Ram Dass - Conversations with Ram Dass: Interviewed by Sridhar Silberfein

Conversations with Ram Dass

Interviewed by Sridhar Silberfein

Foreword by Krishna Das

Published in partnership with the Love, Serve Remember Foundation and The Center For Spiritual Studies/Bhakti Fest

Copyright 2014 Love Serve Remember Foundation

Love Serve Remember Foundation

2355 Westwood Blvd #130

Los Angeles, CA 90064

ISBN: 978-0-9906314-4-6

ISBN: 9780990631453

Cover design by Zo Kors

Front and back cover photos by Dasi Ma Kathleen Murphy

Compiled, transcribed, and edited by Amy V. Dewhurst

Copyedit by Matagiri Perkins

Project co-ordinator: Vanessa Harris

www.ramdass.org

www.bhaktifest.com

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Contents

Foreword

I t is a very cold night in early winter 1969. As I drive north on the NYS Thruway in my old Volvo, the fierce gusting winds blow the car from lane to lane. It is so cold that the heater blows freezing air on my legs, making it hard to hold the gas pedal down.

I am driving up to New Hampshire to meet someone I heard about earlier in the day. Sometimes, totally without warning, Every fiber of your Being screams so loud to your heart that it cuts through the fog of your sadness, your loneliness, your isolation and your fear that you will never find The One Thing: the thing that all your hopes hang on; the only thing that can give your life meaning; the thing you dare not believe; the thing you cannot name; the thing that you would give your life forIF only it could be Real.

Earlier that day I was standing outside the goat shed on the farm where I lived. I had just finished milking our 2 goats, Alice Bailey and Madame Blavatsky. I watched as my friends car came up the dirt road that cut through the field in front of the house. They had gone to meet a guy named Ram Dass, the former Richard Alpert, who a friend of theirs had heard speak at a lecture in NY the previous week. They had asked me if I wanted to come but, I hadnt been interested in meeting any white Yogi. They were supposed to have returned 3 days before, so I was curious to find out what was up.

My friend, the farms owner got out of the car slowly and turned towards me. He had a maniacal shit-eating grin on his face and there was light shooting out of his head in all directions. The term mind-blowing applies very accurately to what happened to me at that moment. I completely flipped out and yelled as I ran to my cabin to get a coat, Write the directions out for me, Im leaving right now.

Within 5 minutes I was in the car on my way.

The road conditions and weather turned a 4 hour journey into 8 hours. As the sun rose in the mountains of New Hampshire, I threaded my way along the pristine winding roads. All I could hear was the roar of my burnt out muffler. I came to the driveway and turned into it. When I turned the motor off, I was hit by a wall of silence that was astounding. I got out of the car and looked toward the house. At that instant I literally felt my heart skip a beat. I thought, Thats weird. I walked to the door and knocked. A guy with a long beard opened it and silently grinned at me as he pointed up the stairs behind him. I thought, Thats really weird, and felt like running away. What was I getting myself into here? But I had come so far and the moment in the driveway back on the farm was still ringing in my heart.

I walked up the stairs and the first thing I saw was a huge bearded head that seemed to be floating in space above the stairwell. As I reached the last stair I saw that it was actually attached to a body. This was Ram Dass.

At that instant there arose in me a complete total and absolute knowing that, Whatever it is that I am looking forit is REAL. It EXISTS. It is in the world and it can be found. This was the moment that changed my life. I knew IT was real. I didnt even know what it was!!! But it was REAL. It wasnt just stuff in booksit wasnt just a dream. It was REAL. And I could find it.

This is what Ram Dass has done for so many of us. He has done it by Being. Not by doing.

Sometime after I met him, he came down to New York City and for 6 days a week, for 2 weeks he sat in The Sculpture Studio and sang and talked to whoever showed up. I would drop off my school bus at the garage in New Paltz and shoot down to NY Every day. By the time I had found a place to park he had already begun singing. The room was always full and the only place to sit was at the side of the low stage. I sat down and leaned my back against the wall and closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes, it was 3 or 4 hours later and he was singing again to end the evening. I hadnt heard a word! I was completely disoriented but felt like I had been rewired. I staggered through the streets of NY and found my car, drove back to New Paltz and repeated the same thing again the same way Every day he was there.

My life had found meaning. The spiritual path had become REAL to me. I had found direction and purpose and more than that: hope. Hope that I could find a way to live in this world, without fear and with real Love in my heart.

It was too soon for me to know, in these first few months, that when I met Ram Dass I had actually met my guru, Neem Karoli Baba. That was still to come.that, and a lot of amazingly wonderful and unbelievably difficult, painful life experiences. Experiences that continue to lead me deeper and deeper into the Heart of Love.

There is a bhajan, an Indian Holy song in which Shri Ram, who is just returning home from his long exile, during which he saved the world from the demon Ravana, meets his brother, Bharat. He is telling Bharat about all that happened during the 12 years he was away. While they are talking, Bharat notices a monkey standing nearby and he asks Ram, Who is that monkey? In the song, after each verse, in which Ram describes his experiences, there is a beautiful chorus that repeats over and over again:

Oh Brother Bharat, I can never repay the debt that I owe to this monkey.

Everything I am today and everything I am to be, became possible the moment I met Ram Dass.

In this lifeit all started that day with Ram Dass.

There is no way to ever repay the debt I owe to him.

Shri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram!

Krishna Das

July 2014

Introduction

I met Ram Dass on Labor Day Weekend in 1970. It was the day that Swami Muktananda first arrived in America. His host Rudi, a teacher in New York City, invited Ram Dass, Swami Venkatesananda of the Divine Life Society, the Brooklyn psychic Hilda Charlton, and many others to meet Baba at his retreat in upstate New York. I was studying with Rudi at that time so I found myself in the mix.

By the end of the retreat, Baba Muktananda asked Ram Dass and myself to organize his tour of America. Going into that weekend, I didnt know what to expect or what would come of it, but this is what unfolded:

I found myself immersed with Ram Dass for several months following, which cemented a friendship between us that has endured 44 years.

Like all relationships, ours has had its ups and downsand sideways. But with Ram Dass, the love and compassion is always there. He has helped me on numerous occasions to understand life in a more open and loving way, to be able to do business with a more spiritual understanding, and to develop more harmonious relationships of all kinds.