Ram Dass Now

It amazes me that a man who lived and died many thousands of miles away from me and who I never met or was even aware existed until many years after he left his body has always been by my side. I just didn’t notice until my heart made room. Opened.

I had for most of my life been looking outside myself for something, anything that would reconcile the rift between what I felt was real and I saw presented as reality. The world was telling me I had to be or do or have something in order to be loved. What I have since learned is that I can rest in a place of unconditional love and from that place I am free to explore all of the ways of being in the world in a lighter way.

My first conscious introduction to Maharaj-ji came after his death through stories told by Ram Dass. I remember listening to and reading those stories and wishing desperately to be in India dancing and chanting or sitting beside him. I longed to experience that bliss first-hand. It took some time for me to hear the truth in what Ram Dass was saying all along which was that I didn’t have to go anywhere to be there.

That love is always where (and when) I am. Here and now.

After many years of peeling away at the onion of my life and the shedding of a skin that began to constrict my life force  I was ready to notice. Maharaj-ji tapped me on the head and I turned to look in his depth-pool eyes of love. I have not looked away since.

Grace.

My gratitude and awe deepen daily. And the through a series of mind-tweaking, reality- bending Maharaj-ji  lilas and the ongoing flow of support and sustenance offered by teachers, kirtan wallas and fellow travelers on the path I am finding my way of being in the world that is also connected beyond.

In the words of Rumi…“Only from the heart can you touch the sky.”

Maharaj-ji is that connection for me. I keep falling deeper and deeper into his Love…into Love with him…..and I feel him with me in such a very real way that sometimes I think I am insane. I have experienced a deepening of that love in a way I never could have anticipated and I feel myself literally held in his arms. The longing to be near him is insatiable although he is always right where I am. Nothing matters more than my connection to him and that connection permeates every aspect of my life.

And now…even when the next layer of ‘my stuff’ shows up and I forget to let the love be there and I am suffering…I have only to put myself back in his presence …by using the tools I have gathered to move out of my head and into my heart and then there he is time and time again to let me in. My heart is so full of gratitude for the Grace that led me to this path.. my path …and for all of the people who have made themselves available to light the way.  My first hug from Ram Dass back in the early 90′s was like being welcomed home although at the time I had no idea it was Maharaj-ji who embraced me that day.

I know that there are as many different ways to find peace and connection to the divine as there are people on this planet and I believe all are valid and that ultimately lead to one love.

“We’re all just walking each other home”  -Ram Dass

I want my writing to make more sense than it seems to make. But that’s how this trip is: it doesn’t make any sense.

And yet, we know it to be true. On page 16, Ram Dass says, “It’s intuitively valid. Inside you know it’s right.” And so must everything be that shows up on this page tonight. I’ve written this post more times over the last few days than I care to recall. Attempting to plan. Ha!

So as I hear this beautiful song that comes on my Pandora (Devi 2000 singing “Camp Ma Rama”), let’s let this flow . . .

[I wrote these notes on some post-its today while at work at the psych hospital.]

We’re all hallucinating all the time.

****

The point is not to feel better; it is to feel. The depth of this moment is all there is and our folly is to attempt to escape this. We will never be away from the now. [This is how we must die. To every sensation but this moment. To past, to future, to thoughts that think past and future exist at all.]

Scary? Go ahead and be scared. There’s the paradox — having the courage to be scared. I mean, what did I expect, taking on a process such as this? And these processes . . . am I willing to look into that mirror? Whose face will I see back?

****

“Turn around and look at yourself. ” That’s the order we’re being given. “And see who you truly are.” It’s what we’re asking for. By picking up this book and this project, boy are we asking for it.

And I see Ram Dass’s face in the hand-held mirror, and Zach asks, “Who are you now?” and there we are.

****

I’ve written well over a thousand words for this post and have erased all but about 300 at this point. When I get into the pages and into myself, there’s not that much to say.

Once those veils are pulled away, in this human’s experience, there is emptiness and stillness and total aliveness and it can be very, very quiet.

And it can sound like Jerry Garcia’s guitar.

I have faith and I feel it from inside. There’s nothing rational about it.

I watch the circumstances of my life that sometimes look really fucked.

But even to write that I know that what I’ve just written doesn’t make any sense either. How can what is be fucked? How can anything ever be wrong? Now is now. It just is.

See, I’m really grateful for that intuitive knowing that I have, the knowing, that is so far beyond language that I praise the writers and teachers who have been able to express these pointers:  Ram Dass, Rumi, Eckhart Tolle . . .

Without having their guidance, I might think I was even crazier than I already do. I know some other people think I am. I’m pretty sure we all are. Maybe the people in the psych hospital just don’t have a context for what they’re experiencing.

I can’t describe it because it is infinite and uncontainable. It is absolutely everything and it is all right now and it feels really nice and calm and peaceful and I’ll tell you what, boy howdy, sometimes it’s all I have to fall back on. And it never let’s me down.

To know this is faith. To understand that we are always kept in the arms of the Divine Mother. May we go deeply enough during the wild times that we continue to know this truth. Yes, it’s easy to sense the truth when I’m turning on in one of these specific ways (falling in love, yoga, being around a realized being), but what about when everything seems fucked?

Yep. That’s it. Exactly. Right there. Right here.

Peace, y’all.

For more writing from Carin (aka Carina ShantiOm), please visit www.nowstayopen.com.

The flame of love is utterly compelling. When the call goes out, we have no choice but to answer. Those of us who heard the call sent out by a little old man in a blanket were pulled to India—some overland through Europe, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, others by air. I flew from New York to London, spent 10 days hitching through Europe before boarding the last of the cheap Arab charter flights to Bombay, which stopped seven times along the way in exotic places like Abu Dhabi and Cairo (during our 7 hour layover, I visited the pyramids). It was a great adventure halfway around the world, a pilgrimage, the infamous journey to the East.

And there we found total fulfillment. Sitting in front of Maharaj-ji, there was no desire to be anywhere else. Oh, there were plenty of dramas. When the fire of love blazes that brightly, any darkness within casts a deep shadow. There were many tears shed while sitting on a rock in the river that flows behind Kainchi; sad footprints left on the holy parakrama—the sandy path that winds around Brindavan; unwelcome thoughts that stuck to our minds the way our breakfast jalebis stuck to our fingers in Allahabad. And yet the time we spent with him was beyond compare.

We thought it would go on forever. After all, he was eternal. That flame of love can never die. Unfortunately, the body that held that flame left us—bereft, heartbroken, scared. What do we now? How do we go on? He was gone, gone beyond. The only way left to be with him was within.

Those devotees who have heard the call and come to Maharaj-ji since he left his physical body found him inside their own hearts and dreams (many through Be Here Now). I so admire their faith. It’s been much more difficult for those of us who were with him. There was such attachment to that body! What could compare to one heart-melting glance in your direction? What lover could match the sensation of his hand lightly stroking your arm? What prize ever equaled touching his feet? What joy sprang up in the heart simply by hearing him call your name!

I may not remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, but those memories of being with Maharaj-ji are so clear that they have kept pulling me within, in search of that “state of total fulfillment.” Through different forms of meditation over the decades, through fascinating experiences of different cultures, through raising kids and delighting in grandkids, through work and play, and through the dark nights of pain and suffering. The longing, achingly well described in every Rumi poem and quatrain, keeps tugging at the heart.

This is bhakti—the path of love that leads to God like the moth is led to the flame. And so we burn.