Jared “Gagan” Levy returns to Mindrolling to talk about the realities of social action and turning compassion into passion.
When we turn passion into compassion, it’s possible to transform anger in to an act of compassion. Gagan and Raghu reflect on the teachings of Ram Dass and encourage us to redirect our anger into passion.
In this episode, Raghu and Gagan refer to a recent article from Ram Dass, which you can find here.
Show Notes
What Can I Do to Help? (Opening) – When Mindrolling began, a primary goal was to present the concepts related to service and social action that Ram Dass and others brought back from India. As part of what he does, Gagan works to make the kind of changes in the world that Ram Dass first spoke about all those years ago. What better time than now to talk about both inner and outer social action? Gagan and Raghu discuss the growing wave of social change as more and more people are awakened and exposed to the suffering that has resulted from the current political situation. Despite being branded as the “ME” generation, millennials are leading the pack when it comes to social change and awareness.
“I think we are having this shift right now which is millennials wanting to integrate that philanthropy and that social action into that everyday workflow. They want to be fulfilled. They want to find their mission in life, not just their job or career path.”
Doing Good (7:55) – Gagan is on the board of the Social Venture Network, an organization that Ram Dass was a founder of. The philosophy of SVN focuses on working on yourself as much as helping the world.
Something important that Ram Dass has shared is the importance of the intention behind a gift and less of the gift itself. Raghu and Gagan talk about intention and why people give. It is important that we check in our true intentions behind our service and social action. Especially in the social media age; #look at me.
“Am I someone who needs to see myself as helping someone? Do I need others to see me helping someone? Am I a soul in that situation that is just loving another soul, without any need of the bullshit happening on this plane?”
The Seed of Practice (14:40) – Without practice, we will never be serving ourselves or others to our full potential. Raghu and Gagan talk about the importance of practice and transition from awakening the compassionate seed of inner social action that blossoms into outer social action.
Compassion into Passion (25:00) – The two discuss Ram Dass’s message of cultivating a lightness of being. They talk about dropping the self-serious facade that we throw up and usefulness of entering into our current political fray with ease. Gagan shares the story of his daughter’s birth and how she has inspired him to engage in outer social action in a different way. (https://beherenownetwork.com/week-old-patriot/) He discusses turning the response of anger towards injustice in the world into a passion for change.
“If you’re too involved in the suffering, you just don’t have a long enough view.”
The Long View (38:00) – Raghu and Gagan discuss the concept of the Guru. They discuss Maharajji’s teaching to Ram Dass that “It’s all perfect” and what that really means. Maharajji taught Ram Dass and other to look at the bigger picture, which is just the approach we need to take in our current political situation.
When Helping Starts to Hurt (43:00) – Ram Dass talks about when we try to help through social action, we often so identify an opponent as an enemy that we get locked in a cycle of recrimination. When we don’t turn compassion into passion, we burn out and helping starts to hurt. He reminds us that we can’t stop working on ourselves, if we don’t serve ourselves first we have little to offer others.
“On spaceship Earth, there are no passengers. We are all crew.” – Buckminster Fuller
Check out what Gagan is doing over at Bioneers and at Social Venture Network.
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Image via Bruce Rolff