Ram Dass Here And Now

Ram Dass and Raghu have a conversation around social action and keeping our quietness and love in 2017. Ram Dass talks about balancing ourselves, social responsibility, why he puts President Trump on his puja (prayer) table, and cultivating love for everyone no matter their beliefs. Ram Dass leaves us with perspective and insight on keeping our quietness and love in the coming year. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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 conscio

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 yo

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.

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 ha

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

  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.

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.

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.