Interview with Tony Samara Feb 09
Welcome to the Enlightening Times Tony!
Thank you for your invitation and the opportunity to speak to you and all of your readers.
Just a quick introduction for our readers please, can you tell us what it is that you do, and how you came to be on the path you are currently walking?
Some people say that I work in shamanism but this is not true. Other people say that I work as a Buddhist. Again this is not true. Even though I have worked in my younger years with a Zen master and later on with shamans in the Amazon and the Andes my moment of freedom at the age of around 27 was not comparable to either of these traditions even though some of the terminology may be familiar in both traditions.
My awakening was mostly influenced by a spiritual teacher who lived in India earlier this century but was not alive in the physical realm at the time when I was 27 years old. In this tradition, which goes back to the origin of mankind the essence is the sense of oneness that creates this world. As I understood that every culture then colours this deep knowledge with its own cultural, social and personal perceptions I felt to completely move away from the Hindu and Buddhist aspects of it and emphasise the unique experience of the individual free from cultural, social and other such limitations so that what I am doing is open to all and everyone beyond religious, social and other affiliations. There are many people who follow other traditions and have spiritual masters that they consider their path that also work deeply with this spiritual tradition and I see no reason for there to be a conflict of interest in this. The word spiritual teacher often means that somehow you are bound by certain rules of that teacher but as I have no dogmas and I leave it totally up to the consciousness of the individual to decide for themselves then some people say I cannot be a spiritual master as I don't give specific rituals or enough clear guidance to make it easy to follow this discipline.
One of the only things I expect of those working with me is a deep persistence in the evolution of their consciousness and hence the very rigorous work that happens around this spiritual discipline. It is not simply a healing technique or a method of self-improvement or even a spiritual modality such as Reiki or Tai Chi. I work with people as a guide. Some people call me a spiritual master. In the tradition that I work in I don't use such terminology but it would correspond to the meaning behind such a title.
Again I would like to emphasise that my goal is the direct experience of each person rather than the passing down of knowledge in the form of dogma. This often entails challenging the mind as it tries to set and mould ideas of experiences into its own reality to avoid the intimate relationship with this moment and hence life itself. This as not quite the normal mode of being does create a sense of uneasiness, which the mind then likes to interpret as "something" in its bid to justify its own obsolete existence in that moment. As I am not addressing that part of the person (the ego) but rather the person themselves, then some people's idea of teacher/master quickly breaks down into doubt and confusion about who or what I actually am. For me it is actions that speak rather than labels.
Do you have any advice for those currently seeking their individual spiritual path?
I feel that we all know deep inside that our consciousness has no beginning and no end. That it is a continuum on many dimensions that goes beyond intellectual reasoning or emotional attachment. It is the core of who we are.
Consciousness always decides what is necessary for it to blossom and be realised yet most people see the suffering and the pain and other aspects of life as preventing them from being free.
Consciousness doesn't come from pain or suffering. Consciousness goes much further than those aspects of life.
In practical every day living people are facing the mundane aspects of life and hence themselves, that seem to come from nowhere, and in these moments there is always a choice to view these aspects as full of pain and suffering or as a blessing for the realisation of human consciousness.
More intensely than ever, the inner work leads us now to light, to unity, from a troubled mind to an open heart and, hence, to the profoundness of love.
This journey leads us to the realisation of who we are.
I welcome you into the possibility of self-enquiry and discovery of your deepest truth.
What are your views on the coming 2012 transition?
I envision in the future a wonderful world, in 2012 and beyond, as more people embrace the concept of "selfless service."
“Selfless service” is a spiritual concept and my path is dedicated to making people independent and self- sufficient. By everyone taking initiative, free of ego and its judgements, then we have creative action. With this action we discover that within our self-sufficiency we have the ability to love the differences and the uniqueness in each other. When one speaks of self-sufficiency this means taking a mature attitude towards life. Whatever choices one makes life reflects it.
There is no running away from all the responsibilities that we face in life. Looking for ways of simplifying and easing things for ourselves creates selfishness. By instead creating joy for everybody it is possible to build a joyful selfless service to humanity. This can be put into practice in all situations in this very moment where we bypass selfish instincts, ideas and expectations and live according to higher ideals that in the end help us to move beyond selfishness and realise what selfless service is all about. This is the joy of simply being.
There is nothing more than love and selfless service is an 'express track' to realising that love is not limited to desires, needs or lacks but rather an overflowing sense of giving.
The more people who put this into practice the more the world will be able to actualise love and thereby create a new paradigm for all of us to live by.
You have lots of videos on youtube but I was particularly interested in your views about nutrition. Can you explain a little about the energy that we receive from certain foods?
The subject of nutrition is not simply a question of the food we eat at meals. Besides nutrients, foods contain scents, colours and invisible particles that attract pure light, light that is so essential for our joyful life and well-being. The choice we make is therefore always of consequential significance.
The difference between flesh-based and vegetarian foods lies in the amount of sunlight they contain. Fruits and vegetables are so steeped in sunlight, that one could say they are a condensed form of light. In order to develop the qualities of the heart, besides eating peacefully, one needs to eat consciously. This means bringing in the light, eating the concentrated light which contains the beautiful sounds that connect our hearts to the rhythms and invisible aspects of the Universe. This attracts the luminous properties of matter and illuminates your being, especially your thoughts and emotions, not just today, but throughout your experience of your existence on this material plane.
Your future depends on how you eat and what you eat. Your body is your temple and every action within the temple, done with conscious intention, creates a more harmonious outcome. Transcendence happens as you obtain better and more refined particles to replace that which hold the old and limiting particles which colour your experience of this ecstatic universe. The quality of your food, it's physical properties, not only transforms your emotions and mind, but can actually change your appearance and personality. Everything around us is is permeated by forces and those forces become more pure and subtle the further they reach the higher planes of light that exist here in the physical world.
This realm is of a spiritual nature, which transcends limitations and lives in the pureness of your most luminous and open qualities. The secret to opening the treasure-house of food, is the love and compassion attained within your consciousness. The treasure is the sun, condensed into particles, which we can send to all the centres in our bodies. This essential signpost of love reveals to you that at the deepest level, compassion becomes a healing power in the widest sense.
Everyone you come into contact with will be touched by your presence and affected by the healing peace that you radiate. This breaks the cycle of action and reaction. You become light in the world, a reflection of consciousness in the most pure form, illuminating unconsiousness as it dissolves in the light of your new experience. The quality of your consciousness at this very moment determines how you will experience your future. Seek to generate enough light consciousness in order to feel the heightened aliveness so that you recognise and embrace your truth from the space of pure consciousness.
As the old adage goes "you are what you eat", how can we promote awareness of the dangers of things like Aspartame and additives when the powers that be are promoting those very substances to be safe?
I see the physical body as the "temple of the soul", hence in my work I concentrate on using various methods of cleansing and detoxification, including herbal preparations and fasting, to strengthen and purify the body.
As part of this process, I suggest the benefits in following a healthy and balanced vegetarian diet. Such a diet would exclude meat, fish, poultry, eggs and refined foods such as white sugar, white flour, deep frozen and/or processed foods and focus instead on fresh fruits and vegetables that are in season and/or are organically produced. Aspartame and other chemical additives would not be part of such a vitally healthy and life-giving diet.
Aspartame and other chemical additives can only be understood as harmful to the body when the body comes back to its natural and innate balance. As we are surrounded by so many chemicals and external pollutions, the body somehow loses its innate ability to distinguish what supports it and helps the flow of energy to be vibrant and what numbs the body receptors to understand that chemicals including aspartame change this body wisdom.
We all know that chemicals are life-negating but due to ignorance and a lack of understanding from our senses we somehow believe that in some minute quantities that these are ok. Thus, in ignorance we eat the foods that western society sees as profitable and cheap to produce rather than healthy and supportive of life.
What I feel is forgotten is that now that we are entering an era of change the body no longer needs to simply survive but actually be a vehicle towards change.
This vehicle needs an immense amount of energy that goes beyond just life-sustaining and hence the importance of a pure diet that taps into the endless pure energy sources that are in all alive foods, such as vegetables, fruits and grains that are not contaminated or processed in the way many modern foods are.
I have created a product called Theriaca which I believe to be essential to help purify the body and its receptors to again receive the vital life energy from the nutrient sources that are so vital at this time.
Theriaca with all its adaptogenic and healing properties helps to increase and heal damage caused by our exposure to aspartame and chemicals and somehow shows the body how to come back to its more pure state of being, which is vibrancy.
Due to the amazing vibrant nature of some of these ingredients. the body, like a piano, tunes in to a higher frequency of being – on a physical sense as well as a mental and emotional sense – creating a synergistic and strong healing - preparing us for these major changes on all levels. (please visit www.theriaca.org for more information)
How do you feel about the importance of spirituality, and encouraging self awareness when bringing up children?
Children do not need to learn about the importance of spirituality as they are totally spiritual from birth. What they need to do is un-learn the dogmas and socialisations that colour and change this focus. It is innate in every human being to fit into society's drive and dominance paradigms and this is reflected to the child in every aspect of its experience.
I believe that it is important for children to be shielded from the intensity of materialism, violence, stress, entertainments, desires for toys and sweet foods, etc especially for the first seven years of their life. This is to help them strengthen their innate nature so that they are able to deal with these factors in a healthier way.
External factors such as stress, and violence depleted and empty foods, excess materialism can be very traumatic for a child and this trauma is much more complicated to deal with later on in life due to its imprint on the deepest aspects of personality.
Hence, for me spirituality is allowing children to experience the beauty of who they are without the external factors that predominate in our society through education and expectations that we put on them without listening to their deeper needs and allowing those needs to be addressed in a natural way.
For me self-awareness is for parents and the immediate environment to be able to allow children an awareness of themselves. This means in a practical sense not feeling guilty or dogmatic about what is right and what is wrong but rather being aware that each child is so unique and gifted that through our own self awareness we are able to realise these gifts not only in our children but also in ourselves.
It is also vital that children (as well as adults) learn that nature is what creates life.
Without supporting their knowledge of this then children just do not understand and live as if nature is a commodity - utilising it, polluting it and worst of all not respecting its beauty.
What are your views on child immunisation and early indoctrination through religious belief systems?
In regards to immunisation, I never recommend immunisation as a necessity but then I also do not recommend for families not to immunise. This subject is so complicated and depends on so many factors that it is difficult to say what is right and what is wrong as each decision has its own consequence.
What is important to realise though is that most of the information that we hear about or read about immunisation is to help parents immunise their children. It is very difficult to hear any objective and real information about what it means to immunise.
One aspect that is vital for parents to understand is that immunisation is not safe, no matter what the medical profession says. There are risks and real risks with immunisation.
One aspect that is very important to understand for me is that the immunisation procedure is a great shock to the body of a baby.
Firstly, because of the toxins that are present in the immunisation itself. There are various chemicals and genetically modified organisms – which are totally unnatural for a young being to have to deal with internally at this very vulnerable and fragile age. A lot is written about this already by others more informed about this matter, so I do not need to explain more about this here.
Secondly, it is important to understand that the way we view disease and illness is a by-product of the culture that we live in. To put it in a very simplistic way most of us see disease as something that comes to us from the outside and needs to be destroyed before it destroys us.
A more real sense of understanding illness would be that everything works in harmony with the flow of life force that is natural in balance with joy and happiness and the experience of life.
If this balance is likely to be neglected then immunisation may be a good option. This choice of course depends on the lifestyle that a family chooses to live as well as the support that they have around them.
For me, disease actually can be a stepping stone to growth and deeper understanding of oneself. So for me, it is not something to be destroyed or feared rather something to be approached as a natural part of life.
The best way would be to approach this in a balanced and connected way. Rather than breaking down disease and health into separate modules we can see them as part of the same positive experience and trust that this approach strengthens the balance that every child has within their life force. This life force is best channelled in appropriate ways rather than supressed with toxins or shocks at such a vulnerable age.
Re indoctrination, I believe that indoctrination will happen whether you are religious or not as we all have a point of view.
If you are an atheist or realist or whatever, your point of view cannot be kept separate from family life as it constitutes a part of yourself which children will automatically share with you in the years that they are growing.
What is interesting is if you allow other points of views to be part of the child's experience or if you are so closed in your belief system that you see other belief systems as a threat. Such closed belief systems may create a sense of fear about the world rather than a sense of awe to inspire creative and open exploration that is so wonderful for all children to experience.
I believe that children bring up so much in people and are a wonderful catalyst in the change that is happening in today's world. They are so important as this catalyst is the vision of the future as well as a reminder of the past.
I believe that children today more than ever are able to access the wisdom and balance that creates a deep sense of joy and understanding that we are all one.
We are all connected and through all these connections we are able to understand the true sense of freedom that is found in a heart-warming smile or a simple game that a child plays to express their divinity.
