Ram Dass

The enhanced edition of Be Here Now Two guided video meditations, 30 minutes in length * Twenty minute video retrospective of Ram Dass' spiritual journey *The first chapter of Ram Dass' new book, Be Love Now

Experiments in Truth Ram Dass In February of 1997, Ram Dass suffered a debilitating stroke that left him struggling to speak again to the generation that he so inspired. For more than 30 years his life has served as a spiritual laboratory, where he touched thousands of seekers with his personal search for greater truths. From the beginning, this respected teacher’s retreat talks and lectures have been meticulously recorded and archived. Experiments in Truth is a historic collection of Ram Dass’ most important recordings, hand-picked and presented together for the first time. You will join this pioneer of engaged spirituality in America and master storyteller for eight inspiring lectures, each one a gem of humor, insight, and intelligence about the spiritual journey today. Here is real-life wisdom for people of all faiths and all walks of life. the life of Ram Dass • The heart’s most direct path to love • The three planes of existence • Overcoming fear of sickness and death • The path of service, and much more.

Sometimes illumination occurs spontaneously or, as Ram Dass experienced, in a heart-wrenching moment of opening. More commonly, it happens when we polish the mirror of the heart with daily practice—and see beyond the illusion of our transient thoughts and emotions to the vast and luminous landscape of our true nature.For five decades, Ram Dass has explored the depths of consciousness and love and brought them to life as service to others. With Polishing the Mirror, he gathers together his essential teachings for living in the eternal present, here and now.Readers will find within these pages a rich combination of perennial wisdom, humor, teaching stories, and detailed guidance on Ram Dass' own spiritual practices, including:• Bhakti Yoga—opening our hearts to unconditional love• Practices for living, aging, dying, and embracing the natural flow of life• Karma Yoga—how selfless service can profoundly transform us• Working with fear and suffering as a path to grace and freedom• Step-by-step guidance in devotional chant, meditation and mantra practice, and much moreFor those new to Ram Dass' teachings, and for those to whom they are old friends, here is this vanguard spiritual explorer's complete guide to discovering who we are and why we are here, and how to become beacons of unconditional love.

“Ram Dass lived a full life and then some. His final statement is thorough and, yes, enlightening.” ― Kirkus ReviewsPerhaps no other teacher has sparked the fires of as many spiritual seekers in the West as Ram Dass. If you’ve ever embraced the phrase “be here now,” practiced meditation or yoga, tried psychedelics, or supported anyone in a hospice, prison, or homeless center―then the story of Ram Dass is also part of your story.From his birth in 1931 to his luminous later years, Ram Dass saw his life as just one incarnation of many. This memoir puts us in the passenger seat with the one-time Harvard psychologist and lifelong risk-taker Richard Alpert, who loved to take friends on wild rides on his Harley and test nearly every boundary―inner or outer―that came his way.Being Ram Dass shares his life’s odyssey in intimate how he struggled with issues of self-identity and sexuality in his youth, pioneered psychedelic research, and opened the doorways to Eastern spiritual practices. In 1967 he trekked to India and met his guru, Neem Karoli Baba. He returned with a perspective on spirituality and psychology that changed millions.Featuring 64 pages of color photographs, this intimate memoir chronicles the cultural and spiritual transformations Ram Dass experienced that resonate with us to this day, a journey from the mind to the heart, from the ego to the soul.Before, after, and along these waypoints, readers will encounter many other adventures and revelations―each ringing with the potential to awaken the universal, loving divine that links us to this beloved teacher and all of us to each other.

For centuries, readers have turned to the Bhagavad Gita for inspiration and guidance as they chart their own spiritual paths. As profound and powerful as this classic text has been for generations of seekers, integrating its lessons into the ordinary patterns of our lives can ultimately seem beyond our reach. Now, in a fascinating series of reflections, anecdotes, stories, and exercises, Ram Dass gives us a unique and accessible road map for experiencing divinity in everyday life. In the engaging, conversational style that has made his teachings so popular for decades, Ram Dass traces our journey of consciousness as it is reflected in one of Hinduism's most sacred texts. The Gita teaches a system of yogas, or "paths for coming to union with God."In Paths to God, Ram Dass brings the heart of that system to light for a Western audience and translates the Gita's principles into the manual for living the yoga of contemporary life.While being a guide to the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita, Paths to God is also a template for expanding our definition of ourselves and allowing us to appreciate a new level of meaning in our lives.

As featured in the Ram Dass documentary film Becoming Nobody, five essential live teaching sessions on audio, presented here in their entiretyThe game is not about becoming somebody, it’s about becoming nobody. —Ram DassIf you’re a spiritual explorer of any age or tradition, chances are you’ve heard of Ram Dass. This singular luminary began his “somebody training” as Richard Alpert—the 1960’s Harvard-psychologist-turned-hippie who tripped with Timothy Leary, befriended beat poets and Tibetan lamas, found his lifelong guru in India, and wrote the perennial classic Be Here Now. That’s the “somebody” part of his story. But for those who’ve experienced Ram Dass live as he shares his insights and personal journey on the way to becoming nobody—he has been for many the spark that ignited them to the liberating truth of who we really are.This audio collection brings us five essential sessions, featured in the Ram Dass documentary film Becoming Nobody, presented here in their entirety. Each beautifully illuminates a core dimension of Ram Dass’s wisdom. Through teaching stories, true accounts, eye-opening revelations, and his one-of-a-kind sense of humor, this legendary teacher helps show us the way out of the prison of our self-identity—and into the joy of being at once “nobody” and the universal divine at play in the world.

Ram Dass’s long-awaited Be Love Now is the transformational teaching of a forty year journey to the heart. The author of the two-million-copy classic Remember, Be Here Now and its influential sequel Still Here , Dass is joined once more by Rameshwar Das—a collaborator from the Love Serve Remember audio recordings—to offer this intimate and inspiring exploration of the human soul. Like Deepak Chopra’s Book of Secrets , the Dalai Lama’s Art of Happiness , and Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Coming to Our Senses , Ram Dass’s Be Love Now will serve as a lodestar for anyone seeking to enhance their spiritual awareness and improve their capacity to serve—and love—the world around them.

More than thirty years ago, an entire generation sought a new way of life, looking for fulfillment and meaning in a way no one had before. Leaving his teaching job at Harvard, Ram Dass embodied the role of spiritual seeker, showing others how to find peace within themselves in one of the greatest spiritual classics of the twentieth century, the two-million-copy bestseller Be Here Now . As many of that generation enter the autumn of their years, the big questions of peace and of purpose have returned demanding answers. And once again, Ram Dass blazes a new trail, inviting all to join him on the next stage of the journey.

Find the practice that’s right for you with this exploration of the many paths of meditation—from mantra, prayer, singing, visualizations, and “just sitting” to movement meditations such as tai chi “Everyone has experienced a moment of pure awareness. A moment without thinking ‘I am aware’ or ‘that is a tree.’ Such moments bring a sense of rightness, of clarity, of being at one. Such moments are the essence of meditation.”—Ram Dass Ram Dass is an American psychologist and spiritual teacher who has studied and practiced meditation for many years. Here he shares his understanding and suggests how you can find methods suitable for you. He illuminates the stages and benefits of meditative practice, and provides wise and often humorous advice on overcoming difficulties along the way.

From Ram Dass, one of America’s most beloved spiritual figures and bestselling author of Be Here Now and Be Love Now, comes this timeless classic about the experience of being and the risks and rewards of our spiritual path. Originally published in 1976, Grist for the Mill offers a deep spiritual journey of self-discovery, and a universal understanding of what it means to "be" and to grow as human beings. The book is fully revised with a new introduction.As Ram Dass puts it, "When the faith is strong enough it is sufficient just to be. It’s a journey towards simplicity, towards quietness, towards a kind of joy that is not in time. It’s a journey that has taken us from primary identification with our body and our psyche, on to an identification with God, and ultimately beyond identification."

An intimate dialogue between two friends and luminaries on love, death, and the spiritual path, with guidance for the end-of-life journey We all sit on the edge of a mystery. We have only known this life, so dying scares us—and we are all dying. But what if dying is perfectly safe? What would it look like if you could approach dying with curiosity and love, in service of other beings? What if dying is the ultimate spiritual practice? Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush began their friendship more than four decades ago at the foot of their guru, Neem Karoli Baba, also known as Maharaj-ji. He transmitted to them a simple love everyone, tell the truth, and give up attachment to material things. A year before Ram Dass passed, he reunited with Bush for an intimate dialogue—which became Walking Each Other Home . In this extraordinary book, you’ll hear from two beloved teachers about the spiritual opportunities within the dying process. They generously share intimate personal experiences and timeless practices with courage, humor, and heart, gently exploring every aspect of this journey. Here you’ll learn about guidelines for being a “loving rock” for the dying, how to grieve fully and authentically, how to transform a fear of death, leaving a spiritual legacy, creating a sacred space for dying, and much more. “Everybody you have ever loved is a part of the fabric of your being now,” says Ram Dass. The body may die, but the soul remains. Death is an invitation to a new kind of relationship, in the place where we are all One. Join these two lifelong friends and spiritual luminaries as they explore what it means to live and die consciously, remember who we really are, and illuminate the path we walk together.

Discover how giving of yourself can lead to some of the most joyous moments in your life—in a book that “deserves a special place on that shelf reserved for truly practical wisdom" (Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People ).Not a day goes by without our being called upon to help one another--at home, at work, on the street, on the phone…. We do what we can. Yet so much comes up to complicate this natural response: "Will I have what it takes?" "How much is enough?" "How can I deal with suffering?" "And what really helps, anyway?"In this practical helper's companion, the authors explore a path through these confusions, and provide support and inspiration for us in our efforts as members of the helping professions, as volunteers, as community activists, or simply as friends and family trying to meet each other's needs. Here too are deeply moving personal accounts: A housewife brings zoo animals to lift the spirits of nursing home residents; a nun tends the wounded on the first night of the Nicaraguan revolution; a police officer talks a desperate father out of leaping from a roof with his child; a nurse allows an infant to spend its last moments of life in her arms rather than on a hospital machine. From many such stories and the authors' reflections, we can find strength, clarity, and wisdom for those times when we are called on to care for one another.

There can be no biography of him. Facts are few, stories many. He seems to have been known by different names in many parts of India, appearing and disappearing through the years. His western devotees of recent years knew him as Neem Karoli Baba, but mostly as Maharajji - a nickname so commonplace in India that one can often hear a tea vendor addressed thus. Just as he said, he was nobody. The briefest, simplest stories were his teachings. Sometimes he sat in silence . . . but bliss and peace poured down on us.-Anjani In 1967 I met Neem Karoli Baba, a meeting which changed the course of my life. In the depth of his compassion, wisdom, humor, power and love I found human possibility never before imagined.an extraordinary integration of spirit and form. I was with him only briefly, for he left his body in 1973. Still he entered my heart as living truth, and his presence continues to enrich and guide my life .-Ram Dass

This book is based on talks by Ram Dass at the Menninger Foundation in 1970 and at the Spring Grove Hospital in Maryland in 1972. The text grew out of the interaction between Ram Dass and the spiritual seekers in attendance at these talks.The result of this unique exchange is a useful guide for understanding the nature of consciousness--useful both to other spiritual seekers and to formally trained psychologists. It is also a celebration of the Dance of Life--which, in the words of Ram Dass, is the "only dance there is."

A Heart-Centered Spiritual Classic for Your Ever-Changing LifeThe Bhagavad Gita is a gem so precious in India's spiritual treasury that many regard it not as a volume of sacred verse, but as a living manifestation of the Divine. In the summer of 1974, inside a balmy Boulder, Colorado, warehouse that served as the main hall of the fledgling Naropa Institute, some say that a minor miracle occurred: the reawakening of the Gita's living presence, as it unfolded in a series of wisdom teachings led by Ram Dass. With Love, Service, Devotion, and the Ultimate Surrender, you are invited to experience these legendary gatherings.The tale of the warrior Arjuna and his divine friend Krishna serves as metaphor for the recurring dilemmas that we encounter as we spiral into the depths of our spiritual journey. In these sessions, Ram Dass illuminates the Gita’s essential verses with insights spanning many traditions, from Rumi's ecstatic poetry to Basho's koans, from devotional chant to monastic silence, from Sri Ramana's self-inquiry to Saint Paul's devotion to Christ. The destination? A new perspective on the crucial moments of contradiction and questioning that all spiritual seekers must face again and again: If it's all Divine perfection, why bother with the search at all? Is it possible to awaken without a teacher or guru? Why am I experiencing these strange spiritual "gifts”? Will I get lost in their power? If I'm conscious and kind, why not indulge in all of life's pleasures? Since everyone suffers and dies, will my compassion ultimately matter?With irrepressible love and intellect (and a good dose of skillful mischief), this epic meeting with Ram Dass yields new answers with every revisit, like a lifelong friend that comes to meet us at each turning of our journey.Highlights:A 12-hour odyssey with Ram Dass into his timeless Yogas of the Bhagavad Gita Naropa sessionsThree ways to enter the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita• Karma yoga—reincarnation, dharma, service, sadhanas• Jnana yoga—inquiry, the critical mind, the koan• Mind, illusion, and Brahman• Sacrifice and mantra—trappings and benefits of ritual and form• Renunciation and purification—ashtanga yoga, kundalini, the chakras, austerities, the "witness," desire, sexual energy• Devotion and the guru—bhakti ("devotion"), surrender, siddhis ("powers"), Maharajji• Death and dying—What is born, what dies? How do you live in the present moment?

Recounting the great moments and great truths of Ram Dass, this audio cassette is example of compassion in action and the true joy that comes with surrender to this purpose.

Addresses the fear of aging and death, offering spiritual guidance to help accept their inevitability in a society which places an inordinate value on youth.

Featuring an eye-catching new cover, this classic guide is for those ready to commit time and energy to relieving suffering in the world. No two people are better qualified to help us along this path than Ram Dass, who has spent more than 25 years teaching and writing on the subject of living consciously, and Mirabi Bush, who succeeded him as chairperson of the Seva Foundation.

Telling his story in “three chapters,” Ram Dass explains how he moved from the structured academic world to wide-open experiences with psychedelics (and Timothy Leary). This thirst for knowledge led him to India, where he encountered a man who taught him to “just be here now.” Ram Dass shares with us how we can all attain a state of well-being. The result is that we’ll become more centered, and we’ll learn to see the God in each other, which ultimately leads to an overwhelming sense of oneness with, and love for, our fellow humans. As Ram Dass says, “We’re all the same . . . and here we all are.”Includes the bonus CD, Be Here Now, which features music from

Two classic audio programs from one of the world’s most influential contemporary spiritual teachers, now available in one volume on cdIn Part Finding and Exploring your Spiritual Path, Ram Dass speaks from the heart with wisdom gained from a lifetime spent on the path to enlightenment about the often rocky yet profoundly transforming road to living the spiritual life. With personal anecdotes and commentary, he illuminates a wide variety of ancient and contemporary philosophies, drawing from such sources as the Buddha, Russian philosopher Gurdjieff, Mahatma Ghandi, and many others. Here is down-to-earth advice for those on the path to spiritual fulfillment, the pleasures and pitfalls you will encounter en route, the value and potential dangers of teachers and gurus, and the importance of following your intuitive heart.In Part Journey of Awakening, Ram Dass focuses on the moments crucial to the serious seeker of the spiritual path. Meditation is an essential part of that practice. Why meditate? To live in the moment. To dwell in the harmony of things. To awaken. Those moments in your life when there is an openness, a spacious quality to your existence —those are the moments that truly make life remarkable.

Ram Dass has always been a master of the one-liner. Here is the nitty-gritty by the author of Be Here Now —more than 200 penetrating observations and pithy spiritual instructions on such topics as How It All Is, Love and Devotion, Suffering, Aging, Planes of Consciousness, Death and Dying, Service and Compassion, Psychedelics, Social Awareness, and Liberation.“This book is a kind of spiritual brandy, a distillation of the lectures I’ve given over the course of the past decade or so. These quotes are the little “aha!” moments, the cameos that have been served up out of our collective consciousness from time to time that seem to summarize something about our human journey. I think of this book as something you might have next to the coffeepot to pick up in the morning, or as something you might tuck into your backpack to pull out during your bus ride to work, in order to reframe the way you look at your day.” —Ram Dass

Recorded on March 30-31, 1969, at a New York City sculpture studio, these are the original talks by Ram Dass that became basis for his seminal book, Be Here Now.

In this fascinating workshop, Ram Dass - beloved teacher and author of the seminal work Be Here Now - explains to attendees how absolutely any experience, even driving a car, can be used to expand awareness and awaken spiritually.Bonus Audio: An Evening with Ram Dass features the author speaking at a lively event which was a benefit for The Seva Foundation. This audio was taped in 1985 at Julia Richmond High School in New York City.

Words of Wisdom is a distillation of the last five decades of Ram Dass’s life containing the most powerful quotes from his most resonant core teachings.Ram Dass always had a knack for heart-to-heart transmission. Far before he had a vocabulary to describe his spiritual experiences, he was Richard Alpert, a Harvard professor and early experimenter with psychedelics. After these early soul-expanding journeys, he spoke and wrote about his transcendent experiences with the innate, intuitive understanding of a true inner-voyager.Even before Alpert realized that psychedelics weren't the final answer to enlightenment, he was more interested in cultivating a shared heart space with his patients and friends than he was in the clinical, scientific side of psychedelia.Words of Wisdom is a distillation of hundreds of lectures and many hours of audio and video recordings from the last five decades—his core essential teachings.This anthology celebrates the spark that helped to ignite the flame of grace and Loving Awareness in so many hearts. By the end of his life, Ram Dass was a true conduit for soul connection. This anthology celebrates the spark that helped to ignite the flame of grace and Loving Awareness in so many hearts. By the end of his life, Ram Dass was a true conduit for soul connection. Through five decades of teaching in both the institutional and public realms, Dass has served as a leader in spirituality, psychology, and psychedelia, fusing these elements to embody a purposeful intention of love and joy.

These recordings are from a rare and inspiring five day retreat held in 1982. On these recordings we hear the wonderful Stephen Levine interacting with Ram Dass and speaking on his own. These two masterful teachers explore a deeply personal and inspirational topic. With meditaions, questions and answers, and brilliant lecture, this program will transform your view of life and also of death.

Discover and Live a Life of Spiritual FulfillmentWith wisdom gained from his personal 30-year search for enlightenment, Ram Dass speaks from the heart about the often rocky yet profoundly transforming road to living the spiritual life.With personal anecdotes and commentary, Ram Dass illuminates a wide variety of ancient and contemporary philosophies, drawing from such sources as the Buddha, Russian philosopher Gurdjieff, Mahatma Ghandi, Zen master and many others. Here is down-to-earth advice from both the East and West on the experiences awaiting those on the path to spiritual fulfillment.The stages along the spiritual journeyThe pleasures and pitfalls you might encounter en routeThe value and potential dangers of teachers and gurusThe importance of following your intuitive heartIf you are a serious seeker of the spiritual path, here is advice and encouragment on finding the one that is right for you. If your interest lies in the people and ideas that shape the way we think, here is an introduction to one of the most influential contemporary philosophers.

Birth of a Psychedelic Culture, an extraordinary new book, shines a bright light on the emergence of the sixties culture and the experiments with mind-altering substances undertaken by Professors Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) and then-Harvard graduate student Ralph Metzner. Based on a series of con-versations between Metzner and Ram Dass and recorded by psychiatrist and author Gary Bravo, this book describes their initial experiments at Harvard, the experiments after they were dismissed from Harvard, their journeys to India and their reflections on that transformative era. Birth of a Psychedelic Culture is filled with never before published photographs. Luminaries who appear in this astonishing account include: Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, R.D. Laing, Charles Mingus, Maynard Ferguson and William Burroughs, as well as many lesser known personalities. These include convicts, graduate students and Vedantist monks! In addition to reviewing the experiments, the conversations offer vividly-recalled descriptions of particular trips, with profound insights into the nature of hallucinogens and the role they can play in transcending social conditioning. Included in Birth of a Psychedelic Culture are personal commentaries from some of the other players integral to the scene: Peggy Hitchcock, the Mellon Foundation heiress; Dr. George Litwin, Harvard professor and author; Dr. Gunther Weil, psychologist and educator; Dr. Michael Kahn, clinical psychologist and Professor Emeritus at USC, Santa Cruz; poet Dr. Elsa von Eckartsberg; Dr. George Litwin, organizational behavior consultant; Dr. Paul Lee, professor of philosopy and religion, UC Santa Cruz; Dorothy Fadiman, award winning filmmaker; Lisa Ferguson, and many others. No understanding of the history of the sixties could ever be complete without a grasp of the work of Leary, Alpert, and Metzner, the cultural resistance to their experiments, and the way in which psychoactive drug use became a part of contemporary society.

The author describes his personal genesis & transformation through devotion to spiritual issues.

Ram Dass has lived a captivating life ripe with experience and deep transmissions from some of the most awake beings of this century. May these tales help you to unravel the great mystery and provide you a path to revelation and joy.

An essential balm for these tumultuous times, this thoughtful and inspiring guide features never-before-published teachings to abandon the idea there is an “other,” bridging differences and cherishing the beautiful Earth that is our home, from beloved spiritual leader Ram Dass.With the world seeming to teeter between democracy and authoritarianism, between humanitarianism and individualism, Ram Dass’s teachings on wholeness and unity are more needed than ever.There Is No Other is a groundbreaking work showcasing the late spiritual leader’s thoughts and insights on broaching the divide and bringing disparate souls together. In these profound, never-before-released writings, Ram Dass shows us how a house divided against itself—whether that “house” is our individual self or the society in which we live—can come together in wholeness. There is no “other,” he explains. It is all one.Structured in three sections, There Is No Other teaches us to open ourselves, come together in community, and love one another—and ourselves—across all our seeming contradictions and divisions. Anne Lamott contributes a beautiful foreword and each section is followed by a short essay reflecting on the endurance of Ram Dass’s ideas penned by Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and Sharon Salzberg, as well as guided meditations to deepen each lesson.As he leads us toward wholeness not within our unique selves but as a human community, Ram Dass gives us the most precious hope. Only in seeing ourselves in our complexity can we come together and honor the sacred planet we inhabit.