by Michael Mamas | Wednesday, September 23, 2015 | Personal Growth, Spirituality |
Oftentimes, people think spiritual attainment is being free from the ego, often referred to as selflessness. If we really take a look at it, that is not exactly right.
Let us first take a look at what the ego really is. We could say the ego exists on two levels: the Personality Level and the deepest level of your being, the Transcendental Level. Typically speaking, those two levels do not work in unison. In fact, the majority of people are essentially unaware of the Transcendental Level of their being. To them, the personality ego is the only ego there is. They live in a world of separation. Their ego versus the ego of everyone else in the world. Oftentimes, their sense of self-worth is all about how they view their ego, their accomplishments, their place in the world, how much money they have, their children, what a good person they are, etc. Though these things can be of great value, that ego exists in the domain of superficiality in contrast to the Transcendental ego. Spiritual evolution is about integrating these two levels of ego so that they function in harmony with one another.
Now let’s take a closer look at the Transcendental ego. It is the level of your being that transcends relativity. It is fully awake to its universal nature. That can be expressed in many different ways: You and God are one; You are one with everything; Aham Bramhasmi; I am the totality; Or, as Einstein would say, “Everything is the unified field,” (that one thing that is the source of everything).
Just as a seed births the tree, the Transcendental Level births all of creation. Just as the seed is the source of all the intelligence and harmony that underlies and guides the growth of the tree, so too is the Transcendental Level the source of intelligence and harmony that underlies your existence.
So let’s take a look at what happens to the ego when, through the evolutionary process, those two levels function in a harmonious and integrated manner. The personality ego doesn’t go away. You don’t become free from ego as some people interpret the spiritual documents to say. What actually happens is the personality ego transforms so your sense of self becomes one with all that is. It is as if Mother Nature herself is functioning through you, as you, spontaneously supporting all branches of the tree of life. You haven’t lost the ego. On the contrary, it is expanded to embrace all that is to cherish, support, and facilitate the growth of everything in creation. This is exactly the opposite of selflessness or egolessness. It is the expansion of the ego to live in harmony with, and breathe life into, the depth of all that is.
In conclusion, a person that has integrated these two levels of their being may not look like your typical depiction of a saintly Hollywood sage on the surface. They do not necessarily speak with a strange cadence or float airily through a room. They may appear quite ordinary. To understand spiritual evolution, we must always look deeper.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Sunday, September 20, 2015 | Personal Growth |
Children are naturally quite pure at heart. When they are exposed to the crudeness so predominant in the world today, they feel hurt. Their vulnerability has been violated. That crudeness, having had such a powerful influence upon them, is perceived by them as power and strength. They need to react to that violation with power and strength. Otherwise, they feel like they would crumble and be devastated. They decided that through this power and strength, they would take on those crude values as a defense, as an attempt to claim power for themselves. It is, of course, a facade.
You see this manifest in many forms in adolescence, and also in many adults who have never worked their way through it. They may take on a tough exterior, dress in rebellious ways, behave sarcastically, negatively, or crudely.
When children are young, parents naturally try to protect them from the dark, crude world. Children sense that protection as an affirmation that they are not yet adults. Children grow up. They want to be big. As a result of all this, they associate darkness with adulthood. Crudeness becomes the thing that is forbidden unless you are an adult. So, we can see that morbid, foul, and inappropriate dress and behavior becomes for the child a declaration that they are adults, that they are big, that they understand the world and that no one is pulling the wool over their eyes.
The best way for parents to deal with this is, number one, to understand it, to be aware of it. The light of awareness heals. Through that understanding, you can begin to work with it wisely. If you attack it directly, you may well prompt the child to defend, which would only compel them to act even more harshly. But how this is appropriately approached is not a cookbook. It depends upon the unique nature of the child, the parent, and their relationship.
Certainly in every case, the true adult is one who is capable of resting in and speaking from that place of vulnerability deep within. True strength is found in the refinement of the depth of your being, not in the crudeness that so many wear on the surface.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Wednesday, September 16, 2015 | Personal Growth |
Question: Would you discuss past life memories and how to deal with them?
Answer: So many sincere and well-intended seekers are fed poor information. As a result, they become confused or self-judging, and in some cases, become self-righteous. If I had a nickel for every person who said they were Buddha reincarnated I’d be a wealthy man. Similarly, if I had a nickel for every person who felt terrible about themselves because of a past life they seem to recall or were told about, I’d be a wealthy man. In India, there is a saying: “Reincarnation is for failures.” But the most relevant meaning here is: Don’t sort through the garbage. The fault is not with those seekers, but with the people who have misled them, even if well intended.
There is an approach to personal process where we imagine past lives and allow them to become symbolic of dynamics in our psyche that relate to this life. However it is so often misused, that it is best forgotten.
Carl Jung, a foundational figure in psychotherapy, spoke of the different archetypes within an individual. For example, the Inner Sage, the Inner Fool, etc. If used properly, that can be a worthwhile tool to explore your own inner dynamic. Similarly, if you believe in past lives or not, imagining they exist and pretending you remember them, is another effective tool for exploring your inner psychodynamics IF DONE PROPERLY.
Unfortunately, the way past lives are generally approached is so unwise that it is better left alone. Some people use “past life memories” as a justification. Someone who is chronically depressed insists they remember being imprisoned in the Tower of London for decades. A number of people who go to psychics for a ‘past life reading’ are hoping to learn of a time when they were a great person in hopes of finding what actually amounts to a psychological crutch. I have seen past life explorations misused far more often than I’ve ever seen a healthy relationship with them. So, past lives are for failures is probably your healthiest attitude towards them.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Friday, September 11, 2015 | Personal Growth |
Cell Phone Conversation:
Kim: “Hello”….
Jim: “Hi Kim, It’s Jim.”
pause…
Kim: “Hello?…”
Jim: “Kim, It’s Jim. I can hear you. Can you hear me?”
Kim: “Hello, is anybody there?”
Jim, frustrated: “Arrrrh!!!”
Jim hangs up and dials again.
Kim: “Hello”
Jim, in a frustrated tone: “Kim, it’s Jim. Can you hear me?”
Kim, feeling hurt by Jim’s angry tone: “Yeah, I can hear you. Can you hear me?”
Jim: “Hello, Kim, can you hear me?”
No audible reply even though Kim says: “Yes, I can hear you.”
Jim, really frustrated and angry at this point: “Just forget it!”
Jim hangs up. Kim feels hurt, judged, rejected and not heard. Kim is now mad at Jim thinking he is mad at her.
NOW. Stay with me and make this leap: Communication in general is like your cell phone. You are not really angry with the person. You are upset with the barrier to communication. The person believes you are mad at them, so they get mad at you. Then you are both off and running, mad at each other and escalating. That is the sad story of communication.
The good news is that if you can work through and get past the communication barrier and the personal issues that come up as a result, you are a GREAT COMMUNICATOR. It requires patience, balance, and dedication to the process.
So, next time you are in a conflict, try to remember: It’s the cell phone!
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Monday, September 7, 2015 | Personal Growth |
One of the things that stands out in my mind from when I got an MBA, is that communication is the biggest challenge in corporations. I have found that is certainly true in all of life. Communication, of course, is a huge topic written about in many books. I would like to bring out one very important point about communication in this blog: Don’t let personal issues get in the way.
I notice how people react to a communication breakdown. They often feel that the other person is not listening to them or doesn’t value them. As a result, they become irate. I’ve also noticed that people are habitually too quick to express themselves without carefully choosing their words. In fact, they often don’t make sense. They may leave out critical information or don’t express themselves clearly in one form or another. People’s thoughts often make perfect sense to them but they will leave out key points in their expression.
You may take someone’s words as a personal assault or you may become hostile towards what you perceive as a personal shortcoming of that person. Either way, it is taken on a personal level. What is actually trying to be communicated becomes secondary with personal conflict becoming center stage.
The all-important question is how do you get past that? I say again: Don’t let personal issues get in the way. Try to remain calm. Take a step back. Collect your thoughts and get into balance. Be patient with yourself and the other person. You just can’t allow an emotional tangent to overtake you. If you do, chances are that will spur an emotional tangent in the person you are trying to communicate with. Then you are both off and running, doing the hostility cha-cha with one another.
Please realize that in such communication breakdowns, you don’t realize it to be a communication breakdown in the moment. You generally perceive it as a personal flaw in one form or another. You’ve got to get over that hump to truly communicate with someone. Communication takes work even when personal issues aren’t in the way. Getting frustrated only makes communication more challenging. The other person usually takes your frustration personally. You have to be patient with the process of becoming a good communicator.
So, in closing, I say again: Don’t let personal issues get in the way. You’ve got to work with and around personal issues until there is a meeting of minds.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Monday, July 13, 2015 | Personal Growth, Spirituality |
We speak of the ‘family of humanity’. We speak of love. We speak of world peace. We speak of open-mindedness. Yet these things are not so easy to accomplish.
Some have a strong bias against spirituality as irrational. Others find solace in embracing the heartfelt aspect of spirituality, even as a reprieve from having to think. Cultures have their differences. One religion judges another. One political group despises the other. Many ‘open-minded’ people condemn those who do not think the way they do. One cultural or sub-cultural group is uncomfortable with another. Cultural Integrity so easily crosses the line into the biases of bigotry and racism.
My work honors the unique integrity of each culture while inviting you to see past the bias. In so doing, we can create a true family of humanity that honors the uniqueness of each culture – that respects diversity, not just tolerates it.
In my attempts to create a family of humanity, I often trigger a knee-jerk controversy. When I speak of God, ‘rationalists’ immediately reject my words. When I ask people to take a step back and see the rationality hidden beneath any spiritual superstition, I am accused of being too ‘heady’. When I wear Indian attire as a sign of respect to that tradition, I am judged as ‘another white guy trying to do the guru thing’. When I wear western clothes, I am not respecting the ancient traditions of spiritual knowledge. Casual observers so quickly cast my hat into the ring of their impulsive choosing.
Prejudice reigns. We are so quickly pigeon-holed, judged, and rejected or accepted based on the prejudices of every individual in this 30-second sound bite world. It happens in the blink of an eye, even by the most “open minded” individuals.
So where is the learning? How can people see beyond their biases?
I strive to move humanity forward. I encourage everyone to look deeper to live better. In so doing, the world will come together in harmony. In so doing, world peace can become a reality. I invite you to take a step back and reflect with me. Look more deeply into my words and actions than just a first glance may provide. We can heal this planet. We can have a loving family of humanity. It is within our grasp.
Be willing to reach beyond the limitations of your current mentality.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Tuesday, July 7, 2015 | Personal Growth, Spirituality |
Memorizing facts has its value.
Memorizing mantras has its value.
However, to really know them is to understand them.
What does it mean to understand them?
Where does understanding come from?
Deep within you, deep within your soul, lies the source of all that is.
It is
… not physical.
… not material.
… not grasped.
It is felt.
… sensed
… deep within your soul.
… deep within your self.
It is the place within where you make sense of things.
For something to be understood is for it to make sense.
Feelings lie deeper than thoughts.
Feelings birth thoughts.
The seed of knowledge is feeling.
Understanding stands under, births, feeds, and supports all of life.
Facts emerge from that place, just as the tree emerges from the seed.
The seed of life births life.
To gain true knowledge, awaken to the source of thought.
The thoughts themselves are secondary.
One can know many facts and not be a person of knowledge.
One can know few facts and be a person of true knowledge.
Awaken to the place within where you understand everything.
Facts are useful tools.
But they are most useful in the hands of those who know the Self.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Saturday, June 27, 2015 | Personal Growth, Spirituality, World View |
It seems that racism has subsided (or at least has become increasingly politically incorrect) in America, or perhaps people’s prejudices have not so much subsided as been transformed. Am I mistaken, or have the divides between right versus left, conservative versus liberal, the wealthy versus the poor, etc. taken on new highs in intensity? It almost seems that there is a certain degree of pride and prejudice within people that simply must be directed at something. Could that really be?
Let’s take a step back and look at the nature of our species. Certainly we are social/cultural creatures. We tend to flock together to create a society. As you traverse the globe, it becomes apparent that there is a great degree of difference between cultures. Individuals in a culture (or subculture) become adapted to, comfortable with, and cultured around the specific aspects of their culture. This, to a great degree, includes mentality, morality, ethics, and worldview, even including the inclination to rebel against the convention of that culture! There is a natural tendency to gravitate toward individuals that share your cultural and subcultural views. That seems to be quite commonsensical and natural. Laws are created and enforced in concert with those views, those convictions. Often other viewpoints are considered unhealthy, or even illegal. Of course, as times change people change, and viewpoints then, gradually change over time. In the USA at least, those transitions seem to occur through 10 to 15 year cycles. Just look at the 1920s compared to the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, etc. Yet through it all, we tend to adhere to our societal group of like-minded friends with whom we are most comfortable and identified. You may wonder if this is a good or bad thing. Should you strive to break free of your heritage? Or should you strive to conform to it? When does your affinity for your heritage cross that line from cultural integrity and mutual support and comfort to becoming prejudicial or worse? Is there a healthy pride and natural preference or should we strive to overcome it and create a homogenous world?
It seems clear that the right and wrong of it is all a matter of degree. Birds of a feather do naturally flock together. That is sometimes called cultural integrity. But as I have said in the past, racism is cultural integrity gone insane. It appears that such insanity has a physiological or organic component to it. It is not proactively overcome as easily as you may think. It is like subterranean ether in the blood that permeates heart and mind. It is like an overheating of the otherwise healthy blood chemistry of natural affinity. Once overheated, it must show its head in one prejudicial form or another. Attempting to suppress it one way only causes it to emerge in another. As racism is suppressed, political polarization and hatred go on the rise.
I remember the man I sat next to on a flight to San Francisco. He is a lifelong resident of Marin County. From his proud perspective, he was clearly open-minded, liberal, and beyond any trace of racism. Yet he was viscously intolerant of any opposing viewpoint. From his perspective, he had things all figured out and he was righteously indignant of any other viewpoint. Of course, in his opinion, he loved all humanity, all cultures, all races. But did he? Did he really? How little things have changed. As the saying goes, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” — “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” We ride upon these tides, currents, and waves of world karma within the ocean of life… far more so than most are able to see or willing to admit. Up creates down. Right creates left.
Is there a real solution to this? Yes, of course there is: human evolution… the balancing of fire (Agni) and water (Soma). The world is on fire. The people are righteously indignant. The shade trees have been cleared by the millions. Heat is on the rise. Global warming in this expanded sense is a certainty. Warming of the oceans would merely be one symptom of the greater dynamic. Attempts to rearrange the surface to hide what is going on in the depths will fail. Sweeping the dirt under the rug does not clean the house.
Where do you draw the line between cultural integrity and cultural arrogance? The answer to that is found in the depth of your being, not on the surface. But to do so, first the fire must be cooled. Proper meditation with the cultivation of discernment is the path.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Monday, June 15, 2015 | Personal Growth, Relationship, Spirituality |
Feelings are everything. Thoughts matter little. How you feel about those thoughts make all the difference. If you feel a thought is not true, it is rejected. Feel it is true, and it is embraced. Even seemingly irrefutable thoughts are, in fact, considered facts because we feel that way about them. For example, ‘two plus two equals four’ is embraced because it just feels so right. Without getting overly technical or philosophical about this, one considers thoughts to be true based upon how one feels about them.
The uniting of our thoughts with our feelings is called ‘reasoning.’ The art of reasoning, wisely and accurately, is called ‘discernment.’ Logic is rooted in discernment is rooted in feelings. Feelings are everything.
There are two types of feelings:
1) Feelings in harmony with Nature, with Natural Law.
2) Feelings rooted, not in the laws of Nature, but in conditioning, limitation, indoctrination, dogma, programming, distortions, or what Maharishi Patanjali called ‘samskaras.’ This is to say your issues, sometimes called ‘your stuff.’
Of course, most feelings are a mix of the two. Your world view is a result of such feelings. It is important to understand that these two types of feelings essentially feel the same. Even how you feel about the feeling you have is the result of these two types of feelings. In other words, you judge yourself, others, and all thoughts and emotions based upon some combination of these two types of feelings. For example, you may feel that your anger is a bad feeling not in harmony with Nature. You may feel that happiness is in harmony with Nature. But it is not that simple. The full range of human emotions can be either in harmony with Nature or not.
It is very difficult then, to know the true nature of what you are feeling. You usually consider how you feel about something to be ‘your truth.’ But is it? Is it really? As you evolve, ‘your truth’ becomes more and more in harmony with Nature. Yet it is viewed by others based upon their issues, their world view. You can justify anything with the intellect… and people do. Your thoughts (your intellect) rally around your feelings to justify them.
But it gets even more complicated than that. World views are floating around everywhere you look. You become indoctrinated by them. The thoughts, based upon whichever type of feeling, begin to indoctrinate and program you. As that happens, you believe them. You feel they are correct. You consider them to be ‘truth.’ You become convinced that the world view is ‘truth.’ You even feel and become passionate about a particular viewpoint. Lives are dedicated to such a viewpoint. ‘Education’ then, is considered greater indoctrination into that viewpoint.
So, discovering what is true is not so easy to do. But one thing is for sure, Truth dwells within you. By filtering out your indoctrinations, you find harmony with Nature (Truth) within yourself. After all, you are one with Nature. You are the Unified Field. You are one with God, though today, more and more people are taking issue with the word ‘God.’
Everything I teach is for one purpose… for you to find harmony with Nature within yourself. More than likely, that does not look like what your indoctrination has convinced you it looks like. But I am not here to tell you what that looks like. I am not here to tell you what to think. I am here to help you learn to think for yourself… not your indoctrinated self, but your True Self. Your Self that is one with the source of all life and existence… infinitely wise, intelligent, creative, harmonious and divine. Proper meditation and cultivation of the art of discernment compose that gateway.
Consider the understanding of what is written here to be an invitation to walk through that gateway. Yet it is up to you to do so. The Self is revealed to the Self, by the Self, and through the Self.
Below is a related post, with video, on Facebook.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Saturday, June 6, 2015 | Personal Growth, Relationship, World View |
A number of business people have consulted with me over the years. After speaking with a few of them, I decided to jot down some notes of the main points that come up often. I sent them to two of those people who deal with multi-million dollar deals on a regular basis. Their feedback was extremely positive: ‘I couldn’t agree more.’ – ‘Great stuff!’ – ‘I have employed those principles in every major business negotiation I have ever been involved in.’
I have not seen these principles offered in MBA programs, which tend to stick with the cold hard numbers aspect (see The Theory of Induced Blindness blog). The numbers are the easy part. They are not the art of business. I am sharing these notes with you in the same raw form I shared them with those two people.
Working Notes for MBA 101: The Essential Knowledge Not Taught in MBA Programs
- steady hand on the rudder
- its all about people
- read my last blog… theory of induced blindness
- trust issues… honey, not vinegar
- win/win is the only way to go
- same side of fence and we all win… be a player not a pain
- there is a rhythm to everything… don’t push it
- don’t shoot yourself in the foot
- business is an art… the art of people… the math must be known, but the key is the art
- get on board (or be left behind)
- fact: this all applies from a Kool-Aide stand to multi-billionaire deals
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
