In this recording from 1979, Ram Dass gives a talk at a benefit for a food bank, emphasizing that every human being has a right to be fed. 

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This episode of Here and Now is from a talk Ram Dass gave at a benefit event for a food bank in Santa Cruz, California, in February 1979. 

• Ram Dass begins by repeating some of the words his guru passed on to him about the importance of food and making sure people are fed. He talks about how we need to rethink the way we approach the issue of food in our culture.
• Ram Das explores the paradox of suffering: On one level, it stinks, and on another level, it’s all perfect. But it’s very hard not to close our hearts to the tremendous suffering around us. 
• Sharing stories about his friends and his guru, Ram Dass talks about awakening to a place beyond “us” and “them,” a place where we’re all One. 
• Ram Dass emphasizes the importance of quieting our minds and opening our hearts. “I kinda wonder about how the game really works,” he says. “Don’t you? The game of hunger and starvation and feeding and faith and manna from heaven and connectedness. I keep feeling that the game is different than my mind can yet comprehend, but that I’m on the right track when I keep quieting my mind and opening my heart and just serving and feeding and doing what I can.” 

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“And all I remember was my guru saying every human being has a right to be fed. A right. A right to food. He said even if it’s the worst thief in the world, he has a right to food. That food is not a bargaining tool of power; food is a basic, shared manifestation of God. And somehow, the haves and have-nots lose sight of that very easily. We can bargain about television sets. We can bargain about automobiles. But we can bargain about food.” – Ram Dass

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