In this Q&A session, Ram Dass talks about transcending dualism, the significance of clairvoyance, how reincarnation is part of our dreams within dreams within dreams, and more.
This week’s episode of Here and Now is taken from a Q&A session in 1987.
- Ram Dass begins by answering questions about his Mala beads, his spiritual lineage, and psychedelics. He shares stories about giving his guru the “yogi medicine.”
- Taking on a question about struggling with the polarities of positive and negative, light and dark, and good and evil, Ram Dass explores transcending dualism. He talks about how before he’d experienced transcendence, he had a lot of trouble with the idea of good and evil.
- What’s the significance of clairvoyance? Ram Dass talks about the very rigid set of rules we base on what our senses tell us, and how he loves sharing stories of miracles because they push everybody’s buttons.
- Ram Dass answers questions about cultivating the Witness, why there is so much blind suffering, and connections that span multiple lifetimes. He talks about how reincarnation is as real as anything on this plane of awareness because it’s all just dreams within dreams within dreams.
“I also want to say that reincarnation is a hype. Now that I’ve said that it’s all real, it is as real as this is. If you think this is real, then that’s real. Once you see this is more of the dream stuff, then that’s the dream stuff too. Because when you finally awaken back into the One, you realize that you never went anywhere and nothing happened anyway. The whole thing was just like a little dream your mind was playing. So it’s dreams within dreams within dreams.” – Ram Dass