Do. This interview of Ram Dass was made on October
18th, 1975, on the New Dimensions
program of KQED FM in San Francisco. The program was conducted by Michael
Toms and. Well enough to. Owe. Here we are now, and. It's more yet we're still still only. So glad to have you back. It's like the family coming back together
these days. I know. I felt. Last night at the California home. Like a gathering of the family. Such a joyous occasion, really. We've we've all grown over the years,
as you mentioned last night. It's been so many years now. Yeah. He is one of the first times in San Francisco
as well as in 69. I guess it was person times
that you had visited before that when spending time with him. I mean, as Ram Dass. I was Ram. Dass. Oh, well, that had to be after 68, I don't know when it was 69, Unitarians. He sort of reactivated me in that time. That was nice at Unitarian Church. I like that. I wish I could use that now. And just being in a beautiful environment last night was so good. I know Michael had some questions
to expand on. Hello, everybody. Yeah, hang. Around us and preach the diocese here to. The dust, brother. Go ahead, Michael. I had some questions. I thought you had said
that you wanted to expand on with some of the things that were said
last night. See, I know I did since
we've been doing the program with them. And I thought it was interesting
coming in the front door. So there was a long line of people
waiting to buy tickets and there was a long line of people
coming through the front door. And there was around us
standing there by the front door. And it was interesting to see
people come through the front door and watch what was happening. Many people didn't notice that he was standing there and some did. And it was just interesting to
to look at their faces as they happened. The double takes, for instance, outside asked me, do you look familiar? I stood in line. For ten because I know, I bet I know 50, 60% of that audience
from other. Contexts, from. One place for another. Through our line. And it really is a chance
to just have that. Moment of contact. With this person. I really like that being at the door because they had a personal contact with the human beings
very, very different from these group processes,
even though we do get very within our own heads together. I still really like
to just have 1/2 with each person. It was interesting. Someone commented last night that the group seemed older and I said, Well, we're all getting older, but also straighter. Are we getting straighter to. I think we're getting less attached to. External form images of. Our separateness. And we're coming to a level now. Where our. Faith and the fact that something
has truly happened to us is deep enough so that we don't need to prove it
or show it or state it, you know? And I don't feel any longer the need for all of my beads and Indian clothes,
which I used to need, really. To need to make my statement. If you remember the last time
you were with us of Laura Huxley had just cut your hair. My hair is preserved. I beard. Yeah. She cut some of this, right? Part of the transition. There are always women everywhere ready to cut. We've been doing a. And doing a woman show,
I should say that my to present teachers
on the physical planet are both women and that my path is actually the lineage
that I pursue involves the love and honoring and opening to the universe. As the mother of. And it's a. Very much a very intense feeding process
of feeding from the mother. And it's opened me very much to that
that kind of energy. And it's a. And it's interesting because each being on their way to God becomes. Both. The child that feeds from the mother
and the bride of God. So that. The soul has no maleness or femaleness. Which is interesting
because I'm now in a business where all the preoccupation
with man and woman is just isn't part of that anymore. It's just it's just not. It was interesting tonight
to to watch the program evolve. Was good to listen
for a change by the way. And yeah, I found myself being
just terribly nervous. It was a different experience, just like
talking about being a fish out of water. Being on the other side
of the glass, reaching, you know, that it evolved in a way that the fact that women were doing
it was was forgotten. We got down to two details of that. We all share. That probably was the one that I the high powered group of women to whom many of whom, you know, from years past days passed. And I wonder if you'd share something about your teachers with us. A great many people that are listening. We're there last night
and probably have and heard some of the information,
but a great many other people. It's interesting. Well, without doing the whole story, since. I did it in. Detail last night and that tape,
I'm sure, will appear somewhere. Around here. So later. The process of the kind of teachings that I'm involved in now are tantric, in the sense. That. In two senses, one in the way in which daily life experiences are used as vehicles
for purification, that is, rather than mantra
or traditional chanting, things like that. It's the daily life interaction among the satsang
and between the outside of the teacher. That is the grist for the mill. And often, for example, I might be seeing somebody who is needing
help from me and I'm in the middle of talking to them
on the phone, or it will be the teacher, and the teacher will then
keep me on the phone for 30 or 40 minutes and I have to deal with all of the social, psychological aspects
of what it's like for that other person. And the teacher is perfectly aware of what's going on in the other person's
consciousness and is seeing would never allow me to be taught at the expense of the other person. So is very aware of the way
that the person is working with their experiences
as it's going along. But I'm working
with my sort of frustration, irritation because I was in the middle
of doing something. But after all, here is the teaching and I can't quite program
when I get the teaching and in what packages I get it in, it's often
just as I'm going to sleep at night or just as I like to go to the bathroom
or something like that. And it goes on and on. And I have to deal with
all of my conflicting motives all the time and always done. The best teachings occur under tension, where, for example, now I'm in California
and I being called by my teacher, collect from New York
and she'll talk for an hour and a half. And I have to deal with my Jewish middle
class upbringing, which is very delicious to watch, because I know that if she had called at 2 minutes later, the rate would have been. But how much is God worth? Well, that's a fair price. And it takes you through
an incredible number of trips. This is beautiful. And I think the whole idea. Of teaching coming by telephone.
Oh, I think it's delicious. I have spent as much as sometimes 15 hours
a day. On the phone. And that's how that how it comes. But by via telephone. I'd say for me, about a
good 50% of it comes by phone and the rest comes in person. And just the idea that I'm ending up
living in Manhattan and going to see this very, very high, being in a suburb of Manhattan, I for experiences
that by every rule of the game that I know should be happening in
caves in the Himalayas, where you trek through the snowy, you know, passage and are led there by all llamas and so on. And here we are. You're not living in Manhattan just to keep your phone bill down. No, I'm placed, I'm told. Where to live. And I am told what I eat when I sleep, what clothes
I wear, what time on to be everywhere. If I am told to, if I'm left,
if I leave the teacher's house at, say, one in the afternoon and I'm to be home at 230. At 230, as I walk into the house,
the phone will ring and I'll be start again. I mean, there's no space at all
in the game for me anyway. None whatsoever. How about. And it's taken my ego and quite a few trips, as you can imagine,
because I'm used to after all I have my own game going,
if you will, that I've developed over the years
of being rounder, you know, and I get like 100 letters a week to answer
and lots of people want to see me. And, you know, I'm a busy
being somebody at some level or other, but that doesn't seem totally relevant
in this game and it's fun to be somebody in between being nobody
and fit it all in together and really put the some greenness
into perspective by being a student primarily and seeing all of my
somebody ness is part of my teaching. You know? Excuse me. Oh, hearing you talk last night
about the telephone calls and then hearing you again
tonight have telephone calls. And I was when I got last night,
an experience and I was hearing you talk about your experience of of of, you know, like in the bathtub
when you're talking about being in the bathtub
and here comes the phone again. Yeah. I was thinking about this poor teacher
who's calling you on the phone. How is she standing up to this? Well,
she has four telephones and is keeping a few other people
as well as me, completely off guard all the time out of control, and does it beautifully
because she has consciousness, so she knows what each of us is
doing at every moment. So she will always call, just as I've gone
to the refrigerator and opened it and have just the plan of what I'm
about to eat and I'm just reaching for it. The phone will ring and that demands full attention
because if I pick up the phone and I'm not,
my consciousness isn't right there fully. See, it's a special telephone. Each of us has to have a special telephone
just for her. And you pick it up. And if you're not conscious fully right there within the first word,
she'll hang up. That's the end of the teaching. You just it's very tough. I mean, it's very exquisite
essence control, if you will. But that's because you're asking
for the fire to be hot. You really want to get done. And you when you want to ferret out and root out those little crevices of ego,
they're very subtle. And it takes, you know,
because we all learned how to play like we don't have these things
we want to hold on to. I was still stuck back there with her
being a housewife and having a family and four kids
and a husband and all of that. And, you know, I was just wondering how she must be an amazing individual
to be carrying all of that on at one time. It's quite unusual because her children
have had to get used to finding her in somebody
and more or less understanding it. It's pretty much kept from her husband. There's a kind of a protective
veil around the whole situation, but in the hours
when he comes home for telephone. So that's it? Well, every now
and then he gets irritated. He rips them
all out of the woman is pretty good. But she has a little room of her own, which is her shrine room,
and that's where she hangs out. The phones are all also okay. There's an element
of absurdity about the total joke. But then, after all, Morarji
was this fat man in the blankets sitting on a wooden table, you know? And in the history of spiritual teachers
like a Gurdjieff or the Naropa, till, OPA, Marfa, you know, that whole sequence, there was always that kind of cosmic humor
in the Zen tradition. There's the same thing with sightings. There's always been that kind of tongue
in cheek quality about the teaching, which makes it less. But the minute you take it as a joke,
it becomes deadly serious. And the minute you take it deadly serious,
it becomes a joke. I mean, it's done to liberate you
after all. Not to entrap you in this kind of heavy, less than hi
teachings are always kind of serious. You know, we have important work to do,
and the teachers all look like teacher. That's like very attractive housewives
because she. You know, she'll drive down the street
in her Cadillac Eldorado. You know. And I think here comes the,
you know, the Divine Mother is the hard way, you know, what am I. Saying in my alternate. Culture? Why isn't she driving a Volkswagen? I got. A godmother. Yeah. Can you can you share any of her
background if it's relevant of how she came to this place? Yeah, I think that's public knowledge. She maybe she'll call us to name. The number is 8642051. Now unfortunately it's too late. There is that time when she's people
for money, but she's here. Don't worry. About it. And she she was always a very pure being. I mean, all of her life
in a kind of a purity that is characteristic of, say, Billy Budd or James Dean in East of Eden. You know, that quality
of that kind of purity that just it's all the innocence,
a certain kind of innocence. And at the same moment,
she was a very tough gal, very tough without selling. She married at 15. She was out selling fruit with her husband
on the street, you know, and they had no money, you know, and been a very independent woman
all her life. Very strong appetites, very powerful. A lot of Shakti. And part of her story was that she was she went to a dieting salon and she they told her about a breath she could use
that would get her thin.
That was called a yogi breath. And it was breathing through her nostrils. And she went home and she got into her
bathtub after her husband gone to sleep. And because she did everything
excessively, she did the breath
for about five and a half hours. And whether it was the first
or second night, I don't know. But suddenly there was a man
sitting on her toilet seat who since she had no experience
with any of this at all, she freaked completely and grabbed a towel
and put it over herself and said, Get the hell out of here. I'll tell my husband
and of course, there was somebody her husband wouldn't see because she had
just gone into another plane and the being who would have come turned out
to be Swami Nitya Nanda, who was a very, very great saint in India, who was the guru of Swami, mocked Ananda,
who is here now and. Had a very heavy gentleman, a very heavy. Very, very heavy gentleman,
you know, heavy in many ways. And Nitya Nanda started to bring her to Realization and then he sent her to a woman in New York City
who's a very, very high spiritual teacher
by the name of Hilda Charlton. And Hilda just touched her,
and that's when she went into her deep samadhi for the first time.
And she knew nothing about any of this. She had had no no baggage. Rail
No nothing. She loved Christ. She knew that she was. Be. And a number of times in her life, I think she'd had experiences
where people had felt a religious feeling experience from being near her. And immediately
after that she started to be sort of deluged with priests
who really wanted to spend time with her and who were beginning
to experience visions of Christ and the presence of Christ through her. And then things would happen,
like she would go to a bar mitzvah because she's Jewish
and she'd go to a bar mitzvah and the rabbis would be drawn to her and she would open the Torah and lecture to them. About the. Scrolls, you know, from the scroll. And she would, people started calling her from Israel
and from India and scholars started
to ask her questions because she could go into these planes of consciousness
where all the stuff was available to her. And she played for a long time. And then she began to as she her consciousness kept, her awareness
kept growing, she started to limit her work to those beings
who really wanted to go to God. And the curiosity kind of people. It all started to fall away. She didn't feed that as much. And but she's extraordinary teacher, you know. She doesn't prescribe not. A public teaching. So it's not available to people
so and very well protected. By. Them. Yeah, not even by that. She doesn't prescribe
any particular methods or as a discipline. Well a method is really the the it's a very universal teaching in a certain
kind of a way in the sense that all of the great masters are honored
and teachings come through from. All of them. From Christ and from. Buddha and from. Ramakrishna and Shirdi,
Sai Baba and Ramana, Maharishi and Newton and my group
name, Kali Baba and others like that. She I'd say our work is a great deal with the awakening of Shakti or energy through pranayama, through breath,
the learning to have great discipline in terms of working with energies
in the chakras. The. Opening of the heart
and the relation to the universe as the mother, and the feeding
from the mother through the heart, the mostly rather
than the quieting of the mind, more like contemplative,
kind of meditations, rather than not vipassana. Or one point in this
much more contemplative kind of meditation study of things like the Gospel
of Ramakrishna, things like that I call it devotional tantra. So we have to find the same question
and answer that. Portion and. Tremendous emphasis on purity. Yeah. Of mind. Yeah. In having to get all your scene straight
and be very clean in your game. Game playing clean of body also by. The. Bath and breath and everything
has to be very much together. And you have to learn how to sit and sit
for long periods of time, very straight and it's very definitely out of the yogic
tradition. We are all Brahma, Chari,
we are all vegetarian. We don't participate in hardly any other social activities in the ones of us that are really going
the trip are really going to trip. I mean, I live in New York City
and it's absurd. I in a year I may have been to one movie,
I don't even think. That. I haven't looked at television. I don't listen to radio. I don't even read The New York Times
anymore. About once a week, I check up to find out
whether the world ended. If I had. I don't even live in that reality at all. I drive through the streets,
but it's like another. It's like a surrealistic scene for me,
you know, I could be living anywhere in the
in the universe at this moment. I could be living in India. This is exactly the same life
I would be leading if I were going to the temple
every day in India to be with Maharaja. And my Raj is very much present and teaches a great deal in that scene. You mentioned other people. How many people are actually going
through this? Actually, a very few. Very few. Because because of the limitations of her lifestyle,
it's all going to be done sort of very quietly and
and just in a little room in her basement. So it really is a very simple. She's not into getting a call director. To get. A call director. No button. Phone. And last night
when you first brought her up, I noticed a hush fell over the audience and something of a gasp as suddenly
you were in a different place again. You you'd shifted, you know, and it pulled the rug under out
from under people again. You know, one of the things you said is don't do anything because I do it. And I found that very significant
because I've watched the spiritual community follow many of the courses that you've taken in
a very apparently superficial way, although I hesitate to make that judgment of their physical things that are identifiable,
maybe that's a better way of putting it. I think what you're saying
well, is very true. I think a lot of people have taken
on around us as somewhat of guru and looked around us
as kind of their spiritual. I think more be here now than me. In actuality, they'd be here now
served a function to a certain point. I mean, numerous people come up to me
and say, That's my Bible, or I've been reading it for years,
or I always I look at it like the tune. I check it out for things to do. And I think that that that book,
which I don't identify as my book, it's merely something that came through us
at a certain point in time, is what is the thing that they've look to? I think because I haven't felt the
pressure of people demanding I be a guru. I mean, I treat it
very lightly when they do, but I haven't. I'm just getting to the point now where
I'm considering myself a teacher now, which is even new. That's another new place
actually in its place. In putting forth
the teachings that you're receiving. Yeah, it's been exactly. So I'm taking on a very few students now
to which is a whole new experience for me because when you I've been giving
the introductory lecture for so many years now, you know,
you're always giving the first lecture. You never give the second one. And after a while, I began to realize
I knew more than anybody could ever that I could ever tell anybody.
And it was getting frustrating. So I started slowly to, you know, let a few people gather and start
to get an advanced group together. And that's really exciting for me. Are you teaching about it
or are you gearing it to the individual? Because that's always seem to be
your particular teaching. Is that different strokes
for different folks. And well, that is the teaching
of the B here now period. Now I would say that in general, about 50% of the time
I'm working with the students is the game of cleaning them up,
is forcing stuff out and cleaning it up. The sort of discrimination,
cleaning up the game and the other 50% of the time is bringing
them closer into spiritual spaces, through energy, through heart,
through meditation, through study. And so it's a game of bringing them up
and then getting the earth up behind them. So they keep bringing their plane of life
up to the plains of consciousness. They meet and conscious constantly. For example, you take a group of people
in a meditation up and you say you do breathing
and you going up higher and higher, and you get to get a higher spaces
and clearer spaces. And then as you take people up,
then you start to say, okay, well what do you got now? And you're in a place
where the last thing you want to do is have to talk to you,
just want to space out. But that talking is very critical because
it helps people know how they got there. So they end up with the control of it rather than it being something
they got from you. Is this the contemplation
that you're talking about? Yeah, I do. Where you give them a directive meditation
and then you constantly asking for feedback from them
as to where they are. So they get very good at defining their
emotions, their states of consciousness, which gives them a handle
on what's happening to them and gives them a lot more power. To the contemplation
that you're talking about. Yeah. Not aware. Yeah. They'll,
you'll give them a directive meditation and then you constantly asking for
feedback from them as to where they are. So they get very good at defining their
emotions, their states of consciousness, which gives them a handle
on what's happening to them and gives them a lot more
power in the situation. So I'd say that the classes are this kind of mixed game of working
with like some people are put together
in a living situation in a house, and then the whole dynamics of that house
situation become grist for the mill of our
becoming conscious together. So it really is, if not functioning
in the world in the sense of, Oh. It's in the world. In these days. It's still it's within free. They've all got to earn a living.
They live right in the city. They rent their own houses. I mean, it's all that stuff. At the same moment,
they have all made the commitment that their entire life
is dedicated to going to God, so that everything they're doing
is in relation to getting to God. So that I have total say, if you will,
or total liberty they've given me license to involve myself with their lives
at every corner, every junction. So in a way, it's like a city ashram,
if you will, except it doesn't have
any institutional identity. And I can walk out
anytime I want it, which is the only way. I can do it. The message is coming across
strong and clear lately. Last week with Swami Ahmad. Jyoti there was a discussion of listening
to the conscience as the first step before
you can go on to hear the inner voice that you can't let yourself off the hook. You've got to listen
and you've got to act on it. And you can't say, Well,
next time or qualify something. And well,
you can make the distinction between people who I made it last night, I think. I'm not sure who want to want. God. And those who want God. Right. See, I'd say most of us,
most of the time want to want God. They they sort of
want to be aimed in the right direction, but they don't want to shake the game
too much. They don't want to give up or risk. They're not ready to say, okay,
you take my life and get me to God. All right,
you can have it all. I don't want it. I'll do it all. Anything you say, I'll do. That's the act of surrender. And you're surrendering to somebody
who doesn't want you. They just want you liberated, really,
you know? And that's the the the way
you've got to trust intuitively. Like,
I realized I was ready to be a teacher when I didn't really want to see anybody
anymore. See, as long as I kept
wanting to collect people, I distrusted my own teaching. But now my teaching comes
out of a whole different motivation. I really look at a being
and I see only whether or not I see this soul, which I love incredibly. And then I see the stuff that's
keeping them from knowing who they are. And that just brings out of me
my Kali nature. It brings out that sword, and I just go
after it and it's all very automatic. I function just like a computer really is incredible
when I'm in that teaching role. In fact, I get myself into a certain space
through meditation. I come into a space
where there is no more around us. There's just this incredible instrument
for purification. There was a time when you'd say, Work
through things, do anything, but be conscious of it. Well, now you seem to be saying No. You know, I'm
not existent about saying no, because if you say no at the wrong time,
it's all a matter of timing. If you say no at the wrong time,
the person spends all their time being preoccupied with that now. Right? See, the game is at which point
can you give something up and then take that energy
and redirect it somewhere else? If you if you give it up but you can't
quite give it up and you spend your time being preoccupied with having given it up,
you are reinforcing the thing itself, the reality of that thing
like lost, for example. So if you walk down the street
and you start to get horny, if you can at that moment offer
that and put your mind into something that will open you
and take that energy and work with it. Great. If you can't do it and you just sit around
being horny all day, forget it. That's not
get me any closer to God at all. The game is to get to God not to be holy,
you know? That's right. That's the difference
that there's a real thing to do here. And so that you get less caught in the in the ritual and forms
than in the getting there. Right. So that I have nothing wrong with telling
somebody you go ahead and jerk off for a while. That's all cool because you've got
all that stagnant energy. You can't use it
anyway. You might as well get rid of it. Just don't create a lot of karma
with it, right? Because they can't use that energy anyway. Later they can take it and convert it
and work with it. When do you know that point? Yeah, you know, you can work with it. It's along that same way. And when I wanted to, you were mentioning surrender and,
putting your trust in that. And you mentioned the game that's going on. There are a lot of people ostensibly
playing that game of offering God. And I think it would be interesting if you could share how, when, how you decide how you gave it surrendered and at some point and decided
to give you a trust to someone. That's it. Okay, here it is. You know, I'm here to take over because a lot of people are running around
saying, here, follow me. You know, I've got the answers
and how to someone know. It is in the process where suddenly, you know, completely in this particular scene, I've had the in a way, the heavy burden, because I had to face all the doubts. After all, this woman
that I'm studying with is the most unlikely figure to follow. Right. But then so is Maharaja in India. But with Maharaja, I had bygone days who I felt was spiritually connected,
and I thought I trusted that. And I felt his power immediately. And it was a spiritual scene around him. But this wasn't even a spiritual scene,
particularly that heavily. And I faced hundreds of hours of doubt, you know, and then each time
I would have to rerun my tapes of the whole thing that had happened
and see the basic purity of it. And all I knew
is every time I took a sounding here was this being who was totally committed
to my liberation, and I couldn't find an edge in the whole game. And the
more I kept running my paranoia through and she would taught me about that paranoia, you know,
she would taught me about my doubt the and she'd often demand I give up
the doubt, which just increases the doubt. Of course, you know,
when somebody says, I'm your teacher and I demand you give up any doubt of me
as being the perfect teacher, right? That just works with your doubt. And then you've got to decide
at that moment, look, am I going to go the trip
or am I going to sit back? Right. And all I knew was that
this was the purest, most connected vibration
that I could find around. And I wanted to get on board enough to go
now and to eat my own doubt and I think that the process of listening
and trusting your own intuitive judgment, like I've seen a lot of people today
who have been with one master another here on the West Coast,
and they say, Well, there's something in me
that keeps me from doing this. Should I treat that as a weakness in me where they tell me it is
or shall I listen to it? And my whole statement
always has been listened to. And you may be wrong, but it's okay. Better to train yourself
to tune to your own inner voice, you know, although at some point your inner voice will tell you
to do things that go contrary to every other part of your ego
and you'll be screaming. I remember being invited to go and sit at the at Rock Hudson days
to shine at the Suzuki Roshi down
in Southern California, up in Mount Baldy. And it was a nine day winter sesshin. And it was I've talked about this one
before as. A great story. And I went
and I didn't think I was professional. I'd never said zazen. And they said, Oh, you can do it. And I came and it was miserable,
it was cold, the food was lousy. They had me up at two in the morning
and down at ten, and I got sick and by the third day I had a sore throat
and a cold and I thought maybe I could use an excuse and get out. And I got very paranoid
and how could I get rid of it? And at that point, though, I was plotting how to escape,
which I have done in this scene many times,
and I did with Maharaja many times. I was plotting the way to escape. I knew in my inner
being that this was really, really just what I needed,
and I knew that I had to stay in it. And here was a situation
where my inner voice was going contrary to every other part of my being,
my health, my desires, my model of who I was
and all that, you know. So I trust that voice that it's not
necessarily choosing the inner it the easiest way
it is tuned to getting me home. That's it. It's tuned to getting me to God. There's no doubt about that now. And often it will take one part of my game and work on it
and completely ignore another part. And I'll be very loose
in one area of my life. And then because it doesn't
seem ready to play with just yet know and then I'll go turn on it
and clean it up. And I'm very fluid in the way I play with my own desires, systems
and so on. I mean,
I play much more loosely than I play now before, you know,
like now I am Brahma mature and that's. That, I mean that's, that's
that. One is over. Now. But only when you could reach a point where you weren't giving it up,
you were surrendering. Yes. And not only that, but I was starting
to get something in return that was a hell of a lot more than what I was giving
up, which was made it a little nicer. So now at some point, your inner voice or your conscience of said or your intellect, that's hard to pin down, said, well,
you don't keep pornographic pictures around if you're going to be premature,
you don't go to a porno flick, which at one point you were letting you know
that you had been in a line. Yeah, well, you get to the point where you have screwed around
for so many years. I mean, I'm 44 years old now. Either I'm going to spend my rest
of my life being a spiritual dilettante and being sort of somebody
who's always talking about the other guys
who made it or I'm going to do it. And at some point you say, Look here, I mean, that's really
what she was confronting me with. But my rage was saying,
okay, let's go do it now. You know, you've talked about it's so nice
and you got into the middle place, but why don't you go the whole trip right
now, okay? And once you make the decision to do,
then every act comes up. Is it getting me there? Isn't it? And there's no sense in it. There's no sense in feeding those other
desire sisters in yourself because you're just making the damn job harder
and either don't go or go. So this is where your discrimination
tells you what to do. Yeah, exactly. What is exactly is contributed
and what is detrimental. And it's got to be with every. And that's what you start listening. To. That's what you start listening to. And your criterion is very simple.
He's going to get me. There is no and that's who you with and what you talk about
and what you say with that was a yeah. No outs huh. You don't allow yourself any outs. No, no you don't. It was interesting
because I had a number of visitors today who I could have talked about a lot of other things with politics, a. Lot of things. And it was interesting
because all we talked about was God, because that's all that interests me, God
and how to get to God and. Whereas at one point
you would use those as did at one. Point I would have. Got. I yeah, I would have played whatever other games were available
that our shared consciousness could play. I mean, like Jerry Rubin came by today. Well,
Jerry and I have a long history together. I was speaking to Owsley and Owsley
and I have a long history together. Tonight. I had a very special visitor, Jerry Brown. The governor came by to say hello
and he and I could talk about thousands of things
about prisons and politics. And we talked about God all the time. He talked about states, samadhi, somebody,
and opening of the spirit. And we just had a fantastically beautiful hour together of just talking about God. And to me, that was a sea
because that's all that I've got left. You know, I looked
and I thought, here's the governor. What do I want? I don't want anything. I mean, all I saw was that the only. People are exactly. I mean, our work is something
different now. It's very beautiful together,
very informal and very loving and gentle. Or they would look nice in the Sunday
paper, in the front page, quite on Jerry
Brown and around us talking about God could be interesting. On Sunday and the religion section. Of the front page. I think it's well, I. Don't think I was betraying any confidence in that we visited that seemed like that. Sure it's not. Like seems to write some. Jerry Ford son telling Bianca Jack in the Lincoln. Oh she feels good to be here. And really Christian
and ask and play something for us. That would be nice to do that. He. Usually does plays a doctor. Up what is a doctor? I see one string or a two string and it's a gourd and some official word. Yeah. With a skinny little hole. And very long neck. And I should tell our listeners
that this is KQED in San Francisco. You're listening to New Dimensions. We're going to go past midnight tonight
with the graciousness of KQED, and we thank them for that. Ram Dass and Christian. It does transcend. He just touched me many times. Is that. My oh oh ego more? Uh. Um hum. Um, uh, uh. Good. Na na na na na uh uh um uh uh. Uh ma um uh. Sam uh. Good. Go, ma, ma, ma. Good. I'm, uh, ma ma ma ma ma ma ma. Good to go, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma Good ago, ma ma ma, colin ma seema ma ma. Uh ma ma that ma ma ma ma that's uh ma ma, ma. That's, um ma ma ma dat in. Uh, good ago. Ma, ma chi ma good ma uh uh ma ma dad. Um, um, um. Uh, that's, uh, ma ma ma that ma ma ma ma dat ma ma the ma ma that uh ma that jack ma sim ten ma zm uh Ma, tell my dad Connie Ma to ma ten ma ma tam dad I ma sim uh to the mom does ma ma does ma down my dad ma same to the sitting down ma di di um sim jack ma guy will not be, uh ma ma ma ma dad oh ma ma ma dad I ma ma ma ma. Yeah. Uh, with the snack, I guess I started. Just the first. The love of the mother. It's the devotion of mother by any other name. It was too sweet. We have a phone call on line one. I'd like to take your phone call. I think we should. Sure, sure, sure. This evening, this business. Hello? Hello. Do I have to turn down the volume? No, no. You're okay. All right. Yes. I would like to ask from Dad. How can I say? Well,
first of all, I'm gay. Second row. I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous
for the last five years. And I've been in to be here now since they came a crisis in 72. And in my house, we together searching. I have gone to a number of different disciplines, spiritual communes or whatever. The question of people in Boston
are sort of an AA thing called history, which is upstate New York and the Ananda meditation
retreat in Nevada City. Anyway, all of these people,
one way or another, either
are intolerant of homosexuality, gayness, or have sort of like,
yeah, there's two other people here that are somewhat like that, you know, of course, at the moment
I still have a lot of emotional involvement
in this area. And I was just wondering
if Rhonda could say anything about one renegade that doesn't have any particular bias on sexual orientation, on. Yeah, I guess that's about it. I'm just wondering, quite frankly, where I'm at right now,
the only places that I've found are total acceptance in the gay
aspects of Alcoholics Anonymous liquor, even AA not gay is totally embracing. Yeah, I hear you for the NCC Church, but other places
there's always like I have a letter from Swami Crea Ananda. I was very impressed
with a nun in the village and their meditation retreat. But his letter,
you know, really just says, man, you know, normal sex
is something you got to grow away from. Abnormal sex is,
you know, doesn't even perpetuate people. I'm sorry my feelings may hurt you,
but I have to let you know where I'm at. That's what
his letter in general says, huh? That's my question. Right? I have it. Now. I should hang up right? You can do it. Okay. The earlier
we are talking about life depends on what stage you're at in the journey
and what kind of commitment you want make the recognition that you are a being who has incarnated into a body and into a psychological situation, and that your soul or that part of you,
which is what awakened or what you recognize yourself
to be as a result of your spiritual work is actually neither male nor female and really much to do with the whole drama of our psychological identities. Now, in general,
as you proceed with this work, you begin to look back on your life and see a lot of things
that seemed like terrible liabilities or burdens as things that
were a part of your purification or ways in which you learn compassion,
which you will, which you needed to develop
in this lifetime. And you ultimately recognize the exquisite ness
of the design of your own life. And from that point of view,
you're not judging any particular set of acts
in terms of good and evil. You are judging them
only in terms of how consciously you were able to utilize those acts
in order to awaken through them. Now, in general,
as you proceed with this work, you begin to look back on your life
and see a lot of things that seemed like terrible liabilities or burdens as things that were part
of your purification or ways in which you learn compassion,
which you will, which you needed to develop
in this lifetime. And you ultimately recognize the exquisite ness
of the design of your own life. And from that point of view,
you're not judging any particular set of acts
in terms of good and evil. You're judging them
only in terms of how consciously you were able to utilize those acts
in order to awaken through them. That includes alcoholism and any kind of
sexual predilection you might have. Now. I don't think that anything that I'm connected with
has any attitudes at all about what kind of sex
an individual's into, but understanding in a way, not the way
Korean understood it, but close to it. That ultimate lee, all of that energy will be used to go to God
because the whole attraction to another person's body,
the whole experience of that kind of quote lust, which is an attraction to an object, is a relationship level
that ultimately moves you away from being a fully conscious being and ultimately you it would fall away. I think it's better to think of it
as something that will fall away rather than something
that one should impose restrictions, especially out of any moral code,
because I don't think it's a moral issue actually at all, and at least not
from a spiritual point of view. I don't think it is. I think from a spiritual awakening
point of view, the game is how much do you want God? And to preoccupy with getting a God
and treat your homosexuality, your alcoholism, your age, your economics,
all of it as support systems that are either getting you there or not
getting you there. And the ones that aren't,
you start to shape them up and the ones that are
you hold on to. It's as simple as that. And in other words,
you shift your focus about who you are so that instead being busy,
being I'm a homosexual or I am a professor, or I'm a this or I'm a woman
or I'm a man, I'm a being going to God. And these are all the things
that I'm working with in this lifetime. And if I work with intolerance,
you can see that intolerance is a terrible drag, or you can see it
as a fire of purification. Because if somebody is intolerant to you
about some part of your social behavior and you respond to that with compassion
and love, they're the ones that are stuck with the karma
from their lack of compassion, not you. If you buy into it, that's your problem. So it becomes you end up thanking
all these ashrams for laying a trip on you because it's getting you through to clean up your own game,
your own attitudes about it. So that I think that deals with that
gentleman's question beautifully. We have some more to do. Hello. Hello. I have two quick questions. Actually, they're not quick. The first one is
how do you remember to remember? And the second one is what? What does around us think about giving up
the want or the desire of getting there? That is too bad. Getting them right is about. A desire to write high alcohol out. Here. Talking directly to. How do you remember to remember? Yeah. Yeah, well, the at first you're you often use me methods almost
what would seem like artificial techniques like for example mantra
or japa beads or things like that. And you'll be doing the mantra and
you'll lose it and it'll come back again. Yeah, but what do you do with those when
you know those just don't work anymore? They're external. Well, yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah. Um, so one of the things I've done with my students is I've had them define the major activities that they do each day as an exercise
and then attend to each activity and figure out the way
in which that activity could be used to awaken them, like working in a subway
or something like that. And they actually program
their days as vehicles for awakening
through their regular experiences and what happens
if you follow the path of the dance is that you keep forgetting
and you keep remembering. That you. Forget it. Yet you are remembering that
you're forgetting and that remembering. You keep forgetting
as often as you ever forgot. But you keep remembering
sooner and sooner and sooner because you get to the point
which is the way it happened with me anyway, where the forgetting brings
you into a different vibrational space and that heaviness awakens you. It's like suddenly you're in a
it's like you've been walking on a sunny day
and suddenly you're in the fog. And that fog makes you realize
the sun just went out. You're not seeing the sun anymore. And I find that like, I'll be going along
and I will start the day in a certain space,
and then I'll go out and I'll notice. I'll start to pick up stuff
from other people and I'll start to get heavier and heavier. Now, sometimes it's so subtle that
I don't notice the forgetting process. It's not some big gross thing,
like getting angry at somebody. It's just subtle stuff. And then I will begin to notice that I'm feeling fatigue or I'm
feeling something, and that will awaken me because I know that in an other state
none of that would be pulling on me. And then what I do, as I said, I usually go in to a men's room
and I sit down in the can and I just start to do a breath
that clears me out. It just clears out
all the sludge that I've collected, a very simple breath that just starts
to awaken me a little bit. Actually, what I'm saying to you is that this is forcing you to examine
how much you want to get done, because in part what you're doing is you're trying to convince yourself
you want to get rid of things that you apparently
still don't want to get rid of. But what. About impatience that I guess that that's my second
question is incredible impatience. And impatience
isn't going to get you there any faster. I know. Well,
then it's going to have to be something, everything that's not going to get you to. And you're got to give up. Okay? You don't have to give it up. You got to give up the attachment
right now. The last one, the desire for God, that one
you hold on until the end. That's the one that is the final. That's the one that Rabbi
and Maharishi describes as the stick you used to stir the funeral pyre,
and that's the one you finally throw on to the fire right at the very end. And you hold on to that, and you use that as a cudgel
to get rid of all the others. So that past. Habit of being virtuous and holy,
does that go before the stick? Oh, it sure does. Sure it does. That's one of the early ones to go. That one is practically like lust. Yeah, that. Now that's
that's got to go to it's got to go. You just got to get because righteousness
really doesn't get you to truth. Truth gets you to righteousness but
righteousness doesn't get you the truth. Unfortunately, the phony holies. The phony holies
that that is the phony unholy. They're getting their
their spiritual cards punched. But what you're doing is you're bugged
because you're not totally straight with yourself,
that you don't really want to get there as badly as you'd like
to think you'd like to get there because otherwise
you wouldn't forget so much. You'd be you'd be just working harder
most of the time. You'd be filling your mind more
with stuff. There wouldn't be those pulls. What's pulling you? What's getting you to forget
in the first place? That's it. Okay, whatever it is that gets you to
forget, examine it at the end of each day. Keep a diary of everything
that got you to forget. And then see how much it is
you want those things and you want to hold on to them. Not maybe you do at this point. I wonder if here there isn't a difference
between impatience and anxiety. The Yeah, I think that once you have
the faith that you are going to make it through it, you're doing fine,
you're going to get there. Then you start to get patience with it. I mean, the first time you hit a plateau
that experiences a plateau and you figure, well, I've blown it, nothing more
is happening, I'm getting stagnant. Then later you see that
that stagnation was only an illusion. And there was actually a process going on. After you've been through that
a few times, the next time you get to a plateau,
you say, Oh, another one of these ones, you know,
and you you get to be very blasé about the process
because, you know, it's always working because you trust your motive
that you really want to get done. I keep getting an image of climbing
a mountain and chipping footholds. Exactly. But there's another image of the mountain as you climb a mountain and you come to
these waste stations and they're groovy. They've got restaurants
and beautiful views and why go on? You know, it's really nice there, you know,
and you've still been a mountain climber. You did a little mountain climbing. And then you notice
that the go to the next level have boots and you had sneakers, you know,
and you don't think you're ready. So maybe next year, you know, and then you come with the boots,
you go to the next level and that's a nice social scene
at that waystation Then there's very it is of just a very rough
path going on beyond that. And it's cold and dark immediately
goes around the dark side of the mountain. And who wants to do that? Yeah. And. Huh. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for calling my name or phone number here. In case you didn't get it. It's 8642051. They must have their own busy life. Does this look through
and looked in the telephone directory? Hello. You're on the air? Yes, I'm. I was wondering if anyone could tell me where I could procure the wonders lecture tapes that are here. You can get them from the Hanuman
Foundation. Phone that's spelled. H. And you M A and. Okay. Huntsman Foundation 276. Riverside Drive, New York. New York 100 2:05 p.m.. Thank you much. You'll just. Who paid him? Didn't ask him. Hello? Oh, you're here. Yes. If you really want to know. It may be
you might try and turning it down. Okay. Sounds like a negative. Yeah, we're getting some feedback. I guess. Was it? I wanted to bring it up a little bit. Yeah, that's good. Right sir. Wanted to thank Christian. Does for what was said and thanked Ram Dass
for the choking mantra trust. The only answer is, and I had a question that has been coming up,
I've been doing the thesis thing about the emerging solving faces, and I get a sense of the more intense cases or the ones that tend to repeat with a certain individual and coming from the relationship experienced in a previous materialization. And there seems to be a lot of a lot of validation in what happens going into it
with that idea in mind. And I wonder if that's something that you think
come in from your own experience. Okay, what he's talking about,
for those of you that that are. Familiar with that. Is a technique in which you look into another person's
eyes and focus there. And then the faces start to change. I would suggest that if in truth
you want to get on with it, you don't get too preoccupied
with the content of what you see
or an analysis of why that content exists. The process is one of, as it said in the,
I think, the Tibetan Book of the Dead facing the 10,000 beautiful
and 10,000 frightful visions. And so you just notice them
and you notice your reactions to them, whether that of passion,
arousal or boredom or hatred or fear or whatever you do,
and then you offer that one up or consume it and then get on with it,
and then allow the face to change again. The minute you get into analysis of why
the faces are the way they are, you're in a way
perpetuating an identity of yourself. Whether it be this plain or previous incarnations are all
that's all just sort of stuff in a way. And it's better not to preoccupy yourself
too intensely with that stuff. It's the same with dream analysis. It isn't that information. It's like an incredibly valuable or full memory in a sense, that of the experiences
which, if it can be brought into consciousness in the weeks, days, can just eliminate a hell
of a lot of experiential necessities. You know, in doing it this time. Not necessarily,
because if you have done it in the past, whether you're conscious of it
or not, you are. You'll probably won't have a very intense
desire to have to repeat it anyway. So the things just keep letting go. And I think it's a better strategy
to not make a big deal out of the stuff because there is such richness. There is a never ending
supply of the experiences you've had and the thousands
and thousands of incarnations you've had. And once you start this, it's a never ending process
of collecting information about yourself. Is there some essential personality that that you predominate literally to dominate. The way. That, oh yeah, there's Asians and yeah,
there may behind this personality. There may be that and you may feel much drawn to a Shiva lineage
or a Vishnu lineage or. A Buddha. Lineage, or however you want to talk about
the Zuse lineage or something like that, and see these patterns
reoccurring over incarnations. But in let that all happen
serendipitously, rather than focusing on it, let it just sort of come up and force itself
upon your attention because. If it is necessary for your Dharma
that you know who you were, at any point you'll damn well know without you
having to analyze it, to figure it out. When you're ready for the name,
you get this, you'll get it. You get it. Okay? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Take care. Hello. Hi. I was interested in talking to Ramnath about language and the problem that you ran into. When you know, you talk about God,
they can have a whole spectrum of meaning as to what God really means. And some people might not believe in God. And and yet, if they really do at some level and at another level, people can be just attached
to the idea of believing in God. And, you know, you can get fooled by this,
the very nature of your language. Absolutely. And right. On. Only you know, and only you can keep purifying it in the sense
of making it real again. But from a functional point of view,
the relation to, quote, God as a concept and it is a concept
because what God is is not conceptually. What you know in the nature of God
as a concept, like. Yeah, it's a concept. Okay, but I'm trying to explain to you
something like, would you wait a second hour or what? So sometimes frequently have,
you know, in a sense a joke, but also extremely realistically said that,
you know, that the dog has good nature. Of course, the dog does have good needs
because he has his own nature and he doesn't even have a concept of guy
at all in the sense that we are preoccupied with it. Almost like like it seems to me
that God is. Dogs don't get enlightened
with our estrangement. Dogs don't get enlightened. Dogs don't get in line.
No, not not as dogs. They don't. I'm sorry. That's b you know. Look, rather than go on and on,
let me just explain that the reason that I'm involved,
not a reason. My relationship to God is a purely one
that I work with in my heart. It's not one that I work
with, with my reason, and I don't really give a damn
what I even mean by it. All I know is it's something
to which my heart opens. And recently I had an interview with a fellow
who has been trained as a Buddhist
and found the word God very reprehensible. And so I looked for a word in his universe
that would be workable, and the word was Dharma. And all I had him saying was,
I love Dharma. Oh, Dharma, I love you. Oh, I love you, Dharma. And that was serving that process. It was a little he was a little rusty for a while,
but I don't give a damn what word is used, and I know it has excess meaning, but I play with that excess meaning
and that anger and that irritation to show people how they cling
to their own models about concepts. Because what I'm interested in
and what I say specifically is what God is, is not a concept
anyway, it's just a label. Thank you. Isn't it? It's it's sort of like talking about intellectually
and then talking about it experientially. You have to talk about it
if you experience. Exactly. And you're always
just pointing to denotation denoting something that isn't labeled above. And but for people who have related
to those spaces in which you experience
the presence of God, it's a very real experience. And it's the same predicament
that for somebody that's looking at it from outside,
they get caught in linguistic delicacies and intellectual delights. But that isn't the same thing as the experience of going,
which you could experience as an orgasmic relation
with the fullness of the universe. I mean, there are a lot of little ways
you can talk about or. Play by saying Hello, hello, I'm I'm looking for an opinion
more than anything else concerning the use of proper use or improper
use of the book of changes. I wonder if you'd an opinion about that. I feel, for instance, in my own life
that I am involved with a great deal of time
in looking just in this within this one realm,
and that it doesn't allow for an entirety. It allows it is very clearly terroristic. But I wonder, I could sound silly, but I wonder if I should be more modern
and ignore these things, you know? You know what I'm talking about. It just happens.
We're sitting here with the. Teaching plans for a. Says the master said the changes. What do they do? The changes, disclose things, complete
affairs and encompass all ways on earth. This and nothing else. For this reason the holy sages use them to penetrate
all wills on earth and to determine all fields of action on Earth,
and to settle all doubts on Earth. Now you are aware that right. Is pretty impressive. This is the word that works so that. You're saying always regularly. But it is all about Earth
and the laws of the universe exist on every plane and you can study them in terms of the physical plane and the teaching will help you see the law in everything
or the flow and everything. And in that way, it'll help
you get it together on this plane of existence, the, uh, your identities on other planes are not necessarily facilitated by this
method. It's not the optimum for exploring other
planes of your own identity. What its beauty is is in loosening
the hold of any models or molds you have to any specific take of reality
and keeps giving you new perspectives. And the deeper
you grow with any holy book, the more you awaken,
the more you'll find in the book. You may have used the book to the point
now where it's limiting a limiting condition for you,
because the Daoist philosophy may not be your lineage. It may not be the way
they can take you all the way through. And so you may feel well in this way
I'm getting to my mind
is still being played with too much and I have to quiet my mind more.
And then you'll be drawn to save the passion of meditation
or something like that. You'll be drawn to say, terrified and Buddhist meditation, or just following
the breath of something like that. Something. And every time you have a question, like the way I live
is when I have a question now I conclude that
I'm apparently not in the right space because if I were, I'd know the answer. So when I have a question,
I just sort of empty my mind and I just go into another place
where the answer is. So I just keep emptying. If I have a question,
I know I must not be in the right space to have the answer
because when I'm really in the flow, there are no questions
and there are no answers. There's just it all opening
before me, like a like you're driving down a highway
and the trees are just coming by you in this way. And that's what life becomes. It's just a process of playing,
of opening to and the whole intellect of choice
business becomes quite trivial. On the world at the point
when you're driving, when when I experience what you're talking about,
when you're driving down the highway. That's all right. That that experience full
but it's the point I feel like there are points in between
driving down the highway or getting to the highway,
which is the once I'm on the highway. All right. But if that's your model, though,
of those places, as called in between places, that's a
that's a statement created by your mind, because actually every moment
is part of the highway. So what you're doing
is you're defining one moment as different from another moment. That's something your mind is doing. And at that moment,
when if you see that working, if you start to let go of the mind model,
you have your right back in the flow again. Because I can sit in a situation
that quote could be called boring and I'm waiting for the action
to begin again. And then I am fascinated because I at that moment, the minute
I feel one of those states, I just empty. And then suddenly the boredom
is as much part of the process of my life as anything else. And I'm no longer running and grabbing
and pushing and pulling. It's not this or that or here or there. Can you hear what I'm trying to suggest? I believe so. Right. Nice to talk to you. Nice beings calling up. I really like the vibration. Hello. Hello. Hi. Okay, I had a question. You had mentioned several times before something about Greece
as a product of suffering. Yeah. And I had two questions on that. First of all, I'm not quite clear
what you mean by Greece. How do you define it? And secondly, would that apply to some kind of a suffering
that a person had voluntarily got into,
like an athlete's training or something like this? Oh, see, what I said was suffering is great, meaning
that suffering is a vehicle for awakening. Uh, let me now,
in the light of more recent training on my part, to redefine Grace
a little bit, when you get to the point of the initial awakening
where you're starting to reach for a more profound identity or reach for a God
or a higher state of consciousness or freedom or liberation, whatever
you want to call it at that point, that reaching in purity brings down upon you grace. Now, one way you could see
the grace is in the sense of allies or guides or guardian angels or gurus
or however you want to think about on one plane or another.
This is all grace. These are beings
who are there to help you on your way. Once you want to go, the journey
only if you want to go the journey. If you don't, they leave you alone. Now, when you bring it down
to daily experiences, you can take suffering and see that once you are awakening, you take every experience in your life
and see it as a vehicle for awakening. And then it turns out that the vehicles that are pleasant tend to keep you in. The models,
while the vehicles that are unpleasant tend to force you to awaken more. And in that sense,
suffering becomes grace. That is, it forces the awakening
more than pleasure forces awakening. So you could if you're doing
it within this new definition of grace, you would say that
you have asked to be liberated and the teachings
impose these sufferings on you as the fire to purify you, to awaken you. And these sufferings can be I think that anything that you go
through that involves suffering, whether you have imposed it
through like athletic training or something
like that, would certainly qualify because the suffering is quite independent
of how you got into it. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. It was interesting. I learn a lot by answering questions
because I never know. I know any of that stuff. I don't really care either, but. Hi. Oh, I'm not. Yeah, you're getting some feedback. Some feedback now. It's cool. Oh, okay. Um, my girlfriend and I
are not really doing anything right now. Um, except realizing that coming to God is the only thing to do. Yet we feel sort of directionless. So what can we do? Is it possible to become your students
and keep a very open relationship? Or are our students required
to cut loose of such goings on and. Oh, I'm not, yeah. Are you getting some feedback? Some feedback now? It's cool. Oh, okay. Um, my girlfriend and I are not really doing anything right now. Um, except realizing that I'm going to go and it's the only thing to do. Yet we feel sort of directionless. So what can we do? Um, is it possible to become your students
and keep a very open relation life? Or are students required to cut loose of such goings on? If you if you in if you wish to go on in the journey
of going to God, the best strategy is to start to create a space in your life which you fill with consciousness
about this journey. And if, for example,
at some time in the day you and your. Girls. Girlfriends, lady friends were to share or say the reading
of the Gospel of Ramakrishna and then share a contemplation,
meditation, contemplate on the different qualities of realization
together, like on compassion one day and love and another and so on,
and then start to build into your life just these little reminders and ways
of becoming a little more conscious. Uh, change
or sing together in the evening, or do some things like that that will start to put into perspective the importance
all of the rest of your activities that are at the moment
very real and solid for you, because you'll start to have experiences
in your meditation and that will change the need
or the desire for the kinds of fulfillments
you've been getting through food or sex or socializing or dope or whatever it is
you've been doing. And rather than this kind of violent. No, it's not good. Stop it. I think that's
a very unrealistic strategy. I think a much more optimum strategy
is just to fill your life with where it is you're getting going, too. If you're truly saying I want it, then start to create spaces for it
in your life and let the rest of the stuff take its course
as it will for the time being anyway. So soon after starting to focus in, we're just over here
visiting for a little while and there's really nothing
nice and we're not doing any dope. Like we're just realizing we're
not really doing much and we're actually and still sort of,
you know, beginning to see God and everything in every experience
and everything that's happening. Yet there's still lots of that sort
of thing that's cementing it together. Yeah, well, in the space you're in. I mean, we're ready. You know, we're ready,
but there's just not that thing happening. Well, see, that's a kind of a paradox, because if you are, it starts to happen. There isn't any the idea of getting wanting
somebody else to make it happen for you, A is reflecting the fact that you aren't
really wanting it fully to happen yet or you create a space
in which it would happen. I mean, you're even the fact
that you're moving around if you want, like I'll go off and take my Volkswagen
camper out to the desert for a six weeks. And in those six weeks I create a space where I can go
into all kinds of inner stuff. You know, you can just go in a closet, close the door, and you'll confront
more stuff than you would in a hundred years of sort of floating around
looking for teachers. I think that you have to, first of all, be brutally honest
with yourself about your own motivations because somebody that's
waiting to have it done to them is, in a sense, kidding themselves a little bit, because I think the first act, the first effort has to be your effort. And I don't think it's enough just to go
and hand yourself over to somebody. I think it's an effort of attempting to change the perceptual vantage
point of your life a little bit. And that's the hardest one, because your life is nice
and we've all learned how to make nice lives
or easy lives, a comfortable life. Am I dealing with your question at all? Yeah. In truth, our life is really
you know, it's not nice and it's not easy. We are really in this space where where we we trust the things that have come out to to, you know, being the only dancer is and be here now
and listening to some of your tapes and like, are there like a lot of
other people who are doing their things? It feels good and we learn and stuff
and it's just like we just didn't go into anything
full blown. I mean, there's not like,
there's just like, oh, is it still not complete yet
with the things that you're putting out this we're really we don't hold back yet. There's there's just something there. We're not connecting. I understand. So what is it? You want your thing? I mean, what are you asking for? What do you think? Um, what are we asking for? Yeah, uh. To work with you. That's what I thought you were asking for. Why don't you drop me a note and remind me of this conversation,
and we'll see what happens. Okay? All right. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, that's what I was hoping we would come to that. Hello? Oh, property. Yeah. I don't want to overcome the negativity of the people here
when issue one is full of energy
and wants to radiate love and joy and, you know, awareness,
but the approach of being and they want to look him in the face or a smile that yeah,
they think he has some ulterior motive. This guy wants to do something to me
or yeah, a better way to. Yeah,
but how do you overcome the difficulties? Because after a while you become negative because they're,
they're negative towards you. Mm. Yeah. Hear you. Predicament. Exactly. One of the things you learn along
the way in this dance is that it really isn't possible to lay a trip on another being. I mean, you can do it,
but there are going to be incredible repercussions as you're
finding out or feedback or flak from it. And you learn to become what you are
and let that go forth. It's like throwing bread upon the waters
and if somebody doesn't respond to it, you see that as see it with compassion
as their predicament. And whether you buy it back or not,
that's your work on yourself. Oh, see, like you don't. You're you're saying I'll give you a gift
if you give me a gift back. And your game now is to just become
the gift of love and light and peace and joy
and just be it. Whoever dances with it was ready to dance
with it, whoever it doesn't. You have compassion for them
and you love them because imagine how horrible it is
to be in their world where they can't experience the joy
from another human being or the love that's coming from another human being. And that brings out your compassion. And all you can do is love them more,
but that's their predicament. And you don't have to change anybody
because in fact, you really can't. You can really be a statement either. You become like a beautiful shade tree that anybody that is ready
can come under and get shade from. But if they're not,
you don't go out with tentacles and grab them
and pull them under the shade tree so that you create an environment
everywhere you go where anybody that's ready to become love, light
and joy immediately when they come into your vibrational space,
they get it at the same moment. If they're not ready, you bless them
and love them and have compassion telling them, well, this. Is hard
to uphold, you know, like some guy. Yeah, I figured
I should go there incognito, because if I try, I know it's
going to be in adverse effects on me. And sometime I try to absorb, but I become agnostic. You get said. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well,
that's because. So you don't know how
to get rid of the stuff when you get it. There's a whole process
of clearing yourself because I know see it's very delicate
to be a really open human being and not and pick up all this stuff
that comes from the environment and not get caught with it. It's one thing if there are different ways
in which you pick up stuff. Sometimes
somebody you say to somebody, Look, if you've got a heavy thing
like anger or something, give it to me. I'll take it. Like I say to a lot of people,
just say, Here, robs us. You take it
and then give it up to me and I will take. And they say,
Why don't you get stuck with? And I'll say, No, because you gave it up. I didn't take it from you. If take it from you, I get stuck with it. If you give it to me, it goes right
through me and goes right up to God. It doesn't
I don't get stuck with it at all. Now I don't take stuff from people,
so I don't get stuck with it. But suddenly you do. Sometimes when you're walking down the street,
you look at somebody, you feel pity. You've picked up that stuff from them,
you know, any number of emotions you pick up right now,
what you've got to learn is how to do breathing to clear
and to offer up this stuff. And if you just start to take in deep and with each deep breath, just say, here,
take this heaviness, here, take this pain, this anger,
take whatever it is and just keep offering to Kali or to me or to God or to Christ
or to whoever it is you feel tuned to. Then you're offering the stuff up
that you've collected and you're getting rid of it because you're saying,
Look, it's not getting me to God. I want to get rid of it. Yeah, okay. No matter where it came from. The truth is you. Realize
you don't want it. You know, when you realize
that you don't want it yourself know it goes out of you very quickly. Yeah, a lot of times we pick stuff up
and we have a set of we, we dig taking stuff from people
and in that way we want it. So you have to realize you don't. Want it and let it go. I have to realize that I don't want it.
Yeah. Know that you just want to let it go and. The technique is to take deep breaths. Take deep breaths and with each out
breath give it up and then consciously say, Here, Christ,
you take it. Or whoever you're offering it to, here
you take it. But it's a method of purifying it
by doing a meditation like similar to the plane of fire
and trying to purify their well. The other way is to take that energy. If you can do it
and you breathe in through your heart, take all that junk
and take it up through your head. Go out the top of your head
and go up to God on that energy. In other words, you take the energy and you use it to go up on. Scene
and that's when you go. Up a lot. Yeah, you can take energy and convert it
and use it to go up on. See, that's what I do. I feed on a lot of negative energy because ultimately
you don't get caught in the content, you just get the energy out of it. Like if somebody says, You son of a bitch,
they screaming at you, that's just pure energy coming at you. If you get caught in the content of it,
that's your hang up. But if you just take the energy
and go right up on it, you can use it. Just the waiting. All right. Thank you. Yeah, well, thank you. For. Good. I want to say something. Go ahead. Just like he mentioned something
about taking up to the plane of fire. Yeah, and that's tricky stuff. Talk about. What's tricky. Stop going to other planes before
you know yourself too well. Because you may
you intensify the negative energy. Yeah, you may be doing that. Yeah. Instead Of really getting rid of it
and purifying it. You're blowing up stuff in yourself
that you're quite aware of. Going up into another plane
with a load, with a of baggage. Yeah, yeah. I think probably for him
it would be better to just breathe it out. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know. But we have maybe time for one more call. Okay. Station Goes off the air
at one degree. Next time you're here, we'll have our own
radio station that we can go on. That's happens with us all the time. And how many hours? Yeah, it's. Only during the six and a half hours. Yeah. Hello. Hello, Granddad? Yes, I have been much influenced by Dave
Roberts book, the fifth book, and I really do believe now
and the chutes are coming up from that field
that I am the creator of all my reality and that what you call coming to God
is letting my higher self fuze with the lower self
and letting it do the creating. And I'm wondering whether having to suffer. Going through suffering and pain
in order to grow isn't a core belief that we have programed ourselves into,
and that when we can let that grow, we can open ourselves up to great
and that it isn't a necessary prerequisite to coming to God. It is not a necessary prerequisite
to coming to God. That is true. Suffering is not a necessary prerequisite. It's a very speedy vehicle,
but it's not a necessary prerequisite. That's true. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. It's whether tickets still available
for tomorrow at poly. As far as I know, there are a few left. You know, I don't. I don't really. What time is that happening to her? It happens at 2:00 in the afternoon. The Poly Ballroom. Poly Ballroom. And then Monday night is at Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. Civic Auditorium.
I think that be nearly sold out. Because after. I heard that it was. Yeah, that's a heavy scene down there. Yeah, it's one of my old
stomping grounds and. I've got a lot of good
folks up on the hill there. If you could give that address for tapes
from the Honeymoon Foundation. Sure. A honeymoon honeymoon foundation. Uh, number. Two seven. 6276. Riverside Drive, uh, New York, New York 10025. And that's also where you could write,
if you would like, if you have anybody, any friends are in prison
that would like to receive our journal called Inside Out,
which is specifically for beings who are in prison to help them use their time in prison
to get on with their spiritual work. And then we publish it and give it away. So if you'd like a copy for somebody,
let us know. We'd like to send it to them. You've given me the opportunity
to pass on a message from Dana from the Prison Ashram Project here. They're in need of at least three people
to answer correspondence each week. Or one person. They can spend three days
answering correspondence with prisoners. And if you'd like to volunteer
for that particular effort, you can contact Dana at 10800. That's box 1080, San Rafael 94902. And the telephone number,
if you'd like to call 4572990 if you have some time
and would like to correspond with prisoners who have been writing
to the prison ashram Project here, what's the message? The immediate need. That's happening
next week on the dimensions. Well well
we're having a program on Sufism, some taxpayer worship, the Samuel Lewis
and the Kabbalah. There's two beautiful
new books out of his. They just keep coming and they're still
into his correspondence here. And I. Was just reading one today
that's very, very high. Both premier and we'll try and cover some other aspects of Sufism as well
a slightly different influence. It will be having an interview with Carlos
and Eric Pepper talking about the work of Wolfgang. Wolfie is an honor genic training. And an interview with Dr. Kaushik. Yes, thank goodness
it's going to be a full week and they keep filling up such good things like being able to to have you with us. It's fun to share space so gently. And then. You know, I really. I get very much bliss just from the connection
with all the beings who are. Listening. Yeah, it's like a network. We do every week, I guess. In every way you do, I can. It's very far out because I can feel
audiences now and the radio, you know, I do different kinds of shows
and the vibrations are entirely different. Why isn't our family nice? It is nice. Yeah. Maybe we should mention the. The tapes, Michael, are available. The other shows. Is tapes of new dimensions. Programs are available. Some shuffle through quickly here. Cassette tapes are available. The prices are $5 per hour or $15
for a full four hour program lost $0.50 posted in handling and California sales tax of 6% proceeds from the tape sales
go towards covering the expenses of producing new dimensions
radio programs. And we urge you to start a tape library and you're free to copy the tapes
if you like. Anything we ask
is that you don't try and sell them again, but you can copy them
to your heart's delight. So buy one
and make ten copies for your friends. If you'd like to order tapes
or to get a list of those tapes available, you can write to New Dimensions
tapes at 519 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, 941 11. And if you just want to write to us,
you can do that to add new dimensions five one Montgomery
Street, San Francisco, 941 11. To do you play some of these tapes on the radio day? I mean, do we just create them? You just. Write all your stuff as. Line. Okay. Yeah, very rarely. You're going to replay once in a while. We have to take a vacation right
now. Okay. It's hardest thing to do at phone. You know. Thank you. It's been a full evening. And Christian with us.
Thanks for sharing that. And thank you. And this is Michael Toms. On. After saying good evening for the entire New Dimensions radio family and thanks for sharing this evening
with us. We'll talk to you next week. God bless.
