The B-Hare Now Network invites you to join us this Wednesday, July 26th at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time for a livestream celebrating the B-Hare Now Network's 7th anniversary.

This livestream event features B-Hare Now Network alumni, Krishna Das, Sharon Salzburg, Spring Washam, Raghu Marcus, David Nickturn and Duncan Trusshol.

Musical performances from East Forest, Chantala, Nina Rao and Krishna Das. Also details on how to win a trip to the Open Your Heart in Paradise Ramdas Legacy Retreat in Maui.

Tune in Wednesday, July 26th at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on the B-Hare Now Network YouTube channel or at bhearenownetwork.com forward slash giveaway. See you there!

Welcome to Ramdas, here and now I'm Raghu Marcus. Hi everybody, we have a new talk that I've pulled from the archives.

This is from 1994 and I'm titling this particular excerpt, Make Friends With Change. I think it's a pretty important essencey talk around what really is going on with our world these days and interestingly enough.

So this is 20 years ago, Ramdas was talking about the instability of our social, economic, environmental systems and how it seems to be.

There is a continuity of breakdown with, and this is, you know, as I said 20 years ago, he's talking about what was going on then really seems to have escalated to this particular moment in time and space.

And I'm speaking this or talking about this stuff in this moment when it's just after the election which happened November 4th here, 2014, and the control of Congress has completely flipped over to the Republicans.

And you know, you watch what's going on on television and you see this deep, intense polarization in our country, in the United States at this point.

And the deep, deep distrust that is going on and I feel very much part of it myself. I have, and I've said this on other podcasts, I feel very vulnerable to deep reactivity to what I see represented by the right.

And I find it very, very difficult to put into practice what I have gotten through these decades of work in her work.

And so Rambdas addresses some of this stuff here. And in a way that's, I think it's more global. It's more, it has more of a historical viewpoint. It has more of a potentially positive way of seeing it and dealing with it.

So he talks about the increasing destabilization of our societal systems. And that, you know, we tend to then identify and feel vulnerable and identify with separateness.

And we try and create safety nets. And as we do, you know, our own little personal worlds where we can feel safe in our home, feel safe with some kind of idea that we have financial security.

And we feel safe in our limited circle of family and friends. And, but that is a contraction. And when that contraction happens, we are then fostering, as he says here, fear, prejudice. And then you see, of course, spreading out locally and globally an increase in violence and sectarianism.

And all in order to preserve the security of the familiar. So I think that goes for all of us in the world, of course, in very big ways, this kind of separation where there is really a tremendous amount of ignorance.

But even with people who are, quote unquote, conscious or consciously working on themselves, we tend to do, I see it in myself, where I try and create buffers around myself to hold secure and not feel vulnerable.

So, and he talks about this as a dark period that leads to a realignment of social forces and so on. But here's the kicker. It's also a profound transformative period. And in that transformation, there is, we have an opportunity.

So, all we know is in these situations, as Ramdha says here, it can become an opportunity for growth. But here's, it requires, and this is a key in this talk, it requires consciousness, a consciousness that holds an inner quality of equanimity, an openness to the unknown.

A certain way in which the chaos of the system doesn't undercut you, because you are not dependent on the external for your equanimity.

So, that goes hand in hand with the practices that we all engage with to become more conscious, that we put those practices into real purpose related to the outside forces that we are part of.

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