The Miracle of Consciousness - Ram Dass Full Lecture 1996

Meditation practice, particularly mindfulness meditation on the breath, allows one to develop concentration (shamatha) that can then be used to examine the mind and break through into other levels of awareness through insight (vipassana).

“I went into at that time uh travadon Buddhism vasana meditation very simple following your breath rising and falling following your steps lifting pushing putting place and I developed some somar or concentration and then you take that concentration and you start to examine your mind with that concentrated mind and you start to break through into other levels of awareness”

Most people in modern Western culture are trapped in 'personality identity' rather than 'role identity'; they believe their individual preferences, neuroses, and histories define who they are, whereas traditional cultures emphasize dharma (role and duty) over personal preference.

“in The Villages of India they live with role identity not personality identity they fulfill their roles I'm not arguing from it as whether it's bad or good that isn't the issue the issue is these people are identified with rol not personality they don't ask what do I want what do I need they ask what's my part to play what's my Dharma what's my Dharma and then you come back to our culture and it looks like the back wood of a mental hospital I mean everybody is I'm not getting enough I want more I need I I had a terrible childhood you don't understand I deserve I I mean it's so painful it's so thick and everybody walks down the street telling you this is who they are”

The state of nirvikalpa samadhi (formless emptiness) accessible through meditation is different from but related to the experience of emptiness through psychedelic medicines; meditation emptiness is achieved through tightening concentration until one enters the space between thoughts, while psychedelic emptiness is accessed more directly.

“in meditation practice you can go into um nerval samade formless emptiness through bringing your concentration in so tight you can go between two thoughts you go into the space between two thoughts and there there is no universe and when you do that you come into an experience in which or see there's the way the words fall down because it is not an experience it is a moment in which experiencer and experience are no longer in a dualistic relationship to one another so there is no experience so there's nothing but you are everything”

Religious and spiritual traditions should not claim exclusivity about the path to truth; there are many valid paths up the mountain of consciousness, and no single path is the only way.

“I can't really see how I can say one way up the mountain is the only way up the mountain it doesn't feel that way”

The fundamental purpose of spiritual practice, for Ram Dass, is to stabilize awakened consciousness in ordinary life—to maintain non-exclusive identification with one's soul awareness while functioning as an ego in the world, making this the most compassionate contribution to the world.

“what I have done since that time which is the last 23 years is to do the practices and live my life in such a way as to optimize my stabilizing myself in an awakened State because as far as I can understand that is the most compassionate thing that I can do”

The naive hope of the 1960s—that if people could see they were trapped in a mind prison, everyone would awaken—failed because people with large ego investments in power, security, and identity structures were frightened by the threat to those structures and did not awaken; many retreated into fundamentalism and authoritarianism.

“it turned out everybody didn't see it and that was the naive of the 60s it was the Innocence saying oh my God we have been living in a mind structure it's like in a mind prison defining reality this way like Plato's Cave or something like that and you thought this is so true how can I not act according to this truth and if it is true that I am also the soul and so is everyone else and from this place we can clearly see what we're doing to the world and each other and ourselves and all that and this all would change now why doesn't that happen because a lot of people who had a big investment in their ego structures in their power and their security which is what you try to build when you feel like a vulnerable separate little entity somebody didn't awaken out of their suniness they are frightened at that moment because their suniness is up for grabs”

Ram Dass's guru taught him that when overwhelmed by suffering, one loses balance and one's actions can no longer relieve suffering; the path is to 'become that being that can bear the unbearable' through developing the capacity to witness suffering while maintaining soul awareness.

“maharaji was a very compassionate being and and he didn't say that I should do it or shouldn't do it he just said to me ramdas don't you see it's all perfect and when I heard that it was like an obscenity you talk about children's children dying of starvation and say it's perfect what I saw in years in reflection was that he was reminding me that I had lost my balance and that when you lose your balance you put in a position where your actions no longer can relieve the suffering”

Fear has its root cause in ignorance of one's true non-separate nature; as long as one identifies exclusively with the separate ego entity, fear will persist because that entity will cease to exist; extrication from exclusive identification with separateness provides access to a part of being that has nothing to fear.

“the root of fear is ignorance the ignorance is that you are a separate entity as long as you identify with your separateness there will be fear as long as you extricate yourself from that identification you will enter a part of your being which has nothing to be afraid of the separate entity has a lot to be afraid of because it's going to cease to exist”

When dealing with immense suffering (personal loss, global suffering, disease), the path is neither to deny the suffering nor to be overwhelmed by it, but to become 'the being that can bear the unbearable' by accessing soul awareness while fully acknowledging the reality of suffering.

“so what you do is you become that being that can bear the unbearable not through denial not through coldness not through anything else but through being with what is because you can't live in the moment if you're busy making believe a lot of stuff does doesn't exist”

The web of interconnected consciousness means that as each individual in a system changes, the whole system changes; therefore, personal transformation is the fundamental lever for social and collective change.

“as you see the web of interconnected information and Consciousness you see that as each individual in the system changes the whole system changes so I saw that I had to work on myself as a way of extricating my awareness from the exclusive identification with my ego structures”

The 1960s cultural awakening—civil rights, anti-war, sexual freedom, environmentalism, women's and gay rights—occurred because a critical mass of people shifted into a 'relative reality frame' of consciousness, which freed them from fear of patriarchal vertical institutional structures, which then appeared as 'paper tigers.'

“at one moment it's as if something happened at that time and there were many causes of it I'm sure some of these things have been building for years like the Civil Rights move there sometime when we shifted into to a relative reality frame and that freed us from being intimidated by the patriarchal vertical institutional structures that we had been living under and they just began to look like Paper Tigers to us”

A new paradigm of consciousness is emerging in which people meet each other soul-to-soul rather than only ego-to-ego; this shift is enabled by information technology and virtual reality, which normalize the existence of multiple simultaneous realities.

“there is a shift in Collective Consciousness which you could call a new paradigm or a new way of perceiving reality and it means that people are starting to meet whether you want to call it by whatever level on other states of Consciousness or as soul to soul you here I'm here and in a way the technology of the information age just speeds up the whole process because virtual reality and this reality all become just two realities after a while”

According to Ram Dass's guru, LSD provides access to an astral analog of emptiness for a limited time (approximately two hours), while stabilized consciousness through meditation practices allows one to become the emptiness rather than visit it—making meditation practice more valuable for lasting transformation.

“he said your medicine meaning LSD he said it would allow you to come into the presence of Christ and have Christ Daran you could be with he said but you could only stay for two hours and then you'd have to leave he said it would be better to become Christ than visit him but your medicine won't do that okay so what I heard was that the medicine was an astral analog of emptiness rather than emptiness but to me that was still pretty useful”

Ego structures—including the body, personality, psychosocial identity, and all identification with separateness—are necessary for functioning in the material world but become a prison if taken as the only reality; genuine freedom requires extrication from exclusive identification with these structures without denying or suppressing them.

“with my identification with my desires with my needs with my wants not stopping any of that or trying to stop it or denying its existence it's this is not mugan stuff this is the ability to extricate yourself from exclusive identity with those things you don't push them away cuz then just end up a horny celibate you can't do that”

All individual souls are ultimately parts of one unified consciousness experiencing itself through apparent separation; at the deepest level there is only one awareness looking at itself infinitely.

“if you flip the dial once more you see that those souls are all like um gatans they're all little parts of one thing they're like holography and you realize that it's looking at itself looking at itself looking at itself there's only one of us here in Drag”

The appropriate response to overwhelming suffering is to balance witnessing its reality with resting in soul awareness and the deep wisdom/perspective that comes from that place, allowing oneself to act from integration rather than reaction.

“would you be able to understand or have a sense of the wisdom of the universe sufficient to allow you to be able to look at something uing and look at your breaking personal separate emotional heart breaking about that suffering and at the same moment have another part of your Consciousness that dealt with the Deep wisdom and mystery that lay just behind what you were seeing”

Compassion is different from kindness or pity: compassion arises when you recognize that suffering is not 'their' suffering but shared universal suffering; kindness and pity arise from the ego recognizing another's separate pain.

“compassion comes when it's your suffering it's not their suffering kindness comes with their suffering and righteousness and guilt and pity and all the rest of it”

The relationship between Ram Dass and his father transformed from a sense of obligation and resentment into genuine presence and mutual love when Ram Dass ceased trying to change his father and simply cared for him without an agenda, ultimately experiencing his father's true nature as beautiful.

“after about 6 months I didn't feel a thing I was busier than ever and I found myself putting it off so I thought the hell with it I just won't do that trip...but the 62 ticket got me...and as I let go of all these models of him and me and what I thought I was doing and just did it he changed and he started to be this Absolut I mean I never really liked him and he turned into this really it was like Buddha he was just absolutely beautiful and we'd hold hands and look at the Sunset”

As people age and perceive their future as grimmer, they often flip into living in the past, repeating stories about missed opportunities, rather than living in the present; the present moment is the gateway to timelessness and freedom, but cultural fear of death pushes elderly people into the past.

“when you look at old people's Consciousness since I've been doing that you see that as people get older and their future gets Grimmer from their point of view they flip into the past so then they only tell stories about the past to each other what they missed on the way through because of their Panic was the present and the present was their salvation because had they been able to come into the present moment they would have gone right through the doorway into timelessness”

To help someone with psychological suffering, one should not begin from a place of exclusive ego identification with separateness, as this reinforces their sense of isolation; instead, one should cultivate a part of oneself that is free of identification, and from that perspective, help the person access their own liberated awareness.

“to the extent that I'm caught in my separateness I reinforce their sense of separateness and their isolation to the extent that I'm free of it I free them or I am a I am available to help them be free if they would become free”

Stigma attached to mental illness or social problems is perpetuated by holding the stigma; the way to change stigma is to not hold it and instead to meet the person behind the label.

“I think uh you change a stigma by not holding it that's the first thing you do and if you're even against the stigma it's got you so it's a lot to get Beyond stigma to just be with the person behind the stigma”

Timothy Leary and Ram Dass represent different responses to consciousness expansion: Leary was fascinated with form and became caught in his mind through cryonics and downloading consciousness; Ram Dass became fascinated with formlessness and emptiness, preparing for death through spiritual practice.

“Timothy and I uh both had numerable um Consciousness expanding experiences and but we responded differently to them undoubtedly because of our karmic predilections and so Timothy became fascinated with form and I became more fascinated with formlessness”

Judgment of others arises from the ego's fear; by positioning oneself as judge, one creates a comfortable hierarchical position. The antidote is to flip judgment into appreciation—even appreciating the essence of what one is judging while maintaining healthy boundaries.

“I was a very very judging person it's interesting I noticed that when I go out in the woods and I look at Aspens and I look at Oak and I look at pinion I don't sit around judging them I just appreciate them but the minute I come near humans see I mean I can even do with cats I can even appreciate different cats but humans I go into a judging mode and I think that has to do with my fear my own fears as a separate entity you know and I'm I'm positioning myself in a comfortable Way by making myself the judge”

The practice of creating an 'imaginary playmate' with desired qualities (wisdom, humor, rascality, emptiness, devotional heart) allows one to externalize and then internalize these qualities; one eventually realizes the playmate was as real as oneself was, since both are forms of consciousness.

“basically what you're doing is inventing a soul to awaken you out of your ego trip to recognize that you too are a soul and as it all becomes as it happens you turn it turns out of course that your imaginary Playmate was as real as you were because who you thought you were was just who you thought you were anyway”

Neem Karoli Baba (maharaji), Ram Dass's guru, demonstrated the capacity to maintain simultaneous awareness across all planes of consciousness—remaining present and aware whether the speaker was high on acid or sober, without allowing the speaker to grasp or possess him mentally.

“it was possible for a human being to simultaneously be aware on all the planes of Consciousness at once because wherever I went he was always there if I got high he was high if I was down he was down and yet he wouldn't ever allow me to grab hold of him with my Consciousness”

When one shifts consciousness to the soul level and looks at other people, one recognizes them as souls or conscious beings independent of their physical form, social roles, and ego structures; this recognition fundamentally changes how one relates to them.

“when we look into the eyes of another person whom we just saw as their physical body their psychosocial identity their astral identity you look in their eyes and you see from behind all that another being looking out at you are you in there I'm in here how did you get into that one see as if you see it's as if you have brought your awareness back into your soul identity and what you see when you look out are other Soul identities”

The journey of spiritual awakening begins in infancy when a human learns separateness and becomes 'somebody'—identifying exclusively with their physical body, thoughts, desires, and separate self. This 'somebody' training is necessary for functioning but creates suffering when taken as the whole truth.

“you and I got born which was in itself an interesting trip but then not to get delayed there you and I went into training and we went into basically somebody training see we went into training about how to be somebody now you were trained by the best kind of people because they all thought they were somebody your mother and father both thought they were real and therefore they thought their child was real so you are surrounded by a Consciousness in which your separateness is what's real”

Time exists as the relationship between moments; when living fully in a single present moment, one is not living in time but accessing timelessness—a domain where aging is not a relevant variable.

“in a moment there is no time time is the relation between two moments when you live in one moment you're not living in time okay new moment”

One cannot judge whether a child's suicide is a mistake or an appropriate spiritual transition without knowing what they know; the same skepticism about one's own judgment should apply to death and life transitions.

“because since you don't know really what we're doing here it's hard to figure out whether a child killing himself knows something you don't or is is making a terrible error see and it's very presumptuous in a way to act as if you do know when you don't know”

The relationship with a guru (whether living or imaginary) serves to mirror back to the student aspects of themselves they still need to work on; this continues even after the guru dies, as the relationship becomes less about seeking external guidance and more about shared presence.

“what I have is a being with me all the time who is a mirror showing me what I still have to do or where I still might be holding because I see something when I look at him and as I get further along along in my connection to him it ceases to be relational anymore it is more of where we share a presence together”

Suffering in the world is not 'their' suffering but 'our' suffering when perceived from soul awareness; this shift from them/us to us/all changes the nature of appropriate response from rescue missions to balanced participation in transformation.

“once you can look at the suffering and be with it as it is and realize it's not their suffering in Bosnia it's the suffering it's not their suffering in Africa it's not their suffering in Israel it's our suffering it's not their suffering in inner city it's our suffering”

All humans exist simultaneously on multiple levels of consciousness: the physical ego level (with body and personality), the psychosocial identity level, the astral/archetypal level, and the soul/pure awareness level; most people identify exclusively with one or two levels and miss the richness of simultaneous multi-level awareness.

“we are all these levels at once what fascinates me is with what short shrift I dealt with myself in the old days I mean when I do this uh old exercise I've done many times we you put a a tuner control knob next to your eye and you tune it at level one and you look up here and you see a 65y old um ponchy um bald um handsome gentleman okay and then you flip at one dial and you see me as teacher as spiritual Seeker as da da da you see me as Caucasian you see me as on and on all my psychosocial identities that's who you see on channel two that's As the World Turns that's where our personalities hang out that's where we think our storylines are real okay then you go to channel three we we're all bigger than life it's the astral plane and we all have our OCT typal identities”

When one rests in soul awareness that is not separate from others, fear becomes object-like—'oh, fear' rather than 'I am afraid'—and loses its seductive power to compel action and suffering.

“so that you can be it doesn't mean fear goes away you may still feel a fear but the other part of your Consciousness will be able to say ah fear so instead of I'm afraid it's more like I'm afraid is one level and there's fear is another level”

The Dao Te Ching's statement 'one does nothing and nothing is left undone' describes the paradox of simultaneous non-action and action when one rests in soul awareness; this state makes one a 'reflective person rather than a reactive person.'

“to rest in two of them simultaneously makes you a reflective person rather than a reactive person what intrigues me about the 60s to the 90s”

The fundamental game or curriculum of human existence is the game of awakening—becoming free awareness, which is the most valuable thing because free awareness is capable of being an instrument for the freedom of others.

“you and I are here on Earth the basic game is the game of Awakening the basic game is the game of becoming a free awareness because that free awareness is capable of being an instrument for the freedom of others and that's where the root suffering is being trapped”

Upon first awakening to non-ordinary consciousness, Ram Dass experienced profound homesickness and a sense of having been starving in the ordinary world, realizing he had been cut off from what felt like an ocean of plenty.

“when I first awakened the feelings I had were I'm home this is so familiar where have I been all this time how how have I cut myself off from this thing I've been starving to death and here I was in an ocean of Plenty how bizarre”

The experience of psychedelic states in 1961 revealed a fundamental truth about consciousness: there are legitimate, equally valid planes of reality beyond ordinary waking consciousness that can be directly experienced, contradicting the materialist assumption that the waking plane is the only real one.

“your awareness has experience from other what are now called non-ordinary States Of Consciousness you have experienced reality from those planes and you have known experientially that it's equally as valid as the plane you thought was real”

Youth suicide reflects young people feeling profoundly cut off and disconnected from the social structures and communities around them; they experience unbearable isolation that drives them to attempt escape from this loneliness.

“I think that um kids feel um often very very cut off from the whole structure of the society in which they're living everybody family friends everybody and um I think they're starving to death in their minds and then they really want to escape that space and because it's it's unbearable to be that cut off to be that hungry”

The speaker has evolved from viewing psychology and reality as absolutely real (like Newtonian physics) to understanding that reality is relative and dependent on one's perspective, a shift catalyzed by his first psychedelic experience with psilocybin mushrooms in 1961.

“I could watch my mind go from from um Western psychologist Professor with a model of reality that said psychology is real and I teach it as real it's absolutely real and then there's the Psychedelic period after the mushrooms in 1961 when I then say It's relatively real”

When working with quadriplegic spiritual practitioner Kelly, Ram Dass found that his initial pity and reaction to Kelly's visible incapacity blocked authentic meeting; only after 6 months of work could he relate to Kelly as soul-to-soul without noticing the physical disability.

“I realized that if I was going to help him with his anger I had to get through my reactivity to his predicament cuz I was so busy responding to his symbolic value that I couldn't get to him behind it all so that took me about I'd say about six months of seeing Kelly and visiting every few weeks or whenever and we got to the point where I didn't even notice I mean I didn't have to notice that Kelly was quadriplegic at all”

The experience of being thrown out of Harvard was, to Ram Dass, a liberation because it freed him from ego identification with institutional success, even though mainstream culture viewed it as failure; this illustrates the relativity of success and failure in terms of consciousness.

“I remember the moment when I'd been thrown out of Harvard and there was a there was a press conference cuz I was the first person in 6,000 years to be thrown out of har and and the Press was surrounding me the television the radio and they were all looking at me like I was a loser because I had taken on Harvard and lost and they so I felt like somebody who would lost a big fight and would now be sweeping the gym but the predicament was that inside myself I felt like I'd won and I said because I was now connected with this deeper spiritual truth in my being”

When one rests in soul awareness while perceiving another person, the separateness between self and other dissolves: you cease to see yourself as distinct from them; their suffering becomes your suffering; and compassion arises naturally and impersonally, not from effort or guilt.

“once you can look at the suffering and be with it as it is and realize it's not their suffering in Bosnia it's the suffering it's not their suffering in Africa it's not their suffering in Israel it's our suffering it's not their suffering in inner city it's our suffering it's not their suffering with AIDS it's our suffering and then when you open to that immensity of the suffering what arises in absolute equal measure out of you is this quality of compassion”

The practice of 'Guru Kripa' (grace of the guru) does not require a living guru in physical form; after the guru dies, people can relate to the guru's teachings and presence internally, and can become 'guru siblings' through this shared internal relationship.

“people read that book and they started to write letters to me with the pictures and the stories and saying who is that guy I've read these stories and somehow I've opened myself and he's within me he's like around me all the time is this good and I said well uh as far as I can see from listening to people who are in the same situation as you they talked to me about their relation ship with him the same way as I feel in my relationship with him therefore I must assume they are all my Guru brothers or sisters and that they are as connected with him as I am since he's dead anyway”

The ideal state Ram Dass aims for is living simultaneously from two planes of consciousness: resting in awareness as a reflective presence, while simultaneously being fully engaged in thought, action, and change—being 'perfectly mindful and clear' while also fully active.

“there is a way for the soul to be conscious and once you've started to awaken this is all you're going to settle for we you are deeply involved in the storyline of your Incarnation and yet at the same moment you are perfectly Mindful and present and clear it's a statement in the da one does nothing and nothing is left undone a place in you that's absolutely quiet and clear and that doesn't in any way detract from the part of you outside that's doing and changing and all that stuff”

Young people considering using drugs should first stabilize their 'somebody identity'—developing economic security, family relationships, independence—before experimenting with consciousness expansion, as the culture is currently hostile to this work and paranoia can corrupt the experience.

“I would say that um there are different state stes of life and there is a stage where you have to get your act together on the ground floor developing your somebodiness and it may be a little premature to go after your nobody until you get your somebody in order”

When one is surrounded by disorientation or loss of others' sanity, the method to keep one's center is to stop picking unnecessary battles, learn which ones can be won, and for those one cannot avoid, treat them as curriculum for awakening rather than as evidence of defeat.

“well I'll tell you what you usually do is you pick battles you can win now and then and you don't go near the really heavy things unless you have to and if you have to go near them you usually drown for a while and then you sputter to life again”

In the business world, there is an emerging consciousness among entrepreneurs and business leaders to integrate social justice, sustainability, and compassion with profit motive; this represents the integration of awakened consciousness into institutional structures.

“I work on the board of a thing called the social Venture Network which is a group of people like Ben and Jerry and Calbert fund and people who are at least I mean they may be screwing up left and right but they are attempting to integrate their concern about Justice and compassion and sustainability and they're trying to integrate that with the business ethic”

Channeled information should be evaluated by the same criteria as any other source: does it intuitively feel right, does it fit with what one has learned, is there wisdom and coherence? Being disembodied does not automatically confer truth.

“there were a lot of schlock Astral beings who were losing when they're alive and then say well I'll send back messages and send back losing messages now too see so I realized that you just couldn't just cuz somebody was not was disembodied didn't mean you should Elevate them they should still have the same criteria you'd impose for anybody else does it intuitively feel right does it fit in with my life”