Ram Dass Here And Now (Ram Dass / Love Serve Remember)

Ram Dass is joined by a young Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield for a meaningful talk about mindfulness and food. This discussion is part of the Naropa University Bhagavad Gita Sessions of 1974. We are shown a new perception of what it is that we are eating. Ram Dass, Joseph, and Jack help us to understand that there is a connection between what sustains us and who we are. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass talks about his relationship with the great Tibetan Lama, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Includes detailed moments with Trungpa and Ram Dass at different events and venues in the early 70’s where Trungpa was teaching- the methods he used with his students and the dismay of many who were offended by his unusual behavior and teachings that were enigmatic to say the least. Ram Dass delves into a substantial issue around teachers in the West that are unconventional and sometimes divisive yet can provide students with a path that allows for real growth. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass takes questions from the audience on a variety of topics including letting go of boundaries, "What is the Guru?", psychedelics, methods as traps and the human agenda to name a few. “Trust your intuitive heart - everyone has an inner guide. Maharaji is my inner imaginary playmate - I talk to him all the time - He turns out to be real and I’m the imaginary one.” “We move in and out of our roles in life. And finally as we get true detachment we are free to play the roles without being trapped in them.” “It’s up to the most conscious person in a relationship dynamic to let go the soonest.” “As Gandhi said, My life is my message." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Media can destroy the message in the way it delivers it, similarly, as long as I have a price I am transmitting fear, because I have something to lose. The minute I have no price, I can transmit perfect joy of presence and freedom.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alduous Huxley preceded Ram Dass and Tim Leary in explorations of the remote frontiers of the mind and unmapped areas of human consciousness. In doors of perception, Huxley studied the profound effects of mind-expanding drugs. In the book "Island" he described an ideal society that flourished on a remote South Sea island. An outsider is shipwrecked on the island and is shown the values of this ideal society, and learns about hope. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

At the moment of orgasm, you transcend your separateness and there is a moment when you merge together. For most people that is the direct route to a spiritually transcendent state. What you learn to do in a lot of yoga forms is awakening the sexual energy, not to the point of orgasm - but just to the point where you draw the energy up the spine into the upper chakras, and you use your partnership to keep awakening that energy. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How far do you have to go to get through the layers of psychology, of defenses, of personalities in order to get to the root of a being, behind those veils where the spark is - the overriding faith in reality beyond the senses. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You build your life so that every moment is the moment of death and rebirth. Because life and death become so intimately involved with one another and finally they merge, it's the eternal present. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The soil into which spirituality from the East was planted was not so rich in the early days. In India, everyone believes in re-incarnation and sees life from that perspective. In the West words like "Guru", "devotion" and "surrender" have a hard time being digested. Most of the people who are Saints in India would be hospitalized in the West. Now there seems to be a shift where we can honor these traditions in a way that does not water them down. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Fast forward from 1974 to the present-day – though the year has changed, the questions asked of Ram Dass during this recording of the 'Love Serve Remember’ box set are as relevant as ever.

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The confusion of the paradox you find yourself in is that you are in an incarnation that’s totally dedicated to the preservation of it’s own separateness, and at the same time you are awakening to the realization that the entire domain of separateness is but another illusion. So you find yourself marching in the opposite direction of everything you've learned, against everything your body is telling you, against all of the deepest structures of the ego. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How would you answer the question of, "Who do you think YOU are?" You probably believe that you are somebody, but that somebody is the ego. On this episode of Here and Now, Ram Dass talks about our separation from the One, getting back to God, and what we must do to make it happen. "We can be righteous, but we cannot be righteous and be one with God." -Ram Dass See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Each of us has in us a psychic DNA memory of the quality of life in the Sat Yuga (the age of truth and purity), where people generally and naturally help each other. This represents an organic flowing of a healthy human heart. Episode Outline: - We are living in the Kali Yuga (Age of Destruction) not the Sat Yuga, where truth does not abound, but isolation, fear and separateness is prevalent. Still there are moments and times when there is a natural expression of helping each other. - The ultimate alienation is thinking about yourself all the time so you become an object to yourself, you can’t even help yourself. - Getting over the barrier of “us” and “them” is very tricky. - If you want to live in a peaceful world, you better be peaceful. If you are full of anger, you won’t bring about much peace. The qualities in yourself determine what qualities manifest in the world. - When you pit yourself against the way of things, you better expect that it’s going to cost you. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass hosts his long time Buddhist friends- Jack Kornfield, Catherine Ingram and Wes Nisker at his home in Maui for an intimate chat on their first meetings - the gathering of the "soul pod" - In the early 70's these westerners took in the essence of Hinduism and Buddhism from the East, deepening their understanding of true nature, and brought it back to the West. The group also discusses "spiritual bypassing", the meaning of suffering and Ultimate Reality. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Forms are created and exist and disappear into the formless. Methods are the ship crossing the ocean of existence. You entrap yourself in them in order to burn out karma that keeps you from being free. You know that the method works when it self-destructs. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Most people in society are pushing away experiences that indicate that they have an identity on other planes of reality, in order to hold tightly to the plane of reality that they are comfortable with. A liberated being is someone who has moved out of the reality that they initially thought was the absolute reality in their life, into subsequent realities. They are then liberated from being stuck in any single reality...  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this radio interview from the mid 1970s, Ram Dass talks about what makes him a karma yogi, and how every experience in our lives is grist for the mill.

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Ram Dass illuminates the trap that many of us fall into as we grow up - which is the idea that we are our thoughts. The more accurate view would be, "I am and I think.” Thinking is a power that we have - “Intellect is a great servant but a lousy master.” Most of us live almost entirely within the projections of our thinking mind. Intellect is only one way of knowing the world, but the intuitive mind and heart is a more profound way of "knowing" the universe than the analytic intellectual linear mind. The more you think inwardly and self reflect, the more you become an object to yourself until the whole universe is made up of objects. We need to change the relative power positions of "intellect" and “intuition" so that we develop greater balance and freedom to grow on the spiritual path. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The spiritual journey is a different path than what you thought you were on. It's very hard to make the transition to that path because we tend to take the power from the spiritual work we do to make our lives "nice" - but that's not what the path offers. The path offers freedom, but freedom demands complete surrender. The dialogue between the mind and the heart has become out of balance in our culture. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass realized that the Western religious traditions weren't profound enough to connect people to their inner selves, they didn't provide man with the wisdom necessary to know inner peace and fulfillment - so he traveled to the East and connected with yoga (union with God). After encountering yoga he was able to come back into the Western traditions and hear the inner message. For instance, the prayer "Here O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is One." Isn't it strange to go to the East to break the barrier of cynicism around Western religions... See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

  On this special Here and Now podcast, we feature our new book ‘Love Everyone’, stories of the Westerners who heard about Neem Karoli Baba through Ram Dass and went to meet him. The author, Parvati Markus, introduces some of the stories from the book from her interviews that form the backbone of ‘Love Everyone’. Raghu introduces a very special Ram Dass talk from a radio interview after he just got back from India in 1972, and described for the first time what it was like being with Neem Karoli Baba in extraordinary detail. As a bonus, Raghu introduces a never before told story of Maharajji saving someone from drowning, and the family never knew it was him until 60 years after the incident.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Raghu reveals an interesting confession about an LSD experience he had involving the death of his ego and the birth of a very specific concern. Ram Dass discusses the art of dying and suffering. Suffering only happens to a "somebody" - if you are not attached to your "somebodyness" you don't suffer because there's nothing for that suffering to cling to and manifest within you. The suffering that has occured in your life is part of what allows you to be here today - the way that suffering burns into you and deepens you makes you less superficial.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There's another way of being in the universe. The Chinese call it "the heart mind" or as we may call it "the intuitive mind." Rather than knowing through dualistic means or thinking about it, one subjectively merges with it, becomes one with it. It's like the difference between wisdom and knowledge.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this episode of the Here and Now Podcast, Ram Dass examines our perception of identity and asks us to look beyond the veil of illusion between our true selves and who we think we are.

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Raghu introduces a new outstanding essential teachings course from Ram Dass entitled – Being Here Now: An Odyssey into the Essential Teachings of Ram Dass. After a deep dive into the Ram Dass audio archives, Raghu gives us a preview of the never before published Ram Dass content. Being Here Now is an eight-week audio course with a companion guide written by Rameshwar Das. The course also features a big bonus current video of Ram Dass. Raghu gives us a taste of each week, and shares wisdom on some of the topics featured in the course. This course is brought to you in partnership with Tami Simon and Sounds True. Being Here Now: An Odyssey into the Essential Teachings of Ram Dass Identifying with Our True Self From the moment we incarnate as a human being we are identified with our body, feelings and thoughts. Yet, beyond our thinking mind and sensory perceptions, there is a vast realm of the soul which is pure consciousness, love, joy and peace. Our individual soul is part of that unitary consciousness, whether we call it God, Buddhahood, or the One. It is our origin and where we shall return. Sometimes just a subtle shift in perspective or point of view can remind us of this true nature of our being. Witness and Awareness The gateway to our true Self is our own awareness. Becoming an impartial observer of each instant of our incarnation allows us to be present in the moment and at the same time to extricate from our desires, thoughts, attachments and the time-binding of regrets about the past and worry about the future. Awareness and love, loving ourselves with full awareness of each thought and feeling, even of negative emotions, begins to dissolve our identification with the ego and allows us to live in our soul. Methods and Purifying the Mind Meditation means going within to bring the mind to one point in order to quiet the cacophony of thoughts, emotions, and desires. Patanjali, the sage who wrote the Yoga Sutra, starts with, “Citta vritti nirodha,” or, consciousness arises when thoughts dissolve. Our guru, Maharaj-ji, said, “Bring your mind to one point and wait for Grace.” There are many methods of meditation. Find one that works for you and develop a regular practice. Suffering and Disturbing Emotions Physical, emotional, and mental suffering is a reality of life. Thoughts, emotions, and sensations come up constantly to disturb the essential peace of the heart and mind. While we cannot avoid the difficult challenges of life, how we deal with and experience them can magnify or reduce their impact. We can find a spaciousness in our encounters with suffering- we can actually make friends with our suffering. Cultivating Love and Compassion Love is the emotion of merging, or becoming one. Compassion is being with another’s suffering, experiencing our inter-relatedness in the most direct way by opening our hearts to one another. The Buddhist practice of metta or the Hindu devotional practices of Bhakti yoga can help with that heart opening. Ram Dass teaches Loving Awareness meditation that brings together love and awareness. We have to start from where we are. Only when we truly love ourselves can we become beacons of love to others. Relationships and the Spiritual Path Transforming the karma of relationships into grist for the mill of the spiritual path is a challenge. Discriminating between love and attachment, personal desire and unconditional love, is part of everyone’s spiritual evolution. Karma Yoga Transforming everyday work and activity into spiritual practice is karma yoga, often expressed through seva, or selfless service. The Bhagavad Gita is one of the great wisdom sources for karma yoga. As it says, ultimately we bring our lives into harmony by surrendering the fruits of our actions to God. Love and Death Our ego fears annihilation because of the identification with our body. Living in faith that we are truly a soul helps transform fear. The grief of losing a loved one yields to the certainty that though bodies pass away, love does not die. If we live fully in the present moment, death is just another moment. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Buckle in for a journey with Ram Dass to a place behind it all, beyond the grand illusions, beyond the groovy trips of the mind, and beyond desire and attachment.

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On this episode of the Here and Now Podcast, Ram Dass teaches the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths and shares the lessons he was taught about overcoming desire while in India.

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Our Journey is towards simplicity and quietness - to a kind of joy that is beyond time - a journey where we leave behind all our models of who we are. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Raghu and Ram Dass do a live hang out on Skype. Raghu reminds Ram Dass of the first moment they met in Montreal  and how that moment defined a trust for him that led to meeting the Guru.  Ram Dass talks about his first encounters with trust through the sacred mushroom and Tim Leary. For the first time Ram Dass tells the real story of how he came to coin Be Here Now while searching for the Guru in India. Ram Dass talks about intuition and imagination as a method to connect with the Guru- and Raghu quotes from Ram Dass' book Journey of Awakening in relation to meeting the Guru- " When needed the Guru appears. It's a benign conspiracy". Finally Ram Dass talks about contentment and the fact that he has been living in a "stroked" body has not deterred him from being in the moment and being content. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We keep closing off the door of entry to a higher state of consciousness because of the fear of the implications of a true spiritual journey. We have embarked on a game that is much more profound than we usually think we are in - we’re ready to slip by and make everybody feel good. As in the metaphor for the Bhagavad Gita - Arjun fights an army of attachments - attachment to family, to a secure and comfortable life, to the prestige of habit and comfort, to shine in society - they may have served as guides and teachers in the past but they have been part of what has kept us from God. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We have built such a habitual structure of self definition on this plane of reality. That is the model you impose with your self definition of separateness. What does it take to bring about the full transformation so that you dance in your separateness without being entrapped by it. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass talks about the mental and physical trials he experienced before traveling to India after he was fired from Harvard, and about embarking on his journey to the East to find his Guru.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The world is a reflection of our internal state; if we dwell on turmoil, anger and confusion then that's how the world will be perceived to the individual. You have to work on yourself first before you can effectively take any social or political action. A quiet mind and and an open heart are important attributes to project into the world.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Everybody that has asked to be free has called down upon themselves Grace; that is through their Guru, Guide, Guardian Angel or Spiritual Friend. That being, whomever it may be, is your guide to liberation. This is called forth by your genuine asking- if you don't ask they don't even notice you.   But the minute you do ask to be free- you call down Grace and your whole life becomes a dialogue with that being.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This time on the Here and Now Podcast, Ram Dass discusses the seductiveness of the rational mind and explores another option we have for interacting with the world.

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One cultivates spaciousness or awareness which allows you to acknowledge the emotions and see them as part of the human condition. Emotions are like subtle thought forms and they all arise in response to something outside yourself. They are all reactions. You cultivate a quietness in yourself that watches these emotions rising and falling and passing away.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When we have any kind of mystical or ineffable experience, it upsets our apple cart. It upsets the security of our separateness. We get attached to our separateness and become afraid of losing it. And out of that comes greed, lust, anxiety and fear. The main quality of that separateness is suffering, which is why it’s called “the vale of tears.” This birth, which looks to you as a kind of chaotic, random, somewhat morbid humor of God, has an absolute exquisite perfection of the unfolding of your being in an evolutionary direction towards you becoming fully conscious of who you are, which turns out to be God.   

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On this episode of the Here and Now Podcast, Ram Dass talks about being in limbo in India in his search for the answers he came for.

We hear about the transformative lessons Ram Dass learned from one of the last people in India he might have expected – a twenty-year-old Westerner.

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The quality of a really good teacher is rascalism. All you need to know is this: If you want to be free, use the teacher to the fullest extent. Their karmic problems are their karmic problems. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass talks about the somebody training we all go through in life, and how he turned his big, frightening neuroses into friendly, little Shmoos.

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Change is an opportunity for growth, but it requires consciousness that holds an inner quality of equanimity and openness to the unknown. A certain way in which the chaos of the moment doesn't undercut you because you are not dependent on the external for your equanimity. You and I are in training to be instruments in a society where we can be stable in the presence of change, not holding onto the old system, but being able to move into the unknown without fear. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass relays some of the teachings around darshan, renunciation, shakti, violence, and truthfulness that he received in his many months of study while in India.

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Ram Dass takes a number of questions on how to navigate our paths in life. He talks about how to deal with fear and sit with it, watching our reactivity, wanting to create resistance against what we are afraid of. Allow yourself to notice the resistance and keep softening, embrace it into yourself. The resistance against something makes the fear more intense. See the fear as a process that comes out of conditioning and identification. Ram Dass talks about “out of body” experiences and suggests that one does not preoccupy oneself with what the experience is. It’s more about what the experience is offering in terms of a deeper understanding that one can use in personal growth. Remember, the intellect wants to know it knows. Intuitively, one can feel the validity of the experience and that validity colors our future life. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Loving kindness is the spirit of friendship toward yourself." - Sharon Salzberg "Interdependence is not romantic, but it's the truth of things - that our lives have something to do with one another." - Sharon Salzberg See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass tells the story of Maharaji arranging the reunion of a barber and his son by appearing in two places at one time and says, "More profound than miracles is the quality of His presence - His unconditional love was so intense that it cut through cynicism, doubt and separation. Imagine a place where someone is living in that presence of unconditional love all the time with everyone - and everyone you see is their Beloved. A fully conscious and realized being is that - there are no conditions and no attachments.” On the other hand we all live within limits which prevent us from loving freely - we are conditional lovers. How do we transform? Not by destroying our bodies, thoughts or emotions but by getting beyond the attachments that prevent us from being free and unconditional lovers. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Being in the presence of dying people keeps me close to the edge of my own awakening. Love touches time and turns it to dust. Love is beyond the reach of time. -Ram Dass See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Now, with his guru found, Ram Dass continues on with the most difficult part of his journey for truth – the journey within.

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In this talk from 1969, Ram Dass shares several meditation methods to help go behind the rational mind to the next state of consciousness.

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In this episode Ram Dass' satsang family Mirabai Bush, Raghu Markus and Danny Goleman hang out and talk about Danny's new book with HH Dalai Lama- A Force For Good- which coincides with HH's birthday. Also remember the days they spent together in India with Neem Karoli Baba and what transmission they brought back to the West and how that has affected their individual offering in their work and lives. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Desire is a trap; desirelessness is liberation. Desire is the creator; desire is the destroyer. Desire is the universe. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Guru as a separate entity only exists within the illusion of separateness - the minute “it" has worked to awaken you - “it" ceases to be anything. It’s a self destruct mechanism. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How can we look at our life experience in a way that liberates us from suffering and liberates those who we come into contact with from suffering? We begin to see our life experiences as Grace - as a set of opportunities through which we can become free. The predicament is that as you awaken you realize you have been the perpetrator of the conspiracy you got caught in. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass examines the interconnection between faiths and breaks down one of Maharaj-ji’s most essential teachings: ‘Sub Ek’ – it’s all one.

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Ram Dass brings up a meeting he had with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche during which Rinpoche said to him, "We have to accept responsibility,” to which Ram Dass replied, "God has all the responsibility,” and Rinpoche replied, "Ram Dass, you are copping out.” Ram Dass explores the way in which we experience everything as a free choice but in some way it's part of a determined law: You have a choice of identifying with your incarnate creation (your body, personality, social entity) or You as the creator (God that resides within each one of us) of that creation. The creative spark - that's what is responsible. We accept that we are part of the One, and that we are in fact creating our universe. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It takes but a flick of a look in a person's eyes to see who it is you are to them. Which level of reality you exist upon. A conscious being has no attachment to any level, neither busy denying nor affirming, neither saying "I am this" nor "I am not this" - neither protecting nor justifying. Once you get a peek at the reality of who you really are, you cannot go back to your former identity, try and try as much as you will. When the pursuit of your true nature is the only game, everything in your life becomes an instrument for getting free. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass’s precise enquiry into the real nature of purification and liberation – jumping into your own individuated Dharmic fire, not ignoring your weaknesses and neuroses.  The bliss is one part, the reality of life on Earth at this moment is another – he firmly suggests embracing all of it.  There is “no irrelevancy in the whole system” he says and this includes suffering and loss and major difficulties.  Ram Dass’s expliqué of the long, incarnational progression is particularly exquisite in this talk – detailing the gradually emergent, awakened embodiment and then the ineffable potential of the bodhisattva manifestation.   See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass takes us on a journey outside of time and space as he explores the trance-like state known as Samadhi and what it might be like to be the guru.

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In this lecture from 1974 at Naropa University, Ram Dass talks about our unhealthy preoccupation with our individual differences.   We grow up with the identity of a separate self, building an entire character around that separate self. From this, we begin identifying others based around our character development. In this episode, Ram Dass gives insight on how our practice helps us move beyond our patterns and perception of individual differences.   See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our journey is about totally embracing life, but doing it with non-attachment. By embracing the ten thousand horrible visions and the ten thousand beautiful visions, you go through the doorway of nature to go beyond nature at the same time as being fully in it. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We can be the biggest somebody in the world when we have no attachment, but we have to start from somewhere, we can’t start out being nobody. The force of “somebody-ness” that develops the survival mechanisms (social, physical, etc.) is our starting point. It is in the freedom of non-clinging to models about self and other that you begin to tune to and hear the way of things, called the Dao or the Divine Law. When you respect that tuning in yourself, actions that flow from you start to become dharmic. They are acts that release beings from suffering and do not perpetuate the illusion of separate self. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Community is when human beings come together in the shelter of each other. We are a community of beings acknowledging the dual intention of working on ourselves as an offering to others, and working with others as a way of working on ourselves. Our lives are training sessions to turn ourselves into instruments of true kindness and compassion. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When it comes to Spiritual Practices, Ram Dass poses the question, “why do we practice?” Raghu reads a passage from The Wisdom Teachings and Good Wishes of the Adi-Buddha Samanta-Bhadra which poses that the reality which is “the foundation of all is uncreated, uncompounded, independent beyond mental concept and verbal definition.” Not knowing this we humans get overwhelmed by the darkness of unconsciousness, from which comes ignorance and error, of course what arises is us and them, together, or I and others. Which spawns an unbroken current of samsaric (illusion) evolution, so the root source of error among sentient beings is thus unconscious ignorance Raghu suggests this is pretty good motivation for spiritual practice. Ram Dass gives another motivation, which is, change generates fear. Fear generates contraction, contraction then generates prejudice and bigotry, and ultimately violence. What’s the antidote for this? It’s consciousness that does not respond to change with fear. So how do we get that consciousness? It takes spiritual practice. Once you start to practice, the journey to awakening starts to dominate the terrain. “Everything in your life becomes grist for the mill of awakening. You learn to trust the deepest inner message you can hear.” Ram Dass also says: “if you’re thinking you should meditate, don’t bother, go out and lust some more. You need an honest approach to the path, you can’t be phony holy.” Raghu talks about his own experience on sitting on a regular basis, even if he’s tired or cranky. The beauty of a true spiritual journey is that it keeps unfolding from inside yourself. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The meaning of honoring Shiva is to give space to ALL of the forces of the universe. To recognize them all, to allow them to be, to not try to shove anything under the rug. It's all Grace: sickness, fatigue, pleasure, pain, there's nothing left in my life other than the teachings that bring me into union with the Divine. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this recording from 1969, Ram Dass talks about watching the drama unfold, the pure light of the guru, and sings the beautiful Rama Rama.

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When you begin to awaken, you are not coming from such a needy place when you enter into a relationship, not looking to “lock in” so quickly. Your need is still there as a human incarnation - but you are not so identified with that need and because you are already resting in a place of love, and you can experience the sharing of love and oneness without fear.  You don’t need a person to get into that space, you are already in it.            See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass talks about the value and limits of psychedelics – when they can enhance the spiritual path and when there can be risks. From ancient times there has been the idea of an elixir sometimes called Soma and the use of natural herbs to effect spiritual transformation. The experience that humans have is the ability to see the universe from a different vantage point- now we could experience the deeper part of our beings that lie behind the thinking mind. Our monitoring system gets turned off so we can have a completely fresh view. When the boundries break down we begin to see the inter-relatedness of everything. We see the way in which it’s all connected- the mystery that lies behind the apparent phenomena. These psychedelics give us an inner validity to our intuitive voice. Ram Dass talks about the original playbook laid out in the early days on set and setting when taking ethneogens. “When I broke through, what I saw was the reality I thought was real was only relatively real- not absolutely real. What happened to my mind was a shift in consciousness.” See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass interviews Trungpa Rinpoche at the Dharma Festival in 1973. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Bhagavad Gita says, “The greatest birth is in a family of Yogis.” That would reflect people who are not caught so much in the illusion of separateness. Small children, when in the presence of parents who are spacious and aware, allow the child to develop a “somebody-ness” but not at the level that it entraps them. Rather, it becomes a functional “somebody-ness” not an entrapping “somebody-ness”. As parents, we should cultivate with our children as quickly as possible the notion that we are fellow travelers, that I am in a role of caretaker and you as child, and slowly we are going to emerge as two friends. Then you become a Dharmic parent. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The nature of aging is change. We are fascinated by watching that which changes. When change starts to happen to who we think we are, the fascination turns into fear. We are living in a system that is out of balance; the zeal for independence and individuality has left us alienated from the structures of family, community and nature.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass talks about being socialized out of any recognition of who we were. Everyone wants to believe they are who they think they are. Through the use of psychedelics we recognized we'd been had. Where your mind is in relation to the game is what creates or relieves suffering-your's and everyone else.   Ram Dass also leads a short three breath mindfulness meditation for practice anytime during the day. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass shares some of his Indian stories about his guru, Maharajji, that are meant to help us stretch our consciousness and investigate how the laws of the universe truly work.

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Ram Dass answers questions from the audience on the predicament of Grace and Karma- the predicament of judging- the predicament of social responsibility. Also same sex relationships and the relation to divinity. “Only when you are honoring the plane on which it is all totally perfect just the way it is, can you assume on the other plane the responsibility to change it; recognizing that the desire in you to change it is part of the perfection of it all." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What's awesome is the amount of energy that is available to a human being. The paradox is, as long as you are a somebody you are dealing with a finite amount of energy that is able to function through somebody-ness. Only when you become nobody can you be one with universal energy.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass talks about cultivating loving truth in intimate relationships, and how the yoga of relationships is perhaps the hardest yoga to practice. 

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When you are no longer laying trips on anyone, not judging, or discriminating individual differences, you become the environment in which the optimum growth is available to all human beings you come into contact with. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dan Ellsberg tries scare tactics to get Ram Dass to take social action. Ram Dass says –“In fact nuclear weaponry are out of balance with the way of things - The Dao - so you don’t have to cajole or coerce people into acting. You can’t milk it through fear. You can just trust people’s gut. They will react through their own intuitive sense of being in tune with the way.” “Quiet mind-open heart- we do what we can to relieve suffering” - Ram Dass “It’s the freedom of consciousness that hears the impeccable act that brings about the healing of the planet and all it’s people so that you are an instrument for the relief of suffering; Even though at another level you can see that suffering is part of the nature of things. And the perfection is that we act to relieve the suffering while acknowledging that both the act and the suffering are part of one mosaic.” - Ram Dass See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ram Dass talks about the promises and the pitfalls of the spiritual path, and the shift of reality that happened in the sixties that was predicated by psychedelics. This shift blew apart the traditional religious systems that were in place at the time, and the psychedelics gave people a connection that they had never experienced before: a feeling that they were interconnected with the universe. When we see how much of our behavior is a defense mechanism to alleviate the pain of separateness, we begin to realize the importance of healthy intuitive and compassionate hearts. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As long as you perceive love as a verb, you are thinking of another person as a separate object to give love to. When we are truly in love, we are in a simple state of “being” love. As an incarnation, you have to understand what it means to live outside of time and space. You have to understand what it means to see a continuing process of which a human birth is but one very minor segment… See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

All spiritual practice ultimately becomes the preparation of your body, your heart, and your mind to receive God. The path of going into God, in truth, is not an easy path. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Swimming with the dolphins connected me immediately to my intuitive heart space. They were a mirror of non-judgmental awareness that reminded me of being with Maharaji. Being with him felt like being with someone who was human but not human, like a wild animal. I was removed from my conceptual conspiracy of relating to the world through attachment, greed and anger. -Ram Dass See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this episode of Here and Now, Ram Dass has a Sunday hangout session with Raghu Markus. The two chat about the concept of the 'soul-complex', how Ram Dass manages his suffering, as well as duality and devotion. Ram Dass and Raghu discuss the 'soul-complex' and the transition process between lives. They also consider the similarities between duel and non-duel systems. Explaining how the limitations of one are complimented by the other, and how the two have different means to the same end. "In life, the 'soul-complex' is never for two consecutive moments the same, but is, like the body, in constant change. There is thus a series of successive, and, in one sense, different states, which are in themselves but momentary. There is still a unifying bond in that each momentary state is a present representative of all those which are past, as it will be the generation of all future transformations potentially involved in it. This process is not interrupted by death." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this episode of Here and Now, Ram Dass talks about what service really means, moving beyond ego and time, and why his mantra is the question, “How may I serve you?”

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The process is realizing that you and I exist on more than one plane of awareness simultaneously and on one plane suffering stinks, and on another plane suffering is grace. And the question is, "Can you balance those two things in your consciousness?" See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Surya Das joins Ram Dass for a puja side chat at Ram Dass' home on Maui. Surya Das is a bhakta as well as an American Lama. They explore questions like, "What is our true sadhana (spiritual practice)?" - "Are we egos or dharma masters? Or are we simply two brothers on the path to the Guru's feet?" Ram Dass talks about doing practices consciously, giving the example of yoga, where each pose is "shaking hands with God." Surya Das asks, "What keeps us from remembering God in each moment of our lives?" See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this dharma talk Ram Dass discusses Shiva’s dance of life, reflecting on methods for centering ourselves, serving others, and tending to the part of us that isolates ourselves from the world.”

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Welcome to the First Meeting of the Here and Now Podcast with Ram Dass!

Never heard of Ram Dass? Picked up a copy of Be Here Now and want to explore deeper practices for cultivating love, non-attachment and awareness? This episode will introduce you to Ram Dass and his work. Ram Dass takes you through his early days as a psychologist to his life-changing psilocybin trip with psychedelic pioneer and colleague, Timothy Leary.

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The whole design of your incarnation is like an incredible computer program that sets you into the exact life situations to move you forward towards true awareness. It’s all perfect. Every part of the birth you are taking is part of the unfolding of the karma you need to burn through. There is not one experience you are having or could have or have had that is not part of that process. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this special 100th episode of Here and Now, Ram Dass and Raghu Markus talk about imagination, faith, and gratitude. Ram Dass teaches us to see through our own delusions that mislead us and weigh us down with fear. Ram Dass brings insight to several important questions. How can we learn to trust our intuition without fooling ourselves? Where does gratitude come from? Explore these questions and more on this episode of Here and Now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this episode of the Here and Now Podcast, Ram Dass talks about seeing through illusions of the ego while still carrying the burden of one’s personality through life.

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This time on the Here and Now Podcast, Ram Dass examines the evolution of consciousness and explores the many dimensions of consciousness available to us through practice.

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What we offer each other is our truth, which includes all of our "stuff." We have to allow ourselves to be human. The way to the truth is through acknowledging the fullness of where we find ourselves to be, which is through our humanity and our divinity.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The more evolved you become spiritually, the less boundaries there are between my energy and THE energy. When your energy is used in a way that is destructive, meaning that it creates suffering to you and other people and creates pain of separation, you want to keep working to move that energy in other ways, to create a more compassionate environment. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How do we bring spirituality and business together? How do we bring sustainability and justice into business? We must fulfill our roles to use them as vehicles to become free. Ram Dass uses the Social Venture Network and their honest social action as examples of conscious business practices. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We are both separate and one. Creator and created. The question is, “Can we allow for free will and at the same time acknowledge that everything is determined?” The trick is to neither identify nor deny either of them. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In tracing our spiritual journey, we have gone from a psychological, economic and political universe into a spiritual universe. And in the course of that transition, we have rejected the psychological, economic and political aspects of our lives. We have to finally honor our incarnations, god manifests through form and we have to love the form that we were incarnated into, and give that form space to be what it has to be. We need to stop taking a stance to protect ourselves from the supposed contamination of the world on our so-called ‘spiritual purity’. What we are should be able to play in all of the fields of our lives. As long as we have the desire to be ‘special’ we are pushing life away out of fear. Afraid of dying into the universe for fear it will contaminate us. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Renunciation is internal dropout, not external dropout" This is often in direct contrast to the Western model of achievement oriented success. But we are not required to move off into a cave in order to find enlightenment. Through complete devotion to our work and our love for that process, we can absolutely move in the direction of realization. "By letting go, everything gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning" Through cultivation of the witness we move out of the melodrama and into the place of pure perspective and peaceful awareness See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this wide ranging interview by Radio For Peace, Ram Dass talks about satsang/community and how it can uplift us as well as become a trap. “The possibility is there in spiritual community to die into the truth. But people die very hard and as a result fall back on structures that can enhance separateness.” There is pressure in satsang to conform to the median and that pressure to conform can get individuals calcified. Institutions that are optimum for the spirit are totallt creative and imaginative. We are in the process of dissolving and being creative every moment.” Ram Dass also talks about belief and faith- “Faith is an aspect of the nature of being. Belief won’t help you when you are facing death.” See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this dharma talk from the late 1960’s Ram Dass, just coming back from recent psychedelic explorations, shares his insights on embracing it all, non-attachment, and his namesake of service, Hanuman.

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Ram Dass talks about disturbing emotions that may arise is potential wisdom the moment you relax into your natural mind. Look directly into it, don’t deliberately reject it, regard it as a fault, or indulge in it concretely or, regard it as a virtue. Ram Dass talks about experiencing his life as a dance of balance of cultivating the qualities of spaciousness, of equanimity, of peace, of happiness, we fear the passions of life because they take us away from that balance. We have to find a balance between intuitive heart and thinking mind. Because the tendency in the spiritual journey is to denigrate the thinking mind into it and we shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. In this talk, Ram Dass speaks on making human relationships our yoga. Let us help each other awaken. Ram Dass tells us an exquisite story about Ramana Maharashi that exemplifies the possibility Of a being who is not trapped, but are always living in that spacious awareness-- of compassion or emptiness. Miracles remind you that what you think is reality is not truth. That frees you to think about what is true reality. When you wonder how it is, you’re hooked. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There are tools and techniques that one can make use of to have a happier life - and these tools do not require a belief system. It’s about the possibility of re-training the condition of the mind in a way so that old patterns of pushing away or holding on can be challenged and relinquished into a whole new way of relating to our experience. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.