Ram Dass Here And Now

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.

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 podcast, Mickey Lemle, filmmaker and director of the Ram Dass documentary Fierce Grace, talks with Ram Dass about the power of storytelling. Writing sometimes doesn’t allow spiritual concepts to come across fully. Storytelling can convey the direct human experience of spirituality in a more personal and immediate way. Join Ram Dass and Mickey Lemle as they relive their stories together. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Lama Surya Das, an American Lama and bhakta, joins Ram Dass for an enlightening conversation on spiritual practice and connection with divinity. They discuss the essence of sadhana and whether we are egos or dharma masters on our journeys. The dialogue weaves in the power of humor in spirituality and the importance of living in the present. Surya Das poses thought-provoking questions about remembering God in everyday life, while sharing insights on spiritual mentorship and the transformative experience of working with a guru.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.