by Michael Mamas | Friday, September 18, 2015 | Health |
I just heard yesterday about drinking raw potato juice. It is supposedly a panacea… anti-inflammatory, diabetes, cancer, heart trouble, etc. I have no personal knowledge on the subject but when I Googled it, a lot came up. According to Dr. Kuai, a local acupuncture practitioner, Chinese traditional medicine says to drink 8 oz. twice daily on an empty stomach and do not eat anything else for an hour at least. He says some honey can be added for flavor. Online, some say carrot juice can be added for flavor. Use only the thin-skinned, white potatoes. Cut out any black spots, green patches, sprouts, etc. before juicing. The skin of those potatoes, I am told, is fine to leave on when juicing.
I do not know anything more and cannot say from my own experience if it is useful or not. I can’t imagine how it can hurt so I am going to give it a try.
If anyone has knowledge or personal experience with this, please post your comment.
© 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 | 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 | 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 | 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.
