Remembering Baba Ram Dass & The Beautiful Legacy He Left Behind
Baba Ram Dass, an American spiritual teacher, has passed away.
How can the spiritual teachings of others who have journeyed down this path, like Baba Ram Dass, change our world for better? What are the positives we can take fro this field? Baba Ram Dass, (born Richard Alpert) was an American spiritual teacher, academic clinical psychologist and author of many books including the well-known, Be Here Now which he wrote in 1971. Ram Dass is often referred to as a psychedelic pioneer because in the early 60‘s he worked closely with Timothy O’Leary studying the effects of various psychedelic substances at Harvard University, until they were both fired in 1963. After experiencing an enlightenment of sorts, Dass traveled to India where he met his Gurus, Bhagavan Das and Neem Karoli Baba eventually Dass himself became a guru and spiritual mentor for many Americans. He brought some of the philosophical teachings from the East to American society and undoubtedly played a huge role in the “hippie movement” that swept the Nation in the 60’s and 70’s. This is the most well known book written by Ram Dass, here he shares his amazing spiritual perspective of this thing we call life through his own experiences. You canthink of this book as a guidebook for awakening and he does a really good job of articulating what it really means to, BE HERE NOW and how all that we ever really have is this moment. WIth beautiful words and many different illustrations to accompany them, this book can offer deep insight into the inner workings of your own psyche and spiritual pursuit and at the very least, it reminds us that the most important thing, above all else is love. Ram Dass was loved by many and he leaves behind a legacy and many gifts including his books, his teachings, a podcast and many beautiful insights. Below is a list of some of his beautiful words from various books and talks: “We are all just walking each other home.” “The quitter you become, the more you can hear.” “We’re fascinated by words, but where we meet is in the silence behind them.” “Faith is not a belief. Faith is what is left when your beliefs have all been blown to hell. Faith is in the heart, while beliefs are in the head. Experiences, even spiritual experiences, come and go. As long as you base your faith on experience, your faith is going to be constantly flickering, because your experiences keep changing.” “The heart surrenders everything to the moment.
The mind judges and holds back.” “The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it’s in the being. When I need love from others, or need to give love to others, I’m caught in an unstable situation. Being in love, rather than giving or taking love, is the only thing that provides stability. Being in love means seeing the Beloved all around me.” “It is only when you begin to understand that if you and I are truly in love, if I go to the place in me that is love and you to the place in you that is love we are ‘together’ in Love. We start to understand that what love means is that we are sharing a common state together. That state exists in you and it exists in me.” “Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it.” “The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can’t be organized or regulated. It isn’t true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth.” “We’re here to awaken from the illusion of separateness” “I can do nothing for you but work on myself...you can do nothing for me but work on yourself!” “Death has such great importance in this society that it affects everything. I learned from my guru that death is not the enemy, I see it as another moment. Yet it’s the end of an incarnation and means going on to other incarnations.” “When we see the Beloved in each person, it’s like walking through a garden, watching flowers bloom all around us.” “Everything in your life is there as a vehicle for your transformation. Use it!” “The question we need to ask ourselves is whether there is any place we can stand in ourselves where we can look at all that’s happening around us without freaking out, where we can be quiet enough to hear our predicament, and where we can begin to find ways of acting that are at least not contributing to further destabilization.” “Remember, we are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we’re so deeply interconnected with one another. Working on our own consciousness is the most important thing that we are doing at any moment, and being love is the supreme creative act.” “As one individual changes, the system changes.” “When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. “The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.” “Cosmic humor, especially about your own predicament, is an important part of your journey.” “When somebody provokes your anger, the only reason you get angry is because you’re holding on to how you think something is supposed to be. You’re denying how it is.
Then you see it’s the expectations of your own mind that are creating your own hell. When you get frustrated because something isn’t the way you thought it would be, examine the way you thought, not just the thing that frustrates you. You’ll see that a lot of your emotional suffering is created by your models of how you think the universe should be and your inability to allow it to be as it is.” In loving memory of Baba Ram Dass, may his body rest in peace and his soul live on in love and in our hearts forever. An art piece and lunar calendar all in one. This calendar features moon phases for every day of the month for the entirety of 2020. Hologrpahic foil set on a dark 11" x 11" poster makes the moon's phases shimmer as light strikes them in this unique .
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