Ep. 309 – Playing Your Part

July 27, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Playing Your Part

In June 1986, Ram Dass stood before a gathering at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, and told them about a bus driver on Third Avenue. Every day at rush hour, the same driver handled the same snarled traffic, recognized each passenger who boarded, and somehow left the whole bus feeling lighter. Ram Dass watched people go home to their families touched by that man, and he thought about the tiny pebbles that bus driver was dropping into the ocean of consciousness, radiating outward. Then he asked a question that unsettles the usual spiritual hierarchy: where would the Buddha come if the Buddha were going to reincarnate? That bus driver made contact with more people in a single day than the Buddha did in his whole lifetime.

The Trap of Specialness

The core of Ram Dass's argument is that our culture has fixated on specialness—on being somebody—to the point where we have veiled from ourselves the preciousness of the other parts of our being. Each of us has fragile, delicate egos that preoccupy our consciousness, but more significant than our specialness is the way each person is unique as part of a totality. "I really see us all as having work on earth that's equally important," he said. "We just have different parts to play."

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What you'll learn

1 (03:00) **The Ego, Specialness, and the Bus Driver** - Ram Dass introduces the core theme: our fragile egos make us focus on being special, but our true significance lies in being a unique part of a whole.
2 (14:31) **The Many Stages We Play** - The quieter we get, the more clearly we can hear the appropriate part to play on each of life’s stages.
3 (16:39) **The Spiral of Inward and Outward** - Life isn’t linear; it’s a spiral where we cycle between turning inward for work and moving outward to serve, learning to do so without attachment.
4 (17:41) **Networking vs. Hierarchy** - The concept of networking undercuts vertical, "better-than" structures, even though it can be ponderous to have to listen to "stupid people."
5 (20:25) **The Kauai Rebirthing: Resisting Growth** - A powerful, personal story about being confronted by a meditation group on Kauai, who forced him to see his own defensiveness.
6 (28:12) **Dying to Be Born Again** - The secret of being born again is dying—letting go of who you think you are to become who you actually are.
7 (29:26) **Q&A: Dreams as More Stuff** - In response to a question about the significance of dreams, Ram Dass sees them as a tool for loosening identification with this plane, but ultimately as "just more stuff."

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Guests on this episode

Ram Dass

Show Notes

Ram Dass explores playing your part on all of the stages that life presents, then answers questions about the significance of dreams, preventing detachment from turning into laziness, dealing with burnout in institutional structures, and more.

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This episode is supported by Omega Institute. Like the Be Here Now Network, Omega believes that personal transformation can change the world—one heart at a time. Discover immersive retreats, workshops, and gatherings in New York's Hudson Valley. Learn more: eomega.org

This episode of Here and Now is from a retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, on June 21st, 1986.

Ram Dass begins with an exploration of how we all have unique, but equally important, parts to play on all of the different stages that life has to offer. The quieter we get, the more we can hear the appropriateness of the parts we play.
Ram Dass transitions to question and answer time, responding to inquiries about the significance of dreams, the tension between inner work and our outer lives, and how we can prevent detachment from turning into laziness.
Ram Dass wraps things up by answering questions about dealing with the pain of family and friends who don’t want to join us on the spiritual path, bringing spiritual truths into spaces that don’t traditionally allow them, and facing burnout in institutional structures such as government.

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“And each time you let go of your somebody-ness, you can hear more clearly your everybody-ness, or your part in the everybody-ness of it all. More and more, you just want to play your part; it’s nothing special. It’s just nothing special anymore.” – Ram Dass

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