Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 419: Raghu Markus

Episode Date: January 15, 2021

Raghu Markus, friend of Ram Dass, president of the Love Serve Remember Foundation and all-around brilliant, beautiful, and philosophical being of love re-joins the DTFH to calm us down after a rough week! Visit the Love Serve Remember Foundation's website for more information, and be sure to check out the new Ram Dass book, Being Ram Dass, on sale now! Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: TRU Niagen - Visit truniagen.com/duncan and use promo code DUNCAN at checkout for $20 off your first order! World Series of Poker - Use promo code WSOPDUNCAN to receive 1,000,000 bonus chips when you sign up! Rythmia - Visit Rythmia.com/duncan to receive a $150 discount on your next trip!

Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. It's my dirty little angel. You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music. Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. New album and tour date coming this summer. Greetings, my beautiful friends. It is I, D, True Cell. And I want to welcome you to the Duggar Trussell Family Hour

podcast. You know, if you're one of the people out there who currently feels like the very pillars of society, as we know it, are being shaken by brutes and apes that belong in some kind of grimoire in the basement of a sorcerer's tower, then I think this podcast might bring a little bit of relief to you. We have a month, a weekly meditation at our Patreon.

And we have wonderful conversations generally. And a few people were hoping that I could offer some kind of words of comfort to help them feel a little less anxious about what's happening in the world. And I couldn't. I really couldn't really think anything. I tried to record some intros.

My first attempts were just to sort of off the cuff come up with some really inspirational, powerful speech, monologue, something that would not only convey my own incredible spiritual brilliance, but also act as a kind of not just something that made people feel better, but literally cause a ripple that would potentially shift not just around our planet, but through all versions of Earth and all parts of the multiverse and ultimately cause us

to achieve a kind of unified field of consciousness where we would realize that all the things that seemed so terrifying were just necessary steps that we collectively had to take as we walked back into the gates of the Garden of Eden. But unfortunately, all I made was this. This is why I need friends like Raghu Marcus in my life, because otherwise I'll just drift off into some paranoid trip.

And it's nice to have people who have spent their entire lives working on themselves. And not just that. Raghu is one of the people who runs Ram Dass' foundation, the Love Serve Remember Foundation. He got to meet Neem Karoli Baba, the great saint, in the flesh. And he got to hang out with Ram Dass for most of his life. He's an all around brilliant, beautiful, philosophical being

of love. And if you're feeling shaken by current events, I think that the conversation that we have in this podcast should cool you down a little bit. We're going to jump right into this episode, but first, this. Much thanks to Chromadex, True Niogen, for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH. As we age, you can start to see it in your face

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Right now, new customers can save $20 on a three-month supply by going to trueniogen.com and entering promo code Duncan at checkout. Go to t-r-u-n-i-a-g-e-n.com and enter promo code Duncan at checkout to save $20 on your first three-month supply. True Niogen.com promo code Duncan. These statements have not been evaluated

by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Thank you, True Niogen. Here's an article from TheGuardian.com. It was angry, vicious. A spate of squirrel attacks leaves NYC neighborhood in fear. At least three people in Rigo Park and Queens

have been jumped upon and bitten by a possibly deranged squirrel. A few people are quite scared, Michelin Frederick, a local resident told Guardian US. Frederick was herself targeted by the squirrel in a bloody attack on the 21st of December when she was holding her front door open for furniture movers.

Suddenly the squirrel ran up my leg and I thought it's a small rodent, how bad could this be? So I stood completely still and the next thing I knew, the blood started to fly. It was a wrestling match that got very bloody, very quickly, Frederick said. It's not a threat when I say that Frederick was not a member of my Patreon.

It's not a threat when I say that all the people who have been attacked, not just by squirrels, but other very adorable small animals in the United States and around the world are not members of my Patreon. It's just a statement of truth. I'm not causing these attacks and even though I have gotten a few letters from lawyers,

I challenge you to prove that I can what, control small animals and that I would be so malicious that I would hypnotize an army of inconspicuous, adorable animals to attack people who weren't subscribing to my Patreon. That's ridiculous and I'm definitely not doing it but I just have to say that there hasn't been a single member of our Patreon who has been viciously attacked

by any small animal or rodent and I wanna invite you to join us. It's patreon.com forward slash DTFH. If you subscribe, you'll have instant access to commercial free episodes of the DTFH and if you subscribe to the glorious video tiers then you could join us every week for our weekly group meditation journey

into boredom or our Friday family gathering. Subscribe over at patreon.com forward slash DTFH. And now everyone, please welcome back to the DTFH, one of my best friends in the entire world, a mentor and somebody who I feel incredibly lucky to have any kind of association with at all. Raghu Marcus. Welcome, welcome on you

That you are with us Shake hands, no need to be blue Welcome to you It's the Duncan Trouser family Raghu, welcome back. It's so truly nice to see you. It's the Duncan Trouser family. Raghu, welcome back.

It's so truly nice to see you. Thank you, thank you. We do this, not to do a shameless plug, this isn't a plug. We do, we have a meditation group on my Patreon. We meet every Monday. It's called journey into boredom and we meditate. But also we talk and today I realized that people, that I think I've lost touch a little bit

with how truly upset people are. A lot of people are legitimately freaked right now in a way that is even more freaked than they were with COVID and the freakishness of our particular timelines is being amplified with some consistency. And I found myself, people were saying, do you have anything you could say to comfort us? And I found myself, I said no, I can't think of anything.

Really, I don't know if comfort is what we should be looking for right now but I have the same question for you. As somebody who has had human contact with a saint and dear friends with Ram Dass and so many other great teachers, what the fuck is going on, man? That's all I know, I'm from Canada. I don't know anything.

I'm not kidding, I don't have the same take as you all do. We assumed like when I was in high school, there's a bunch of crazy people down south over the border, nationalistic fervor, it's insane. And we sort of just have to coexist because the TV stations emitted signals from just over the border so I was privy to some of the insanity. I'm being funny in one sense and another I'm not

because friends are like watching 24-7, the news and stuff and I'm like, I'm going to watch a basketball game. Right. But reality is reality. I didn't unfortunately get far enough into it but I have a friend, Robert Svoboda, you know who Robert is. Yes, sure. And so his teacher in India,

he was there around the same time as us a little bit later, was an agora, a gore. And that's intense tantric practice, some minor description of what it is. But he wrote a trilogy which everybody who's listening, who's interested in eastern stuff, might be interested in this trilogy. It's the agora, A-G-H-O-R-A trilogy.

Robert Svoboda and Duncan put links up and stuff because it's really worth it. The third book in the trilogy is all around the meaning of karma. And so I did a podcast with him just recently on mind-rolling. I actually did with Noah, my son, who sends his love by the way. Send my love right back. And so one of the things that he brings up in the book, which I didn't get far enough into because it's so profound

and so complex and so not understandable by rational mind. Yeah, someone pops you in the head, you're going to pop them back. Karma. And of course it's so abused. You walk across the street and somebody stumbles and falls into a pole and you go, hmm, karma. And walk on.

It's just abusive. It's called spiritual bypass. You mean like using the idea of karma to kind of like evade? Evade everything. Yeah. Compassion. Yeah, exactly. But there is something that he talks about in the book and I have to,

as I said, I got to get with him again, collective karma, which is to me profoundly what we are involved with here with what's been going on, what creates a Trump, what creates a vast underpinning of misery that lends itself to eating up what Trump offers. A vast, the extraordinary conditions that make up what is going on with racial injustice in this country from hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.

Then you look back beyond that where these people come from that wanted to have slaves. They came from Europe, basically. And that gets compounded back into what was going on in Africa. So there's tremendous involvement with collective karma that, and people are saying it, the pundits are saying, we are sowing what we have sown. Yeah.

And we're also, don't forget, the destabilization of countless governments by the CIA or the bombing of Iraq or all the other things that we have as a country. Going way back. Yeah. Going way back. I think maybe part of what people are experiencing is a novelty to us because somehow we have managed to evade karma as a country for a while.

It used to be when you were going to war, that meant war. It didn't mean one side gets blown up and the other side is unscathed. The war that the US has waged around the planet has been relatively one-sided. There might be some asymmetrical response, but we're the ones dropping the bombs. We're the ones with the bases. And yeah, I was thinking this. And then I started feeling bad, and I was going to record some intro mentioning that, but then I started feeling bad because I thought,

is this really the time to remind people that what we're experiencing is only new to us, that people on the other side of the United States, photon cannon, have gone through this and experienced a similar thing where we've destabilized their government, put in, you know, it's part of what we've apparently successfully pulled off and unsuccessfully pulled off, just that we've attempted it and hasn't worked. Yeah. So really, in that sense of things, this is all actually a good thing, but a good thing is not complete because the amount of suffering that everyone is going through.

And it's not just people who are in just rotten economic state or are very sick and so on. Obviously, that's the top of the tier of pain and suffering that's going on, but there's suffering going on with people who aren't sick and are affluent as well because they are at the very basic level watching this and starting to look at how they maybe have contributed or how selfish they have been. Maybe the wake-up is suffering for people as well, I believe. Maybe I'm a little Pollyanna there in terms of what's going on,

but you do see the reactivity to what went on last Wednesday, which was the day that Congress was stormed, is very widespread and that has to be causing tremendous emotion. I saw something where Lindsey Graham was accosted at an airport. We'll never leave you alone. This is the rest of your life. That's what they said to him. Yeah, right, but the tone, the level of anger, and this isn't made up for the camera. I mean, maybe a little bit it is as well because they know that they're being followed.

But suffering, in other words, it's just endemic to everybody, no matter what you think who's right or who's wrong or any of that. So what do we know about suffering? It definitely is the only thing that allows us to wake up for the most part, aside from stuff like psychedelics or meeting a teacher or hearing a piece of music or reading a book. It's all there, but this is just to see it. As I think I mentioned to you maybe in a podcast we did last year, I'm not sure,

but I found this thing from the Chinese, the ancient Chinese, that was all about the kind of conditions that we're in now that are called by them dangerous opportunity. And boy, if this isn't that, I don't know what is. And I do think there is an opportunity here. And I don't mean bullshit hope. I mean, as Roshi Joan Halifax calls it, wise hope, that there's a potential for opening into a place where we can start to address

the real deep karmic conditions that have created where we are now. I think it's good to mention her because she's been such a warrior through this. And at times following her Twitter, I thought maybe she was overreacting a little bit. I thought some of what she was doing seemed too much. But now in retrospect, and I think this is what all of us are, as we're like looking at what just happened, anyone who was sounding the alarm early on now doesn't seem histrionic or shrill or loud or overreactive or any of those things you want to assign to them.

If for no other reason than because you're afraid and you want them to be wrong kind of ignorance, but she was has been such a powerful. People should definitely follow her on Twitter because it's a beautiful convergence of Buddhism and activism. But she a lot of people who are saying early on like you don't you don't understand this type of person doesn't leave power. Like they don't know how they can't let go. They're not going to leave.

I remember somebody telling me that they give me a fucking break. He's going to want to go back to Mar-a-Lago stop. He's going to want to go, you know, like start his own network or something. He's not going to like stay like a tyrant. And then you look and like you have a our Congress we got invaded by our own people. And you know, I was just having a conversation with some friends about this. If it had gone a different way, we would now be under the reign of a tyrant. If they had killed our leaders, which could have happened their school shootings, there's

no reason that that couldn't have been more organized or planned. And if it had been, then what would have happened would have been that Trump would have come out and would have like said these people are going to be held, you know, accountable. They're all going to be tried, but also martial law. Martial law. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, it could have.

So that just gives us a little bit more of information in the big picture, which is we are getting an opportunity to look at this and look at it in all of its complexities within ourselves, all the way to the societal pressures that have created what we have today and the polarization and all of it. But one of the things that really is so apparent is the interconnectivity thing. Right. I mean, from every aspect of our lives, obviously the environment, the environment goes over to that's how these pandemics get created with the melting of ice caps and release of

God knows what viruses and so on to the way that we handle our garbage to the way that we handle allowing the kind of drilling fossil fuels, all of it, and it interacts with how we've handled racial injustice and just, you know, up until George Floyd, it was just a blind eye. Right. Oh, yeah, we're not. We're not racist. Of course, you know, and my cousin, you know, marched and like that kind of a thing.

And every bit of this is just absolutely linked. And so the opportunity to for everyone to take a look at this and and see what it is that they can do within themselves or around their little circle is a dangerous opportunity. A tremendous thank you to a new sponsor, World Series of Poker, and I know what you think it duck and you don't strike me, somebody who's in to poker and you would be correct. And I'll tell you why I'm not into poker. The reason I'm not in a poker is because I never learned how to play. I have friends who have poker nights, but I would never go because I wasn't invited.

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within themselves or around their little circle is a dangerous opportunity. Let's go into that because as I've been sort of feeling my own surprising level of anger about what's going on, Twitter banning him, Parler getting taken down, all I've been feeling in every single one of those moments is good and I like it, but it's not like a happy good. It's like, fuck you, you don't, you fuck everybody, fuck me, you know what I mean? Why the fuck did I, any place in the past where I like helped create a destabilized way of thinking about the world that wasn't like with no intent behind it, you know, what do you do?

I keep thinking, what would, if Ram Dass were here and this was going down, you know you would have some beautiful way of grounding us in something other than anger or something other than regret or something other than confusion and I just keep thinking like, what would that, what would he say, what would it be and it would be specific to this moment, you know? You know, he was so good at that. Yeah, well he did say a lot before he left because there was plenty of stuff going on in the four years, in the last four years and he worked on it, how he was, how we were

told to work on it, love everybody, right? So he put a picture of him up there like he put pictures up all the way back to the 70s and whoever he was putting pictures up, you know, different politicians that were so intractable and seemingly had no kindness and no compassion and so on and he would speak to their soul is what is, there wasn't anything else that he could possibly think of doing except there's these pictures of him going out and protesting, right? Which he did his whole entire life. It wasn't just about changing his insides which he spent all those decades working on

to some success, one would say. He actually, I mean, you know, you and I experienced it. He was living in that place of complete non-judgment and unconditionality. So at the same time, it's interesting, we just, we've been thinking these same things you're thinking especially about him with this foundation, we're putting, LoveServeRemember, we're putting out all sorts of different content because he commented on this over the decades. It just wasn't particularly this moment but this moment which has become so extraordinarily

large but he has and there was one thing that we've, he did something a few years ago with Joseph Goldstein, of course, I know you know who Joseph is and again anybody who is wanting to just take a little bit of a different perspective and not be living in, because it's just useless to live in anger. It is natural and it's not like it's going away but it wants to do something about carrying along more than one plane at the same time which was Ram Dass's big thing. He is a master of disseminating mindfulness practice, period. His book Mindfulness Everybody Should Get, you can put a link up there on it too.

So he and Ram Dass got together, they were just chatting and we filmed it and somebody noticed, we did this beautiful little moments of joy and wisdom, Ram Dass and Maui. Did you see that? By the way, you're in it. You didn't even see it. I didn't see it. I was in it. Why did I have to see it too?

Yeah. Well, there's some beautiful moments of Ram Dass there being in that place of complete unconditional love and humor, you know, the stuff that happened that we put in from Yumi and him on stage and Maui but at one point Ram Dass in this little interview or little chat read a letter from somebody basically expressing everything you're expressing right now. How the hell do we deal with this? And most importantly, how do we deal with the quote on quote them because we can't find

any way to get on any page that has any relevance where we can actually talk. The us and them is not working out. And so Joseph said, you know, he said, I did a retreat around 9-11, you know, 20 years ago, whatever it was. And somebody, we were doing loving kindness meditation, Buddhist meditation called metta, where you send, may all beings be peaceful, may all beings be happy is one of the things. There's a bunch of them and you start with your inner circle and then go all the way out to people who are enemies.

And people came to him and said, are you crazy? There's no way I can want these people who destroy the towers and everything else to be happy. And Joseph thought, you know, it's a legitimate thing, you know, I mean, our anger around it is legitimate. So he said, how about this? How about wishing for all people to have hatred released from their hearts? And to me, so we put that up on, I don't know, on Instagram, whatever.

To me, that's the kind of positive thing that we need to be doing instead of sitting around just going, you know, being happy that Hoosie is getting his, you know, PGA no longer allows it. It's allowing the big tournament to be at his golf course and being happy about that, which is all natural stuff too. It's not bad. It's not bad to be angry. It's not bad to be happy that all his toys are all being taken away.

He's being isolated, no Twitter. But you got to have the other level going at the same time. That's the most important thing. So okay. Okay. I like it because you're basically saying, look, don't, you don't have to deny yourself a natural reaction to justice. You're human.

You're supposed to, we're supposed to want things to balance out. But also part of justice is not just punishment. It's redemption. It's balance at the very least. It's the possibility for balance. I see what you're saying. And there's some, it's, yeah, cause the way I feel it, I know a lot of people feel like what, you know, having like had a mindfulness practice for, for some time now, so at least

enough space to look at the way I'm feeling and honestly sort of know that that is a, it's an infected kind of joy. You know, it's like a, a icky kind of thing to be like relishing this moment in history. You know, it's not, it doesn't feel like it's not the same feeling I get when my son makes me laugh or, you know, accomplishes something, you know, then you'd be a saintly guy when that happened to, you know, but listen, here's another example. Of what we're talking about. And all of this stuff is, by the way, extraordinarily difficult.

And it's not a matter of, geez, I didn't make that too, I didn't get too far today in wishing that all hatred leaves the parts of Trump people who are particularly very angry and, and, and being violent to some, whoever, obviously at the last week. But his holiness, the Dalai Lama, I heard just recently, I've either heard him say it or read it, he was talking to a monk. So monks that get captured, got captured by the Chinese and got put into jail. Eventually some of them made it out. I know one of them, his name is Garchen Rinpoche, just the most beautiful llama and, but one

of them came to him and said, basically what the conversation was about what happened to him in prison. And he said, and I think his holiness said, so did you have fear of, of the Chinese? And during that time, and he said, the only thing I was afraid of was that I would lose my compassion towards them. Wow. Okay. Now these are, you know, this has been in their culture for many centuries and they work

on themselves very hard to let go of this stuff, but that's all we got is, is what's inside us. Oh, let's, let's focus in on compassion for a moment here, because I think that it's a misunderstood term. And I think especially in the tradition you're talking about, it is truly a thing that has been cultivated. It's a, I think it's what Ram Dass called going into your heart. Would you, do you think that's accurate?

Yeah, yeah. It's his whole thing of loving awareness, right? Yeah. So it's getting your perspective out of your believing, your, what your mind says you are, the story you tell about who you are, identity roles, all that stuff. He was so great at Ram Dass. And then moving into the center of your being, and you want to call it as all kinds of different names, soul, spiritual heart, Buddha mind, whatever.

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Right. But that is a, Sharon Salzburg teaches about that. This is a thing you develop. You cultivate is what they call it. You cultivate that space. That monk was recognizing that he was afraid that there was a possibility that this thing that he had spent probably many incarnations cultivating could go away. And I think once you dip into that place, even for a second before you tell the story,

I think the West or I, my story about that place in the past has been heartbreak or I haven't wanted to go there because usually I can't just experience that place, which I've heard is when in Buddhism, when they talk about spaciousness, that's what they're talking about. But then I feel scared of, I immediately associate that feeling with loss. That's how I shift out to heartbreak because that's the feeling that precedes heartbreak or the illusion that you lost a thing. You know what I'm saying?

That's a very precious place. And if you get to experience it at all, wow. I think children live in the place, but anyway, I understand why you would say that, which is why and hate certainly is a window shade over that place. So throwing up the window shade would be, to even get to that, I don't see how you could hatefully experience that place. Yeah, but you know, your thing is, it's so real in terms of heartbreak when you just see anything and you feel the empathy of feeling another's pain or something inside you starts

to reach out, which is compassion. It's not self-serving at all. But we have an inability to hang with pain. That's part of the issue here. We are so coddled in the West, just our lifestyle and how we grow up, for the most part. That's not, there are people who have been abused for their entire lives just because of the color of their skin or their level of financial security or whatever it may be. But in many ways, we have had a little bit of a softer existence, obviously lately that's

coming out to be not true because of the pandemic and the economic devastation and all of it. But we still, those of us that have experienced what you're talking about, which is everybody, how do we live with pain without pushing it away is part of this thing. It's part of what compassion is. But the other thing, what I love, remember when you decided that you were going to go down and feed people down in East LA years ago and you put some food together in a knapsack and you went through that whole exercise, which you know, somebody, you should put up whatever that there was a hilarious podcast, I don't know if it was on yours or mine, but

I'm sure you've talked about it more than once, it was so fun. But basically, you were allowed to see where, you know, through mindfulness, what your motivations were, where the bullshit was, where the non bullshit was, and it was only because you went through it that you were able to really address it. And that's really what this is about. Working on oneself to at least get to the point where you're not afraid to have a little pain and are not afraid to see your shit ass motivations. You know, yeah, I'm going to go down there and feed these people.

Yeah, good podcast fodder. Yeah. So, so again, it goes back to what you said. And, you know, we love Jack cornfield is, yeah, it's OK to be human. It's OK to be angry. It's OK to be heartbroken. But that's not going to stop the cultivation to get to the, to see all of the ways in which we are selfish and at the same time, loving and compassionate because we have it all going.

Yeah, that's, but see the, I think we're all experts at hating ourselves at this point and all experts at, and this is when you're listening, like I'm listening to joyful wisdom right now, I mean, you're Kinsey Rinpoche, you've had on your podcast. I can't believe that's so cool. But, you know, the in their culture, one regular reaction that you hear from them is a bit of confusion when they hear that people in the West hate themselves. Like, yeah, that is actually something that they don't. It's hard for them to understand that.

Yeah, they go, huh? What do you what what? And his holiness, same thing, Dalai Lama, same thing. They asked him about this and he, he said, can you explain this to me, please? I don't know what you're talking about. But I think that that shows culturally the difference in what they learn as a child because essentially, like they are taught that their heart is who they are. And so there is, they don't understand how you would hate.

That's like, how do you hate love or how do you hate compassion or how do you hate the light? They don't understand that at first, they don't. I think after hanging out with us for a couple of dinners, a couple of comes clear to them and they're like, oh, my God, like, this is going to take a lot. Yeah, they get up. They said, here, give me the bills. Nice knowing you.

I'm kidding. A phone call. Gotta go. But, but, uh, uh, because we identify or we, we don't even know it. Some people don't even know about that place. And so they, they forgot it because of what you're saying, abuse and trauma. And so then they start identifying themselves with the thing covering that place instead of the place itself.

And then of course you would hate that in the same way you would hate. If you were a prisoner, you would probably hate the lock on the door. You would hate the prison. There's a, there's almost like a natural sense that this thing that is me, that you think is you, something's off and you, and you want it gone. And then that leads to depression, which sadly leads to suicide. And this is, this is, uh, because people have become so disconnected from the thing that that's covering up.

And the thing that that's covering up, which to me recently listening to me, you can see Ripa Shay working with David to connect that heart, compassion, space with dimensionality, so to speak, with space, like that it's not just compassion, some gooey feeling that makes you give bread to people, but it's literally like a dimension you're in that is filled with pure potential and possibility, regardless of causes and conditions around you. That blew my mind. And, um, and, and, and yeah, and, and this is, I think even more so, I, it

can become so frustrating when I, you know, you know, when you're in the beginning of these things, Raghu, it's your fault. You connected me with Nick turn, but you know, in the beginning of these things, you start feeling your heart and you get past the place where you don't want to feel it. Cause that's how I used to be. It was like, I just don't want to feel that that hurts too much. And then you get past that place and all you want to do is feel that.

And then you become really sensitive to all the things keeping you from being in that place and it becomes really frustrating. You know, it's like, I, David was saying, it's like, uh, you just see the tail of something, you know what I mean? But you want to grab it and hold it and you can't because of circumstance. Like, how the fuck am I going to maintain this state of like vulnerable compassion that's literally seems like finding like a new God. I ruin everything.

And it's like, you find it. You didn't even know you had a clitoris or something. Oh, you know what I mean? You're like, holy shit, I've got another. This is on your channel. Oh, I gotta shake my head. Got to shake that off. Uh, yeah, but not, not to get too complex with the Buddhist thingy who

and David Nick turn who we love. Uh, you know, he's, he's very wise. Uh, the reality is there is a simplistic thing here. Look, you recognize that, uh, you're a selfish shit. 99% of the time you want to do something about that or not. And why would you do something about that? Cause maybe you, you know, a little trip, maybe a little, uh, visit teacher said something, you know, you hear Duncan say something like that.

And then everything switches because suddenly there is a big intention. And that's one of the biggest things of Buddhism is intention to change. And how does that happen? That is a question of deep complex karmic stuff and lifetimes. And all, you know, karma and reincarnation, you know, so it's, and we won't even go there. But the reality is some, some where along the line here, you just don't. I mean, you and I have been talking about it through this thing we've been

working on for years, just this, it gets to a point where you cannot stand looking at these motivations and not making some kind of addressing it. Got to address it because it's too painful. That's the thing that changes. That pain changes everything. Yeah, that pain changes. So you want to listen to Ram Dass's meditation about how to get out of your ego mind and believing every bullshit thought that you have into a place

that's much more, you know, the Buddhist call spacious, forgiving, compassionate to oneself, nevermind anybody else at this point. You know, I'm not that shit heel that I think I am. And at the same time, it's going to take real practice here on a day-to-day basis to move that perspective out of, from up our ass, basically. Oh my God. Yeah, that's the real problem. Yeah.

I mean, that's the problem. That's, that's the problem. The problem, the philosophically, it's like, there's no problem. But the problem is that it's, it's, this is not, you know, this is when Ram Dass, I remember when I had this, when we first met and he pointed to his head and said, we've got to get you from here and pointed to his heart and said to here, he said, we can do that. And I said, any minute, that was by itself, which is the big relief.

But then I said to him, it's so, it's difficult. I can't, it's hard. And he goes, he got this big spot. He said, no, it isn't. But I think he was, I don't know, I don't know what, why he said it wasn't hard because it is hard. It is like, it sounds so fucking easy on paper. First of all, it sounds ridiculous if you're me, because if you're somebody

who's really in the past, I was successfully numbed down. So you hear this idea of compassion or opening your heart or something. And it, you just lit because you're out completely in your head. You intellectualize that. And you come up with an approximation, like a mental configuration of like, I know what you mean, but you don't know it. You can't know, you can't know what you mean because it's not coming from your head.

It's your heart. And so, but then, so, but then, like, this is the problem is that you have to spend a lot of time just to get to that point where your heart starts opening up. Like it does take a practice. I think, or a great MDMA, and that doesn't last and you get a hangover. Yeah, right. Um, yeah, but boy, boy, oh boy, Ramdas would say, um, this, we started this conversation out around, you know, the, the intense moment that we are in right

now and the reactivity that we have on all sides of the equation. And again, if you have any kind of awareness, and that's the big, the big word, right? And awareness comes through practice. Yes. Uh, I don't think anybody wants to continue to hoard all of this selfish motivation. I think if it's, and we're seeing, and everybody's getting a look at it in a

way that they might not have gotten before. So that's again, back to the thing of, uh, it's, it's, um, dangerous opportunity. Right. So I keep thinking about that. But, you know, can I, uh, I mean, I, everybody out there, I want it, this is completely self-serving. I want you to know that. But one of the things that, um, I said, Duncan, can we talk about, can we get

up and have a chat on a podcast? But because I also want to let people know about Ram Dass's new memoir, being Ram Dass, which is out, uh, this week. Beautiful book. Yeah. And so, but literally beautiful. The cover is beautiful. Yeah.

I send it to somebody, a professor. We're doing some, uh, course at Penn State, actually, this is the first place being announced, you know, Ram Dass be here now, kind of course. Anyhow, I sent it to the professor, professor Rob over there and I said, you know, take a look at this and then let me know what you think. And then he didn't say anything for a week. And I, I wrote him back. I said, any idea what you think about this thing, this book.

He said, well, to be honest with you, I haven't got past the cover. Well, it's that beautiful. I mean, it is. So it's Ram Dass completely utterly present. It's just, it's a fantastic thing. Anyhow, so out of this, there was one thing in this book that, um, I wanted to read and Duncan said, I could, what, what it's about, it's about really the fact is people go, well, okay, Ram Dass became very compassionate and loving

and did love everyone. And, but that's just Ram Dass. And so this passage is, is the moment that he was driven by his friend, Bhagavan Dass, to the Himalayas, to meet this, the guru. And he describes it and he describes it in a way that we, all of us can absolutely relate to the fact that we are cynical. We start out cynical. We've got cynical.

Uh, Duncan has represented at our retreats cynicism, although it wore off a little bit. I had to start faking it. Yeah. Then you had to start faking it, which was really weird. Um, so can I read this little thing that it just sort of, uh, really, it's called, this chapter is called the map maker. The, uh, so next morning we commence a hair raising right up into the hills.

The road switchbacks up from the terraced farmlands in the planes, twisting back and forth as we climbed thousands of feet over stream scored hills covered in mist. So beautiful up there. We traverse ridges with sheer drop offs and past remnants of landslides. Anywhere else these hills would be mountains, but we're in the 25,000 foot upthrust of the Himalayan range. As we snake upward through one spectacular panorama after another, I sit in

the passenger, in the passenger seat, sulking. Bhagavan Das is driving. He's taken charge of our deluxe camper and he won't let me take the wheel. It doesn't, cause he didn't want him driving in India, where Bhagavan Das had been for years, but I want to be the one driving. I've spent weeks in this customized Land Rover and David left it for me. It's my right and my responsibility. Besides, I'm not sure about this guru thing.

Bhagavan Das seems deeply affected that the prospect of seeing this guy, he's alternately singing and crying as we climb higher and higher on the precarious mountain roads. I hope he's watching where he's driving. I'm not into gurus. I consider myself a Buddhist and I thought Bhagavan Das was a Buddhist too. Gurus are a hustle. Hinduism is a chaotic vortex of calendar art and a garish endless pantheon of

neon lit gods and goddesses. It's a cacophony of unintelligible Sanskrit blaring over distorted speakers in my bag next to my passport and traveler's checks. I have a return plane ticket to the US. I plan to use it very soon after hours of torturous driving. We pull up off of the road, stopping by a small temple, perched by the curb on a steep hillside, the vista of green hills receding into the crystal blue Himalayan sky is breathtaking.

Or it would be if I weren't feeling so uptight. A small crowd gathers around the Land Rover seemingly out of nowhere. We're still in the car and I can't really read the mood of these people. But Bhagavan Das starts talking to them. They all seem glad to see him jabbering in Hindi. I have no idea what they're saying. He asked one of them something and the guy points up the hill. Bhagavan Das asked if I want to come see his guru.

He gets out and loaves up a narrow path. My first impulse is to stay with the car to protect it. People are milling around it. They're in a celebratory mood. But after Bhagavan Das leaves, they seem agitated. They're trying to make me understand something. Finally, I understand they're urging me to follow Bhagavan Das. I think, do they want me out of the way so they can trash the car or steal it?

They keep yammering at me and pointing up the hill. Their insistence propels me out of the car. And my curiosity overcomes my paranoia. I follow the path Bhagavan Das took, glancing back at the Land Rover as it disappears from view. And I'm going to fast forward. So he basically gets up there. There's a group of people around this old man in a blanket.

I see Bhagavan Das lying on the ground. His hands extended and touching the old man's feet. He calls him Maharaja, which in Hindi means Great King. He's weeping ecstatically. I think this must be some bizarre ritual that's a part of the cult. Fragrant incense rises into the air mixing with the smell of pine needles. Other people come up and touch the old man's feet with their hands or bow their foreheads to his toe, which is sticking out from under the blanket.

I'm not touching anyone's feet. I'm a Harvard professor. I was a Harvard professor. I remain at a distance, slouching with my hands in the pockets of my jeans, trying to be invisible. I am not part of the scene. The old man is talking to people and they all seem happy. And he turns to me and he says something in Hindi.

Abhagabhagabh is all it came through. Rob, you came up in a big car. Someone translates in English. Everyone in the group turns towards me. I feel more uncomfortable. I said, yeah, the old man says, will you give it to me? Before I can respond, Bhagwan Das jumps up. Maharaja, you want it. It's yours.

I freak out. Everybody in the group looks at me and laughs delightedly. I'll know Maharaja never asked for anything except an apple. But I don't know that. I splutter. You can't give him that car. That's not our car to give away. It's David's. No one pays any attention.

They're laughing and smiling and and then Maharaja turns to me and said, do you make much money in America? He says, I figure I must think all Americans are rich. So I play along. I go, yeah, at one time I made a lot of money in America. How much did you make? Well, one year I made thirty five grand. Some of it in cash.

They calculate the exchange rate of dollars into rupees. And wow, that's a sizable amount. And Maharaja says, will you buy a car like that for me? Yes. And this is the fastest round. I go, this is the fastest hustle I've ever seen. My father's good at shaking the tree. That's how you raise funds for Brandeis University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, after all.

But he's not this good. I'm clearly not in Boston. I barely even met this guy in the blanket. And he's already asking me for a seven thousand dollar car. I say, well, maybe the whole time he's smiling at me, my head is spinning. What has Bhagavan Das got me into? Everyone's laughing. They're not being malicious.

They're just enjoying hanging out with the old man in the blanket. Everyone knows he's putting me on, except, of course, me. And then ensued from there. The fame, because I can't go on reading this. It's a great book, everybody, though. But there, what ensued was Ramdas being told by Nirm Kurali Baba, Maharaji, what had happened to his mother that nobody could have known. He could never have known.

And he was thinking about his mother the night before he came there. And Maharaji, when he said, so your mother was quite ill. His mother had died of spleen cancer the year before or something. And he said, yeah, I was thinking of her. You were out under the stars. Yeah, he was out taking a pee. And then he said, your mother died of spleen in English. He went to spleen when that happened, Ramdas hit the ground, fell apart

because his mind could not handle the reality that he was known that way by another being. And it just fell apart, splintered, which is what what he brought back to America and gave to us, Ramdas, because we all went, we believed him because he was so honest. And so, but more of the point here is we are all in the same boat. We have the same shit going on where we are just cynical. And that's right.

And you mentioned it before. It's the way in which we cover up everything. And one big way is cynicism. And we've talked about that before. But yeah, so just see, we all have a chance. If it could happen, Ramdas can happen for all of us. Wow. Thank you so much for reading that. You know, the addition to the story that I never knew is the smell

of pine needles. Yeah. That that's why I'll do a match to. You know, that story lives in my head, but just now to have that like incense burning and the fresh smell of the forest. The forest and where they were. And yeah, and all that fresh air and then to like have an encounter with a being like that. And also.

Knowing that probably some part of him recognized he was about to have a kind of. Subjective apocalypse on the way up there and was shielding himself from that. You know, like big time while Bhagavan Das was crying and beginning to like experience being close to that thing. He was, you know, doing everything he could to. Not feel that because he must have felt it the way you feel.

When you're about to go over a hill on a roller coaster or something. You know, that was it for him. And it's so funny that I just love that you instantly tuned in to exactly the place where he was trying to hide. Yeah, exactly. And it's because it's what we all do. I mean, that's this was just a very. Over the top reaction.

And because it got to the place where when someone breaks your mind and shatters it into a thousand pieces. I wish we all had that, you know, I mean, in fact, all of us Westerners, which is just a two, three hundred people, all of us got that to some degree and brought, you know, brought that shattered mind thing back. And I wish we all, you know, but that's a bit of what's happening right now. Right. I mean, there's a bit of shattered mind going on with with everything

that is going on in in our country, in the world, you know, all of it. That we just some curiosity, hopefully will take place where people go, Gee, you know, maybe I can open up a little bit to other realities. You know what? I think we're seeing the price of cynicism. You know, I think if, if, if, if, uh, if, if Ramdas had been a little more cynical, he would have been like, turn around. Let me drive, turn around, I'm getting out of here. I don't want to do this. Get out of the car, go up there.

I'm not interested and it would have been a whole different story for me if that had happened to you and probably a lot of other people. And there would have been a price, a really rough price and no one would ever even know what they missed out on probably. But the, I think we're, maybe that's part of what we're seeing is, is it's, it's the whole cynical thing that I certainly adhered to religiously as a protection mechanism for sure. It just, it's more, it's, it's more, it, it does more than just

ruin your life in a kind of slow motion, subtle way. It potentially gets people hurt. It potentially hurts people and gets people murdered. Yeah. You know, and I think that's the, where, where we're seeing now is like, because that's what Trump was cynical. It was cynicism and his followers were cynical. There was a cynicism about him, a sinister quality that was so cynical

and sarcastic and the president troll or whatever. And, and, and people, and there was something cartoonish about him that made the cynicism somehow tolerable. And then something funny in the cynical dark way that people like me who like, who are cynical, there is a, you might be like, I hate everything about him, but I gotta recognize, it's kind of funny. And then now look what happened. Now we're seeing like, well, you know what?

Actually, yeah, the Senate, this, this attitude, this Western attitude towards reality, where we have absorbed ourselves into a kind of cowardly absurdism or something. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. Not only does it not work in the small scale, because it's going to disconnect you from your heart, but on the big scale. Because in the collective, it looks like what we just saw.

It looks like what we just saw. It looks like despair and anger converting into action that has no real intent other than chaos, and it gets people killed. Well, it has intent for power, power, greed, yeah, greed and power. But, you know, you said, I'll bring something else up that's also completely difficult to understand. But like when it just reminded me, when you said, well, Ram Dass, when he drove the car up and got into that total paranoid vibe, could easily

have said, you know what, I'll leave you off, take your bag, and I'm going back down and I'm going to go, you know, wherever to a Buddhist monastery, whatever he was thinking, he could have done that. So here elements, here enters the element, which is one of those badass words that comes from the East, or not from the East, it's East West, it's everywhere that is abused, and it's called grace. So there is, so part of this intelligence, you know, that is a reality, whatever you want to name, divine, present, divine, intelligent, whatever,

there is that thing there, you know, that's what I call it, that had no allowance for Ram Dass to turn around. No allowance that was not allowed. Okay. And as a result, this, he brought back this tremendous thing that has helped tens of thousands of people, I mean, you know, be here now, sold a couple of million copies. So a lot of people, and over the years that he's in Maui, a lot of more

people connected with him, you being one of them. And if we take this one step further, there is grace in what's going on here. It's the grace of like, yeah, they could have been way more organized and stormed that building and cause the kind of destruction which would have allowed Trump to become the fascist Mussolini that he wanted to become. Right. So there's something we have to acknowledge and recognize that other thing that is constantly going on, and it's not just what we see physically

in front of us, it, and it requires us moving into a place of trying to understand ourselves more better. Okay. This reminds me of something Thomas Merton said, which is, you know, people look at the world and they say, how can you believe there's a God? Look at the wars. Look at the brutality that happens historically and presently. How do you, how can you imagine there's a God that allows all that to happen?

And his response was the fact that we have, that we have the potential to be so brutal and have not completely destroyed ourselves, is the proof to me that there's a God, the fact that the grace has prevented complete annihilation. Uh, and I think that, that reminds me of what you're saying. It's important to remember that and not get swept up in what could have happened and see what, what, that, that it didn't happen. And that there is now that what you're saying, there is something in this moment that is more than just catastrophic.

There's a opportunity here. Yep. Dangerous opportunity. You know, in another word that's also mishandled, um, is trust. Right. How many times have we talked about that? Remember when we talked about that? I, I think you were with me in Maui.

And I, I said to Ramdas, you know, the first time I met you and you just completely enveloped me in an unconditionality of presence where, uh, you weren't caring about Richard Alpert or Ramdas at all. It was just me. Yeah. I, that just, I had the strongest signals of, of trust, uh, that I'd ever had aside from maybe my mom, you know, when it was a baby and all that. And, and then I turned to him and I went, what about you?

What was your first trust? And he looked at me and he went, mushrooms. And so, of course, there's a lot in this book about his psychedelic experiences, but just think of that, just think of that. That was very much, you know, I mean, obviously going to Indian meeting Kurali Bob, you know, that's such a, the, the profound nature of that is indescribable, but so is the profound nature of the trust that he had with, uh, with psilocybin.

That is how you understand Ramdas. Because whoever would be that crazy, I've never, I've, well, I'm not, I've, I've, yeah, whenever I'm around that, that energy, I generally am just I want to fall asleep. It's, No, what are you talking about? You have hyperdimensional elves swimming through your body. You're not like, God, I really trust y'all.

Oh, um, I guess that, well, then we look at, yeah, you just said it. That lets us understand Ramdas a little bit more. Yeah. His relationship with that world. That he could have that kind of openness and trust and surrender and letting go and, and confidence that. Yeah. The grace is, is going to be there.

And it was, and you know, even through the most horrendous, well, uh, a very, very difficult scenario of becoming, um, stroked as he put it and living like that for 22 years in a wheelchair half paralyzed and not complain and, and do the kind of work he continued to do, uh, writing books, writing books, seminars, having retreats, having private zoom conversations with people, sending people emails, connecting with so many people, all the, all, like he was so in demand. I can't even imagine how he kept up with all of it, but he did. And which was in fact, one of the reasons we, that it was nice to have people

like Dasi Mark, there was, there had to be someone who's like, we have to, you have to sleep because otherwise he would just stay with people. You would just, you know, even having had a stroke. He always had time, always had time for people, always somehow. And if you were around him, he gave you the sense that he had all the time in the world to be with you and that you'd been hanging out with him forever. That was the wildest thing about him. That's out of control, compassion, I would say.

In other words, he, there was no, what do they call that? When your car has, or your motorcycle has a certain thing that controls how fast it can go or governor, he had no governor, no compassion governor, no compassion governor. I love it. That's a cool thing. I like what you're saying. I love it.

It's like, we have to trust this moment. It's not, it's dangerous opportunity, but step one, just trust the moment. It feels like that's what you're saying. You have to, you have to have some trust for this. And yeah, I mean, and the trust, again, that has to hark back to all of these things are happening at the same, to all these different levels, trusting the moment of what's going on in, in, in the outer world, um, realizing that, uh, there is, uh, a potential here.

And that's the whole thing around dangerous opportunity, but first comes first, you got to do, you got to inquire inside. Yeah. You know, and it can't be just a head trip. So there, there has to be, that's why, you know, you're enjoying all of the work that you've done with David Nicktern, which is loud, uh, meditative process to go on, which has opened up other fields, so to speak. Yes.

Intention, you did it. You did it because you just had no other choice. There wasn't another choice. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. It's nice to, for things to not be quite so theoretical and, and, and, and, uh, even, even if it is a fleeting something or what does David say, half marinated or something, it's still, it's still something, you know, like,

cause I would hear Ram Dass say, I only wish I had done it before meeting him, but I would hear Ram Dass say things like, well, Maharajee is in your heart or Maharajee is there in your heart, or that, you know, like, or when you're telling that story about the pine needles and the incense and thinking how he would say, oh, Maharajee is there in your heart. Like people hear this and they'll think, well, I can't go to the fucking homolius right now. If I want to do what I'm going to zoom with someone in the forest, there's

no way to encounter that. But, you know, just having a brief brushes with the thing that I do think it Ram Dass was talking about, he, that place is accessible. That is a, it is more than an intellectual thing. It is more than something where you're, you're like, I'm going to go give food to people, but it's just your head and you don't really feel anything under your neck. It's like more than, it's like, there is a thing that they're, that you're

talking about that is big and does come from a practice. They're, and I think that's it. It's, it's, you know, right now is definitely a perfect time to start that. You know, you just have to trust this. If you, if you're somebody who is numbed down completely, he's completely numbed, I was, I still am most of the time, but once you get past that pain associated with finally feelings, I'm feeling, it's pretty amazing. The possibility there.

Yeah, but, but, but, but listen, the truth is everybody's had some kind of experience that they can trust. Right. And it's just most of us dismiss it is the issue. That's just, oh, an oddball thing, even, even a psychedelic trip, you know? Oh, I had that 40 years ago or I had that last year. That's not relevant. Uh, but it is a matter of taking that.

I'm, for me, it's that crazy instance of being 16, 17 years old and, and somehow somebody got me into a John Coltrane concert at a club in, uh, in Montreal, where I'm from and going out, I remember that to this moment. I mean, he played my favorite things and that was it. I just went into the most spacious place that I had ever been in my life and I loved it and it was no drugs and no nothing. And, um, I just reveled in it. And from then on, I had that place.

I trusted that, that was real. So we all have that. It's just a matter of, uh, cult, yeah, you know, the Buddhist love that word. I love it too. Cultivating. Cultivate that place because it is definitely available to everybody and why, you know, why bother being miserable and feeling either, uh, cynical or victimized or whatever the story is that we tell ourselves or feeling like

you're a bad shit, you know, whatever it is, just trust that little place that is the crowbar that starts to lift that 3 billion pound boulder off your chest. Wow. Perfect ending, Raghu. Uh, thank you so much. I love our conversations. Thanks for sending me the book. All the links, y'all, if you're interested, I will have all the links to

find the book at drtrustle.com. Or do you have a website for the book or is it just Amazon? Go to Amazon and buy the book. That's about it. What's Amazon? Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, you can go to Ramda store and buy it as well. Cool.

Is it on sale now? Ramda.store.orgs.shop, huh? When is it, is it, uh, is it, it is out, uh, you'll have this podcast. It is out tomorrow. Perfect time. January 12th. Beautiful. And perfect.

What a perfect time to release that book. Oh man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is pretty incredible timing. Yeah, no, it is a divine timing there. So thanks for having me. Thanks for being, for being on the show. I love you. Thank you, Ragu.

Love you. Talk later. A big, deep wet kiss and thank you to today's guest, Ragu Marcus. And I'll have all the weeks you need to find Ramdas's new book being Ramdas, but it's on Amazon. So you could just Google it too. Also definitely subscribe to Ramdas's mind rolling podcast. A big thank you to Chromadex, uh, the world series of poker and Rhythmia for

sponsoring this episode of the DTFH and a big, deep, wet, sloppy, long, undulating, grinding kiss to you for continuing to listen to the DTFH. I'll see you next week. Hare Krishna. A good time starts with a great wardrobe. Next stop, JCPenney, family get-togethers to fancy occasions, wedding season two. We do it all in style, dresses, suiting and plenty of color to play with. Get fixed up with brands like Liz Claiborne, Worthington, Stafford and J.

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