Is the longing to commune based in our fear of being alone?

by | Saturday, August 21, 2010 | Relationship | 1 comment

It’s a beautiful question.  What does this longing for oneness really have its basis in?  Is it based in fear?  It is not based in fear.  It’s based in love, the opposite of fear.  We long to commune because it’s our inherent nature, at the depth of our being, to love.

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Our fear is what prevents us from functioning from that place.  We may fear that if we show our vulnerability, we’ll look like a fool.  So we create a facade, an overlay.  But as the psyche heals, we integrate all the different levels of our being so that we function harmoniously with our vulnerability in a fulfilling manner that is unique to each individual.  Then our vulnerability naturally interfaces with what’s occurring on the surface of our life.

© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.

The Three Levels of Motivation

by | Thursday, August 19, 2010 | Relationship

We can say that motivation exists on three levels.

1) Motivation of Communion

At the source of your being, your motivations are based upon that place inside that’s already fine, that’s pure.  In that place, your motivations involving your relationships with other people are quite laudable.  They are to perpetuate the feeling of communion in love, to make things better, and to be in support of all concerned.  It’s a very positive and life-supporting sort of motivation that’s inherent to your own true nature. From that pure place, what motivates us is the desire to share that purity with others.

2) Subconscious Motivation

At the depth of even the most wicked person is loving, compassionate, and pure intent.  What they do may be totally inexcusable, but at the depth of even a murderer’s being is purity.  What happens is that as stress accumulates in the physiology, the psyche gets distorted.  What is that underlying motivation at the purest level?  It’s communion.  It’s love.  Little kids right out of the womb radiate it.  That’s why we love them.  They don’t care about belief systems, models, or identities.  All they care about is Mommy’s and Daddy’s love.  They just want to feel loved.  If Mommy says, “You’re bad if you do this,” they try not to do it.  When Mommy says, “You’re good,” they feel her love.  This is where the overlays start to take root.  Children begin to identify with whatever behavioral modality seems to get them what they long for: communion and love.  Over time, the purity of that underlying motivation becomes shrouded underneath the identity overlays.

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In our workings on a day-to-day level, we get identified with this second level of motivation; yet it, too, is hidden from our conscious mind. Getting in touch with your hidden motivations is a major part of tilling the soil of your own inner landscape.  It is very much about self-honesty.  The motivation behind what you do or what you say can be very elusive at times.

Conscious Motivation

The third level of motivation is the most superficial.  It’s the motivation that we’re clear about and comfortable with in our conscious awareness.  We believe, and tell ourselves and others, that it’s our real motivation.  You can say to somebody, “I love you,” and believe you are being honest and straightforward.  But you can simultaneously have a hidden underlying motivation that says, “I hate you,” that it is actually based on: “I hate you because you don’t love me, so I want to make you feel bad by telling you that I love you.”  But it is not stated or even understood.  Where you think your motivation comes from is actually only the surface.  Of course, simultaneously, you have the underlying pure motivation based in the longing for communion, love, and mutual support.  However, this deepest purest love is usually hidden from view, buried under the stress in the psychophysiology that creates our more superficial and distorted motivations.

Questions To Facilitate Your Inner Exploration

1. Think of a recent conflict you had with someone, and remember the things you said to that person.

2. What did you tell yourself your motivation was for saying those things?

3. Can you identify a more hidden motivation that was making a very different statement or had a different intent than what you told them, as well as yourself?

4. Look even more deeply to identify a place within you that had a deeper longing that lay at the very basis of this interaction (the place where you long for the purity of communion and mutual appreciation with that person).

© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.

Selfless or Selfish?

by | Tuesday, August 17, 2010 | Spirituality

There is a notion that spiritual people become selfless, caring about others while not caring about themselves.  This is true and not true.  It is worthwhile to look at it from a much deeper perspective.  Consider the possibility:

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It can be wise for people on the spiritual path to think of themselves not as selfless, but as selfish!

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It can be argued that every step of the way, everything everybody does, is in fact, completely selfish.  If someone jumps in front of a car to save another person’s life, the bumps and bruises won’t feel good, but the love or nobility that motivated the gesture in that person’s own eyes outweighs the discomfort.

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A selfless act can be viewed as being performed because it makes us feel good —loving, noble, justified, righteous, etc.  This is not a bad thing.

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If we didn’t feel that way, we wouldn’t do it.  So in that sense, the most selfless act is actually selfish. However in a very literal sense, you are one with everything.  This is not in just a philosophical or emotional sense.

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As you evolve, you more and more directly experience that what you do to the environment and others, you do to yourself.  You are one with everything.

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In this regard, selfish acts become completely selfless.  Likewise, selfless acts are completely selfish.  The Self has expanded to include all things.

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Selfishness will not and need not go away.  The Self needs only to expand to include what was formerly considered to be the non-self.

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Selflessness and selfishness then cease to contradict one another; in fact they become one and the same.  This does not work as a philosophy to adhere to or an attitude to align with.  It is a natural attribute of the individual as that person becomes more transgradiently integrated.

© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.

About Death

by | Sunday, August 15, 2010 | Spirituality

Someone who recently lost a loved one has asked me to talk about death. For now, what I say may be only a notion. However, as the cobwebs in consciousness clear, leaving you free of any programmed way of thinking, what I have to say becomes self-evident. Knowledge is not outside of you; nor is it far away.

Death is only of the physical body. ‘You’ will never die. Only the physical body dies. The physical body is, of course, very important. It is a precious vehicle that carries you through this life and with which you can evolve most rapidly.

The sadness around death is usually about the pain of missing the one who has died. You may wonder, “When will I see them again?’ and ‘Will I ever see them again?’ ‘Are they still ‘alive’ somewhere else?’

The answer to these questions is most assuredly ‘yes.’ However, missing them is very real and acute, and compounded by the uncertainly of these ‘whats’ and ‘whens.’  The knowing of what I am saying comes from within you, not from outside of you.  And though that knowing offers some comfort, your missing of them remains.

It is important to know it is best to let them go.  They are now on a new and different journey and holding on only holds them back. The bittersweet nature of life is sublime. Understanding the spiritual truths regarding life and death does not blunt your emotions around its nature, but can somehow unite the range of emotions you may feel, thereby heightening your wisdom about what you are feeling.

Wisdom is understanding. Understanding is humble. Humility is the gateway to true love. Love holds everything, the full range of human emotions, in a most gentle embrace.

© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.

How do you Know if Your Meditation is Working?

by | Saturday, August 14, 2010 | Meditation, Spirituality

statueI recall the days when I gave public lectures back in the ’70s.  A common question was “What is enlightenment like?”  Back then it was surprisingly common to have audience members using recreational drugs respond by saying, “Oh yeah, I know exactly what you are talking about!  That is exactly what happens to me when I get high!” Try as I might, I only met with extreme resistance when I tried to explain that I was talking about something different.

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At first glance this may sound like nothing more than a humorous recollection.  Actually, it has a very profound point:  We are all centered in the same one thing…. the Transcendent.  All our lives revolve around that…  are based in that… if we know it or not.  As a result, every experience is an echo of that, just as when a pebble is tossed into a pond, every ripple expands out from the point of entry paralleling the other ripples.  Similarly, every experience in life parallels something deeper.  If we are not careful, we decide they are the exact same thing.  I call this the I-get-it Syndrome.

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This simple principle is responsible for the profoundly elusive mysteries of life.  Everything is an echo of something deeper.  Unless we are attentive, we equate the echo with the real thing.  Many well-intended teachers provide meditation techniques that provide students with an echo.  Echoes of truth, perceived as truth, hold truth at bay.  This exists eternally in all of life.  It is why true spiritual growth is likened to traversing a razors edge or passing through the eye of the needle.

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So how do you take this and decide if you are doing a proper meditation that is actually working?  Well, there are a few fundamental qualities…  the meditation must be natural…  easy… simple… etc.  However, you can say that about many things.  So the ultimate answer boils down to the cultivation of discernment.  You must become discerning in your evaluation of all things…  including the choice of the meditation technique you use.

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Keep in mind that we do not meditate to attain a particular experience during meditation.  We meditate for the benefits meditation provides…  the purification of the nervous system and physiology.  The actual experience of meditation can vary, based upon the way each individual’s physiology is purifying at a particular time.

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I know this can be unsatisfying, but it is the truth.  We all would like to have a signpost along the way, confirming we are moving in the right direction.  However, the only genuine signpost is accessible deep within you.  As you cultivate and employ wise discernment, it becomes more accessible to you.

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Listen carefully in life and choose wisely.  Admittedly, it is enjoyable and encouraging to have a meditation that feels deep and profound, but let the path of discernment be your guiding light.

© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.

The Unknown

by | Thursday, August 12, 2010 | Spirituality

Because existence is a field of such infinite, multiple dimensionality, we can never know it completely or define it precisely. When we attempt to define it, we limit it. In limiting it, we no longer fully understand it. We no longer know it.

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If we try to pinpoint exactly where an electron is, we grab onto that electron and limit it as being in a specific spatial location. However, when we grab onto it and say “There’s the electron,” its grandeur collapses down to a point. Prior to our defining it, it was something different.

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Our attempt to know, to grab onto, to define, is exactly what limits. This leads us to a paradox.

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The only real way to understand something is if we don’t try to know.

© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.

“How To” Think and Feel

by | Thursday, August 5, 2010 | Spirituality

Growth as an individual is not about what to think and feel as much as how to think and feel.  At first, this may not make much sense.  After all, everyone thinks and feels all day long.  Is there even a “how to” to it?  The answer is, of course, yes, there is indeed.

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This involves becoming more and more deeply established within yourself. On the surface, thoughts and emotions can churn wildly. Thinking and feeling on that level is more about conditioning and distortion than inner wisdom.

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The proper “how to” involves culturing your being so that you can come from deeper places within.  Note that “deeper” does not mean more intense. Highly intense thoughts and emotions are oftentimes rooted in superficial distortions and wounds –  which, incidentally, are cloaked in the façade of alleged inner truths.

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There is a long and short term approach in going about “how to” think and feel.

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Long term is obvious: meditate and evolve though the years.

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Short term involves settling down and being as honest as you possibly can with yourself.  The whole arena of personal process techniques and concepts that I have provided assist the short term process, ie. First and Second Response, Identity With Beliefs, 5 Divine Currents,  etc.

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Working with one approach assists the other.  They both, however, can be a slippery slope.

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The slippery slope of the Long Term Approach involves 1) proper meditation (there are so many meditations out there that do not assist in the long-term process) and 2) meditating regularly.

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The slippery slope of the Short Term Approach includes 1) The challenge of really being honest with yourself (no small task) and 2) Improper personal process.  I have spent years purifying the entire arena of personal process.  Subtle distinctions make all the difference here.  Improper personal process may appear beneficial but, in fact, undermine your growth.  There have been a few times when people have taken what I teach and attempted to improve upon or add to it, only to compromise it. When embarking upon personal process I implore you to adhere very carefully to what I have said.

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Please know I speak from my heart.

© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.

Discipline and Dharma

by | Monday, August 2, 2010 | Spirituality

Someone recently asked me to do a blog regarding the relationship of Discipline and Dharma.  My family and I are just stepping out the door for a few days of rest, so please allow me to be brief and perhaps a tad playful with the following quote which is an old Alaskan saying:

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“The only things that go with the flow are dead fish.”

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It sometimes requires a great deal of discipline to do your dharma.

© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.