by Michael Mamas | Thursday, June 12, 2014 | The Gods |
I am opposed to faith. I do not just have faith that 2+2=4. I know it. Without knowledge, notions have no firm foundation. We are fortunate to live in a time when, if we just take a step back and think for a minute, we can assimilate what humanity has learned in a manner that reveals the deepest mysteries of life and existence. Our spiritual and rational sides can then come together as a unified whole. The kite that is our soul is stabilized by the tail of our mind. We attain real knowledge.
It is humbling that for so many generations, people have adhered to deep inner convictions without a clear rational understanding of their basis. Humanity’s shift to a rational orientation has put spirituality into question. Spirituality made no sense. As a result, many adults as well as the younger generation have rejected it. At first glance, this seems most unfortunate. However, it carries with it a great boon: the demand to make sense of spirituality. Fortunately, we live in a time when science is able to do that… if once again, we just are willing to take a step back and think. What follows is a brief overview of that knowledge. Of course, any overview of such a profound topic will trigger many unanswered questions and confusions. Unaddressed or misunderstood, those things could, if you are not careful, cause you to reject the overview. So I only ask that your doubts and questions be expressed with the same level of humility and sincerity with which this overview is offered.
Einstein said that all existence is born of one and only one thing… The Unified Field. Many modern physicists believe that field is nothing other than pure Consciousness, out of which all else is born. Before existence, Consciousness could only be conscious of itself… there was nothing else. When Consciousness became conscious of itself, it viewed itself as ‘other’. In that moment, duality was born. Consciousness aware of those two things, birthed a third thing, and so on, to infinity. In other words, Consciousness interacted with itself over and over again to create what modern science refers to as the quantum mechanical realm… the fabric out of which all things emerge. It is geometrically precise and structured…like a crystal or snowflakes. Many superimposed patterns can be seen in the structure of a snowflake. The Vedic term for each of those structures within the quantum mechanical realm is ‘Yantra’.
Now, who are you? You are made of electrons, protons, molecules, cells, tissues, etc. However, YOU are a personified being. That is what you relate to. That is the ‘who’ of who you are. Similarly, those Yantras have a personified correlate. That is ‘who’ they are. At the same time, on the Unified Field level, they are all the same one thing. Now, simply substitute the personified word “God” for the inanimate phrase “Unified Field” and you’ve got the essence… the overview. In other words, each Yantra is another face of the one God.
This is just an overview, an introduction. Where it leads is beyond imagination. But you must be willing to take it step by step and not get frustrated or confrontational when things come up that you at first do not understand. I invite you to move forward, past this very brief first step. Rest assured, at no step along the way will I ask you to have faith. It has to make sense. I want you to understand.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Monday, April 7, 2014 | The Gods |
Yesterday I met with the Ashram people, work-study group, and staff here at Mount Soma. Someone asked me to talk a bit about Hanuman. I responded with something like this:
Hanuman is the embodiment of devotion. His life is overtaken by Lord Rama. That is to say, He is fully awake to the Divine within. His own Divinity is, of course, One with Lord Rama. All levels of His life are lived in harmony with, in full devotion to, Lord Rama. There is no separation, or one could say there is just enough apparent separation that he can adore His Lord from a distance.
Hanuman is Shiva. ShivaRam is the personification of Shiva and Rama as One. Shiva adores Rama. Rama adores Shiva. The story of Rama and Hanuman, the Ramayana, is the story of existence… of nature… the very subtle and fine mechanics that underlies all of creation. It is eternally lively at every point in creation. It is nature, existence, the mechanic of the universe expressed in personified form.
Ram is the sound that holds all of this in seed form. Ram is the gateway to the fullness that dwells within you and is You. To understand this is to understand the physics underlying all existence, and is yet so much more that just physics. Ram is the science and the heart of all that is. Hanuman and Rama are one, just as the same diamond appears different from various angles, but it is the same one diamond.
There is no end to the exploration of the beauty of nature and structure of existence, the many facets of creation, the beauty of the exploration of ShivaRam… no end to the exploration of the beauty of the nature of Rama… of Hanuman. So exquisite… profound… so beautiful.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Wednesday, February 5, 2014 | The Gods |
Today is Ratha Sapthami, Surya’s Birthday.
We had a lovely ceremony outside with Sun’s presence very welcome after these cold winter days.
On this auspicious day, I am happy to announce that June 2 is the date for the Hanuman Inauguration at Mount Soma.
More details will be coming soon.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Saturday, December 21, 2013 | Spiritual Evolution, The Gods |
I remember my teacher. Through the years the theme of his life to enlighten the world never changed, yet his focus would shift from one topic to the next: ayurveda, jyotish, vastu, gandharva ved, on and on. As his attention shifted, our attention shifted with his, and we thereby learned. But we did not just learn facts about one field of knowledge and the next. More importantly, we learned how he thought and how he functioned. We saw how everything shared a greater context that was essential to really understanding anything. We saw universal principles at work that permeated all of life .
Recently, my focus has been on the health of the physical body. I have explored a multitude of theories and approaches. Your responses to this (assuming you have been reading my blog, attending classes, or living at Mount Soma) have been diverse. Perhaps taking a moment to explore your personal response would be of value to you.
I enjoy many quotes from the fitness industry. Here is a small sampling as best as I can remember the wordings:
‘Just do it’
‘Do today what others won’t, and tomorrow you will do what others can’t”
‘Do not go for greatness, go for consistency. Through consistency, greatness will follow.’
“The difference between who you are and who you want to be is what you do.”
‘First you fuel the desire, then the desire fuels you.’
‘Day by day, be better’
‘You want me to do something? Tell me I can’t do it.’
‘Focus on the possibilities, not the problems. Focus on the gain, not the pain. Make it happen, don’t just let it happen.’
That sort of direct, all out approach to enlightenment is excellent. Oh yes, and my recent favorite: “Digestion is everything.” Part of me would like to stop right here and ask you to connect the dots and reflect on the implications and extent of that quote for yourself.
Firstly of course, digestion is not just of food. Nor is it simply of the gut. For example, focusing on how food feels after you eat it is indeed crucial. How you process the same meal can vary from day to day. Have you noticed how sometimes a meal just seems to go right in? The cells of your body just seem to drink it right up – sometimes not. The same is true with digestion of thoughts and emotions. It is incredibly fascinating to watch how people digest and process their life experiences. As with all of life, more attention should be on how you digest food. In many ways that is more important than what food you ingest. It is said that when the digestion is good, the body transforms whatever you eat into soma… the nectar of immortality.
All the Gods, i.e. all the laws of nature, are instrumental in digestion. Ganesh is the Lord of Categories. When digestion is good, foods are partitioned properly. Nutrients feed the muscles and organs instead of accumulating as fat or toxins. Hormones, timing of meals, combination of foods, on and on… it can all be viewed as the domain of Ganesh.
At the same time, Shiva is the pure transcendent. When the physiology is established in that, all things work in harmony and health. Digestion then, is the domain of Lord Shiva.
Skanda is the commander and chief of the whole army of the gods. Easy to see then, how digestion is His domain.
And Mother Divine. Well, rest into the arms of the Mother. Eat what She offers and needless to say all will be well. Digestion is clearly Her domain.
All the Gods, all the laws of nature, are totally interconnected. They are all one. Viewing anything and everything through the facet of the diamond of life of each God provides an ever deepening understanding and expansion of perspective on all that is.
Get your digestion right, and you are whole, healthy, and enlightened. As with all fields of life, as we explore the facet of life called fitness and health, all the laws and deepest secrets of life are revealed. To really understand, to really digest, anything, is to really understand everything. If you explore the world of fitness, or anything else, watch how you digest it… how opinionated you are with respect to it… how open you are… how fascinated you are or are not…. how universal and deeply you look… where you get stuck… where you dig in your heels… on and on.
We have and will continue to explore many fields of life. I invite you to join me in these explorations. Through these explorations, we till the soil that facilitates the blossoming of life. How do you digest life? Digestion is anything and everything. Digestion is the key to life.
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By the way, we have created video blogs of the essential points for enlightenment and will be posting them soon, probably one by one. But the next blog I have planned is on a topic that desperately needs clarification and is currently up in the media, namely, “Sin and Salvation.”
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Thursday, May 30, 2013 | Clarifying Confusion, Spiritual Evolution, The Gods |
I was asked the following question:
My son, who is 16, and I were discussing some of your articles about The Big Bang and levels of consciousness. He said to me, “I understand that God is pure consciousness, pure energy, but where did that “energy come from? How was God created?” How would you respond to that question?
To which I respond:
Firstly, IS-NESS = CONSCIOUSNESS. That is something to reflect on… for many years actually.
Because it is the nature of consciousness to be conscious, it becomes in the beginning conscious of the only thing that is… namely itself. Perceiving itself, then, as ‘other’, duality is born and cascades out like a crystal of self interaction to create the full range of multiplicity.
Secondly, there is, strictly speaking, no such thing as energy. However, the structures created in consciousness are fascinating… appealing, alluring…. by their very nature. That compels consciousness to move, so to speak, or at least appear to move. This is called the force of maya. Maya means illusion. Energy (Shakti, the feminine principle) is a quality of illusion, like the movement in a dream is really just part of the dream. The dream is really only happening within consciousness (Shiva). This is why it is said that without Shakti, Shiva is powerless. It is all just the play of consciousness. Yet the power of the illusion is a vast source of infinite energy.
The world is a dream. People become so overwhelmed by the allure of the dream that they forget their true nature. They are lost in the dream. But to free yourself from the dream, you must work through the dream. The dragon of the dream cannot be slain with a real sword. It requires the sword of the dream. To intellectually know this is an illusion is not to see past the illusion. It is a good first step to intellectual know about.
All too often, when people know all about spirituality, they believe they ‘get it.’ I call that the ‘I get it syndrome.’ I work with people to move them through and out of the ‘I get it syndrome’. There are a great deal of levels of clinging to ones current level of identity with the illusion all along the way. Every level along the way is a new level of consciousness… infinite in number.
Knowledge is structured in consciousness. People think of facts as knowledge. But the same fact has an infinite number of levels of understanding depending upon the individual’s level of consciousness.
Sometimes people feel dejected to think that this world is maya… illusion. But that is not correct thinking. This world is grand. It is beautiful. It is pregnant with meaning. It is to be loved. The trick is to “have the boat in the water, but no water in the boat.” Live in the illusion, but do not lose your Self to it. You are one with the source of all that is. Your domain is the universe.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
