Ram Dass’s Teaching About Opening the Heart: Simple, Beautiful and Hard to Master
I struggle with it every day.
In the spiritual arena, the heart is the center of emotion and of the deeply ethereal and mysterious.
Teachings about the heart are, inherently, figurative and not literal. That is, if someone urges us to keep our heart open, they aren’t asking us to physically maneuver our aortas or ventricles.
For that reason, teachings about the heart can be, at least for me, difficult to grasp.
Not so with today’s teaching by Ram Dass, which, in its simplest terms, is this:
He urges us to keep our hearts open. Always. Under any circumstances.
The good thing about this teaching? I’ll bet every one of you understands what Ram Dass means by keeping the heart open.
But just because it’s understandable doesn’t mean it’s easy. Far from it.
Hate the actions, not the person
How? In a nutshell, what Ram Dass teaches us is that it’s okay to hate a person’s actions, but it’s never okay to hate the person.
When we hate the person, we close our heart to them. And that is what I struggle with.
Here are some examples to illustrate.
EXAMPLE #1: PEOPLE WHO PISS YOU OFF
We all have these. It could be one of your coworkers. Or an in-law. Or a parent of one of your kids’ friends.
Something they do, or a series of things they do, causes you to close your heart to them. It’s the old:
“I’ve had it with X. I’m done with them.”
And maybe you’re still cordial when you see them so as not to create a stink. But the bottom line is that you want nothing to do with them.
I struggle hard with this one. I have great relationships with tons of people. But now and then, someone does something that really ticks me off and I close my heart to them.
What do I need to do? Dislike the actions, not the person!
But as we all know, separating the actions from the person is incredibly hard. Yet that right there is the crux of Ram Dass’s teaching on the heart.
A helpful teaching on this comes from Eckhart Tolle who says that when we’re having difficulty dealing with someone, we need to be mindful that they, we, and everyone on this planet is on their own spiritual journey. As such, everyone is at a different level of consciousness.
Bottom line: Cut people some slack.
EXAMPLE #2: DONALD TRUMP
As most of you know, I don’t write about politics often, mainly because I think it distracts from the spiritual path topics I explore.
I bring up Trump now not to spew bile about some of the things he’s done, but rather to focus on my response. And all too often, my response has been to close my heart to him. It happens almost every day.
And what good does that do? Nothing. It makes matters worse in some small way.
I’m sure many of you feel the same way. And you may respond by saying,
“Yes, I think he’s awful and I have hateful feelings about him 24/7. But my God, I’m human. I can’t help it.”
Well, spiritual work is all about rising above our humanness. Our humanness is rooted in our egos. So what we really trying to do is rise above the ego.
An open heart with Trump
So what does keeping our heart open vis a viz Trump look like? Vehemently disagree with his actions, but don’t become inflamed over them.
Because what happens when we become inflamed? We lose our present moment awareness and dive down the ego rabbit hole, which is never constructive or healthy.
And again, it ain’t easy. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work our spiritual tails off to get better.
EXAMPLE #3: DEALING WITH THOSE WHO ARE SUFFERING
Dealing with those suffering was where Ram Dass used this open heart concept most powerfully.
He devoted much of his life to helping the suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses like AIDS. How does the open heart approach work here?
Well, most people find it so excruciatingly hard to be around someone in severe pain (mental, physical or otherwise) that their heart shuts down. Not from lack of empathy, but simply because their heart ‘can’t handle it.’ It’s too much.
Which is not good for the sufferer. What’s good for the sufferer is to be with someone, like Ram Dass, whose heart remains open which then allows them to offer true compassion.
Two souls having a conversation
Ram Dass looked at those sessions as two equal souls meeting and having a conversation. The body housing the sufferer’s soul was in bad shape. But the soul wasn’t.
And it was from that place that Ram Dass met these people. He said this resulted in some of the most beautiful and moving experiences of his life.
This one is also difficult to master. Why? Because our egos are what freak out when we’re with a suffering person. Our minds go to,
“Yikes. Is this what it’s like to die? What if this happens to me? I don’t think I could handle it. Get me outta here!”
So how do we do it? Mostly it just takes the strength to say,
“No. I’m not closing my heart. Is this hard? Yes. But I’m going to stay open and remain present with this suffering person.”
The long-term solution is to strengthen our presence power by regularly practicing meditation and mindfulness. Those practices serve to weaken the ego’s grip over us, thereby making it easier to keep our hearts open in any situation.
The takeaway
The practical takeaway is this: Whenever you feel like your ego is about to, or already has, closed your heart, practice becoming aware that this has happened. Whether you’re mad at someone in your orbit, discussing Trump or talking with someone in pain, notice if your heart has closed.
If it has, simply do your best to open it up again. And if it hasn’t closed, be vigilant about keeping it open.
It’s hard to do. But it’s so important. Think of how much lighter, content and equanimous you’d be if you kept your heart open toward everyone.
And think about what the world would look like if all eight billion of us walked around with open hearts.
Louis Armstrong wrote a song about that…