by Michael Mamas | Friday, October 17, 2014 | Personal Growth, Spirituality |
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark;
the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” – Plato
Humans are such vulnerable creatures, particularly with respect to their inner feelings. The truth is that people are afraid of many of their feelings. They are even more afraid of expressing them. Instead, they suppress their feelings. They deny them, not only to others, but also to themselves. They are ashamed of their feelings. They are afraid what they might do or who they might become if they allowed themselves to feel their feelings.
Know that you can responsibly manage your feelings. Know that you do not become less of an adult by feeling them. In fact, you become more of an adult. Artistry in life is about feeling your feelings and dealing with them wisely. Bring your feelings into the light. Doing so requires a great deal of self honesty, which can at times require a great deal of courage, yet it is the light of awareness that heals and evolves you. It is not about impulsively acting out. It is about knowing, with the full light of awareness, what dwells within you and holding those things responsibly. As you do so, the psyche and physiology purify and you begin to live more and more in harmony with Mother Nature, your own true Divine nature.
Few people really understand that their true nature is Divine. They fear that it is not Divine. They feel they must not bring to light all that is within them. They feel that to do so is to release a beast. It is the suppression, the hiding away of what is within you, that causes the distortions and convolutions. As you work with the feelings within, you become more and more skilled at dealing with them all. You also become more free. It is about creating a healthy relationship with what dwells within. Suppression and denial is not healthy. This certainly does not mean that you act out whatever it is you are feeling. Those feelings are not necessarily your Truth. They are often just your personal issues. But to heal them, you must feel them. Then you learn how to deal with them responsibly and maturely. In time, you gain the ability to share the depth of your being with others. That is the greatest gift you can give to another and to the world. That is your own personal genius.
The art of living is being able to find a way to “put your cards face up on the table”. In other words, to share yourself with the world… to bring what dwells deep within you to the light of day. That is not done with reckless abandon. It is done with thoughtful insight and respect for yourself and others. It is about having a healthy relationship with your self, other people, society, and the world. It is the process of becoming no longer afraid of the light.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Thursday, October 9, 2014 | Personal Growth, Spirituality |
Perhaps it is the most common question I hear: “How do I know if I am being judgmental or discerning?” Considering that “the spiritual path is the path of discernment” (Adi Shankara), it is perhaps the most important question you can ask. Yet it is also the most difficult for you to answer.
Lady Justice wears a blindfold. The idea is that She is unbiased and objective. But let’s realize that the blindfold also signifies that justice is administered through oblivion. She is not objective alone. She is also subjective. Laws change as people change. A 5 to 4 Supreme Court decision molds social mentality often for decades to come… until the pendulum swings the other way. Is that system discerning or is it perpetually judgmental? Either way, it is simply the way of the world. History has proven that over and over again. Of course, every generation seems to consider itself to be the enlightened generation… the generation that finally got discernment right.
And who do you think you are? What molds your viewpoint? You can justify anything with the intellect, and you do according to your viewpoint. What molds your viewpoints? Do you place your thumb on the scale of your own inner justice? Or perhaps a better question is, are you willing, or able, to take a step back and see yourself? Consider how you hold the scale of self-evaluation. Judging yourself harshly is putting your thumb on the scale. Any issue you have puts a thumb on the scale. Issues with authority? Self doubt? Self-righteousness? Defiance? Fear? For any and all issues, you place your thumb on one side of the scale.
I suggest you consider placing a counterbalancing thumb on the other. Of course you may think to suggest removing the thumb from the scale. But if you see the thumb is there, it is already removed. Or is it? If you judge yourself harshly, I suggest considering the opposite. If you are self righteous, I suggest the opposite. If you see your own bias, I suggest your reaction to that realization compromises your understanding of it. Those who are instinctively kind to others are often the first to cruelly judge themselves as sometimes being unkind. Those instinctively judgmental of others are often the first to stand up for their self-righteous viewpoint.
Are you judgmental or discerning? It all comes down to the nature/tone of “your relationship with…” Your relationship with what? Your relationship with everything within and without you. With yourself, with society, with authority, with friends, with loved ones and so on. To overcome being judgmental and to become discerning, you must find balance within yourself. To do so, you need to consider your nature and the nature of all things.
Consider strengths and weaknesses. Look at world history, social history, and your history. When the scales tip one way, consider the other. In all situations, be open to seeing the strengths as well as the weaknesses within and without. To anarchists I say, consider the value of society and authority. To puppets I say, think for yourself. To the self critical, I say be kind to yourself. To the self righteous, I say be humble. It starts with your relationship with yourself. Find balance there first. Only then can you have a healthy relationship with what lies outside of you.
Do understand that discernment does not preclude passion. The more fully you find your Self, the more discerning you will be. You will know your wisdom and thereby find your true path in life. And your true path in life is filled with passion. It is the river that carries you to the ocean.
Yet judgment also can be most passionate, so life’s journey must begin within. Find your inner wisdom first. As Lord Krishna said to Arjuna, “Established in Being, perform action”.
Be you in conflict or comradery, always do your best to keep to the high road. There are no absolutes in the relative. Yet everything gravitates back to the Absolute, back to the Divine. That is the nature of existence. The path of discernment is the path of balance. You will fall. That is fine – just get back up. Your job is to do your best to keep your balance as you face the wind and go forward, forward, always forward.
That is called the Path of Discernment.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Monday, September 29, 2014 | Spirituality |
For a book or movie to be successful, it has been said it must follow the classic story line… start with a content status quo, go into thrills and adventure, and return home to peace and contentment. It is said that is the formula that has worked throughout eternity. But why?
The other day I realized why. First there was wholeness. Then the universe manifested when Pure Consciousness perceived itself as other and multiplicity emerged… many thrills and adventures resulted. Over time life evolves, and one by one, human beings awaken to their true nature. They return home to peace and contentment.
Everything maps. Reading or viewing the classic story line touches that place deep inside where you already know everything. You are reminded of the nature of life, your life… your journey. The Classic Story Line works so well because it is the story line of your very existence… of all existence. It maps onto the story of all that is. It is the story of the universe and everything in it.
It is your story.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Wednesday, September 24, 2014 | Meditation, Spirituality |
I was asked the following:
若我只ㄧ天兩次靜坐保持，這樣最後我能走到哪兒？還需要做些什麼嗎？
If I meditate twice a day to maintain (my energy,) where would I end up eventually? Is there anything else to do?
To which I respond:
Everything is born out of Oneness (Pure Consciousness, The Unified Field, God, the Transcendent) and everything returns to it. I discuss that process in detail many places (the manifestation of the universe, Darwinism/Creationism, etc.). Meditating twice a day accelerates the process of returning to Oneness. When you awaken to that Oneness, it is called Enlightenment.
Enlightenment is not a mood, attitude or philosophy. It is a state of being. When you awaken to that, you awaken to all the harmony, intelligence, wisdom, bliss, perfection, and peace that dwells eternally at the depth of your being and is your essence… who it is you truly are. You then spontaneously live in harmony with Nature… Mother Nature… your own true nature. It is a state of fulfillment… wakefulness to the root of all life and existence.
Meditation waters that root within you. It nourishes all levels of life including your energy. However, the root is not energy… it is consciousness. It lies deeper than mere energy. As the ancient seers have said, pure consciousness is the source of all that is. Every time you meditate you re-member with that source. It is what you long for… to return to your essence… the truth of the divinity of your own being. By meditating regularly, reuniting with that becomes a habit. As you awaken more and more to it, you live from it more a more, until you fully awaken to it and then it never leaves you. It is quite possible that you attain enlightenment this lifetime through regular meditation. But I can not guarantee that everyone will do so in this lifetime. What I can guarantee is that through regular meditation life becomes better, just as surely as by watering the root of a plant, the plant is nourished. Also, through regular meditation your life will gain a great momentum toward enlightenment that will carry you through and between incarnations until you gain full enlightenment…
The best you can do is to meditate regularly, read the blogs that I post, do not get distracted, do your best to stay very true to what you learn from the blogs, and if at all possible come and visit me at Mount Soma. The knowledge I offer is very profound and powerful, but it is also delicate. Take care… do not allow it to slip through your fingers.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Thursday, September 18, 2014 | Spirituality |
I was asked the following question:
“How it is possible to enjoy a beautiful sunrise when there is suffering in the world?”
To which I respond:
When the rose blossom gets larger, so too the thorns naturally get larger. The world will always need two poles to spin around. Up creates down. Left creates right. With fame comes infamy. When there is affinity, there is aversion. This is the way of relativity… relative existence. It is said that in this age (Kali Yuga) negativity dwells in the hearts of people. In other Ages, it dwells far away in the dark forests.
I remember over twenty years ago when I taught in another school. The students loved me. This elicited jealously and resentment in other teachers. Fearing I would take away their students when I left, other teachers spread vicious rumors about me.
Yes, such things hurt when dwelled upon. But do not fret. Yin will always create yang. There is real beauty in the way of the world. Find the beauty.
Enjoy the sunrise.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Thursday, September 11, 2014 | Personal Growth, Relationship, Spirituality |
You exist on many levels. On the most superficial level, you are your physical body. Some would say the physical body has attributes like consciousness, thoughts, emotions, feelings, etc.
On a bit deeper level, you are a personality that is beyond the body. The body is just a vehicle.
Some would define themselves by their work.
Some by their family and relationships.
Some by their thoughts, emotions, and beliefs.
Now you may understand all of this, but that is not enough. Take a moment to reflect and to be honest with yourself. Who are you? How do you define yourself? Do not answer based upon a philosophy that you hold true to. Do not answer based upon what you think you should believe or intellectually know. Answer based upon what you feel. Answer based upon how you live your life. Answer based upon what you feel and experience from within your own life, not based upon what you have been told. On what level of life do you put most of your energy? What level are you invested in? To find the answer, do not just think, but FEEL. Also, look at how you live your life. The term for that is IDENTITY. What level of life are you most identified with?
Now, there are many more levels to you than the ones mentioned so far. Your being exists beyond your thoughts and emotions. Take a moment to feel into that. Who are you? What are you that lies beyond thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and the “story” of your life? What part of you lies beyond all of that?
It is quite normal and healthy for your attention to move from one level to the next. Sometimes your attention is mostly on your body. Sometimes your thoughts, sometimes emotions, sometimes the activity you are engaged in. At each moment, your ‘self’ is related to on a different level. That is fine.
But there is a particular level that you identify with as ‘you’ most of the time and put most of your life force into. What level is that? Do ponder this, but do not think you have to have an exact answer.
The value of the question is in the pondering of it, not in the answering of it.
Now, there is a level beyond all the levels we have discussed so far. It is the Transcendental basis of all the other levels of not only you as an individual, but of all life and all things. Just as the earth is the basis and the essence of all the plants, the one Transcendent is the basis, the essence, of everything. It is who you really are. The eternal you. The you that lies beyond space, time, thoughts, emotions, the story. It is the source of infinite bliss, harmony, intelligence, love, wisdom, and yet it lies beyond all of those things. It is pure Is-ness. It is one with all that is. You sense it inside yourself, though you may speak of it differently.
In the state of enlightenment, that is what you know your self to be. That is what you rest into, like the idle of an automobile. The engine is always running. It is always there. But the awareness naturally rests into that.
It is who you know yourself to be. You can still act with passion on all levels of life. But you are no longer identified with anything. You are in the world, but not of it. This is not an attitude or philosophy or belief. It is a state of consciousness. You simply see the world as it truly is. The deepest mystery of life is simply self evident, obvious. You spontaneously and naturally live your life accordingly.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Thursday, September 4, 2014 | Personal Growth, Spirituality |
Point Two of the Fundamental Principles is explained very well in this blog with the corresponding videos. Please click to view:
POINT TWO
I plan to get all the main points online.
Please understand that these points are not something to just understand intellectually and move on. They must be found within you. That takes time. Then the connection between them must be found within you. Know that the main points are valuable, but merely catalysts. Your greatest tool is PROPER meditation. Please learn the meditation I teach FOR FREE. Overcome any and all resistances to doing that. Those resistances are your karma. Overcome your karma. I am pouring my heart out to you in hope that you will move forward with your evolution.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Saturday, August 30, 2014 | Spirituality |
As a result of the sum/total of all of your experiences in life, impressions are left upon the aspect of your awareness called ‘chittam’, the storehouse of impressions. These impressions are what memory is made of. Wipe the chittam clean, and there is no memory, at least not in the common sense of the word ‘memory’. Those impressions condition the mind… program the mind. They are karmic in nature. They are a major aspect of your karma. Many schools of spiritual growth and of education merely program your mind to function as they feel you should function. That sort of education is indoctrination. It is not True Education.
However, there is another form of memory. Everything is contained in seed form within the Absolute… i.e. within the Transcendent. That is what everything is in its essence. Therefore, anything can be found within the Absolute. When you are living in what I call a transgradiently integrated state, i.e. in enlightenment, then you are living in harmony with Mother Nature… living in harmony with your own true nature… living in harmony with God… living in harmony with your own Divinity… living in harmony with all that is. Then you live what is called your Divine Play, your Lila. In other words, you live your true nature. You ‘remember’ things by re-membering with those things within the Absolute. All knowledge of everything is within the Absolute, but in the state of Enlightenment you only access what is in harmony with the Cosmic Flow of your life. You have no memory in the conventional sense of the word… i.e. no Chittam. You are free. You are not enslaved by programming, conditioning, limitation, etc. That is what is called ’emancipation’. It is what the Soul longs for – True Liberation from the chains of programmed thoughts and emotions.
Now, there are some subtle points here that need to be understood:
Firstly, the pathways through which both kinds of memory emerge are the same, even though the source of those memories are very different. Since the pathways are the same, to the onlooker both types of memory appear to be the same. Both can forget things, both can know or not know things, both must go through the process of learning – for example, learning a foreign language, or how to play the piano, etc. However, in the first type of memory, it is about what is stored in the chittam. In the second kind of memory, it is about what is in harmony with Natural Law. Please understand that living in harmony with nature does not usually look like what many think it should look like. It is not like the Hollywood or Bollywood depictions of Jesus, Saints, and Sages. It is a very natural state that can look quite ordinary to the undiscerning observer. Though the Absolute is a field of all possibilities, it is not in harmony with nature to be a superman. (Often, in this age of humanity, supernatural powers are the result of left handed tantra which is not in harmony with nature and creates a great deal of bad karma… but that is another subject. Generally speaking, the performance of showy miracles at this time is not in harmony with nature… not in harmony with the times.)
Secondly, you may think it is a contradiction that ‘things’ can be contained in the Absolute, which is a field of No-thing-ness, i.e. Pure Consciousness… before any ‘thing’ exists. This is how that works: Have you ever looked at the screen on the back of a camera? The image of what is being photographed appears within the camera. That is called a virtual image. Say you are photographing a tree. The tree appears in the camera but really there is no tree in the camera. Like that, everything exists in the Absolute, but in a virtual sense. Now some would argue, “what is really virtual, the Absolute or the Relative?” I respond by saying that all you need to do is understand the mechanic, then you may feel free to assign the word ‘virtual’ to whichever you would like.
Along those lines, a dear student once said that they did not want to spend time meditating or living in the ashram at Mount Soma because they wanted to stay in the real world. I, with loving humor, responded by saying, “Do you really consider that pinball machine you are living in to be the real world?” She looked back at me and smiled. In that moment, at least for a moment, she had a deeper understanding of the word ‘maya’… illusion… virtual.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Wednesday, August 27, 2014 | Spirituality |
Q: Could you please discuss the relationship between the soul and consciousness?
A: Pure Consciousness is the source of everything. It is the Unified Field of modern physics. The one thing out of which all things emerge and ARE in their essence. It is transcendental… meaning it transcends relativity. It is beyond relativity. It cannot be touched, felt, seen, heard, etc. It is like the Central Sun of all that is.
You do not touch the sun. You experience the sun through the rays that emerge from it. Similarly, you do not feel the Absolute Essence of your Being, i.e. the transcendent… pure consciousness. However, you do feel that which radiates from it through all levels of your being. Those rays you experience are the Soul. You feel your essence through your Soul… the rays of your essence radiating through all levels of your being.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Monday, August 11, 2014 | Favorites, Spirituality |
Everyone senses it within… people, animals, even insects… Some may simply call it the instinct for self preservation.
It has many names… the soul, the self, inner divinity, the unified field, Oneness, God… call it what you will.
Through evolution, the sense of it becomes clearer and clearer… Along the way, there are many awakenings… glimpses, hints, faint whispers of what is to come…
As water cools, it comes to know the nature of ice more and more fully… Yet, at one point it crystalizes… it becomes ice… and everything changes…
Everything in creation gravitates back to the Oneness out of which it came. It is that Oneness that you are sensing deep inside… that you are being drawn toward… like a moth around a candle flame… like a plant reaching to the Sun… like a mountain stream to the ocean… until that moment when it all comes together… it crystalizes… that moment is called enlightenment…
It is not that anything goes away…
The full range of thoughts and emotions remain… The you that was… remains… But the real YOU emerges in full splendor… like a backdrop to all of creation… And in that moment, your relationship with everything changes… forever… You realize that nothing is really happening… that relative existence is a beautiful, glorious, magnificent mirage… a virtual image… like a reflection in the mirror, lightly etched on the face of Being… your Being… the only thing that really IS… Shiva… You and God are One…
The Self that you sensed deep inside, overtakes the universe…
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
