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Hello Friend! Welcome to the “Special Services Section” of our web site! If you have accessed our site directly, using the internet address www.aham.com/serv without coming from our home page or elsewhere in the site, then you may not yet know about us. We are the Association of Happiness for All Mankind. Or just call us “AHAM” (but please pronounce both “A's” like the “a” in “father” or “star”). AHAM is an acronym of our full name. We are what our name says that we are – Association of Happiness for All Mankind. In other words: “Our Name is our Purpose.” The word "aham" (again proper pronunciation is important) is in itself significant. It is a Sanskrit word meaning “I,” or “I AM,” or “self.” It is actually composed of the first and last letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, which means it includes everything and everyone and therefore signifies all that is, or existence itself. With AHAM, this also indicates our commitment to “go the extra mile,” and do what is necessary or required to bring about our intended purpose for mankind, and to get the job done to the best of our ability. AHAM is a non-profit organization located in Asheboro, North Carolina, USA, where we own and operate a “Happiness-NOW” Retreat and Training Center. We teach consciousness transforming programs designed to directly and immediately Awaken attendees to the true Self within themselves, the nature of which is actually in fact real and lasting Peace and Happiness. Although there is much suffering and misery in the world today, we in AHAM have discovered that misery is entirely optional!… that is, it’s really not necessary to suffer! Anyone can live a very normal, ordinary life while also being Awake and Aware as the True Self, truly free from misery! Our function and one intention is bringing very ordinary people fully into this state of genuine Happiness, Peace, and Freedom, which is usually not realized as abiding presently within oneself… only waiting to be discovered and awakened! This is the truth, that's always present in the Heart of one’s own being… it being the true location of Real Happiness… and where you can easily learn to abide… or return when needed or desired … and not be at the effect of unwanted thoughts… or of persons, places, things, or situations going on around you in the world! What we share is authentic and real! In addition, the way to reach it… and abide in it... REALLY WORKS!… THAT IS... It works IF you are ready, willing, and interested, and WHEN you truly apply yourself to it! We can prove it! We have already done so with thousands of students... from all over the world … since we began in 1978! We share this very special process as a PUBLIC SERVICE! There are no fees, tuition, or costs for our various programs. We operate entirely from people's love and assistance — from their gifts, contributions, and freewill donations. If you are interested in our introductory program... either for yourself or your group... please give us a call at 336-381-3988. There is no obligaation! Please tell your friends to also visit our site here at www.aham.com/serv... or listen to the message on our toll free number at: 1 (877) YES AHAM (which numerically is 1 (877) 937 2426). Also, please have a mini-experience our I AM Centering Process™©. Locate the still balance point within you, free of the thoughts and experiences of the day. And also please read the evidence or proof about what we are and do as reported in both our local and out of state newspapers. See below...
News story appearing on the front page of the Asheboro, N.C. Courier-Tribune newspaper - August 7, 2006 Peace of mind only goal for Davis
(Photo by Paul Church / The Asheboro Courier-Tribune) REFLECTING...Stan Davis poses on a tree-lined walkway at the Association of Happiness for All Mankind, a meditation retreat center on N.C. Hwy 134 south of Asheboro. Davis, AHAM’s outreach director, spent more than four months (along with other AHAM colleagues) sharing stress release training with workers and residents in the devastated city of New Orleans. He and another meditative trainer plan a return trip this fall. ‘We’ve literally been with people and taken people through the stress release process right there on the street,’ he said. Monday, August 07 ASHEBORO — Stan Davis drove from Randolph County to New Orleans last November (2005), just weeks after Hurricane Katrina roared through, with no plan save to bring peace to troubled people. After all, Davis said, that’s what he and his colleagues do daily at the Association of Happiness for All Mankind, a nonprofit meditation retreat and training center on N.C. Hwy 134 a few miles south of Asheboro. Davis is AHAM’s outreach director. Peace of mind only goal for Davis By Chip Womick -- Staff Writer, The Courier-Tribune Posted: 08/06/06 - 10:45:52 pm CDT ASHEBORO — Stan Davis drove from Randolph County to New Orleans last November, just weeks after Hurricane Katrina roared through, with no plan save to bring peace to troubled people. After all, Davis said, that’s what he and his colleagues do daily at the Association of Happiness for All Mankind, a nonprofit meditation retreat and training center on N.C. Hwy 134 a few miles south of Asheboro. Davis is AHAM’s outreach director. “We all had been seeing it on TV, what was going on down there,” Davis said. “It was just obvious that what we had to offer was needed.” After arriving in New Orleans, Davis spent the night in his car, then wound up the next day at the city’s Emergency Operations Center. There, he met with someone from the Mental Health Service Agency. After sharing an AHAM meditation with her, she asked him to replicate the session with five of her workers. Next, Davis found himself doing a session with 15 police dispatchers. Soon, word spread. Davis and four AHAM colleagues, who joined him for various lengths of time, stayed busy overseeing stress relief sessions at the center and other sites across town. Usually, Davis conducted three or four sessions a day; once he did five. The AHAM workers adopted a motto they had seen printed on the back of one group of service workers’ shirts: “Whatever it takes.” “I heard people declare over and over again,” Davis said, “and I quote you, ‘This is the first time I have experienced any peace since Hurricane Katrina’; the statement came one time from a police captain." "We’re not giving anyone anything they don’t already have," says Davis. "It’s about tuning in to a place of inner peace (present in everyone). It’s about quieting the mind.” Linda Swanson, a fellow AHAM trainer, who will return with Davis to New Orleans this fall to conduct workshops for people who provide children’s services, said the stresses of life can be like a hurricane. Meditation moves an individual to “that (inner) eye of the hurricane in all of us.” “You can still see everything going on,” she said, “but you’re quiet, and still. You can reach out and handle what you need to handle appropriately. You’re not out there getting distracted and battered by all the stuff that’s going on.” AHAM meditation requires no special postures or rituals. It can be done with eyes open or with eyes closed. It can be done anytime, anywhere, Davis said. In one meditation process, a participant pays attention or becomes aware of his breath; then he focuses on the feeling ‘I AM’ — returning to the ‘here and now’ of I AM any time an outside thought, sight, or sound intrudes in the mind. “All of our trainers can be with a person under any circumstance and facilitate, direct, or bring them to a place of peace in them — if one is open to it,” Davis said. “We’ve literally been with people and taken people through the stress release process right there on the street. You’re walking down the street and see people obviously stressed out, saying ‘I just can’t get a handle on it,’ and you don’t have time to find a perfect location.” A one-time session will not necessarily bring people to a place where they can find peace anytime, anywhere, on their own (or stay there), Davis said. But it brings relief. (It takes more instructions to do this easily for oneself). “If nothing else, they were able to experience peace for that short while — and that was very valuable.” In fact, the sessions are valuable for everyone involved. “In actually conducting a session,” Davis said, “it’s the most invigorating part of the day. What we share and what we do, it actually benefits us in giving it away.” Davis said he collected more than 250 statements touting the benefits of AHAM’s meditative work. His new New Orleans friends appreciated the effort so much that they found Davis a place to stay and supplied meals. When he left in May to return home, the question he heard most often was, “When are ya’ll coming back?” “It’s a mess down there,” Davis said. “I had never seen anything like that in my life. I’ve seen two or three homes demolished. I’ve seen a city block demolished. But we’re talking now about miles and miles, on and on, demolished.” Davis witnessed togetherness among people from widely diverse economic, educational, and social backgrounds. “What really stood out was a sense of dignity with the people. I could feel a sense that they were wanting to take care of each other and they wanted to get on with the business at hand.” Davis is a former newspaperman turned car salesman. He was general manager of a groundbreaking Greensboro weekly called the Carolina Peacemaker, then published a weekly paper in High Point. When the mental, physical, and economic stresses of operating a small newspaper reached a zenith, he changed careers. He’d always thought he might like to try selling vehicles, he said, and landed a job doing just that, thanks to his newspaper connections. Along the way he’d met a furniture company executive who told him about training she’d been taking at AHAM; which, at the time, operated in a storefront bookstore on West Market Street in Greensboro. Davis was intrigued enough to visit them upon her invitation. That was in 1981. According to AHAM literature, AHAM’s teaching is based on a process of self-inquiry — introduced by a sage named Sri Ramana Maharshi, who lived in South India — that awakens the awareness of the true self by asking the question “Who am I?” Arunachala Ramana, an American devotee of Ramana Maharshi, founded AHAM in 1978 and has developed its many transformational programs. Before long, Davis was taking a succession of courses and volunteering at the center. “What I was getting from the courses is literally a way to be centered in a place of peace and stillness within, and still be able to function,” he said. “Basically, I started feeling good.” Soon, he was serving as a “buddy” to trainees; that is, an advanced graduate who guides newcomers. He has worked full-time with AHAM since 1988. When AHAM moved its operations from Greensboro, to its present 37 acres in rural Randolph County in 1991, Davis came, too. (AHAM also has an ashram, or meditation and retreat center, in South India.) Once he learned to apply meditation, or the centering process, in his day-to-day living, he was ready, and more than willing, Davis said, to share it with others. Davis said he has talked with officials for Ash-Rand Rescue Squad about sharing with its volunteers what he presented in New Orleans — and would welcome the opportunity to do the same thing for any service provider agency in the area. There’s never a charge for AHAM's teaching, he said; AHAM survives on donations. “This is something that I love to do,” he said. “All of us who work here, we are doing it purely because we are dedicated to a purpose.” To have Davis give a talk about his New Orleans trip, or present a meditation session for a group, call AHAM at (336) 381-3988. For information about AHAM online, visit www.aham.com. Contact staff writer Chip Womick at (336) 626-6122 or email him at cwomick@courier-tribune.com _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ News story appearing on the front page of the LIVING section of the New Orleans “Times-Picayune” newspaper - February 24, 2006 “Proud to call it om” Stress seems to be the constant companion of New Orleanians, which makes meditation more of an option than ever before for many who seek a peace and quiet of the mind in a place with precious little of either. Friday, February 24, 2006 By Chris Bynum — Staff writer, the “Tmes-Picayune" Heidi DeSalvo spent her first night after Katrina on the Filmore Avenue bridge on the edge of Lakeview with her dogs, her roommate and 80 other storm victims. From there she walked the levee along the Orleans Avenue canal, then the railroad tracks to the I-10/I-610 split, then scaled a fence into Jefferson Parish, where she broke into a friend's house to spend another night before catching a bus with her pets to Thibodaux. These hurricane memories flashed back in her mind the first time she sat for a meditation session with co-workers after returning to work at the New Orleans Public Library Central Branch. "I didn't realize there were as many issues as there were whirling around in my brain," said DeSalvo, a library associate in automated services, who, after that introduction, found herself returning to the weekly gatherings. She, like many who sat in the circle with her at a recent session, had lost her home, her belongings and a sense of place. Immediately after Katrina, DeSalvo was faced with getting the library's technical system back up and running, as her fellow library employees dealt with their own challenges. And all had to cope not only with what they had been through, but also what lay ahead of them, in the midst of so little clarity. It was the voice of Stan Davis who provided calm after the storm. The volunteer from North Carolina spoke of taking those thoughts, of being aware of them and then letting them float by like clouds. And while it may be a little New Age for some, meditation has become so acceptable as a stress-reduction method that Time magazine made it a cover story in 2003, dubbing the practice "the smart person's bubble bath." "Meditation classes today are being filled by mainstream Americans who don't own crystals, don't subscribe to New Age magazines and don't even reside in Los Angeles," the article stated, emphasizing that the stress-reduction tool is now offered in schools, hospitals, law firms, government buildings, corporate offices and prisons. So it was only natural that it should make its way to disaster areas where post-traumatic stress is about as common as a tension headache. Meditation guidance was something Davis could volunteer to aid in the recovery of a devastated city. Like many volunteers who have come to New Orleans, Davis had witnessed the devastation and its aftermath on television. But he had done so from the serenity of the AHAM (Association of Happiness for All Mankind) spiritual retreat center in Asheboro, N.C. He was sent to New Orleans by the nonprofit organization with a simple mission: to help storm victims find calm in chaos. Davis slept in his car at a Metairie truck stop the first week after his arrival in November, eventually making contact with the wellness center at the Emergency Operations Center and offering his free services there. He managed to expand his services to the staffs of local mental health clinics who were working with storm victims, as well as to Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster recovery sites, and to first responders. As he traveled to Chalmette and the 9th Ward, Davis saw firsthand the stress levels of storm victims. "No one really understands it until they see it," he said. On a recent morning, Davis met with staff members of the main branch of the public library to offer a centering meditation to "calm the body, calm the mind and provide balance, peace and stillness free from upsetting thoughts." The offshoot of being in a calm place, he said, is that people are better able to focus and deal with tasks at hand. DeSalvo has found that on the days she attends morning meditation sessions at the library, her productivity level is up. She said she is more focused on her work the rest of the day. Davis' services have been offered through the Metropolitan Human Service District mental health program, reaching more than 800 local people. The sessions, most often done in group settings with chairs in a circle, last from 20 minutes to an hour. In the centering process, breath awareness is part of the process of learning to center, and the “mantra” in the meditation Davis teaches is "I am." The purpose of directing one's attention inward, he said, “is to abide in a place not pulled by the events around us. “When attention is directed inward, we are in a place that is already at peace, free of fear, doubt and upsetting thoughts. “This in no way takes away from the devastation," Davis said. “But the icing on the cake when it comes to meditation is the ability to achieve this tranquility while being active and engaged in life, even post-Katrina life.” During the recent library session, one participant began to snore. It is not unusual in a session for a participant to fall asleep while in a relaxed state. The alternative method is "eyes-open" meditation, in which one finds a spot within or without on which to focus and continues the breath awareness exercise. "Eyes-open meditation takes practice because we are distracted by what we see," Davis said. “It is similar to standing at a busy intersection as cars and buses go by and being able to calm the noise and bustle by centering and focusing on the task of crossing the street safely. Any outside noises heard during a meditation,” Davis told session participants, “is simply life as it is.” Scout Solomon, a social services counselor with the Metropolitan Human Service District who has attended Davis' meditation sessions, is a professional who lost her own home and also provides help to storm victims. She knows the post-K drill. "So many of us are running around all the time with so many things to do about getting our homes back, working with insurance and FEMA, doing what we need to do for our jobs, taking care of our families. And there are many who are looking for jobs while they are doing all this," she said. "Your mind gets clogged, and you are overwhelmed. "Sometimes it just helps to stop and slow down and decompress a little bit." Lisa Faulk, a cataloger at the library's main branch, said she is among the lucky ones, in that her home wasn't damaged. But that doesn't mean she can't find benefits in meditation. "I don't have a lot of stress issues. I like my job and am happy at work, but I always feel better after a meditation session," Faulk said. "I feel relaxed. Because I work at a computer all day, I have tension in my neck and shoulders. The relaxation (from meditation) helps with that." Donise Smith, a library employee who is dealing with wind damage to her home, is the mother of a 5-year-old and pregnant with her second child, so life in the city has its stresses for her. And that is the reason she participates in the meditation sessions. She reaps the relaxation benefits yet acknowledges that she often gets restless before the session is over. That obstacle, she said, has made her realize that meditation is best as a practice, not a one-time cure. "It is peaceful," she said, "once I get to that place of inner stillness." -------------------------------------------- For information about upcoming Association of Happiness for All Mankind meditation sessions in New Orleans, contact Stan Davis at (336) 267-1781. Staff writer Chris Bynum can be reached at cbynum@timespicayune.com or at (504) 826-3458. |
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