Ram Dass Love Serve Remember

In 1949 Baba travelled from Nainital to Kashipur via Haldwani with nine devotees. When they arrived in Kashipur, they stayed in the house of Kishan Chaube, who extended great hospitality to them. Throughout the day all the devotees in Kashipur came with offerings of food and milk for Baba. Baba ate many platefuls of food that day and drank milk in large quantities. Before evening, however, he said he was hungry. He sent his devotee Pooran Chandra Joshi to a nearby lane saying, “A woman is waiting there. She has prepared roti for me. Go and bring it.” Joshi went into that narrow lane and saw an old woman sitting in an open doorway. As soon as he spoke Baba’s name, she happily disappeared inside and returned bringing a thick roti and some green vegetables. At that moment Baba himself arrived and taking the roti in his hand, ate it with great relish.

Baba and the group of devotees returned to Haldwani by train from Kashipur. Chaube had purchased a second-class ticket for Baba. By mistake he bought only eight third-class tickets for the nine devotees who accompanied him and gave the tickets to one of them. All of them sat in the second-class compartment with Baba except for a pandit (religious scholar), who travelled in the third-class compartment of the train. Suddenly Baba asked the devotees, “How many tickets are there?” A devotee replied that Chaube bought tickets for all. Baba sternly asked, “Where is Pandit’s ticket?” They counted them again and realized the mistake.

Baba took all the tickets from them and threw them out of the window of the moving train, making all of them ticketless travelers. A special checking squad was checking the train that day, and the eight devotees sitting with Baba were government servants. They worried about losing their jobs if they were caught traveling without tickets. At the next station Baba got out of the train and went to sit with Pandit in the third-class compartment, as did the devotees. Just then Baba put nine third-class tickets into the hands of a devotee.

The train arrived at the Lalkuan station late at night, after the connecting train to Haldwani had already left. There was no other train for Haldwani nor was a bus available, so they thought they would have to spend the night at the station. However, as Baba got down onto the platform, a Muslim truck driver standing nearby noticed him, wrapped in his blanket. He stared at Baba with great curiosity. Baba also looked at him and said, “Your wife is ill? You are sad? You have taken her to Bareilly, Agra, and other places and still there is no improvement? Do not worry, she will be alright.” He listened to Baba in quiet amazement and then humbly asked him, “Baba, where do you want to go? My truck is standing outside. If you will allow me, I will take you wherever you like.” He then took everyone to Haldwani in his truck.

Excerpt from The Divine Reality of Sri Baba Neeb Karori Ji Maharaj by Ravi Prakash Pande “Rajida”

Original Article

If somebody is a problem for you, it’s not that they should change, it’s that you need to change. If they’re a problem for themselves that’s their karma, if they’re causing you trouble that’s your problem on yourself. So, in other words when Christ is crucified, he says “forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing”, they’re not a problem for him, he’s trying to get them out of being a problem for themselves, because he’s clear. Your job is to clear yourself. In ideal situations you would clear yourself within the situation, but very often it’s too thick and you can’t do that. Now, what you do then is you pull back and you do the stuff you do in the morning or at night before you go to work, you do the stuff on weekends, you do the stuff that quiets you down and then each time you go into the situation to where you have to work, you lose it again. And then you go home and you see how you lost it, and you examine it, and then you go the next day and you lose it again, and you go home and you keep a little diary “how did I lose it today”, and you saw that, and then you go and you do it again, and after a while as you’re starting to lose it you don’t buy in so much. You start to watch the mechanics of what it is that makes you lose it all the time.

If I’m not appreciated, that’s your problem that you don’t appreciate me. Unless I need your love, then it’s my problem. So my needs are what are giving you the power over me. Those people’s power over you to take you out of your equanimity and love and consciousness has to do with your own attachments and clingings of mind. That’s your work on yourself, that’s where you need to meditate more, it’s where you need to reflect more, it’s where you need a deeper philosophical framework, it’s where you need to cultivate the witness more, it’s where you need to work on practicing opening your heart more in circumstances that aren’t optimum. This is your work. You were given a heavy curriculum, that’s it. There’s no blame, it’s not even wrong, it’s just what you’re given. You hear what I’m saying? It’s interesting. Can you all hear that one?

-Ram Dass, Summer 1989 

Original Article

In 1967 R.P. Vaish, a devotee of Baba’s, came to Kainchi to see Baba. He was being transferred to Delhi, and he told Baba that he wanted to tour Kashmir before taking up his post. When Vaish was leaving, Baba gave him an umbrella and said, “Keep it with you. It rains heavily there.” Vaish hesitated to accept the umbrella and said, “I have an umbrella at home. This one will serve many people here at the ashram.” Baba did not listen to him and again asked him to keep it with him. During his stay in Kashmir, Vaish went about holding the umbrella. On his return to Delhi, he again went to Kainchi for Baba’s darshan and to return the umbrella. On seeing him, Baba said, “You have come to return the umbrella?” Baba then said, “Keep it with you. It will be a protective umbrella over you.” Vaish did not understand what Baba meant, but he went back to Delhi, taking the umbrella with him.

In 1978, five years after Baba’s Mahasamadhi, Vaish was transferred to Lucknow and left his extra luggage, including the umbrella, at his house in Delhi. In Lucknow he started suffering from heart, liver and spleen trouble. A check-up at Balrampur Hospital revealed that his spleen was enlarged by thirteen centimeters, but the doctors did not advise an operation due to his heart trouble. As no other treatment option was available to him in Lucknow, he and his wife went to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi. Back in Delhi, Vaish was getting ready to go from his house to the hospital when his wife noticed the umbrella lying there. The idea came to her that by not keeping the umbrella gifted to him by Maharaj with him always, he might have been deprived of Baba’s protection. In the hot month of June, Shrimati Vaish escorted her husband to the hospital and hid the umbrella under his pillow.

Vaish was examined thoroughly once again. His spleen was still enlarged by thirteen centimeters. The doctors told him that he would have to stay in the hospital for six months and agreed that it was not advisable to operate on the spleen in his condition. They would have to rely on the medicines to affect a cure. They told him that he would have to take a special tablet once a month that would reduce his spleen by two and a half centimeters over thirty days. He took the first tablet that same day. The next morning he felt so much better that he asked the doctor to get his spleen examined again. Saying encouraging words to him, the doctor explained that the process of measuring would be repeated after six months, not every day. Vaish was not satisfied with this and sent his wife to the chief medical superintendent with a request to get his spleen examined again as a special case. The superintendent ordered it to be re-measured, and the results showed that his spleen had indeed reduced in size by thirteen centimeters. Since the tablet was not that effective, the doctors were all amazed at the sudden change. When they expressed their surprise to Vaish, he pulled out the umbrella and said, “By its grace.”

Excerpt from The Divine Reality of Sri Baba Neeb Karori Ji Maharaj by Ravi Prakash Pande “Rajida”

Original Article

The following meditation was recorded in January 1981 in Sydney, Australia:

This meditation is drawn from Theravada, or southern Buddhism. It’s called Anapana and it is just bringing you to right here and it is done through the breath. So it is common to everyone in this room at this moment. Of all of our individual differences, we are all breathing in, breathing out. This process is one that is like, if you can imagine a flower and the center of the flower and then the petals coming out of the flower. And the center is called your primary object in meditation and the petals are all the thoughts that keep coming out from that center. In this case our primary object of meditation is our breath. We will focus on our breath going in and our breath coming out. You can do this two ways. One is by focusing on a muscle that is in the solar plexus that every time you breathe in it moves in one direction and every time you breathe out it moves in another direction. Rising, falling, rising, falling. Or you could focus at the tip of the inside of your nose. And as the air goes by you will feel a slight whisper of air on the in breath and as the air goes out you will feel a slight whisper of air on the out breath and you are like a gate keeper at the gate. The cars go in and the cars go out. You don’t follow them to see where they go you just notice the breath going in, breathing in, the breath going out, breathing out. So whichever one is easiest for you, pick one now and stay with it for this period of 15 minutes, either the muscle in your solar plexus, that is rising and falling or the air going by the tip of your nose breathing in, breathing out.

Your job in the most gentle possible way is to merely keep your awareness focused on your primary object. Now it is going to wander. Your awareness is going to be grabbed by many thoughts. You’ll sit down and you’ll say, breathing in, breathing out. And then the thought will come, “this will never work.” Now you can either take the thought that this will never work and immediately go off on another train of thought, even though I am giving you instructions you just ignore them, and then the meditation is over. That’s okay. Or at some point you’ll say “gee, all I was going to do for these 15 minutes was watch my breath and this is another thought, I’ll just let it go and I’ll go back to my breath.” The art is not to get violent with your other thoughts. Don’t get guilty because you are thinking them. Don’t even try to push them away. Merely very gently again and again bring your awareness back to the primary object of meditation. Let each thought be another petal in the flower. Keep coming back to the center, back to the center, back to the center. So with eyes closed and body straight as is comfortable for you to sit, it’s good to keep straight if you can – your head and neck and chest - bring your awareness either to the muscle in your abdomen or to the breath passing the tip of your nostrils and notice the breath either rising and falling or breathing in and breathing out.

[caption id=”attachment_1015” align=”alignright” width=”350” caption=”Meditation by Carol Buchman Courtesy of Carol Buchman www.carolbuchman.net”]

If your breath gets fast or slow it doesn’t matter, just notice it. Don’t change it but just notice it. You are merely remaining aware. Any sounds, smells, sensations just let them come and let them go and bring your awareness back to either rising and falling or breathing in and breathing out.

If your mind wanders just notice it and bring it very gently back to breathing in breathing out or rising and falling.

Wherever your mind is now, just notice where it is and very gently bring it back to rising and falling, breathing in, breathing out. If it helps to say those words inside yourself with each breath it is perfectly okay.

All the sounds, everything that comes into your ears, just notice it as another thought and come back to your breath. There is nothing you need to think about now other than breathing in, breathing out or rising and falling.

Notice the shape and form as the breath goes by – beginning, middle, and end of the in breath, the space, the beginning, middle, and end of the out breath, the space.

If you experience agitation or confusion or boredom or bliss or anything just see it as more thoughts. Notice it and bring your awareness back to rising and falling or breathing in and breathing out.

If you begin to doze take a few deep intentional breaths. Rising and falling or breathing in and breathing out.

All the feelings in your body, the sounds, the sensations, the tastes, the smells, the sights, just notice them coming and going bring your awareness back to the primary object of meditation.

Firm your seat, head straight, rising and falling or breathing in and breathing out.

There are three more minutes left. Use these three minutes consciously. Gently but firmly each time your mind wanders bring it back to rising and falling or breathing in and breathing out.

Be vigilant but gentle. Bring the awareness back to the basic primary object of meditation. Basic attention to the breath.

Okay. Om.

-Ram Dass

Original Article

Chanting (Kirtan) is a part of the path of Devotional Yoga. When we see the beauty of our own being we are seeing the beauty of the Being that is the One of which we are all a part. And when we turn towards that One, love is the natural reaction of the heart.
God or Guru is an endless ocean of love truth and presence. First we may hear the distant roar of the crashing waves of the ocean and we’re drawn to that sound. As we get closer, we can smell the ocean air and taste the sweet moisture. When we reach the beach and see the ocean for the first time, we’re transfixed by the vastness and Beauty. We run and we dive in and enjoy the freedom that comes from this ecstasy. Finally we merge with that ocean of love and somehow find ourselves back on the shore, returning to ourselves so that we can share the experience with others.Those that have returned have given us these Names of God. These Names are the sound of the surf of that Ocean of Love. They hold the power to help us find our way back to that ocean. We don’t have to create anything; we don’t have to manufacture any emotions or feelings. We can’t make it happen. It already is. All we have to do is Remember. Everyone has their own path to this beach, to the Ocean, but we all wind up in the same place. There is only one…One.The following is an excerpt from ‘Pilgrim of the Heart’ audio series by Krishna Das:

“The words of these chants are called the divine names and they come from a place that’s deeper than our hearts and our thoughts, deeper than the mind. And so as we sing them they turn us towards ourselves, into ourselves. They bring us in, and as we offer ourselves into the experience, the experience changes us. These chants have no meaning other than the experience that we have by doing them. They come from the Hindu tradition, but it’s not about being a Hindu, or believing anything in advance. It’s just about doing it, and experiencing. Nothing to join, you just sit down and sing.”

Satsang is where people gather together to remember, to turn within and find their own inner path to the One. When we gather together to sing like this we are helping each other find our own paths. We all must travel this path by ourselves because each of us is our own path. All these paths wander on in their own way, but in truth we are all travelling together and until the last of us arrives we will all keep travelling. So let’s sing!

(this wisdom is from KrishnaDas.com).

Krishna Das releases his documentary “One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das” at the Maui Film Festival on June 17, 2012 at 5:30PM.

“In 1970, Jeffrey Kagel walked away from the American dream of rock ‘n’ roll stardom, turning down the chance to record as lead singer for the band soon-to-be the Blue Oyster Cult. Instead, he sold all his possessions and moved from the suburbs of Long Island to the foothills of the Himalayas in search of happiness and a little-known saint named Neem Karoli Baba. ONE TRACK HEART: THE STORY OF KRISHNA DAS follows his journey to India and back, witnessing his struggles with depression and drug abuse, to his eventual emergence as Krishna Das, world-renowned spiritual teacher and chant master. Featuring interviews with Ram Dass (LSD Icon Richard Alpert), Rick Rubin (Grammy Award winning Producer), Sharon Salzberg (NY Times bestselling author), Daniel Goleman (two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee), as well as a musical score by J Mascis (Dinosaur Jr) & Devadas, this is the inspiring story of how one man’s heart-expanding journey continues to transform countless lives.” - Watch the trailer below.

Original Article

Baba’s devotee Dr. Naval Kishore was the gynecologist at Agra Medical College until he received a post at Ramsay Hospital in Nainital. Some time after he arrived, Baba asked him to treat the hill women at Hanumangarh, which he did daily from 10am until 4pm. One day Naval Kishore could not go to work. Baba had been away from Nainital but returned to Hanumangarh that day. He asked the reason for the doctor’s absence, but nobody could tell him. That evening, while walking around with some devotees, Baba stopped near the Empire Hotel and asked, “Where does the doctor live?” When a devotee pointed to the hotel, Baba sent someone inside to call the doctor. He came out, and Baba said to him, “You are ill?” When the doctor said no, he then said, “You have a cold?” The doctor replied, “Just an ordinary cold.” Baba immediately called a dandi and told the doctor to get himself admitted to Ramsay Hospital. The doctor did not feel it necessary, but Baba insisted and sent him to the hospital with some devotees.

From there Maharaji went with Devi Dutt Joshi, Pooran Chandra Joshi, and some other devotees to a washerman’s house, where the puja of Sri Satyanarayan (Vishnu) was being performed. At about 7:30pm, the doctor’s brother came to see Baba to tell him that his brother’s condition was serious. He has suffered a heart attack and was having difficulty breathing. Baba said, “What can I do? You go.” Baba sent the devotees with the doctor’s brother to the hospital.

Later, on their return from the hospital, the devotees saw Baba walking toward Kelakhan. Baba told them that he was worried about the doctor and his family, and he continued down the slope to Kelakhan, where he went to Mohan Baba’s* hut. Mohan Baba, who was also known as Telephone Baba, was a devotee of Lord Vishnu, and Maharaji asked him to ring up the Lord and tell him about the doctor. Mohan Baba gave an imaginary phone call to Narada, saying that Baba wanted to talk to Vishnu. Narada replied that Lord Vishnu was not available, for he was talking to Goddess Laxmi. After some time Maharaji asked Mohan Baba to ring again. This time Mohan Baba did not hear whatever Narada said clearly and went on shouting into his mystical telephone in vain. All of a sudden Maharaji got up and picked Mohan Baba up by the hair. He then dropped him on the ground and cried aloud, “He is saved now! He is saved now!” and left. The two devotees also left and returned to Nainital where they received good news about the doctor’s condition.

[caption id=”attachment_968” align=”alignleft” width=”584” caption=”Maharaji speaking to Telephone Baba”]

*Mohan Baba was a well-loved holy man of the Kumaon hills. He was known as Telephone Baba because although he could truly communicate with God, at times he used gestures as if he were talking to him on the telephone. Like many Indian saints, he did all sorts of lila to hide his mystical powers. He was a very innocent, childlike being, and his prophecies proved to be true. 

Excerpt from The Divine Reality of Sri Baba Neeb Karori Ji Maharaj by Ravi Prakash Pande “Rajida”

Original Article

In 1967, I was in the temple in India and I found out that people fasted on the new moon for nine days. So I said to Hari Das, “can I fast for nine days? Can I fast for four days?” He said, “well many people do it for nine.” So I figure if many people do then I will do it. So I spent the entire nine days thinking of Original Joe’s and thinking of Locke-Obers in Boston - of all the restaurants I’ve ever eaten at and what I had, and I remember Thanksgiving Days back in the thirties in New Hampshire and what the turkey looked like and smelled like and tasted like, and the skin, and the white meat and the dark meat and the stuffing. I mean, I really did it with the marshmallows and the squash and the whole shtick. And I would get exhausted from not eating every day you know during that fast. Three months later, I did a nine day fast where I spent all my time thinking about what I would eat when I finished the fast, which was in those days spinach, spinach with lemon and rice. I found that I was getting better.

[caption id=”attachment_963” align=”alignleft” width=”300” caption=”photo from mohansbinsaretreat.com”]

About a year and a half ago we were all together, and we said we’d fast for a while and I fasted for a number of days, except at noon the only thing delivered to the room was lemon and hot water. I was really never busy fasting. I was just doing other things. I was reading holy books and meditating and I suddenly began to realize what fasting was all about. These were different levels of doing the same practice. In that sense fasting was so I didn’t have to spend all my time preoccupied with my belly and I could just give my intestines a rest and I could cool it out for a while and turn my attention somewhere else for a while.

It took me five years to figure that out, to come into the space where I could be with that method purely. And what I learn is in a lot of methods I got ahead of myself. And I think what happens with methods is that sometimes you do them for a phony reason and you give  them up and you walk away – but if it is your dharma to follow that path you come back to it but in a new way. A fellow came to see me a while back with a friend of mine and he said that he had been a surgeon, and that now he was studying the flute. And he said that a lot of people were upset with him because they said to him “how can you stop being a surgeon? You’ve got this skill and you must use it to help people” but he felt that he had to study the flute. And he asked me to talk or comment on it and I said, “look, as far as I understand it healing concerns the vibrations within the being, the nature of the being that’s doing the healing. And I don’t know any rule that says that a flute doesn’t heal as many or more people than a knife and a needle and thread. Maybe all your surgery training was preparing you to be a flautist or maybe your flute training is preparing you to be a conscious surgeon. You don’t have to know the game in advance. You just got to listen to your heart.”

-Ram Dass

Berkley Comm. Theater

March 7^th 1973

Original Article

With Maharaji’s permission, Ram Dass published the book Be Here Now in America in 1971. He gave instructions to the publisher to print the book and came to India with the first copy to present to Maharaji. Maharaji had not studied English. Yet five months later he drew Ram Dass’ attention to some untruths in two passages of the book and said, “Lies should not be mentioned in this book. They will hurt you. Delete those passages from the book.” 

Ram Dass became anxious because a long time had elapsed, and the book might already have been published. He expected that about thirty thousand copies would have been printed. He contacted Steve Durkee and found out that the next thirty thousand copies were, in fact, in print. Explaining the situation to Baba, he said that the changes could only be incorporated into the next edition. It would be a loss of $10,000 to reject the thirty thousand books. Maharaji said, “Money and truth have nothing to do with each other. When you printed it first, you thought it was true, but now that you know it isn’t, you can’t print lies. You will be hurt by it. You must correct it now.”

Ram Dass sent a cable to Steve. After a week he received a reply reporting a strange incident. The book could not be printed because Baba’s photograph, which was to be printed on a full page, was missing. The original was also missing, so a new plate could not be made. The printed had pulled the job off the press to await further instructions.

Excerpt from The Divine Reality of Sri Baba Neeb Karori Ji Maharaj by Ravi Prakash Pande “Rajida”

Original Article

I sit with a lot of people who are dying these days because I am very interested in seeing whether we can develop a metaphor for dying that isn’t quite as horrendous as the one we have going in the West. Because our metaphor for dying comes out of philosophical materialism where a person that is dying is surrounded by people who are saying “you got to be up and around tomorrow. Don’t talk nonsense about death.” Then they walk out into the corridor and say “she won’t last the night.” I mean, just total hypocrisy.

While you can’t kill anybody you can’t prolong life. You only know whether or not life is to go on or not when you are yourself not afraid of death. Otherwise your fear totally distorts your perception all the time and you just panic when somebody is near death. Recently Wavy Gravy called me up, he is a very beautiful guy. Wavy said there was a boy who was dying here in San Francisco, and asked if I would visit him. And I said sure, so I went over and visited with him. He was about 23 years old and he was dying of Hodgkin’s disease. It was last August. We met at Tom Wolf’s house, and I went over to the kid and I said to him “I hear your going to die soon.” He says “yeah.” I said “you want to talk about it?” He says “ok.” So we started to talk about dying. After a while he went to light a cigarette and I noticed that his hand was shaking, he was very thin and weak. And I suddenly got totally paranoid and I felt like “gee what right have I got to be coming onto to him? After all, he’s the one that’s dying.” So I said “hey if I am coming onto you, you know, just tell me to go away. I don’t have to do this.” And he says “well, being with you is getting me nervous, but the reason is because as death is approaching I’ve been looking for the strength to die and you are the first person I’ve met who doesn’t seem to be afraid of dying. And that’s just what I am looking for.”

And I feel like a child in this scene, and I’m just so excited by it that I am shaking. He was giving me the license – he was giving me the license to be with him. And we went on being together for quite a while and then he died later on. And what I recognize now – there’s a woman that just died in New York last year, her name was Debbie Matheson - she’s a beautiful woman. She was in her forties, she had two children and she was married to an author by the name of Peter Matheson. She was connected with the Zen Center in New York City, and when she was dying she was put in Mount Sinai Hospital to die. So the Zen students all came to her room every night and meditated and they turned the room into a Zen temple. And what happened was the first night they did this the doctors, the three young residents came to visit her room making their rounds, which usually consists of pushing open the door with that kind of hearty hail good fellow well-met type, you know, “how we doing today? Did we eat well today? Let’s look at that chart.” You know, that type of thing. They walked in and they faced all these beings sitting like this with candles and incense and the room was darkened and it freaked them out completely. And the second night they came in a little more gently, and by the third they would open the door very quietly and come in and stand in awe for a little while and then go away.

There, right in the middle of Mount Sinai they redefined a whole new metaphor, a metaphor that can be created through the strength of mind because you can create your universe anywhere you are. Once you recognize that, a hospital is merely a collectivity of minds who share a certain model about what it is all about. And the problem is that this society is one where the medicine men are knowledgeable, but not wise. And with the recognition of that, we are now seeking wisdom not just knowledge in our healers. And wisdom has in it compassion. And compassion understands about life and death.

A doctor is committed by the Hippocratic Oath to save life, but she or he does not have to be attached to that. They merely do that in the same way a bus driver drives a bus. It is the emotional attachment that they have to it that comes out of their own fear of death that is the problem in medicine at this moment in the West. And hopefully within a few years we will have an 800 number telephone number like you do for getting a motel reservation where if you are going to die in the next few months you can call that number and somebody will come and hang out with you and provide help for you in defining a new metaphor for how you’re going to die. And we’ll have some cassette tapes that you can play when you are in pain that will help you figure out what the pain is about, and how to use it to become more conscious. Because it’s obvious that the way to die is to learn how to live, and the answer to dying is to be present at the moment.

Ram Dass

Berkley Comm. Theater

March 7^th 1973

Original Article