August/September 2003
The
Progressive Story of America
Bill Moyers
Democratic
Leadership Council Sows Division
Robert Borosage
21st
Century Communication Plus Whole-Hearted Support Can Help Create A Strong
Candidate
Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD
Dennis
Kucininch's Grassroots Presidential Campaign Builds Momentum
The
Politics of Heroin
Derrick Jensen
Deflation
and the "D" Word
Doug Dowd
Radical
Healing Through the Conscious Practice of Ayurveda
Myrica Morningstar
Interview
With Ram Dass
John Darling
An
Evolutionary Agenda for the Third Millennium
Alan Sasha Lithman
On
Thawing and the Energy Cycle
Peter Moore, MFCC, CGP
New
Warriors
John Darling
Cosmic
Calendar
Salina Rain
Interview with Ram Dass
By John Darling
This telephone interview took place on July 21, 2003, prior to respected sage, author, lecturer and spiritual teacher Ram Dass’ presentation on August 2, 2003, at Crater High School in Central Point, Oregon.
What to
you plan to say in your lecture here?
How one spiritualizes one’s life. A lot of people are expressing
anxiety these days. It’s wrong, well, not wrong, but they experience
their lives on the wrong plane, the plane in which they undergo suffering.
What plane
is that?
We are three-plane beings: one, the ego, two, the soul and three, the
third plane, what the Quakers call the still, small voice of God within.
Hindus call it atman. It’s the mystical part of us. It’s the
way we know the Universe subjectively, rather than objectively.
What does
being on the third plane do for us?
It allows us to be a witness of the suffering, though we still will suffer.
You start as an ego, which means you are attached to your incarnation.
The soul which comes into the incarnation goes from incarnation to incarnation.
The death of an incarnation is not such a big deal as our ego thinks it
is. I’d rather identify with my soul.
Do you
teach your audience or give the techniques for this?
My lectures are question-and-answer periods. I’d rather the audience
initiate the topics. I present myself as RAM—rent a mouth. They rent
my mouth, to respond to questions by reciting information we all know.
About number three.
What are
your thoughts on aging and death now that you have come back from your stroke
six years ago and are 72?
The age stage is awesome.
I should
look forward to it?
You should. (Laughs) You can shift from ego to soul-perception. The changes
are awesome—changes in friends, changes in body, changes in mind. It
brings you as close to God as you can get in this lifetime. For me, I spend
my waking hours in timeless states, spaceless states. That’s really pretty
good. You can go in and out of planes of consciousness and you can stack them
like baklava—some nutty, some flaky, some sticky. (Laughs)
Is it like
a window on the third plane?
Yes. It happens after realization.
What is
realization?
That your awareness is connected with all and everything … and nothing.
It’s Bud-dha, Christ, Mohammed, Moses and my guru. They have a perspective
about life from number three.
I understand
most questions of you are about relationships and people’s search for
love and their suffering in that experience.
Yes. The strings between souls is love. You can go the love ladder as
bhakti (loving service done to please God, rather than for self gratification),
with attachment at the beginning and then go to love of the One. You become
love. It’s like you get into a bath tub of love with another person.
In the bath tub, the two of you are “in” love. It takes a lot
of surrender.
To God
or to the relationship?
To the situation of the relationship. It’s like a corporation. People
get together to form an entity. I see the love relationship, the marriage
as a triangle. The two bottom points are the two partners. The third one
is God consciousness. The two get close to each other as the peak of the
triangle comes near and they merge with one another in God. That’s
love.
Most people
probably don’t know that or do it.
(Very long laughter.)
What’s
your take on the world situation now after all the big changes of the last
two years?
I’d like to say we’re headed for a change in government, with
Dennis Kucinich as president. But I wouldn’t bet on it. What we’ve
got is untrammeled greed, greed, greed. Greed is overwhelming our com-passion.
The times when government becomes uncompassionate, our human hearts hurt.
The war in Iraq is a hurt in our compassionate hearts.
Do you
think that, as a human species, we’re “getting it” and evolving
in any significant way?
Yes. We’re getting to the point where computer and television are
not sufficient for our needs for communication. We need communication
with our hearts and that is really a heart to heart deal. I see the human
heart as the basic instrument for social change. Dennis Kucinich and I,
we shared hearts.
How did
you two connect?
The core, the consciousness, the com-passion. We met twice. My heart met
a human being. Which is very unusual when you meet a politician. (Laughs)
I’d like my heart to be represented in the government.
As you
look at the global stage now, what do you see as the big dangers we face?
I’d say the environment is number one. We have to stem the effects
of what’s happening to the environment, like global warming. The
paranoia. We distrust those we call “them” and that’s rife
and stems from our president. This country is mobilized only when we have
a good enemy, like the drug war, the cancer war, the cigarette war.
As you
grow older now, how do you face death? What do you feel?
I feel wonder. I’m here. Looking around and seeing the One manifesting.
Looking at people and seeing God manifested. I’m not on the production
line of society. I’m not writing books. I’m doing them. It feels
like a very great privilege to not be in the work force.
How is
your health and strength now?
I travel almost all the time. The wheel chair doesn’t go a lot of
places, like many hotel rooms. I get a kick out of it all, the effect
of my stroke on my arms and legs. I don’t mind. It would be good
to heal all this, though. I do have a chair everywhere I go.
You seem
completely lucid as ever.
Every now and then, my memory is hazy. It absolutely delights me, because
there’s a Buddhist story about that: speak not of the past, anticipate
not the future, then you will dwell in the … I can’t remember
it. (Laughs) Too many people think and spend time in the past and future
and they’re both just thoughts.
You mean
they’re not real?
That’s right.
What do
you think about what you wrote in “Be Here Now” (his million seller
1971 book).
I’m still here.
Is there
anything you would add to the book now?
I’d have to add: cultivate the faith that there are other planes
than that which you deal with here. That faith allows you to experience
the grace of your life.
What does
grace mean to you?
It’s like—to perceive your life as graceful, as a thing given
to you from the One. My grace comes from my guru. He’s dead but he’s
in my consciousness. It’s that you think, that you feel, that your
own life is spiritually blessed.
Tickets for the August 2nd presentation can be reserved at (541) 734-8581 or bought at Village Books & Great Earth Vitamins in Medford; Soundpeace & Music Coop in Ashland; Book Stop in Grants Pass. $20/advance; $25/at the door.
