On this episode of the Here and Now Podcast, Ram Dass talks about being in limbo in India in his search for the answers he came for.
We hear about the transformative lessons Ram Dass learned from one of the last people in India he might have expected – a twenty-year-old Westerner.
Click here to read the transcription of this podcast.
Show Notes
The Journey Begins (Opening) – Raghu arrives at his first ashram in India, disappointed because he didn’t find the answers he was looking for. He is left in limbo while he continues to seek his friend and his guru.
Culture Shock (2:40) – Meanwhile, Ram Dass ventures out of his comfort zone and follows Bhagavan Das on a transformative journey through India, leading to a very special meeting at the Kainchi Ashram. He tells about adopting the robes of the holy men of India. Quickly Ram Dass learns of the reverence this new role brings and struggles with accepting this treatment.
“These village people would call, ‘Hey, Baba-ji,’ and I would always be embarrassed. I wasn’t a holy man, I was just wearing a white cloth. I was a Western intellectual overaged hippie looking to see what was going on in India. That was who I was in my head, my fixed model of myself.” – Ram Dass
Just Be Here Now (9:55) – In his early travels roughing it across India with Bhagavan Das, Ram Dass felt like a child learning the customs of a Sadhu – being led around and taught everything as if for the first time. He describes the difficult but priceless lessons he learned from Bhagavan Das, like the famous phrase “Be Here Now.”
“I would say to Bhagavan Das something like, ‘How long do you think we are going to be on the road?’ and he would say ‘Don’t worry about the future, just live now.’ So we would be silent for a while, sleeping on our wooden beds and I would say, ‘Gee, this sure is strange in relation to the past. You know when I used to…’ and he would say, ‘Just be here now.” – Ram Dass
First Contact (20:40) – Ram Dass talks about meeting Neem Karoli Baba, who he would soon call Maharaj-ji, for the first time and at first it was not the fireworks you might expect. We hear about the incredible acts that reversed Ram Dass’s impression of this old man in a blanket.
“He looked directly at me and said, ‘ You were out under the stars last night. You were thinking about your mother. She died last year. She got very big in the stomach before she died. She died of the spleen.’ My rational mind stopped at that point. I realized that ‘I’ had just been overwhelmed. ‘I’, my ego – Richard Alpert, had just been beaten. I wasn’t high, so I couldn’t say this was a drug hallucination. Here was a guy doing this to me right then, this man knew what was inside of me.” – Ram Dass
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Image via Bhagavan Das
Ram Dass your book Journey Of Awakening has really helped me get through a difficult time in my life. At one point it seemed like I was going mad and I was all alone, just me and the constant battle in my mind, but after just the first few pages of your book I realised I was neither mad or alone. Thank you very much, I feel like I have direction now, something to aim for, happiness. Can’t wait to read the rest of your work, thanks again. Love the podcast.
Sincerely greatfull
Paul Nugent (Ireland)
Ram Dass…. You are a beloved gift; complete inspiration!
Similar story as above from Paul Nugent; after having an absolute divine trip on LSD with insights that transformed my life, included meeting nature for the first time ever, I after all these years can only call it a satori, I was lost.. looking everywhere to find solace, to find some peace. In the house of an American friend I found this book Be Here Now and on reading it, it calmed me down and I saw the inner connection and felt connected. The next day it would be gone again yet, that’s how began my search.. All this happened somewhere between 1973 and ’76 right here in Amsterdam. it didn’t stop there, but that’s another story.. I only now found out Ram Dass was the author, and I’m definitely thankful for it, for that wonderful book that connected me (?) somehow.. for the first time..