In this Q&A session from 1990, Ram Dass talks about service, karma, alcoholism, the concept of eternity, cultivating the intuitive heart, experiencing the feeling of coming home, and more.

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This episode of Here and Now is from a Q&A session during a talk in Oklahoma City in May of 1990.

• Ram Dass begins by addressing questions about Hatha yoga, the concept of eternity, and where we can start when it comes to service. He talks about listening inwardly to hear the unique part we can play.
• Next up, Ram Dass explores dealing with alcoholism, cultivating qualities such as compassion and sympathetic joy, the concept of karma and our unique karmic predicaments, and experiencing the feeling of coming home into the harmony of all things.
• Finally, Ram Dass talks about some of the figures he admires, cultivating the intuitive heart, and how to deal with the seductive appeal of intensity. What we can do is cultivate the quality of the Witness within ourselves that notices when we get taken and lost in the drama of life.

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“I’ll tell you, I experience that as I keep opening my heart and accept my part in the sea of humanity, in the process of it, and start to allow that quality of compassion to come forth, I experience the feeling of coming home. I feel like I come home into family, I come home into place, I come home into the harmony of things. I think that the conditions are available for us to feel that feeling. I think as each individual feels it, then they become an instrument through which others feel it. I think it is a heart-to-heart process of coming home into that feeling of being at home.” – Ram Dass

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Ram Dass explores the paradox of suffering a spiritual person lives with, the perfection of it all, better living through chemistry, how we’re touched by grace, and the path of service and love.

This episode 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.

Today’s podcast 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 of Here and Now continues the talk from Here and Now Ep. 254—The Up-Level. It was recorded at a meeting of the San Francisco Christian Community in 1978.

• Ram Dass begins by explaining the paradox a spiritual person lives with when it comes to suffering and the perfection of all things. He touches on karma and righteousness.
• Ram Dass talks about how he came into spirituality through his experimentation with psychedelics and better living through chemistry. He explores the power of the mystical experience, motivations for service in the face of suffering, and the limits we place on ourselves by defining who we are.
• Ram Dass touches on our attachment to our methods, and how we’re all touched by grace. We can fight it all we want, but we can’t fall out of grace. He tells the story of how he began to give up his anger and ends the talk with an exploration of love. For Ram Dass, his path was simply one of service and of love.

“We have been touched. We have been touched by grace. That’s what we’re doing here. That’s why we’re in this room rather than at movies or out getting more and more sensual gratification at a punk rock concert or whatever. The reason we are here is because we’ve touched something. That is the grace, that is the thing. It has happened.” – Ram Dass

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In a talk from 1978, Ram Dass explores stepping onto the spiritual path, different planes of consciousness, the process of awakening, and the spiritual up-level game we can get caught in.

This episode 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.

Today’s podcast is also brought to you 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 comes from a 1978 recording of a talk Ram Dass gave at a meeting of the Christian Community of San Francisco.

• Ram Dass begins by speaking about the ups and downs of stepping onto the spiritual path, and how the nature of his personal journey had to do with the relationship of thought forms to the universe. There are more ways to know the universe beyond the rational, analytic mind, including intuition.
• Using meditation as an example, Ram Dass explores how we can lessen our identification with our thinking mind and start identifying more with our awareness. He talks about the different planes of consciousness on which we exist, from the physical and psychological planes to the plane where we’re all one.
• Ram Dass describes the process of awakening as a process of extricating ourselves from attachment to any of these planes. He talks about the confusion people encounter as they jump from plane to plane and the spiritual up-level game that people can get caught in. Ultimately, what we have to realize is that there’s no place to stand. We’ve got to allow it all, all of the time.

“‘Peter, it’s your turn to do the dishes.’ Peter answers, ‘We’re all one.’ Now, it is true we are all one, and it’s also true that it’s your turn to do the dishes. That’s what would be called a confusion of levels, you see. That’s what was known as the up-level in the original jargon of the consciousness movement. That was the up-level. You up-level everybody. Whatever they said, you just jumped one level up. Then you get the penultimate where somebody is saying, ‘It’s all nothing, it’s all empty, there is nothing, there’s nowhere.’ Then you’d say, ‘Yes, but do the dishes.’ And that would be your new up-level, that would be the twist.” – Ram Dass

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