All Comments (10)

Hi Ruth, I'm so glad you could make it. I didn't realize until now that Ram had started more than one thread, but you're here. It's a genuine pleasure to meet someone who values respect more than the feeling of being right. Sadly rare.
Out of fairness I should reciprocate with a brief description of my own path so far. I was raised by an agnostic father and a christian mother who didn't go to church. She believed and still does at 86 that one should just be as good a person as one can.
My dad worked at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, so I was exposed to science and scientists all my life. As a kid I knew every case in every exhibit hall. I went on archeological and paleontological digs, handled pre-Columbian gold, cleaned fossils and sorted through boxes of insects. It was great.

As a young man I spent 16 years practicing zen Buddhism in an urban meditation center. Never got any dramatic enlightenment experience, but many years have passed and lately it has become more important just to practice the virtues that enlightened people seem to possess, like respect, compassion, equanimity, honesty and humor. No one ever powerfully influenced me through print or word; I just kept shrugging off what didn't fit, and trying on what did. I kept one lesson from Buddhism, that the things I cling to will cause me suffering. Not just physical stuff, but also the junk in my head that I would protect so fiercely. So I began to gently rid myself of my beliefs. It seemed that so much anger and violence went with these things. Now I really don't seem to have any. Of course I have plenty of thoughts, preferences, hopes, fears, hunches, and hypotheses, but belief, as a persistent assumption of the truth of something without sufficient evidence, is simply not an activity that happens in my mind. I hope this doesn't sound like I'm loopy; I'm really quite sane and well adjusted. A middle aged guy with a wonderful wife and a smart, pain-in-the-neck daughter.

It causes me terrible sadness to see so much anger and violence in the world over religious beliefs, and you can see it bubbling up all over these blogs. Believers, counter-believers, non-believers all with their axes to grind, their personal demons to fight, all at each others' throats. Once in a while I meet someone who just wants to learn and share, without having to win, or convert, or be right. I now have a handful of friends, some who believe and some who don't, but who only want to find ways to build bridges between humans, not walls and trenches.

Well this is getting more than brief, and it's getting late. I'll check in here tomorrow from time to time to see if you have any questions.

As one who has been on retreat numerous times with Ram Dass, I always appreciate his words of wisdom and his sharing of his experiences with his Guru, Neem Karoli Baba. For anyone to have such a profound connection with an enlightened being is a blessing; and to experience such "unconditional love" is indeed healing and transformative.

Bob, I wish you this type of experience so you might be humbled and understand. (Your flip remarks and attempt at a "clever" posting suggest you have no clue of what RD speaks of.)

Jamey

Dear Ram Dass

That was an extremely powerful one-liner!

I can understand the deep meaning behind that statement because I had the same experience with my "Guru", Dom Bede Griffiths OSB, who I met in May 1984. When I told Fr Bede how deeply moved I was by his unconditional love for me, and how it helped me understand God's love, he said "Remember God loves you a million times more than I do."

Fr Bede wrote a Christian commentary on the Baghavad Gita, titled "River of Compassion."

Thank you for the great work you do in bringing more light and love to the world.

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia

In simple strong words, said experience has only just begun and continues every day. The power of that is truly the Power of God. Very little filter to get in the way of the Message. I am humbled. God is Great. May God continue to Smile upon your enlightened life and times, Ram Dass. Thank you for that Lesson.

I remember the unconditional love of a man who radiated with the Divine Presence in my mid-teens. He was in his early-80's and travelled the world to share his love which was like sunshine to my flower.

I fully understand Ram Dass on this point: The unconditional love of an enlightened teacher is transformative.

At that point, Ram Dass' intense dharmiclife began, and he became a pivotal influence among Western spiritual seekers, particularly after the publication of his seminal work, the 1971 international best-seller Be Here Now, which explains Eastern philosophy and advocates living joyously in the present.

How can anyone argue with that?

Why are you two being so snotty to an old man? As if you could claim even parity. That LSD stuff was a lifetime ago, and there was much more to his career than that. I'm delighted to find you are still alive and participating, Ram. Thanks for the insights over the years.

Oh boy. . . So many drugs, so little time . . .
How about this for a change of mental pace Rammy:

"What is the self? How does the activity of neurons give rise to the sense of being a conscious human being? Even this most ancient of philosophical problems, I believe, will yield to the methods of empirical science. It now seems increasingly likely that the self is not a holistic property of the entire brain; it arises from the activity of specific sets of interlinked brain circuits. But we need to know which circuits are critically involved and what their functions might be. It is the "turning inward" aspect of the self — its recursiveness — that gives it its peculiar paradoxical quality."

V.S. RAMACHANDRAN, a neuroscientist, is Director, Center for Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego; Author, A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness, and coauthor, Phantoms in the Brain.

Trip on it dude:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/ramachandran07/ramachandran07_index.html

That makes more sense than having your Guru's unconditional love. Even if it confirmed your atheism.

The most formative religious experience was surviving an airplane crash on to forest hill terrain due to a strong wind down draft.
Having my life flash by me, and asking God to keep my child safe.
Then suddenly the situation changed from a sure deadly impact into a soft settled landing.
And we walk away wondering how it all happend.