Mindrolling – Raghu Markus – Ep. 379 – Feeding Your Demons with Lama Tsultrim Allione

Lama Tsultrim Allione rejoins Raghu to share rare, behind the scenes, Ram Dass stories, and explore how to work with afflictive emotions by feeding your demons, rather than running from them.

One of Mindrolling’s favorite reoccurring guests, Lama Tsultrim Allione, returns to join Raghu for an illuminating, fun, and healing conversation. Beginning the talk by sharing exceptionally rare stories of Ram Dass, involving Bhagavan Das and Allen Ginsberg; they naturally flow into potent Maharajji lilas before subtly weaving the conversation into the main topic of the podcast: feeding your demons. Laying down a path away from polarization, and into the oneness of interconnected love, Lama Tsultrim and Raghu brainstorm how to cultivate a new paradigm of being, starting from the inside out.

Ram Dass: Behind The Scenes

Speaking together for the first time since the passing of Ram Dass, Raghu invites Lama Tsultrim Allione to describe her first encounters with him. Sharing that she actually met Ram Dass at the same time Bhagavan Das did in Kathmandu in 1967, then really got to know him back on the West Coast while traveling with Allen Ginsberg, Lama Tsultrim illuminates many unheard of, behind-the-scenes, Ram Dass stories.

“Ultimately, he helped me with Tara Mandala, our retreat center in CO. He came and did a benefit after his stroke. I was really touched by him coming in a wheelchair. We only had a tent, and he came and helped raise money for our buildings.” – Lama Tsultrim Allione

For more rare, behind the scenes, Ram Dass stories from Sharon Sazlberg, Roshi Joan Halifax, and Ramesh, tune into Ep. 147 of the Metta Hour

Feeding Your Demons (19:45)

Sharing Ram Dass’ practice of putting photographs of “difficult” political individuals on his puja table as an exercise in stretching his love, Raghu asks Lama Tsultrim to explore the process of working with our demons. Lama Tsultrim explains that demons don’t have to be some grandiose, mytho-poetic, haunting form; but can be considered colloquially as, “anything that blocks you from being completely free.” Pulling solutions from her book, Feeding Your Demons, Lama explores how to work with our personal demons.

“These things that are our demons–fear, addiction, physical illness–these are things that keep us from being completely present and free… In this method, you invite the demons out, meet them; and then you ask them what they want and what they need; and then how they will feel if they get what they need. The need is the deeper thing underneath the want…and then you feed it.” – Lama Tsultrim Allione

Join Lama Tsultrim and Raghu to learn to work with demons like anger by realizing the path of emptiness, on Ep. 177 of Mindrolling

New Paradigm: Feeding, Not Fighting (28:43)

Invited by Raghu to share her vision for a new, healthy paradigm in which humanity can live more in tune with ourselves, others, and nature; Lama Tsultrim explains the need for “feeding, not fighting.” Speaking to the polarization rampant in the modern world. Lama Tsultirm lays out a pathway to deescalate from the current powderkeg of polarity we find ourselves in. This involves, as Maharajji said, “feeding everyone,” including our own demons.

“There should be dialogue. There are parts of our society, of our country, that need to be listened to, and if they feel there is a voice for them, then they can be integrated in a less violent way.” – Lama Tsultrim Allione

Take an illuminating dive beneath the polarization which led to the riots, on Un-lightened Shadows: A Powder Keg of Polarization from our Awakened Heart Blog