Ram Dass Here And Now

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/p

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Can we take anticipated future suffering and turn it into something that enriches the present moment? For those of us who want to approach future suffering with some degree of equanimity, mindfulness and open heartedness, the earlier we start, the better.    The more we come into the presence of these phenomena, working with these struggles even though they are not ours yet, the more we will have eaten what we have to eat and digested our reactivity to be able to keep our hearts open.  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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.