Speaking across the decades from the 1970s to the 2010s, Ram Dass shares his wisdom on the importance of resting in awareness.
This episode of Here and Now is a compilation of Ram Dass discussing the concept of resting in awareness throughout the decades.
- We begin in Washington, D.C., in 1976, with Ram Dass exploring being in harmony with the Tao, the Way of things, and how awareness and love are really the same thing. “When you are aware without clinging,” he says, ‘And in harmony with all of the forces, you are no longer in time.”
- We move on to 1985, with Ram Dass meditating on the qualities of awareness. These are qualities such as spaciousness, equanimity, and love. He encourages us to become instruments of light, love, and presence. “Just allow your awareness to expand, to embrace everything you hear or feel or think.”
- The next stop is the Virgin Islands in 1995, with Ram Dass comparing awareness to the sky. The clouds in the sky are simply the passing phenomena of life. “Your whole concept of who you think you are,” he says, “All the stuff of ‘me’ is all the cloud. And the cloud is being appreciated or embraced or carried by the sky. The sky is just awareness.”
- Finally, we end in Maui in 2016, when Ram Dass had learned how to completely rest in his loving awareness. He guides a meditation to connect us to the space of loving awareness, where we can all go for a swim in the ocean of love.
“I would say my life is about awareness. And becoming or being aware. Because becoming’s already a trip in the cloud. ‘I’m getting aware.’ It’s another one. ‘I’m washing dishes, now I’m getting aware.’ It’s just another trip, it’s another thing you’re doing. So, I’d say my life is resting in awareness. And into the awareness come phenomena.” – Ram Dass