Welcome to day 21 of our Cookbook for a Sacred Life virtual course!
Today we celebrate the completion of our course together!
Congratulations on completing the 21-day course with our online community!
While we learned a lot, we also know it is just the beginning of the journey, no matter how long we have been on the path. Stay connected through the Ram Dass Fellowship, by continuing to share on these pages, or by starting a small local or online gathering of your own. And we look forward to seeing you for future Satsang and practice.
Thank you to everyone involved in making this course happen and to everyone that participated and lent their kind words, reflections and insights to this discussion group These 21 days have flown by! Sending you all my love and gratitude
Ram Ram
I am grateful to the Love Serve Remember Foundation for the Cookbook for a Sacred Life Course. I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to take this journey with everyone here, and learn more about the dharma.
To understand that everyone and every experience on our journey is part of my spiritual practice is revolutionary. That life is my curriculum for spiritual practice and growth. That all experiences are an opportunity to open my heart and learn how to be more compassionate, wise, and mindful.
This course has provided me with a lot of tools to aid my spiritual growth on the path. I’m still processing all the information and content covered in this course. Structured in 6 overlapping and interdependent sections across 21 days. I know I have a lot more to learn, from the dharma basics, to the different yoga practices, and learning to work with the different energies I encounter on the path.
I like to graphically organize and visualize information to help memorize information. This also helps me organize and focus further studies, and prioritize practice areas. In principle, this helps me be more mindful and less scattered.
I am interested in learning what this group’s daily practice looks like?
Aspirations for your practice? Taken from this course?
Suggestions for cultivating your practice? Study? Overcoming obstacles?
I look forward to tomorrow’s zoom meeting and the next course with this group.
Much metta
What a “Magnificent journey “.
So many magical nuggets of wisdom , all in baby bites… Yes!
Thank you ALL for walking this 21 day journey with me.
Ram Das has beautiful way of captivating my “Ego” to be able to connect with the Soul…
This course has opened my MIND to so many magnificent new “ INSIGHTS”
connecting to essence of an image , book or / and a Guru etc…
Life is not that serious All is just another experience
To look through the VEIL into the Soul regardless what role they are playing. Opening up, for when they come up for AIR and you are the LIGHT free of attachments…
Breathing Slowing feeling the breath , connecting to my HEART …
Telling the “Truth” to others most importantly 1st to ourselves .
Be the WITNESS … Detach for the senses , the body , organs , blood my Thoughts … Not even the MIND … WOW
Mantra Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai RAM stuck in my subconscious… I’ve taken great liking to this mantra
Looking for HOW ea person plays their part in the HEALING of the world . Going back to looking through the “Veil”
-Compassion
Here and Now
Go into the WORLD & shine our LIGHT… Be what we integrated … We are Loving Awareness
My Journey is my practice … I feel as I have started to integrate from the journaling on this platform… Witnessing , Allowing, experiencing, letting go, acceptance, sad , happing , pain , Love ALL is it ! Part of the experience
I look forward to experiencing my evolution
Thank you for making this platform available to us.
Hey Travis, my ideal daily practice includes a morning meditation, a lunchtime yoga and/or after work conscious walk, and a bedtime meditation…all sprinkled with some podcast/reading throughout the day during my breaks. For me the biggest challenge is being disciplined and showing up for myself. I’ve been prioritizing this ever since Chaitra Navratri, along with eating predominantly raw whole foods and I have noticed a significant shift in my motivation/energy towards my practice. I find that not drinking caffeine (or VERY minimal amounts) and avoiding alcohol play a huge role in how my body feels, again, contributing to a higher overall motivation/energy to stay focused on my sadhana. I’ve enjoyed hearing your perspectives and wish you love and light on your journey! Namaste
I’ve enjoyed your participation as well. Thanks for sharing!
For me -
I’ve intended to engage some kind of yoga practice, but…
I am working on walking meditation (I can surprisingly remember music in my head instead of being present). It helps if I also count (not all the time, but particularly if my monkey mind grabs hold).
I do calm abiding, insight, body scanning, union-meditation with mindfulness.
I jump into meditations if podcasts offer, altho not always (30/70).
I read quit a bit. Podcasts a lot.
Sangha is the most important, if I was to choose one over the other (not being binary).
I find a tibetan practice sets intention and vision for future practice/results helpful. But I need to not get caught in the mental trip of focusing on the gap. Just pointing at the moon…
May challenge (wait for it!..) is to not over intellectualize the practice. It’s not binary. Experience and intellectual investigation. But…It’s more like 40/60 currently. I need it more like 60/40…ha.
Please say it isn’t so! The end…already? I feel so grateful to have been a part of this. What a joyful, honest, spiritual bunch we all are! Thank you dearly to the LSRF for getting this put together. You all did such a wonderful job collating all the resources and laying them out in a very user-friendly manner. Thank you to the satsang who bravely shared their stories, thoughts, opinions, hang ups, and success stories. I get all the warm and fuzzies thinking about how this group came together, and how we may all continue to be connected in the future. In kindness and light always, Brittany
PS if you ever find yourself in or near OKC please let me know! Or if you find a cool meditation retreat or need a travel/hiking buddy I am always down: britt.d.ward22@gmail.com
PSS tips on learning the Hanuman Chalisa…please and thank you.
Adore this HAHA being playful in this process makes it all so much easier, right? if you ever want to do a virtual yoga I would gladly do so. But it does sound like you already have a few methods you are focusing on that bring you joy.
Very cool. I do need to build a simple yoga practice. I’ve committed a lot of time lately to the practice. Will eventually need to dial it back. Balance, while growing.
My experience in this E-course has been outstanding. The integration of the Teachable platform, Discourse forum, and live Zoom sessions with breakout rooms has been a marvelous experience for me. I was able to connect with each of these 3 aspects which supported my practice much more than I expected.
Ram Dass, you sure are loving awareness! And, thank you for the generous gifts you’ve shared with everyone, that keep on giving too. Stellar light.
Thank you to everyone in this course. The sincerity and authenticity in this community is de-light-ful.
Gassho/Namaste
“the path leading to the unconditioned is mindfulness directed to the body” — Stephen Batchelor
“The seeing is the doing.” - Jiddu Krishnamurti
“resting in presence, moving from emptiness” - Alok Hsu Kwang-han
“peaceful presence in the ten directions” — Metta-based mantra, David Danyluk
“I am loving awareness.” - Ram Dass
I must say I am so grateful for this course, and even the timing of it. It has brought me back to a more mindful space, at a time when I coming out a long period of overwhelm, am making changes in my life, and trying to gain the lucidity to make good choices. It has provided important reminders- the biggest of which has been the importance of an ongoing practice to maintain loving awareness. It’s been difficult to keep up with the daily course schedule and to participate on these boards as much as I would have liked, altho I did read nearly all of those posts though and tried to respond to most the prompts. I am so grateful to the Foundation for creating this program and so generously providing it to all, and to the wonderful facilitators. Also sending out big gratitude to all who shared this experience and chose to Be Here Now- now!
Thanks to LSRF for setting all this up, and for everyone in the satsang for participating! I loved reading everyones posts. I learned alot in this course, and I would have considered myself well versed in Ram Dass at the start. Its always fun to learn new things, see teachings in new ways and challenge myself. I feel more at ease, calmer, and more centered than I did at the beginning of this. Its impacted my life. I was able to deepen my practice significantly.
Its very fitting the final Zoom get together is tomorrow as April 6 is also Ram Dass’s birthday.
To quote the Grateful Dead ‘’ what a long strange trip it’s been ‘’! It sure has been one amazing EYE opening experience to learn, listen, and share with you amazing humans. I am eternally grateful for this opportunity.
Thank you to our host and the universe for bringing all these unique individuals together.
May your path always be lead to where you want to be much love everyone
PSS tips on learning the Hanuman Chalisa…please and thank you." - I have a dear Zoom friend, RamNam lover, who may have done a similar course to this (I have to ask her!) where a group from the course got together and learned the Hanuman Chalisa. She has since put it to her own music and chants it for us whenever we get together for a RamNam Saturday morning. I am wondering if it is something I want to take on. It might be a good way for some of us to get together and just take turns chanting the words with each other. For me, that is the best way to learn, repetition and repetition is best done with others!
I want to echo all the sentiments I have read appreciating the course developers and Ram Dass and everyone here on this platform, all the replies, and shares, and links, and compassion and joy that these 21 days have brought to my life. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! There are many unexplored topics created for us, some that have been replied to, and I wonder if there are others interested in learning the Hanuman Chalisa?? I have actually almost memorized the Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra and that’s probably only like a third, maybe, of the Hanuman Chalisa. Summer is coming here and life may get busier for most of us, so…we will see.
I cant seem to locate the Nina Rao course where she talks you through each word of it, but she’s great. And Krishna Das has a book and album called Flow of Grace with different styles of the Chalisa, including a final track that is word by word and slowed down. Every once in awhile there will be a course offered for it, Sacred Community Project whose Program Director is Sita Ram Dass, one of Ram Dass’s caregivers had a 40 days of Hanuman Chalisa study group last year where he went through a line a day from the Chalisa and what it meant. And back when everything was locked down, I know Taos Hanuman Ashram had a Zoom Chalisa course as well.
Quite honestly though, my trick was to play it over and over, listen to it over and over on repeat, or at least twice a day, when I woke up and then before bed, and sing along. I used to watch the audience singing along to the Chalisa in videos of Krishna Das concerts and think, How in the world did they memorize this? Slowly but surely I memorized it. Usually on December 31 or January 1 of each year Nina Rao and Krishna Das among others participate in chanting 108 Hanuman Chalisas for good vibes for the upcoming year. I did it a few years back just at home, and it took like 14 hours, it was wild! I think that alone made it so I will never ever forget the Chalisa. Even on a smaller scale though at Hanuman Maui, Ram Dass’s house, often times at specific days like Maharajjis mahasamadhi or Ram Dass’s birthday and the day he left the body, or Hanuman Jayanti (Hanumans Birthday), they will livestream folks chanting there and alot of times they do 11 Chalisas to celebrate. So ultimately for me its just been repetition.
I also think its important to point out reading it is great too. Even just printing out the version LSRF gave for todays teaching.
My daily practices include a morning walk meditation (sometimes it could be a lot more meditative and it’s always brings me home to self) and reading reflections by mystics. I tend to sprinkle “be here” thoughts and breaths through out my day. I aspire to another dedicated ½ hour a day…in practice/meditation (not reading or listening but actually experiencing). It’s a journey… Sandy
These 21 days have flown by! Sending you all my love and gratitude 
All is just another experience
free of attachments…
Slowing feeling the breath , connecting to my HEART 
…
.
my Thoughts 
… Not even the MIND 
… WOW 
of the world 
. Going back to looking through the “Veil”
& shine 
