On this episode of the Here and Now Podcast, Ram Dass explores the question of what survives after death.
Show Notes
What Survives? (Opening) – What will happen to our consciousness when we die? Ram Dass shares his beliefs on what survives death and looks at what the teachings around karma say about what comes next.
“At the moment after death, what one experiences is a function of one’s evolution as a soul. This evolution is most clearly reflected in the quality of the manifestation of the life one is just completing. A human birth is a little like enrolling in the fourth-grade. We stay just as long as is necessary to achieve what the soul needs from that specific grade and then we are naturally ready to go on for further evolution by leaving that life.” – Ram Dass
You’re Not Your Brain (28:15) – Ram Dass challenges the conventional thought that our consciousness resides solely in our brain. He examines the realms we encounter after death and the role that attachment plays in our next incarnation.
“When spiritual teachers like Ramana Maharshi, or other beings like him, talk about it being a place in the heart, they aren’t talking about a physical heart. They are talking about a spiritual entity.” – Ram Dass
The True Self (39:40) – We look at the teachings around the Atman – the true self. Ram Dass talks about how the different spiritual paths all lead us to the realization of this true nature that lies behind every incarnation.
“The ultimate game of liberation is that at the end of it everything you were isn’t, and yet you are everything – which is why it is so scary.” – Ram Dass
Nine months ago, I received the Grace of a vision. It was a death scene – I was beside my grandmother as she left her body in a hospital bed. Separately, weeks later, I heard a voice whisper, “By Christmas.” I naively thought that I would reunite with an ex by Christmas. As it was, my grandmother passed in December (by Christmas). The scene was my vision, and my vision was the scene. I was there at the moment she left – and it was Ram Dass who had prepared me. For the last decade, my heart has been in Maharaji’s lineage. The preparation to be an integral part of a passing (and it is a gift) occurred so subtly, over years. I even used to resent RS for dedicating so much of his later teaching time to death and dying. Huh. But there it was – all coming together for me, as if some force knew I would be with my beloved grandmother as she left hee body, and so there I was led to RD and his teachings. What Gorgeous Grace.