BetterListen!

Excerpt 1 from "Transformation of a Man" - Ram Dass

In this fascinating and delightful transcribed exerpt from "Transformation of a Man", Ram Dass -- author of the seminal work Be Here Now --  describes some of his experiences as he travels around and explores India in the early 1960s, giving us true insight into the life and times of a spiritual seeker. Part of our ongoing partnership with The Love Serve Remember Foundation.

His big feet were just paddling along like a camel, and he was looking every other way, and he was always stepping around all of this stuff, and I could never figure it out. Now, as we got out of the big cities… in the big cities, you know, people look at you like, what kind of a nut are you? Barefoot in a cloth -- we know you’re a westerner, you know. Like, who are you kidding? But as you get out into the villages it’s much purer in India, and they still respect the spiritual endeavor, and the people would call, “Hey Babaji!” Which is, well, Baba means grandfather. It also means holy man. It’s usually given to Vaishnavites, which is the white cloth. And Babaji is sort of the affectionate title. In Yiddish it would be bubbala. [laughter] It’s the same thing. And so they call, “Babaji!” and I would always be embarrassed because I wasn’t a holy man. I was just wearing a white cloth. I was a western intellectual overage hippy looking to see what was going on in India. That’s who I was in my head, in my fixed model of myself.
 
And we got to these caves at Baneshwar;

Excerpt 2 from "Reflections on Suffering" with Ram Dass

This brief excerpt from "Reflections on Suffering" with Ram Dass, recorded live in 1987, gives us insight into how Ram Dass uses guided meditation to access our deepest thoughts and feelings.

Now let your awareness let arise into your awareness, thoughts that concern some way in which you personally have experienced suffering. Just let the thought arise in your mind. Keep your witness strong. How do I suffer? What suffering has there been in my life? Let yourself into it just a little. It will awaken a lot of thoughts that arouse that are feeling like emotions. Perhaps your suffering is around illness. Perhaps it is around loneliness and separateness. Perhaps it is around addictions, obsessions. Perhaps it is around shame, loathing towards your acts or your fantasies or qualities of your body or personality. Perhaps your suffering has been around the suffering of loved ones or the death of loved ones.

Ram Dass bio and links

Click here to listen to free previews and to purchase

Excerpt 1 from "Reflections on Suffering" with Ram Dass

Suffering -- the nature of it, how to be with it (ours or someone eles's), what attention we give it in our lives -- can be a major dilemma for most of us.  We often don't know how to be with it, whether to embrace it or shun it, give it space or re-direct it.  In this brief yet profound excerpt from "Reflections on Suffering", a talk given by Ram Dass in 1987, the heart of the matter is revealed, offering succint and direct teaching and wisdom on the place that suffering should have in our lives.

Now, just as I said before, if you are going to be able to deal with see somebody else’s beauty, you have to be able to acknowledge your own beauty. In a similar way, if you are going to be able to be available to someone else’s suffering, you have to be able to acknowledge your own suffering and be able to understand the nature of suffering in such a way that you have converted the quality of suffering in yourself.
 
Gurdjieff, the Russian philosopher said, “There is nothing that can be obtained spiritually without suffering in life, but at the same time, if you are going to proceed on the journey you must sacrifice suffering.”

Excerpt 1 from Ram Dass in Brazil - A Visit to Healer John of God

Even in something as simple as the process of a question and answer period, Ram Dass explores being utterly in the moment of that particular interchange.  This fascinating transcribed excerpt is part of a talk Ram Dass gave in Brazil in 2003 during a visit to the healer John of God.

This game is played with silence and then the silence is broken for somebody who has a question, and you can clothe the question as personal life, as my life, or sadhana, or the world condition. It can be clothed any way. Then I answer the questions. I am playing the role of Ram; R-A-M is “rent-a-mouth”. You are renting my mouth to represent what we all have, which we all share, is a certain plane of consciousness, and I don’t come by that plane naturally. As you don’t. Natural because we are in incarnations. And it is not natural in an incarnation to consider the incarnation from outside of it. You may have a question, you reach for it, I will see your hand, and I will call on you. In between questions, there are waves of silence so we can go, we can surf the silence.

Click Here for Free Previews and to Purchase

Ram Dass Bio and Links

Excerpt 2 from "Consciousness, Aging and the New Millenium" with Ram Dass

In this transcribed excerpt from a talk Ram Dass gave on "Consciousness, Aging and the New Millenium", Ram Dass reviews how we typically perceive and experience what aging is about.  Not very uplifting. We can only imagine where he goes from here about the stories we tell ourselves.

Aging has a lot of stuff with it and that becomes the curriculum. Here is one of the things my doctor gave me. He was talking about… it is an article about aging. It says everything hurts and what does not hurt, does not work. The gleam in your eye is from the sun hitting your bifocals. You feel like the morning after and you have not been anywhere. Your little black book contains names only ending in M.D. You get winded playing cards. Your children begin to look middle aged. You join a health club and do not go. A dripping faucet causes an uncontrollable bladder urge. You know all the answers but nobody asks you the question.

Excerpt from "Relationships" with Ram Dass

Recorded in 1980 in San Francisco, Ram Dass gives a glimpse into one of his more challenging experiences as a teacher.  His humanity and humor come through in this transcribed excerpt from his workshop on "Relationships."

I found myself a couple of years ago in Hawaii, on an island in Hawaii, where I had been invited to a meditation group. I thought, “Gee. Wonderful, They will fly me to this island.” I had never seen this island. I was met and taken up into the mountains into a plantation way in the back woods.
 
The whole thing started to feel a little weird to me, and it turned out that they were an intensive group encounter group and there were about thirty of them. They had been together for years and they had taken acid like 250 times together. They all slept in one room with the children and everybody, and they talked funny. The headman called me into his room and he went, (gibberish), and I did not want to do anything. I thought he had a tick and so I just sort of looked like it had not happened and he said, (gibberish). So I thought something was called for here. There is a questioning tone in his voice so I said, “Om.” You can throw that in anytime. Anytime he says a bad faux pas, you can always use om. Om, om, om! So I realized we were starting a new language and we played new language and it was great fun.

Excerpt 1 from "Consciousness, Aging and the New Millenium" with Ram Dass

In this fascinating transcribed excerpt from Consciousness, Aging and the New Millenium, Ram Dass -- beloved teacher and author of the seminal work Be Here Now -- explains to workshop attendees how absolutely any experience, even driving a car, can be used to expand awareness and awaken spiritually.

Now, what I’m talking about is taking something for which you have certain cultural stereotypic responses to. About golf, for example. Now you may… I’m not saying its negative or anything. You just have them. You have some. You know the way the culture views golf. Then I’m showing you the way I’m taking that experience and I’m using it in a certain way in my consciousness to transform my consciousness. In other words, I’m using my life experiences as vehicles through which I can awaken spiritually into other levels of awareness.