Biography

Ram Dass first went to India in 1967. He was still Dr. Richard Alpert, a prominent Harvard psychologist and psychedelic pioneer with Dr. Timothy Leary. He continued his psychedelic research until that fateful Eastern trip in 1967, when he traveled to India. In India, he met his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, affectionately known as Maharajji, who gave Ram Dass his name, which means “servant of God.” Everything changed then - his intense dharmic life started, and he became a pivotal influence on a culture that has reverberated with the words “Be Here Now” ever since. Ram Dass’ spirit has been a guiding light for three generations, carrying along millions on the journey, helping to free them from their bonds as he works through his own.

In 1961, while at Harvard, explorations of human consciousness led him, in collaboration with Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, Aldous Huxley, and Allen Ginsberg, to pursue intensive research with psilocybin, LSD-25, and other psychedelic chemicals.

Out of this research came two books: The Psychedelic Experience (co-authored with Leary and Metzner, and based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, published by University Books); and LSD (with Sidney Cohen and Lawrence Schiller, published by New American Library). Because of the highly controversial nature of their research, Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary became personae non-grata and were dismissed from Harvard in 1963. Tim Leary and Alpert then went to Mexico, ate mushrooms, and went from being academics to counter-culture icons, legends in their own time, and young at that. For Ram Dass psychedelic work turned out to be a prelude to the mystical country of the spirit and the source of consciousness itself. Mind expansion via chemical substances became a catalyst for the spiritual seeking. This naturally led him eastward to the traditional headwater of mystical rivers, India. Once there, a series of seeming coincidences led him to Neem Karoli Baba and the transformation from Richard Alpert to Ram Dass.

In 1974, Ram Dass created the Hanuman Foundation, a non-profit foundation meant to embody the spirit of service inspired his Guru. The Hanuman Foundation developed the Prison-Ashram Project, directed by Bo and Sita Lozoff, which helped prison inmates grow spiritually during their incarceration and the Dying Project, conceived with Stephen Levine, which helped many bring awareness and compassion to the encounter with death. Also as part of the Hanuman Foundation, Dale Borglum founded and directed the Dying Center in Santa Fe, the first residential facility in the United States whose purpose was to support conscious dying. The Prison-Ashram Project, now called the Human Kindness Foundation, continues under Sita Lozoff in North Carolina and the Living/Dying Project, now a separate non-profit headed by Dale Borglum in the Bay Area, provides support for transforming the encounter with life-threatening illness into an opportunity for spiritual awakening.

In 1996, Ram Dass began a talk radio program called “Here and Now with Ram Dass.” Seven pilot programs were aired in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, and Ram Dass planned to launch the show on a nationwide basis the following year, but it was not to be. On February 19th 1997, Ram Dass suffered a near-fatal stroke, which left him paralyzed on the right side of his body and expressive aphasia limiting his ability to speak, along with other challenging ailments. Though the radio show did not last, his Here and Now podcast (over 100 episodes) lives on today at Ram Dass’ Be Here Now Network.

His most recent books included Be Love Now (2011), Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart (2013), Cookbook for Awakening (2017), Walking Each Other Home (2018), Changing Lenses: Essential Teaching Stories from Ram Dass (2018), and Being Ram Dass (2021).

Ram Dass passed away at his home on Maui on December 22, 2019. Leading up to his passing, he continued to teach at his semi-annual retreats with other esteemed Bhakti and Buddhist thought leaders.

In the spirit of his wishes, the Love Serve Remember Foundation plans to continue and expand many of the programs, content and offerings you’ve come to know and love. More specifically, we plan to

• continue the bi-annual retreats on Maui and in Ojai with teachings from Ram Dass and friends;
  
• expand our Immersion Retreats to other parts of the country;
  
• nurture the growing Ram Dass fellowship communities across the country;
  
• initiate educational programs and curricula at universities and colleges;
  
• continue and expand our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion overall and to expand scholarship programs to include diverse cultural groups in all of our offerings;
  
• create a traveling exhibit of Ram Dass’s life work and personal library;
  
• expand the Be Here Now podcast network to include teachers and thought leaders from diverse spiritual traditions;
  
• in alignment with Ram Dass’ essential work on service, engage with other service organizations to support and expand their impact.
  

Since returning from India in 1968, Ram Dass has shared what he called “the jewel of Maharaji”. Love Serve Remember Foundation aspires to carry on these teachings of unconditional love and deep wisdom, as Ram Dass did until his last breath.

More about Ram Dass and his work on www.ramdass.org

Podcast - Here and Now

In 1996, Ram Dass began a talk radio program called “Here and Now with Ram Dass.” Seven pilot programs were aired in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, and Ram Dass planned to launch the show on a nationwide basis the following year, but it was not to be. On February 19th 1997, Ram Dass suffered a near-fatal stroke, which left him paralyzed on the right side of his body and expressive aphasia limiting his ability to speak, along with other challenging ailments. Though the radio show did not last, his Here and Now podcast (over 200 episodes) lives on today at Ram Dass’ Be Here Now Network.

https://beherenownetwork.com/category/ram-dass/

Here and Now Episode 108:
54.20 min

In this rare talk, Ram Dass reports on the geography of the journey of awakening.

Ram Dass gives this talk not long after returning from India where he began to learn the geography of the journey. He describes the cycles of the journey and the tools used along the way to access higher states of being.

Here and Now Episode 107: The True Revolution
36.45 min

On this unique episode of Here and Now, Ram Dass discusses seeing God in all things and how the true revolution is found through the evolution of consciousness.

In both parts of this episode, Ram Dass imparts wisdom on transformation. We look at transforming our world by evolving our worldview. Ram Dass shows us that the true revolution starts by changing our inner world.

Here and Now Episode 106: Who Are You
53.36 min

In this talk from 1976, Ram Dass talks about what we are beyond this lifetime and asks, “who are you?”

Time after time we have experienced a cycle of birth and death. Each time we are born into a new identity and cling to that incarnation as if it was all we had, until the moment we get a glimpse of something more. Ram Dass explores our journey of awakening and returning to the one by asking a simple question, “who are you?”

Here and Now Episode 105: Keeping our Quietness and Love
43.58 min

Ram Dass and Raghu Markus have a conversation around social action and keeping our quietness and love.

Ram Dass talks about balancing ourselves, social responsibility, why he puts President Trump on his puja (prayer) table, and cultivating love for everyone no matter their beliefs. Ram Dass leaves us with perspective and insight on keeping our quietness and love.

Here and Now Episode 104: Mindfulness and Food
53.01 min

Ram Dass is joined by a young Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield for a meaningful talk about mindfulness and food.

This discussion on mindfulness and food is part of the Naropa University Bhagavad Gita Sessions of 1974. We are given a new perception of what it is that we are eating. Ram Dass, Joseph, and Jack help us to understand that there is a connection between what sustains us and who we are.

Here and Now Episode 103: Individual Differences
46.53 min

In this lecture from 1974, at Naropa University, Ram Dass talks about our unhealthy preoccupation with our individual differences.

We grow up with the identity of a separate self, building an entire character around that separate self. From this, we begin identifying others based around our character development. In this episode, Ram Dass gives insight on how our practice helps us move beyond our patterns and perception of individual differences.

Here and Now Episode 102: 'Soul-Complex'
51.22 min

On this episode of Here and Now, Ram Dass has a Sunday hangout session with Raghu Markus. The two chat about the concept of the ‘soul-complex’, how Ram Dass manages his suffering, as well as duality and devotion.

Ram Dass and Raghu discuss the ‘soul-complex’ and the transition process between lives. They also consider the similarities between dual and nondual systems. Explaining how the limitations of one are complemented by the other, and how the two have different means to the same end.

Here and Now Episode 101: Separation, Lust & Kali
1.12.09 min

On this episode of Here and Now, Ram Dass talks about our separation from the One, getting back to God, and what we must do to make it happen.

How would you answer the question of, “Who do you think you are?” You probably believe that you are somebody, but that somebody is the ego. Ram Dass delves into separation and the self.

Here and Now Episode 100: Imagination, Faith, and Gratitude
51.37 min

On this special 100th episode of Here and Now, Ram Dass and Raghu Markus talk about imagination, faith, and gratitude. Ram Dass teaches us to see through our own delusions that mislead us and weigh us down with fear.

Ram Dass brings insight into several important questions. How can we learn to trust our intuition without fooling ourselves? Where does gratitude come from? Explore these questions and more on this episode of Here and Now.

Here and Now Episode 099: An Odyssey into the Essential Teachings of Ram Dass
42.55 min

Raghu introduces a new outstanding essential teachings course from Ram Dass entitled: Being Here Now: An Odyssey into the Essential Teachings of Ram Dass.

Here and Now Episode 098: Spiritual Practices
50.55 min

In this talk from 1995, Ram Dass discusses spiritual practices and poses the question, “Why do we practice?”

Here and Now Episode 097: Being Free Together
48.47 min

In this talk, Ram Dass speaks of making human relationships our yoga, showing us the power that community has to help each other awaken and experience being free together.

Here and Now Episode 096: Trust, Contentment and the Guru
49.58 min

On this episode of Here and Now, Raghu and Ram Dass do a live hang out on Skype.

Ram Dass talks about intuition and imagination as a method to connect with the Guru and finding the trust necessary to get you there. For the first time Ram Dass tells the real story of how he came to coin Be Here Now while searching for the Guru in India.

Here and Now Episode 095: Plumbing the Depths of the Mystery
1.01.50 min

Ram Dass talks about the value and limits of psychedelics – when they can enhance the spiritual path, helping us plumb the depths of the mystery, and when there can be risks.

From ancient times there has been the idea of an elixir sometimes called Soma and the use of natural herbs to effect spiritual transformation. The experience that humans have is the ability to see the universe from a different vantage point. By plumbing the depths of the mystery, we can experience the deeper part of our beings that lie behind the thinking mind. Our monitoring system gets turned off so we can have a completely fresh view.

Here and Now Episode 094: Tracing our Spiritual Journey
43.49 min

In tracing our spiritual journey, we have gone from a psychological, economic and political universe into a spiritual universe.

And in the course of tracing our spiritual journey, we have rejected the psychological, economic and political aspects of our lives. We have to finally honor our incarnations, god manifests through form and we have to love the form that we were incarnated into, and give that form space to be what it has to be.

Here and Now Episode 093: The Thinking Mind
44.24 min

Ram Dass illuminates the trap that many of us fall into as we grow up - which is the idea that we are our thoughts.

The more accurate view would be, “I am and I think.” Thinking is a power that we have – “Intellect is a great servant but a lousy master.” Intellect is only one way of knowing the world, but the intuitive mind and heart is a more profound way of “knowing” the universe than the analytic intellectual linear mind. The more you think inwardly and self-reflect, the more you become an object to yourself until the whole universe is made up of objects.

Here and Now Episode 092: Creating our Universe
42.56 min

Ram Dass explores the way in which we experience everything as a free choice but in some way it’s part of a determined law:

You have a choice of identifying with your incarnate creation (your body, personality, social entity) or You as the creator (God that resides within each one of us) of that creation. So, if creating our universe is possible, why not start now?

Ram Dass brings up a meeting he had with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche during which Rinpoche said to him, “We have to accept responsibility,” to which Ram Dass replied, “God has all the responsibility,” and Rinpoche replied, “Ram Dass, you are copping out.”

The creative spark – that’s what is responsible. We accept that we are part of the One, and that we are in fact creating our universe.

“Well if I can’t stop thinking, maybe I can just let my thoughts go by without getting all caught up in them.  Feel the breeze on your face or your neck?  See how it’s going by?  You’re not all hung up with it.  You don’t have to see where each breeze goes.  You don’t have to look quickly to see if it hit those trees over there.  It’s breezes, and they’re just going by.  Make your thoughts like those breezes, those little breezes…just going by.”

Here and Now Episode 091: More Profound than Miracles
58.00 min

Ram Dass tells the story of Maharaji arranging the reunion of a barber and his son by appearing in two places at one time.

“More profound than miracles is the quality of His presence – His unconditional love was so intense that it cut through cynicism, doubt and separation. Imagine a place where someone is living in that presence of unconditional love all the time with everyone – and everyone you see is their Beloved. A fully conscious and realized being is that – there are no conditions and no attachments.”

Here and Now Episode 090: Conscious Parenting
38.04 min

The Bhagavad Gita says, “The greatest birth is in a family of Yogis.”

That would reflect people who are not caught so much in the illusion of separateness. Small children, when in the presence of parents who are spacious and aware, allow the child to develop a “somebody-ness” but not at the level that it entraps them. Rather, it becomes a functional “somebody-ness” not an entrapping “somebody-ness”.

As parents, we should cultivate with our children as quickly as possible the notion that we are fellow travelers, that I am in a role of caretaker and you as child, and slowly we are going to emerge as two friends. Then you become a Dharmic parent.

Here and Now Episode 089: Edge of the Mystery
41.31 min

Ram Dass talks about being socialized out of any recognition of who we were. Everyone wants to believe they are who they think they are. Through the use of psychedelics we recognized we’d been had. Where your mind is in relation to the game is what creates or relieves suffering, yours and everyone elses. Ram Dass also leads a short three breath mindfulness meditation for practice anytime during the day.

Here and Now Episode 088: ‘Love Everyone’ Interviews
1.09.03 min

On this special Here and Now podcast, we feature our new book ‘Love Everyone’, stories of the Westerners who heard about Neem Karoli Baba through Ram Dass and went to meet him.

The author, Parvati Markus, introduces some of the stories from the book from her interviews that form the backbone of ‘Love Everyone’.

Raghu introduces a very special Ram Dass talk from a radio interview after he just got back from India in 1972, and described for the first time what it was like being with Neem Karoli Baba in extraordinary detail.

As a bonus, Raghu introduces a never before told story of Maharajji saving someone from drowning, and the family never knew it was him until 60 years after the incident.

Here and Now Episode 087: Calling Down Grace
41.49 min

Everybody that has asked to be free has called down upon themselves Grace; that is through their Guru, Guide, Guardian Angel or Spiritual Friend. That being, whomever it may be, is your guide to liberation. This is called forth by your genuine asking- if you don’t ask they don’t even notice you.

But the minute you do ask to be free- you call down Grace and your whole life becomes a dialogue with that being.

Here and Now Episode 086: Reality of Who We Are
52.21 min

It takes but a flick of a look in a person’s eyes to see who it is you are to them. Which level of reality you exist upon. A conscious being has no attachment to any level, neither busy denying nor affirming, neither saying “I am this” nor “I am not this” – neither protecting nor justifying.

Once you get a peek at the reality of who you really are, you cannot go back to your former identity, try and try as much as you will. When the pursuit of your true nature is the only game, everything in your life becomes an instrument for getting free.

“When some of you come in, we look into one another’s eyes and we recognize each other. Across time, across space, independent of all of the forms of the dance. Two souls meeting. Are you in there? I’m in here.”

Here and Now Episode 085: Dharmic Fire
42.05 min

Ram Dass’ precise enquiry into the real nature of purification and liberation – jumping into your own individuated Dharmic fire, not ignoring your weaknesses and neuroses.

The bliss is one part, the reality of life on Earth at this moment is another – he firmly suggests embracing all of it. There is “no irrelevancy in the whole system” he says and this includes suffering and loss and major difficulties. Ram Dass’s expliqué of the long, incarnational progression is particularly exquisite in this talk – detailing the gradually emergent, awakened embodiment and then the ineffable potential of the bodhisattva manifestation.

Here and Now Episode 084: Smorgasborg
45.07 min

Ram Dass takes a number of questions on how to navigate our paths in life. He talks about how to deal with fear and sit with it, watching our reactivity, wanting to create resistance against what we are afraid of. Allow yourself to notice the resistance and keep softening, embrace it into yourself. The resistance against something makes the fear more intense. See the fear as a process that comes out of conditioning and identification.

Ram Dass talks about “out of body” experiences and suggests that one does not preoccupy oneself with what the experience is. It’s more about what the experience is offering in terms of a deeper understanding that one can use in personal growth.

Remember, the intellect wants to know it knows. Intuitively, one can feel the validity of the experience and that validity colors our future life.

“Grief hurts and it’s alright. That’s part of our human process. But in the mean time while all that is going on, cultivate that part of you that witnesses the whole process… just notice it, understanding it too will pass… but don’t make it pass too soon.”

Here and Now Episode 083: Veil of Tears
53.21 min

When we have any kind of mystical or ineffable experience, it upsets our apple cart. It upsets the security of our separateness. We get attached to our separateness and become afraid of losing it. And out of that comes greed, lust, anxiety, and fear. The main quality of that separateness is suffering, which is why it’s called “the veil of tears.” This birth, which looks to you as a kind of chaotic, random, somewhat morbid humor of God, has an absolutely exquisite perfection of the unfolding of your being in an evolutionary direction towards you becoming fully conscious of who you are, which turns out to be God.

“Whoever you think you are, you aren’t. That is truth.” – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 082: From Boundaries to the Human Agenda
50.10 min

Ram Dass takes questions from the audience on a variety of topics including letting go of boundaries, “What is the Guru?”, psychedelics, methods as traps and the human agenda to name a few.

“You start out trapped in boundaries; then you extricate yourself from the entrapment. Coming back in, you can take on the boundries as the way you costume yourself for the dance. You learn how to define limits, and realize who you are and what your unique role is. Realize that you can set boundaries without getting trapped by them because they are unique units.”

Here and Now Episode 081: Implications of a True Spiritual Journey
48.54 min

We keep closing off the door of entry to a higher state of consciousness because of the fear of the implications of a true spiritual journey. We have embarked on a game that is much more profound than we usually think we are in, and we’re ready to slip by and make everybody feel good. As in the metaphor for the Bhagavad Gita, Arjun fights an army of attachments: attachment to family, to a secure and comfortable life, to the prestige of habit and comfort, to shine in society, they may have served as guides and teachers in the past but they have been part of what has kept us from God.

“Meditation is the highest form of prayer. In it you are so close to god that you don’t need to say a thing. It is just great to be together.”

Here and Now Episode 080: Integrating Eastern Spirituality into the West
1.09.13 min

The soil into which spirituality from the East was planted was not so rich in the early days. In India, everyone believes in reincarnation and sees life from that perspective. In the West words like Guru, devotion and surrender have a hard time being digested. Most of the people who are Saints in India would be hospitalized in the West. Now there seems to be a shift where we can honor these traditions in a way that does not water them down.

“You look into the guru and you see your own truth, you see your own face. The guru is a perfect mirror to show you what you are not.”

Here and Now Episode 079: Danny Goleman and

HH the Dalai Lama’s Vision for the World
54.04 min

In this episode, Members of Ram Dass’ Satsang Mirabai Bush, Raghu Markus and Danny Goleman hang out and talk about Danny’s new book with HH Dalai Lama – A Force For Good – which coincides with HH’s birthday. They remember the days they spent together in India with Neem Karoli Baba and what transmission they brought back to the West and how that has affected their individual offering in their work and lives.

“Take a very long view… look throughout history because things have been getting better over the centuries, and they will continue to get better.”

Danny met his holiness the 14th Dalai Lama at Amherst College, who mentioned to the young science journalist for the New York Times that he was interested in meeting with scientists. Thus began a long, rich friendship as Goleman became involved over the years in arranging a series of what he calls “extended dialogues” between the Buddhist spiritual leader and researchers in fields ranging from ecology to neuroscience. Over the next 30 years, as Goleman has pursued his own work as a psychologist and business thinker, he has come to see the Dalai Lama as a highly uncommon leader.

Here and Now Episode 078: Awakening and Relationships
59.50 min

When you begin to awaken, you are not coming from such a needy place when you enter into a relationship, not looking to “lock in” so quickly. Your need is still there as a human incarnation – but you are not so identified with that need and because you are already resting in a place of love, and you can experience the sharing of love and oneness without fear.

You don’t need a person to get into that space, you are already in it.

“People look for another kind of relationship. They look for a relationship in which they can experience their soul. Where they can experience even beyond that, where they can experience what they call love.”

Here and Now Episode 077: True Renunciation
1.01.18 min

This is often in direct contrast to the Western model of achievement-oriented success. But we are not required to move off into a cave in order to find enlightenment. Through complete devotion to our work and our love for that process, we can absolutely move in the direction of realization.

“By letting go, everything gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning.”

Through cultivation of the witness, we move out of the melodrama and into the place of pure perspective and peaceful awareness

Here and Now Episode 076: Predicaments on the Path
44.23 min

Ram Dass answers questions from the audience on the predicaments of Grace and Karma- the predicament of judging- the predicament of social responsibility. Also same-sex relationships and the relation to divinity.

“Only when you are honoring the plane on which it is all totally perfect just the way it is, can you assume on the other plane the responsibility to change it; recognizing that the desire in you to change it is part of the perfection of it all.”

Here and Now Episode 075: Tired of Being Should Upon
58.29 min

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 peoples gut. They will react through their own intuitive sense of being in tune with the way.”

“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.”

Here and Now Episode 074: Heart Language
36.10 min

In this wide-ranging interview with 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 the 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 totally 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.”

Here and Now Episode 073: Knocking on the Door of the Spiritual Heart
53.48 min

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.

Here and Now Episode 072: Puja Chat with Lama Surya Das - part 1
41.49 min

Surya Das joins Ram Dass for a puja side chat at Ram Dass’ home on Maui. Surya Das is a bhakta as well as an American Lama. They explore questions like, “What is our true sadhana (spiritual practice)?” – “Are we egos or dharma masters? Or are we simply two brothers on the path to the Guru’s feet?”

Ram Dass talks about doing practices consciously, giving the example of yoga, where each pose is “shaking hands with God.” Surya Das asks, “What keeps us from remembering God in each moment of our lives?”

Here and Now Episode 071: The  Spark Behind the Veil
48.18 min

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?

Here and Now Episode 070: The  Duality  Enigma
35.37 min

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.

Here and Now Episode 069: The Confusion of the Paradox
50.50 min

The confusion of the paradox you find yourself in is that you are in an incarnation that’s totally dedicated to the preservation of its 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.

Here and Now Episode 068: Passing Show
56.08 min

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.

Here and Now Episode 067: Love and Incarnation
54.32 min

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.

Here and Now Episode 066: Noboddy Special
43.12 min

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.

Here and Now Episode 065: Helping Out
65.45 min

Each of us has in us a psychic DNA memory of the quality of life in the Sat Yuga (the age of truth and purity), where people generally and naturally help each other. This represents an organic flowing of a healthy human heart.

Here and Now Episode 064: Making Friends with Change
39 min

Change is an opportunity for growth, but it requires consciousness that holds an inner quality of equanimity and openness to the unknown. A certain way in which the chaos of the moment does not undercut you because you are not dependent on the external for your equanimity. You and I are in training to be instruments in a society where we can be stable in the presence of change, not holding onto the old system, but being able to move into the unknown without fear.

Here and Now Episode 063: Soul Pod
63.39 min

Ram Dass hosts his long time Buddhist friends Jack Kornfield, Catherine Ingram, and Wes Nisker at his home in Maui for an intimate chat on their first meetings, the gathering of the Soul Pod. In the early 70s, these westerners took in the essence of Hinduism and Buddhism from the East, deepening their understanding of true nature, and brought it back to the West. The group also discusses spiritual bypassing, the meaning of suffering and Ultimate Reality.

Here and Now Episode 062: Reincarnation
39.03 min

The whole design of your incarnation is like an incredible computer program that sets you into the exact life situations to move you forward towards true awareness.

It’s all perfect. Every part of the birth you are taking is part of the unfolding of the karma you need to burn through. There is not one experience you are having or could have or have had that is not part of that process.

Here and Now Episode 061: It’s All Grace
41.19 min

The meaning of honoring Shiva is to give space to ALL of the forces of the universe. To recognize them all, to allow them to be, to not try to shove anything under the rug. It is all Grace: sickness, fatigue, pleasure, pain, there is nothing left in my life other than the teachings that bring me into union with the Divine.

Here and Now Episode 060: Reaching for God
36.25 min

All spiritual practice ultimately becomes the preparation of your body, your heart, and your mind to receive God. The path of going into God in truth, is not an easy path.

Here and Now Episode 059: Desire is the Universe
40.15 min

Desire is a trap; desirelessness is liberation. Desire is the creator; desire is the destroyer. Desire is the universe.

Here and Now Episode 058: Stages of the Journey
46.29 min

Our Journey is towards simplicity and quietness, to a kind of joy that is beyond time, a journey where we leave behind all our models of who we are.

Here and Now Episode 057: Living and Dying in the Spirit
33.21 min

You build your life so that every moment is the moment of death and rebirth. Because life and death become so intimately involved with one another and finally they merge, it is the eternal present.

Here and Now Episode 056: Orgasm & Transcendence
50 min

At the moment of orgasm, you transcend your separateness and there is a moment when you merge together. For most people that is the direct route to a spiritually transcendent state. What you learn to do in a lot of yoga forms is awakening the sexual energy, not to the point of orgasm, but just to the point where you draw the energy up the spine into the upper chakras, and you use your partnership to keep awakening that energy.

Here and Now Episode 055: Sex & Spirituality
38.40 min

Sex and spirituality are cosmically intertwined. The more evolved you become spiritually, the less boundaries there are between my energy and THE energy. When your energy is used in a way that is destructive, meaning that it creates suffering to you and other people and creates pain of separation, you want to keep working to move that energy in other ways, to create a more compassionate environment.

Here and Now Episode 054: Invite not the Future
28.03 min

Can we take anticipated suffering and turn it into something that enriches the present moment? For those of us who want to approach future suffering with some degree of equanimity, mindfulness and open heartedness, the earlier we start, the better. The more we come into the presence of these phenomena, working with these struggles even though they are not ours yet, the more we will have eaten what we have to eat and digested our reactivity to be able to keep our hearts open.

Here and Now Episode 053: Devotion & the Guru
49.40 min

The Guru as a separate entity only exists within the illusion of separateness.The minute it has worked to awaken you, it ceases to be anything. It is a self destructing mechanism.

Here and Now Episode 052: Transcending Individual Differences
46.14 min

When you are no longer laying trips on anyone, not judging, or discriminating individual differences, you become the environment in which the optimum growth is available to all human beings you come into contact with.

Here and Now Episode 051: Greed & Consciousness
58.17 min

Most people in society are pushing away experiences that indicate that they have an identity on other planes of reality, in order to hold tightly to the plane of reality that they are comfortable with.

A liberated being is someone who has moved out of the reality that they initially thought was the absolute reality in their life, into subsequent realities. They are then liberated from being stuck in any single reality.

Here and Now Episode 050: Sharon Salzberg on Loving Kindness
52.41 min

Sharon explores the question of What is loving kindness? It is the spirit of friendship toward yourself and others. Interdependence is not romantic, but it is the truth of things, that our lives have something to do with one another.

Here and Now Episode 049: Sharon Salzberg
62.51 min

There are tools and techniques that one can make use of to have a happier life, and these tools do not require a belief system. It’s about the possibility of re-training the condition of the mind in a way so that old patterns of pushing away or holding on can be challenged and relinquished into a whole new way of relating to our experience.

Here and Now Episode 048: Living the Mystery
60.07 min

The process is realizing that you and I exist on more than one plane of awareness simultaneously and on one plane suffering stinks, and on another plane suffering is grace. The question is, Can you balance those two things in your consciousness?

Here and Now Episode 047: Universal Energy and Miracles
51.18 min

What is awesome is the amount of energy that is available to a human being. The paradox is, as long as you are a somebody you are dealing with a finite amount of energy that is able to function through somebody-ness. Only when you become nobody can you be one with universal energy.

Here and Now Episode 046: ... and That too
47.13 min

Our journey is about totally embracing life, but doing it with non-attachment. By embracing the ten thousand horrible visions and the ten thousand beautiful visions, you go through the doorway of nature to go beyond nature at the same time as being fully in it.

Here and Now Episode 045: Conspiracy of Consciousness - part 2
38.20 min

How do we bring spirituality and business together? How do we bring sustainability and justice into business? We must fulfill our roles to use them as vehicles to become free. Ram Dass uses the Social Venture Network and their honest social action as examples of conscious business practices.

Here and Now Episode 044: Conspiracy of Consciousness - part 1
47.49 min

How can we look at our life experience in a way that liberates us from suffering and liberates those who we come into contact with from suffering? We begin to see our life experiences as Grace: as a set of opportunities through which we can become free. The predicament is that as you awaken you realize you have been the perpetrator of the conspiracy you got caught in.

Here and Now Episode 043: Bringing it all Back Home
67.14 min

We have built such a habitual structure of self-definition on this plane of reality. That is the model you impose with your self-definition of separateness. What does it take to bring about the full transformation so that you dance in your separateness without being entrapped by it?

Here and Now Episode 042: Community and the Spiritual Quest
51.43 min

Community is when human beings come together in the shelter of each other. We are a community of beings acknowledging the dual intention of working on ourselves as an offering to others, and working with others as a way of working on ourselves. Our lives are training sessions to turn ourselves into instruments of true kindness and compassion.

Here and Now Episode 041: Return to the West
39.40 min

Ram Dass realized that the Western religious traditions were not profound enough to connect people to their inner selves, they did not provide man with the wisdom necessary to know inner peace and fulfillment. So he traveled to the East and connected with yoga (union with God). After encountering yoga, he was able to come back into the Western traditions and hear the inner message. He went to the East to break the barrier of cynicism around Western religions.

Here and Now Episode 040: Trungpa Rinpoche - part 2
25.51 min

Ram Dass interviews Trungpa Rinpoche at the Dharma Festival in 1973.

Here and Now Episode 039: Trungpa Rinpoche - part 1
37.03 min

Ram Dass talks about his relationship with the great Tibetan Lama, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Includes detailed moments with Trungpa and Ram Dass at different events and venues in the early 70’s where Trungpa was teaching- the methods he used with his students and the dismay of many who were offended by his unusual behavior and teachings that were enigmatic to say the least. Ram Dass delves into a substantial issue around teachers in the West that are unconventional and sometimes divisive yet can provide students with a path that allows for real growth.

Here and Now Episode 038: Swimmimg with Dolphins
54.24 min

Swimming with the dolphins connected me immediately to my intuitive heart space. They were a mirror of non-judgmental awareness that reminded me of being with Maharaji. Being with him felt like being with someone who was human but not human, like a wild animal. I was removed from my conceptual conspiracy of relating to the world through attachment, greed and anger. - Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 037: Aldous Huxley
39.44 min

Aldous Huxley preceded Ram Dass and Tim Leary in explorations of the remote frontiers of the mind and unmapped areas of human consciousness. In Doors of Perception, Huxley studied the profound effects of mind-expanding drugs. In the book Island, he described an ideal society that flourished on a remote South Sea island. An outsider is shipwrecked on the island and is shown the values of this ideal society, and learns about hope.

Here and Now Episode 036: Promises and Pitfalls - part 3
39.31 min

The spiritual journey is a different path than what you thought you were on. It’s very hard to make the transition to that path because we tend to take the power from the spiritual work we do to make our lives nice, but that is not what the path offers. The path offers freedom, but freedom demands complete surrender. The dialogue between the mind and the heart has become out of balance in our culture.

Here and Now Episode 035: Promises and Pitfalls - part 2
35.37 min

The quality of a really good teacher is rascalism. All you need to know is this: If you want to be free, use the teacher to the fullest extent. Their karmic problems are their karmic problems.

Here and Now Episode 034: Promises and Pitfalls - part 1
52.19 min

Ram Dass talks about the promises and the pitfalls of the spiritual path, and the shift of reality that happened in the sixties that was predicated by psychedelics. This shift blew apart the traditional religious systems that were in place at the time, and the psychedelics gave people a connection that they had never experienced before: a feeling that they were interconnected with the universe. When we see how much of our behavior is a defense mechanism to alleviate the pain of separateness, we begin to realize the importance of healthy intuitive and compassionate hearts.

Here and Now Episode 033: Love Beyond Time
49.59 min

Being in the presence of dying people keeps me close to the edge of my own awakening. Love touches time and turns it to dust. Love is beyond the reach of time. - Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 032: Battle Between Mind and Heart
54.45 min

There is another way of being in the universe. The Chinese call it The Heart Mind, or as we may call it The Intuitive Mind. Rather than knowing through dualistic means or thinking about it, one subjectively merges with it, becomes one with it. It is like the difference between wisdom and knowledge.

Here and Now Episode 031: Aging and Awakening
77.16 min

The nature of aging is change. We are fascinated by watching that which changes. When change starts to happen to who we think we are, the fascination turns into fear. We are living in a system that is out of balance; the zeal for independence and individuality has left us alienated from the structures of family, community and nature.

Here and Now Episode 030: Risk Being Human
55.00 min

Ram Dass talks about how we all need to risk being human. What we offer each other is our truth, which includes all of our stuff. We have to allow ourselves to be human. The way to the truth is through acknowledging the fullness of where we find ourselves to be, which is through our humanity and our divinity.

Here and Now Episode 029: Personality & Emotions
59.02 min

One cultivates spaciousness or awareness which allows you to acknowledge the emotions and see them as part of the human condition. Emotions are like subtle thought forms and they all arise in response to something outside yourself. They are all reactions. You cultivate a quietness in yourself that watches these emotions rising and falling and passing away.

Here and Now Episode 028: Hanuman Heart
49.12 min

Media can destroy the message in the way it delivers it, similarly, as long as I have a price I am transmitting fear, because I have something to lose. The minute I have no price, I can transmit perfect joy of presence and freedom.

Here and Now Episode 027: Spirituality and Politics
31.12 min

The world is a reflection of our internal state; if we dwell on turmoil, anger and confusion then that is how the world will be perceived to an individual. You have to work on yourself first before you can effectively take any social or political action. A quiet mind and and an open heart are important attributes to project into the world.

Here and Now Episode 026: Suffering - part 2
36.26 min

Raghu reveals an interesting confession about an LSD experience he had involving the death of his ego and the birth of a very specific concern. Ram Dass discusses the art of dying and suffering. Suffering only happens to a somebody, if you are not attached to your somebodyness you do not suffer because there is nothing for that suffering to cling to and manifest within you. The suffering that has occurred in your life is part of what allows you to be here today, the way that suffering burns into you and deepens you makes you less superficial.

Here and Now Episode 025: Suffering - part 1
36.55 min

The clinging of mind is the cause of suffering. Suffering gives you clues to the ways you are clinging, and we make the nature of things our enemy. If you are going to be available for someone elses suffering you have to be able to acknowledge your own suffering.

Here and Now Episode 024: Rama Rama
52.43 min

A guru is somebody who is a pure mirror, so pure that when you meet that being you immediately see where you are caught. Ram Dass talks about the mirror of the guru, mentioning: I know more than I understand, and I am intellectually ahead of where I am intuitively. He ends the lecture with the first chant that he brought back to the states from India in 1967.

Here and Now Episode 023: Siva's Dance
38.45 min

In this dharma talk Ram Dass discusses Shiva’s dance of life, reflecting on methods for centering ourselves, serving others, and tending to the part of us that isolates ourselves from the world.

The Dance of Daily Life
Ram Dass expounds on how we can reconcile our spiritual practices with our daily lives and social responsibilities. In a world where we are being pulled in every direction with work, children, and finances, how can we possibly get away? Ram Dass explains these are not things we can escape from because they are in our own head, so if we want to change our environment, we have to change our own head.

“Either you do it like it’s a big weight on you, or you do it as part of the dance. When you understand the thought is the thought of the thoughtless, your singing and dancing is no other than the voice of the dharma. Singing and dancing-insurance, savings accounts, jobs, responsibilities- Shiva’s dance of life. Do you do from ‘unk’ or do it like ‘ah?’ Do you surf through it all, or do you carry it around like its a load?” – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 022: How May I Serve You
47.04 min

How may I serve you in the journey we are all on to come to the light? That is the only possibility we have as humans. As Hanuman said in the Ramayana: When the cloud of duality covers me I serve Ram. When the cloud is lifted, I am Ram.

Here and Now Episode 021: Energy
34.36 min

In this dharma talk from 1969, Ram Dass shares on the concept of energy. Using the examples of Hanuman and Maharajji, he explains that through surrender, renunciation, and service, that you can get it all, but only when there is no ‘you’ to have it.

Surrendering Our Model of Energy
Your model for handling energy defines which energy you can use from the universe, and how it can be expended. Surrendering your model of energy can allow you to become ‘part of it all,” dissipating the constriction of the ego, and opening your connection to universal energy.

“The whole process of tuning in on all of the energy of the universe, so it all is part of you, is extricating you from you. That’s what non-attachment means. That’s what renunciation means.” – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 020: Embracing it All
44.13 min

In this dharma talk from the late 1960’s Ram Dass, just coming back from recent psychedelic explorations, shares his insights on embracing it all, non-attachment, and his namesake of service, Hanuman.

Turn Off Your Mind, Float Downstream
During an overnight psychedelic inner-exploration in the Taos, NM desert in which his energy channels were staunchly blocked, solace only came when Ram Dass was finally able to say, “Yes, and this too. I will embrace this. I will become one with the stars.” It was this acceptance that opened him to greater planes, and helped him through to the morning light. It was in this light, that Ram Dass was able to embrace his own family tradition of Judaism. He could now see it as part of a heritage, and something that he was inexorably involved with.

“Turn off your mind, float downstream. Embrace the ten-thousand horrible visions and the ten-thousand beautiful visions. Embrace life. Go through it. Embrace it all. Be one with it all.” – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 019: Karma Yogi
36.51 min

Karma Yoga is the transformation of being that is based on your daily work in the world. Raghu describes this talk from Ram Dass, which was recently discovered in our media archives from 1974 when Ram Dass was interviewed at a NY radio station. Ram Dass talks about taking what you do everyday and using it as material to transform yourself. The central theme of the Bhagavad Gita is to do what you do in the world, but do it as an offering to God without looking for results.

Here and Now Episode 018: Indian Stories
48.54 min

Ram Dass tells stories of his experiences in India that expanded his consciousness and allowed him to see the true potential of human beings. The miraculous events that happened with Maharaji led Ram Dass to understand that the laws of the universe worked in a vastly different way than he had perceived before coming to India.

Here and Now Episode 017: Yoga of Relationships
50.28 min

Ram Dass talks about relationships as a triangle with the third side of the triangle being shared awareness. He also talks about how the relationship of Guru and devotee has nothing to do with intellect. Raghu talks about Maharaji marrying westerners and relates a story of first being in India and meeting a Swami and confronting the idea of touching his feet.

Here and Now Episode 016: Little Shmoos
25.27 min

Ram Dass talks about the somebody training we all go through in life, and how he turned his big, frightening neuroses into friendly, little Shmoos.

Raghu Markus introduces the talk from Ram Dass. He tells the story of how his father went to India to meet his guru, Maharajji, and was promptly sent to the burning ghats of Benares for an acid trip. Raghu talks a bit about his own little Shmoos.

“We were on a houseboat, rats all over, brushing your teeth in water with poop coming by, and dead bodies that weren’t completely burnt. I mean, it was a trip. Benares is a trip.” – Raghu Markus

Somebody Training
We all think we’re somebody, but the trick is becoming nobody. Ram Dass guides us through the process of somebody training we all go through in life that leads to feeling alienated and separate. He talks about how truly unhappy he was, even though most people thought he was leading a happy life.

“Now I, like most of you, when I was born, went into what could be called ‘Somebody Training.’ That is, my parents were somebody, and they set out to make me somebody as well. It’s called the development of ego structure.” – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 015: Samadhi
24.58 min

Ram Dass takes us on a journey outside of time and space as he explores the trance-like state known as Samadhi and what it might be like to be the guru.

Raghu Markus introduces this talk from Ram Dass and shares his own experience of seeing his guru, Maharajji, put someone into Samadhi.

“Tewari, though, used to be one of the examples of Maharajji’s people that he would just glance at and tap him on the head and he would go completely utterly rigid, into an altered state where he was not aware of his body or anything around, in a trance state. In Hindi, it’s called Samadhi.” – Raghu Markus

Into the Atman
In order to reach Samadhi, one must give up the ‘I’ thought and go into the Atman. Ram Dass introduces the concept of Samadhi, which can be a hard thing for the rational mind to grasp, and tells the story of Maharajji putting a soldier into Samadhi. He examines the relationship between the mind and the Atman.

“It’s so far out, so much farther out than you even think it is, that’s what’s so far out about it. No matter how far out you get, it’s never as far out as this thing really is.”
– Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 014: Meditation
27.47 min

In this talk from 1969, Ram Dass shares several meditation methods to help go behind the rational mind to the next state of consciousness.

Keep It Light
Raghu Markus introduces this talk from March of 1969, right after Ram Dass had returned from India for the first time. Raghu tells a story from his time in India when he and several other Westerners tried to impress their guru, Maharajji, by showing what they had learned at a Vipassana meditation course. In the end, Maharajji always kept it light with the Westerners.

“God knows what any of us were doing at the time, but it wasn’t meditating, I’ll tell you that.” – Raghu Markus

One-Pointedness of Mind
Ram Dass leads a brief meditation centered around feeling the rising and falling of the abdomen. He talks about developing one-pointedness of mind, which is the first stage of going behind the rational mind to the next state of consciousness. He describes another meditation method involving a candle flame, which is designed to help extricate your awareness from the time-space locus.

“All you have to do for the next three minutes is attend to your abdomen, that’s all you’ve got to do. You don’t have to listen to the sounds outside, you don’t have to think about your body, you don’t have to do anything. Just put it all in neutral.”
 – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 013: Fast Forward
34.20 min

Fast forward from 1974 to present day – though the year has changed, the questions asked of Ram Dass during this recording of the ‘Love Serve Remember’ box set are as relevant as ever. Raghu Markus introduces this questions and answer session from the ‘Love Serve Remember’ boxed set of LPs that was made in 1974. Though this was from the time of Nixon and Watergate, you can fast forward all these years and the questions asked of Ram Dass are just as pertinent today.

“Although there are references that are dated, the questions are extraordinarily relevant.” – Raghu Markus

Money and Spirituality
Ram Dass answers questions about the intersection of money and spirituality, the ideas of good and evil, and using incarceration as a time to awaken. He talks about taking a more dispassionate view of suffering in order to help relieve it, rather than add to it.

“You learn more and more that acts, per se, are neither good or evil, but rather the attachments of the people that are performing the acts that determine whether they are good or evil. It’s not the people that are good or evil, it’s the attachments that are good or evil.” – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 012: Behind it All
45.25 min

Buckle in for a journey with Ram Dass to a place behind it all, beyond the grand illusions, beyond the groovy trips of the mind, and beyond desire and attachment.

There Is Only One
Raghu Markus opens the show with some stories of Ram Dass’s guru, Maharajji, and his tremendous love and compassion. He talks about how one of the main teachings passed down by Maharajji was the idea that all spiritual traditions are one and the same behind it all.

Behind It All
Ram Dass guides us to a place behind it all, beyond the grand illusions and groovy trips of the mind. He talks about clinging to desires, and how renunciation truly means letting go of all attachment. He explores the Witness, and how there’s really no way out of karma.

“Compassion is being conscious at all levels. That’s what compassion is. Understanding how it all is, everywhere, all the time.” – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 011: Letting it All go
38.30 min

Ram Dass examines the evolution of consciousness and explores the many dimensions of consciousness available to us through practice.

Learning to Let Go of Anger (Opening) – Raghu shares a story of Ram Dass becoming angry with the Westerners he was looking after and the lesson he learned from Maharaj-ji about letting go of anger.

“This was a key teaching – having the intention to want to let go of anger.” – Raghu Markus

The Unity of Yoga (6:15) – In his lecture, Ram Dass discusses the meaning of yoga. He explores the idea that energy is the same exact thing as what we call “consciousness”, the universe is conscious – not self-conscious.

“It does not know it knows, it just is.” – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 010: Seeing through the Illusions
39.12 min

Ram Dass talks about seeing through illusions of the ego while still carrying the burden of one’s personality through life.

Seeing Through Illusions (Opening) – Ram Dass explores the realizations about the ego which comes from looking at ourselves and reality through the lens of altered states of consciousness. He discusses the implications of this perspective and talks about the role that our perception of suffering plays in our awakening.

“So what happened to me is that I went through the doorway of perception and I thought ’Oh wow, reality isn’t like I thought it was at all. If I am going to spend my whole life manipulating this puny ego through a set of power gains and sensual gratifications, what’s the pay off if it’s going to all end anyway?” – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 009: The Tibetan Lama
29.27 min

Ram Dass discusses the seductiveness of the rational mind and explores another option we have for interacting with the world.

The Tibetan Lama (Opening) – Raghu has a serendipitous encounter with a Tibetan Lama after he visits Maharaj-ji in Kainchi. He describes the intense teachings that he received from this Lama and how they left his rational mind blown.

The Rational Mind (4:55) – Meanwhile, Ram Dass reflects on the teachings of P.G. Ouspensky around reconciling the realized being and the rational mind. We take a closer look at the promise of the rational mind and its shortcomings in practice.

“The funny thing about the rational mind is that it has taken us so far and then it became the lion at the gates. It’s so seductive, it seems like it is going to give the whole business and then, lo and behold, it holds us back at a certain point.” – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 008: It's All One
37.13 min

Ram Dass examines the interconnection between faiths and breaks down one of Maharaj-ji’s most essential teachings: ‘Sub Ek’ – it’s all one.

Contact High (Opening) – Raghu talks about a strange experience of unity through a “contact high” on retreat in the Himalayas with Ram Dass and the rest of the group.

“In the end, as crazy as it was, we experienced an ‘at oneness’ with each other that went beyond words. It was a reminder to us of what Maharaj-ji would say every day when he walked into the Ashram – he would point a finger in the air and he would say, ‘Sub Ek’ which means its all one.” – Raghu Markus

Bonds of Belief (5:40) – Meanwhile, Ram Dass elaborates on unity and discusses our faith in rational man and the necessity of breaking the bonds of rationality in order to expand our concept of faith. He looks at the roles we play, the identities we assume and the underlying oneness that lies underneath it all.

“We have begun to dig into who we can be, we are just moving slowly. So we play our parts, but let’s not forget that these are just parts that we have taken on for the moment.” – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 007: The Veil
39.13 min

Ram Dass examines our perception of identity and asks us to look beyond the veil of illusion between our true selves and who we think we are.

A Waking Dream (Opening) – Raghu, Ram Dass and other devotees travel to Kausani and rent a house overlooking the majestic Himalayas to do a Vipassana meditation retreat. We hear how Ram Dass grew from a fellow student to a teacher whom Maharaj-Ji began sending westerners to learn from.

“It was in this sacred space that I started to have real meditative experiences for the first time. All the while, in the evenings, Ram Dass would sit with us and relate stories of his journey through Psychedelics and consciousness.” – Raghu Markus

Through the Veil (5:25) – In India, all marriages are planned by the local astrologer because they know the information has nothing to do with our long-range compatibility. From this premise, Ram Dass reflects the nature of identity and the veil of illusion between our true selves and who we think we are.

“By cutting through the veil of illusion, one realizes they are not the body or the mind. In fact, we are seduced into the appearances of reality. The game is to get free from attachments to the senses by using the witness.” – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 006: The Four Noble Truth
31.42 min

Ram Dass teaches the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths and shares the lessons he was taught about overcoming desire while in India.

Becoming Lost in Love (Opening) – At Raghu’s request, Maharaji teaches him a very unusual meditation before he travels into the mountains to learn about Buddhism with Ram Dass and the other westerners.

“Do as Jesus did and see God in everyone. Take pity on all and love all as God. When Jesus was crucified he only felt love.” – Raghu Markus

The Four Noble Truths (3:35) – Whenwhile, Ram Dass explores the Four Noble Truths, the Buddhist teaching around desire and suffering which acts as a guide to people of all faiths on their journey of awakening.

Desire and Sādhanā (5:10) – In the Hindu tradition, making progress on the spiritual path is called Sādhanā. In doing Sādhanā, every act you perform becomes a method of taking you to this other state of consciousness. Ram Dass discusses his diet while studying at the temples in India. He explains how our diet can become Sādhanā when we look at eating from a place of practice.

“The way you work, in doing Sādhanā, is that every act you perform becomes a method of taking you to this other state of consciousness. You are trying to change your perceptual vantage point and everything you do has to be a device to take you to that place. From a Western point of view, you are doing a complete cognitive re-organization. You are changing your reference point, changing the core concept around which the whole constellation is built.“ – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 005: Darshan
29.56 min

Ram Dass relays some of the teachings around renunciation, shakti, violence and truthfulness that he received in his many months of study while in India.

This is It (Opening) – Still residing in India, Raghu and another Canadian go to share darshan with Maharaj-ji, who gave him a feeling of being home for the first time and showed him unconditional love.

“Suddenly the doors to Maharaj-ji’s room burst open and to my astonishment, I realized that I know him. I knew him because whatever I felt from Ram Dass, he was the source. It was beyond what my experience could categorize – but mostly it was the feeling of being home for the first time.” – Raghu Markus

Renunciation of Desire (2:55) – Meanwhile, Ram Dass continues his spiritual evolution and learns the meaning of “renunciation of desire” and explores different vehicles to get to and maintain a place of pure oneness.

“The whole matter of enlightenment that is required is what is called renunciation. When you think of the word renunciation, many of you probably think in terms of people living off in the woods with no possessions. That’s an external manifestation of renunciation – renunciation here means not the renunciation of action but of a desire.” – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 004: Guru Found
27.30 min

Now, with his guru found, Ram Dass continues on with the most difficult part of his journey for truth – the journey within.

Frozen in Time (Opening) – Raghu struggles with two deadly diseases in India while awaiting word from Ram Dass about his Guru, and ends up visiting “the Mother” at the Kainchi Ashram – where he finds peace and restfulness. Ram Dass informs Raghu that he has found Maharaj-ji, his Guru, which excites Raghu because now he can finally meet him and go back to America, or so he thinks…

“With ‘the Mother,’ I recognized in me at that moment what Ram Dass had been talking about.” – Raghu Markus

Natural Surrender (3:00) – Ram Dass talks about his contact with Lama Govinda, unpacking the layers of lessons around surrender and the Guru that he took from that meeting.

“What I experienced within those first minutes of meeting Lama Govinda was the experience of surrender, which was no surrender. In other words, I didn’t begrudgingly give up my ego. It was as if I came home to a place where I no longer needed it.” – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 003: In Limbo in India
30.21 min

Ram Dass talks about being in limbo in India in his search for the answers he came for. We hear about the transformative lessons Ram Dass learned from one of the last people in India he might have expected – a twenty-year-old Westerner.

The Journey Begins (Opening) – Raghu arrives at his first ashram in India, disappointed because he didn’t find the answers he was looking for. He is left in limbo while he continues to seek his friend and his guru.

Culture Shock (2:40) – Meanwhile, Ram Dass ventures out of his comfort zone and follows Bhagavan Das on a transformative journey through India, leading to a very special meeting at the Kainchi Ashram. He tells about adopting the robes of the holy men of India. Quickly Ram Dass learns of the reverence this new role brings and struggles with accepting this treatment.

“These village people would call, ‘Hey, Baba-ji,’ and I would always be embarrassed. I wasn’t a holy man, I was just wearing a white cloth. I was a Western intellectual overaged hippie looking to see what was going on in India. That was who I was in my head, my fixed model of myself.” – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 002: Journey to the East
28.31 min

Ram Dass talks about the trials he experienced before traveling to India after he was fired from Harvard and describes his journey to the East to find his Guru. We learn about his and Tim Leary’s fascination with the Tibetan Book of the Dead and how they re-worked its concepts into a guide for the spiritual use of psychedelics.

Ram Dass describes his return to Harvard after taking psilocybin mushrooms for the first time with Timothy Leary and his efforts to integrate his new perspective through his work while working within the academic system. He shares the lessons about the offerings and limitations of psychedelics that he learned in those early psychonaut years.

“I tried to find ways within the system, within the scientific establishment, to work with these things. To work with the concepts or variables that I was arriving at.” – Ram Dass

Here and Now Episode 001: First Meeting
30.16 min

Here and Now (Opening) – Raghu Markus of the Love Serve Remember Foundation introduces Ram Dass and his transformation from a Harvard scientist looking for a deeper truth to the spiritual teacher whose teachings have affected the lives of countless individuals. Raghu briefly shares how he met Ram Dass and introduces one of the first talks given by Ram Dass after returning from India with some incredible stories to tell.

“What I would like to do is to present a model to you – that specific model being my life experience. That is really all I have to offer you are my own experiences.” – Ram Dass

Meditation with Ram Dass

Ram Dass on his mantra “I Am Loving Awareness"
19.08 min

"When talking about awareness, most of us identify with our awareness through the ego, through the mind and senses. But the true self is in the middle of our chest, in our spiritual heart.

So, to get from ego to the true self I said: “I am loving awareness.” Loving awareness is the soul. I am loving awareness. I am aware of everything, I’m aware of my body and my senses and my mind, I’m aware of all of it, but I notice that I’m loving all of it. I’m loving all of the world. The self that I identify with emanates from the ocean of love. The self that is the ego is the ocean of fear.

When I am loving awareness I’m aware of everything outside, but pulling into the heart, the spiritual heart brings me to loving awareness. I’m aware of my thoughts, but loving awareness is simply witnessing them. And loving awareness is in the moment. I have thoughts about the past and future, and those are not helpful, so I dive deep into the present and the presence and in this present moment we will find loving awareness....." - Ram Das