Illustration credit: After Skool
For countless people around the world, he was a bridge between Eastern spirituality and Western ideas of personal freedom and self-discovery. In this vibrantly illustrated talk, Ram Dass lays out his own vision of the pain that addiction seeks to soothe, and the role that mindful spiritual practices can play in changing our relationship with that pain.
Ram Dass left this world in 2019, but his legacy will be felt for a great many years to come. For millions in the West, he provided a first window on Hinduism, Buddhism, and other Asian religions and systems of belief. And yet his first influence was in the realm of psychedelic drugs.
Dass never failed to admit that his relationship with LSD and other drugs was complex and ambivalent. What’s not in doubt, however, was the impact of his journey to India and encounter with a spiritual teacher. Dass was 36. For the rest of his life, inner searching replaced substances as the source of his deepest inspirations.
Ram Dass photo credit: Music Connection Magazine
He retained, however, a passionate understanding and sympathy for the forces that led so many into harmful relationships with drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, and other behaviors and substances. For Dass, all of these were expressions of a universal yearning to recover from loss and alienation. Where do such loss and alienation begin? Eastern philosophy’s answer was straightforward: in an attachment to the transitory, and a blindness to the unity of all things, people, and souls.
These are big themes: Dass is no peddler of quick fixes or effortless spiritual rebirth. But in this uplifting talk, he describes a new way of understanding the cycles of need and vulnerability that trap us in addiction, and the great promise of spiritual disciplines to help us break free. Have a listen…
