the Essence,
the Origin, and
the Witness
of the world.
It is our ultimate Reality.
Our ever impermanent world
of apparent appearance and disappearance –
of infinite forms and phenomena –
is only a play of Cosmic Consciousness.
All such appearances are but
interdependently interconnected forms
of Cosmic Consciousness.
So synchronicities are manifestations of Cosmic Consciousness.
They are noteworthy forms and phenomena in space/time,
reminding us of ultimate Reality beyond space/time –
and of mysterious and timeless interdependent interconnectedness
of everything in space/time.
So synchronicities are reminders
of timeless Mystery beyond all appearances:
Reminders of our universal essence, origin and witness;
Reminders of our ultimate identity;
Reminders of Infinite Potentiality Reality;
Reminders of Cosmic Consciousness.
As mysterious synchronicities appear in our lives,
let us ever more reverently recall and become
their Source –
Our universal essence, origin and witness;
Our ultimate identity, and
Infinite Potentiality Reality.
And so may it BE!
Ron’s audio recitation of “Synchronicities Are Reminders”
Ron’s Reflections on “Synchronicities Are Reminders”
Dear Friends,
For millennia mystics have revealed that most of humankind (except for rare Avatars), are disempowered by illusory ego-mind self-identity, as supposedly separated from each other, Nature, and Cosmic Consciousness. So we’ve forgotten our (once known) true Self identity as infinitely omnipotent Divine beings, ONE with Nature and Source.
The foregoing sutra/poem metaphorically declares my view that synchronicities are empowering reminders of our true Self identity as Cosmic Consciousness.
Remembering that we actually are much more than we’ve thought or imagined, can help us transcend illusory, misleading and disempowering ego-mind self-identity as separated mortal beings existing only in space and time. It can help us rediscover ultimate Reality beyond space/time, and realize the mysterious and timeless interdependent interconnectedness of everything within space/time.
Since my midlife spiritual awakening, I’ve been blessed with many experiences of meaningful or noteworthy synchronicities from which I’ve determined that our Earth-life experience has been largely predetermined as part of the divine mysterious Natural order of the universe.
And I consider synchronicities to be scientifically significant spiritual experiences impelling us to reconsider mainstream materialist science which fails to recognize overwhelming empirical evidence that consciousness and mind are independent of physical bodies; that our physical bodies and brains are not originators of consciousness and mind, but their receptors, tuners and transducers; that synchronicities are signs of subtle and ordinarily imperceptible dimensions into which we are evolving individually and collectively.
Mystics reveal that as we evolve to subtler vibrational dimensions, we transcend time; that all is NOW; and that increasingly our compassionate thoughts and behaviors bless our existential experience.
According to Albert Einstein, our space/time
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
“Space and time are not conditions in which we live,
they are modes in which we think.”
So for Einstein space and time are “only a stubbornly persistent illusion”; a way of thinking rather than a reality in which we live. I concur with Einstein’s ideas.
Without supposedly being separated monads in space and time, we can’t have any coincidence in space or time; without time there can be no premonition or fear of ‘future’ events, nor remembrance of ‘past’ events.
As explained in other related Silly Sutras posts, I consider ‘miraculous’ synchronicities or “coincidences” to be significant spiritual experiences that can spur an inner search for a new “reality” paradigm, ultimately leading to our transformational discovery that ever changing three dimensional space/time “reality” isn’t really Real; that timeless Cosmic consciousness is our true Reality. That life is timelessly NOW ever Now, never then.
Thus, this “Synchronicities Are Reminders” posting is dedicated to advancing our transcendence of illusory and disempowering ego-mind self-identity, by helping us realize and remember the immense spiritual significance of noteworthy synchronicities.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
“Channeling” for Joseph Campbell
– Ron’s Memoirs
“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe,
to match your nature with Nature.”
~ Joseph Campbell
“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.”
~ Joseph Campbell
“God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought.
It’s as simple as that.”
~ Joseph Campbell
“Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves
come when life seems most challenging.”
~ Joseph Campbell
Dr. Joseph Campbell with Ron Rattner, 10/8/83
Courtesy of California Institute of Integral Studies archives
Introduction
Dear Friends,
The following memoirs story tells how (almost 40 years ago) an ‘inner voice’ dictated verbatim a brief speech to be given by me two days later, upon my public presentation of an honorary PhD degree to Joseph Campbell, renowned mythologist, author and professor.
The story also recounts how spontaneously I whispered spiritual advice to Dr. Campbell while he listened on stage to laudatory public orations about his exceptional accomplishments.
In 2021 epilogue comments below, I explain why I consider this story as spiritually significant because the same Source of timeless wisdom which inspired Professor Campbell’s renowned teachings is within each of us. Therefore, I hope you’ll enjoy and find inspiration from the story.
And so may it be!
Ron Rattner
“Channeling for Joseph Campbell”
During the 1980’s I was Chairman of Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), an accredited graduate school giving degrees in areas of psychology, philosophy, comparative religion, and related disciplines. In that capacity, I was occasionally obliged to give commencement talks and to bestow honorary degrees.
In October, 1983, I was told on short notice that (at a public ceremony) I would be awarding to Dr. Joseph Campbell an honorary PhD degree of Doctor of Philosophy and Religion, and that I should prepare an appropriate presentation talk.
I was informed that two other speakers would be discussing Dr. Campbell’s impressive academic accomplishments, but was not told the order of speakers. I had never met Dr. Campbell. And since by that time he was very famous (especially after Bill Moyers’ PBS interviews), I was in a quandary about how much or what I should say.
A couple of days before the event, I was walking along a San Francisco Bay beach toward the Golden Gate bridge, when synchronistically an “inner voice” told me to write down some words for Campbell, and I obliged.
On three little paper scraps, I wrote five sentences that were ‘dictated’ by the inner voice.
(Copies of those notes and the brochure from the Joseph Campbell event are attached here.)
The presentation event took place in San Francisco on October 8, 1983 at the Palace of Fine Arts theater adjoining the Exploratorium. Dr. Campbell and I and the other speakers filed on stage, each wearing traditional black cap and gown attire, and we sat down. I was seated next to Dr. Campbell, on his right.
The program schedule provided for my presentation to follow introductory talks by two other school officials – Academic Dean Ralph Metzner, and Board Chairman Emeritus Michael Toms – who were lavishing profuse praise on Campbell. During the second talk, which sounded to me like a long, living eulogy, I suddenly and spontaneously put my left hand on Campbell’s right knee and without thinking whispered to him, “Don’t let this go to your head.”
Finally, with paper scraps in hand, I made the honorary degree presentation, uttering the following five sentences which had been given to me on the beach:
“Dr. Joseph Campbell, the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Integral Studies is privileged and pleased to bestow on you the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy and Religion.
We acknowledge thereby your mastery of these disciplines through your studies of myths and symbols. Like masters of other disciplines you have realized the Source common to all disciplines – to all wisdom.
A Source which integrates and unifies this creation, which is diverse in appearance but the same in essence.
So in presenting this degree to you, we honor symbolically that Source – within you and within each of us.”
Thereupon, Dr. Campbell humbly accepted the new honor.
After the program, a very intuitive PhD student with whom I was friendly, approached me and asked:
“Ron, was your talk ‘channeled’?”
After a moment’s hesitation, I replied “yes”.
From then on I began receiving more and more inner ‘dictation’ of spiritual thoughts, aphorisms and poetry. Even now my “inner voice” is assisting with these memoirs.
Ron’s 2021 epilogue comments
Dear Friends,
Almost forty years after “channeling” for Joseph Campbell, I’m still receiving spiritual wisdom from within, and I’m mostly letting life spontaneously guide me from moment to moment in the eternal NOW. Thereby, I am gratefully enjoying much greater happiness than I ever before imagined.
So I’ve republished the Campbell story, hoping that it can help us all enjoy similar happiness. The story can teach us (as I have confirmed from insight and experience) that we all share the same inner spiritual Source; and that for inner spiritual and practical earth-life guidance. we should always first look and listen within.
Especially in quiet times of stillness, with meditation or of being in Nature, every one of us can find wise guidance from the Sacred Heart of Humankind, which abides within as the Eternal Light of LOVE.
And so may it be be!
Ron Rattner
