This book is based on talks by Ram Dass at the Menninger Foundation in 1970 and at the Spring Grove Hospital in Maryland in 1972. The text grew out of the interaction between Ram Dass and the spiritual seekers in attendance at these talks. The result of this unique exchange is a useful guide for understanding the nature of consciousness--useful both to other spiritual seekers and to formally trained psychologists. It is also a celebration of the Dance of Life--which, in the words of Ram Dass, is the "only dance there is."

based on talks by Ram Dass

interaction between Ram Dass and the spiritual seekers

understanding the nature of consciousness

a celebration of the Dance of Life

useful for spiritual seekers and physcologists

Average Customer Review: ( 14 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.

For reference, the book is a sort of "transcript" of talks given at the menninger Foundation in 1970 and at Spring Grove hospital in 1972.

Here is a classic quote from the book: "I used to hang out with the Mellon Family. The Mellon family is very rich. Each of the parents has 700 million dollars. That's rich in my book. The kids were poor. They each had only 20 million. I hung out with one of these kids who had 20 million dollars and he felt like a bum... That's far out from my point of view."

Ram Dass skillfully uses stories like this to illustrate the spiritual truths that craving objects leads to suffering, that peace of mind lies within, and so on.

Excellent book. Thanks Ram!

15 of 16 found the following review helpful:

It answers many of your questions and asks many more of youApr 13, 2002
By Amit Pande "Sufistically speaking..."
Ram Dass has the remarkable ability to deal with profound topics - the planes of existence, chakras, the nature of Being in his unique, effervescent, frank, and lucid style.
The backdrop of Ram Dass - an acid researching, Harvard psychologist, who went to India for answers to his questions on existence, mysticism, and spirituality, is needless to say, unconventional. I frankly didn't know what to expect from the book. And I was not only surprised beyond my expectations, but also intrigued to a point where I rediscovered many of my latent questions about life.
If you are coming from a path where you've read some of these:
Lobsang Rampa, Aldous Huxley, Blake, Sri Aurobindo, Gurdjeff, or others who try to explain eastern philosophy/mysticism/what lies beyond/Karma/astral travel/the meaning of life, in a manner that we can understand, this is definitely a great book for you.
Good look, I hope the book gives you some "answers" on your quest
!

10 of 10 found the following review helpful:

Good book--to be read with a large grain of saltMar 11, 2008
By Kirk Petersen
Although I generally feel positive about this book, the unqualifiedly positive nature of the other reviews has motivated me to point out some of its short-comings. But I also hope that my criticisms will help defuse the knee-jerk rejection that many empirically-oriented readers might feel toward this book, since I do believe that the book is worthy of being read.

First of all, it is apparent that Ram Dass has forgone the use of critical thinking. For Dass, it seems that any and all ideas have some veracity. Being a former professor at Harvard University, he admits to the validity of genetics and the socialization process in having some impact on the development of character. But at the same time, he seems to favor a 'self' found only at higher, metaphysical planes of existence (inaccessible to some of us). Dass rejects nothing: everything goes.

With critical thinking thrown overboard, many readers will be tempted to skip this book as being too soft, too fuzzy, and too accepting. That would be misguided. Dass has an attitude of unconditional acceptance that has had two distinct advantages. First, it has allowed him access to people, places, and ideas that critically-minded researchers might never have. All people (even gurus in India) are hesitant to share beliefs with others who might find those beliefs repugnant or even ridiculous. It is no secret that the most productive way in getting another person to open up is with an attitude of sincere and unconditional acceptance. Dass has just such an attitude, which allowed him to go far in India.

Second, his attitude also allows us as readers to survey a wide gamut of ideas. After being exposed to those ideas, we can determine for ourselves what we think is valid, what we think is fake and what we think is fluff. Take as an example a kid learning to hit a baseball. What would it mean if you threw only pitches that he could hit? He and you would never learn what he was fully capable of. To do that, you need to throw difficult pitches, many of which he will not hit. But that is ok. Part of a learning experience should be the discovery of outer limits--and you cannot reach those outer limits unless there are failures along the way.

In my own opinion, Dass often exceeds the limits of the believable. In fact, there are many pages of text where I feel that Ram Dass has gone off the deep end and is floundering in incomprehensible waters. But that is ok. I still want to learn about the far-out things that he believes. And I would never know what not to believe unless I heard it at some point. Even then, it is still a mind-expanding experience to learn about far-out things, even if you reject them in the end.

There is another feature of the book that might prove an obstacle to some readers: the miracles. Dass' guru appears in many of these miracle stories: his guru can apparently read minds, engage in remote viewing, and perform other supernatural acts. Stories of the miraculous will leave some readers feeling skeptical and even cynical, and they will simply stop reading. But I found it worthwhile to read though these accounts (which are still entertaining) to reach more meritorious material.

Dass' stories of the miraculous do have possible alterative explanations. Here is one example. Once when Ram Dass arrived at a temple, his guru met him and immediately said that Ram Dass was angry because the women would not get out of the bus to help push. That is exactly what had had happened, and the guru seemed to know this without being there or being told. This appears to be a clear case of telepathy or clairvoyance. But let us suppose this guru is simply a very bright intuitive person. The guru sees Ram Dass' face and immediately intuits anger. He sees Ram Dass' traveling companions, the men looking sweaty and the women appearing neat and dry. He sees the small microbus that carried all these people. And from memory, he knows of the steep hill leading to the temple. The guru then grasps all these disparate elements and intuitively reaches the conclusion that Ram is angry because the women did not help push. The guru's use of such intuition is impressive, yet reference to the miraculous is not needed.

Not all the miraculous stories are subject to such neat alternative explanations. Nevertheless, for other accounts, it could be that Ram Dass did not notice or no longer remembered some crucial fact that would aid in the development of such an explanation. Moreover, it is not that I particularly care about developing an alternative explanation for every event; for me the salient point is that such explanations could be developed. More importantly, I suspect that these gurus are unwittingly engaged in 'cold reading,' the technique used by some psychics of making educated guesses and then quickly following up promising leads. The result is merely the appearance of knowing more than would seem possible.

That is enough criticism. There are still many valuable insights contained in this book. Here are three.

'And the whole history of knowledge is a drop in the bucket compared to wisdom.'

'My whole leaning was toward Buddhism because Buddhism is very neat and clean and intellectually exquisite and Hinduism is generally kind of sloppy. You know those posters of Hinduism: the colors are kind of garish and the whole thing turns you off. A little too gauche for my taste ... too maudlin emotional.'

'Whatever you can have and want isn't what it all is. ... [T]he final peace ... does not come from getting it, but from being it. You cannot "get" peace, just like you cannot "get" wisdom, but you can be wise. You can "get" knowledge but you can only be wise--those are two different spaces entirely.'

See all 14 customer reviews on Amazon.com