9/25/2015 The Training Program for Attachment ­ Ram Dass

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Attachment

The Training Program for Attachment

Posted December 30, 2014

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It always boils down to this question: How did we get so attached in the first place, or why? I have
really nothing but a cop-out answer for that. I mean not a clear answer because, just as I said,
ultimately the laws of the universe are not rationally knowable, because they are not within the logical
rational system, since that is a subsystem, and there is a meta-system of which that’s all part, which
includes paradox and opposites. Almost every religion ultimately says, “That question cannot be
asked or answered.” Like in Judaism there is a statement “In the beginning,” and they say that of all
the things the Talmudic scholar can study – the scholar of Torah – that is the one thing that a teacher

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cannot teach him, nor can a book help him with. He can only know that through meditation you go
inward to the place where you are the answer, but you don’t know the answer. In other words,
Buddha’s answer in very gross terms is “It’s none of our business” – our business in the sense of the
person who asks and answers questions.

I can give you hundreds of answers that have been given by religions around the world to that
question. Why did it all begin? Why is there suffering? Why did it go from zero into the one into the
many? You know, in some systems it is cyclical. It’s just going, and going, going, from the zero to the
one to the many, back to the one, back to the zero, and on and on and on. From another place,
nothing is happening, because it is all still in time. And a few levels out you are not in time any more,
and then it always has been and it always was and it always will be, and nothing has happened yet. I
mean there are so many game levels to answer that from, and my answer is that at the level I am at, I
just don’t know. I don’t know. It doesn’t mean it isn’t knowable; it’s just that I don’t know it.

It’s always the question you are finally forced to: So why did it all begin? What’s it all about? It’s just
like the meaning of suffering. There is a certain stage… where you are trying to avoid suffering, and
you are afraid of death. So your whole philosophy in life is built on the fear of suffering and the fear of
death. Then you get to a place where you have seen a little more, and you are not so afraid of death.
You’re sort of mildly curious about it. Then you get to a place where you start to see that suffering is
purification: it’s like the fire that gets you straight. It’s like a prerequisite for this work. And then at
that point suffering takes on a whole new meaning for you and you have a whole new way of looking
at the universe. Like I was just with this boy, twenty-three years old, who was dying of Hodgkin’s
disease out in California, and he and I were talking about his impending death and preparation for it.
Very calm, right here. I could see that the people around him were saying, “Isn’t it terrible that a
person so young should die?” But I don’t feel that at all. My feeling is, how do I know when a person
has finished his work? I don’t know what his work is. It would only be my fear of death that would
make me want to keep that person alive, longer and longer and longer. Otherwise I would just want
to hear how it came out. I’m not attached.

Imagine that this is a training program, a training school – and it’s not even a very exciting training
school, it’s one of the lower-level ones. Suppose a person has very little to do, and they can do it in
about three years. So they come and they do it in three years, and at the end of three years they start
to die of meningitis or whooping cough. And we say, “What kind of God could that be, that is taking
that child from us now?” Well, that person, that being, has finished its work. That’s a whole different
philosophical place from the place at which the person is moaning. Job in the Bible is a perfect
example of this. “What are you doing to me, God?” God in effect could have answered, “Because
you are my chosen.” You’re my chosen. Because suffering purifies. You get to the point like, when I
suffer, I don’t choose to suffer – I’m not a masochist – but when I suffer, I am working with it rather
than suffering. I am seeing the suffering. And as this philosophical position keeps changing, as you
keep evolving in these positions, the answer to that question you ask keeps changing and the reason
for asking the question keeps changing. At one point it’s a burden, then the next it’s a joy, then the
next moment it’s nothing.

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– Ram Dass, excerpt from The Only Dance There Is   (http://ramdass.hostedbywebstore.com/The-
Only-Dance-There-Is/dp/B005P5212K?
class=quickView&field_availability=-1&field_browse=2690207011&id=The+Only+Dance+There+Is&ie=UTF8&refine
bin&searchNodeID=2690207011&searchPage=2&searchRank=salesrank&searchSize=12)

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5 Comments Ram Dass 

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Soothberry • 7 months ago

Suffering begins when a person first betrays himself by hurting another, not an ego,
but an honest, innocent person. If not addressed to the point of forgiveness, it
evolves to self-hatred. Everyone suffering hates themselves. Facing their true
selves is avoided by distractions. Distractions lead to attachments. People are so
consumed with trying to become happy again, or like themselves again, that they
consume and distract. Examining themselves at their subconscious level takes
effort because they have to force themselves to feel the very painful dislike they
harbor deep within their mind. It's all a matter of misunderstanding, which is where
forgiveness comes in. The person hurt someone a long time ago and has been
frantically looking away from themself ever since. When the hurtful incident is really
understood, they will be enlightened and able to forgive themself, especially if it is
examined with someone that can re-Inforce the forgiveness and worthiness
sentiment.
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evoc > Soothberry • 6 months ago

Some people ask What is forgiveness? What does it feel like? What is the
process? How do we do it?
I've always thought forgiveness was an action...never could find the way to
be with that.
Then, for me, I saw forgiveness is a lack of action, a letting go of all that
stuff. Not replacing it with some love or kindness, but just letting the stuff
go.
What is left is a peace, a lack of attachment to the past, however recent that
past may be.
It feels like giving ourselves a break, being able to breathe again. It feels like
sitting back in a comfy chair.
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Shelly St Martin • 8 months ago

.. the question of grace always come up...
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Shelly St Martin • 8 months ago

getting down to the nitty gritty of having no jurisdiction over death or time of
passing, seeing death as the ultimate unfathomable experience, suffering, the
ephemeral adjunct to it all,
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evoc > Shelly St Martin • 6 months ago

From my experience people who are dying, and close to death see it very
differently. They appear to see it as it is. They not only accept it, they feel
good with it. Their inner experiences alter, they see, and talk with others
who went before them.
Some people, though, who live hard also die hard.
I can only suspect that the instant they step out they see a different, much
more appealing reality.

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