Meditation is one of the most basic practices on the spiritual path, but one size does not fit all. There are different types of meditation practices, and you may wind up doing various types at different times along the way.
Here, Ram Dass takes us on guided meditation journeys into awareness, the breath, and oneness with it all.
Awareness Meditation
Sit quietly and be aware. Be aware of the sound. Be aware of the sun and the feeling of the warmth on your head and your skin. Be aware of the feelings in your body, of the children’s voices, the clear smell of the air. Be aware of this moment in history. Be aware of this in context—that it’s this day, this month, this year, and everything each one of those things implies.
Sitting here in your awareness, be aware of the earth upon which you sit and its age relative to our history. Know that the ocean and the land reach back to “in the beginning.” See that we are here among the generations. There are children, there are parents, and there are parents’ parents. Or looked at another way, there are people, their children, and their children’s children.
“For us to live in the moment means to have a quiet mind and an open heart.”
Be aware of your stage or point of incarnation—so many years passed, an unknown number yet to come. But see that in each moment, in this moment, is all of it. This moment contains all of us—those of us who are caught in hatred and violence, in fear, in loneliness, in hunger, in being the objects of prejudice. It’s all here right now.
For us to live in the moment means to have a quiet mind and an open heart—to honor the preciousness of a human birth, to treat our bodies as temples and take proper care of them without clinging to them when it is time to discard them like worn-out garments.
Be aware as you sit here of the senses in your body—the sun, the bird, the child. Be aware of it all.
Breath Meditation
Sit quietly and feel your way into this moment—sounds, sensations of the seat or the floor under your body, feeling the air on your skin, all the thoughts that are coming and going. Experience it all as if you’re on the bank of a river, watching the leaves float by on the water.
Thoughts come and go, and sensations come and go. Be mindful of each thing as it arises, not holding it or pushing it away. Pains, confusion, fear, planning, memories, tension in the body, sensations and sounds, smell, taste—be with each thing just as it is. Not pushing, not pulling.
Become aware of the breath. The breath is one of the things that just is. Be aware of the inbreath and the outbreath. Then imagine you have nostrils in the middle of your chest so the breath is going in and out of the chest. Imagine that as you draw the breath in through the chest, what you’re drawing in along with the air is an elixir, a soma—a moist, very sweet, soft light, a quality of light or sound. You draw it in and it fills your being. It goes up into your head, into your arms, to your legs and torso. It fills your being.
And as you let the breath out, the healing stuff that pours through your body is able to dislodge fear, tension, resistance. Let it go and then once again draw in light. The outbreath is almost like a sigh. You realize that what’s going out of your body is not what is—it’s the resistance against what is.
After you’ve done a few of those breaths and you’ve let go of what you can, turn it a little bit so that you’re breathing in that healing light and breathing that same healing light out into the universe. You are almost like a beacon, a conduit through which energy is passing and coming forth out of the heart—the outbreath as light, as love, as presence, as is-ness. C. S. Lewis said, “…there seems no centre because it is all centre.”
Your heart is the center of the entire universe. Imagine concentric circles around you, spreading as far as the mind can imagine—all human beings, all beings of all species, all beings of the past, all beings of the future, beings on other planes as well as on this one, as far as the mind can imagine—all these beings in every direction around you.
Now, from the middle of your heart, send out on the outbreath to those beings, to all beings everywhere, the blessing of your light.
Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.
Oneness Meditation
Imagine a tiny being, the size of your thumb, sitting on a lotus flower right in the middle of your chest. As you look upon this being, light is pouring forth from it. It is radiant, luminous, and just from looking upon this being, you get a sense of incredible peace. You look at its face and you feel infinite compassion within this being. Just being near this entity fills you with a feeling of love. It sits quietly, with perfect equanimity and great wisdom.
Now let that being grow in size till it fills your body—its head, your head; its torso, your torso; its legs, your legs; its arms, your arms. Feel its peace, feel its equanimity. Let yourself be filled with its love.
Now, with your eyes closed, you and the being expand in size until your head reaches the ceiling and all of us are within you and this voice is within you. Feel your hugeness. Now you break out of the building, your head going up into the sky. Your head is among the planets. You have grown in size till you are sitting in the middle of this galaxy, this universe. The earth is within your belly. Feel your hugeness at this moment. You are in the silence of the heavens.
Expand yet again until all of the planets, all of the stars, all of creation is within you. You are the One. You are the Ancient One. I am within you. Everything that ever was, is, or will be is part of the dance of your being. You are all of the universe, so you have infinite wisdom. You appreciate all of the feelings of the universe, so you have infinite compassion. Feel your immensity, your aloneness.
Now let the boundaries of your being disintegrate, and merge yourself into that which is beyond form. Sit for a moment in the formless. There is nothing but the One.
Gently reestablish the form of your being and very slowly reduce in size back through the universe. Smaller, smaller, until your head is at the roof of this building. Look down and find who you thought you were. Look at that being. Look at her or his life. Look at that being as a soul, living out another round. Look upon that being with compassion. See how it gets lost in its drama at this moment. Reach down from your vast height and gently touch that being in blessing on the top of its head. At this moment, you are that which blesses and you are that which is being blessed.
“There Is No Other: The Way to Harmony and Wholeness”
By Ram Dass, edited by Parvati Markus
Now come down in size until you are back into your body, still with this radiant being filling you—this being of peace, love, passion, wisdom; this being who in its huge form fills the universe and who now fills your body. As this being, hold your right palm forward and allow yourself to become a vehicle for bringing those qualities out into the physical plane to all beings who suffer in the universe. Become a pure vehicle of that huge one. Let it pour through your hand. Feel it coming out of the palm of your right hand, and send blessings of peace and love to all beings who suffer, whether their suffering is physical, psychological, or spiritual.
If there are beings who are suffering, bring them to mind and surround their beings with light, with love, and with peace. At this moment, if there are beings toward whom you feel anger, bring them into your consciousness. See the soul that lies within that incarnation and bless that soul with love and peace and light. For as you go on this spiritual journey, you must accept the responsibility to share what you receive, for that is part of the harmony of God. You become an instrument for the manifestation of the will of God.
Now put your hand down and finally let that being become smaller and smaller until it is the size of a thumb once more, sitting in the middle of your heart. That is your inner guru. That is the inner voice that speaks truth because it is truth. That is the being who will guide you home. That is the being that is none other than your true self when you finish being who you think you are.
At any time, you can go inside and talk to and listen to that being—whether you call it Christ, Buddha, God, guru, or your true self.
Excerpted from “There Is No Other: The Way to Harmony and Wholeness” by Ram Dass and edited by Parvati Markus. Copyright © 2025 by Ram Dass. Excerpted with permission by HarperCollins.
The post 3 Meditations from Ram Dass appeared first on Lion’s Roar.
Recent Comments