by Michael Mamas | Thursday, December 15, 2011 | Personal Growth, Spirituality
Do you trust your superego more than yourself? Superego, of course, is that parental inner voice, the voice of authority figures in general. It tells you who and what you are supposed to be and lays down the law of right and wrong, insisting that you abide by it, regardless of what you feel or think.
It seems like a contradiction that someone would trust a superego more than themselves. Yet, it is most common. After the superego, for some people, comes their attorney. They do what their attorney says, trusting his judgment more than their own. The list goes on: healers, psychics, jyotishis, and those with whom you are not familiar.
When you befriend someone, they become familiar. When someone become familiar, they are often taken off their pedestal of projection, and you are then less inclined to trust them. How odd that to trust someone often means they must keep at arm’s length.
Others may look to their spiritual teacher, turning themselves over to that guiding light in the sky. I do my best to not tell you what to think, but instead help you think for yourself. Admittedly, that is a slippery slope, giving you the opportunity to justify the superego, petty inclinations, etc. But to find truth within yourself, you must learn to wisely discern for yourself.
It seems that somewhere toward the bottom of the list, people trust themselves. Society, parents, friends, authority figures, and even critics judge you. That sends many into a tailspin of self-doubt. To reflect and ponder in the name of finding truth is wise. But that is very different than allowing yourself to go into a tailspin, where the anchor of the self offers little stability.
Who do you trust? If you trust in God, then you must find God within. God found anywhere else is nothing more than a facet of your superego. That which lies outside of you can be used as touchstones, but only touchstones along the path of self-discovery.
Truth lies within you as you.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Monday, December 12, 2011 | Spirituality |
Understanding is a feeling, not a thought.
Facts are thoughts. Thoughts are petrified feelings. Thoughts are the residue of what underlies them.
Feeling dwells in the gap between thoughts. Feelings are alive. Thoughts are concrete. Feeling underlies thinking. Feeling is what the universe is made of.
Matter, like thought, precipitates out from what underlies it as its essence. Matter does not really matter. Your relationship with it is what matters. Relationship is a feeling, not a thought.
Stop trying to think you way through life. Learn to feel your way. Thoughts matter little. How you feel about those thoughts makes all the difference.
Understanding is everything. Thoughts when rigidly held, compromise life. They twist the soul. Thoughts are like leaves on the tree of life. They must sway to thrive.
Existence is a paradox continuum. Do not pursue answers. Pursue understanding.
Any fool can know. The point is to understand. – Einstein
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Sunday, December 11, 2011 | Spirituality
A person starts to live when he can live outside himself. – Einstein
Once again Einstein shows he was on to knowledge of the self/Self here. It appears he saw that what we call the personality self or small self was not what life was really about.
However, it seems he never really understood that what lies beyond the small self is the true Self… the transcendental Self, One with God, the unbounded eternal source of all that is.
It would be great if we could ask him about that. Maybe it is just semantics and he did really get it.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Friday, December 9, 2011 | Personal Growth, Spirituality |
“Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.”
_______________________________ – Leo Tolstoy
You do not have to attain anything. Just free yourself from conditioning. Go[l]d already dwells within you as you.
~
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Thursday, December 8, 2011 | Spirituality |
Ramana Maharshi said,
“The trick is to keep the boat in the water but the water out of the boat.”
I have seen a number of people feeling challenged by life lately. It may help to remember this quote. Though that is in the deepest sense determined by your level of evolution, everything (and I do mean everything), does echo/radiate out from the transcendent, including this principle.
So go ahead and feel what you feel, but also feel into the depth of your being where none of it really matters. Freedom!
Replace the word ‘reality’ with ‘relativity’ and the following Einstein quote works,
“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
The field of relativity is, of course, not the absolute. It is the field of imperfection. ‘Two plus two equals four’ turns out to be an approximation, as per Einstein’s theory of relativity for example.
Look for perfection in the absolute. Find comfort there. It dwells at the depth of your being, not the surface. That is the deeper meaning of having the boat in the water but no water in the boat. Do not allow the field of perfection to be overshadowed by the field of imperfection.
Deep inside everything is fine.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Wednesday, December 7, 2011 | Spirituality |
How delicate life is. Even holding on to the idea of letting go inflames. Yet does this imply we are to be without any conviction?
Water is formless, fluid, completely flexible. Water holds to no shape yet conforms to any vessel it inhabits. Yet water created the great canyons and channels upon our Earth.
I know that I am not easily understood. Sometimes I am seen to change my mind and my direction freely. Sometimes I am experienced as forceful, even overpowering.
To be infinitely flexible, yet infinitely rigid is a paradox. Yet like a tree, with rigid trunk and flexible branches, you best progress through life.
Being around those who walk in harmony with nature is not easy. Where you hold will be put into question. Your resistances to the true nature of life will be uprooted. For fear of drowning, you will perhaps even need to create some distance.
This is why from the perspective of your resistance, spiritual evolution can seem threatening, but from the perspective of your true nature it is liberating.
What a beautiful universe that your true nature is abundant, joyful, and wise.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Tuesday, December 6, 2011 | Personal Growth, Spirituality
Through the years our focus has shifted from time to time from things such as hands on healing, to transgradient counseling, to jyotish, to vaastu, to various modes of healing, and now to the Temple.
There are many flowers in the garden of life and you do well to know of them. You will be drawn to one or the other to varying degrees as determined by your nature. Yet it is good to be aware of them all.
I have noticed through the years, whatever we are focusing on at a particular time disturbs those who have an affinity in another direction. You would do well to explore whatever arena is being presented at a given time.
My teachings are designed to open you to deeper and deeper levels within.
Exploration tills the soil that facilitates the self-correcting mechanism. Plants grow best in tilled soil.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Monday, December 5, 2011 | Spirituality |
A lovely comment was sent in regarding my recent cultural integrity blog. You can read the comment by clicking on ‘comments’ below the blog. In fact, the comments to my blogs have been lively and you may want to read them as they come up. My response to the comment follows:
There is a lot to address in your email. Firstly, no history of religion can really be done until the essential nature of life and existence is understood. A valid history could only be written in that context. In fact, that could be the short answer to the general question about where Mount Soma is headed. And the long answer to that is the sum total of all my lectures, books, etc. Religion is not truth. Religion is composed of the various ways humanity congregates around Truth. Science is not Truth. Science is a means by which humanity attempts to grasp Truth. That is of course a very good thing.
Imagine being able to take a step back and see the big picture. All human endeavor, not just religion and science, revolve around a central core called “Truth.” In a nutshell, Mount Soma will bring forth that understanding in a way that honors human endeavor by holding it up to the light of a unifying understanding. Individually unique but unified as One.
It seems that the confusion, fear, doubt, mistrust, resistance, etc around all this that people seem to experience is in fact the very reason why my vision for Mount Soma is so necessary and so difficult for my explanations to be understood. Yet I do believe I am felt and on that level understood. My goal is simple. To assist humanity to live in peace and abundance in a manner that is supportive of every individual’s unique nature. Simple really. But I do understand it will require more explanation than can be provided in blogs. It is something that has in fact eluded humanity throughout the ages.
For it to be understood, I guess it will have to be created first. But there are those that understand it well enough to dedicate their lives to it. Count me in those ranks. It is not a road map. It is not clearly defined. We will, as I speak of in my lectures, feel our way and tack until we reach the summit.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Sunday, December 4, 2011 | Mount Soma, Personal Growth, Spirituality, World View |
I understand that with the appearance of the temple some may wonder if I am a Hindu. I have spoken of cultural integrity so, so many times. But here it goes one more time.
I am a westerner. I have no intention of trying to become Indian or Hindu. I am what I am. A big part of my teaching is cultural integrity. Cultures should not blur together any more than colors in a painter’s arsenal should all be mixed into one heap. They must each keep their own integrity, yet they must learn to live in harmony with one and other. I know that if misunderstood, this sounds like segregation with all its prejudicial baggage, but it is not. There is a huge difference between cultural integrity and prejudice. Are the inclinations you feel within yourself those of cultural integrity or prejudice? This arena merits exploration.
I have a deep respect for the culture out of which Vedic knowledge was birthed and has been upheld. It is the portal through which we have been given access to the Knowledge of Natural Law (the Veda). The temple then is approached through that portal. It honors the integrity of that culture. That culture has provided the pipeline to, the conduit to, the technology of the Unified Field. Like physics or any other science, the Knowledge is universal. The Veda is universal. Sanskrit is not Indian, it is universal. However, our access to all that knowledge is via the Indian culture. That is not to say that everything Indian is Vedic. But our access to Vedic knowledge is certainly through that culture.
Can you uphold your own integrity while honoring another’s or not? In a nutshell, that is what cultural integrity is all about. It is what the world must learn to do. It is what we are creating a model of (for the world) at Mount Soma. As I have said, it will take about 3 years to put it all together here at Mount Soma. We must provide a space for each culture to rest comfortably within its own nature. This will take some time. It will require some patience. Completion of the Student Union next month will help a great deal. At that time, the Mountain View room in the Learning Center will become a cultural center for the temple.
Over the next few years, let’s take care to keep our eye on that ball and not get confused regarding our purpose, who we/you are, and cultural integrity.
Do you want peace on earth? Do you really? Then let’s start here and now and create it for the entire world.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Saturday, December 3, 2011 | Spirituality |
God created this world, the field of Karma. View it as a game.
Once he created the game for you to play, his role immediately became that of a coach. His role is not punitive; it is purely supporting and loving.
His only interest is for you to succeed at the game, to master your life, to become an expert at navigating the waters of the field of karma… of this world.
God is not wrathful, God is love.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
