Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Sacred Community with Sitaram Dass

68min

0:00:01 - Nadia

My guest this week is a compassionate soul who is living a life of service. Sitaram Dass was one of the first long-term resident caregivers for Ram Dass on Maui. He follows the path of Bhakti, the yoga of service and devotion to God. In this episode we got to talk about how he first met Ram Dass, the work that he's doing now through the Sacred Community Project, his latest book and his love of music. Sitaram Dass' energy and his message are so calming and inspiring. I know you're going to feel better just listening to this. Thank you so much. 

Welcome to the Change your Thoughts, change your Life podcast. I'm your host, Nadia Delacruz, founder of the Wayne Dyer Wisdom Community. My guest today spent several years serving Ram Dass on Maui. He is the director of the Sacred Community Project and the author of From and For God, a collection of writings on the spiritual path. Sitaram Dass, thank you so much for joining me today. 

0:01:25 - Sitaram Dass

Yeah, thank you for having me. 

0:01:28 - Nadia

It's wonderful to be able to connect with you in this way. I know that we share a love for Ram Dass. Why don't we start with, how did you first get connected to him? 

0:01:41 - Sitaram Dass

Uh-huh. Well, you know, like many people, my first introduction to Ram Dass was through his book Be Here Now. That came to me at the exact moment that I needed it. I was probably 20 at the time, you know. I was experimenting heavily with psychedelics, really getting interested in the spiritual path. I had a lot of enthusiasm, but not necessarily a lot of guidance or direction, right. That just developed over the years, finding myself reading more and more of his books, getting more interested, and really what it came down to is I was at a place in my life in my early 20's where I didn't have a lot of responsibilities. I was really on fire for God, for spiritual truth, and I knew I needed some type of direction, some guidance, some way to help deepen into that. And it just came to me. 

One day I realized that of all the people that I wanted to meet, various spiritual teachers, the person at the top of that list was Ram Dass. A lot of the people that inspired me were no longer living, but Ram Dass was, and so I just thought why don't I just see if there's some way that I could meet him? And that first seed really started me on my path. Where these things tend to happen. All these synchronicities lined up and I went from having zero connection at all to, all of a sudden, there was this pathway where I could meet him and it was everything. It was everything I wanted. I was meeting my idol. It was almost like meeting a rock star, right. It was all levels but also just this really sweet, kind, loving person that had true wisdom. And in that meeting my friend said this, even though it was my idea, but I would have been too timid to say it out loud. My friend said, "you know, Ram Dass, we just want to do anything we can to be as close to you as possible. So if you have any work that you need done around the house, we'll come and do it." And his response was, "well, you know, I've been given this house to live in as long as I'm alive and the property is a little bit too big for us to maintain, so we always do need help. If you happen to be on islands, there's probably something you can do." And I took that as my yes. I just knew that that's what I was going to do. 

And so after that kind of very lukewarm maybe when we came back from our trip to Maui, I quit my job. I just set up my life in a way so I could move back to Maui. I had arranged that I was going to sleep on this guy's back porch in Paella, and I paid him a hundred bucks a month in rent. I basically just used a shower and kitchen and I just went for the sole purpose of being able to maybe help out at their house. I mean, there's nothing rational about it. 

And after a few weeks being on island, Dassi Ma finally invited me over to work in the garden. I thought I was volunteering. At the end of it she paid me and said I could come back the next day. And then I thought... In that moment, I still viscerally remember, feeling like I had hit the jackpot. Oh, this is it. I can just be. I can just be Ram Dass' gardener. And I made enough money to pay my low overhead expenses of rent and food and through that built a relationship. And then eventually, they asked me to move in and to be one of Ram Dass' caregivers there. Yeah. 

0:05:41 - Nadia

Wow, so how long was it, do you remember, before you moved into the house? 

0:05:46 - Sitaram Dass

Well, so I had been there working in the garden for a few months before they invited me, but the invitation was for the future because they still had someone planning to come already. So at that point in time, Dassi Ma was the main person that held everything together and was his primary caregiver. But they always wanted to have a younger person there to help out and, especially if anything happened and he fell, someone that could maybe help pick him up. So they would have people come and generally they only stayed for three months, sometimes six months. They already had someone scheduled to come, so when they invited me, that wasn't for six months later. So I had been on an island for nine months before I moved in and then I was the first like long term caregiver besides Dassi Ma, where I stayed for over two years.

0:06:51 - Nadia

wow, that's really cool. It was in your path. I heard that Ram Dass said no one comes in front of me unless Maharaji sent them. 

0:07:00 - Sitaram Dass

Yeah, yeah, he said that to me the first time that I met him. Yeah, the first time I met him he said that and I didn't even know. Well, so actually, in that first meeting, the night before I met him, I had a dream on the beach where I saw two figures shape-shifting back and forth into each other's forms. It was Jesus and Maharaji. And, in fact, it wasn't a dream, it was right before falling asleep, but it was. I mean, my eyes were still open and I just, I visually saw it, and I told him that that next day, and his response was so matter of fact. He just said, "well, no one comes in front of me unless Maharaji sent them." And that started me on a journey of slowly realizing that my path was one of Guru Kripa, the grace of the Guru. Where, over time, we just learn that even our will, even our decision making and our choices really just arise out of a type of grace that our mind can't even conceive of. 

0:08:20 - Nadia

So what seems beyond reason, perhaps there's a reason for? 

0:08:27 - Sitaram Dass

Yeah, like when I first moved in, I had all these questions for Ram Dass and over time they started to fall away more and more and I learned that really it was just about being with him. But one of the first questions I asked him that I really wanted to know is, I said, "Ram Dass, what does your practice look like now?" Right? This person who's at the end of his life, who had done a lifetime of practice, who was clearly in a state of consciousness that was very deep, deeper than I could conceive of at that time, really. So I was really curious and his response was, "I just hang out with Maharaji and I love everything in the universe. And that was the world that he lived in, where everything was a manifestation of the Guru's grace. And so that's how I entered into that world. To be myself was just through being around him, just seeing through his being, through the pictures on the walls. His faith was so deep that it opened up an invitation, right, that I could step into. 

0:09:45 - Nadia

Yeah, yeah, I mean when I was at the house, you can still feel that presence there. I was most touched to see that not only was Ram Dass surrounded by people who took care of him, he was surrounded by people who loved him deeply, to the very end. You know, a bond that feels deeper than family, if that makes sense? And that brings me a sense of joy and peace. Because, I can only imagine he had a lot of challenges after the stroke and he lived with numerous challenges for the rest of his life. I think that his example is astonishing the way that he loved everything and he could have had a lot of reason to not love it and be bitter about it and he continued his practice. 

That was one of my questions when I spoke to Dassi Ma a couple months ago. You know, what was his spiritual practice like? And I got basically the same answer. I think that's so interesting to think that he just communed with that energy and practiced being part of that loving awareness. It makes me think back to decades before where he would talk about all these different methods you can try. I think there's like recipes, basically, in the back of of Be Here Now. Because he was introducing this to the West, where we hadn't heard much of anything about it. Probably, and for for whatever reason, (I think there is a reason), but for whatever reason, he was the voice that reached so many. He would talk about these practices that, you know, eventually they kind of need to fall away. Because if you get so attached to a particular practice, you might lose the essence of it. I feel like with him, it seems like it got distilled to that essence. 

0:12:18 - Sitaram Dass

Yeah, yeah, here's a story that I like to tell that I think captures that distillation and that transformation that he went through. I, like everyone else, first became enraptured by Ram Dass' writings, hearing Ram Dass speak, right, his teachings, which he was very skilled at. But then I'm there with him at the house where, after the stroke, his verbal abilities just weren't there. So it definitely wasn't about the teachings, although he did still teach and he still had a way to transmit. But his being, though, he truly rested in that loving awareness that he talked about. So it was a palpable, palpable experience being around him. I remember one time we're in the hot tub it's me, Dassi Ma and Ram Dass, and Dassi Ma is playing her iPod. She has her music playlist going and it's Jaijut Hall and Krishna Das, and periodically Ram Dass' talks would come on, and whenever Ram Dass was there she was supposed to skip them because Ram Dass didn't want to hear himself speak, right. So we're in the hot tub and her playlist is going and a Ram Dass' talk comes on. Early 70s Ram Dass and she didn't go to skip it and Ram Dass didn't say anything. So we just sat there and the three of us listened to this old Ram Dass' talk, and maybe 10-15 minutes have gone by. We're just silent, just listening to this old Ram Dass talk, and Ram Dass breaks the silence and he says, he starts waving his finger and he says, "that guy, he talks too much." 

Yeah, but also, what I learned from Ram Dass is that love isn't just a state of being. Which it is, it is our being, but it's also a practice itself. Ram Dass both rested in love and I got to drink the fruits of being around him. But he also practiced loving, right, I mean, he talked about it sometimes at night, before bed. He would systematically go through his body and love his pain. Right, there was a practice. And what I find compelling about that is that that's something that I can do now. I don't have to wait to achieve some state, whatever that means. Right now I can make a choice and I can practice loving everything. Right, that's something I can actually engage with. 

And what's interesting is that in the devotional texts of India there's this saying that this type of love that we're talking about is both the practice and the reward, meaning, once we know what the highest fruit is, right, once we know that love is the essence of reality, it's the deepest value, it's the depth of our being. Once we know that to be true, why wait for it? Why not practice that now? Why not just make that the practice? Why practice something else so that we can get to love eventually? And that's the other piece, that towards the end of Ram Dass' life he really, really modeled that love as the totality of the path.

0:15:35 - Nadia

I love that. I'm writing down, "the practice as the reward," because that's such a beautiful reminder that it's not about trying to get somewhere else or trying to become enlightened, or trying to transcend the body. That we can experience the love that is our ultimate truth and is really what we're yearning to get back home to. We can experience it now, just by connecting to it, just by being it. 

0:16:34 - Sitaram Dass

Yeah, and when we talk about it, something that can be right now. Loving everything means that even the critical part of my mind, even the part of my mind that hates itself, right, the self-hatred, like I don't even have to wait for that to go away right, I can love my own self-hatred. I can hold that in loving awareness. Right, the inner critic, I can hold that in loving awareness. There's no ideal state of perfection that I have to wait for to be in love in this very moment. 

0:17:15 - Nadia

Yeah, so we're talking about practices. What practices support you today? 

0:17:25 - Sitaram Dass

Yeah, so mantra has been a staple of my practice since the beginning. At my time at Ram Dass' house, I had this makeshift temple that I built at the edge of the property out of tarps, and I did that so that I could have my harmonium down there and I could just chant at any point in time and not disturb anyone. I chanted in the house plenty, but I also went out to a private area and, at that point in time I was. I was chanting easily hours a day. Like when I wasn't doing duties around the house, I was very committed to my chanting practice. Just reciting mantras, singing mantras, and essentially these Sanskrit mantras are what are known as the Holy Names. 

So this love that we're talking about and that I believe your audience is familiar with, right, this spiritual truth that is underlies everything. More or less. These holy names, these mantras, are different names of that ultimate reality, right, so they're their sonic representations of it. So the idea is, by chanting them, we are tuning ourselves to that in some way and we're giving ourselves a reminder of it, and so for me, that's really my core practice is that I remind myself of God every moment that I can, and because God is everywhere, the more that I remind myself that that too is God. That too is God. That thought is God, this sensation is God. Oh, that resistance, that's also God. Then that that returns me to a state of love. So that's my more or less that's my core practice in terms of practices that I do with others. Right that the act of chanting Kirtan call and response, chanting to music is something that we can do as a group where, essentially, we help each other to remember and to open our heart through chanting these sacred phrases. 

0:19:39 - Nadia

Yeah, so Kirtan is like a practice that helps align you to that remembrance of the divine. Do you have a favorite chant? I know you're a musician and you've made so many beautiful songs, and but is there just like a simple chant that you recite to yourself, either out loud or non-verbally? 

0:20:08 - Sitaram Dass

Well, so, in terms of simple, you know. So my name, Sitaram Das, means servant of Sitaram. Ram Das' name means servant of Ram. It'll just mean servant of God, and these names, my name, came from Ram Das, but essentially they serve as reminders for how to show up in the world. But I mean, I never asked the exact reason why Ram Das gave me this particular name, but what he knew is that at that point in time, you know Sitaram and it still to this day, was really my favorite mantra to sing, recite, and so when I received that name, it felt like home. And that's still true, right, I still love chanting that the sound of Sitaram. Sita is said to be the feminine aspect of the divine, the goddess, and Ram is the masculine aspect. Another way to look at it is the form and formlessness, and Sitaram is said to be not separate. Right, we're talking about one being. So that's, that's a simple mantra that has a deep place in my heart. 

0:21:22 - Nadia

Yeah, that's beautiful, masculine and the feminine, the oneness of the of the God energy. Yes, I think it's so beautiful that that Ram Das gave you that name. Did you ever look up the meaning? Not the religious meaning, but like, if you're named Sitaram, like, this is what they say about you. 

0:21:51 - Sitaram Dass

Oh, no, I've never looked that up. 

0:21:59 - Nadia

So, I did, and I thought it was really interesting because, just from from what I know about you, it seemed like it really fit. Someone who's very musical and someone who's super creative and really devoted to the path and, you know, emotionally aware, and I found it an interesting description of that. So maybe I'll send that to you, if you're curious? It's kind of fun to see that.

And, I heard you, ...I can't remember you were speaking to. It was another podcast that you were on. I heard you talking about how Ram Das gave you the name. He's like thinking about it, you know, and I'm just wondering, like what he was experiencing in that moment? Like, what did he see of you? Because I think he was right. 

0:23:00 - Sitaram Dass

Well, and going back to so one thank you, that's sweet. Going back to, you know Ram Das's court view and stance, that it's all a guru I. My sense is that Ram Das really didn't feel like he was giving people names. He was the messenger from Maharaji right, yeah, and so. 

I still don't know what that means in terms of his internal right, like how he's perceiving that, because my own relationship with Maharaji is that even if I creatively come up with something and it seems like it's coming from my own mind, I still know where it's really coming from. So I don't know exactly. You know what his internal stance was, but I that was. The sense I had was that it was coming from Ram Das, which was important because he was my teacher, but also that it was connecting me to to Maharaji, right it that the name is connected to both and that's deeply important to me on personal level, yeah, was it Ram Das who said God, guru, self, all one. 

0:24:14 - Nadia

I know that's a message that gets passed down. 

0:24:19 - Sitaram Dass

So, that was first said by Ramana Maharaji, afamous Indian saint from the last century. But Ram Dass echoed those words quite a bit. And that more or less, especially when we're talking about the path of Guru Kripa, in terms of seeing it all as grace and having the Guru really be our primary doorway into God. That phrase, "God, Guru and Self are one" really captures the essence of what that path really means. 

0:24:56 - Nadia

Yeah, I know Ram Dass didn't want to be called a Guru, but I feel like he embodied a similar presence for so many. What do you think about that? 

0:25:17 - Sitaram Dass

Yeah, I think that's undeniably true. He did. It was important to him for various reasons. He knew what his job was. He was a messenger from Maharaji. He pointed people towards Maharaji. People would have big experiences around him At certain stages on his path. It was really important to make sure that people knew that that wasn't from him, but it was from Maharaji. 

Towards the end of his life, the difference between the two of them starts to get a lot softer and a little bit more intangible. Another way you could say it is that he really was on a path of melting into his Guru, but because he loved Maharaji so much too, that's what he had to share. It was in that sharing and that pointing to Maharaji that is also a part of his process of dissolving into that. At this point in time, because I don't have Ram Dass around to argue with me, I don't have to hold any difference in my heart between the two of them. When I think about Maharaji, when I hold Ram Dass' face in my mind and look in his eyes, it's the same presence that I feel and that they connect me to. 

0:26:56 - Nadia

Yeah, they open the doorway within, and what a beautiful remembering that is. I think we hold that gratitude in our hearts forever, I feel like. So the one time that I met Ram Dass, it was at a Wayne Dyer conference in 2007 in Maui, and I was so excited to be there and I knew a little bit about Ram Dass to know that he was important, but I didn't know enough to feel like I should be taking up his time, which is really interesting, because they brought him on stage. He's in his wheelchair right, so they had to carry him up because they didn't have a ramp and I didn't know a lot about him at the time other than he was important, like I already had this sort of respect for him, and they brought him up and he has aphasia right. So he has this slow speech and I was mesmerized and like he was so funny and he's telling these stories about you know his experiences with psychedelics and it's this old man in a wheelchair and he was mesmerizing and I was just I felt so drawn to. I mean, he was really charismatic too and when you listen to his old talks, like he was an amazing orator and I think that to have not been able to speak in that way, because that was such a gift. I think that would have been really hard for me. It'd be really hard to like have this gift of speaking and now you have to move into a new way. 

But so after his talk they bring him down and there's this little break in between the conference and a few people go up to him you know maybe half a dozen people and they're right up next to him and he's smiling and like I come maybe 10 feet from him because I'm like oh, I don't really know a lot about him, I don't want to take up his time, but I'm just drawn to him and I stand there and I'm looking at him and he catches my eye and it's such a silly little story but it stayed with me forever. He caught my eye and it's like in that instant I knew he understood exactly what I was feeling, why I was standing where I was, and that it was all okay. It was all like I didn't need to push myself to move forward, I didn't need to back away. Things didn't need to be any different than they were. He was sending me love right where I was, and it's like this feeling that I had from him, I think is maybe why he's still in my heart. 

And then when I started learning about, of course, I started listening to all his talks. After that, when I learned about Maharaji and that experience of grace, it felt so similar and I'm like, maybe that's, maybe, maybe that seed got planted in me in me then and it's still in there. And it's so weird because I mean, we worship the intellect, don't we? And Wayne Dyer got to my heart through his words, you know, and it goes all through this and they're like, oh, yes, okay, I feel that right. But it's like Romdus, for me, bypassed all of that, like as wonderful of a speaker he was. It's like he transcended words and reached me some place deeper that has never left me and somehow I ended up in his home and it all just felt. It just felt right, like of course. Yeah, that's my Romdus story. I love it, yeah. 

0:30:40 - Sitaram Dass

You know I think this is another thing I can say it's so easy to be disappointed by our heroes when we meet them in person. And it's because we're all han and it's possible for people to have this deep craft, this deep ability to transmit some deep creativity, right, some wisdom or whatever it is, and for them to be able to do that. It's like I'm not going to be able to do that, whatever it is, and for them to also just be kind of crappy in other ways or to just fall short, at least, of our expectations that we place on them. And I just, you know, like, yeah, romdus was a han and I lived with him, you know, for a few years, which means whatever projections that I had in the beginning, I had to fall away at some point, right, but I also it just it's real Like he really like this loving awareness that we're talking about, this presence that you felt from him in that moment I don't know how to explain it, that was his baseline. 

Like, yeah, I saw him get angry and grumpy and I saw him struggle with dependency at some times, right Through his process of losing more and more abilities. I saw him struggle sometimes and just all the normal stuff that you would expect. But the difference is that that presence, that really was his baseline, like that was just the base and it just that really settled in for me that this isn't just an idea and it's not just some experience that I can get a glimpse at, you know, in some transpersonal moment or whatever. It is some ecstatic moment, but this really is real, this is really what's going on, and and what a gift that he embodied that you know. 

Yeah what a gift. 

0:32:48 - Nadia

His humanness is what brought us in, because we can see a little bit of ourselves in that. 

I have a couple of quotes from you here. One I pulled from your website and it says, "what makes Ram Dass' life truly remarkable is the way he showed us what is possible when we fully honor our human hearts. Ram Dass died as a human being, just like you and me. He never once pretended to be anything other than human. He lived and died in a way that shows that spiritual liberation is found not despite our humanity, but because of it. To me, his deepest teaching is that loving awareness is truly accessible to us all. It is our birthright." 

0:33:40 - Sitaram Dass

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was another one of his gifts, right. Not only did he embody that, but because he really led with his humanity and his teaching and his talks, there's just this core message that, yeah, even me, too. That this really is special because it's the best thing going on, right? I mean, once we get a taste of love, that's what we want. But it's also not special in that this is just here. This is just really here moment to moment, and we don't have to be a superhero to rest in this. 

0:34:28 - Nadia

Yeah, yeah, I remember him talking about how he was always trying to escape his humanity. In the early days he was trying to transcend that, he was trying to stay high and he would always come back down again. I can't think of who it was that said it to him now. But it was, "Ram Dass, you're here. Why don't you try taking the curriculum?" 

0:34:56 - Sitaram Dass

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's interesting, I was just saying this to someone earlier today. Even my ideal of what perfection even means in my mind 10 years ago was different than it was five years ago, which is different than it is now. Even how I conceive of what perfection even means has changed over time. 

I can't even trust my own, whatever I think of is perfection. It's just an idea that I have. There could be all sorts of family stuff, cultural conditioning, whatever it is that could be wrapped in that. Just this idea that sometimes we think of love as like this soft blanket that we use to cover up experience. Sometimes we have this working model of love like that, but in reality it's really the deepest allowance, grief, anger, whatever it is I'm experiencing. Can I really just allow that to be there? Can I really just not have to push away any of it? Again, that's both a practice, that's something that I can do. It's also really a practice of gentleness and allowance and a full honoring that if I'm not pushing away any of it, that means I'm allowing myself to be deeply human. It has to be the fullness of love, has to be a full honoring of this incarnation. 

0:37:03 - Nadia

Yeah, and then you're not at war with yourself. And then you're not at war with anyone or anything around you. You make space for all of it: the good things, the really hard things, the really painful things. Instead of chasing and striving and pushing away and resisting, you can finally rest in what is. 

0:37:28 - Sitaram Dass

Yeah, that's right. Letting go of resistance when we're not struggling. It actually gives us more space to be in touch with what our core values are. There's this idea that I've had for much of my life and it seems to be cultural that this inner critic, this judge, this tension. That basically I need to do that, otherwise I'm going to be some complete derelict. I'm going to start robbing stores, start whatever it is. My life's going to fall apart. I need to be holding it together somehow. 

But the other thing that I've learned through this practice of gentleness is that actually my deepest desire is that I want to treat people with compassion and I want to treat myself with compassion, which means that I want to keep my house decently clean. I want to make sure I'm taking care of myself. This is just natural. This is actually what I want, and if I'm not fighting with everything all the time, I have more space to be in touch with that. I can actually actualize these values in a more meaningful way. That's the piece where we don't have to know all this at once. Right, it's more. Just the more that we practice, the more that we learn that it's safe, that reality is safe, that our being, that our being is safe and that we can trust ourselves. 

0:39:09 - Nadia

Yeah, that's so key and that was not a concept that was introduced to me until later in life. I wasn't raised with the idea that I could trust myself. In fact, I think we very strongly get the opposite messages. I have two little kids and I'm trying to approach it a little bit differently and tell them that you have an inner guidance system and listen to how your body feels and what feels right to you. That you can trust in who you are and what you feel and that's real for you and don't let anybody else tell you otherwise. 

But boy do I wish that, culturally, we could be starting from a different base point, where we drop this idea of original sin. That there's something wrong with us from the very beginning and you can't be trusted and you have to fight against that, because then how can you ever be at peace? You can express positivity, you can express kindness, but is that being expressed to yourself? I think that we see a lot of examples of people who are very friendly, but how do they feel on the inside and how do they talk to themselves? And there is that war within. The best thing that I've found for that is what we talked about. That practice of Loving Awareness, loving all of it, loving the part of me that wishes things could be different, loving the part of me that is just sitting here observing the moment. All of it. It's just really to embrace it, because anytime we're trying to push something away, there's always going to be struggle. I don't want to live that way. And for me, one of the things that community and spiritual practice does is it just reminds me. It re-aligns that, oh yes, right- like there's space for all of it. 

I do want to talk about the Sacred Community Project. So you are the director of the Sacred Community Project. Tell us what it is and what you're doing there. 

0:41:55 - Sitaram Dass

Sure. So I'll first say, because we've been talking a lot about Ram Dass, is that a few months before he died he flew to Taos, new Mexico, for the opening of the new Hanuman temple that they had built there. Without getting much into the mythology of all that, but it was a temple that Ram Dass had initially started and Hanuman is the central figure of our lineage. He hadn't flown from Maui in 15 years, but this was such an important thing for him, like just finishing this life's work, that he got on a plane and went. So I went there and I wasn't living on island with him at that point in time. I went so that I could see him and be there and be with everyone, and it was incredible. On the flight home, I wrote the first words that ended up being central to the founding docent of the Sacred Community Project, which is that it's an inter-spiritual collective. Really, it wasn't just from being in Ram Dass' presence, but it was. I mean, it was there in like-community, my community. All the people that came out because they knew Ram Dass was coming, were all people that I loved, and it wasn't just about the prayers and the temple, but it was also just being with everyone in it. Being with satsang, with spiritual community, is such a deep practice, and so that experience is really the first seed that it grew out of. 

And so what is the Sacred Community Project? It's an inter-spiritual collective that works to lower the barriers of access to contemplative and devotional practices, and we do this through free donation base and low cost offerings. So anything that I create more or less exists as a fundraiser for Sacred Community Project books, music, all of that. 

The retreat that we have coming up, which is in Vancouver, British Columbia, nearby you, this summer, the week of July 28th, is a sliding scale retreat where we've really worked hard to lower the costs, where a significant percentage of the people there are there on scholarship or partial scholarship. 

These are the kind of things that Sacred Community Project engages as in a real strong way Online, through one-on-one spiritual support, through group spiritual support, and then we do a lot of outreach to the prison system, and the core idea is both sacred community as an ideal, a vision for the world. What would it look like if we treated each other as if we were all Sacred Community? And also just the true reality, which is that we are. And that we can make that a practice to treat each other that way. And so that means, there's a sense of trust built in. That people who have the resources will donate that money if they feel inspired, and then people who don't can still get the resources that they need. Whether it's through spiritual teachings or one-on-one spiritual support. And so that's the core of what Sacred Community Project is. Yeah. 

0:45:32 - Nadia

I love that. It's what would the world be like if we treated everyone as Sacred Community. 

0:45:44 - Sitaram Dass

Yeah, yeah, excludes no one. And the prison work that we engage in, it's not the only thing we do, or even the majority, but it is a really big piece and I think that it's really deeply indicative of a group of people that we do not treat as community. 

Right, I mean, when we think about people that we kind of turn a blind eye to and we're talking about an entire population of people in the United States that not only we separated in these confined spaces but generally put them so they're completely out of mind, right, they're often in rural areas, they're often housed places, incarcerated places, where we don't even have to think about them. 

We can forget that entire groups of people exist. And to me, because I want to embody loving awareness in my life in the deepest sense possible, that means that I, if there's anyone that I'm not treating as sacred community, that's a sign of my own being's work to do. I don't think that we can separate the systemic from the personal, and that's one of our core, foundational statements of Sacred Community Project is it's all interconnected. So as long as all these systemic issues exist, whether we're talking about classism or racism or the prison industrial complex, that means that I'm programmed by these systems. It means they exist within me and I can't pretend that I'm separate from it. So me being whole on a personal level means interfacing with these systems in some way. And so that's another core, central tenet of this, is that there's no separation on every level. 

0:47:46 - Nadia

Yeah, yeah, that's a big undertaking and a good reminder for all of us that if you're having trouble loving someone or a group of people, then that's where your work is, right? That shows you that there's something there inside of you to open. 

0:48:07 - Sitaram Dass

Yeah, it's a big undertaking but Sacred Community Project isn't a big organization and we're really just doing our own small part right. I think that there's also something in that, which is that I personally can't fix all the problems of the world. Right, that's not possible. But I can find the parts that are there for me to engage with and just do my own small part and trust that. That's a part of my own path of awakening. And really the Sacred Community Project, I think, embodies that piece too. Which is that the small things sometimes matter just as much as the big things. 

0:49:00 - Nadia

Yeah, and part of what you're doing in the prison system. Are you bringing kirtan practices when you visit? 

0:49:08 - Sitaram Dass

Yeah, so over the pandemic we largely have been engaging with letter writing and providing resources. We have a team of volunteers that engages doing spiritual pen-pal with incarcerated individuals. But before that we were going into prisons and singing kirtan. And then this summer, actually for the upcoming kirtan tour that I have before the retreat, we will be going into two different prisons. San Quentin, which is in the San Francisco area, and then an Oregon prison as well. So that's built into the kirtan tour as a central piece of it. If we're going up and singing kirtan in places so that we can sing with community, we don't only want to sing at yoga studios, in the normal places, but also to make sure that we're really honoring the full expression of what community means. 

0:50:11 - Nadia

I got another question for you. So, when we were in Hawaii, my kids joined us and we got to experience kirtan on Hanuman Maui and loved it. My kids loved it. It was so cute. They were chanting after that. So I love that. But, everybody knows how to do this. How did you learn? Like, how did you learn to play the harmonium? How did you learn the chance? Like, what was your introduction to that? 

0:50:48 - Sitaram Dass

So I'll tell a short story. It's not a long story. I grew up playing music. When I was in third grade I told my mom that I wanted to grow my hair long so I could be a rock star, and she decided that maybe, rather than me changing my hairstyle, she would get me music lessons, and I said I wanted to play guitar. She tried to push piano but I was like no, I want to play guitar. And so from a pretty young age I played music. 

When I was in high school and dealing with all the types of sufferings and mental health things that I think a lot of teenagers deal with, music was a really big salve and escape. I mean, I would just go in my room and play guitar for hours. But it fell away at some point when I was in my early 20s and I was really invested in my spiritual path and I was at that point in time meditating very ardently and so I didn't have a lot of room for other things like playing guitar. And it's interesting, I saw these two psychics, and actually this was in Seattle. One was at East West Books and I went and saw this person and the whole time I wasn't sure how I felt about him. It kind of seemed like he was doing some cold reading or I just like. I just wasn't sure. 

But I went up and talked to him at the end and I asked him a question and he said hold on, I'm getting that. He started listing a few things. I don't even remember what he said, but he said this at the end almost word for word. He said oh yeah, and I'm hearing one more thing. I'm hearing you need to be more creative and music I'm getting. You need to play music. I thought okay. So I thought about that and I tried playing my guitar some and you know, it was just an effort. 

And then I went and I saw this other psychic and it was on Capitol Hill at some church you might know what it is it was. They had these big crystals and it full of pictures of different ascended masters. It was like that kind of school of thought. And it was there on Capitol Hill and the person was doing these readings where, before you walk in, you drew a number out of a bowl and it was like a number one through a hundred, and then you held it up to your solar plexus and you put it in another box and then so you knew what your number was, but the person up on the stage didn't. And so you're there in this audience and there's a lot of people there and the person's just on the stage and pulling up numbers and then giving readings. So this person draws my number and she says she says a few things that I now don't remember, but it was almost exactly the same how it happened at the end. It was so interesting. She was almost done and she said wait, I'm also getting that, this person, they need to be more creative. And and music. I'm hearing that they need to be playing music and I just remember it was like every hair of my like stood up and said what is going on. 

And it was maybe a month after that, maybe two months after that, that I saw Krishna Das for the first time. I didn't know much about Kirtan as a practice. I had heard his music in a yoga studio and I just wanted to go. It was really just drawn to his voice and that. I can't even explain what happened. I just it was like I was flying the whole time. And a couple of days later I told my friend. I said I think I need to buy a harmonium which is the instrument that Krishna Das plays and is a common instrument for Kirtan. And my friend said I think you need to buy one too, and he's not this kind of person. And he said and I will loan you the money to buy one. And so he did. He loaned me the money and I bought the harmonium and then that I just became obsessed and I all the energy I was putting towards meditating at that time it just transferred. 

How I learned the first chance was at that point in time there wasn't a lot of online tutorials. There wasn't like music, books or things like there are now. So I would just listen to Krzysztof's chance and I would listen and I would try and figure out what he was playing and I would play it and I would sing. And even though I had a music background, I had no vocal training and I was not a good singer. I didn't necessarily know how to sing in key, I was sometimes flatter, but a lot of passion, and I just sang and that quickly became like an obsession. It wasn't a practice, it was an obsession. 

I was obsessively chanting and then along the way, anytime I could find someone that was willing to sit down with me and teach me something, I would do that. And you know, at Ram Dass' house, obviously, I had access to a lot of people that would come through and could teach me chants or give me advice or this and that. And Dassi Ma was really the first one to push me to lead chanting. Up until that point, moving in there, it had been entirely a personal practice, but she would push me to chant with people in the living room when guests would come. And I was pretty shy with those things. 

Like the first time I chanted with people it was like I was just flooded with anxiety. It was like clinging to the name, like keeping my mind focused on the name. It was like a lifeboat right just to save me from my just like just drenching anxiety. So there was also something there for me too, in terms of learning to be comfortable in front of groups of people and things like that. So it was an organic process. I really just learned through other people teaching me things here or there. But you know, nowadays there's all sorts of tutorials, classes you can take, online books you can get. It's really possible for anyone to learn simple chants without any type of musical experience. I mean really yeah, so when? 

0:57:29 - Nadia

So when new caretakers would come to Maui, are you guys teaching them? They just sort of pick it up on their own? Because everybody seems to know how to do it. Like, what's the secret sauce? You guys got online... like what are you doing here? 

0:57:44 - Sitaram Dass

uh-h well, I don't know what that is, Ram Dass seems to seem to attract a lot of creative people. Not everyone who came through the house ended up being musicians, but I guess that you know. Here's the truth of it is, chanting is a really big practice, right, and so, it's not necessarily like it's not going to be everyone's path to be some great musician or to, you know, be comfortable leading kirtan in groups or whatever, but, if you do something as a daily practice, you're going to develop a decently nice voice. You're going to learn how to sing and key just through doing it over time, right, you're going to be able to place some simple things and, this is a core practice of our tradition, and so we, just you pick it up just from being in the house. I mean, we, you know, nowadays they chant every day there, right? 

0:58:58 - Nadia

yeah, yeah, that's really cool. Thank you for sharing that in a way that we can all understand. and I think that you know you make beautiful music and many of you do, but it isn't even about having the beautiful voice right. It's, it's about aligning to that energy and participating in it and I think, at the same time, you're you're projecting that in a way that is communal. So even even coming in knowing almost nothing about kirtan, I just felt it, you know, and I think my kids felt it too. 

Now, before I let you go, I cannot let you leave without talking about your writing. You published a book called, From and For God. I have another quote here from that. Again, about Ram Dass. This one says, "Ram Dass has completely changed the way I think, the way I relate to my experiences, how I spend my time, where I place my value. My life can never be the same because of one man. I might get caught up in mundane matters and avoid my daily practices, but his influence is always present as a constant backdrop. It touches every single aspect of my life and there are no words to describe the kind of gratitude that comes from that. None." I love how you put your heart into this so much, and it's another way that we receive it- through music, receive it through the words, receive it through your presence. What made you want to write this book? Where did this come from? And I also heard you have a new book coming out in the Fall. Is that right? 

1:00:41 - Sitaram Dass

Yeah, I have a couple projects that are being juggled. So that book was very much an organic process. When I was with Ram Dass specifically. Before that I studied poetry and writing was both a deeply important creative act and also became a spiritual practice for me. In terms of, there's something about uncovering, in the moment what is the deepest truth that I can put into words. Right? And obviously, the ineffable can't fully be captured in words, but there's something about the act of trying. 

It's like an alignment with truth. And through the process of writing, especially in verse poetry, and later, it started to change forms in a more essay format. But, it was really a central spiritual practice that I would do in my time on Maui and before and after. So, I had this collection of writings and for the longest time they were just up on my blog. A lot of time and effort went into them. I put a lot of care, I mean I just I really cared a lot about crafting them and forming them and shaping them and editing them and coming back. And over time, various members of the satsang, the spiritual community, would read my writings and I would get positive feedback from people. It's not like I was ever really widely read. They were just there on my blog. But, in terms of my core community and people whose opinions I valued, I got positive feedback from people. Over time, a lot of people would say things like, "I wish that I had your writings in book form." At some point in time, just through the process again of me plumbing the own depths of of what feels true in the moment, I realized that that was important for me, too. There's something I think that all artists can relate to, where, sometimes we can block ourselves because we don't trust our own egos and our motivations. Like, what is the real reason I want to do this? But, in that moment, I just didn't care. I mean, I just knew that, for whatever reason, even if I don't understand, even if I have all sorts of other motivations to achieve appreciation or love from other people. Whatever it is, there was something that felt true about that desire to put them in book form. And that I wanted to to honor that, that that truth, and so, I started the process of putting those in book form and that was offered. It's both a fundraiser but also half the funds go to Hanuman Maui. There was something beautiful in it, just the humility of like asking various people that I had loose connections to if they would read it to see if they would offer endorsements. Right, I mean, there was a lot about that. That was kind of a deep process for me. And so that that's the story of that book. 

It's really a simple collection of writings that a lot of time and energy went into. Now I have two book projects I'm working on, but one of them isn't ready to be announced. The one that is, is called 'Loving Awareness: Awakening the Heart and Mind through the Path of Grace.' 

It is a book that is about the path of loving awareness. I'm the lead editor on it and also the lead author, but it's pulling in a lot of other voices from the community to create this collective offering that can serve multiple purposes for sacred community project. In terms of one being an offering that I deeply believe in that can help raise money for things, but also something that can kind of express our core stance of the framework that Sacred Community Project lives in terms of the spiritual support we offer all those things. And it can serve as part of the training manual for volunteers coming in. It's also something that we can send to people in prisons and other people who might have obstacles to the purchase of book. It's something that we can provide to people for free, and so that's that's the big project right now that I'm putting a lot of energy into. 

1:05:42 - Nadia

Yeah, sounds great. I look forward to reading that one. What is the best way for people to reach you, see what's going on and offer support? 

1:05:55 - Sitaram Dass

Yeah, thank you for asking. Really, at this point in time, all of my deepest work is going into the Sacred Community Project. So, if people go to sacredcommunityproject.org, they can learn about the organization. They'll also have a place there where they can see all of my offerings and check those out. 

Sacred Community Project is under the fiscal sponsorship of Hanuman Maui, actually, so we're not a standalone nonprofit, but we're under their umbrella. So, we can take tax-deductible donations, and we need it. If anyone feels inspired and wants to offer contribution, they can do so at that website. Also, if anyone feels called and would like any support, they can also reach out at sacredcommunityproject.org. And then, of course, there's my own personal website, sitaramdass.com. 

1:06:54 - Nadia

Yeah, okay, sacredcommunityproject.org. Go check it out. Offer support if you're in a position to do so. Sitaram, thank you so much for your life of service, for sharing your heart and your words and your story with me and with everyone who's going to be listening to this podcast today. It's really been a joy just to get to spend this time together.

1:07:00 - Sitaram Dass

Yeah, absolutely yeah, thank you for having me.

For all our listeners, thank you for following Change Your Thoughts -Change Your Life and telling your friends about it. Until next time, take care of yourself and take care of each other, namaste. If you enjoy the show, please leave me a review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you soon.