by Michael Mamas | Monday, July 30, 2012 | Favorites, Personal Growth |
“He that can compose himself is wiser than he that composes books.” – Benjamin Franklin
The trick is not to stifle yourself, but to express yourself in a constructive manner. Your points are secondary to your ability to communicate those points. Communication requires communion.
Also, if one is not willing to listen, why speak? Your best chance of having someone listen, is to cultivate the art of self-composure. By virtue of of your self-composure they will more likely be on the edge of their seat, ready to listen.
What the world needs is more self-composure. Then all else is possible. The highest form of composure comes from the very depth of your being.
Proper meditation is the gateway.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Wednesday, July 25, 2012 | Favorites, Personal Growth, Spirituality |
“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” – Albert Einstein
When you consider a situation, when you look at a picture, when a notion comes to mind, use it as a portal, a catalyst, to all the possible scenarios it implies. The literal nature of it is confinement. The true nature of it is infinite and freeing.
Anything before you is a signpost pointing in all directions toward unbounded freedom and unlimited possibilities. It is only for you to connect the dots. The pathways are there if only you open yourself to seeing them. Confining yourself to the literal is a travesty. Every thing is a gateway to all that is.
Intelligence and knowing the literal meaning are often equated, but in truth they have almost nothing to do with each other. They are only tangentially related… barely touching at only a point. They might best be viewed as enemies. They become friends only when each is a springboard launching your heart and mind in the direction of the other.
Every point and particle in space and time is a possibility cloud that reaches to infinity. Clinging to the literal collapses unboundedness down to a tiny little point value. You have no limits other than those you impose upon yourself.
You are free.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Monday, July 16, 2012 | Favorites, Personal Growth, Spirituality |
Everything about a person is completely transparent… right there on the surface for everyone to see. Some think they hide, but they do not. Denial is the only shroud. Denial begins with how one views ones self. From there it projects outwardly upon the world as oblivion.
Life is all about people. Facts and figures are secondary. Your relationship with fact, figures, and everything else is what makes all the difference. Life is paradox. For every perspective, there is an equally valid yet contradictory perspective. Which perspective you adhere to is determined by conditioning… the sum total of your life experiences… your karma.
Life is that way. Everything blows in the winds of karma… not only the perspective of individuals, but also of groups… subcultures and cultures. Want to know the way the wind is blowing? Watch the news. Experts in every field disagree. Why? The winds of karma.
When everyone is leaning one way, under-stand the other. Not just to be contrary, but because the universe needs balance. A full head of steam in any direction will eventually run you off the road. For every perspective, there is an equally valid yet contradictory perspective. Life is politics… all prescribed by karma. Everything is political. It’s all perspective. Think science is not? Think again.
Want to understand the world? Want to understand life? Watch a field of wheat blowing in the wind. Want to understand yourself? Ask which direction you lean and then attempt to fathom why. Only the transcendental, eternally silent witness knows…. and it speaks not. Like the stable earth it is unmoved by the wind. Root yourself in that.
From there, everything is virtual… lightly etched on the face of being – completely transparent.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Thursday, July 12, 2012 | Favorites, Spirituality, World View |
When people criticize Romney for out sourcing money and jobs, I wonder why he seems unable to say the following:
“You guys, you politicians, (democrats and republicans alike) create such ridiculous laws. You make it so anyone with any common sense can see that it just makes financial sense to hire workers in other countries and buy goods from those countries. Then you expect Americans to make the poor financial move of putting our money in the US so you can take it and spend it on your political cronyism in hopelessly inefficient government programs because we are supposed to be blindly allegiant to you! All the while, even you yourselves are buying foreign and out-sourcing. Even the CEO of General Electric, and head of President Obama’s Jobs Council is moving jobs and economic infrastructure to China at an alarming rate!! All the while, GE is paying essentially no taxes!! If you want the US to prosper, pass laws that make sense! If I am elected president, that is exactly what I will do.
If this was the only outrageous issue, it may be somewhat tolerable, but government is permeated with such foolishness. For example, first they (with Barney Frank playing lead) pressured banks to make bad loans to people who could not afford them. Then they went after banks for having done so! If we keep up like this, I can imagine them, sometime in the future, prosecuting corporate CEOs who did not out source to other countries… claiming they sabotaged the company with incompetent financial decisions.”
So what place does this blog have on this website? There is an important point here for everyone. People need the backbone (Karthikeya mantra?) to get up and say what they believe… directly and clearly. You have to be able to say what you need to say. Some never do for fear of being too forceful. Some just lack conviction, being riddled with self-doubt. Some become confrontational when anticipating that another may respond poorly. Some do so with such anger that they only make an enemy.
You would do well to ask yourself what keeps you from speaking up. What keeps you from doing so in an effective manner? Know that you can effectively say whatever you must. First your heart must be in the right place. Then, through exploration and reflection, you can, you must, find a way to say what must be said. Develop the art of speaking up in the most life-supporting manner possible.
It is an art that you must cultivate, lest life’s opportunities will pass you by. Over time your skill will develop as you find your own unique style that works best in your relationships. But do not wait. Start now. Do it!
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Saturday, June 23, 2012 | Favorites, Mount Soma, Personal Growth, Spirituality |
Each of us has a world we live in. Of course, in the deepest sense, you have no limit. However, on the level of daily life we each have a certain size to our sphere of awareness, activity and influence… our world. Our global group mentality, too, is a world… a group consciousness… a self perpetuating system.
The other morning at the temple, around 4 a.m., sitting in front of the linga, I saw the size of our world – the group consciousness of humanity. It was represented as the size of the linga before me. Then my awareness went to the bigger invisible linga that reached infinitely up and out of the temple and into the earth, engulfing the physical linga before me. It was as if the physical linga was a small gateway to its greater nature. It started with a mudra that took me over, raised back my head, pushed back my arms, and showed me what was always there, but not yet physiologically lived by humanity.
To accomplish our goal for Mount Soma, the group sphere of awareness is expanding to this size. This is not a conceptual shift but a physiological shift. As your sphere of influence expands, your world expands – your physiology expands.
We are all ever-expanding – always opening to new horizons. But to open further, you must be willing to open. If not, the process is resisted and constrained. But to want to open is not to know what that really means or to see what direction it leads… what it feels like in the physiology, in the psyche. Even among those wanting to open, few are willing to open, preferring that it would conform to notions of how it should be… conform to your current sphere, world, mentality.
Even a small glimpse of that new world is a wonderful gift pointing in a direction and opening the way. Each sphere, each world you may for a time be living in, seems small, cloistered, and constricted in contrast to the next. Yet the physiology must be prepared before the next shift can take place. Otherwise, the individual can not hold it… like a lotto winner who can not deal with the world they find themselves thrown into… or an overnight success in the entertainment business unable to live in the new world they find themselves in. When done in this balanced manner, each successive sphere brings with it greater joy, wisdom, happiness, evolution, positive influence, and vision. It is like the successive blossoming of a flower. Through proper meditation and discernment, you culture your physiology for expansion. When done by even one individual, it supports the future expansion of global consciousness.
There is no end to expansion. It happens gradually, yet with phase transitions along the way. The next stage of expansion of our global mentality is on its way. A glimpse, of not just the conceptual details but the physiological experience of an expanded global mentality, changes lives. It will be quite something when it happens globally. We are most fortunate to be living at this time of great transition.
Now it is important to make it clear that each individual’s role will expand as the global awareness expands. Those leading the way will expand to take on greater roles, opening the doors for all others. The shift in the linga size represents the shift in each individual’s role.
The other night this expansion from the physical to the bigger linga was experienced as the expansion of my own personal role that will, and needs to, take place. It may or may not look dramatically different on the surface. That will depend upon the perceiver. However, inside, where it really matters, the shift will be huge.
I invite you to join me.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Thursday, June 14, 2012 | Favorites, Personal Growth, Spirituality |
Most aspire to a state where everything in their life is tucked away nicely in place. No dangling ends. No unresolved situations. No problems. No worries. No fears. Everything settled and solid and safe.
Of course life is not like that. There are always many ‘balls in the air” and plates at the end of poles that you need to keep spinning lest they fall to the ground and shatter. So many spend their lives trying to catch all the balls and stash them away and grab all the plates and pack them up snuggly.
In other words there is a longing for stable ground. The longing is actually good, but it is misdirected. The stability you long for is not on the surface of life. It is in the depth of your being. Trying to attain it on the surface is a fool’s play, like a cat pawing at its own reflection in pursuit of contact. Or like an ostrich burying its head in the sand.
The juggler finds stability within. This is what allows him to enjoy and excel at his craft. The art of juggling maps on to, i.e. parallels, the art of accomplishment in life. The fulfillment it brings is the stability one feels when established in the transcendent even in the midst of great activity. At first that solid stability is felt only for a moment here and there during meditation. Imagine it being there all the time… during the greatest hardships and greatest joys. Imagine tossing more and more balls in the air and spinning more and more plates, without fear of losing the stability of the inner Self. That is the art of juggling.
You cannot just meditate your way to enlightenment. Enlightenment is the integration of silence with dynamism… of activity and rest… of the absolute with the relative… of inner oneness and outer multiplicity. The Guru can help you with that. It is what a Guru does. Yet along the way, many decide they have it figured out and know better and aspire to catch one moonbeam or dangling carrot or another as per their own choosing.
But listening to the Guru does not mean attending an isolated lecture here and there, or being inspired by a lovely quote and then going about your business. It means listening and living life accordingly. Very few are willing to do that. After all, you did not come here to learn to juggle… or did you?
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Wednesday, June 13, 2012 | Favorites, Personal Growth, Spirituality |
Deep inside, you already know everything. Yet, it is shrouded by your conditioning.
You are conditioned, programmed, to believe a certain way and in certain things. Those conditioned impressions are called Samskaras. Though samskaras overshadow the Divine depth of your being, they do not entirely block your connection with it. You still sense it. When you hear truth, it resonates with that depth. Yet however erroneous, the surface (the samskaras) are what you habitually return to, and cling to, for a belief system, safety, familiarity, and comfort. Samkaras are like that old tattered coat, though aged and worn there is just something about it that keeps you coming back.
Life goes on. Truth, time and again, presents itself, resonates with your depth, is aspired to, and then abandoned once again, in the name of that old tattered coat called samskara. With dedication, through reflection, self-honesty, meditation, and the hard knocks of life… slowly, slowly you move in the direction of truth. Yet the path is seldom a straight line. It winds, turns, curves back on it self, freezes, slips, slides, entices, seduces, distracts, is rejected, doubted, feared, loved… on and on. The Guru is there always. Yet the Guru, as the embodiment of that path, is also loved, resented, aspired to, drawn to, feared, hated, rejected, longed for… on and on.
But you keep going. Just as all water necessarily returns to the ocean, in time you overcome your overshadowing samskaras to rest in the depth of your being to become unshakably established in that. Until that tipping point is reached, your allegiance remains to the surface. Truth is just a faint cry from the distance at first, hidden away in a deep, dark, pathless jungle. Evade as you may, it is undeniable in its steadfast presence and haunting allure. The Guru is there always, holding up the beacon that lights the way. While your samskaras are in control, the Guru can be experienced as an annoyance… a thorn in your side. And the rationalizations then abound. After all… he is just a man, right?
He knows full well that, in time, you will awaken to your Truth… the Universal Truth… the Divine that underlies, birthed, and eternally upholds all of life, no matter where you journey, what you choose to believe, or how you are feeling. Like gravity, the Grace of the Guru is eternally present. And in time, you will find Him at the heart of your own being… within you, as you. For in reality, he does not exist on the surface. He is the embodiment of the depth. The One, Universal, Eternal You, Me, all that is.
You will find that One Truth within yourself, just as surely as every drop of rain, in time, returns to the ocean.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Monday, April 30, 2012 | Favorites, Personal Growth, Spirituality |
You have a disposition. It is the net of the sum total of the effect your life experiences have had upon you.
It is the tone with which you hold your self, your cells, you psyche, your beliefs.
More than anything else, it determines your life.
Seek to evolve your disposition.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Wednesday, January 25, 2012 | Favorites, Spirituality |
The instructions for proper meditation are the instructions for life. Just be easy. Innocently favor, do not push. Take life as it comes. Effortlessly lean in the direction. Do not hold tightly. Direction in life is not a clear fixed regiment. It is a faint idea… a feeling. Do not try to force. Do not deny or resist what is. Flow with the effortlessness of water. Gravity carries you if you allow it. Life gravitates toward God. Nature organizes best.
This is how you find the strength of nature, the strength of the Divine, within you. Powerful? Yes. Forceful? No. A strain? No. This is the difference between commitment and confinement. The difference between one-pointed dedication and narrow vision. The difference between limitation and unboundedness.
Be willing to go with the flow of the Divine within you. At first is may seem greater than you. In time, you will realize it is you. The real You. Nature has its own rhythm and timing. Do not push it.
“Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.” Chinese Proverb
Go with the flow.
Try as you might, you do not live life. Life lives you. There is a cosmic stream. You either fight it, or live in harmony with it. True dedication is not fixation. It is freedom. This is how to find it. This is how you become it. Some call it God’s Plan.
To live it is to be free. Free of what? Free of limitation. Free of conditioning. Free of suffering. Free of the confines and chains of the small self.
Discovery of the True Self. You are One with God. It is just that simple.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Tuesday, November 29, 2011 | Favorites, Personal Growth, Spirituality |
First use your heart to determine what you want to say. Then use your mind to determine the best way of saying it.
Doing the opposite is a terrible betrayal, tying both your heart and your mind into self-compromising knots.
Before you speak, first feel into what your soul really would like to share. Then take enough time to find the way to say it.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
