Followed by spoken-word poetry from Dreaming Bear, Ram Dass and Uma Reed explore how the union of Bhakti and Vedanta leads to unchanging bliss and eternal awareness.
Recorded in 2008 at Studio Maui, this mini-series features Ram Dass and guests from his satsang. To start at Part 1, click HERE.
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In this episode, Uma Reed and Ram Dass share insights on:
- Weaving together the paths of Bhakti and Vedanta
- Connecting to our blissful nature and a joy that is unchanging
- Ram Dass’s mushroom trip at Tim Leary’s house: seeing the roles vs. the soul
- Stripping everything away until you are pure awareness and love
- Spoken word with Dreaming Bear
- Loving all of each other the way we love our beloved
- Giving yourself permission to become wild and undomesticated
“You will always exist. Isn’t that reassuring? You always exist.” –Ram Dass
About Uma Reed:
Uma was first exposed to Hindu devotional chanting in the early 1970s, while studying meditation and spiritual practices with Ram Dass and various other teachers. Kirtan was a practice that touched her deeply, and as a devotee of Neem Karoli Baba, she often participated in kirtan gatherings with fellow devotees, as well as in other ashrams and spiritual communities. For years she held kirtan in her home, and for the past dozen years or so, she has led kirtan formally in yoga studios, spiritual centers, and retreat settings. She has taught workshops and led kirtan on numerous retreats and in satsang with Ram Dass and other spiritual teachers in the U.S. and abroad.
About Dreaming Bear:
Dreaming Bear is a master word-smith delivering his fervent message with extraordinary verbal dexterity and relevance. He’s a nomadic bard, a hip mystic and modern-language Sufic style philosopher-poet. If you’d like to experience a living combination of Spaulding Gray, Rumi, Jack Kerouac, Robin Williams, Shel Silverstein, Michael Talbot and Thich Nhat Hanh, you owe it to yourself to see Dreaming Bear. The foundation for Dreaming Bear’s work as a transformational epic orator and poetic storyteller is deeply attuned to the natural world. His work as a university teacher/researcher was further defined by years spent living ‘off the grid’. While in a deep communion with what the Hawaiians call the a’ina, or life force of the land, he began to take his artistry to a new level and developed many of the works that have proven to be inspiring to so many. Find out more about Nature’s Poet Laureate by reading a book of his poetry.
“This is the part of the movie of your own life where the main characters decide to give fate a break from calling all the shots and gets to sit in the director’s chair seat of your Destiney’s unscripted docu-style drama love story set to explore the skin-thin contrast between our immortal inner energy and that great uncharted nexus where all expressions of existence merge into a single quintessence. “ –Dreaming Bear
More Be Here Now Network Podcasts:
Lama Rod Owens covers the dharma of freedom, loving ourselves, ancestral work, and the power of meditation: Dedication to Liberation
JoAnna Hardy shares a guided meditation all around the first foundation of mindfulness – mindfulness of the body: First Foundation Guided Meditation
Through bearing witness, love & service, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee shares how we can collectively heal the crisis of disconnection & ecological devastation: Love & Service
Buddhist Master Thich Nhat Hanh explores how we can joyfully bring mindfulness into everyday activities like phone calls, driving, and walking: The Ojai Foundation Presents: Under the Teaching Tree with Thich Nhat Hanh