You get word from the Ram Dass Foundation about
Ram Dass' recent appearance in Austin, Texas at the
"Light Up Your Heart with Love" celebration. You find
delight in his appearing publicly since his stroke.
What gets your attention, though, has more to do with
your own appearance interior. You read further:
The Palmer Auditorium was turned into a vendors'
bazaar, with beautiful banners and shawls and murtis
and crystals and palm-readers and ayurvedic practitioners.
There was a time you would effortlessly open the mind
to everything but struggled to open the heart to practices
with no foundation in fact. You would suspend judgment yet wince with emotion at the claims of (say) palm-reading.
Now arises a renewed feeling of being, a perceptible shift
in felt-integrity. You sit with no concern for beliefs not
founded on evidence. You await confirmation and remain
awake to harm from the idiotism of this world.
That's right, Alice, a soft heart does not mean a soft head.
Empathy and doubt can live together. You can tolerate
a practice and not trust all claims made for it. The one thing
you are never to doubt, felt-integrity, The Feeling of Being.
