Ep. 283 – Your Karma Defines Your Dharma

Ep. 283 – Your Karma Defines Your Dharma

Author: Ram Dass / Love Serve Remember August 5, 2025 Duration: 53:55

In this recording from a 1992 retreat, Ram Dass talks about dealing with change, using the stuff of your daily life to get free, and how your karma defines your dharma. 

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This episode of Here and Now is from a talk Ram Dass gave during a retreat at the Omega Foundation in 1992. 

  • Beginning with quotes from the great poets Kabir and Rumi, Ram Dass talks about how you start to work with each thing in your life as a method, as a practice. What you’ve got in life becomes what you work with, so your karma defines your dharma.
  • Ram Dass brings up the constant changes we’re dealing with in terms of ecology, politics, and how living in “interesting times” can be seen as a blessing instead of a curse. “In dealing with these changes that are going down,” he says, “part of the real art is to look at what is changing and see how your identification with that which changes is creating so much fear in you that you’re pushing against change.”
  • Continuing with his exploration of change, Ram Dass brings aging and death into the mix. He digs into dealing with changes to the body as we age, and how his work with people who are dying is really work on himself. “For me,” he says, “each act becomes part of the awakening.” 

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“And what you do is you just start flipping and taking what you’re given and start to work with it. In other words, your karma defines your dharma. That means what you got is what you work with. I mean, like, my baldness is my karma. I mean, it’s my genetics, it’s everything. Now, it becomes my dharma. Now, I can use it in order to become free of being bald, or being not bald, or whatever.” – Ram Dass

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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

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