You must learn to look beyond the conditioned, defended, encumbered being that you may think yourself to be…
Spiritual teachings, shastras, Vedic texts, the Guru… they point in the direction…over the horizon… assisting you to find your own way.
The Self is revealed to the self, by the self, and through the self…
Yet, it is attained by tuning your self to the master…
Does that seem like a contradiction?
I do not tell you what to think.
I only teach how to think…
for your Self…
as your Self…
as your True Self…
as your Divine Self…
Free your Self…
Look beyond the horizon…
To the place where you are one with the Divine…
An older English gentleman, being interviewed on the news, said America is losing its Freedom of Conscience. It is represented in the US constitution as Freedom of Speech. I understand other countries do call it Freedom of Conscience. It is a profound and precious concept sometimes thought of as listening within for Truth… the idea that God speaks to you through your conscience.
But is your conscience really free? Are you free to think for yourself? Or has society, your peers, religions and political correctness told you how to think? Do you even know your inner voice or is it your indoctrination masquerading as your conscience? In this age of political correctness, your conscience is under attack: “Think this way or you are vile!” Intolerance is rampant and, as Gandhi said, Intolerance is, in and of itself, a form of violence.
The depth of your being is divine. Human evolution is about living in harmony with the depth of your being. Societies, religions, peers, and everything in a culture… in your environment… support your evolution when that culture is healthy. In this day and age that is a difficult thing to even comprehend. Worldviews are at war with one and other. Conscience has been hijacked by indoctrination. If you are not careful, even the finest of religions, morality, and codes do not free but instead they enslave. They can be used but are often abused. The path of evolution is indeed delicate.
As you evolve, you become free. It is called spiritual liberation. When truly free, your conscience is the voice of the divine. But such freedom is not attained through indoctrination. Nor is it attained through rebellion or anarchy. It is only attained through your evolution… a profound, delicate, highly misunderstood and elusive process.
Freedom of Conscience is a lovely concept, when comprehended and honored.
We finished our three-day class here at Mount Soma a few days ago and now the Deep Dive Course is underway. The theme of the class (the Structure of the Veda) has carried over into the Deep Dive.
I am having a wonderful time with it… incredibly fascinating. New insights are being revealed daily. It is a field that can be pondered without end. As the pondering/exploration continues, the ocean of your being is churned and, in so doing, the nectar of immortality, of wisdom, emerges (as per the classic tug of war between Devas and Asuras). It is all exquisitely beautiful.
It is good to stay close these days and attend classes and lectures as much as possible. To be a part of the process now going on is a great fortune.
Presently, the information feels too delicate and deep to even attempt to provide in a blog or to make tapes available. I must say that I have been enjoying it immensely… fascinating and evolutionary beyond words!
These days, my reflective thoughts are mostly with the Veda. I have noticed that as a result, I have not written a blog for a while. Please accept this explanation. I suspect I will resurface soon.
As Dr. Todd once put it, “I love weather.” That is a quote I often fondly remember. It beautifully captures so much about life… so much about ‘relationship with’. It is so simple, yet so profound.
You may want to go to the homepage and scroll to the live webcam view of the temple. Even though I live here, I do that several times a day. The fog comes in and goes out… the snow falls as do the leaves… the wind blows and is then still… the sun rises and sets… people come and go… the seasons change… every hour of every day is unique… one year follows the next. He Who Has No Name is the silent witness to it all.
The view from the webcam is, in and of itself, poetry…
Fulfillment comes not from what is showered upon you, but from what you allow to radiate out from within you. To be happy simply remember to give, give, give from the heart of your Being. Life’s greatest secret, life’s greatest mystery, life’s greatest paradox is that by giving out what lies deep within, you become full. Such giving need not be overt… it need not be acknowledged… it need only be done… Remember that the greatest gift you can give another, the essence of all gifts, is understanding.
Find below some quotes about Christmas that I enjoyed, partly because they were atypical – some were funny, some meaningful, all sweet… For the anecdote to the first quote, reread what was written above.
Christmas is a time when you get homesick – even when you’re home. Carol Nelson
As long as we know in our hearts what Christmas ought to be, Christmas is. Eric Sevareid
A Christmas candle is a lovely thing; It makes no noise at all, But softly gives itself away. Eva Logue
Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect. Oren Arnold
Nothing’s as mean as giving a little child something useful for Christmas. Kin Hubbard
Three phrases that sum up Christmas are: Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men, and Batteries not Included. Author Unknown
I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying, toys not included. Bernard Manning
“When there’s fire in the heart, there’s smoke in the head.”
The fewer impurities in the fuel, the ‘cleaner’ the fire burns and the less smoke rises from the flame. As you evolve, you purify and the heart fire burns cleaner so you think more maturely… i.e. less smoke in the head.
You do well to reflect upon how you think and behave when something triggers a fire in your heart. You do well to manage that wisely as you continue to evolve. At first, the management may require effort, keeping the fire in check with patience, humility, reflection, and self-honest exploration. As you work with it, and as you evolve, the process gets better and also easier. Working with this responsibly is called the path to wisdom. With wisdom comes success.
I have come to realize that when people hear me say, “All cards face up on the table” they think something is coming that they may not want to hear. That is not what I mean. “All cards face up on the table” means communion… that is to say, communication. It can be done in words or in an understanding, humble glance.
Life is all about communication…
Communication with your Self
Communication with Life…
with Nature…
with all Existence…
Communication with others.
All conflict arises from lack of communion… lack of communication.
We are all Divine.
Not seeing, hearing, feeling that in yourself,
and in others,
is the source of all disharmony.
To have “All cards face up on the table” means to communicate…
first with Self, then with others.
It is called the Art of Living.
It is the final frontier to unraveling the mystery of life… of existence.
It is found through wisdom.
Wisdom is found in humility.
Humility is not subservient… it is understanding.
Standing under… not standing over.
As it is said, when the mango tree is full of fruit, its branches naturally bow down and touch the earth in humility.
The Veda, the source of all existence, is born out of one, and only one, thing. It lies beyond relativity, beyond the realm of things, and it therefore is sometimes referred to as “no-thingness.” Some call it “pure Is-ness” or “pure Consciousness.” Others call it “the Unified Field” of physics. Others call it “God.” All things, including the Veda, are born out of the self-interacting dynamic of that Oneness… Pure Consciousness interacting with and becoming aware of itself, over and over again. It has been compared to the emptiness in the center of the seed (no-thingness) that births the seed (the Veda), that births the entire tree (existence). All Knowledge of the tree of existence is contained within that Oneness, that Is-ness, that Unified Field.
The self-interacting dynamic of pure Consciousness, the Veda, acts as a recording, eternally pulsating at the depth of existence. In ancient times, Rishis, or Seers, refined their physiology to the extent that they became a “record player.” Those Rishis were capable of allowing those pulsations to well up through their physiology all the way to the physical level. The process began from deep within the Rishi and went out through their vocal cords into the air as sound. Then that sound entered from outside the listener and went into the depth of their being.
Schools were created to train pandits, people to memorize what was being chanted by those Rishis. The pandits then functioned like tape recorders, saving the cognitions of the Rishis for people to hear throughout the ages. When pandits chant the Veda, the vibrations reawaken deeper levels within the listener. Therefore, when pujas and havans are performed with strict adherence to Vedic tradition, they become a powerful tool to facilitate the health and evolution of the listener.
Imagine the entire universe is a sandbox and the Unified Field (God) is continually sending a vibration through it. As a result, the evolution of species is propelled forward in a direction that, over time, more and more fully embodies the intelligence, order, harmony, and coherence inherent in the Unified Field itself. And where does that process culminate? It culminates with a species that fully embodies all of the intelligence inherent in the Unified Field. That species is humankind.
Ultimately, a new state of humanity will be achieved, bringing about changes exceeding those we’ve seen over the past several hundred years. It is essential to understand that this change is a new mode of human function. As we awaken to an intelligence within us that dwells beyond the grasp of any belief system, it will free us from the constraints of belief systems. It is the next major step in human evolution.
The fundamental pulse of our universe, from unity to multiplicity and back, is embodied by the human spirit. Our species can bring completion to that cycle. We dwell on the crest of the wave—the unification of all diversity within the awareness of an individual. Your greatest treasure is the potential to unify your awareness… Only then can you live in harmony with Natural Law.
It is not uncommon. I am giving a lecture and people are with me. They understand what I am saying, and from within their own selves, they know it is true. They can feel the truth of it deep within themselves. It is the great joy of every teacher to see the ‘light bulbs’ go on as they speak – to see the students light up with the fascination of inner discovery and knowing. As I continue to unfold the teaching with the natural and inevitable logical progression, the entire lecture hall fills with the joy of learning as the expansion of understanding continues to blossom.
Then at some point, it sometimes happens. The feeling in the room drops down several octaves. I can see it on their faces as clearly as I can feel it in the hall. I know that I took them too far. They may well understand my words. They may be following it along with their intellects. But it is no longer being assimilated. It is then that I know to stop… to not push it… to not force the issue. Pushing it further would not be True teaching, it would be indoctrination.
You see, there is a huge difference between understanding something intellectually and assimilating it from deep within. The expansion of ones ability to assimilate truth is the hallmark of human evolution. It is what human evolution is all about. It comes from inside, not outside, the person.
Even Real Truth is dropped due to the inability of the listener to assimilate. The listener may understand it intellectually, but the clarity at the depth of ones being is not sufficient enough to really assimilate the information. Unfortunately, that is where most people stop and reject what is being offered. Of course, most people are, from childhood, so indoctrinated into a belief system, that they consider it Truth. It is what is familiar. It is what they are comfortable with. What perhaps would have made no inherent sense to them has been taken on with such overwhelming power that their innate sense has been compromised. Their indoctrination becomes the filter they embrace to decide what is truth and what is not. That indoctrination is what guides their life… their decisions.
The point is that there is learning and there is True Learning. True learning means the expansion of ones ability to assimilate truth… to recognize Truth from deep within. Most people are so indoctrinated into their belief system that they are unable to see beyond it. They go through life projecting that belief system upon the world and judging everything from the perspective of that belief system. Where is the True Learning in that? There is none. What they then ‘know’ is not real Knowledge. It is indoctrination… It is the world of samskaras that Maharshi Patanjali spoke of.
That is what I mean when I say the world is ‘sticky’. It is easy to get stuck in your indoctrinations. Indoctrinations reach deep inside. Even when you see what lies beyond them, those indoctrinations are easily reinforced and can readily reclaim you. They are reinforced by the world you grew up in, by all your old friends and loved ones. It is very easy to slip back and once again reach out to those indoctrinations as truth. But once the Truth that dwells within you has been glimpsed, on some level, it is not forgotten.
Real Truth dwells deep within you, as you, at the very depth of your being. Evolution is about waking up to that. For this, meditation is your number one tool. It is the purpose of my lectures to facilitate the process. Truth is revealed to the Self, by the Self, and through the Self. A real teacher merely facilitates that process. Unfortunately, many teachers are indoctrinators. Even if real Truth is being offered, if it is taken on but not assimilated, it is just indoctrination. The connection is not there deep within the person’s Being. But let there be no mistake. The conviction, belief, and passion behind such indoctrination can be strong. It can be so strong as to not be seen for the indoctrination that it is and can be identified with as being Real Knowledge. Real Knowledge is only Real Knowledge when it transcends indoctrination and is an awakening to that which eternally dwells at the depth of your being.
"Take the time to reflect on what is said here. If you find yourself associating this material with things you have heard elsewhere, please take the time to diligently explore how they are different. This knowledge is elusive. I share it here because I have seen how much this knowledge helps people – the potential is enormous." – Michael Mamas
"True knowledge slips through the fingers of those not willing to ponder…" – Michael Mamas
"Take what I say and work with it to develop a deeper understanding of life, rather than taking what I say and forcing it into the mold of your current relationship with life." – Michael Mamas
"Evolution means change." – Michael Mamas
"Your disposition is the tone with which you hold yourself, your cells, your psyche, your beliefs. More than anything else, it determines your life." – Michael Mamas
Do not ask me what you should think.
We finished our three-day class here at Mount Soma a few days ago and now the Deep Dive Course is underway. The theme of the class (the Structure of the Veda) has carried over into the Deep Dive.
Giving thanks is not so much in the words or the actions as it is in the feeling.
I have come to realize that when people hear me say, “All cards face up on the table” they think something is coming that they may not want to hear. That is not what I mean. “All cards face up on the table” means communion… that is to say, communication. It can be done in words or in an understanding, humble glance.
It is not uncommon. I am giving a lecture and people are with me. They understand what I am saying, and from within their own selves, they know it is true. They can feel the truth of it deep within themselves. It is the great joy of every teacher to see the ‘light bulbs’ go on as they speak – to see the students light up with the fascination of inner discovery and knowing. As I continue to unfold the teaching with the natural and inevitable logical progression, the entire lecture hall fills with the joy of learning as the expansion of understanding continues to blossom.
