Ram Dass – Awakening through Your Difficult Emotions

Discover how to free yourself from any attachment to pain and suffering and treat your difficult emotions as portals to greater peace, wisdom, and healing.

Expand your consciousness and dissolve fear and anger through the profound teachings of one of america’s most revered spiritual teachers.

What You’ll Discover in These 4 Modules

In this 4-m module intensive, Ram Dass will guide you through the fundamental spiritual skills and competencies you’ll need to befriend and transform your relationship to suffering.

Each contemplation and training session will build harmoniously upon the previous ones so you’ll develop a complete holistic understanding of the practices, tools, and principles you’ll need to transform your relationship with difficult emotions and open to a truly awake, loving way of being.

The course modules will consist of more than 60 minutes of video and audio teachings from Ram Dass, most of which were recorded before his stroke, plus a recent video of Ram Dass conducting a guided meditation.

A 30-minute Q&A session directly following the meditation will be hosted by a different guest faculty who is one of Ram Dass’ beloved guru brothers and sisters.

Module 1: The Illusion of Separateness Leads to Suffering

The Circular Relationship Between Difficult Emotions & Suffering

The more you identify with your ego instead of your spirit, the more you will view the world based on your own experiences, biases, and judgments, and see yourself as alone and vulnerable in an unfriendly world. From this vantage point, suffering is a negative, unavoidable, and intrinsic part of life.

Thinking of yourself as separate from everyone and everything else inevitably leads to suffering. Why? At the root of this psychological illusion is not only a feeling of separateness, but qualities of that separateness: smallness, unworthiness, and inadequacy, which give rise to fear, anger, and other self-destructive emotions. Ultimately then, separation leads to upsetting emotions, which lead to suffering, which leads to more upsetting emotions and a greater sense of separateness.

In this module, you’ll explore:

• How the concept of Original Sin is related to separateness
• Our tendency to protect and justify our separateness
• The 3 cultural strategies for dealing with the forces of the universe
• How viewing yourself as a separate being blocks your path to the Divine
• The conflict between righteousness and truth
• The unity that lies behind the diversity
• Why separation is a learned belief
• Why everything within time and space functions lawfully

Module 2: Working Through Difficult Emotions

Dissolving Fear & Anger in the Crucible of the Heart

You can only escape from the prison of separateness — and the negative emotions it generates — through the doorway of your heart. Beyond that door lies the unitive nature of the universe and freedom from the heavy, confining chains of the ego. Only then can you experience the preciousness, the grace, the sweetness, the interconnectedness of life.

To the extent that you free yourself from attachments, you will be freed of your disturbing emotions. Enlightened detachment flows out of heightened awareness and the conviction that life is unfolding as it should. You are fully engaged in life while humbly acknowledging that a greater wisdom than your own is at work.

In this module, you’ll explore:

• How the process of purification frees you from illusion
• The power of allowing yourself to be beautiful
• How to relinquish your belief in your separateness
• Why more is never enough
• The journey from total illusion to total oneness
• Why as long as you have desires, you’ll suffer
• Why happiness must embrace sadness, and love must embrace hate
• Why fear is the frightened child, and love is the flame of holy remembering

Module 3: Healing & Transformation

Transcending Difficult Emotions With Witness Consciousness

Becoming aware of your awareness and identifying with your spiritual essence instead of your body-bound ego enables you to “step out from behind your eyes” and serve as a conscious, impartial witness to your own life. The instant you unplug from reacting out of pure emotion and begin objectively observing a situation, your fears and anxieties loosen their steely grip and you start to regain your mental clarity. Power and focus are then transferred from your all-consuming emotions to the witness aspect of your being.

Just as you don’t need to forgive nature for a rainstorm, you don’t need to forgive yourself for your disruptive emotions, which are a part of being human. Instead, by elevating your consciousness and observing your emotions from the balcony of detachment, they lose their power over you, and you are free.

In this module, you’ll explore:

• The importance of cultivating the heart-mind
• Two strategies for healing the emotional body
• The futility of trying to change your personality at the same level of consciousness in which you experience unpleasant emotions
• Why shifting your perspective is a key to emotional freedom
• Why forgiveness is a bridge between the separate self and the awakened soul
• The cost of holding onto resentment and anger
• The wisdom that opens up to you when you free yourself from the drama of your emotions
• Why the level of your freedom is inversely proportional to the level of your investment in your personality

Module 4: Embrace Your Humanity

Moving Beyond Love and Hate to Allowing & Appreciating Your Humanity

When you realize that you are here, on this planet, at this time, in this body because you wanted this learning experience, you can begin the next leg of your journey toward oneness with the Divine. Only when you accept the distortions and imperfections in your life can you rise above them.

When you come to embrace and befriend your suffering instead of running from it, you will understand the alchemy of how suffering is transformed into wisdom. Suffering then becomes a springboard for growth and self-discovery that ultimately enriches your life. View suffering as an enemy and you distance yourself from the richer, more fulfilling life that waits patiently on the other side of pain.

In this module, you’ll explore:

• The necessity of embracing the dark as well as the light
• The distinction between detachment and dissociation
• The wisdom of seeing people as you see trees
• How to appreciate the horrible beauty of the universe
• How therapy and spiritual practice can both be used to address psychological issues
• How a personal issue can be simultaneously relevant and irrelevant to you
• Why you have to become somebody before you can become nobody
• Why we often push against freedom when we approach it

Salepage: Ram Dass – Awakening through Your Difficult Emotions