Ep. 296 – The Delight of Simplicity feat. Daniel Goleman
Ram Dass Here And Now
Ram Dass / Love Serve Remember
4.8 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2026
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this 1970s interview, Ram Dass sits down with psychologist Daniel Goleman to discuss why people aren’t happier, the power of meditation, and the delight of simplicity.
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This episode of Here and Now is a conversation between Ram Dass and Daniel Goleman.
- Daniel begins by asking Ram Dass to help us understand why people aren’t happier. Ram Dass discusses the suffering that arises from clinging to sense experiences, our strong attachment to our identities, and awakening to the realization that there is no absolute reality.
- Daniel asks, practically speaking, how a person can begin to change. Ram Dass explores how real change comes from within, not from external circumstances. We can embrace the delight of simplicity and learn how to quiet our minds.
- Ram Dass provides an example of the power of meditation. He and Daniel discuss entering the space behind thought and how the intellect is a terrific servant but a terrible master. Ultimately, it’s better to be identified with our being, rather than our knowing or doing.
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About Daniel Goleman:
Daniel is an internationally known psychologist and author. His New York Times bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence, was named one of the 25 “Most Influential Business Management Books” by TIME Magazine. Daniel is also a board member of the Mind & Life Institute, an organization that fosters dialogues and research collaborations among contemplative practitioners and scientists. Daniel has organized a series of intensive conversations between the Dalai Lama and scientists, and further merged Dharma and science, coauthoring Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body. Learn more about Daniel’s work at danielgoleman.info
About Ram Dass:
Ram Dass’s spirit has been a guiding light for generations, carrying millions along on the journey. Ram Dass teaches that through the Bhakti practice of unconditional love, we can all connect with our true nature. Through these teachings, Ram Dass has shared a little piece of his guru, Maharaj-ji, with all who have listened to him. Learn more at ramdass.org.
“But we don’t yet appreciate the delight that comes from simplicity. Some of our poets, people like Whitman and all, have described it, but we’ve never really bought it yet. We really don’t understand that in that simplicity lies a space in which one can plumb one’s own depths of being and appreciate that who you are is an entity that has taken birth, that is passing through a series of experiences, all of which are useful in order to awaken to one’s deeper self.” – Ram Dass
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | One goes beyond the concept of beyond. |
| 0:07.0 | One goes beyond concepts like this and that, and me and you, all the polarities, |
| 0:15.0 | dark and light, day and night, good and evil. |
| 0:20.0 | This doesn't mean one doesn't live and isn't able to function with polarities. |
| 0:27.2 | It means one isn't lost in them, and that's the distinction. |
| 0:36.3 | Welcome to another here and now episode with Romdos. This is number 296, the delight of simplicity. |
| 0:44.7 | And doesn't that just feel yummy like it resonates in our bones? And yet how on earth do we get simplicity? |
| 0:52.5 | That is the heart of this conversation. So it is between Ram Dass and |
| 0:56.7 | Daniel Goldman, a psychologist and the author of Emotional Intelligence. And it was recorded many |
| 1:04.1 | years ago, but per usual, it speaks with remarkable clarity to the moment we are living in right now. |
| 1:12.9 | And what is this moment? |
| 1:15.0 | I mean, I don't know, but it feels like it is filled with so much confusion, |
| 1:20.6 | with this relentless pace, with constant noise. |
| 1:26.3 | It feels like we are confronted regularly by fear and inequality and |
| 1:31.8 | disconnection and in this striving that never gets anywhere and is never quite enough. We face visible suffering every day. We see it in our personal lives, in the |
| 1:49.8 | collective, we see it systemically. And it can be hard to know how to stay open without being |
| 1:56.6 | overwhelmed, how to care deeply and not feel worn down by the caring. And so that is the heart |
| 2:06.3 | of this conversation. It's a simple question with so much progress and convenience and technology. |
| 2:13.6 | Why do we still feel so unsatisfied? Right? And Ram Dass, he points us inward as he typically does. |
| 2:24.4 | He invites us to look at the mind. How are we clinging to our experiences, to our identities, |
| 2:31.0 | to the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and how we think things |
| 2:35.1 | are supposed to be. And he gently points us to practice that we can't rearrange the world |
... |
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