Baba Ram Dass (also known as Dr. Richard Alpert) in an interview in the late
1980's:
"ER: Welcome Ram Dass. I'd like to begin by sharing an observation. I've noticed a dramatic shift in your focus compared to your earlier writings and teachings. You now emphasize daily experiences as a path to awakening, in contrast to the traditional spiritual practices of meditation and yoga to transform consciousness that you used to emphasize. Would you comment on this?
Ram Dass: I think most of us have had the feeling that we live life in the marketplace and then we go off to the cave or to the meditation mat to replenish ourselves. I became interested in whether I could take the actual stuff of the marketplace and use it as a transformative force, which is really a tantric process.
EJR: So while you're waiting in line at the bank you can do your spiritual practice.
Ram Dass: Exactly. But you're not doing a spiritual practice that involves going away from waiting in line at the bank. What I used to do is wait in line and I'd do mantra or breathing. I'd go into my vipassana meditation. But now I'm interested in whether waiting in line at the bank can itself be the thing. I notice my impatience, notice the feeling in my feet as I am standing there, notice the different levels of reality of the people I'm looking at. Am I seeing a bank teller or am I seeing the Divine Mother as a bank teller? I allow myself to play with the moment more, still dealing with the stuff of the moment rather than going away.
EJR: How would you describe your basic message that you share with others?
Ram Dass: A lot of it is colored by the fact that I work with the Seva Foundation, a social service organization that serves people in third world countries. By going into third world countries and serving, by actually feeding and helping people, I've been led to focus a little more on how people here try to be happy by ignoring other people who are unhappy. Part of the pain of this culture is our denial of sisters and brothers and other parts of humanity, and it just doesn't work. It leads to sleeping pills and to a kind of nervous fun which isn't a deep happiness. The example I use is that image of me naked at the beach in Marin County, throwing a frisbee in the sunlight. As I was about to throw the frisbee, into my mind came the inscription over Gandhi's tomb which is, "Think of the poorest person you've ever seen and ask whether your next act will be of any use." And then the question is, do you throw the frisbee or don't you? That's a whole discourse right there. And what does it mean to be an American, what does it mean to be affluent, what is our dharma that involves the poorest person we've ever seen without looking away...and it also involves the frisbee. And that's the balance I'm trying to explore in myself. I think that people will find a tremendous joy and fulfillment in service to other human beings, and that often this is what is missing in their lives.
EJR: In your writings, you continually make the point that for service and helping to be selfless and ultimately valuable for all concerned, an openness of heart is essential as well as a downplaying of the distinction of helper and helpee.
Ram Dass: Yes, you have to look at not only what you're doing but how you're doing it, because that's the whole package. The identification with the doer is what keeps entrapping you in the dualism because if you're the doer, then whoever you're doing it to is who is being done to. It separates you. I am "helping you" and you are "being helped" at one level. At another level, we are just two beings meeting in our incarnations acknowledging each other. And that playing is what enriches the whole helping. That's where the whole helping thing becomes just a form of dance. And if it doesn't work that way, something is wrong. That is what burns people out. They think they have to do something for somebody else, and identify with what they are doing rather than with the quality of their being."
"ER: Welcome Ram Dass. I'd like to begin by sharing an observation. I've noticed a dramatic shift in your focus compared to your earlier writings and teachings. You now emphasize daily experiences as a path to awakening, in contrast to the traditional spiritual practices of meditation and yoga to transform consciousness that you used to emphasize. Would you comment on this?
Ram Dass: I think most of us have had the feeling that we live life in the marketplace and then we go off to the cave or to the meditation mat to replenish ourselves. I became interested in whether I could take the actual stuff of the marketplace and use it as a transformative force, which is really a tantric process.
EJR: So while you're waiting in line at the bank you can do your spiritual practice.
Ram Dass: Exactly. But you're not doing a spiritual practice that involves going away from waiting in line at the bank. What I used to do is wait in line and I'd do mantra or breathing. I'd go into my vipassana meditation. But now I'm interested in whether waiting in line at the bank can itself be the thing. I notice my impatience, notice the feeling in my feet as I am standing there, notice the different levels of reality of the people I'm looking at. Am I seeing a bank teller or am I seeing the Divine Mother as a bank teller? I allow myself to play with the moment more, still dealing with the stuff of the moment rather than going away.
EJR: How would you describe your basic message that you share with others?
Ram Dass: A lot of it is colored by the fact that I work with the Seva Foundation, a social service organization that serves people in third world countries. By going into third world countries and serving, by actually feeding and helping people, I've been led to focus a little more on how people here try to be happy by ignoring other people who are unhappy. Part of the pain of this culture is our denial of sisters and brothers and other parts of humanity, and it just doesn't work. It leads to sleeping pills and to a kind of nervous fun which isn't a deep happiness. The example I use is that image of me naked at the beach in Marin County, throwing a frisbee in the sunlight. As I was about to throw the frisbee, into my mind came the inscription over Gandhi's tomb which is, "Think of the poorest person you've ever seen and ask whether your next act will be of any use." And then the question is, do you throw the frisbee or don't you? That's a whole discourse right there. And what does it mean to be an American, what does it mean to be affluent, what is our dharma that involves the poorest person we've ever seen without looking away...and it also involves the frisbee. And that's the balance I'm trying to explore in myself. I think that people will find a tremendous joy and fulfillment in service to other human beings, and that often this is what is missing in their lives.
EJR: In your writings, you continually make the point that for service and helping to be selfless and ultimately valuable for all concerned, an openness of heart is essential as well as a downplaying of the distinction of helper and helpee.
Ram Dass: Yes, you have to look at not only what you're doing but how you're doing it, because that's the whole package. The identification with the doer is what keeps entrapping you in the dualism because if you're the doer, then whoever you're doing it to is who is being done to. It separates you. I am "helping you" and you are "being helped" at one level. At another level, we are just two beings meeting in our incarnations acknowledging each other. And that playing is what enriches the whole helping. That's where the whole helping thing becomes just a form of dance. And if it doesn't work that way, something is wrong. That is what burns people out. They think they have to do something for somebody else, and identify with what they are doing rather than with the quality of their being."
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