In this special bonus episode, Ram Dass offers his viewpoint on how we can dance in the ocean of change as the structure of our culture shapeshifts before our very eyes.

This episode of Here and Now is from a talk Ram Dass gave at a bookstore in Sebastopol, CA, on April 15, 1992.

• How do you learn to live with change? Where do you stand? Ram Dass offers his viewpoint on our culture as he saw it in the early 1990s, talking about the rapid changes taking place in the ecological, economic, social, political, and spiritual realms.
• Ram Dass explores the massive denial in the culture about what all these changes mean and how that denial leads to uncertainty and fear. He talks about his work with death and dying, and how we can work with the death of our culture in a similar manner.
• Finally, Ram Dass shares how we can begin to find some balance amidst the chaos of change. It is possible to feel equanimity and even joy in a world that is filled with suffering. He says, “So you and I are driven to work on ourselves to rest in the place in ourselves where we are not vulnerable to the winds of changing time and space. And then to dance in the ocean of change, and to be a great dancer.”

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“Here we are dealing with perhaps the death of the whole structure, the way we know it. This is a massive death process. Now, this sounds like a gloomy lecture, except it isn’t. It all depends on whether you expect change always leads to bad things.” – Ram Dass

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In this classic Q&A session from the 1980s, Ram Dass talks about soul mates, marriage and open relationships, working with truth in relationships, and much more.

In this episode of Here and Now:

• Ram Dass begins with questions about soul mates and the difference between marriage and cohabitation. “I’m not sure,” he says, “I understand the term ‘soul mate’ other than people have work to do together, at times. Then, they may come together in many different forms.”
• Ram Dass converses with an audience member about being on the spiritual path while having a partner who is not. Next comes a question about open relationships, which leads him to talk about the importance of working with truth in relationships.
• Finally, Ram Dass answers a question about the different challenges men and women face in awakening through relationships. He talks about a quality of androgyny that can manifest in spiritual identity.

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.

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

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

“It is certainly possible to work with truth in a relationship, to get to the point where, more and more, you are safe in expressing what your impulses are and your truth of your moment. Truth is one of the vehicles for deepening spiritual awareness through another human being and if there is a license for that in any relationship – with guru, with friend, with lover, whatever it is – it is an absolutely optimum way of coming into a liquid spiritual relationship with another person.” – Ram Dass

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In this Q&A session from 1993, Ram Dass talks about his passions, the balance of separateness and unity, dealing with turmoil, the creative force of the universe, and more.

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This episode of Here and Now is from a Q&A session at an event in Boise, Idaho in April 1993.

• Ram Dass begins with questions about dealing with people who might not like you, what his current passions in life are, and the art of staying in the present moment.
• Ram Dass moves on to inquiries about hesitating when action feels needed, making the transition from somebody to nobody, and the limits of Carl Jung’s work with mythic archetypes.
• Finally, Ram Dass answers questions about dealing with polarization and turmoil in the world, offers his personal feelings about organized religion, and explores the creative force of the universe. He ends with a brief guided meditation centered around awareness and compassion for those who are suffering.

Join renowned meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg for a free live conversation and interactive Q&A exploring the power of real connection—with ourselves, each other, and the world around us. Throughout the discussion, Sharon, Jackie Dobrinska, and Raghu Markus will weave in the wisdom of Ram Dass, reflecting on how intimacy can be a profound path to awakening. Join this free live call on April 7th: Click Here To Learn More

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.

This show is also sponsored by Magic Mind. Try their new Mental Performance Gummies–a caffeine-free way to stay sharp, providing calm, sustained clarity without the side effects of traditional stimulants. Get 25% off with our link: magicmind.com/RAMDASSGM or use code RAMDASS25 at checkout.

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

“There is a process where, when you get out of the way, the whole creative force of the universe keeps expressing itself through the way you walk, talk, dance, paint, write, whatever your thing is.” – Ram Dass

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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.”

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.

This show is also sponsored by Magic Mind. Try their new Mental Performance Gummies–a caffeine-free way to stay sharp, providing calm, sustained clarity without the side effects of traditional stimulants. Get 25% off with our link: magicmind.com/RAMDASSGM or use code RAMDASS25 at checkout.

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

“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

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.