Merciful Awareness

If you only had a year to live, what would you do? In his work with the dying, author Stephen Levine observed the radical changes people can make in the face of death. Levine challenged himself to live an entire year as if it were his last - and in this revealing narrative he shares what he learned.

In the present, within the sacred emptiness, is the deathless state sought by spiritual masters and their students. Exploring Sacred Emptiness gives us a window to this condition without boundaries, through the words of Stephen Levine. With moving eloquence, he speaks about the letting go of suffering in order to experience unencumbered awareness: the essential "am-ness" of being. Levine's words allow us to experience his vision, to close the space that separates us from God.

Sometimes illumination occurs spontaneously or, as Ram Dass experienced, in a cosmic moment of the heart opening. More commonly, it happens when we remove the dust from the mirror of our spiritual heart with daily practice - to see beyond the illusion of our transient thoughts and emotions to the vast and luminous landscape of our true nature.

These recordings are from a rare and inspiring five day retreat held in 1982. On these recordings, we hear the wonderful Stephen Levine interacting with Ram Dass and speaking on his own. These two masterful teachers explore a deeply personal and inspirational topic. With meditations, questions and answers, and brilliant lecture, this program will transform your view of life and also of death.

The Bhagavad Gita is a gem so precious in India's spiritual treasury that many regard it not as a volume of sacred verse, but as a living manifestation of the Divine. In the summer of 1974, inside a balmy Boulder, Colorado, warehouse that served as a main hall of a fledgling Naropa Institute, some say a minor miracle occured: the reawakening of the Gita's living presence, as it unfolded in a series of wisdom teachings led by Ram Dass.