Ep. 310 – The Mainline Reality Trip

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

In this 1976 lecture from Roger Williams University, Ram Dass uses the metaphor of navigating subway stairs during rush hour to explore the tension between individual awareness

Key takeaways

• Societal momentum can be so powerful that even clear awareness is overwhelmed by collective behavior.
• Spiritual growth often involves being 'on the leading edge'—feeling isolated or labeled as strange because one is ahead of cultural norms.

Main topics

• The metaphor of subway stairs as a representation of societal conformity versus spiritual awareness
• The nature of 'mainline reality'—a life driven by intellect, control, power, and material gratification

Notable quotes

"There was no way that I could go up the stairs at all. I just could hold on to keep from being swept back down into the balls of the earth."

"When suddenly everybody's going along with me, I think, uh-oh, I got lazy or I got sloppy or I just blew it."

Conclusion

Ram Dass concludes by emphasizing that spiritual awakening is both accessible and deeply

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:01) This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. You've heard us talk about BetterHelp for a long time now, but we haven't talked enough about how much people really love this service when they use it. Check it out for yourself at betterhelp.com slash reviews and see what people are saying in real time. The reviews are updated every day with hundreds of people talking about how useful BetterHelp has been for them. This feedback from people who have actually used the service speaks for itself. More than 6 million people have used BetterHelp globally. The consistent feedback from real users makes it easy to see why so many people continue to choose BetterHelp. See the reviews, see what stands out, and see if BetterHelp is right for you. Visit betterhelp.com slash ramdas. That's better. H-E-L-P dot com slash Ram Dass. Speaker 2 (1:10) A good meditation teacher isn't just someone who meditates a lot. Helping someone work with their own mind is a genuine skill, and it requires training. Join Buddhist teacher David Nickturn for a free online talk on Tuesday, August 25th at 6 p.m. Eastern Time. Drawing on more than 50 years of practice and teaching, David will explore what it takes to offer clear meditation instruction, listen deeply, guide meaningful discussion, and share the teachings in your own voice. You'll also learn about Dharma Moon's upcoming 100-hour mindfulness meditation teacher training offered in partnership with Tibet House US, the Dalai Lama's cultural center in the United States. You'll have a chance to meet the teaching team, ask questions, and find out whether the program is right for you. Visit dharmamoon.com backslash path to learn more and reserve your spot for this free online event on August 25th. Speaker 1 (2:25) my experience was primarily That I was on the main line of reality. and that there were all these kind of weird trips on either side, but that I, as a super scientist, rational mind, power control, house full of antiques, my airplane, my motorcycle, gratification, more and more sex, more and better food, more power, more intellect, I was doing the mainline reality trip. And I was hired to tell everybody else what reality was. Okay, that's what a Harvard professor does. Speaker 1 (3:07) And there was no doubt in my mind at all that that's what reality was. Speaker 1 (3:13) until I took psilocybin. Speaker 3 (3:22) Welcome to another Ram Dass Here and Now. This is episode 310, The Main Line Reality Trip. So today's lecture comes from a retreat Ram Dass gave at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island in June of 1976. So these are still the early days of his teachings, and he's asking those deeply profound questions, which are still so relevant today. How do we understand the forces shaping our lives without becoming trapped by them? So he begins with an ordinary moment, and it opens him into this much larger question about power structures and how and when they change. And from there, he looks at some of these powerful energies moving through human beings. Our need for safety, our hunger for control, our relationship to sex and power, and the many ways the ego disguises itself as reality. And nearly 50 years later, the language and the names may belong to another era, but dynamics are still so loud and all around us. And if we're honest, maybe within us. Underneath all of it is the question Ram Dass kept returning to throughout his life. What are we doing here? Why have we taken birth at this particular moment? And how might we use this incarnation as fully and consciously as we can. These are the questions at the heart of the work being done by our sponsor today as well, Omega Institute. Omega creates spaces for people to step outside the momentum of ordinary life and listen more deeply to themselves, to one another, and to what this life might be asking of us. So discover their retreats and their incredible workshops all in the New York Hudson Valley. Go to eomega.org. But for now, let's just take 40 minutes and dive into these important questions with Ram Dass here Speaker 2 (5:24) and now. Speaker 1 (5:32) This is Ram Dass. Speaker 1 (5:35) And the show is called Here and Now with Ram Dass. Speaker 1 (5:46) Those of you that are familiar with a large metropolitan Speaker 1 (5:52) Subway system. Speaker 1 (5:56) For example, in Manhattan. Speaker 1 (6:00) There are on the corners of streets these long stairways that go down into the bowels of the earth we're Speaker 1 (6:10) The Subways Run. Speaker 1 (6:14) And sometimes when you're... They're a very efficient way to travel most of the time Speaker 1 (6:22) They just get very crowded around rush hour. Around five o'clock. Speaker 1 (6:29) And, um... Speaker 1 (6:31) So if you want to beat rush hour, sometimes you go like a quarter of five. and Speaker 1 (6:42) I recall a very vivid experience of going down one of these long, long, long stairways that are very dark and full of odors. And you go down and down and down and down and down. And at quarter five, and I was beating the rush, and I was very exhilarated with my... shrewdness and planning this maneuver and I got to the bottom and there was a saw horse a barrier saying This entrance is closed Use the entrance on the diagonal corner Speaker 1 (7:15) So I started up the stairs, but at that point, the five o'clock rush started. And there was this ocean of humanity coming down, and I started up. And the first few people, I attempted to say to them, there's a barrier down there and you've got to go around. And they looked at me like I was insane. Or they didn't even look at me or they looked through me because they were with glazed eyes. They were going towards the bowels of the earth. And there was no way that I, and all I could do was hold on to the rail, actually. I mean, it got so powerful, there was no chance that I could go up the stairs at all. I just could hold on to keep from being swept back down into the balls of the earth. And it was only after a certain crisis had occurred, when a few hundred started to come up and several hundred were coming down, that the power structure changed and I could get enough momentum to get up the stairs again. well Speaker 1 (8:20) For many of us who are on the spiritual path, Speaker 1 (8:25) life is a little like that. That you seem to know something that somebody else doesn't know and when you try to tell anybody You are lucky if you can hold on to the rail at all because the force of society, the force of most beings towards whatever it is that they are motivated towards. is so strong and so one-pointed. It's one-pointed in the same way as you become one-pointed towards getting back up those stairs. Speaker 1 (9:03) Now, um... Speaker 1 (9:08) for the past 15 years or so, Speaker 1 (9:12) I've always managed by some Speaker 1 (9:18) quirk of evolutionary. Speaker 1 (9:26) unfolding. to be at that leading edge where it's Where I'm always thought to be just kind of weird because it's going against the flow of things. And then by the time the flow is going that way, I'm on some other stairway holding on to dear life. Speaker 1 (9:47) And I've begun to feel almost that if I'm not on that stairway holding on, I'm in the wrong place. See, when suddenly everybody's going along with me, I think, uh-oh, I got lazy or I got sloppy or I just blew it. Um, Speaker 1 (10:05) And, um... Speaker 1 (10:08) There are mass movements that are happening in this society at this moment, concerned with consciousness. Speaker 1 (10:18) but they aren't necessarily connected with liberation. Speaker 1 (10:24) And I think that distinction will make you appreciate that what you're doing here is much more holding onto the handrail than you quite understand yet. Speaker 1 (10:36) because taking a fix on your evolutionary predicament Uh... is extremely useful as long as you don't get caught in your own melodrama because this is just another melodramatic storyline I'm presenting to you. Speaker 1 (10:55) who you are isn't really ultimately that relevant. It's what each moment is about. But it's still useful to get a little bit of a fix about your predicament. Speaker 1 (11:09) it appears that the the physical plane, the earth plane, on which we are incarnating and which other beings may be incarnating on other planets as well. all of the physical planes. Speaker 1 (11:26) Where beings incarnate in bodies that are visible physically Speaker 1 (11:33) Those planes exist. specifically for certain entities that have certain kinds of what are called sanskaras. or certain kinds of predispositions or certain kinds of karmic predicaments. Speaker 1 (11:55) There are many many more beings that exist in the cosmos Speaker 1 (12:01) than our being incarnated, than our incarnate on the physical plane, no matter how big the population gets of the earth. I mean, four billion is nothing compared to the number of entities that exist, and that's only human entities, let alone trees and rocks and so on, which are all entities also. Speaker 1 (12:23) the complexity and exquisiteness of the cosmos. and the the unfolding of the evolution of each separate entity. is uh if there's no word you can't say breathtaking or awful or