I am loving awareness
OK, before I get too far into this— if you’re not familiar with Ram Dass or any of his work, I’d highly recommend starting here. That link will take you to the Love Serve Remember Foundation (LSRF) which is dedicated to preserving the teachings of Ram Dass (and Neem Karoli Baba). There is tons of content and you can easily spend hours on the site. Don’t say that I didn’t warn you when you find yourself there at 2am in the morning still browsing through stuff. :)
On December 22nd, 2019, Ram Dass left his body. A year later in December 2020, the LSRF celebrated his life with a virtual celebration streamed online. During the celebration there were stories from some of his closest friends, music from Krishna Das, a film about Neem Karoli Baba, and the video you see below, which was probably my favorite. It’s beautifully produced. Absolutely spectacular!
To say that Ram Dass changed my life would be an understatement. Since learning of him years ago, I’ve basically become a new person in the way that I think about things. I used to be caught up in the daily grind and never knew how to ‘Be Here Now’. Those many, many hours of listening to his teachings through the Here and Now Podcast were wisdom of the purest kind. The podcast is something that I’d definitely recommend. Be prepared though, because currently there is almost 200 episodes available. Trust me though, you’ll wonder why you’ve never listened to it before. It’s available through iTunes or most other podcast platforms.
Anyway, I just wanted to share this beautiful video. The most heartbreaking part of it for me was at this moment (minute 19:06 into the video). You see someone dearly missing their friend.
And last, but not least. It wouldn’t be right to go this far without recommending some of his books. If you want to start with something a bit different, choose Be Here Now. It was his first and easily the most well known. I have links below to a couple. To be honest, you really can’t go wrong with any of them, but one of his last books (that he wrote with Mirabai Bush), called Walking Each Other Home, is also a deep, thought-provoking book and a must-read.
“Faith is not a belief. Faith is what is left when your beliefs have all been blown to hell. Faith is in the heart, while beliefs are in the head. Experiences, even spiritual experiences, come and go. As long as you base your faith on experience, your faith is going to be constantly flickering, because your experiences keep changing.”
A full list of all of Ram Dass’ books can be found here.