Ram Smith

Ram leads a chant in Nigeria zoom

From the article: The World is My Homeland - The Future of the Planet
By Gyandevi Fuller

I see Robert Smith (Ram), among others, as embodying now the future of the planet. He talked about how he came to the path by starting at the beginning of his memories of childhood in an Afro-American family in Los Angeles.

Paradoxically, it has been clear to me for a long time, because my own life experiences, that Black culture in the United States often has provided a very strong environment for the growth of self esteem. The culture has its origins in survival under difficult and oppressive mainstream America. So I was not surprised to hear that after going to predominately black grade schools, he went on to become president of an honor society at Dorsey High School, in which the honors were usually earned by the students of Japanese ancestry.

Ram, (1st on left, #84) is seated with other black players of the 1974 Cal football team. Herm Edwards #22, the present Head Coach for the New York Jets, is seated to Ram's right. zoom

When he started a the University of California (in Berkeley) in the early seventies, he studied Business Administration, earned a football scholarship as a “walk-on,” and dated both white and black students. As a president of the Black Athlete’s Association, he got involved working in the Oakland City Schools in a program directed toward encouraging elementary and junior high students to aim at careers.

Paramhansa Yogananda, author the spiritual classic, Autobiography of a Yogi, in his speeches and writing about world brotherhood colonies did not say much about why intentional communities were so important in the future unfoldment of Self-realization in the world. He said that he saw communities of devotees “spreading like wildfire.”

Talking with Ram and listening to the story of his spiritual awakening, reminds me in the expansiveness of those early years, of other stories about people coming together to live and work, seeing themselves as facets in Indra’s Net, each reflecting the other and understanding more and more how their lives are intertwined.

In his last year at the university, Ram began to investigate various spiritual paths and he started perceiving the first of many coincidences that were to determine his future direction. Because of his playing on the football team, and doubtless for other reasons as well, has chosen to be part of a team made up of players from all over the country who were invited by the Japanese government to play in the first annual All-American/Japan Bowl game, in Tokyo. He was surprised that he was chosen because as he says with a grin, “I wasn’t one of the best in the country, but by God’s Grace I was selected.”

“I Went Out and Talked with the People”

What happened in Japan, besides the game itself, was the opportunity to go out, during the ten days they spent there to meet first hand a totally different world view, that of the Japanese people. Ram seized the opportunity and went around talking with all kinds, in order to learn from them. At the same time, he was appalled to see that many of his All-American teammates appeared to be trapped inside their own culture. They could only think about how to take advantage of their hosts.

As I was offered several opportunities to stay and work there: as a player/coach for Adidas-sponsored Japanese football team. But he chose to return to the United States to finish his degree. After he graduated, he tried out with the San Francisco 49ers. When didn’t make the team, he immediately got a corporate job located in Los Angeles, his hometown. “Some Call it Coincidence”

Ten years before this, sometime in the sixties, his older brother had bought home Autobiography of a Yogi. Now, Ram was ready and he read the book. Then he felt moved to go on a personal retreat, so he went and camped at Yosemite National Park. He thought of staying on, but early in August one of the other men working there handed him a book, Swami Kriyananda’s Yoga Postures for Higher Awareness. So, nine months after he read Yogananda’s book, he moved to Ananda to study with Kriyananda.
He says now, “When I came here to Ananda, I knew I was home. The energy moves outward, and the universe responds. Some call it coincidence.”

Ram teaches the Energization Excercises in Nigeria zoom

“The Cradle of the Planet”

I asked Ram how he and his former wife, Dianna, had felt about going to Africa, when only two people had responded to queries sent out from the Ananda ministry about the need there for a lecture tour on Yoga. He answered: “We felt that it was all Divine Mother’s doing. We met Her half way, but we didn’t know what to expect. We did send photographs, because we wanted the people with whom were corresponding with in South Africa to know what we look like – we are black!”

Again, coincidence played a part. They made their preparations to go to at least tow countries where the responses had originated: Nigeria and South Africa. They worked diligently to raise the money to for the journey: Ram doing singing concerts all over Western Europe, close to where they had lived and taught yoga for seven years in Assisi, Italy. And six months before they started on the trip, apartheid laws were in the process of being abolished in South Africa, in February of 1991!

Ram sees Africa as the cradle of the planet, and a melting pot of civilizations. Even now, he says, “Many people in the world don’t realize that there are black Africans, white Africans, Jewish Africans, Indian Africans, Italians and Germans. Along with the ancient African cultures, it is imperative that African people of all races learn to heal the wounds of internal conflicts of the past, in time, in order to develop a deeply binding spiritual force for our planet’s survival.”

Samuel Isong, who is the driving force behind the small group of devotees in Nigeria, learned about Ananda through reading Kriyananda’s home study yoga lessons, Art and Science of Raja Yoga.

“Where in the world did he get hold of that book?” I asked, astonished.
“From Lionel Fifield, who is the founder of a placed the Relaxation Center in Brisbane, Australia,” Ram answered. (In later years, Ram and Dianna toured Australia for two months and met Lionel Fifield at his center while doing classes there. He remembered Samuel Isong and the correspondence they had together.)

Ram talked a little about the confusion in Africa now, the conflicts between tribal nations and even within tribes. Since the planet is interconnected on many levels, “As conflicts resolve there, it will have its positive affect on the whole earth.” Ram said.

In Africa they met many yoga-study groups and people who meditate. And since this one tour 1991, two families from South Africa have come to the United States in order to live and study at Ananda Village. Meanwhile, in Nigeria, Samuel Isong and his friends have developed a yoga school and retreat center, Ananda Africana, for adults and children.

Ram mentioned that in 1950, Yogananda wanted to go back to India for a visit, traveling by way of Africa. At the time there were large numbers of people in West Africa who were studying the Self-Realization Fellowship lessons by correspondence. But the trip never materialized, for various reasons. So, in a way, Ram and Dianna’s journey was a fulfillment of that earlier intention of Yogananda.

“While taking a walk in Nigeria, one day,” Ram remarked, “the native people in a remote village were laughing and pointing at me. I asked our interpreter why they were laughing, and he answered, ‘They are trying to figure out who you are and they’ve decided that you are a white man!’ ”

This brings us back to the rich background on which I had remarked earlier in our talk “I am Black,” Ram said, “ and I am also have French, and Scottish, and American Indian blood. But I am none of these at the same time, because the whole world is my homeland and the human race is my family.”

(Note: For information about Robert Ram Smith’s musical CD entitled: Peace – Songs of Divine Inspiration, see our products page or contact Ram at rsmith108@netzero.net