by Michael Mamas | Saturday, June 12, 2010 | Spirituality |
It seems a popular stance to claim you have no regrets in life. Though from one perspective this makes sense, I do not think it is wise to feel you must always adhere to it. Personally, I do not regret that I have regrets. This is simply the nature of life. I am thankful that none of my regrets are major or life altering. However if you have such regrets, developing a healthy relationship with them is the path of wisdom.
Oddly enough, my motivation for this blog stems from what is in the greater scheme of things a small regret. Once in a public lecture, I was asked what I considered the major
threat to our world. I simply said that there were many, and nuclear annihilation may well be the most pressing. Later that evening, I regretted missing the opportunity. Perhaps I should have chosen annihilation of the honeybee. Of course there are also the possibilities of global famine, epidemic, unleashing a weapon of mass destruction, a comet crashing into the earth, etc. The point is that there are an unlimited number of potential threats to our existence. If we just take a step back, it is easy to see that we cannot possibly address each on its own level and succeed. There are just too many. Humanity has had no choice but to function on those levels because it saw no other way to solve the problems.
However, there is a way. By evolving the consciousness of humanity, we can save the world. However, this does not mean indoctrination into a particular philosophy or way of thinking. It is a more organic, more physiological, more fundamental process. It is an evolutionary step every bit as much in a spiritual as a Darwinian sense.
The greatest threat to our world is the lack of evolution of humanity. Evolution can be facilitated. It can be cultivated. By doing so, all threats to humanity will be solved. How
can this possibly be so? It is like a plant. Without water, many different seemingly insurmountable problems arise. The plant wilts. Insects devour it. It does not bear fruit, etc., etc. Watering the root regularly can solve all these problems. Similarly, watering the root of life, consciousness, can solve all of humanities problems. The depth and profundity of this cannot be overstated. Before this is understood, the implications are so staggering that they trigger a level of disbelief that precludes further investigation.
The greatest threat to our existence is lack of consciousness in the most fundamental sense of the word. Many of you have heard me speak on this subject over and over again. Yet until one has actually experienced what it means to truly evolve, this is all just theory. Superficial substitutes for true evolution (like adherence to spiritual or political philosophies and behavioral modifications) distract, mislead, and hold true evolution at bay.
I regret missing the opportunity to have responded to the question in this way. The greatest threat to humanity is the lack of understanding of what it truly means to evolve and how to effectively go about it. When this is understood, one naturally pursues their chosen walk of life in accord with that theme.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Wednesday, June 9, 2010 | Spirituality
I reviewed with some fourth-year students a concept I cover in my first-year classes.
After class, a student came up and asked, “Why didn’t you say that before? That would have been very helpful to know earlier.”
The student was experiencing the concept in a deeper way for the first time. Within each of us is a deeper understanding of everything. When we awaken to it, it can be hard to believe we’ve ever heard it before.
This can be compared to knowing the taste of a strawberry. You can hear all about what a strawberry tastes like, interviewing people and gathering descriptions of strawberries. You can study strawberries for years, from berry picking to chemical makeup and genealogy. You could even get a Ph.D. in strawberries. You would then have a thorough intellectual understanding of what strawberries taste like. But if you did that without ever tasting one and finally bit into one, you would probably say, “I know all about strawberries. I have a Ph.D. in strawberries. And there’s one thing I can assure you: This is not a strawberry.”
An intellectual understanding of the taste of a strawberry does not provide the experience. There is no way to know the taste of something without tasting it.
Deeper knowledge is within us, waiting for us to experience it.
In the case of the student, she had heard the words of the lecture, but hadn’t tasted the understanding, the experience of it. When she finally had a deeper experience for herself, things came together for her.
As the nature of existence becomes more available, it transforms the same old words you have heard before into something else, something new.
This is why I discuss the same concept in a myriad of different ways. When it hits right, knowing about becomes understanding at a deeper level.
And now for an even more fascinating point: In the future, it is likely that same student will approach me and say, “I thought I got it then, but now I really get it.”
Eventually, we begin to realize that each, “Now I get it,” brings us to another level of understanding, and then another, and then another. As the process goes on, we learn that we will never really “get it.” Truth is not a place or product; but a continuum. We grab onto notions because they serve and support life in that moment. Our next step may be to let them go. In time as we realize the progression, it becomes easier to hold things lightly, always ready to let them go.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Tuesday, June 8, 2010 | Spirituality
We all have mountains of karma. The waves come here and there from lifetime to lifetime and moment to moment as they do.
There is no way out other than through…
Meditate, explore, and meditate some more to dissolve it on the level of the Transcendent. You cannot get rid of it. But you can transform it to a level where you hardly feel it at all. In so doing, you transform world karma for all humanity as well.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Sunday, June 6, 2010 | Spirituality
Remember that true evolution is a culturing process. It is a lifestyle. It is natural to long for a better life. This longing is rooted in the Divine longing to merge with the infinite perfection of the Absolute, the perfection of God.
I know that the path to God, at times, can feel like crossing a huge desert. At those times, you can easily be distracted. Do your best to return to balance as soon as you can by remaining committed to what you have learned. Remember that building a fulfilling life begins with building yourself. Remember to return to the stability and grace of your inner being when you become distracted by worldly matters. True fulfillment comes from that place.
By returning over and over again to that inner place, you will culture/build from within yourself a life based upon it. Certainly, this task will be easier if you live where your environment supports such an understanding. Yet wherever you live, your evolution ultimately depends upon you and you returning to your inner Divine Self over and over again, until your awareness of that never fades.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Thursday, June 3, 2010 | Spirituality
What does it mean to live a simple life? Perhaps it is better to ask what it does not mean. It does not mean living barefoot in a cabin without water or electricity. You can be fully engaged in the dynamism of life and still live simply.It almost feels like there is more air or space in your life.
Though your days may be very active, you continue to come from a place of relaxed openness, restful alertness, dynamic serenity, harmony. It is something more felt than seen. It is a state of physiology, and that state radiates through your environment.
People may or may not notice, but it does affect them. As your physiology evolves, you more naturally function from that place. It is like the eternal stillness at the depth of the ocean. Even in the harshest storm, it lives on. What does it feel like? It feels like open space – unencumbered, sweet, clean, and gentle.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Wednesday, June 2, 2010 | Spirituality
There are many simultaneously valid, yet contradictory realities. Wisdom involves aligning with the one that is most life supporting for the moment.
This principle is illustrated in the two-boxes-or-three diagram.
Depending upon how you view the same structure, because there are simultaneously valid and contradictory realities, it can be viewed as being two or three boxes.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Tuesday, June 1, 2010 | Spirituality
Often when we want to learn something, we feel we must start by being taught what to do. In the subtle areas of human behavior, that approach is usually upside-down.
It is best to begin with resting into our own self, into the depth of who we are: Being.
Then comes Merging – understanding, communing with, or “becoming one with” who (or what) we are dealing with.
Knowing naturally results from being and merging. We automatically begin to know the person (or thing) with whom we have merged.
Doing becomes the obvious next step. Once we know someone (or something), we automatically know what needs to be done.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Wednesday, May 26, 2010 | Spirituality
To attain world peace, global consciousness must shift on a fundamental level. This will not come about through a modeling of love and light ideals. Shifting world consciousness is a matter much deeper and more abstract than your typical pacifist can even imagine. Promoting a philosophy of peace is like asking a fire to stop burning. It doesn’t work. Infusing the cool waters of coherence into group consciousness is a material phenomenon. It is not a conversation. A humanity aligned with enlightened philosophies is a highly desirable side effect resulting from psycho-physiological evolution. Philosophy is secondary to physiology.
To understand all of this intellectually is a good first step. However, until that understanding becomes known to you directly as a result of the evolution of your own psychophysiology, it, too, remains a mere philosophy. Moreover, until the mechanism of group consciousness becomes intuitively obvious to you, it is merely a philosophy to you. Once you know it from within your own being, your life is never the same. Dedication to that mechanism of evolution of global consciousness becomes your passion.
Our purpose at Mount Soma is clear: to facilitate the evolution of global consciousness. Doing so is a technology, not the promotion of a philosophy. Only after that evolution is attained do profound theories and philosophies cease to be notions, and become common sense truths.
I am here to transform global consciousness. I use concepts to free minds, not to indoctrinate them into a philosophy. I encourage you to join me. It will not only circumvent disaster, it will usher in a truly enlightened age.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Tuesday, May 25, 2010 | Spirituality
There are only two types of obstacles: 1) Those that resist your evolution; and 2) Those that direct it. If only people could clearly see which are which…
I hear it over and over again: “There are so many obstacles to my doing so and so; it must be nature telling me it’s not the right direction for me.” This go-with-the-flow approach to life is terribly simplistic. Just take a look at Jesus’ life. It was strewn with obstacles. It was more like the Colorado rapids than the Suwannee River.
Envision the Earth. Imagine it covered by a cloud of conditioned group consciousness. Picture it as a three-dimensional web, a complex hierarchy of astral beings all holding hands to create an intricate, lattice-like crystalline structure. This structure permeates the awareness of humanity. It is the network through which people communicate, verbally and otherwise. It is characterized by emotional tones that underlie people’s psyches and determine the agreed-upon world views. Though it is an interconnected whole, this cloud of group consciousness is not homogenous. It’s composed of many, many cultural and sub-cultural mentalities. This cloud is born of conditioning, the very thing that limits humanity, yet the very thing that everyone clings to as truth. The cloud is alive.
Now enters you. You were born in a sector of that cloud. The nature of that sector has colored your heart and mind since childhood. It has been the primary determinant of your relationship with, and view of, the world. Go deeply enough into the sub-sub-sub-subsector of that cloud that dominates you and you have defined you, or more accurately, who and what you believe yourself to be.
In Vedic language, we are talking about the sum total of all your samskaras, the impressions upon your being, the very substance your mind is made of. You look out at your world through glasses tinted with the color of that conditioning and see truth in terms of that tint. It colors and permeates your heart and mind. It limits you. It confines you. It denies and defies the real you that lies deeper.
Deeper than this matrix of conditioned consciousness is another matrix, infinitely more profound and sublime, the field of Divine perfection, the Veda. It is the source of infinite intelligence, harmony, and wisdom that birthed and sustains our entire universe.
Now picture this Vedic matrix as another cloud, a field that permeates the entire world. To live in harmony with it is to live in harmony with your true nature and all of nature. It is fine and sublime. To perceive it clearly requires a refined physiology, a physiology and resulting awareness that is not overshadowed by the cloud of conditioned consciousness that has overtaken the globe. To awaken to the Vedic level is to become free of the samskaras and conditioning that have colored the glasses you wear, that you are wearing right now.
In this light, we can discuss the two kinds of obstacles in life: 1) Obstacles that attempt to hold the conditioned global consciousness intact, even if it means obstructing your evolution; and 2) Those that support your evolution by signaling the path of your true nature (your dharma). The conditioned web of global consciousness strives to survive. Though born of mistaken notions and limited thinking (pragyaa aparaadha, in Vedic terms), it is living and breathing, with all survival mechanisms intact. It convinces you that it is your truth and your divinity.
So, when you experience an obstacle in your life, ask if it is opposing your conditioning or your Divinity. Conditioning resists its own dissolution. Viewing evolution as a threat, it puts up many roadblocks. For you to evolve, it must dissolve. For the world to evolve, it must melt away. Its only power is the spell it casts over humanity. Know that whichever level you align with, you will incur obstacles along the way. Through discernment, you gain enlightenment for yourself and the world.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Monday, May 24, 2010 | Spirituality
Happiness is, for most people, more about one’s internal dynamic than a set of external circumstances. Happiness boils down to the principle of “relationship with….” If you want to be happy, spend time looking at your relationship with whatever is on your mind. Start fixing a problem first by attending to your relationship with problems. That is not just the key to happiness, but is also the key to fixing life’s problems. Similarly, manifesting your dreams starts with having a healthy relationship with your dreams.
Please remember that having a healthy ‘relationship with….’ does not mean talking yourself into looking at things a certain way. That’s just denial of what you are really feeling, trying to sweep it under the rug or bury your head in the sand. That doesn’t really work.
A “healthy relationship with…” is an exploration. There are an infinite number of simultaneously valid though contradictory realities. Explore them! That exploration will free you. Your biggest obstacle to happiness is the addiction to “mental loops.” Mental loops are habitual mind sets. They are habitual ways you tend to view your world and yourself. Don’t try to override them, push them out, or talk yourself out of them. If you do that, they will just stick with you longer and be driven deeper inside you.
I am a firm believer in exploring the reality that we are all nuts and finding the humor in it! Don’t always strive for perfection in yourself, your life situation, or in others! Take time to laugh at the reality that perfection is a mirage. I also enjoy the reality that life is a series of failures! Nothing is perfect. I think it is absurdly funny that we all somehow inherently strive to attain the unattainable. Life is a paradox. That is called the cosmic joke. If you want to be happy, start by getting the cosmic joke. Then see how it applies to everything! It is simultaneously profound and funny! It comes in many forms for each and every life situation. When you get that, your heart becomes light. You enjoy life. Things become simultaneously exquisite and hilarious if for no other reason than you see the silliness of clinging to a habitual world view that only makes you unhappy. After all, that is the sort of stuff comedy is made of. Isn’t it?
Happiness is joy is humor is delight. It is a physiological state cultivated through the exploration of the profound yet absurdly unfathomable nature of life’s unlimited facets and the preposterous futility of clinging to any one. Such exploration frees your heart, mind and spirit. That freedom is called happiness. The cosmic joke is everywhere and in everything. Start by seeing it in yourself. Enjoy the exploration! Funny is the flip side of profound. Explore within until you awaken to the place where funny and profound merge….., the place where all paradox finds resolution Then you get the cosmic joke and are eternally happy.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
