The Advanced Course - Ram Dass Full Lecture 1993
Summary
Further Myth Transitions and Social Observations
The speaker continues to list myths breaking down and emerging:
• Material Acquisition: Temples replaced by shopping malls symbolize a culture obsessed with consumption.
• Voluntary Simplicity: An emerging myth responding to resource limitations advocates living simply, recognizing that accumulation does not guarantee happiness.
• Separation and Protection of Self: Rational minds often serve to protect a sense of separateness rather than promote genuine connection.
• Aging and Social Value: Examples from Indian life stages contrast with Western fear and isolation of elders.
• Separation of Church and State: The assumed balance between institutions based on greed and those based on compassion has failed, as both have proven flawed.
• Ethical Dilemmas in Medicine: The speaker references Dr. Kevorkian to illustrate evolving moral issues around life and death, highlighting societal struggle with these topics.
The speaker reflects on personal anecdotes about aging, such as an experience with a senior citizen train ticket and a talk at a luxury cosmetics event on aging, illustrating the cultural contradictions between acceptance of natural change and commercialized fear of aging.
Highlights
Key Insights
Extended Analysis
Conclusion
This talk is a rich, wide-ranging exploration of spiritual philosophy, cultural mythology, social change, and personal transformation. The speaker challenges conventional narratives about progress, success, aging, and identity, emphasizing the necessity of embracing change with courage, humor, and wisdom. The “advanced course,” though not formally offered, represents a vision of learning as a shared dance beyond conceptual mind, grounded in compassion and the acceptance of paradox.
Key takeaway: True spiritual maturity involves balancing the recognition of oneness with the experience of separateness, embracing impermanence, and acting from a place of inner wisdom and compassion rather than obligation or fear.
Sequence
The Chi-Rho Preparation
This Sequence explores the initiatory wisdom transmitted through the Essene lineage, a body of knowledge devoted to the preparation of the vessel for divine embodiment. The Chi-Rho, one of the oldest Christic symbols, represents the fusion of spirit and matter, heaven and earth. It marks the intersection where the Word becomes flesh. Through this lens, the Essene teachings reveal not a religion, but a method of inner alignment: the purification of thought, the discipline of silence, and the opening of the heart as a living temple. “The Chi-Rho Preparation” invites you to contemplate the essence of readiness, not as perfection, but as surrender. It is the art of clearing the space within so that the higher frequencies of Love may anchor in form.
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