“I’m allowing myself more and more to trust my intuitive wisdom rather than my analytic mind. My analytic mind can’t really handle the complexity of the situation, so I go from moment to moment, just listening.
When you ask me a question, I stop for a moment. I go empty. I’m not thinking about the answer. I’m going empty because in the emptiness is the answer — a better response than I can come up with when I use my analytic mind to figure out what I should say to you.
What has happened to me over the past several decades, I’m sure partly through psychedelics, partly through meditation, through grace, and through evolution, is that when I don’t need to think about something, my mind is empty. I’m not thinking. I’m empty. I’m just here.
Listening is an art that comes from a quiet mind and an open heart. Listening uses all your senses, and it is a very subtle skill, not only with the ears but with your whole being. Your being becomes the instrument of listening. Your sensing mechanism in life is not only your ears, eyes, skin sensitivity, and analytic mind, but also something deeper in you, an intuitive quality of knowing. With all of your being, you become an antenna to the nature of another person,”
Ram Dass, formerly Dr. Richard Alpert, became a multigenerational spiritual teacher and cultural icon spanning from the 1960s through his peaceful passing at his home on December 22, 2019. Be Here Now sparked a watershed of Eastern 
spiritual traditions and practices. Ram Dass devoted his life to service, founding the Love Serve Remember Foundation, the Hanuman Foundation, and co-founding the Seva Foundation, Lama Foundation, and the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram in Taos, New Mexico. For talks, podcasts, or more information, visit ramdass.org.
