And as the title of an article a New York Times magazine says Ramadans is ready to die and in fact around us is who we're going to be listening to this hour I'm so happy to say there is a brand new collection out from sounds true sort of like the best of rum Das the essential rum Das collection it is 12345 C.D.'s. Full of stuff that he has said and is. Teaching for some years and all of that on the topic of the title of this collection becoming nobody and we are going to offer you this lovely set of C.D.'s from sounds true with thank them very much for helping us offer them to you as 5 C.D.'s the collection for a $200.00 donation to listeners sponsored radio and to your peace of mind and is $20.00 a month that's what that would be when you call 1804395732180439 k. P.f.a. And on line at a dot org. Better he then I to tell you what to expect from these C.D.'s So let's just get right into it Ram Das of course a very interesting spiritual teacher many have come and gone but he has never never bothered going yet he's still effect I just I was just reading a piece in a magazine called Laugh spin which is about comics and comedy and what's happening in the entertainment field it was a. An article entitled Ramadans Why are comedians following the spiritual leader and says things to the enthusiasm of quite a few popular comedians around us is enjoying a surge in popularity among a millennial audience what is it that so many comedians see in the octogenarian spiritual leader. Well as you will find Mr Mr Doss is funny I'm self and he's not just funny. And he appreciates the worthiness of humor to bring one to the heart bypassing the head on many occasions so here he is round us from the 5 cd essential rom dos collection becoming nobody yours with a 200 dollar donation to listeners sponsored radio 180-439-5732 extension 1 I. Like you was born I don't a space suit for living on this plane. And. It was this body this is the My Space Suit. And it had a steering mechanism I prefrontal lobes and all the brain Motors coordinated stuff and just like those. Rusty Schweigen the others they go to the moon and they wear uniforms and they learned how to grab things and lift things so I did that you know I learned my prehensile passages. And I got rewarded I get you get little stars and kiss isn't all kinds of things when you learn how to use your spacesuit. And you get really good at it he gets so good at using your space suit that you can't differentiate yourself from your space suit anymore you think you're Spacey and everybody comes up and says What a nice suit. Thing and you're constantly looking into other people's eyes to find out if you're really wearing a nice face it it's what I call somebody training when you're born you go into somebody's training because your parents know who they are and they're going to make you somebody to. My parents were very intent on making me somebody they wanted me to achieve. Be responsible be healthy. Be successful bring pride to them. And if it didn't interfere with any of those I should be happy. And. The problem that I experienced. Was that the suit that I was wearing it was like you're in one of these suits that doesn't quite fit and you're a little uncomfortable and you constantly trying to readjust yourself the suit didn't fit but everybody kept saying beautiful suit really impressive so you must be very happy but I wasn't now if everybody you look into their eyes and they tell you you're happy and you're not. Because the suit feels so weird. What do you conclude. I felt when everybody said What a nice suit I was wearing that I must be sick so I went to an analyst. Now he was wearing another kind of weird suit thing. And what he did was he said that for a pittance he would teach me how to wear his suit instead of my suit. So I. So I learned how to wear his suit which had even more status connect I mean more people said beautiful so. Part of learning how to without soup was you didn't see people anymore you just saw psychosexual stages of development you saw. Anal retentiveness and early Salix and things like that. And I really wasn't very happy in that suit either in that suit I was a therapist and I really needed to be a fair post because I was so identified with my needs that point. That everybody else had to be a potential patient so and if you wouldn't be my patient I didn't have much use feel because I needed to be a therapist full time so that suits felt weird as well well then. Through the kindness of a rather while Irish fellow I I I took off my suits entirely. And I stood naked. I took off my suit and I stood naked and it felt wonderful absolutely wonderful. I felt at home I felt peace I felt content I felt like this is where I had always I knew in my inner being this is where I really was but somehow I had never been able to get there ever since I'd been born into somebody knows the somebody is and always short shrift of who I was. As my friend pointed out you have to go out of your mind to use your head. And that what I had been trained in was an ego structure conceptual structure that define who I was and who everybody else was and most people learn these structures and they're like huge mind that's come out ahead and you walk down the street and you're somebody you say you know you are you dress like somebody your face looks like somebody everything is somebody's Nuss This is why I am this is why it was to my hands and this is who you are this you are you everybody is reinforcing their structure of the universe over and over again and they meet like to shoot things meeting this is who I am this is who you are and then we enter in these conspiracies all make believe you are who you think you are if you make believe I am who I think I am or just can a bump against each other like schmoozes and. Big mental mind nets that keep walking down the street you can see them in everybody I mean everybody's busy being somebody. Well so when I got out of my Somebody in us which was very cramped I mean it was like a prison to me. I didn't want to go back to prison it's like you go out you see the stars in the smelly air and then they say Ok. Chemicals where an off back in a prison. And you don't want to go you say no no but you go anyway and you go back into your soup and you feel weird again you feel doubly weird now because you know that that isn't who you are but you're caught in it. So that starts quite a journey did for me anyway because it really it started a journey in which my object was to get high was to get out of my suit it was to get out of my physical psychological identities which felt extremely limited. And I would get incredibly free and clear and love. I get like I go to India and I'd sit in the temple or in meditation and I would get so high I mean the light was pouring out of my head and and I was some combination of the pure mind of the Buddha and the heart of the Christ which for a Jewish boy is not bad you know and I was really like I. Was Really I'd be out there you know and I come back to the states and I go to visit the family. And my father would say a simple thing like you got a job. See and I crash. And I'd say can't go home brings me down. And I began to have a whole list of things that brought me down. I mean cities brought me down money brought me down politics brought me down. And I found myself interesting if wearing a new kind of a suit it was like I'm very high I don't get near me I'm very high. And something felt wrong about it I mean I love being out there and la la land I mean it was. Oh. And you go out in there up and down and there's no space it's all phony but you go where if you go that's another plane of consciousness which is right here actually and. You look around and everybody is mish buffet everybody is the family everybody's. That Sanskrit answered. Everybody's sisters or brothers or if you go out far enough you look in there's only one of us in drag I mean appearing to be many There's only and you really see it you experience the oneness of things and it's so connected and so beautiful so that when you come back down India separateness the pain is incredible because you once again feel that feeling of being cut off see along our way of evolution we develop certain powers or cities one of them is this prehensile thing then when we got beyond that we got to these free frontal lobes and those give us the choice we can remember plan analyze cognate we can be analytic linear etc And that's the major instrument for the spacesuit control mechanism that allows you to survive on earth the problem with the intellect however. Is that it doesn't allow you to escape from dualism that is it always thinks about something so it always takes an object so as long as you identify with your thinking mind. You are always one thought away from where the action is you're always thinking about it looking at it you're always in that one thought away from life and you experience that you are cut off by being in your mind and there is a quality that is starving in an individual that is locked in their mind so when you move to another plane of consciousness which is no longer controlled by your intellect which is really a subsystem and you move into the medicine. What you feel at that moment is subjectively in the universe you feel like you are the universe or you feel merged with or you feel fully in the moment thick with the moment and that richness is so fulfilling. It's interesting it just is you can be it the minute you try to know it or experience it you go back into dualism again but you can be the thickness of the moment now because I had been so. Felt so trapped by my body and my personality and was so unhappy in all of that my job it seemed was to push away those things and I tried a number of techniques like renunciation. And figured if I just renounced all of it enough it would go away all I did was end up a horny celibate. It's like giving up smoking like I haven't smoked in 4 years 2 months 3 days and 22 minutes. Personal die from non smoking I. It didn't work because if you push something away it's still got you if busy not doing it. Not doing. As I will look back on the stages now and I see for example. I used to be identify with my body I mean that's who I was I was this body which I didn't really care for that much and I during that time I was busy not going bald for example. Some amazing I mean some people have busy not going bald that's who they are you know like I had a long piece of hair and I wore it like this and you know in the in the wind you stand like Rodin's The thinker you know like this. And you notice how much hair everybody's got I mean it's a whole reality it's a whole world I. Mean I'm this is a like a 55 year old decaying foot right here. And it's just like if you went out in the woods and you saw an old tree trunk I mean if I thought that was my foot I'd freak but it's just a nice decaying foot it's rather attractive I mean this look at all these veins and these bones loose skin it's getting nice you know because you can you begin to appreciate nature even when it's your own body when you're not so busy taking it so seriously when you know it's the last it is just decaying just like it's supposed to live you know one of these days it'll drop away but then the personality that was much more seductive I mean I really took that seriously for years my happy to have enough space. In my relationships fulfilling. I mean I really need to be nurturing. Because I was a motivational psychologist so that was all real I taught that it was real it must have been real I was saying it hard it must've been real. It was a complete melodramatic hype it turned out I didn't know that. So you say what do you mean my personality isn't real. It is real it's relatively real and you should . I've had you know I had neuroses. I've had an awful lot of neuroses and you have a sexual neuroses and emotional cycle all kinds of motivational neuroses and I've been through analysis I took drugs for years I've been in my life stunned spiritual practice is I haven't lost one neurosis in all that time. The only thing that's changed is that they used to be these big neuroses and now they're these like little schmooze see that ha ha come on in have tea they're like all friendly neuroses like. Will they like me that's a good one I. Know I can line them up they're like the children you know for a family photograph all my little neuroses sitting here they're all right here I I I become really quite fond of them actually and. And I look at all the spiritual teachers and all the great saints they're all terribly neurotic and it's just like I'm not going to grow here if I get really free probably. So I think my neuroses are just my style now so you know just give me style Well that's what flips the dramas a still there the desires and the needs you just don't take them so seriously you know I need this. Indeed. Speaking on Mon of the 5 C.D.'s in the set from sounds true and titled Becoming nobody the essential rom Das collection sort of a highlight reel of his life specifically his passage through his multiple. Therapy sessions and and examinations and meditations and just as he was saying all the drug trips and everything all in this search. To find out what was real and to find out that in fact. It's all the same thing this this being that we are being is that we are all the same being that we all share. Plants and animals and everything share this this beingness and he has taught this for over 50 years while other teachers have come and gone he has remained and in fact he is the subject of a brand new documentary in theaters now of the same name becoming nobody. This is this collection of the 5 C.D.'s has has his teachings on it including meditation guided meditations and just lots of stuff that you're not going to get a movie theater obviously so I this is this is the real deal this is like the protein and you can listen to it for hours and hours and hours 5 C.D.'s. We're looking for your support it's 5 hours and 2 minutes it says here for the 5 C.D.'s. We're asking for your financial support and we're offering you your own cd collection this one for a $200.00 donation to k.p. That's $20.00 a month and you talk to the folks in the phone room 1804395732180439 k. P.f.a. And I'm looking at this piece that appeared in g.q. General's orderly as the parallels between today's fraught political environment and that of the Vietnam era multiply Ramdass his words and story are resonating again in times like these the sword of around us his message of service and love his blueprint for how to use daily life as grist for the mill of awakening feels sharp and ballot battle tested and they. And to say that yoga organic food the Grateful Dead Bob around us all of them are back in fashion. And he's done so much work over the years the Hunnam on Foundation the the the Save the foundation and now his love what's it love and service I'll get it right. But that's that's his his life has been one of service since he met his guru and realized that that's that's what life was about and we're hoping that you will want to learn more from the teachers lessons and his own personal experience which he uses as the grist for his own mill of awakening toward our benefit as service and that you will call Cate b.f.a. At 18043957321 $8439.00 k. P.f.a. And offer a $200.00 donation to the station or on a $20.00 a month basis of that would serve you better and get yourself this 5 cd set of his teachings the guy is $88.00 and he had a stroke and he's in a wheelchair in Hawaii which is not a bad place to be and. We're lucky to have him with as and we're lucky to have these teachings and we collect them now while you can at 180-439-5732 further. Encouragement I offer you. A donor and San Ramon who gave pledge $250.00 and said that we could use it to try to encourage more of you to pledge to k p f a to donate in these stressful and distressful times and to keep the station that you count on for the information that comes straight from whoever it is that speaking it's not filtered and it's not twisted it's not turned into something else it's not shadowed with oh well but here's here's the one side this and on the other hand that it's there it's clear there's a there's a lot more clarity from what you get from Kate the f.a. As I'm sure you know or you wouldn't be listening at $250.00 from a donor in San Ramon to encourage more of you to keep the station and its practices alive and well during these coming times these times that we're in already and the next ones to come 180-439-5732 with this match you will be you can subscribe you can donate any amount whatsoever and it will be doubled your $25.00 becomes 50 or 50 dollars becomes 100 your 100 dollars becomes 200 a chance to donate the amount that you really wish you could donate to p.f.a. Matched by a donor in San Ramon 180-439-5732 extension 1 line at a dot org Let's go back and hear some more from becoming nobody with around us and we keep dramatize ing it I need this to be happy. Then there comes a time when all the trips start to seem empty to you I mean you going to buy a new car and you get it and it you get into it and you really want to milk the feeling of a new car you walk down as you drive down the street you're looking to see if anybody's looking and you feel that power while for the transmission's Beautiful Boy oh boy and you just. And then a few minutes later the 1st squeak. Or the next payment. Until finally even as you're about to reach for it it's already empty. So at any rate I kept trying to get high all the time to get rid of all is tripping us because it all seems so finite and. I felt something was wrong about the direction I was going to say everybody else was sort of doing the same thing in the 60s early seventies I kept hearing the messages in the spiritual teachings as no way to stand but I kept refuting it in my mind because I still wanted to stand there looking back down it was so safe it was so free of any emotional pain. And a lot of people get high in order to get out of emotional pain. It slowly has been dawning on me over the past 8 years that the game wasn't to be high in the game was to be free. And the free meant you couldn't push anything away and you couldn't grab at anything it was no way to stand and there was no way not to stand. And that I was whatever this incarnation whatever the level of reality this was. I had to inhabit it impeccably to be free within it and that freedom was going to come through my incarnation not in spite of it and that I was going to have to learn to be as Christ said in the world but not of the world and that all the things I pushed away I was going to have to. I was going to take the curriculum sooner or later. That turned around the direction of my life a lot. Because in till that time when I was busy just trying to get high to get in lightened and I thought it lightened was high it was a confusion in my mind during that time. I really be grudged. The price of living on the earth I begrudge and I constantly saw. That I wanted to push away all those experiences of life it's interesting when you want to get high suffering is a real drag and you want to avoid suffering as hard as you can. Where you want to be free. You begin to hear the teachings of the Buddha about the cause of suffering being the clinging of the mind and when something creates suffering in you you don't go asking for it unless you're really advanced Yes but. Then when you when the suffering comes down the pike you don't turn away from it because you know that the only reason you're suffering is it's telling you something about the clinging of your own mind and it's being offered to you as a gift this is gets very weird because it turns the whole game around as Rumi says at 1st before you're awake and you go told it's water and you a