Spirituality Revealed

SEVA Foundation Benefit: An Evening with Ram Dass in New York City in 1985: https://www.ramdass.org/seva-foundation-benefit-evening-ram-dass/
SEVA Foundation Benefit: An Evening with Ram Dass in New York City in 1985: https://youtu.be/8SHO1jxYJEo
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An evening with Ram Dass in 1985 discusses the nature of suffering, compassion and the perfection of the universe.

(Recorded in 1985 at Julia Richman High School in New York City)

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Ram Dass discusses his name which means “Servant of God”. Ram Dass was speaking at Seva and was uptight and someone said, “Ram Dass, my heart hurts” and it broke through his bs.

All of us have parallel journeys. When one of us goes through something, others are having the same experience.

Ram Dass met an old, unassuming lady at one of his talks who got what he was talking about. She saw the secrets of the Universe by doing crochet.

Drugs helped Ram Dass touch a place in himself that was behind all of his social roles. It was a presence. His heart opened up and he was compassionate. There are many planes of reality. Ram Dass discusses the nature of suffering, compassion and the perfection of the universe.

Ram Dass talks about his non-physical friend, Emanuel, who says that dying is like taking off a tight shoe. The body is just an incarnation. It’s not a big deal. Ram Dass was spending years putting down his physical body by getting high. Ram Dass asked Emanuel what his purpose was on earth. Emanuel said “Why don’t you try being human.” It is not an accident that we took human bodies.

As long as we identify with just our body, we are nothing more than laws. Emanuel said, “Do you want to be the victim or the creator?” If you are the incarnation only, you are the victim. You didn’t ask for these things to happen to you. But if you flip to another level of consciousness, you begin to experience that which created your form. You are both the creator and the victim. The part of you who is not in it, appreciates the perfection, even of the suffering.

Ram Dass speaks about caring for his father, working with prisoners and the dying. Ram Dass played many roles while serving his aging father. He would be one day the “good son”, another day impatient, another day a feeling of being a “do gooder”. His father was the same every day and became like the guru, mirroring Ram Dass back to him. Mother Theresa saw all the sick as Christ in all of his distressing disguises. Who did Ram Dass see him to be.

Ram Dass speaks about the founding of the Seva Foundation and its efforts to combat blindness. The surgery that could cure a lot of blindness in Nepal would cost just $15. When you are living in a third world country with blindness, your life expectancy is only three and a half years. Nepal has 300,000 people who need this simple surgery. But the Seva foundation wasn’t getting ahead of the blindness, so Ram Dass had to make a long term commitment. Now every penny goes directly into the field of helping the Nepalese blind. Q and A with Ram Dass with the audience for the Seva Foundation. Ram Dass discusses how the guru found him. Ram Dass wasn’t even expecting to find anyone like Maharaji.

When a spiritual leader becomes corrupt it effects all of our faith. It’s hard to keep your high in New York City when you are exposed to all of the desires. So some spiritual teachers from the east become impure. The game is much more subtle than some linear teaching. We learn from impure teachers who buy rolls royces just as much as we learn from verbal teachings. Ram Dass talks about the drug, ecstasy.

Even though Ram Dass has enjoyed ecstasy, he is realizing that he has reached for drugs to change this moment, rather than accepting the moment as it is. The drug reinforced for Ram Dass that he wasn’t enough without the drugs. He learned that he wasn’t enough without his guru. Now, he is learning that he is enough.

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