The Only Dance There Is

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant spiritual reflections from Ram Dass
Review: An excellent, underrated spiritual book. Ram Dass is brilliant, spontaneous, and loving -- his messages are clear as a bell.

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!

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant spiritual reflections from Ram Dass
Review: An excellent, underrated spiritual book. Ram Dass is brilliant, spontaneous, and loving -- his messages are clear as a bell.

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!

Rating:
Summary: Entheogens: Professional Listing
Review: I hesitated to accept this book from a friend since I thought it would be too way out, but once I started reading it, I relished the insightful observations and openness of Dass. He is a genius and obviously very in touch with himself. The day I started reading this, I was in a terrible mood, but afterwards I was unbelievably optimistic. I went out immediately and bought it for my brother and have been recommending it to all of my friends. Everyone should have a copy!! I've been looking all over Berkeley for another copy for myself to no avail since my friend wanted hers back. Now, thanks to Amazon, I can get my own. Seriously, though, this book emphasizes the importance of living in the moment, taking risks in life, the value of altered states of consciousness, and accepting and embracing your innate humanity. Dass engrosses the reader with amazing stories and relates abstract religious concepts well to real life.

Rating:
Summary: It answers many of your questions and asks many more of you
Review: 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
!

Rating:
Summary: the only book there is
Review: This is a great book. I highly suggest this book for anyone interested in western culture connected to eastern religion. Ram talks of everything from chakras to love. but mainly its about consciousness and the nature of it. The dance of life or in Ram's words "the only dance there is"