Ep. 288 – Opening to Death

Ep. 288 – Opening to Death

Author: Ram Dass / Love Serve Remember October 6, 2025 Duration: 41:09

Ram Dass explores facing fears of the future as we age, opening up to the mystery of death, and seeing dying as a window of opportunity for awakening.

Ram Dass Here & Now is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/ramdass and get on your way to being your best self.

Go to magicmind.com/ramdass or use the code RAMDASS for up to 48% off your first subscription or 20% off one-time purchases at checkout 

This episode of Here and Now comes from a talk Ram Dass gave in August 1995 as part of an aging study group. If you’re interested in stepping even deeper into the mystery of aging and death, check out Love Serve Remember Foundation’s new course: Walking Each Other Home

  • Ram Dass begins with a brief meditation centered around the words of Dudjom Rinpoche. It’s used as an example of how we can learn from these powerful texts. 
  • Ram Dass discusses facing future fears as we age and how death has begun to emerge from the cultural closet. For him, death is an incredible movement of consciousness into the mystery; it’s a window of opportunity.
  • Ram Dass explores dealing with pain as we age and face death. He shares the story of a friend who created an incredible space for the process of her death, rather than being in a space where there was denial around the idea of death. He urges us to remain students of the mystery of life and death.
  • Ram Dass ends by reading a series of quotes about death and near-death experiences. He talks about opening to death and making friends with it, rather than seeing it as a dreaded, dark hole. 


The Ram Dass community gathers regularly to engage in meaningful discussions about the podcast. We invite you to join us and share your curiosities, insights, and wisdom. Sign up for the General Fellowship to receive event invitations directly in your inbox.

About Ram Dass:

Ram Dass’s spirit has been a guiding light for generations, carrying millions along on the journey. Ram Dass teaches that through the Bhakti practice of unconditional love, we can all connect with our true nature. Through these teachings, Ram Dass has shared a little piece of his guru, Maharaj-ji, with all who have listened to him.

“It’s like the moment of birth, the moment of death, it’s the same thing; it’s an incredible movement of consciousness into the mystery. It’s a window of opportunity. Every death or every birth I’m present at is like a gift from God, as far as I’m concerned.” – 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. 56 - Orgasm and Transcendence [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:00
At the moment of orgasm, you transcend your separateness and there is a moment when you merge together. For most people that is the direct route to a spiritually transcendent state. What you learn to do in a lot of yoga…
Ep. 55 - Sex and Spirituality [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:40
The more evolved you become spiritually, the less boundaries there are between my energy and THE energy. When your energy is used in a way that is destructive, meaning that it creates suffering to you and other people an…
Ep. 54 - Invite not the Future [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:03
Can we take anticipated future suffering and turn it into something that enriches the present moment? For those of us who want to approach future suffering with some degree of equanimity, mindfulness and open heartedness…
Ep. 53 - Devotion and the Guru [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:40
The Guru as a separate entity only exists within the illusion of separateness - the minute “it" has worked to awaken you - “it" ceases to be anything. It’s a self destruct mechanism. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.c…
Ep. 52 - Transcending Individual Differences [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:14
When you are no longer laying trips on anyone, not judging, or discriminating individual differences, you become the environment in which the optimum growth is available to all human beings you come into contact with. Se…
Ep. 51 - Greed & Consciousness [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:17
Most people in society are pushing away experiences that indicate that they have an identity on other planes of reality, in order to hold tightly to the plane of reality that they are comfortable with. A liberated being…
Ep. 50 - Sharon Salzberg Pt. 2: Loving Kindness [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:41
"Loving kindness is the spirit of friendship toward yourself." - Sharon Salzberg "Interdependence is not romantic, but it's the truth of things - that our lives have something to do with one another." - Sharon Salzberg S…
Ep. 49 - Sharon Salzberg [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:02:51
There are tools and techniques that one can make use of to have a happier life - and these tools do not require a belief system. It’s about the possibility of re-training the condition of the mind in a way so that old pa…
Ep. 48 - Living the Mystery [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:10:07
The process is realizing that you and I exist on more than one plane of awareness simultaneously and on one plane suffering stinks, and on another plane suffering is grace. And the question is, "Can you balance those two…
Ep. 47 - Universal Energy and Miracles [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:18
What's awesome is the amount of energy that is available to a human being. The paradox is, as long as you are a somebody you are dealing with a finite amount of energy that is able to function through somebody-ness. Only…