...Listen to your heart, you will know what is good for you.
Ram Dass
"Why am I here and what am I supposed to be doing with this incarnation", is probably the biggest existential questions out there next to "Who am I?" I know it is something I am always pondering, especially recently. How do we know what our "dharma" is?
I can try to answer that question by taking what I learned so far and regurgitating back to you what felt good in my heart. :) Being that I just listened to this talk from Ram Dass today, I will be echoing a lot of what I heard...the parts that made sense that is, those gems of wisdom that resonated within me, as most of it did.
Who we are not...
I think the first part to answering that question is to attempt to explain who we are, or more importantly, who we are not. We are conditioned to believe, as Dass and others including A Course in Miracles teaches, we are these seperate little "packages" of body, mind and personality randomly plopped here or there for a finite number of years. These packages, we come to believe, are things we need to defend and protect at all costs from all the other separate packages out there. Sometimes we even need to attack. We defend and attack through our judgment faculties and interpretations of our perceptions, which are created based on our memories and stored samskaras. We spend our lives deciding what is "good, bad, should be", as we open up enough to pull all the wanted into our experience, clinging to "that stuff" with all our might. We also spend our finite time here deciding what is "bad, wrong, and shouldn't be" ...closing down, resisting and doing everything we can to push that stuff away. Of course, pushing away means stuffing down and that stuff gets stored within us, coloring our perceptions, triggering our reactions to life as it is constantly being pulled back up by life events. We create the psyches, the personality, the "me" we think we are when we do this.
As this package of "me" we then assume roles that we believe will enhance this me. We look about at the other packages in their roles and we judge and decide if they are good or bad, right or wrong based on these outward packages and what they are "doing" or "not doing". We mistakenly believe this is who we are and who the other is. We mistakenly believe our dharma is to find a life-job for this superficial little entity.
Dass reminds us that the idea we have of me is not who we are. It is just the outer packaging. What we see in the other is often not who they are...just the outer packaging. Our dharma then, is not about what this outer package does or doesn't do. It is what the being inside is and what it wants this package to do while here, in its service. Hmm!
Look behind the mask and make contact with that being and not demand they be anything but what they are
Get Quiet Enough to Hear
Next , in order to understand our dharma is...what we should or could be doing in the service of God and the universe while here, we need to get quiet; we need to become still; we need to detach ourselves a bit from the drama "me" is playing in and listen with our whole heart as to what part of the dance we are meant to be taking part in.
...follow your natural course but stay quiet enough to hear what that is...
...when you quiet down you will hear your dharma...what your part is to play
....there is no single form...the game is to be what you need to be...follow your natural course but stay quiet enough to hear what that is...don't "head trip your way through"
Choose a Practice that Works Best for You
How do we quiet down? Well that, of course, is our personal sadhana, our practice. The means of quieting down are many. And though the paths are plenty, you have to decide which one feels right for you. What helps you to quiet down the most? Maybe you need a sangha, a congregation, a group... or maybe you are like me and quiet down better in solitude and aloneness? Maybe you quiet down in church or in the woods, with prayer or with some form of activity? Experiment with different philosophies and techniques. I practice yoga, I meditate, I try to surround myself with nature but there is something that instantly touches me and seems to bring me directly to peace when I listen to Buddhist masters like Thich Nhat Hanh teach. I am still working on quieting down and listening.
Stay Behind, Do Not Get Lost in the Forefront
Remember to detach a bit from the going ons of the physical world and to stay behind the package with all its entanglements and compulsions. It can so easily pull us away from the true Self into the melodramas of the false self if we do not stay aware. We have to play the game but we do it from behind the scene.
The game only gets harmonious when, though we play the game fully, we are sitting behind it, ever present, with no attachment...total involvement with no attachment.
We also have to detach from outcomes
Even if our role is to be a Boddhisattva...to do whatever we can to end suffering, we need to realize that suffering will not end. Suffering serves a purpose. Our dharma, then, is to do whatever we can to end suffering without being attached to whether or not suffering ends.
All Parts Serve a Purpose.
We need to also detach from our judgements of these packages of self or other as good or evil. Someone on the surface, who seems so self or other destructive , playing out some heavy karma and possibly even harming others...is still playing a valuable part. We need both the bodhisattvas and those who are taking part in the Shiva aspect of God ( destruction, chaos etc) for the dance to continue,
Dass talks about a renown Buddhist lama who wore the packaging of an alcoholic sex offender while he taught the dharma. Dass explains how he would often look into the eyes of this often judged "inappropriate and evil" dharma teacher, past the mask of his behaviours and addiction, to see the being that we all share. That being was pure and had every right to speak the dharma even though his outward form of personality and body was a mess. It was the form that was playing out his karma and the Being, behind the form, that was fulfilling Its dharma.
Look at the 'Awful Mess" and Be Awe-filled
When we have achieved enough space between Self and self...when we observe our experiences from behind the scenes, we will see tremendous suffering around us: many unconscious beings being pulled by the compulsions of their forms, poverty, illness, pain, depression, loneliness and death. We need to remember that it is all part of the dance.
Once there is that little space you become in awe of the total exiguitness of the design of it all...become aware of the "awful ( awe-filled) compassion" of it all
It is the art of a warrior to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man. Don Juan
Don't Resist the Suffering. Go Into the Market Place and Burn
It isn't you as the being that suffers. It is just the outer packaging that will burn away in the fire of suffering and we want it to burn away. We want the Being beneath the mess we made calling the shots, don't we?
Suffering is grace...telling us we have a secret stash of attachment hidden somewhere.
The process is taking the stuff of daily life and giving space to just how it is and taking that energy and converting it and working with it...working with your desires, working with your loneliness...depression etc
Stay in Tune With the Philosophy of Richness
The philosophy of riches says...I am what I am and here it is and here we all are being just what we are and it is enough..and when we will be something else we will be something else....giving space to your being as it is.
"How do we fulfill our dharma"... in a nutshell?
Listen to your heart, learn who you are, and be it.
All is well
ACIM
Ram Dass/ Be Here an Now Network (March ? 2023) Ram Dass: Hearing Your Dharma, Hearing Your Part-Here and Now Ep220 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLGI0l_GmFU&t=2s
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