Accepting Teachings along the Dharmic Path

Accepting Teachings from Maharajji

There was a point where Maharajji did all of these terrible things to all of his devotees, especially me, and I got very angry and I went to see him.

I had good reason for being angry, but Maharajji laughed at me, and he pulled my beard and said, “Ram Dass is angry,” while I was awaiting an explanation. What was I gonna do? I saw I was going to be left hanging there for an explanation. So what was I gonna do? Was I gonna get up and walk out? Say, “Well, I’m gonna stick to my principles?” Who am I really dealing with? Far out stuff, ya know? Meanwhile, he’s just sitting there waiting and he said, “Okay, you win. Be who you want to be. I’ll just study it. I won’t judge it.” Then the next day he sent me away, “Jao. Jao.”

 

Honoring it

What I got very involved with during this time in India was the force of Shiva, which is the destroyer. Reflecting on all the experiences I’ve had of the destructiveness around me, I realized that I’d always pushed them away, and having realized I was free of my fear of it, I had to honor all of these experiences. It’s like Ramakrishna honoring Kali. Honoring it, allowing it all to be the way it is without feeling you’re gonna lose your virginity by doing it. You’re just surrendering to it…that’s the way it is. Out of that then comes conscious action. Not out of the desire to change it, but merely the desire to be a part of it, which is the Tao. Just doing the flow. Because you can’t not be, because you’re in a body. I not only don’t know what I’m doing, but I don’t even know why I’m doing it. To me, every game I’m playing is just like every other game I ever played. It’s another game. I can hear it all. It’s totally trivial. and it’s just happening. I do it because I do it, because I do it.

The Dharmic Path

I think that’s approaching hearing one’s dharma. That is, hearing one’s route through. If you were perfectly mechanic, you go through the same trip. You keep edging, edging, edging, and as you get closer into what’s happening, who you really are, you start to just feel in the presence, at peace. Every one of us has individual karma. Every single one of us has individual dharma, or a route.

You can’t buy anyone else’s trip as a teaching for you, but everybody has got to go on the trip themselves. Take teachings and go on. Take them and go on, take them and go on. Just see them as teachings and take them and go on.

Keep growing, realizing you’ve got to. You’ve got to create the whole path each time.

There are infinite numbers of varieties of ways of dying, and the more you try to be like something else, the more you don’t die, because you’ve got to give up trying.

 

-Ram Dass

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