How can we find truth in each moment?

I feel that I am somebody who has been in a way blessed by having been given everything that Western society could offer, in large part, in terms of affluence, so that I was not concerned about my security, so I could finish with that; lots of love from people around me; the best training, with a Ph.D., the best technology could offer me in terms of transportation, communication, psychedelics, and life process; and I feel that all that was part of my preparation to now know something else, to do something else.

I don’t see it any more particularly as Eastern versus Western. I merely see this as a logical progression of my own evolving consciousness.

And I see the way it’s happening to me is quite Western. I am making use of Eastern methods. I am not Hindu. I am a Western, Jewish boy from Boston who has studied Hinduism. I also find the same thing in the Greek Orthodox Christians, and in the Hasidic movement in Judaism. I find it in all mystical traditions: in the Sufi, in the Egyptian, and certainly in St. Teresa and St. John and so on. So that, I find that it is in a way the amalgam of all this stuff that is allowing me to be what I am doing right at this moment.

It seems to me that there was a point where my “attachment” to my Western training stood in my way. I didn’t have to give up my Western training, what I had to give up was my “attachment” to my Western training.

That’s the critical difference. I didn’t lose my Western training. Jung said in a eulogy of Richard Wilhelm, “He is a gnostic intermediary, in that he was willing to give up a Western predisposition in order to experience another system at the being-level, in order to bring it back.” Now my bringing it back is as a Western scientist. And all that stuff is helping me be able to translate it into something that is meaningful to us in the West at this moment in the work we’re doing. I see that as tremendously valuable.

But I do see that my “attachment” to my rational mind at one point was an impediment, although the “development” that I have with my rational mind…that particular siddhi, as it’s called in the Hindu system – demand exquisite discipline of the rational mind. That, in a way, was usable only because of the disciplines I had developed. So that I see them very much as an amalgam rather than in any kind of sense as contradictory.

The truth is everywhere. Wherever you are, it’s right where you are, when you can see it. And you can see it through whatever vehicle you are working with, you can free yourself from certain attachments that keep you from seeing it. The scientist doesn’t stop being a scientist, nor anybody stop being anything.

You find how to do the things to yourself which allow you to find truth where you are at that moment. I’d say we never find out anything new; we just remember it.

 

-Ram Dass, 1970

 

2 thoughts on “How can we find truth in each moment?”

  1. I have been the fly on the wall ever since he was Richard Alpert. It has been a long beautiful trip.
    Unconditional Love = unconditional Truth = Enlightenment (the experience/knowledge that we are all One!)!
    Unconditional Love is not something ‘out there’, it is a state of being! A transcendental state of being.
    The only places that Truth is not found are places yet to be assimilated in (to the One!) unconditional Love! For instance anything that might ‘disturb/annoy/anger…’ you is something/one that you have yet to Love! Remember, “a demon is (just) an unloved angel!”
    To Love, unconditionally, is to (be able to) see, the awesome beauty everywhere!
    So, if we find something/one ‘less’ than beautiful, it is a reflection of our own lack.
    To extend our ‘umbrella’ of unconditional Love makes angels of demons, makes beauty where there was ugly, makes peace where there was ego/war.
    Besides, as we are all and everything One, all unconditional Love is Self Love, all hate, all judgment… is Self hate…
    So… Love the demons!
    With Love
    Waheguru

    Reply
  2. Or, more simply, any moment that you are not experiencing Truth(is)Beauty is a moment that you are not Being unconditionally Loving!

    Reply

Leave a Comment

RamDass-Store-Shop-700x286

Ram Dass Online Shop

Buy books, media, digital downloads, apparel, devotional, art & other great items!

Join Our Newsletter

Sign up for the Love Serve Remember newsletter to receive teachings, exclusive offers & more.

Something went wrong. Please check your entries and try again.

Donate to LSRF

Help ensure that the teachings of Ram Dass will be available to generations to come.

A Network of Mindfulness & Spirituality Podcasts
❤️   DONATE
Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap