In this talk, Ram Dass shares a lesson on the liberating practice of service and how we can turn everything in our life into a practice of yoga.
Show Notes
Seva
Ram Dass tells the story of returning home to care for his dying father. Sharing his daily reflections during this time, Ram Dass shows us how service to others becomes a yoga practice.
“When you are doing a repetitive task like this all the time, you see these different models in your head come and go. These different feelings about what it is you are doing come and go and change. After a while, you develop that perfectly even equanimous nature. The part of you where the models are still there, but you are not in the model. So you are noticing these different things, but noticing them from a place of evenness.
You have gone from being somebody who is doing all this stuff, ‘I am helping dad,’ to ‘helping dad is happening and here we are.’ As I get out of my role, there we are together. It begins to be a space of such presence for the two of us. You understand how that becomes yoga. In the sense that you are constantly cultivating that part of you that is in the world, but not of the world.” – Ram Dass
It’s All Yoga (33:30)
We explore the ways in which every task we are presented with and every person we encounter becomes a chance for practice. How does seeing it all as yoga soften our hearts and loosen our attachment to experience? Ram Dass looks at how we milk sensual experiences for all they are worth and how this gratification becomes the root of our suffering. At what point is enough going to be enough?
“The minute you understand that it’s all yoga, it’s all a way of coming into union, everything becomes a vehicle. Everybody you meet.” – Ram Dass
Explore methods for turning our livelihood into a practice of yoga on Ep. 254 of the Mindrolling Podcast with Raghu Markus
Photo credit: GQ / Pari Dukovic