Speaking to us from 1983, a time of widespread fear about nuclear war, Ram Dass explores how spiritual work equals social action, and yet, we can’t just wait until we are free to take action.
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“So that with this new networking consciousness, we certainly have an appreciation that we are not alone, that there are other beings like us, and out of that comes incredibly new strength. But yet, the root issue of separateness is still present. And it’s interesting, I’m just going to raise the question as we pursue this thing I’d like to present, that if your act comes out of separateness, at some level, you are perpetuating the root cause of the problem. And that’s why spiritual work equals social action, from my point of view.” – Ram Dass
This episode of Here and Now, Ram Dass speaks about:
- How spiritual work equals social action
- The two ways that the game of awakening is playing out
- How Gandhi molded his social action movement, bringing together social action and spiritual work
- How the path of social action and the spiritual journey comes down to karma yoga and using the stuff of our life to get free, but we can’t wait until we are free to take action
“And when we are strong enough to look at ourselves, then we will be strong enough to demand truth. But most of us do not have integrity in our own lives. We are all full of righteousness and good here, and right over here we have deception, we have hoarding, we have all kinds of stuff. And to me, in my life, that isn’t good enough, it stinks. I can’t have any room any longer for guilt and self-deprecation about it. I have to appreciate that’s my evolving humanity, but I see where the path of real social action comes. I see what Gandhi’s talking about when he says make yourself into zero and your power is invincible.” – Ram Dass