Ep. 227 – Awareness Without Identification

Ep. 227 – Awareness Without Identification

Author: Ram Dass / Love Serve Remember June 5, 2023 Duration: 45:18

In this Q&A session from 1993, Ram Dass explores an array of topics, including psychedelics as a method, assisted suicide, dealing with suffering, and awareness without identification.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/ramdass

In this episode, Ram Dass answers questions about:

- Psychedelics as a method

- Assisted suicide

- Emptiness and form

- Dealing with suffering

- The relationship between the One and the many

- Liberation and service

- Awareness without identification and attachment

- The concept of criticism

- Pushing against form and separateness

This podcast is also sponsored by Apollo Neuro. Developed by neuroscientists and physicians, the Apollo™ wearable uses touch therapy to rebalance your nervous system and support your circadian rhythm, allowing you to sleep better, focus more efficiently, and even meditate with ease.

Get $40 off your purchase today using code BEHERENOW and tap into a calmer, better rested, more focused version of you.

“The term attachment has to do with where the awareness is, what it’s identified with. Like, at this moment, your heart is beating, but you’re not beating your heart; your awareness isn’t connected with your heart beating, it’s just going on. And as your awareness draws back, and you find a way to start to remain in awareness without identification, then the phenomena of the universe continue to happen, but the awareness is no longer identified with the act. It’s what the Gita calls breaking the identification with being the actor. It doesn’t mean that the actions aren’t happening.” – Ram Dass

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.


The voice of Ram Dass carries a unique and enduring warmth, a blend of profound spiritual insight and grounded, often humorous, humanity. Ram Dass Here And Now is a curated archive of this wisdom, drawing from a rich tapestry of lectures recorded over four decades. Each episode is a focused journey into themes of consciousness, love, service, and the intricate paths of awakening, all filtered through Ram Dass's distinctive heart-centered perspective. The podcast is presented by the Love Serve Remember Foundation, with longtime friend and director Raghu Markus providing contextual introductions that connect these timeless talks to our contemporary moment. Listeners will find themselves immersed in conversations that weave together Eastern philosophy, particularly from the Hindu and Bhakti traditions, with practical Western psychology, exploring how spiritual principles manifest in everyday life, relationships, and societal challenges. It’s less a formal lecture and more an intimate, meandering dialogue with a wise elder, offering reflections that feel both ancient and immediately relevant. This isn't about dogma, but about the shared, often messy, human experience of seeking meaning and connection. To spend time with this podcast is to encounter a gentle guide, one who points persistently toward the present moment, toward compassion, and toward the recognition of our shared essence.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 307

Ram Dass Here And Now
Podcast Episodes
Ep. 96 - Trust, Contentment and the Guru [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:58
Raghu and Ram Dass do a live hang out on Skype. Raghu reminds Ram Dass of the first moment they met in Montreal and how that moment defined a trust for him that led to meeting the Guru. Ram Dass talks about his first enc…
Ep. 95 - Plumbing the Depths of the Mystery [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:50
Ram Dass talks about the value and limits of psychedelics – when they can enhance the spiritual path and when there can be risks. From ancient times there has been the idea of an elixir sometimes called Soma and the use…
Ep. 94 - Tracing our Spiritual Journey [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:49
In tracing our spiritual journey, we have gone from a psychological, economic and political universe into a spiritual universe. And in the course of that transition, we have rejected the psychological, economic and polit…
Ep. 93 - The Thinking Mind [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:24
Ram Dass illuminates the trap that many of us fall into as we grow up - which is the idea that we are our thoughts. The more accurate view would be, "I am and I think.” Thinking is a power that we have - “Intellect is a…
Ep. 92 - Creating Our Universe [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:56
Ram Dass brings up a meeting he had with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche during which Rinpoche said to him, "We have to accept responsibility,” to which Ram Dass replied, "God has all the responsibility,” and Rinpoche replied,…
Ep. 91 - More Profound Than Miracles [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:00
Ram Dass tells the story of Maharaji arranging the reunion of a barber and his son by appearing in two places at one time and says, "More profound than miracles is the quality of His presence - His unconditional love was…
Ep. 90 - Conscious Parenting [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:04
The Bhagavad Gita says, “The greatest birth is in a family of Yogis.” That would reflect people who are not caught so much in the illusion of separateness. Small children, when in the presence of parents who are spacious…
Ep. 89 - Edge of the Mystery [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:31
Ram Dass talks about being socialized out of any recognition of who we were. Everyone wants to believe they are who they think they are. Through the use of psychedelics we recognized we'd been had. Where your mind is in…
Ep. 88 - 'Love Everyone' Book Interviews [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:09:03
On this special Here and Now podcast, we feature our new book ‘Love Everyone’, stories of the Westerners who heard about Neem Karoli Baba through Ram Dass and went to meet him. The author, Parvati Markus, introduces some…
Ep. 87 - Calling Down Grace [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:49
Everybody that has asked to be free has called down upon themselves Grace; that is through their Guru, Guide, Guardian Angel or Spiritual Friend. That being, whomever it may be, is your guide to liberation. This is calle…