In this talk from 1970, Ram Dass explores the transformation from ignorance to wisdom, going up and coming down, living in the spirit, and different techniques of centering.

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This episode of Here and Now is the second half of a talk Ram Dass gave at the Arlington Street Church in Boston on March 24, 1970. Don’t miss part one of this talk: Tuning Up & Tuning In. In this episode:

• Ram Dass explores the transformation from ignorance to wisdom. “The really fierce problem that most of us are realizing at this moment,” he says, “is how to alter our ways of thinking about who we are and how it all is, to be in tune with something inside that already knows.”
• Ram Dass talks about the roller coaster of going up and coming down. But that’s all ultimately a game. The real work is to center ourselves so we can be at the vibrational rate where we are living in the spirit.
• Ram Dass shares different techniques of centering oneself, including vipasana meditation, pranayama breathing, and bhakti yoga. “As far as I can see,” he says, “every form of yoga is based on one-pointedness of mind. Take bhakti yoga, singing a love song to Ram. It only works when you can make your mind so one-pointed on Ram that you and Ram become one.”

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“Living in the spirit is a vibrational rate. It’s a take of it all. It’s a vibrational take. In order for it to work, you’ve got to get your head so centered. You’ve just got to calm down and center. And it’s really fierce to do it in the marketplace. And sometimes it’s cool to go off and do it in cycles. So at those times you sort of go off by yourself to cool out and center.” – Ram Dass

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In this unique talk from 1970, Ram Dass explores the confluence of dualism and nondualism, how the One and the many exist simultaneously, and why all of life is about tuning up.

This episode of Here and Now is the first half of a talk Ram Dass gave at the Arlington Street Church in Boston on March 24, 1970. In this talk:

• Ram Dass begins by talking about why all of life is about tuning up. “We’re tuning out of dualism into nondualism,” he says. “Tuning into being here and now.”
• Guided by wisdom from the likes of John the Baptist and Lao Tzu, Ram Dass digs deeper into his exploration of how dualism and nondualism come together. The One and the many can exist simultaneously.
• Ram Dass talks about Shiva’s dance, the mind-trip of holiness, and taking a night off from his Sadhana to go bowling. He ends with a classic story about not being able to keep his consciousness at the right level during a Q&A session.

The Ram Dass community gathers regularly to engage in meaningful discussions about the podcast. We invite you to join us and share your curiosities, insights, and wisdom. Sign up for the General Fellowship to receive event invitations directly in your inbox.

Sponsors of this Episode:

Ram Dass Here & Now is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/ramdass and get on your way to being your best self.

Reunion is offering $250 off any stay to the Love, Serve, Remember community. Simply use the code “BeHere250” when booking. Disconnect from the world so you can reconnect with yourself at Reunion. Hotel | www.reunionhotelandwellness.com Retreats | www.reunionexperience.org

This show is also sponsored by Magic Mind, a matcha-based energy shot infused with nootropics and adaptogens designed to crush procrastination, brain fog, & fatigue. Get 45% off the Magic Mind bundle with our link: magicmind.com/ramdassjan

“The tuning up is complicated, you see, because we’re not tuning out, we’re tuning up. We’re changing our vibrational rate.” – Ram Dass

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Ram Dass shares stories of social action and explores how we can plug into our sense of intuitive rightness so that our every act is in the way of things and in tune with the universe.

This episode of Here and Now is from a dharma talk given at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, on March 9, 1983.

• Ram Dass begins by talking about some of the anti-nuclear protests going on and how he feels tired of being “should upon.” He shares a story about how he wound up marching for peace across the Golden Gate Bridge.
• For Ram Dass, taking part in social action must come from a sense of intuitive rightness within ourselves, not from models of who we think we are and what we think we should be doing. We must listen our way into the harmony of things and resonate intuitively with the deepest parts of our beings.
• Ram Dass talks about quieting the screaming trumpets of the judging mind in order to hear what our next act should be. He shares the story of a protest he attended in New York where everyone simply felt privileged to be present in the moment. “You and I are environments for each other,” he says. “We’re the soil in which the flowers around us grow.”

The Ram Dass community gathers regularly to engage in meaningful discussions about the podcast. We invite you to join us and share your curiosities, insights, and wisdom. Sign up for the General Fellowship to receive event invitations directly in your inbox.

Sponsors of this Episode:

Ram Dass Here & Now is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/ramdass and get on your way to being your best self.

Reunion is offering $250 off any stay to the Love, Serve, Remember community. Simply use the code “BeHere250” when booking. Disconnect from the world so you can reconnect with yourself at Reunion. Hotel | www.reunionhotelandwellness.com Retreats | www.reunionexperience.org

This show is also sponsored by Magic Mind, a matcha-based energy shot infused with nootropics and adaptogens designed to crush procrastination, brain fog, & fatigue. Get 45% off the Magic Mind bundle with our link: magicmind.com/ramdassjan

“It was in the way of things. It had an intuitive sense of rightness. It was the meditative space of listening. Of hearing, not even listening. Of being so in tune with the universe that you can sense how your every act, your walking meditation, is interwoven with every other form. And the quality of the way in which you walk is your participation in the totality.” – Ram Dass

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Ram Dass and Stephen Levine explore how all the experiences in our lives, including the process of dying, can be an opportunity to grow and awaken out of the illusion of separateness.

This episode of Here and Now is part two of a talk by Ram Dass and Stephen Levine in San Francisco in the 1980s during the AIDS crisis. You can listen to part one on Ep. 268 of the Here & Now podcast: The Heart of Healing.

• Ram Dass talks about how we are being healed out of our separateness through our shared caring and our shared heart. Everything in our lives, including the process of dying, is an opportunity to grow. He explores how we need to shift our perspectives to touch the possibility that we are more than our bodies.
• Stephen addresses the AIDS crisis and the sense of anger and self-hatred that gathers around the pain people experience as they come closer to death. He shares the powerful story of one AIDS patient he was working with who started to meet his pain with loving kindness instead of with hatred.
• Ram Dass talks about opening not just to physical pain but to psychological pain as well. He shares some of the heavy learning he’s had to do in order to allow himself to need help from others. To do the work he really wanted to do, Ram Dass needed to acknowledge the fullness of his own humanity first.

About Stephen Levine:

Stephen Levine was an American poet, author and Buddhist teacher best known for his work on death and dying. He was a friend and colleague to many Be Here Now Network Teachers. Along with Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg, Stephen is responsible for making the teachings of Theravada Buddhism more widely available to students in the West. Find more talks and writings from Stephen at levinetalks.com.

The Ram Dass community gathers regularly to engage in meaningful discussions about the podcast. We invite you to join us and share your curiosities, insights, and wisdom. Visit Ramdass.org/fellowship to sign up for the General Fellowship, and you'll receive event invitations directly in your inbox.

“And at the simplest level, I’d say the statement is the antidote to burnout is the perspective that you are a growing being and that everything, including your own life and your own death, and approaching death, is an opportunity to grow.” – Ram Dass

Sponsors of this Episode:

Ram Dass Here & Now is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/ramdass and get on your way to being your best self.

Reunion is offering $250 off any stay to the Love, Serve, Remember community. Simply use the code “BeHere250” when booking. Disconnect from the world so you can reconnect with yourself at Reunion. Hotel | www.reunionhotelandwellness.com Retreats | www.reunionexperience.org

This show is also sponsored by Magic Mind, a matcha-based energy shot infused with nootropics and adaptogens designed to crush procrastination, brain fog, & fatigue. Get 45% off the Magic Mind bundle with our link: magicmind.com/ramdassjan

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In this talk from the 1980s, Ram Dass and Stephen Levine come together to explore the heart of healing and encourage us to look with clarity and compassion at the issues of pain and death.

Ram Dass Here & Now is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/ramdass and get on your way to being your best self.

This show is also sponsored by Magic Mind, a matcha-based energy shot infused with nootropics and adaptogens designed to crush procrastination, brain fog, & fatigue. Get 45% off the Magic Mind bundle with our link: magicmind.com/ramdassjan

This episode of Here and Now is part one of a talk Ram Dass and his good friend Stephen Levine gave in San Francisco in the 1980s. Check back soon for more of this recording.

• Stephen begins by talking about how this event came to be. He explores the heart of healing and how it can occur on more than just the physical level. The body might not always reflect the healing, but the healing is happening nonetheless.
• Ram Dass wants this to be a gathering that can reach for truth. Feeling touched by his stepmother’s recent passing, he shares the beauty of the process they just went through together. He tells the story about being on LSD during his mother’s funeral and explores some of the issues of burnout that are commonplace for people who are caregivers.
• Stephen talks about teaching with Elisabeth Küblar-Ross and how he learned to let go of his roles when sharing space with people who are facing pain and death. He tells the story of a woman who used her pain to push past her separateness and into a place of collective being. Healing doesn’t have to do with life and death, it has to do with the heart of the moment.

About Stephen Levine:

Stephen Levine was an American poet, author and Buddhist teacher best known for his work on death and dying. He was a friend and colleague to many Be Here Now Network Teachers. Along with Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg, Stephen is responsible for making the teachings of Theravada Buddhism more widely available to students in the West. Find more talks and writings from Stephen at levinetalks.com.

“Those people we know who are working with healing the body often seem to come to the place where they recognize that there is no such thing as just healing ‘my’ body, it is healing the body we all share. Entering the shared heart to experience the shared pain in the body we all share.” – Stephen Levine

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In this unique recording from 1995, Ram Dass talks to the Shivas Irons Society about the mystical nature of golf and how he’s using the game as a practice to become more conscious.

Today's show is sponsored by Magic Mind, a matcha-based energy shot infused with nootropics and adaptogens designed to crush procrastination, brain fog, & fatigue. Use the code RAMDASS at checkout to get up to 50% off your subscription: Magic Mind

This episode of Here and Now is from a talk Ram Dass gave to the Shivas Irons Society at Stanford University in August 1995.

• Ram Dass shares why he decided to take up the game of golf and how it helped him work out some old anxieties around the process of learning a new skill.
• Ram Dass talks about how his concentration practices and cultivation of the Witness allow him to connect to the mystical nature of golf. He explores not being attached to being the actor or to the fruits of an action. Are you being the golfer or are you playing golf?
• Finally, Ram Dass shares how he’s using the game of golf as a practice to become more conscious and develop qualities such as equanimity and joy in the moment. We can live our storylines, which means picking the right club for the next shot, while simultaneously having a free awareness that delights in the timelessness of each moment.

About Ram Dass:

Ram Dass’s spirit has been a guiding light for generations, carrying millions along on the journey. Ram Dass teaches that through the Bhakti practice of unconditional love, we can all connect with our true nature. Through these teachings, Ram Dass has shared a little piece of his guru, Maharaj-ji, with all who have listened to him.

“What I’m saying is the game of golf is an exquisite practice for cultivating the qualities of mind that, in the long run, relieve suffering for you and other people. So I’m saying to you that you have the attraction to and the skills in and the involvement with something that is basically a vehicle for liberation. And to see it as less than that is interesting, but it’s not the full ballgame at all. And it doesn’t diminish the beauty of the game of golf. In fact, it seems to me it enhances it because you’re just appreciating the whole process, including the humor of your own mind.” – Ram Dass

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At this rowdy Q&A session from their 20-year reunion event at Harvard, Ram Dass and Timothy Leary answer questions and banter about the scenarios and myths surrounding our lives.

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This show is also sponsored by Magic Mind, a matcha-based energy shot infused with nootropics and adaptogens designed to crush procrastination, brain fog, & fatigue. Use the code RAMDASS at checkout to get up to 50% off your subscription: Magic Mind

This episode is part three of the Ram Dass and Timothy Leary reunion event at Harvard University on April 23, 1983. Be sure to check out part one, The Explorer’s Club, and part two, No Signposts. In this recording:

• Ram Dass and Timothy begin with a little banter about their relationship and how it has evolved over the years.
• Dealing with a slightly rowdy audience, they take questions about where we go from here, emptiness and form, the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, and Ken Kesey.
• Ram Dass and Timothy both share their thoughts on collaboration and writing as a team, what the future might hold for the use of psychedelics, and whether or not psychedelics cause brain damage. They have a lively debate about Gandhi versus ET.
• Ram Dass explores some of the myths and scenarios surrounding our lives. Timothy talks about his Revelations per Minute meter and some of the future possibilities he’s most excited about. They quibble over Ram Dass’ use of the word “God” and make some predictions about the remainder of the 1980s.
• The event wraps up with some extended banter about voting, righteousness, and breaking bread with old enemies.

This talk was chosen in celebration of the new book, Dying To Know, which chronicles the epic friendship between Ram Dass and Timothy Leary that shaped generations of seekers. Get your copy today!

“My feeling is that we see through scenarios and myths so much that all we can do from here is be true to our self from moment to moment. Because every time we say, ‘Well, where we go from here is…’ We are already sending a whole structural thing forward.” – Ram Dass

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