by Michael Mamas | Sunday, October 25, 2015 | Announcements, Spirituality |
An introductory lecture I gave in Walnut Creek a while back has been posted on SoundCloud. I’m told that people really enjoy this lecture, and the sound quality is great.
SoundCloud is an online platform for sharing audio. If you create a free account, you can follow me to receive notifications of future audio uploads. You can also "Like" audio posts and share them on social media.
Also, there are free SoundCloud apps on the Apple Store and Google Play that allow you to listen to SoundCloud on your phone.
The lecture is in two parts. Enjoy!
Awakening to Your True Nature
Part 1: The Fundamentals
Part 2: The Process of Spiritual Evolution
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Wednesday, October 21, 2015 | Spirituality |
When asked a question, to really know the answer means to find it deep within yourself. But what does that mean?
There is a big difference between feeling as deeply within as you are capable of feeling and feeling all the way to the depth. Commonly, people are taught that the depth of their being is an emotional level. That is not correct. Others believe that it is an intellectual level of clarity, which is also incorrect.
The depth of your being is generally a highly elusive thing. Why? Because of what I call ‘astral echoes’. When you drop a pebble in a pond, rings ripple out in concentric circles. Each circle corresponds to the circle closer to the center. All existence, including your being and your psyche, is like that. For example, when someone says they feel their oneness with everything, it means different things on different levels. New Agers may hold hands and emotionally feel they are one with everything. Many religions incite this emotional response with music and pomp. I remember when I would lecture about oneness in the early 1970s, hippies would say they took LSD and had the experience of Oneness, or God, and therefore, knew everything I was talking about. Even intellectuals reflect on modern physics theories of Oneness and decide that they ‘get it’. Spiritual leaders also decide that they ‘get it’ and promote their perspective. I call that the ‘I Get It Syndrome’. Due to astral echoes, everything has a corresponding meaning on all levels (concentric rings around the pebble in the pond) and the listener is certain they know exactly what you are talking about. This is why spiritual knowledge is so highly elusive.
Memorizing spiritual teachings and texts is not the solution. Why? Because they are read from the level of understanding of the reader and are thusly interpreted. That is why so many spiritually oriented people think they are ‘enlightened’. After all, they totally ‘get it’. Right?
To truly under-stand is to look deeper, to see deeper, to experience deeper and deeper levels until the very depth of your being is known.
The depth of your being lies beyond the reach of thoughts… beyond the reach of emotions. It transcends relativity. To attain it is to refine, refine, refine, your awareness. The most powerful tool to do that is PROPER MEDITATION. The cultivation of discernment is also essential. Otherwise, you lose yourself to echoes of Truth, perceived as Truth, which then holds Truth at bay.
Indeed, the path to Truth is highly elusive. Of course, that is actually a good thing. If not so elusive, everyone would have figured it all out long ago and the game would be over!
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Monday, October 19, 2015 | Spirituality |
Truth is often viewed as something that can be acquired by reading the right book or hearing the right speech. Books and speeches are readily available, but only the wise know truth when they hear it. The question of how to pursue truth then is not where to find truth, but how to know it when you hear it.
Truth already dwells deep within every individual. However, if ones life is encrusted with stresses, strains, and impurities, that truth will not well up throughout the physiology and conscious awareness. In such a state, even if truth is offered, the individual will not resonate with it. It will not feel right. It will not ring true. It may even be experienced as offensive. The lower vibration that one is accustomed to will not resonate with the higher vibration of truth. Just as the pristine lotus flower rises up through the murky waters, to hear truth one must rise up through the quagmire of small egocentricity, separateness, polarization, and indoctrination.
Through proper meditation, one awakens to the absolute truth that dwells within. As this is done, one’s understanding of kindness, love, integrity, honor, nobility, beauty, justice, etc. raises to a higher level. Understanding deepens and is transformed as one evolves.
Hearing and knowing truth is simply a matter of innocence and purity – and their meanings too transform as one evolves.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Wednesday, October 14, 2015 | Announcements, Spirituality |
View my latest slideshow, “The Evolution of Consciousness“, on SlideShare.
You are encouraged to Follow my SlideShare account (to receive updates), and to share, like or comment on individual slideshows. Note: You must be logged in to SlideShare to post a comment (creating an account is quick and easy).
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Saturday, October 3, 2015 | Personal Growth, Spirituality |
You may have noticed that world history, when presented succinctly, often barely mentions India. That is perplexing. However, taking a deeper look reveals why.
To begin with, the notion of zero originated in India. Zero, of course, is nothing. How interesting that it is represented by a circle. A circle has no handle, no edge, no tip, nothing to grab on to. A dog chasing its tail forms a zero. Humanity wants something, not nothing. We are taught from childhood to view the world in terms of things. Nothing is not really understood.
The crux of the issue, however, is that the real gift from India is nothing… Pure Nothingness… the Transcendent. When you finally awaken to the true nature of existence, you awaken to nothing… no thing… that which transcends thingness. Nothing is the backdrop of existence. It is the essence of everything. Of course, when the knowledge from India is studied, the attempt is to turn it into something. Attempting to introduce people to nothing is not understood. It can even be received with hostility, as if the receiver feels they are being toyed with. The essence of Vedic Knowledge then slips through the fingers.
Who would have thought that awakening to the true nature of nothing is the ultimate awakening? How many believe that nothing is a simple concept so easily understood. How many believe that understanding Vedic literature is something attained through memorization, the intellect, an emotional epiphany, or at least some thing!
Indeed, India’s greatest gift to the world is nothing! Nothing transcends everything. It is the field of pure consciousness, not yet conscious of any thing. Therein lies the riddle of life… the longing, the impulse, in need to make nothing something. Certainly something, all things, are made out of nothing. But nothing is not something. Of course, you can wrap your brain around that but then it is not that. You just have made something out of nothing and it is then no longer nothing.
When you first awaken to nothing, then you will understand. You will stand under everything. Nothing under stands everything. Everything comes from nothing. Taking that as a concept can even frighten people, as if the world then is viewed as useless. However, nothing can be further from the truth (pun intended). After awakening to Nothing, all things take on a whole new, deeper, more profound, and beautiful meaning. Life becomes truly rich.
Indeed, we can all be most grateful to India, for giving us nothing.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Tuesday, September 29, 2015 | Spirituality |
It is really very simple. Look at trees. Look at water flowing down a mountain stream. Look at anything and everything. The same principles apply. Everything parallels. The same laws of nature are at work on different levels and to varying degrees everywhere. Manifestation of the universe, a breath in and out, the sun rising and setting, trees producing acorns producing trees, what goes up must come down. Everything is, in essence, the same one thing. I am that. You are that. All of this is nothing but that. It’s all the same.
Those principles are well established and fixed, like the notes of a music scale. However, notes are bent, flowed through quickly or held, played loud or softly. Music is infinitely fixed, yet infinitely flexible. So is life. So is existence. Music can be analyzed scientifically, but the meaning is in the music. The meaning is in the feeling. Feelings lie deeper than thoughts. Essence lies deeper than feelings. Feelings reach out to essence. Yet the path home can be quite curved. It’s all the same.
If you start at the surface and try to fathom the depth, you get lost in the complex web of life, charmed by the melody of the magical flute. Yet the web, the music, emerged from something quite simple. If you start at the depth and follow the blossoming to the surface, everything is under-stood.
Awaken to the depth of life. The surface all points in that direction, but you must listen. You must get the message. And at some point, like an acorn falling from the tree, you will finally let go and return home.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Saturday, September 26, 2015 | Meditation, Personal Growth, Spirituality |
Question: About a month ago, I saw Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in my dreams twice, once during meditation, and the other in the middle of that same night. The second time I dreamed of him, I felt something burst out of my heart, and a gust of pain went all over my body. Something like this happened to me a few years ago. Could you please explain what happened to me?
Answer: Interestingly enough, I had a dream about Maharishi just about the same time you did. We associate Maharishi with the Transcendent, certainly someone who is spiritually very high. It is possible that you had a moment of transcendence during sleep and the dream was a symbolic representation of the experience of transcending, namely a dream of Maharishi.
With such a powerful transcendence, a deep-seated stress in the heart could have been released, explaining your experience. Having said that, though we can’t help to wonder and try to understand what happened when we have profound experiences, it’s best to be easy with it and not even hope to have a definitive answer about its nature. It is enough to know that your heart is in the right place and you are on a rapid evolutionary path. Rejoice in that and set all concerns aside.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
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 | Monday, September 14, 2015 | Spirituality |
In a recent conversation about spirituality, someone mentioned that there are all sorts of opinions out there. Suddenly it struck me. Today’s arena of spirituality is a free-for-all. Science is different. In science, things are logically verifiable, or at least justifiable and reasonable. Spirituality is plagued with superstition, convention, indoctrination, and emotionalism. For that reason, pretty much anything goes. Most everyone has already formed an opinion. This is all compounded by the fact that spirituality is generally approached as an escape from having to really think. It is not generally considered to be an arena where things need to make sense. Therefore, a rational approach to spirituality is viewed as just another opinion.
Can you imagine if the field of science was riddled with nothing other than irrational opinions, one valued just as much as the other? If so, there would be no telephone, no automobiles, no television… basically just the Stone Age. Sadly, that is the state of spirituality in the world today. Just as the ancient Rishis said, this is Kali Yuga – the Age of Ignor-ance. This is further compounded in that people commonly take offense at the very idea of taking a critical look at their perspective on spirituality. What a mess.
This all started when the scientific age was in its infancy. The very tenets of spirituality made no sense to those scientific novices. Today, science has advanced sufficiently enough to actually make sense of spirituality. Thusly, the wheat is separated from the chaff. Superstition, emotionalism, indoctrination, and irrationality are filtered out of the field of spirituality. As with science, there is no longer room for a free-for-all of random opinions. Adi Shankara referred to this process as discernment. Discernment is integration of all aspects of awareness – the rational with the emotional, the thinking with the feeling, the heart with the mind. That integration is practically non-existent today. Even those who attempt to approach spirituality from a rational perspective have, for the most part, been unable to put all the pieces together. The true art of discernment has fallen by the wayside. The degree to which someone is spiritual is determined by how fully indoctrinated they are to a particular dogma.
I trust that, at this point, stating that spirituality needs to be redefined will not be viewed as just another opinion. So what is spirituality? Let’s define spirituality as the field that integrates all fields of life into a unified whole. A spiritual life, then, is a life that strives to attain that level of wisdom, knowledge, insight, and understanding. This demands vision, a willingness to look beyond what you currently know, while at the same time looking directly into the face of what you do know, and questioning it: the art of discernment.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Thursday, September 10, 2015 | Spirituality |
Question: Sometimes I notice when I’m purifying a lot as a result of meditation that I become weak and feel rather ill. Some people told me it was because I had a lot of bad karma. Someone even suggested I was maybe possessed at one time. Please explain how this is part of the evolutionary process and provide any other comments you may have.
Answer: Most people have plenty of karma. In fact to not is to be an extremely, extremely, extremely rare exception. When a wave of karma comes your way is anybody’s guess. It can last for a moment, several years, or even a lifetime. In the greater scheme of things, in all of these cases, it is just a brief moment in the course of your eternal soul. It really upsets me when people try to judge another’s evolution (or the amount of karma they have) based upon a current set of circumstances. It’s possible to be a highly evolved person experiencing a major wave of karma in a lifetime. It’s also possible to be a lesser-evolved person that is riding a wave of good karma. To the casual observer, the latter individual may appear more evolved, while the former would be judged harshly. This is incorrect, and even worse, can be harmful.
Through meditation we do purify and that can be experienced in different ways – barely noticed, weakness, sleepiness, or even feeling somewhat ill. It’s important to know that it is just purification and not to judge yourself with ignorant perspectives. Most everyone on an evolutionary path for some time experiences periods of purification. In India, the impurities are sometimes compared to elephants. Sometimes they are asleep and sometimes they are stampeding. When they are asleep, enjoy the smooth ride. When they are stampeding, rest in the knowledge that you are evolving as the stresses and strains leave the physiology. It is certainly more pleasant when the elephants are asleep, but when purifying, you do well to maintain the perspective of how fortunate you are to have such rapid evolution, while the other people over there have yet to awaken the sleeping elephant.
In India, there is another saying. Don’t sort through the garbage. In other words, when you are purifying, don’t waste time trying to figure out what put those stresses and strains in the physiology. Just be happy that the garbage collector is on his way. Attempting to sort through the garbage is a task left to the misguided.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
