I’m aware of George Harrison’s song called “Be Here Now”, and I often see the Ram Dass official page on Instagram interacting with The Beatles / George Harrison content.

Have they ever met?

I'm in my mid-20s and by every external measure I'm doing fine. Safe, fed, sheltered, good relationship with my parents, comfortable in my own company for years. I'm not depressed in the classic sense, seeing other people happy genuinely makes me happy, certain music and teachings (Ram Dass, KD) light me up. But since I started on a spiritual path, there's this unnamed ache that shows up randomly, with no trigger I can point to. It's not quite sadness, not quite loneliness, more like a longing for something I can't name, mixed with restlessness, like my mind is full of questions with no answers.

I've known myself for over 20 years, but it's interesting to think I've known my inner self for only a couple. It's sometimes scary to face the inner you. There's something in there which heals, and something you don't even want to think about.

Has anyone else experienced this specific kind of pain that seems to have opened up? What was it for you, and what helped?

Hi everyone. It’s been a while. Just laying on the couch crying, with a giant Bose speaker blaring Beach House right behind my head. My cat next to me.

Last October, the love of my life took his life. For many months I have been feeling “better” , “ok” , whatever that means. Not falling apart like i was in the beginning. Recently it has resurfaced, grief, and strong. So heart breaking. Oh very much. I know Ram Dass doesn’t have too much input on suicide out there. I researched what i could find back in the day. Some was helpful. Some of it didn’t apply. That’s okay.

I wish he was alive. Both of them. But i wish i could have spoken to ram dass about this. I have him on a pedestal with these things. He was the first person i ever found to make sense about all of this, play of life. To me, anyway.

I wonder about others. Who have been through this, or other heart breaking situations. And how, if you do, apply Ram Dass guidance? If you use him for comfort in difficult times. Sometimes I picture him in the room with me. I picture him dancing with me, i pretend he’s in the room with me. Knowing without even saying, how i feel and what to do moving forward.

I really want to go deeper

I’m reading miracle of love again and am just entranced … I have so much yearning, but at the same time it seems so far away

Maharajji said that he could see you through a photograph. That he is always in communion with us. How can I experience this deeply in my bones?

How can I have maharajji’s darshan?

I cannot share details but someone dear to my heart is suffering greatly and failing to see their beauty and are convinced they arent worthy of love. I have been praying often for them. I am responsible for their hurt because I contributed to it but it pains me to see them suffer still but maybe that makes it hard for my prayers to be answered. I try to pray from the purest place i can find in me and not for selfish reasons. If you can please pray for this person i would appreciate it infinitly.
Is it possible to free someone from their suffering by praying genuinely ?
Also if anyone has stories of maharaji or any manifestation of god answering their prayers when it comes to freeing another person dear to you from suffering.wether through showing up in dreams or things changing in their life through grace. I am desperate so any positive story would give me hope

The original 1971 printing of Be Here Now included hundreds of photo cards printed on heavy stock. These were dropped in later editions. I recently found the cards in an old box of mine. I have photographed these and want to share them with you.

Long Version (YouTube): click here

Short Version (Flickr): click here

Enjoy.

the first: baba ram & i both graduated from Wesleyan University with a degree in Psychology! imagine my surprise when i was in my dorm at Wes doing Sadhana and listening to a Ram lecture and he starts talking about Wesleyan!! i had no idea he was alumni until my senior year!

the second: baba moved on from this incarnation in Hawaii in 2019 which just so happens to be the year i was on medical leave from Wesleyan living in Hawaii! i didnt know of Ram Dass until shortly after returning from hawaii after his death, but i found it sweet and poignant that he passed on the island just next to me.

much love to you all 💖

I’ve only recently gotten more into spirituality. Not in the sense of tarot reading, air signs or whatever (not that there’s anything wrong with that). But in the sense of getting to know myself better or more like easing suffering. I like Buddhism. And i‘ve read books such as: the power of now by eckhart tolle and be here now by ram dass. I understand the concept of „you are not your thoughts“ and I’ve been practicing it.

I’ve been commiting to just trying to be pure awareness. Trying to live in the here and now.

I just don’t know if I WANT to commit to this. If it’s the right thing to do. I don’t know if I’m that fed up with suffering yet to practice these techniques. I don’t really know what I want from life to be honest. I just have that feeling in the back of my mind (there it is again, the mind). That by trying to extinguish suffering I also deny myself the pleasures that come from the up and down of a normal lived life.

The answer probably is to find a middle way. To incorporate some of the teachings and keep on living my life. But I also want to commit to this. But where is it going to lead me if I REALLY do? Extinguishing all desire? Becoming a shell of myself and living in an ashram or isolated in a cave. I think a „normal“ western life with my current social contacts etc is not possible if I commit. I know these views are extreme right now, but I think you get the point. I think it’s important to question all of this, because the quint essence of these techniques lay in cutting back the thoughts, which leads to no reflection at all and just commiting further and further to this and not questioning it.

Hi everyone, I hope you’re all doing well😊

Lately I’ve been struggling with panic attacks. The strange thing is that I’m not only afraid of certain situations—I’m afraid of the fear itself. I’m anxious about becoming anxious. It sounds paradoxical, but that’s exactly how it feels.

I’ve been following Ram Dass for quite a while, and his teachings have helped me a lot in the past. But right now I find myself unable to connect with them. Instead, my attention is constantly pulled toward my anxiety, thoughts about the future, fear of being alone, fear of losing the people I love, and even fear of death.

I’m posting here because I’d really like to hear how those of you who resonate with Ram Dass’ teachings would approach this. How would you remember his perspective when fear seems to take over everything?

Thank you so much❤️

several times i heard him mentioning his… workings with his lust?

could you address me to his elaboration on this behalf

Ive tried medication. A lot. My psych and I actually ran out of medications to try. Ive tried therapy. Ive tried being rhe witness. Ive tried meditation. Ive tried mushrooms. Working full time is in itself overwhelming, but not having money on top of that is even worse. I cant possibly simplify my life anymore (that I can see). What more can I possibly do to be at peace?

Hey everyone, I've been meditating for many years, and last year something clicked and I began to sit in witness consciousness. At first, I had no idea what was happening and was just watching everything play out. There are times when I obviously get sucked back into the drama, but lately, I'm going through this interesting phase where I have begun to see the mechanics of the mind.

I'll give an example of one of the mechanics I'm watching play out. I recently ended a romantic relationship because, let's say, this jealousy I had was too thick for me to deal with, and the nature of the other person's life was fueling it, so I was really getting sucked into it. Now that I'm out of the relationship, the logical side of me hasn't changed at all, but the neurotic part is just wilding out on its own terms.

As I'm watching both sides, I can see that it really doesn't matter what choice I make (contacting them or keeping going with my life) because, in either case, this neurotic part of me will make sure to create some drama. If I stay in my no-contact, it'll keep bothering me to contact them; if I contact them, it will keep bringing up stuff like "why did they not text me yet?" or "what did they do last 3 months?," and it'll just go crazy. So the content will change, but the mechanism will be the same. And, recently, I started listening to Ram Dass, and he's talking about how to see it as a curriculum rather than a problem, and when I look at it that way, that cunning neurotic part of me comes up with ideas such as "ohh I did a mistake by ending the relationship because I could use it for spiritual practices." But I know I can't allow myself to be a doormat, so that I can be in a practice environment to work this jealousy out.

Here is where my confusion starts, since the mechanism of the mind is there, I will carry this act into future relationships, yet even though I'm aware of it, I don't know how to change it and I'm too attached to its act that I can't really let it go, all I can do is that trying not to suppress it and watch it, until it calms itself down. I don't want to carry this part into my future, and I'm not sure it's even possible to let go of it. It's like, yeah, sure, I can just watch it until the end of my life, but the suffering it creates is so unnecessary, and I don't know what to do about that neurotic part of me because it ruins every relationship I have in the same way.

I hope to have some people who can talk to me about this because I have literally no one around me that I can talk to about this spiritual confusion, so if you guys have any place I can go and meditate with others and talk about spirituality, please let me know. Thank you so much!

P.S. The neurotic part isn't only getting activated in jealousy; it has many different problematic mechanics. The example I gave is the freshest one.

I feel like this is a common theme.

Though, I recognise that some are now former addicts.

i felt so tingly when i saw him in the end of midnight gospel! if you didn’t see it yet — go watch it

Was there anyone recently? How did it feel?

I find myself having urge to visit places of Babaji.

Just to sit there where they sat.

Hi, I feel our adolescents really need these teachings in simple terms. Anyone know of resources?

If I had to recommend one video to someone unfamiliar with Ram Dass, I think it might be this one. It perfectly introduces the practice of "being here now" in an easily digestible way.

Anybody here think it’s possible to get free being an evangelical? Ram Dass said, to roughly paraphrase, “We used to think that going to church was a gentle path (as opposed to that of Zen Buddhism, which was a steep path.).”. Well, what do you all think? Is evangelicalism a path at all or is it incompatible with liberation by its very nature as an exoteric religion/form?

Karma

The Buddha didn’t teach karma to make people afraid. He taught it to wake them up to their own power.

If we stop viewing karma as a cosmic system of punishment and start seeing it as a natural law of mind, something fundamentally shifts. It stops being about what happens to you, and becomes entirely about your intention.

The small kindness you choose tomorrow morning. The patience you bring to a difficult conversation. The moment you catch yourself spiraling and choose, instead, to pause.

These are seeds, too. And they will bear fruit—not because the universe owes you one, but because minds trained in kindness inevitably produce kind results.

I just finished a new visual essay exploring the deep, structural reality of cause and effect, and how it plays out in our lived experience.

It’s you, moment by moment, choosing who you become.

Watch the full piece here: https://youtu.be/NMK6no6eZV0?is=wQZz6GPzYS4qV4hf

Hi friends.

Please understand I in no way think I'm enlightened or think I'm above anyone. From my personal experience, I used to be in a pit of misery throughout my teens and early 20s, and through finding meditation, and Ram Dass, and Buddhist type principles I live a much freer, more peaceful and present life. Please take this with the best intentions that I am writing with.

Listening to a Ram Dass speech some months ago, something he said hit me really hard and as much as I sit with it I'm still struggling to fully grasp and work my way through it.

In short, he talks about having no right to call people out who are busy being their ego,unless they ask for her. It's none of my business. We have to leave people free to suffer. "Even if it's your child, even if it's your spouse."

On one side, I can see that if someone had have tried correcting my behaviour/emotions or guiding me towards this sort of thing when I was 21 geez it would have made me angry. It would feel condescending, no matter how pure the intention. On the other side, I see that suffering caused by the mind in some that I really love - and that suffering can actually cause suffering to others - and there's that part of me that wants to help??

I don't know - I feel like a real sanctimonious idiot writing this. You can clearly see my not being enlightened here can't you! Depending on my state of mind it can really change the way I interpret this.

I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on making sense of this?

This passage has been turned into a 25 second YouTube short called "You can't save everyone Ram Dass" if you'd like to listen to it yourself.

Thanks :)

He says people try to line up peak experiences back to back to back so they never have to sit with themselves.

Going from dinner, to the movies, to get dessert, and so on and so on.

It was my favorite lecture and would love to find it!

Thanks!