Ram Dass and Stephen Levine explore how all the experiences in our lives, including the process of dying, can be an opportunity to grow and awaken out of the illusion of separateness.
This episode of Here and Now is part two of a talk by Ram Dass and Stephen Levine in San Francisco in the 1980s during the AIDS crisis. Don’t miss part one: Ep. 268 – The Heart of Healing. In this recording:
- Ram Dass talks about how we are being healed out of our separateness through our shared caring and our shared heart. Everything in our lives, including the process of dying, is an opportunity to grow. He explores how we need to shift our perspectives to touch the possibility that we are more than our bodies.
- Stephen addresses the AIDS crisis and the sense of anger and self-hatred that gathers around the pain people experience as they come closer to death. He shares the powerful story of one AIDS patient he was working with who started to meet his pain with loving kindness instead of with hatred.
- Ram Dass talks about opening not just to physical pain but to psychological pain as well. He shares some of the heavy learning he’s had to do in order to allow himself to need help from others. To do the work he really wanted to do, Ram Dass needed to acknowledge the fullness of his own humanity first.
“And at the simplest level, I’d say the statement is the antidote to burnout is the perspective that you are a growing being and that everything, including your own life and your own death, and approaching death, is an opportunity to grow.” – Ram Dass
