Challenging Core Tenants Of Human Belief & Consciousness w/ Spiritual Teacher Ram Dass & Parvati Markus

As humans, we are governed by our core beliefs, many of which we aren’t even aware of. There are so many things we believe to be true and so many foundational concepts of our perception we never question. So in this episode, we’re going to question them. Ram Dass was an American Spiritual teacher, psychologist, and writer. He gained popularity in the early 1960s by bringing concepts of consciousness and spirituality from India, to America.  His book, "Be Here Now" is a spiritual classic selling over two million copies. He began as a professor at Harvard before being fired along with Timothy Leary for experimenting and advocating the use of psychedelics. Now, as a proper Christian, I was fairly unaware of Ram Dass. That is until the winter of 2024 when my Dad, Dan Miller of 48 Days To The Work & Life You Love fame, was diagnosed with cancer. During the six weeks between his diagnosis and ultimate death, he had little interest in any topic other than spirituality. And one of the people he tuned into was Ram Dass. My brother Jared and my Dad would pull up YouTube videos of Ram Dass and I got my first real exposure. My spiritual journey since then has been nothing short of revelatory. And such was my delight when the giant publisher, Harper, contacted me about doing a show on a new book from Ram Dass. What it ended up being was a new book compiled from over 50 talks Ram Dass conducted, compiled and edited by Parvati Markus, who was at the right hand of Ram Dass since the beginning of his spiritual leadership. Parvati is an author of multiple books on spirituality and one of the closest long term friends to Ram Dass that ever existed. In this episode Parvati joins me to talk through key issues Ram discusses such as our human propensity, especially in western cultures, to think in terms of “us” vs “them.” We discuss Judgement vs appreciation. Then attachments and the danger of what we cling to. And we spend a lot of time talking about the dangers of identifying with our roles, which for much of humanity, again, I think exaggerated in our western culture, is all that we know to identify with. The new book, which I’ve read front to back twice now, is There Is No Other: The Way to Harmony and Wholeness. Connect more at ramdass.org. Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices