Ep. 309 – Playing Your Part

Ram Dass Here And Now - Ram Dass / Love Serve Remember

In this episode of Ram Dass Here and Now, titled 'Playing Your Part,' Ram Dass reflects on the importance of embracing one's role in life without seeking

Key takeaways

• Ram Dass highlights the importance of playing one's part in life without seeking recognition or specialness.
• He shares a story about a bus driver who may have done more good than the Buddha through his presence and service.

Main topics

• The importance of playing one's part in life
• The value of service and presence over recognition

Notable quotes

I think much dearer to my heart and much more feeding to my spirit is feeling like I'm part of a process of light, of Dharma, of opening of all of us.

Conclusion

This episode offers profound insights into the importance of embracing

Transcript preview

Speaker 1: Speaker 1 (0:01) This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. We talk about mental health more openly now than we used to as a society, but asking for help can still feel hard. BetterHelp's latest research confirms it. BetterHelp's 26th State of Stigma Report surveyed 2,000 Americans and revealed that 85% of Americans believe getting support is wise. Yet 74% say society discourages people for, doing so. That's a pretty big gap between people who believe in getting help and those who actually seek it out. Don't let social structures define your own sense of well-being. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform. They do the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash romdoss. That's Better, H-E-L-P dot com slash rom-dos. Each of us has very fragile and delicate egos and they have so preoccupied our consciousnesses. But I want to keep affirming for you that more than your specialness, more significant still, is the way in which you are. are unique as part of a totality. I really see us all as having work on earth that's equally important. We just have different parts to play. Speaker 1: Welcome back to Ram Dass here and now. This is episode 309, Playing Your Part. So this talk comes from a retreat Ram Dass gave at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, on June 21, 1986. And Omega Institute and Ram Dass, they go way back. He taught there for years. And he called it two institutions in one, because not only are there participants on a path of awakening, but the staff is as well. And the whole spirit runs through this episode. So Ram Dass starts, he includes that classic bus driver story, how a driver who showed up fully for every passenger might have done more good than the Buddha in a lifetime of teaching. And it's a reminder that how we are being matters more than what we believe. And from there, he gets into the idea that we're all playing a part on some stage, and the quieter we get, the more clearly we can hear what part is actually ours, authentically ours. Forty years later, none of this wisdom has aged out. We're still scrolling past 10 causes before breakfast, still watching good people leave jobs and relationships because the structures eat them alive. And Ram Dass hands us perennial wisdom that helps us find our way through. It's fitting that this was recorded at Omega because they are also bringing us today's episode. They have been bringing teachers and seekers together in the Hudson Valley for almost 50 years. And so highly encourage you to check them out. go to E-O-Mega, that's the letter E-Oega.org, and see what's on the horizon. And with that, here's Ram Dass, live from Omega, 1986, here and now. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. We talk about mental health more openly now than we used to as a society, but asking for help can still feel hard. BetterHelp's latest research confirms it. BetterHelp's 2026 State of Stigma Report, surveyed 2,000 Americans and revealed that 85% of Americans believe getting support is wise. Yet 74% say society discourages people from doing so. That's a pretty big gap between people who believe in getting help and those who actually seek it out. Don't let social structures define your own sense of well-being. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform. They do the initial matching work for you, so you can focus on your therapy goals. Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash romdos. That's BetterHelp.com slash Ram-Dass. Speaker 1: This is Ram Dass, and the show is called Here and Now with Ram Dass. Bewelmed by the beauty of this moment, softness of the day, and the coming together of a group of beings who are exploring their own beings and reaching to understand the truths of our existence and open to the love. I think this is one of the moments when I sense what Omega is about, because the fact that it has created this space in which we can be together in this celebration, in this acknowledgement, in this effort, in this journey. Speaker 1: It's interesting because when you look at recognition as being the reward for your work, I certainly get a lot of recognition, tremendous amount of recognition. But I see as sweet as that is that it isn't really the essence. of the matter for me. I think much dearer to my heart and much more feeding to my spirit is feeling like I'm part of I'm part of a process of of light, of Dharma, of opening of all of us. Yesterday when I was meeting with the staff of Omega we were talking about one of the people who does the room service was talking about cleaning a sink. Now those people that clean, they leave, and then the other people come the guests, and they don't know somebody clean. They don't think about that. There's no recognition in that level. And yet available to that person is the same thing that most turns me on, which is feeling part of an organism that is healing. It's healing myself. It's healing the people I may contact with. It's healing. It's healing. It's healing the the universe of forms. Each of us has very fragile and delicate egos, and they have so preoccupied our consciousnesses. But I want to keep affirming for you that more than your specialness, more significant still, is the way in which you are unique as part of a totality. I really see us all as having work on earth that's equally important. We just have different parts to play. You look at your life, whichever life it is. I always remember this bus driver on 3rd Avenue. This was a time in 1969, I believe, when I was giving my first series of lectures at the Sculptor Studio after I came back from India. Some of you were even there. And I was living in an apartment down in the middle of town, and I'd go uptown every day at the same time. And it turned out I got the same bus driver every day. And it was rush hour. And I would get onto this huge box that was being moved through this incredible snarl of traffic. And I would meet this being who just in the way he handled the bus, in the way he recognized each person that got on the bus, in the way he remained so cool through it all. People tired from the work of the day, I think that everybody that got on that bus could be touched by that man. and many were because you could feel the lightness on the bus. And I thought about each of those people then going home to be with partners or be with family or be alone. And I thought about the tiny pebble that that bus driver was dropped into the ocean of consciousness and going out and out and out and out and out. It's interesting to think of where would Buddha come if Buddha were going to. That bus driver makes confidence. contact with more people in Buddha made in his whole lifetime. I think that our culture focuses so much on specialness on being somebody that we often have veiled from us the preciousness of the other parts of our being that aren't the third chakra. And I go from little microcosms to big macrocosms. I mean, I think of the Omega Staff as one family. And then I think of all of us gathered on this land. who are all together out of some reaching and some yearning staff and participants as a family. And then I think of all the groups we are part of as the extended family. And then we share consciousness in nation states, and that's another family. And we're part of an ecosystem, still another family. In each of these we have a unique role to play. When Paul spoke yesterday and he talked about, our social action and our that call to be counted as a voice in shaping the policies that affect the well-being of all human beings the quieter I get the more I hear the appropriateness of playing a part on each of the stages doesn't have to be a big part doesn't have to be an out-front part it just has to be a part that when an issue comes a letter to a senator It doesn't have to be answered or acknowledge it can come back dear Mr. Doss. It's okay. It's not an ego trip. It's just being part of the human condition. It's a little check written. It's tithing of my money. It's when my cousin calls and says they're upset, my seeing it because I'm part of that family. And when somebody with AIDS calls, I see them because I'm part of that family. Speaker 1: And then there's the Hindu temple and I feel part of that family. And this year I'm going to speak at the 92nd Street, with Zalman Shakhter because I'm a Jew I'm part of that family and I go to Nepal to work with the blind and help in the SAVA foundation because I feel part of that family and in each one listening listening to hear what part do you play you need this sure you need that okay not so busy defining yourself I do this this is who I am my major concern is mothers against drunk drivers I'm not interested in anything else. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. You can't turn off all the rest of your incarnation. There are stages and there are cycles in the whole process so that sometimes you turn inward and that's what the work is for the moment and you have to pull back. And then other times you go out and you spread yourself and then it's too thin. You've lost too much because you haven't got yet the resources to let go and to do it without attachment and you get depleted and then you pull back in and you spiral through the process of life listening listening because part of what your responsibility is is to maintaining that that light that little light i think the concept of