On this dharma speak from the Nineties, Ram Dass speaks about shifting contexts to shift consciousness, cultivating the Witness to curb our reactivity and coming into the state generally known as choiceless consciousness.
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Shifting Contexts
Ram Dass begins with a dialogue on the phantasm of somebody-ness and the journey to extricate ourselves from the lure of self. He explores how there are processes that use the thoughts to beat the thoughts, together with workouts resembling Zen koans. Utilizing the story of the Bhagavad Gita, Ram Dass reveals us how shifting contexts might help us shift our consciousness.
“There’s one other approach of utilizing the thoughts to beat the thoughts via research, via finding out techniques which slowly modify the system you had been working in. You retain shifting contexts for actuality.” – Ram Dass
Ram Dass and Alan Watts share among the important teachings from the Gita in Right here and Now Ep. 195
Increased Knowledge and the Human Coronary heart (20:25)
Ram Dass talks about how innately reactive we’re as people, bringing within the idea of the Witness, which is the a part of the thoughts we use to watch the remainder of the thoughts. He explores how utilizing the Witness might help curb our reactivity, particularly within the face of struggling and dying. Ram Dass talks in regards to the play between his human coronary heart and better knowledge.
“So I’m confronted with the dilemma of getting these two elements of myself: my human coronary heart is doing what it could possibly to alleviate your struggling, and my greater knowledge is simply watching the entire present. And since that greater knowledge exists, I don’t burn out within the decrease a part of me.” – Ram Dass
Jack Kornfield talks about changing into the loving witness in Coronary heart Knowledge Ep. 142
Choiceless Consciousness (41:25)
Ram Dass ends with a short dialogue of the extra superior levels of this observe, after we get quiet sufficient in order that the Witness witnesses itself, and we will witness the Witness witnessing. When this occurs, we will enter the state generally known as choiceless consciousness.
“And if the thoughts is disciplined sufficient, as a substitute of an infinite regression, it flips via and also you go into what is named choiceless consciousness, which is an altered state of consciousness… It’s just like the sky towards which the clouds of thought are coming and going. It’s the bottom. It’s who you might be while you end being who you assume you might be. It’s choiceless consciousness. It’s presence. It’s the Samadhi state. And you then’re not witnessing anymore, since you’re not realizing it as object, you’re simply being all the things in absolute quietness. After which out of that comes motion.” – Ram Dass
JoAnna Hardy dives deeper into the idea of choiceless consciousness in BHNN Visitor Podcast Ep. 99