by Michael Mamas | Mar 11, 2016 | Politics |
It is often painful to watch the election debates and then listen to the commentary. So often what the commentators say the candidate said is not what the candidate said! If you recorded the debate, you can even go back and confirm this. Is it an intentional spin or is it sincerely what the listener heard?
Rishi, Devata, and Chhandas (knower, process of knowing, and known) permeates everything. The observer defines the observed. We do not perceive so much as we project, our judgements, fears, preconceived notions, etc. When those projections are on you, it is often terribly disturbing. I think we all experience that in our own lives. I sometimes wonder what is projected upon my daily interactions, articles, blogs, and lectures. What someone insists you said is often not what you said and certainly not what you meant. To have those misconceptions spread among your friends and associates is painful enough. The spin may be intentional lies, misunderstandings, or innocent projections. It is difficult to imagine how the day after day barrage of such spins that candidates experience on a national level must effect them and their families. Fame has its price, especially in politics.
To understand this process is good. But to live your life in accord with that understanding is great. The winds of misunderstanding can spin life in many directions. To know what is in another person’s heart is to see beyond the spin.
To live better, we must look deeper.
by Michael Mamas | Mar 8, 2016 | Entertainment |
Within a month, the movie, Miracles from Heaven, will be in the theaters. It is about a young girl with an ‘incurable’ disease. Falling from a tree 30 feet, she hit her head, yet emerged unharmed. She tells of how, upon landing upside down inside the hollowed-out trunk, she went to heaven where Jesus spoke with her. Telling him she wanted to stay with him, he said, “No, I have plans for you back on earth.” He said he would send a guardian angel with her to protect her from harm. Miraculously, after the fall, her incurable disease was gone.
Certainly we’ve heard many such miraculous accounts. They do little to shift people’s belief systems. The non-spiritual easily rationalize these accounts away as fanciful coincidences. Science is, of course, a fantastic tool. Yet many of life’s greatest mysteries cannot be fathomed through controlled laboratory tests or scientific experiments. The greatest wonders and most fulfilling aspects of life lie beyond the touch of our current scientific methods.
Everyone senses divinity deep within their own being. That divinity presents itself uniquely to every individual based upon their background and belief systems. For some, it is simply moral fiber or an inner sense of right and wrong. For others, it may be Jesus, Shiva, Durga, or what have you. There is only one unified field, one underlying basis to all of life and existence, one God. Yet that God has many faces.
by Michael Mamas | Feb 29, 2016 | Humanity's Future, Meditation |
The popular notions of bigotry are too limited. As a result its essential nature, its source, is obscured.
Bigotry is a physiological state. It is not just a cultural or idealogical conviction. The laudable suppression of racial bigotry has not healed the essence or source of bigotry. As a result the physiological basis of bigotry emerges in other forms. What was once racial bigotry has become, for example, political bigotry. Hateful intolerance of opposing political viewpoints is now the self righteously indignant justification of bigotry in its latest form.
When hatred exists in the physiology of people, it will find a way to surface upon others… to be unleashed upon others… until the hate causing stresses and strains in the physiology are removed. Proper meditation roots out such stresses and strains in the physiology.
by Michael Mamas | Feb 26, 2016 | Mount Soma |
It was in the early 1980s while I was living in the ashram. Someone told me that the ancient scriptures (Shastras) describe the makings of an enlightened city. All the parameters are given: elevation, slope of the land, nature of the climate, etc. It is said that all of the people who live in such a city attain and live in a state of spiritual liberation—enlightenment.
For some reason, unknown to me at that time, the idea of an enlightened city stuck with me. At the time it wasn’t that I had the thought I would build an enlightened city, but the feeling was there that I would. As the decades passed, the time came when we actually purchased the land. I was surprised to hear from my students that I had, from time to time, mentioned the idea in my classes. I guess it just came out of me. I certainly never planned to talk about it and don’t really remember doing so.
Oddly enough, once I decided to build the enlightened city, I couldn’t find that information anywhere. I asked Pandits and spiritual/Vedic scholars about enlightened cities and they just looked at me funny, as if they had no idea what I was talking about. I proceeded based on what I could remember, but also based upon what I could not remember—just from what I felt, what naturally emerged from within me. I decided that we needed a particular structure (Shiva Linga) in the middle of town, thinking we would just put it in a shack or something, because we had little money. One thing led to the next, and we built Sri Somesvara Temple. Even the material that the Shiva Linga would be made out of was a question to which I couldn’t find the answer. So I just went by what felt right within myself.
Now for the strange part of the story. After all this was done, it seemed like every Pandit or Vedic scholar I spoke with knew all about enlightened cities: “Oh yes, yes. An enlightened city requires….” Remarkably, we had done it all perfectly. Vedic architects from India even provided detailed plans for an enlightened city for which we had conformed to every detail.
This was the birth of Mount Soma, a living demonstration of how to apply the principles of ancient Vedic Knowledge. CRS was created to bring forth the subtleties of spiritual knowledge that have largely been lost to the ages.
by Michael Mamas | Feb 25, 2016 | Politics |
The further the pendulum swings one way, the further it will swing back the other. If not for the seriousness of the matter, the current race for the presidency could be viewed as a humorous illustration of this principle. Some would say that Obama’s liberalism elicited the extreme fanatical conservatism of Ted Cruz. The pendulum then swings to the previously unthinkable socialistic tenants of Bernie Sanders, only to swing wildly in the opposite direction to Trump’s unbridled positions and expressions.
It’s no surprise that politicians then characterize one another with such extreme expressions as communist, criminal, madman, liar, crackpot, etc. The recent debates come across more as a flurry of temper tantrums rather than as an articulate discussion of global issues.
It’s commonly said that what’s on the outside is on the inside. That’s a terrifying thought! The only way out of this tornado of political turmoil is to tend to what dwells within, namely stresses, strains, and the seething torrent of anger and hatred. Everybody just needs to calm down!
My advise to all those politicians and the public that elects them is to Learn Surya Ram Meditation!
