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Forms of Meditation

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-An excerpt from an interview with Ramananda John E. Welshons

NILS MONTAN: What forms of meditation have you practiced?

RAMANANDA JOHN WELSHONS: Well, I practice and teach a Theravadan Buddhist form called Vipassana – or “Mindfulness” – Meditation, because it is so accessible, so practical, and requires no form of dogma or belief system. My practice was greatly enhanced with guidance from Ram Dass, and the many years I spent working with Stephen Levine. I also spent much time absorbing the teaching of Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and S.N. Goenka. In addition to Vipassana, I have also practiced the Tibetan form known as shamatha-vipashyana, and I worked for several years in the early 1970’s with the Tibetan “Great Mantra” – “Aum Mane Padme Hum.”

I have also practiced Transcendental Meditation, which I was initiated into back in the 1970’s. I actually received the beginning instruction from Mike Love of The Beach Boys in 1974. TM is a wonderful form of meditation, too. But I don’t teach it because I never took the teachers’ course, and they ask you to agree that you won’t teach it unless you have. The TM organization got a little cult-like and nutty, and the cost for receiving the teaching increased to a level that seemed just ridiculous. But if you strip away all of the institutional craziness, TM is still a beautiful meditation practice. Vipassana feels a bit more pragmatic and practical to me. It gives you specific tools and insights that allow for the translation of inner bliss into outer action. For me the two practices form a nicely balanced combination. I generally work with the mantra practice for about thirty minutes in the early morning, and then do Vipassana practice for ten to twenty minutes. Later in the day I do another period of Vipassana for twenty to thirty minutes. I also carry a mala (Indian prayer beads) with me all the time, so I can do japa meditation (repetition of the names of God) whenever I have a few moments – like standing in line at the grocery store, or the bank, or out on a walk, or even when I’m lecturing or counseling people. It’s nice to try to keep the state of meditation flowing all day long.

 Nils Montan is a writer and a social commentator who lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Southern Brazil.

What Captivated Me about Ram Dass

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An excerpt from an interview with Ramananda John E. Welshons

NILS MONTAN: What was it that captivated you about Ram Dass?

RAMANANDA JOHN WELSHONS:  Well, for several years prior to hearing that first recorded lecture, I had been struggling to understand some profound mystical and spiritual experiences that began happening to me in April of 1969, when I was just eighteen. They started the night I first heard Meher Baba’s name. That was all it took. Just hearing his name triggered a series of life-changing, transcendent experiences. Those experiences turned everything I knew and everything I understood about life upside down and inside out. And I had no idea who Meher Baba was! From that moment on, my life has been focused on returning again and again to the extraordinary experience of Divine Love and inner Bliss I tasted that night.

The next morning I sat down and spontaneously began to meditate. I didn’t need any instruction. I just did it. It was like I “remembered” how to meditate. I’m sure the “remembering” came from previous lifetimes. And I have continued to meditate pretty much every day for more than forty years. Meditation has been the central focus of my practice. I later discovered that the style of meditation I spontaneously began to practice when I was eighteen was the Tibetan form of Vipassana. About a year later I began to practice hatha yoga as well.

As I mentioned, I had experienced some deep depression during my teenage years which coincided with my parents’ drinking. For about six months prior to the onset of the spiritual experiences, I had been in Freudian psychoanalysis with a very gifted psychiatrist. I had also been experimenting with psychedelics since 1967. When the spiritual experiences began in 1969, I became convinced that there was a link between spirituality, psychology, and psychedelics. About a year and a half later – when I heard that recording of Ram Dass – he became the link. He had been a Freudian, he had been very influenced by Meher Baba’s teachings, and he had a lot of experience with psychedelics. So Ram Dass spoke in the language of all three of my primary influences, and he – essentially – wove the disparate threads of my fledgling consciousness into a beautiful plaid blanket!

NILS MONTAN: Did you continue to use psychedelics after that?

RAMANANDA JOHN WELSHONS: Not for very long. Meher Baba had urged those of us who were touched by his teachings to give up the use of psychedelics. Neem Karoli Baba, who became Ram Dass’s guru, also said that psychedelic experience was not a true Samadhi – or a true experience of enlightenment. So I completely gave up psychedelics in 1971, largely because – after hearing what Meher Baba and Neem Karoli Baba had to say – psychedelics just didn’t seem to bring the ecstasy that they once had. Instead of getting me “high,” they started bringing me “down.” I gave them up and I have never missed them.

Nils Montan is a writer and social commentator who lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Southern Brazil