by Michael Mamas | Saturday, October 25, 2014 | Clarifying Confusion, Spiritual Evolution |
When a culture is healthy, the wisdom of the ages is passed down from one generation to the next as tradition. If a culture becomes unhealthy, the wisdom underlying the traditions becomes lost or misunderstood. Unfortunately, those echoes of the underlying truth are still perceived as truth. Echoes of truth, perceived as truth, hold truth at bay. At some point, the younger generation cries fowls and rejects the traditions all together. Cultural decay is the result. This is why, as Adi Shankara said, the Knowledge must be regenerated by every generation. That is the deeper meaning of the word, “generation”!
Each child must find truth within himself. If they are merely indoctrinated into echoes of truth, traditions will eventually be rejected. Society will ‘throw out the baby with the bathwater”. The underlying wisdom of the ages will no longer be passed down from generation to generation. The result is social decay.
So how can we help our children find truth within themselves? We must understand the modern mentality. All parents sees their children, to some degree, being influenced by the current social mentality. With the expansion of the Internet, television, etc. those influences are becoming ever more pervasive. Though real knowledge is eternal, the way it is expressed must change eternally to interface with the mentality of the times. We live in a time of logic and science. To be embraced, things must make sense. If they do not make sense, they will be rejected. This is what is happening to religion. It has ceased to make sense to the younger generation. Having to choose between faith and logic, they chose logic.
In one sense, I was lucky. Though religious, my parents were by no means fanatical. Furthermore, my father, being an electrical engineer, instilled in me a deep appreciation for logic. I was then, perhaps unintentionally but quite naturally, left to myself to figure things out… and I was passionate about doing so, combing the worlds of philosophy, physics, spirituality, etc. to find truth from within myself. I was not encumbered by indoctrination. It was through my inner searching and struggles that I came to conclusions about the nature of life and existence. Imagine how thrilled I was to find that Vedic Knowledge was there, expounding with great detail and precision, what Truth I found within myself.
Presenting this Knowledge to the world has been fascinating to me. I come up against indoctrination on a daily basis. Many find Vedic knowledge too foreign to the traditions and indoctrinations they were brought up with and therefore reject it. Interestingly enough, people who were brought up in the Vedic tradition often are simply indoctrinated into it and have not really looked deeply into it… though they would disagree, they have not really found it within themselves. It is really just that the indoctrination has reached deeply within them. Their children may, even if those parents do not, see it as indoctrination that makes no sense and those children therefore reject it. They throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Vedic Knowledge, when not found within, over time reduces down to indoctrination, just another religion. The knowledge then, as Adi Shankara said, gets lost. No culture should ever let that happen, but as surely as the Sun rises and sets, every culture does. It is time for the Sun to rise once again. Truth is revealed to the Self, by the Self, and through the Self. Each generation, each child, must find it within himself.
In the larger sense, all members of humanity are children. In the deepest sense of the word, Veda is, by definition, Truth. Parents must facilitate the process of Truth-discovery in their children, in all children, young and old. Mount Soma was created to help humanity achieve that goal.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Monday, September 15, 2014 | Clarifying Confusion, Spiritual Evolution, The Veda |
If you think this quote from Mundaka Upanishad undermines Vedic knowledge in any way, then you do not understand the quote. It is speaking of the sublime and subtle relationship between the Pure Absolute and the finest finest level of existence. It is a beautiful commentary on the structure of existence. This topic seems to keep coming up which is why this is posted here. To those that seem to lose sight of the importance or even the possibility of their awakening to the Absolute, I would say read this quote. To those who would not understand or appreciate the profound value of reason, Vedic literature, and the Vedic rituals, I would say that you too do not understand this quote.
My life is one of dedication to knowledge… both aspects of knowledge. We are all in great debt to the Pandits and scholars who preserve and share Vedic knowledge. You must of course, keep your ‘eye on the ball’ as you pursue the Self… the ‘higher Knowledge’ that is spoken of in the quote… enlightenment. When held and understood properly, you understand the exquisite relationship between the two. Each honors and reveres the other.
Directly experience the Self through PROPER meditation. Learn and practice the
Surya Ram Meditation and Surya Ram Meditation with Advanced Technique…From Mundaka Upanishad:
1)
This Self cannot be obtained by studying the scriptures,
nor through the use of reason,
nor from the words of others
-no matter what they say.
By the grace of the Self is the Self known,
The Self reveals Itself.
2)
‘Those who know Brahman,’ Angiras replied,
‘say that there are two kinds of knowledge,
– the higher and the lower.
The lower is that of the four Vedas
– Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva,
and of the accompanying sciences:
pronunciation, ritual, grammar,
etymology, metre, and astrology.
But higher is that through which the Eternal
is directly experienced.
3)
But verily, these rituals are unsafe boats
They cannot reach the farthest shore.
The Vedic sciences are but the lower
The ignorant,
who take them as the higher,
sink once more into old age and death.
Though they think themselves wise and learned
they are fools lost in ignorance,
a prey to suffering,
wandering without direction,
like the blind led by the blind.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Sunday, August 17, 2014 | Spiritual Evolution, The Gods |
Q: I humbly seek to understand the difference between the state of longing to be one with Shiva versus already being one with Shiva.
The reason for this question is: If I am intensely longing to be one with Shiva and feel MY being not as My being, but Shiva’s, then am I already one with Shiva?
If so, then that ONENESS should resonate as already existing. This state or feeling of ONENESS is abstract and internal, whereas the body is physical and external and it is this body where my being, my soul, resides. Therefore again, the soul is longing to be one with Shiva, to be dissolved in Shiva.
Hence, I am lost. Will I ever be enlightened enough to stop longing for ONENESS? Or will the longing still continue even after ONENESS with Shiva?
A: Everything, everyone, is already one with Shiva. A rock, however, has no conscious awareness of this. A human being may know it intellectually and even feel it emotionally with great intensity. Yet an enlightened individual knows it as a direct experience that transcends thoughts and emotions… transcends even the deepest feeling one can experience. To describe that experience is something that has been attempted by most every enlightened individual throughout history… but without success. It is likened to attempting through description to give someone who has never tasted a strawberry the experience of how a strawberry tastes. It cannot be done. However, the attempt to do so will point in a direction and thereby give some sense of the experience. Hopefully this will clarify things somewhat.
Though it comes gradually, there is a moment of abrupt transition when enlightenment comes. In that moment, even though everything goes on just as before, everything is forever changed. It is as if suddenly, everything is seen to be a projection on a screen, a virtual image, like the picture on a television. The screen is pure Being, YOUR being…. YOU. At the same time, it is God… Shiva. In that moment, He has no name… no words… no opinion… no comments… no thoughts or feelings… He just is…. Though the personality you that was there before remains exactly as before, the real You is the only thing that really is… the rest is a projection, not really real. It is maya. To intellectually know all about maya… to have memorized the Vedic texts about maya… that is one thing. To experience it directly is completely different.
The early experience of pure Being is the crux of the matter. It is the backdrop of all that is. If until that moment, you never even believed in God, the only word you could find to name it would be ‘God’. At the same time, you would know that the way all of humanity uses the word ‘God’ is not exactly accurate. You are That. At first this experience can be most disconcerting and confusing. How is it possible that you can be That, while at the same time, That is as if someone else (namely God… Shiva)? But that is undeniably your experience. Liken it to looking at the same diamond from different angles. You see something a bit different from each angle, but it is the same one diamond. However, the paradoxical experience of it being you and also being God happens simultaneously.
It is not that your Being is experienced as not your being but instead as Shiva’s. Perhaps that would even be easier to accept! Your Being remains your Being. At the same time, that personality being ceases to be the dominate Being that You are. The personality self continues just as it did before enlightenment, but it is insignificant (for lack of a better word) compared to your True Being, the Self, that you have awoken to. And that Self is one with God… one with Shiva. The life, thoughts, emotions, and moods of the personality self go on just as before. Yet it is all different in the context of the transcendental Self that has emerged and, without a word, has overtaken everything.
Some think that the moment of enlightenment is a moment of total clarity after which you live happily ever after. That is not so. It takes time to sort out and to get accustomed to. In fact, all of the higher states of consciousness are really just levels of getting more accustomed to, more familiar with, the enlightenment that has overtaken you… the ‘You’ that has overtaken ‘you’.
Life exists on many levels. In the state of enlightenment, the level of life that longs for nothing is always there. It is the transcendental level of Oneness with Shiva that you have become. It is the level of freedom… freedom of the soul, freedom from wanting, freedom from desire, freedom from longing. At the same time, there are the other levels of life where desire and longing remain. Life goes on. This is a matter of confusion for many people. To become enlightened and have no desire on any level is simply a state of overwhelm with the new found enlightenment. In time, it integrates with the other levels of life… the field of duality… relativity… the world of wanting.
Yes, after enlightenment, life goes on as it did. Completely the same… just totally different.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Tuesday, August 5, 2014 | Clarifying Confusion, Spiritual Evolution, The Veda |
It is pandemic. It is an aspect of the human condition. People look for perfection in the relative. This is such a beautiful thing. Everything is gravitating back to the one source, the Divine. However, as has been said, “Do not look for perfection in the relative. It is not there.” The relative is, by definition, relative. It is not absolute. The relative is the field of imperfection. It was born out of Perfection, Pure Consciousness, the Absolute, but it is not the Absolute. When Consciousness becomes conscious of itself and incorrectly views itself as other, duality (relativity) is born.
The Veda is the field of perfection. Yet once it is viewed in relative terms, that view is imperfect… dualistic, relative. It is essential to understand this. Otherwise, you cling to relativity as perfection. Isn’t this a beautiful and profound yet delicate topic? The Absolute, by definition, transcends ALL ‘things’… even, dare I say it, scripture. This is not to say that scripture is not precious, sacred, and in a relative sense certainly Divine. But it points in the direction of the Absolute, like a reflection in a mirror or an echo. It is not the Absolute. Religions point in the direction of the Absolute. But they are not the Absolute.
Truth is absolute. Even the nearest we can come to the Absolute in the relative is not Absolute. To think it is Absolute, prompts people to cling to it as the Absolute and thereby resist transcending relativity which is the ultimate ‘goal’ of religion, and in fact , of life. This is the meaning of ‘to be in the world, but not of it’. This creates a tug of war between the Devas, who embody the Absolute, and the Asuras, who cling to its echo. Echoes of Truth, perceived as Truth, hold Truth at bay. This is why it is said that the Veda dwells not in books, but in the awareness of those who have awoken to the Absolute, i.e., the enlightened.
For a temple to be a Vedic temple, it must stand strong as a representative of the most profound truth. It must hold true to such understanding. Few understand that Truth. But that understanding is what upholds and keeps the temple aligned with the deepest Truth of life. The custodians of the temple unceasingly aspire to that which transcends even the most sublime aspects of relativity. You are one with the Absolute. All relativity is born out of that… out of who and what you truly are… beyond samskaras, beyond conditioning. The supreme culmination of spirituality, of life, is to awaken to that. Some may call this Vedanta, but to cling to a perspective on Vedanta Is to miss its deepest message, its deepest Truth.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Thursday, May 1, 2014 | Spiritual Evolution, Vedic Science |
Who thinks like a crystal? Essentially, no one. We think in a very limited linear manner: step one leads to step two to step three, etc. Crystals do not think that way. A ‘thought’ within a crystal radiates out in all directions simultaneously and continues to branch out in all directions from every point that the impulse of the thought touches. The linear mind of traditional thought is lost in the dust by such logic. To traditional thinking, the logic in crystals makes no sense.
The logic of the underlying basis of all existence is crystalline in nature. It is no coincidence that the mathematics used to describe the structure of the unified field is the same sort of mathematics (abstract algebra) used to describe the structure of crystals. In fact, the math of the unified field is a very sophisticated form of abstract algebra.
So what does all this matter to YOU? The interconnections that determine the quality of your life are fundamentally dependent upon a logic that the human mind cannot even follow… a logic that you, in fact, have been taught to reject. Vedic Knowledge is structured in a crystalline manner. From the limited perspective of linear thinking, it often makes no sense. The notion of mapping gives us the best feel for it. For example, the medical symbol of snakes around a staff maps on to the energy that moves up the spine (kundalini), maps to Kartikeya, maps to snakes in the forest. The shape of leaves, the shape of the human brain, the shape of Lord Ganesha’s head all map on to one another. To live life in harmony with nature is to live life in harmony with the infinite number of such abstract mappings that permeate your daily life.
The Vedic Shastras offer many principles to assist you in living in harmony with nature. They speak of the different types of human nervous systems (castes). They speak of eclipses, auspicious days, jyotish, kalpa, on and on. Because essentially all of it makes no sense to the limitations of linear thought, it is not understood. Because is it not understood, it is usually rejected. Or even worse, it is twisted into a set of pitiful and sometimes even reprehensible notions or superstitions. For example, the Shiva Puranas call Shiva the greatest God. The Vishnu Puranas attribute that position to Vishnu. The limitation of linear thought, seeing that as an irreconcilable contradiction, compels people to then reject Vedic knowledge as illogical. Or the caste system becomes a means of degrading some people while feeding the ego of others. What a loss!
So what do you do about all of this? How do you proceed with your life? What’s next? Fortunately, there is a very simple solution: proper meditation… and I emphasize PROPER. Proper meditation evolves you. As you evolve, you spontaneously live more and more in harmony with nature… with Mother Nature and with your own TRUE nature. There are many forms of meditation… most gain popularity because they satisfy the limited thinking of linear thought. They are actually unnatural… attempts to control the mind, program the mind, channel the behavior, etc. This is all wrong. In your essence, you are one with the Unified Field, one with God. You are crystalline in your nature. Proper meditation enables you to rest into your true nature. I encourage you to learn and practice the Surya Ram Meditation. Start with the Surya Meditation, which you can learn free on this website.
The next thing to do is cultivate sufficient humility so you can take a step back and learn. Start with the fundamental points I offer. They are given in these blogs and will soon be offered on the home page in a very accessible and concise form.
Finally and MOST importantly, note that I am not asking you to abandon yourself. In fact it is quite the opposite. Stay true to your SELF. Culture yourself. Free yourself from the chains of limited thinking that have indoctrinated you. It is very simple. To thine own self be true.
To live better, you must look deeper.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
