Mindrolling With Raghu Markus

Ram Dass talks about his relationship with the great Tibetan Lama, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Includes detailed moments with Trungpa and Ram Dass at different events and venues in the early 70’s where Trungpa was teaching - the methods he used with his students and the dismay of many who were offended by his unusual behavior and teachings that were enigmatic to say the least. Ram Dass delves into a substantial issue around teachers in the West that are unconventional and sometimes divisive yet can provide students with a path that allows for real growth.

Navigating the conventional world and its roles – and escaping them: our chat with TV producer/teacher/friend Peter Goldsmith: How to roll your mind away from obsessive identification with the “work you”... How to see all true paths as exactly the same... How to say hello to the inner self...

DUNCAN TRUSSELL, conscious humorist pal and podcast guru, is back with us, and we expand upon mind expansion, conquering cancer, mortality, Allen Ginsberg, the edges of time and space, downloading divine info, “disciplic succession,” and love underlying everything. It’s an intense yet hilarious trip into Duncan’s mind and heart.

“American Veda” author Philip Goldberg traces how Eastern philosophy and practice developed in the U.S., making it clear that yoga, meditation and kirtan didn’t just spring up here out of nowhere. We learn about the progression from people like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Swami Vivekananda, George Harrison and Ram Dass.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche said, “The quality of a really good teacher is “rascalness." Why do we need the outright unpredictable sometimes in order to progress spiritually? This week our Mindrollers delve into true intuitive wisdom, cults, humor as teaching, and the connection between art and consciousness. Catch their drift and open your mind or maybe lose it...

Raghu and David welcome Ram Dass and his co-author Rameshwar Das, who just finished their new book, Polishing the Mirror. Ram Dass talks about the moment that his life changed when he met his Guru and how that “moment” became viral with so many people. Also revealing discussion around honesty and being at the edge of awakening with dying people.

The Mindrollers traverse from the implant of knowledge via a teacher (or not) through to the real meaning of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” as explained to David by Roger Waters himself. Also ruminations about “rascal” teachers, the true nature of surrender, the dark presence of fear in our lives, and love as a disease.

David and Raghu investigate the unusual "Shambala Sun" cover story by Norman Fischer. Our Mindrollers present their own version of how to deal with life - stop blaming people, the world is upside down -turn it over, everything is the path including your step-mother, overcome self-interest as in Dave’s fixation with a certain European sport and confusion is the Buddha - not to be confused by our guys’ continuing lifetime journey to awareness.

Mickey Lemle’s documentary “Fierce Grace” passionately covers Ram Dass’s life post-stroke and also gives us a  transcendent look at aging when life suddenly involves intense hardship.  We talk with Mickey about this and also his seminal film "Compassion in Exile: The Life of The 14th Dalai Lama"...tons of great anecdotes...

Mirabai Bush, who co-founded The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, has worked with everyone from Google to troubled youth to the army, teaching the practice of mindfulness. If anyone needs more mindfulness, it’s the two Mindrollers, whose aspirations far over-reach their achievements...

Sharon Salzberg joins Mindrolling on location on Maui and shares her incredible clarity and huge heart. She lends a hand to our intrepid Mindrollers on how to navigate the vicissitudes of our complex lives thru awareness, compassion and meditation. As she says, "May the Minds Roll." 

Raghu and David sit with Krishna Das, who the New York times has called the Chant Master of American Yoga. They discuss chanting as a practice and people taking on "uncooked Gurus". 

Activism without anger, resistance without rancor: it's hard to reach detachment when the political world is making you crazy.  What to do? Vajravarahi is a spiritual energy deity perceived to transmute the Five Negative Afflictions which represent five obstructions that obscure the true nature of life.  These Five Afflictions are greed, hatred, delusion, jealousy and pride. Like all fearsome figures in Tantric Buddhism, she is protective & simply wrathful for beneficial reasons.  She fits the bill for helping change the negative emotions that prevent us from balancing ourselves or society.   Original Text by: Tristan Rigby - Rishigallery.com

What is a guru? What is a teacher?  Raghu and David offer gentle though and definitions of an “accomplished being” a “siddha” and of a teacher, some of whom are great and some actually harmful...they speak about the saga of Joya Santanya, her Shakti, and her ego...

More spectacular experiences with sacred musicians: Bob Marley, Krishna Das, Jai Uttal and Bhagavan Das. Both frightening and enlightening times with world, trance and the beginnings of chant and kirtan music is explored. David and Raghu discuss the practice of opening the heart by chanting, where no thinking is necessary. 

This podcast with our dear friend Shyam Das which was scheduled for broadcast today January 22, 2013 tragically coincided with his passing in a motorcycle accident in India three days ago. There are simply no adequate words to describe this loss to all of us. Master chanter, brilliant Krishna scholar, Shyamdas was globally revered, but much more importantly, he was loved for his delightful and friendly ways, his sparkling humorand his seamless, astonishing devotion to the ancient tradition of the ways of love for the Hindu facsimile of the Manifest Divine, Krishna and Radha. Synchronistically, this podcast features a conversation we did with him just before he left for India for the last, fateful time.

David and Raghu talk about David's interview with Frank Zappa, and 60’s music from Detroit soul to California drug music. Raghu has an embarrassing Led Zeppelin experience. R & D discuss high beings coming into their lives...India...“dolphins in the Ganges”...Raghu’s father’s transformation...meeting Muktananda...Burmese Insight Meditation practice – Goldstein, Salzberg, Kornfield...Buddhism and Bhakti in the West...Ram Dass and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. 

American Lama Surya Das talks with us about his sixties influences such as folk music, John Lennon, and his early questioning of the meaning of life. He carefully compares these times for the current youth generation to our own, where crises often happen along with optimistic youth outreach.  He tells us more about the Dzogchen Buddhist Mindrolling tradition. He remembers being with Neem Karoli Baba and how he absorbed the Buddhist wisdom.  Surya Das gets into the path to authentic life balance and letting be.  He discusses his “WOW” suggestion – Wishing Others Well and the loving kindness practice.  He mentions how H.H. The Dalai Lama encouraged him to practice “compassionate action.”

This podcast explores the positive and negative aspects of media, including social media. Raghu recalls playing Ram Dass tapes on the radio back in the day and meeting Maharaji. David compares 1960’s media to 1980’s cable explosion to the 2012 vastly expanded current global Internet. The potential abuse of social media is weighed along with its progressive and humanitarian communication quantum leaps. Spirituality via media is analyzed. Does instant information actually make us happier, more relaxed, and more truly connected?

Our friend Danny Goldberg is a music industry legend, former Chairman of Warner Brothers Records and President of Atlantic Records, Danny discovered and managed Kurt Cobain and Nirvana and was the head of Led Zeppelin’s record company, "Swansong" amongst other things. The conversation revolves around Danny’s experience in combining great worldly success and a spiritual path. We get into the sixties and the origins of expanded consciousness via Ram Dass and the teacher Hilda Charlton. Remembering Martin Luther King’s words “Although we live in the colony of time, we owe our allegiance to the empire of eternity.”