Nowhere to Go

During the months I was in yogi training at Maharaj-ji’s little temple in the hills, I got really high. It felt like light was pouring out of my head. At one point I had to go to Delhi to get my visa renewed. I went as a yogi. I had long hair and a long beard and māla (prayer beads), and I was wearing white. As I was walking barefoot through Connaught Circus, in the center of New Delhi, I felt the shakti, the spiritual energy, everywhere. I loved it. My newly spiritual ego was along for the ride too.

I put in my visa application and collected the mail from American Express. Then I went to a pure vegetarian restaurant for lunch. I was hungry, but I was maintaining my yogic purity. In India they treat holy people with great respect, but if you’re a white holy man from the West, that’s really very unusual. So I was doubly holy, and they were very respectful. They watched me eat. I had the vegetarian special, and I ate very consciously and yogically.

At the end they served a dessert that had two little English biscuits in it. I knew those weren’t yogi food. You know, when you’re pure, you can smell which food is pure and which is impure. But there is always a very oral Jewish boy in me too, and he wanted those cookies. So while I looked holy, I carefully edged the dish over and pushed the cookies into my bag. I looked as if I was thinking of something holy. I ate the biscuits in the alley outside the restaurant.

Then I went back up to the mountains, an eight-hour bus ride, and as I entered the temple, I went to touch Maharaj-ji’s feet. I looked up at him, and he said, “How did you like the biscuits?”

– Ram Dass

18 thoughts on “Nowhere to Go”

  1. I am not certain that I believe this. I have read it before, but how can I be truly certain that it actually happened? It is very enticing. How do I even know that Ram Dass is administering this website? That seems very unlikely to me.

    Reply
        • Darling the truth is that it doesn´t really matter.

          It is just a parable to illustrate a spiritual teaching; getting caught in a spiritual egoic identity.
          The love of a father to a child.
          And been capable of making fun of yourself.

          Don´t get too caught up in forms cause if you´d measure live in terms of who is saying the truth, you are gonna have a bad time.

          How would you know for sure that Jesus existed? Does it matter?
          If you love him. All his qualities will flow into you.

          Peace.

          Reply
  2. Forgive me, much of what Ram Dass says strikes me as “irrelevant, self-indulgent” nonsense.

    I liked psychedelics greatly, as much as anybody else. However, aside from the vital “consciousness-raising” then, they have no relevance to our everyday, small “r” reality now, other than the memory of whatever it could ever possibly mean or ever possibly portend. “Stimulate a certain part of the brain, and voila!, whatever you are experiencing or feeling at the time can seem to be absolutely true!”

    Don’t misunderstand me; I hope I’m expressing myself thoughtfully.

    Reply
    • Everybody has rights to his/her own opinions. So do you. So does Ram Dass Jee. Everybody has rights to accept/reject what other thinks/says. So it is a personal choice. One man’s medicine could be other man’s poison. and yes, once brain or human perception is stretched to newer dimensions, one doesn’t remain the same as one would be.

      Reply
  3. @ Anthony Barondess and doubters – You gotta dig deeper and fall just as much in love with Neem Karoli Baba as Ram Dass did, then you’ll appreciate the beauty and magnitude of stories like this.

    Reply
    • “You gotta … fall just as much in love with Neem Karoli Baba….”

      What does this mean, Jess? Please clarify or elucidate.

      Reply
      • What I meant by “looking through the story” is that often we get too hung up on the printed word and miss the “spirit” that’s being transmitted by the story. Thus, the “looking through” rather than “at”.
        “Namaste'” Is an ancient Sanskrit greeting still in everyday use in India and especially in the Nepal Himalaya. Translated roughly, it means “I bow to the God within you”, or “The Spirit within me salutes the Spirit in you” ~ a knowing that we are all made from the same One Divine Consciousness.

        Reply
  4. a bit disappointed with the somewhat self-indulgent statement about a ‘white holy man (eastern garb)’ being considered doubly holy in India. In India, such a ‘white holy man’ would more likely be looked upon as unusual, or even suspect. Or in this case, in the 60s or 70s (or even now) – as some of the druggie white crowd that does the hippie trail in India.

    Reply

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