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Ram Dass, one of
America's most beloved spiritual teachers, sparked a revolution forty
years ago with the publication of Be Here Now. This landmark classic
inspired an entire generation to see the world in a different light.
Over the past four decades Ram Dass has been a beacon for seekers
worldwide, challenging us to find new sources of meaning and purpose in
our lives.
FROM...https://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/display/product.cgi?pid=1741
Be Love Now is the third book in a trilogy that began with Be Here Now
and was followed by Still Here, Ram Dass's acclaimed work on aging,
changing, and dying. In Be Love Now, Ram Dass shares what he has learned
in his remarkable four-decade-long spiritual journey. Through timeless
teaching stories, compelling and often humorous personal anecdotes, and
soul-stirring insights, Ram Dass tracks the stages of his own awakening
in his trademark down-to-earth style. Starting with his days as Harvard
psychologist and psychedelic inventurer, continuing through his profound
encounters with his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, and moving beyond the
reawakening brought on by his near-fatal stroke, Ram Dass shares his
life experiences while offering a timeless teaching on love and the path
of the heart
Excerpt
Chapter One
The Path of the Heart
Imagine feeling more love from someone than you have ever known. You’re
being loved even more than your mother loved you when you were an
infant, more than you were ever loved by your father, your child, or
your most intimate lover – anyone. This lover doesn’t need anything from
you, isn’t looking for personal gratification, and only wants your
complete fulfillment.
You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don’t
have to do anything to earn it. Your shortcomings, your lack of
self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success – none
of that matters. No one can take this love away from you, and it will
always be here.
Imagine that being in this love is like relaxing endlessly into a warm
bath that surrounds and supports your every movement, so that every
thought and feeling is permeated by it. You feel as though you are
dissolving into love.
This love is actually part of you; it is always flowing through you.
It’s like the subatomic texture of the universe, the dark matter that
connects everything. When you tune in to that flow, you will feel it in
your own heart – not your physical heart or your emotional heart, but
your spiritual heart, the place you point to in your chest when you say,
“I am.â€
This is your deeper heart, your intuitive heart. It is the place where
the higher mind, pure awareness, the subtler emotions, and your soul
identity all come together and you connect to the universe, where
presence and love are.
Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep
inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being.
It’s not “I love you†for this or that reason, not “I love you if you
love me.†It’s love for no reason, love without an object. It’s just
sitting in love, a love that incorporates the chair and the room and
permeates everything around. The thinking mind is extinguished in love.
If I go into the place in myself that is love and you go into the place
in yourself that is love, we are together in love. Then you and I are
truly in love, the state of being love. That’s the entrance to Oneness.
That’s the space I entered when I met my guru.
Years ago in India I was sitting in the courtyard of the little temple
in the Himalayan foothills. Thirty of forty of us were there around my
guru, Maharaj-ji. This old man wrapped in a plaid blanket was sitting on
a plank bed, and for a brief uncommon interval everyone had fallen
silent. It was a meditative quiet, like an open field on a windless day
or a deep clear lake without a ripple. I felt waves of love radiating
toward me, washing over me like a gentle surf on a tropical shore,
immersing me, rocking me, caressing my soul, infinitely accepting and
open.
I was nearly overcome, on the verge of tears, so grateful and so full of
joy it was hard to believe it was happening. I opened my eyes and
looked around, and I could feel that everyone else around me was
experiencing the same thing. I looked over at my guru. He was just
sitting there, looking around, not doing anything. It was just his
being, shining like the sun, equally on everyone. It wasn’t directed at
anyone in particular. For him, it was nothing special, just his own
nature.
This love is like sunshine, a natural force, a completion of what is, a
bliss that permeates every particle of existence. In Sanskrit, it’s
called sat-cit-ananda, “truth-consciousness-bliss,†the bliss of
consciousness of existence. That vibrational field of ananda love
permeates everything; everything in that vibration is love. It’s a
different state of being beyond the mind. We were transported by
Maharaj-ji’s love from one vibrational level to another, from the ego to
the soul level.
Published by HarperCollins Publishers
https://www.ramdass.org/biography
On
February 19th 1997, Ram Dass suffered a near-fatal stroke, which left
him paralyzed on the right side of his body and expressive aphasia
limiting his ability to speak, along with other challenging ailments.
February 19th 1997, Ram Dass suffered a near-fatal stroke, which left
him paralyzed on the right side of his body and expressive aphasia
limiting his ability to speak, along with other challenging ailments.
The
after effects of the stroke have once again changed his life and vastly
altered his day, but he has been able to resume teaching and continues
to share and teach. In 2004, following a life threatening infection,
Ram Dass was forced to curtail travel and focus on recovering his
health.
after effects of the stroke have once again changed his life and vastly
altered his day, but he has been able to resume teaching and continues
to share and teach. In 2004, following a life threatening infection,
Ram Dass was forced to curtail travel and focus on recovering his
health.
Ram
Dass now resides on Maui, where he shares satsang, kirtan, and where he
can amplify the healing process in the air and waters of Hawaii. His
work continues to be a path of teaching and inspiration to so many. The
Internet is a new vehicle for Ram Dass to share his being.
Dass now resides on Maui, where he shares satsang, kirtan, and where he
can amplify the healing process in the air and waters of Hawaii. His
work continues to be a path of teaching and inspiration to so many. The
Internet is a new vehicle for Ram Dass to share his being.
"The quieter you become, the more you can hear."
— Ram Dass
"It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed."
— Ram Dass
"I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion--and where it isn't, that's where my work lies."
— Ram Dass
"The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back."
— Ram Dass
"Let's trade in all our judging for appreciating. Let's lay down our righteousness and just be together."
— Ram Dass
Well they say new thought go from the West to the East and arts. culture, fashion, moves from East to West. So there you were in Memphis...During the 1960s, the city was at the center of civil rights issues, notably the location of a sanitation workers' strike. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel, the day after giving his prophetic I've Been to the Mountaintop speech at the Mason Temple.
I never heard of him--and I was very much into 'self-help' 40 years ago--strange.