Complete Collection of Ram Dass Quotes | Ram Dass Quotes
Ramdas quotes guide us in all areas of our life. We can use Ramdas to overcome the difficulties that come in the special situation of life. Here we are including all types of quotes of Ram Das.
Ram Dass Awakening Quotes
“ The quieter you become, the more you can hear.”
— Ram Dass
“Across planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things can be simultaneously true.”
— Ram Dass
“ It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”
— Ram Dass
“ We are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we are so deeply interconnected with one another.”
— Ram Dass
“ Information is just bits of data. Knowledge is putting them together. Wisdom is transcending them.”
— Ram Dass
“ You and I are the force for transformation in the world. We are the consciousness that will define the nature of the reality we are moving into.”
— Ram Dass
“ Cosmic humor, especially about your own predicament, is an important part of your journey.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Comes the sting of the scorpion of jealousy at the success of others, and last of all the demon of pride enters the mind, making it think itself of all importance.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ When we're identified with Awareness, we're no longer living in a world of polarities. Everything is present at the same time.”
— Ram Dass
“ The more conscious that a being becomes, the more he can use any occupation as a vehicle for spreading light.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ I must really be crazy, now—because craziness is where everybody agrees about something,—except you!”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ And suddenly I realized that he knew everything that was going on in my head, all the time, and that he still loved me. Because who we are is behind all that.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ We have what we seek. It is there all the time, and if we give it time it will make itself known to us. —Thomas Merton
— Ram Dass, Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook
“ The epitome of the human realm is to be stuck in a huge traffic jam of discursive thought. —Chogyam Trungpa
— Ram Dass, Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook
“ And it all just is, but without form. Because in order to know form, we have to be separate from it.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ A young lad was sent to school. He began his lessons with the other children, and the first lesson the teacher set him was the straight line, the figure “one.” But whereas the others went on progressing, this child continued writing the same figure. After two or three days the teacher came up to him and said, “Have you finished your lesson?” He said, “No, I’m still writing ‘one.’ ”
He went on doing the same thing, and when at the end of the week the teacher asked him again he said, “I have not yet finished it.” The teacher thought he was an idiot and should be sent away, as he could not or did not want to learn. At home the child continued with the same exercise and the parents also became tired and disgusted. He simply said, “I have not yet learned it, I am learning it. When I have finished I shall take the other lessons.” The parents said, “The other children are going on further, school has given you up, and you do not show any progress; we are tired of you.” And the lad thought with sad heart that as he had displeased his parents too he had better leave home. So he went into the wilderness and lived on fruits and nuts. After a long time he returned to his old school. And when he saw the teacher he said to him, “I think I have learned it. See if I have. Shall I write on this wall?” And when he made his sign the wall split in two. —Hazrat Inayat Khan The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan
— Ram Dass, Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook
“ you do what you do because that’s what the harmony of the universe requires. If I am a potter I make pots”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Must be transcended. What are the steps of the process of calming the mind? Think of a lake in whose depths lies hidden what you seek. You try to see down into the lake, but you can’t because the surface is covered with waves going in all directions . . . choppy water . . . thoughts coming from all directions . . . from your senses, from your memory . . . habits of thought learned unconsciously, running off mechanically . . . the causes of which are too subtle for your analytic mind to grasp. Now, create an artificial wave . . . consciously add a new component . . . choose a single thought . . . and consciously set about making that”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ As long as one feels that he is the doer, he cannot escape from the wheel of births.”—Buddha
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ If we follow our heart, there is nothing to fear. As long as our actions are based on our pure seeking for God, we are safe. And any time we are unsure or frightened about our situation, there’s a beautiful and very powerful mantra—“The power of God is within me. The grace of God surrounds me”—which we can repeat to ourselves. It will protect us. Grace will surround us like a gentle force field. Through an open heart, one hears the universe.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ Most of us are so caught in righteousness, we’re afraid of truth.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ My Guru, Maharaj-ji, once told me, “Enjoy everything!” These days I try to simply love everything that comes my way, whether animate or inanimate, pleasant or painful. I hope you too can learn to absorb life’s ecstasies and distresses into your spiritual practice so they are just more grist for the mill.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ My commitment is to truth, not consistency.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ Satsang is a community of truth seekers. It is a group of people with the shared awareness that there is a spiritual dimension to the universe. Goethe had this beautiful thought: “The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone here and there who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ But who’s minding the store?” When I could finally focus on the question, I realized that although everything by which I knew myself, even my body and this life itself, was gone, still I was fully aware!”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“Begin to notice that wherever you go or whatever time it is by the clock . . . it is always here and now.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ It is like that moment depicted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel where the hands of God and man are about to touch. It's just at the moment when the despair is greatest, when we reach up, that the grace descends, and we experience the knowledge or the insight or the remembrance that it all isn't in fact the way we thought it was. If it happens too violently, we decide you've gone insane. And there are people who are all too willing to reassure us that we have, and there are places for that. In hunting tribes, mystics are treated as insane--they're an inconvenience because the tribe has to be kept mobile and old people and crazy people have to be put away somewhere. But if we're in a certain position at the moment of seeing through, if the view has been gentle or if we're with somebody else that knows, or if we had intellectually known but didn't believe, all of which is a karmic matter, if we had some kind of structure or support system, we says, "Even though everybody else thinks I'm mad, I'm not.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill
“The optimum strategy is to act as if we have free choice and to choose always that which we feel is most in harmony with the way of things.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ The eyes of a saint are always concentrated on the Supreme Self. The minute he is aware of himself, sainthood is lost. – Neem Karoli Baba”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ In The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment, Thaddeus Golas says, “You never have to change what you see, only the way you see it.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ We each have our path. There are many routes up the mountain, but they all end at the peak.”
— Ram Dass, Be Love Now: The Path of the Heart
“ The seeds of the ability to be able to confront, and even disagree with, an existing institution and know and trust that inside place that says it’s all right. It’s something I could never have done without anxiety until that moment—until that day.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Hafiz the poet said, “O thou who are trying to learn the marvel of love from the copybook of reason, I’m very much afraid that you will never really see the point.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ When you have started to awaken and see that there are other planes of reality that are equally valid to the one which presently exists, you learn how to live more or less with more and more planes simultaneously, which is what freedom is about. It’s not totally standing in one plane, it’s not standing anywhere at all.”
— Ram Dass
“ Each of us has our own unique karmic predicament, our own unique work to do. The predicament is that there is nowhere to stand, because our identification with the person who has the karma is changing too. As you develop the witness and identify more with your spiritual heart, karma just is.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ What's fun is that when you're no longer attached to being one separate part of it, you get to be part of all of it. At that point the "all" is known to you subjectively, and you are everywhere at once, because you are no longer pinned in a space-time locus by your separateness. Metaphysics tell me that, and physics tell me that. Everything I have experienced in all my inner work points to that.”
— Ram Dass, Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita
As you awaken, you realize that personal karma is just another illusion. The illusion is that this is “ the only reality. The witness helps you to see that there are choices, different ways to perceive reality.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ A lineage that is pure is one that catapults us ultimately out the other end; it isn’t designed to make us followers of the lineage. It is designed to take us through itself and free us at the other end.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ Thought dominant . . . so that a continuous sequence of even waves all coming from one direction overrides all the choppy water, as an ocean wave absorbs all the eddying waters at the shoreline. Now each wave is that same thought over and over again . . . no other thought can capture your attention which remains fixed upon the single thought. Does this mean that other thoughts stop? No. Thoughts continue as a natural process in nature, but you run them through on automatic (base brain)—the same way most people drive an automobile, that is, without attending to each movement of the accelerator or steering wheel. We function under the fallacy (cogito ergo sum) that we are our thoughts and therefore must attend to them in order for them to be realized. To break your identification with your own thoughts is to achieve inner freedom. So you identify with this new thought you have added, until you and that thought become one and all other thoughts are passing just like clouds in the sky. When you have arrived at the point where that”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
Ram Dass Soul Quotes
“ We're fascinated by the words, but where we meet is in the silence behind them.”
— Ram Dass
“Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying.”
— Ram Dass
“ Learn to watch your drama unfold while at the same time knowing you are more than your drama.”
— Ram Dass
“ It's very different because the Indians live as if they are their souls and Americans live as if they are their egos.”
— Ram Dass
“ There's much more in any given moment than we usually perceive, and that we ourselves are much more than we usually perceive. When you know that, part of you can stand outside the drama of your life.”
— Ram Dass
“ Emotions are like waves. Watch them disappear in the distance on the vast calm ocean.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Souls love. That’s what souls do. Egos don’t, but souls do. Become a soul, look around, and you’ll be amazed-all the beings around you are souls. Be one, see one. When many people have this heart connection, then we will know that we are all one, we human beings all over the planet. We will be one. One love. And don’t leave out the animals, and trees, and clouds, and galaxies-it’s all one. It’s one energy.”
— Ram Dass
“ If you want to be surrounded by Souls, become identified with your Soul.
It takes one to know one!”
— Ram Dass
“ What we're seeing "out there" is the projection of where we're at--the projection of the clingings of our minds.”
— Ram Dass
“ I think the message is that you don’t need to go to anywhere else to find what you are seeking.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ When you are already in Detroit, you don't have to take a bus to get there.”
— Ram Dass
“ How are we to know that the mind has become concentrated? Because the idea of time will vanish. The more time passes un-noticed the more concentrated we are . . . All time will have the tendency to come and stand in the one present. So the definition is given, when the past and present come and stand in one, the mind is said to be concentrated.”—Vivekananda
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ In the course of your journey it is most likely that your day-to-day companions or friends may change. Some may fall away as your interest in the Spirit pulls you from the worldly interest which brought or kept you together, but new friends who share your current interests will appear.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Just relax and trust the process.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Potent Quotes “Whatever you do, or eat, or give, or offer in adoration, let it be an offering to me; and whatever you suffer, suffer it for me. Thus you shall be free from the bonds of Karma which yield fruits that are evil and good; and with your soul one in renunciation you shall be free and come to me.”—Bhagavad Gita
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ If you listen to your own inner voice, it will tell you where you are now, and which method will work best for you in your evolution towards the light.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Maharajji would quote Kabir: “It is easy to dye your cloth, but it is hard to dye your heart.”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ Trust the messages coming from your heart and intuition.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ If you observe well, your own heart will answer.”—de Lubicz
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“To reconnect consciousness with the unconscious, to make consciousness symbolical is to reconnect words with silence; to let the silence in. If consciousness is all words and no silence, the unconscious remains unconscious.”—N.O. Brown
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Meditation raises the question: Who are we really?”
— Ram Dass, Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook
“ Whoever clings to mind sees not The truth of what’s Beyond the mind. Whoever strives to practice Dharma Finds not the truth of Beyond-practice. To know what is Beyond both mind and practice, One should cut cleanly through the root of mind And stare naked. One should thus break away From all distinctions and remain at ease.”
— Ram Dass, Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook
“ We end up going through hell in meditation to quiet our mind, not because somebody says, “You ought to quiet your mind,” but because our agitated mind is driving us up the wall, and it’s keeping us from getting on with it.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ The pure Buddha, the mind that is clear of attachment, exists anywhere in perfect harmony with all the forces around it.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ The journey across the great ocean of existence Is a journey inward ever in deeper and deeper and the deeper you get in the more you meet truth”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ We recognize now that we are bringing our external world genuinely and honestly into harmony with our inner perceptions, and we don't need to try so hard to create an external space to prove anything.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill
“ Now isn’t preparation for later. Here and now is it. There is a spaciousness, an acceptance of what is in the moment, that says, “Yes, ah so!” to everything, whether it’s ugly, beautiful, boring, confused, dead, angry, the dark night of the soul, or the brilliant light of the spirit. This is just the way it is. And in just the way it is, is the spirit.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ Drugs had changed me from a selfish, striving academic in search of recognition and power to someone who was aware of the soul. Psychedelics had introduced me to compassion, to recognizing and feeling love for others. Harvard seemed trivial by comparison.”
— Ram Dass, Being Ram Dass
“ you don’t need to go to anywhere else to find what you are seeking.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ It's the pysical plane, the astral plane, the causal plane - all the conceptual levels of form, all the way back to pure idea.”
— Ram Dass
“ Aldous Huxley reminds us, “The body is always in time, the spirit is always timeless and the psyche is an amphibious creature compelled by the laws of man’s being to associate itself to some extent with its body, but capable, if it so desires, of experiencing and being identified with its spirit.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ I tried to go the renunciate’s way, to forget the needs of the body in order to avoid the suffering of the Ego. But the Soul depends on the Ego’s drama for its teachings. We have to be in the world to learn from it.”
— Ram Dass, Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying
“ Remember, awareness is part of the soul. And the soul loves everything.”
— Ram Dass
“ You can stay in touch with your soul by dwelling in the moment.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
Ram Dass Spiritual Quotes
“ The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can't be organized or regulated. It isn't true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth.”
— Ram Dass
“ The art of spiritual growth has to do with how quickly you recognize attachments and how quickly you can release them.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ Treat everyone you meet like God in drag.”
— Ram Dass
“ All spiritual practices are illusions created by illusionists to escape illusion.”
— Ram Dass
“ The game is not about becoming somebody, it's about becoming nobody.”
—Ram Dass
“ Our whole spiritual transformation brings us to the point where we realize that in our own being, we are enough.”
— Ram Dass
“ Just because you are seeing divine light, experiencing waves of bliss, or conversing with Gods and Goddesses is no reason to not know your zip code.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Spiritual practices help us move from identifying with the ego to identifying with the soul. Old age does that for you too. It spiritualizes people naturally.”
— Ram Dass
“ Our rational minds can never understand what has happened, but our hearts.. if we can keep them open to God, will find their own intuitive way.”
— Ram Dass
“ I didn’t arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind.”—A. Einstein
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Ephrem the Syrian says, ‘Good speech is silver, but silence is pure gold.’ ”—Way of a Pilgrim
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ When the heart is open, it's easier for the mind to be turned toward God.”
— Ram Dass
“You give up not meditating. It's called meditation action. There's no way out of it. Meditation means to be constantly extricating yourself from the clinging of mind.”
— Ram Dass
It’s Better To See God In Everything Than To Try To Figure It Out.
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ Once a sadhu offered me some land that he had, so that I could have an ashram for fellow Westerners. I asked Maharajji about it. He said, “He wants to give you his attachment. It’s not a pure gift. If it were pure he’d just give it to you instead of talking about it.”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ What the word God means is the mystery really. It's the mystery that we face as humans the mystery of existence, of suffering and of death.”
— Ram Dass
“ The art of listening comes from a quiet mind and an open heart.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ That’s who we all are on this path, spiritual family and friends. It’s just one big family. We’re all relatives until we realize we’re really all the same and there’s only one of us—one loving awareness. May you be one in that love.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ The spiritual journey is not about acquiring something outside yourself. Rather, you are penetrating the layers and veils to return to the deepest truth of your own being.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ The Hindu deity Hanuman offers a similar example of devotional service. Every act he performs becomes an offering to Rama (God). His service brings him to the very edge of unitive love. How powerful his vision: “When I know who I am, I am you,” he says, kneeling before Rama, “when I don’t know who I am, I serve you.”
— Ram Dass, How Can I Help?
“ To him, to Krishna, to God. To use your daily life and work as a conscious spiritual path means relinquishing your attachment to the fruits of the actions, to how they come out. Instead of doing it for a reward or a result, you do your work as an offering, out of love for God. Through love for God, your work becomes an expression of devotion,
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ Our existence as embodied beings is purely momentary; what are a hundred years in eternity? But if we shatter the chains of egotism, and melt into the ocean of humanity, we share its dignity. To feel that we are something is to set up a barrier between God and ourselves; to cease feeling that we are something is to become one with God.”—Gandhi
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ I will treat all my negative reactions to this form of meditation as merely thought forms prompted by my ego to keep me from taking it seriously. I will suspend judgment, criticism, and doubt.”
— Ram Dass, Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook
“ It's very hard to grow because it's difficult to let go of the models of ourselves in which we've invested so heavily.”
— Ram Dass, One-Liners: A Mini-Manual for a Spiritual Life
“ Once I was chastising Maharajji for giving photos to people who were worldly and didn’t care about him. He said, “You don’t understand me. If I tell a man he is a great bhakta (devotee). I am planting a seed. If a person already has the seed planted and growing, why should I plant another?” I said, “You are telling these drunkards, liars, and dacoits that they are real bhaktas. They will just go home and carry on their old behaviors.” Maharajji said, “Some of them will remember what I said of them, and it will make them want to develop this quality in themselves. If ten out of a hundred are inspired in this way, it is a very good thing.”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ you see it.” Gurdjieff, a great spiritual teacher who taught in Europe and America in the early decades of the twentieth century, noted that if you think you’re free and you don’t know you are in prison, you can’t escape. Gurdjieff saw us as being in a prison of our own habits of mind. Unless we understand how we are conditioned by our desires, we remain stuck in the reality they create, like a television program with an ad that keeps repeating over and over, implanting a subliminal message while we watch the show. BEYOND THOUGHT In the West we get rewarded for rational knowledge and learning. But only when you see that the assumptions you’ve been working under are not valid,”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ Gurdjieff used to say, “If you can serve a cup of tea properly, you can do anything.” That is, if you are able to perform any act in a true karma-yogic fashion, it’s because you’re acting from a place where you’re free of attachments and not busy being the actor—and being in that place will shape every act you do.”
— Ram Dass, Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita
“ Who in all his works sees God, in truth he goes to God.”
— Ram Dass, Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita
“ Instead of filling your mind with the daily news, fill it with stuff that helps you become more conscious, that liberates you. As you become more aware of what gets you to God and what doesn’t, you will naturally let go of what doesn’t. That’s purification. You do it to get to God, not for the sake of being pure.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can’t be organized or regulated. It isn’t true that everybody should follow any one path. Listen to your own truth.”
— Ram Dass, Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook
“ I take the dust from the lotus feet of the guru to cleanse the mirror of my mind.” So begins a sacred ode to Hanuman.”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ The power of God is within me. The grace of God surrounds me.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ Ram asks Hanuman, “Who are you, Hanuman?” Hanuman answers, “When I don’t know who I am, I serve you. When I know who I am, I am you.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ How do I know if a person is my guru?" a devotee asked Maharajji. "Do you feel he can free you from all desires, attachments, and so forth? DO you feel he can lead you to final liberation?”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ To do anything with attachment. With desire . . . with anger..greed..lust . . . fear.. is only creating more karma, which is keeping you in the game . . . on the wheel of birth and death once you see through that. . . Desires can’t help but fall away”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“Once I asked Maharajji how it is possible for a man to remember God all the time. He told me the story of Narada (the celestial sage) and the butcher: Vishnu (one of the aspects of God) was always praising the butcher and Narada wondered why, since the butcher was always occupied and Narada spent twenty-four hours a day praising Vishnu. Vishnu gave Narada the task of carrying a bowl of oil, full to the brim, up to the top of a mountain, without spilling a drop. The task completed, Vishnu asked how many times Narada remembered Vishnu. Narada asked how that would be possible, since he had to concentrate on carrying the bowl and climbing the mountain. Vishnu sent Narada to the butcher and the butcher said that as he works he is always remembering God. Maharajji said then, “Whatever outer work you must do, do it; but train your mind in such a way that in your subconscious mind you remember God.”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ Maharajji invited a famous pundit to come to Kainchi and recite the Shrimad Bhagavatam. This man was used to reciting before large and very receptive crowds, and he complained to Maharajji that on this occasion he had to recite to only a few illiterate villagers. Maharajji gently rebuked him and said, “Don’t worry. Hanumanji is listening.”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ Many people say to me, "Should I be a vegetarian or shouldn't I?" "Should I have sex or shouldn't I?" "Should I meditate forty minutes or shouldn't I?" People that meditate exactly the right number of minutes, eat exactly the right food, do all the things perfectly, can also be caught in the chain of gold, in the chain of righteousness and ritual. This is not liberation. But eventually one does perform the spiritual practices, not out of obligation, not out of guilt, but because we've got to do it. Because it's demanded of us by us. We end up going through hell in meditation to quiet our minds, not because someone says, "You ought to quiet your mind," but because our agitated minds are driving us up the wall, and it's keeping us from getting on with it. We'll learn how to pray, and read holy books, and practice devotional acts and chants, opening our hearts and asking Christ to fill us with love, not because we're good, but because with a closed heart we know we cannot come into the flow of the universe.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill
“ You'll lose it, you'll come down, but that's okay. Don't knock it. Because the grace to experience the possibility of yourself keeps helping you aim and redirect — and as you learn how to do it, every time you start to come down — the things that bring you down are your own clinging, fears, unworthiness, self-pity, stuff like that. And you just start to ‘here ma you take it, here Ram Dass you take it, you take my stuff, I don't need it anymore.’
And everything that interferes with your tuning to God within yourself, you just start to let it go. No big deal about it, you just start to let it go.”
— Ram Dass
“ Thank you.” He’s not putting them on or up-leveling them. He’s saying, “There’s a teaching here, and I’m getting it; thank you.” What’s bizarre is that we get to the point where somebody lays a heavy trip on us and we get caught, and then we see through our caughtness and we say, “Thank you.” We may not say it aloud because it’s too cute. But we feel, Thank you. People come up and are violent or angry or write nasty letters or whatever they do to express their frustration or anger or competition, and all I can say is thanks.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ The Great Way is not difficult for those not attached to preferences. When neither love nor hate arises, all is clear and undisguised. Separate by the smallest amount, however, and you are as far from it as heaven is from earth. —Seng-ts’an, Third Patriarch of Zen”
— Ram Dass, Be Love Now: The Path of the Heart
“ It was as if you were proving the obvious. Somebody who had taken the placebo which made their skin crawl reacted by saying, “Well, maybe something’s happening”, and then another minister would stagger into the room and say, “I see God! I see God!” and it was all too obvious in a short time who had had the psylocybin.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ But the arrival of the paramedics and my not being able to talk or move the right side of my body was a potent sales pitch for reality.”
— Ram Ram Dass, Being Ram Dass
“ Though Peter claimed not to be spiritual, he had found a peaceful place, as I had decades ago, in Quaker meeting”
— Ram Ram Dass, Being Ram Dass
“ He had no idea what a Ram Dass was, but he was open to learning.”
— Ram Ram Dass, Being Ram Dass
Ram Dass Quotes About Religion
“ Every religion is the product of the conceptual mind attempting to describe the mystery.”
— Ram Dass
“ Religions are founded by what mystics say when they come back;
but what the mystics say is not the same as what happened to them.”
— Ram Dass
Ram Dass Quotes About Dharma
“ To live another's dharma, to try to be a Buddha or to be a Christ because Christ did it, doesn't get us there; it just makes us mimickers”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill
“ A less pure teaching of a lineage traps us in the lineage, makes us a Buddhist or a Christian or a Hindu, not a free being, because when the people who lead do not have the full connection, they cling to the vehicle rather than to the truth toward which the vehicle is directed, and vehicles (institutions) corrode unless they are constantly fed by the living spirit. And the living spirit comes only through beings who are it. We can become organizational groupies as part of our path, but if we know it’s not enough, we must have the honesty to let it go.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
Ram Dass Compassion Quotes
“ By acting compassionately, by helping to restore justice and to encourage peace, we are acknowledging that we are all part of one another.”
— Ram dass
“ Compassion refers to the arising in the heart of the desire to relieve the suffering of all beings.”
— Ram Dass
“ This getting straight not only applies to people but to things as well, such as favorite music, disliked foods, special treats, avoided places, all your toys, etc. Everything must be rerun through your compassion machine.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ As we acquire a certain degree of equanimity in self-image, we are that much more likely to feel empathy for those around us. We know what it’s like to be a “self” moving through the world of “others.” When someone feels particularly isolated or in pain, we don’t need a great deal of information in order to come to his or her aid.”
— Ram Dass, How Can I Help?
“ Compassion simply stated is leaving other people alone.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill
“ Feeling peaceful, or less than fully loving and compassionate, I must act. You can’t wait around to be enlightened. There’s no way not to act while you’re in physical form. Krishna says as much in the Bhagavad Gita. As long as you’re incarnate, you’re acting. You can’t not do anything—if you don’t get out and vote, you’re still affecting the outcome. Silence may itself be an acquiescence to injustice or unnecessary suffering. Since I must act, I do the best I can to act consciously and compassionately. I try to make every action an exercise in liberation. Because the truth that comes from freedom, the power that comes from freedom, and the love and compassion that”
— Ram Ram Dass, Being Ram Dass
Ram Dass Quote Family
“ Oh! I’m going to do good things for my child. Balony! That’s all ego. Just work on yourself And: Everytime you work on yourself, you get calmer you hear more you sense more you are more you’re more present What are you offering a child? not a set of social roles passing in the night. . . . youre offering a child here and now — ness The treasure of consciousness The treasure of awareness.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here
“ What you feel is most important may not be seen as most important to someone else. This is a very complex society we are a part of. Stay in the world, do your part, raise your children, earn your living, and assume your responsibility at every level.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
Ram Dass Quotes About Marriage
“ The reason we form a conscious marriage on the physical plane with a partner is in order to do the work of coming to God together. That is the only reason for marriage when one is conscious. The only reason. If we marry for economics, if we marry for passion, if we marry for romantic love, if we marry for convenience, if we marry for sexual gratification, it will pass and there is suffering. The only marriage contract that works is what the original contract was -- we enter into this contract in order to come to God, together. That's what conscious marriage is about. In fact, that is what everything we're doing is about.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill
Ram Dass Quotes Walking Each Other Home
“ We're all just walking each other home.”
— Ram Dass
“ If you think you are enlightened; go home for Thanksgiving.”
— Ram Dass
Ram Dass Quotes On Self Love
I can do nothing for you but work on myself...you can do nothing for me but work on yourself!
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ The question we need to ask ourselves is whether there is any place we can stand in ourselves where we can look at all that's happening around us without freaking out, where we can be quiet enough to hear our predicament, and where we can begin to find ways of acting that are at least not contributing to further destabilization.”
— Ram Dass
“ You may protest if you can love the person you are protesting against as much as you love yourself.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ So your first job is to work on yourself. The greatest thing you can do for another human being is to get your own house in order and find your true spiritual heart.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
Ram Dass Quotes On Love
“ The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it's in the being. When I need love from others, or need to give love to others, I'm caught in an unstable situation. Being in love, rather than giving or taking love, is the only thing that provides stability. Being in love means seeing the Beloved all around me.”
— Ram Dass
“ A moment comes when "other" is no longer other.”
— Ram Dass
“ Working on our own consciousness is the most important thing that we are doing at any moment, and being love is a supreme creative act.”
— Ram Dass
“ Once you have drunk from the water of unconditional love, no other well can satisfy your thirst. The pangs of separation may become so intense that seeking the affection of the Beloved becomes an obsession.”
— Ram Dass, Be Love Now: The Path of the Heart
“ It is only when you begin to understand that if you and I are truly in love, if I go to the place in me that is love and you to the place in you that is love we are ‘together’ in Love. We start to understand that what love means is that we are sharing a common state together. That state exists in you and it exists in me.”
— Ram Dass
“ You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don’t have to do anything to earn it. Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success - none of that matters. No one can take this love away from you, and it will always be here.”
— Ram Dass
“ Grace is at the nexus of love and awareness. There it’s all open and it’s all love.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ True love is unconquer able and irresistable; and it goes on gathering power and spreading itself, until eventually it transforms everyone whom it touches. Meher Baba”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Love Is The Strongest Medicine. It Is More Powerful Than Electricity.”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ Love is essentially self-communicative. Those who do not have it catch it from those who have it.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ True love is unconquerable and irresistible,” he said, “and it goes on gathering power and spreading itself, until eventually it transforms everyone whom it touches.”
— Ram Dass, Being Ram Dass
“ When you are in the presence of unconditional love, you are in the optimum environment for your heart to open.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ You are my connection to the place in myself where I am love, and I can't get there without you.”
— Ram Dass
Ram Dass Quotes Love
“ I'm not interested in being a "lover." I'm interested in only being love.”
— Ram Dass
“ When we see the Beloved in each person, it's like walking through a garden, watching flowers bloom all around us.”
— Ram Dass
“ Our interactions with one another reflect a dance between love and fear.”
— Ram Dass
“ This love is actually part of you; it is always flowing through you. It’s like the subatomic texture of the universe, the dark matter that connects everything. When you tune in to that flow, you will feel it in your own heart—not your physical heart or your emotional heart, but your spiritual heart, the place you point to in your chest when you say, “I am.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Love is the most transformative medicine For Love slowly transforms you Into what psychedelics only get you to glimpse.”
— Ram Dass
“ At times Maharajji’s behavior reminds me of a story Ramakrishna tells of a saint who asked a snake not to bite but to love everyone. The snake agreed. But then many people threw things at the snake. The saint found the snake all battered. “I didn’t say not to hiss,” said the saint.”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ Whose presence reveals how subtle is the path of Love.”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ Maharaji, he would tell me repeatedly, “Ram Dass, love everyone and tell the truth.”
— Ram Dass
“ No matter what someone else does to you, never put anyone out of your heart.”
— Ram Dass, Being Ram Dass
Ram Dass Quotes On Relationships
“ In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.”
— Ram Dass
“ In our relationships, how much can we allow them to become new, and how much do we cling to what they used to be yesterday?”
— Ram Dass
“ Relationships only work in a spiritual sense when you and I really see that we are one.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ A relationship starting out as one that awakens love can only remain a living vehicle for love to the extent that it is continually made new or reconsecrated.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ When you get to those edges where you say, “I can’t handle that” or “I’m not going to do that,” take a look at the mindset you are holding onto. There is the root of your suffering. That’s where your mind is in relation to what is.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
Ram Dass Quotes On Life
“ I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion and where it isn't, that's where my work lies.”
— Ram Dass
“ I would say that the thrust of my life has been initially about getting free, and then realizing that my freedom is not independent of everybody else. Then I am arriving at that circle where one works on oneself as a gift to other people so that one doesn't create more suffering. I help people as a work on myself and I work on myself to help people.”
— Ram Dass
“ Everything in your life is there as a vehicle for your transformation.
Use it!”
— Ram Dass
“ Everything in your life is there as a vehicle for your transformation.
Use it!”
— Ram Dass
“ Early in the journey you wonder how long the journey will take and whether you will make it in this lifetime. Later you will see that where you are going is HERE and you will arrive NOW...so you stop asking.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Our journey is about being more deeply involved in Life and yet less attached to it.”
— Ram Dass
“ I see my life as an unfolding set of opportunities to awaken.”
— Ram Dass
“ My life is a creative act--like a painting, or a concerto.”
— Ram Dass
“ A moment’s reflection will show you that you play many roles in the course of a day . . . and that who you are from moment to moment changes. There is the angry you, and the kind you, the lazy you, the lustful you—hundreds of different you’s. Gurdjieff points out that sometimes one “you” does something for which all the other “you’s” must pay for years or possibly the rest of this life.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ My colleagues and I were 9 to 5 psychologists: we came to work every day and we did our psychology, just like you would do insurance or auto mechanics, and then at 5 we went home and were just as neurotic as we were before we went to work. Somehow, it seemed to me, if all of this theory were right, it should play more intimately into my own life.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.”—Samuel Johnson
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Inevitably is an excellent word—inevitably means you’re on a train, and the train is going one way, and you’re at the front of the train running as fast as you can toward the back of the train, in the opposite direction from where the train is headed. But it doesn’t matter, because when the train gets to the station, you get there too. That’s inevitably. That’s my life.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ We are born into the world of nature; our second birth is into the world of spirit.”—Bhagavad Gita
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. Rabindranath Tagore”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
Ram Dass Quotes on Death
“ Death has such great importance in this society that it affects everything. I learned from my guru that death is not the enemy, I see it as another moment. Yet it's the end of an incarnation and means going on to other incarnations.”
— Ram dass
“ You two are together in the stars, but not in this world, in this life.”
— Ram Dass
“ The freaky thing about death is the anticipatory fear of it.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ Whatever you need to do to get ready to die, you should have done it a minute ago. Do it now and get ready. Every moment is the moment you die. Every breath is the first and last. A conscious being holds on nowhere.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ At the moment of death, if we let go lightly, we go out into the light, toward the One, toward God. The only thing that died, after all, was another set of thoughts of who we were this time around.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ When I get back, I decide to listen to a talk Ram Dass once gave about what happens after death. When you die, where your consciousness is at the moment of death is a reflection of your level of evolution. If you are ready for the transformation that occurs at the moment of death, when there is a dissolving of the control mechanism and an intensification of all the energies, and you are not identified with all that so that you have equanimity through it, you can witness from a place of presence. You can witness the entire process of dying, and your consciousness doesn’t flicker. Most people, however, are attached to some way of looking at the world, and when that starts to dissolve at the moment of death, they go unconscious. They go through the process unconsciously and pick up the thread later on, because it happens too fast and requires letting go too fast. So the art is to let go before you die, so that when you die, there is no letting go required. That’s the most evolved state. They say in the literature that one who sees the way in the morning can gladly die in the evening. Die before you die, so that when you die you need not die. There is a great quote from Kabir: ‘If you don’t break your ropes while you are alive’—that is, if you don’t break the identification with your body and your personality while you’re alive—‘do you think that ghosts will do it after?’ The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic just because the body is rotten, that is all fantasy. What is found now is found then. If you find nothing now, you’ll simply end up with an apartment in the city of death. But if you make love with the Divine now, then in the next life, you will have the face of satisfied desire. So plunge into the truth. Find out who your teacher is. Believe in the great sound. In other words, do your sadhana so that you can break the identification now. Then, at the moment of transformation, you can just go. If you have fear, you will be met and guided and protected. There will be beings that are there, who are on other planes, available to give meaning to this transformation for you. So the least conscious beings go unconscious and get reprogrammed. The next more conscious beings meet other beings who guide them and help them. The most conscious beings just let go completely at the moment of death, and they don’t go through more incarnations. The meaning of the wheel of birth and death is that as you get more and more evolved, there is less likelihood that you will keep taking rebirth. From the soul’s point of view, you take rebirth only to work your way out of the illusion of your own separateness.”
— Ram Dass, Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying
Ram Dass Quotes On Death
“ The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin wonders if “the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death.”
— Ram Dass, Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying
“ That thought brought enormous gratitude for the moment of light and breath I was living—how sweet, how rare, to be given a body in which to move about this world!”
— Ram Dass, Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying
Ram Dass Quotes Judgement
“ The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back.”
— Ram Dass
“ Let's trade in all our judging for appreciating. Let's lay down our righteousness and just be together.”
— Ram Dass
“When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.
The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”
— Ram Dass
“ Might just go into another room and close the door and be in there for two days. You had to learn to expect the unexpected. One day he came out and all he said all day long was “Thul-Thul, Nan-Nan,” repeating these words to himself like a mantra. Days went by like this and somebody finally said, “Maharajji, what are you saying?” And it turned out to be an old Behari dialect, and all it meant was “Too big, too big, too little, too little.” When he was finally asked why he was saying this, he said, “Oh, all you people, you all live in Thul-Thul, Nan-Nan; you live in the world of judgement. It’s always too big or too little.”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
Ram Dass Quotes On Healing
“Healing does not mean going back to the way things were before, but rather allowing what is now to move us closer to God.”
— Ram Dass
“ The most exquisite paradox… as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all. As long as you want power, you can't have it. The minute you don't want power, you'll have more than you ever dreamed possible.”
— Ram Dass
“ Your problem is you are too busy holding on to your unworthiness.”
— Ram Dass
“ Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.”
— Ram Dass
“ A feeling of aversion or attachment toward something is your clue that there's work to be done.”
— Ram Dass
“ The Ego is an exquisite instrument. Enjoy it, use it--just don't get lost in it.”
— Ram Dass
“ We're being trained through our incarnations--trained to seek love, trained to seek light, trained to see the grace in suffering.”
— Ram Dass
“ Do what you can on this plane to relieve suffering by constantly working on yourself to be an instrument for the cessation of suffering. To me, that's what the emerging game is all about.”
— Ram Dass
“ All acts of healing are ultimately our selves healing our Self.”
— Ram Dass
“ Healing is not the same as curing, after all; healing does not mean going back to the way things were before, but rather allowing what is now to move us closer to God.”
— Ram Dass, Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying
Ram Dass Quotes On Healing
“ It's only when caterpillarness is done that one becomes a butterfly. That again is part of this paradox. You cannot rip away caterpillarness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process of which we have no control.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ The caterpillar does not become a flying caterpillar; it morphs into a butterfly.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.”
— Ram Dass
“ Suffering is the sandpaper of our incarnation. It does its work of shaping us.”
— Ram Dass
“ Psychedelics helped me to escape.. albeit momentarily.. from the prison of my mind. It over-rode the habit patterns of thought and I was able to taste innocence again. Looking at sensations freshly without the conceptual overly was very profound.”
— Ram Dass
“ In mystical traditions, it is one's own readiness that makes experiences exoteric or esoteric.
The secret isn't that you're not being told.
The secret is that you're not able to hear.”
— Ram Dass
“ O, marvelous error— That there was a beehive here inside my heart And the golden bees were making white combs And sweet honey from all my failures”
— Ram Dass, Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying
Ram Dass Quotes About serious, seriousness
“ So we won't take ourselves too seriously. Because taking something serious doesn't make it go away any faster. In fact, it keeps making it a little bit worse.”
— Ram Dass, Experiments in Truth
Ram Dass Quotes About Change
“ Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it.”
— Ram Dass
“ When somebody provokes your anger, the only reason you get angry is because you’re holding on to how you think something is supposed to be. You’re denying how it is. Then you see it’s the expectations of your own mind that are creating your own hell. When you get frustrated because something isn’t the way you thought it would be, examine the way you thought, not just the thing that frustrates you. You’ll see that a lot of your emotional suffering is created by your models of how you think the universe should be and your inability to allow it to be as it is.
Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
As one individual changes, the system changes.”
— Ram Dass
“ If somebody at work is a problem for you, they’re not the one who needs to change. If someone is a problem for you, it’s you who needs to change. If you feel they’re causing you trouble, that’s your problem. It’s on you. Your job is to clear yourself.
Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Faith is not a belief. Faith is what is left when your beliefs have all been blown to hell. Faith is in the heart, while beliefs are in the head. Experiences, even spiritual experiences, come and go. As long as you base your faith on experience, your faith is going to be constantly flickering, because your experiences keep changing.”
— Ram Dass, Be Love Now: The Path of the Heart
“ you base your faith on experience, your faith is”
— Ram Dass, Be Love Now: The Path of the Heart
“ In a non-traditional culture such as ours, dominated by technology, we value information far more than we do wisdom. But there is a difference between the two. Information involves the acquisition, organization, and dissemination of facts; a storing-up of physical data. But wisdom involves another equally crucial function: the emptying and quieting of the mind, the application of the heart, and the alchemy of reason and feeling.”
— Ram Dass, Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying
“ I was no longer needing to be special, because I was no longer so caught in my puny separateness that had to keep proving I was something. I was part of the universe, like a tree is, or like grass is, or like water is. Like storms, like roses. I was just part of it all.”
— Ram Dass, Changing Lenses
“ We are sneaking psychedelics back into our society through research like the MDMA research that's going on, through the research for the use of marijuana for pain, through research with the dying [with psilocybin], and ultimately we will do the same kind of stuff about alcoholism, about prison rehabilitation, so on. I mean, its obvious that psychedelics, properly used, have a behavior-change psychotherapeutic value. But from my point of view, that is all underusing the vehicle. The potential of the vehicle is sacramentally to take you out of the cultural constructs which you are part of a conspiracy in maintaining. And giving you a chance to experience once again your innocence.”
— Ram Dass
“ But you know, you really don't have to worry about whether everybody else is doing it or not. You just begin to get your own house in order. Recognizing your complete interrelatedness with all of it and with your own spiritual source changes the meaning of each act, and therefore both the reason and the way it's done.”
— Ram Dass, Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita
“ Part of the process of awakening is recognizing that the realities we thought were absolute are only relative. All you have to do is shift from one reality to another once, and your attachment to what you thought was real starts to collapse. Once the seed of awakening sprouts in you, there’s no choice—there’s no turning back.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ Who you think you are will always
be frightened of change. But it
doesn’t make any difference to
who you truly are.”
— Ram Dass, One-Liners: A Mini-Manual for a Spiritual Life
“ Rilke advised, “with all that is unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek for the answers that cannot be given, for you wouldn’t be able to live with them, and the point is to live everything. Live the questions now, and perhaps without knowing it, you will live along someday into the answers.”
— Ram Dass, Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying
Ram Dass Quotes illusion
“ As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can't see how it is.”
— Ram Dass
“ What you meet in another being is the projection of your own level of evolution.”
— Ram Dass
“ The next message you need is always right where you are.”
— Ram Dass
“ If you think you're free, there's no escape possible.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ We're here to awaken from the illusion of separateness
Ram Dass, How Can I Help? Stories and Reflection on Service”
“ It's all real and it's all illusory:
that's Awareness!”
— Ram Dass
“ To him who has had the experience no explanation is necessary, to him who has not, none is possible.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ The dance goes from realizing that you're separate (which is the awakening) to then trying to find your way back into the totality of which you are not only a part, but which you are.”
— Ram Dass
“ Illusions are like mistresses. We can have many of them without tying ourselves down to responsibility. But truth insists on marriage. Once a person embraces truth, he is in its ruthless, but gentle, grasp.”—Rabazar Tarzs
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Free yourself from the illusion of good and bad days. Labeling time makes us nostalgic of the past and demanding of the future. There is only here and now. Let it be.”
— Ram Dass
“ The thing about perspective is:
something happens.
it means nothing.
we make up a story about what it means based on what we feel.
this story becomes our truth.
this story creates our reality, our world, what is possible and what is not.”
— Ram Dass
“ I found that the chief difficulty for most people was to realize that they had really heard ‘new things’: that is, things that they had never heard before. They kept translating what they heard into their habitual language. They had ceased to hope and believe there might be anything new.”—Ouspensky
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ The true devotees of God never wear saffron, carry malas (prayer beads), or put on sandalwood. You can’t know them unless they want it, and then you can only know them as much as they allow.”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ Bleeding heart of Jesus, and we look down and see the blood on the snow. We keep both of those in mind at every moment so we can help beings who are suffering in the way they need to be helped. If we are really going to help them get out of the illusion, we ourselves must not get lost in the illusion.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ Faith is not a belief. Beliefs are in the head. Faith is in the heart. Faith comes from within you. You cultivate it by opening your spiritual heart and quieting your mind until you feel your identity with your deeper Self. That opening to the deeper Self, when you have quieted your mind. comes through grace. The qualities of that Self are peace, joy, compassion, wisdom, and love.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
Ram Dass Inspirational Quotes
“ Prolong not the past
Invite not the future
Do not alter your innate wakefulness
Fear not appearances
There in nothing more than this”
— Ram Dass
“ The cosmic humor is that if you desire to move mountains and you continue to purify yourself, ultimately you will arrive at the place where you are able to move mountains. But in order to arrive at this position of power you will have had to give up being he-who-wanted-to-move-mountains so that you can be he-who-put-the-mountain-there-in-the-first-place. The humor is that finally when you have the power to move the mountain, you are the person who placed it there--so there the mountain stays.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ The freer I get, the higher I go. The higher I go, the more I see. The more I see, the less I know. The less I know, the more I’m free.”
— Ram Dass, Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita
“ Inspiration is God making contact with itself.”
— Ram Dass
“ When your center is firm, when your faith is strong and unwavering, then it will not matter what company you keep.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
— Ram Dass, Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying
“ Those who know do not talk And talkers do not know.”—Tao Te Ching
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Don’t treat yourself so gingerly; you can let go of stuff. Sometimes it takes three breaths instead of two to do it, but you can do it. Be a little tougher and don’t cling to stuff. People go around carrying everybody’s stuff all of the time. I just pick it up and put it down. Pick it up and put it down. That doesn’t mean I’m not compassionate, it doesn’t mean I don’t love people. But holding onto people’s suffering is not compassionate… for them or for you.”
— Ram Dass
“ That Bhagavad Gita instruction to be unattached to the fruits of your actions is the key. If you are a parent raising a child, don’t get attached to the act of raising the child. That doesn’t mean you’re not a loving, active parent. Your job is to love and nurture, feed and clothe, take care and guard the safety of the child, and guide him or her with your moral compass. But how the child turns out is how the child turns out. Ultimately he or she is not your child; who they turn out to be is up to God and their own karma.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ If a pickpocket meets a saint, he sees only his pockets.” Then he’d get up and leave. Or he’d write, “If you wear shoeleather, the whole earth is covered with leather.” These were his ways of teaching me about how motivation affects perception.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ All of a sudden the progress will stop one day, and you will find yourself, as it were, stranded. Persevere. All progress proceeds by such rise and fall.”—Vivekananda
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ No Accidents If you could stand back far enough and watch the whole process you would see You Are A Totally Determined Being”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ I started to get extremely, extremely depressed. I’m sure part of it was due to the hashish.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ The abstract point of this is that we don’t do anything to anybody else, anyway. Actually, people do things to themselves, and we are merely the environment in which they do it when they are ready.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ A man said to Maharajji, “You’ve promised for years to visit my home and you have never come. I’m not going to come to see you anymore, because you won’t visit my home.” Maharajji said, “Oh, I didn’t understand! It’s your home. I had thought it was my home and so I didn’t need to visit.”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ When you experience fear or are unsure about your situation, there’s a beautiful and very powerful mantra you can say: “The power of God is within me. The grace of God surrounds me.” Repeat it to yourself or to a loved one in need. It will protect you. Experience the power of it. It’s like a solid steel shaft that goes through the top of your head right down to the base of your being. Grace will surround you like a force field.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ Motivations and desires affect our perceptions. We don’t necessarily see things as they are. We see them as we are.”
— Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
“ You have all the time in the world, but don’t waste a moment.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
Ram Dass Quotes About Future
“ Don’t think about the future. Just be here now.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Did I ever tell you about the time that Tim and I . . .” And he’d say, “Don’t think about the past. Just be here now.” Silence. And I’d say, “How long do you think we’re going to be on this trip?” And he’d say, “Don’t think about the future. Just be here now.” I’d say, “You know, I really feel crumby, my hips are hurting . . .”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
Ram Dass Quotes Short
“ Now is now. Are you going to be here or not”
— Ram Dass
“ Don’t think about the past. Just be here now.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ The world is won by those who let it go.”
— Ram Dass, Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita
“ I don't really believe anything I say. Because the nature of my work concerns the spaces between the words, rather than the words themselves.”
— Ram Dass
“ I am embarrassed to admit what drew me to psychology. I didn't want to go to medical school. I was getting good grades in psychology and I was charismatic and people in the psychology department liked me. It was as low a level as that.”
— Ram Dass
“ Knowledge all by itself, without deep wisdom, ends up becoming despair.”
— Ram Dass, Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita
“ as soon as you give it all up you can have it all”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ It’s all right now But later?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . forget it baby That’s later Now is Now Are you going to be here Or not? It’s as simple as that!”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Sub Ishwar hai”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ Sooner or later the realization comes that nothing we can think of is going to do it.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ Not my but Thy will, O Lord.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ I am the thought I.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
Ram Dass Quotes Be Here Now
“ The human mind is like that monkey, incessantly active by its own nature, then it becomes drunk with the wine of desire, thus increasing its turbulence. After desire takes possession comes the sting of the scorpion of jealousy at the success of others, and last of all the demon of pride enters the mind, making it think itself of all importance.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Allow that you are at this moment not in the wrong place in your life. Consider the possibility that there have been no errors in the game. Just consider it. Consider that there is not an error, and everything that’s come down on your plate is the way it is and here we are.”
— Ram Dass
Ram Dass quotes Be Here Now
“ A woman once came to Mahatma Gandhi with her little boy. She asked, “Mahatma-ji, tell my little boy to stop eating sugar.” “Come back in three days,” said Gandhi. In three days the woman and the little boy returned and Mahatma Gandhi said to the little boy, “Stop eating sugar.” The woman asked, “Why was it necessary for us to return only after three days for you to tell my little boy that?” The Mahatma replied: “Three days ago I had not stopped eating sugar.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ woman once came to Gandhi with her young son. “Mahatma-ji, tell my son to stop eating sugar. It’s not good for him.” Gandhi told her to return with her son in a week’s time. When they returned, Gandhi said to the boy, “Stop eating sugar.” The woman was perplexed and asked Gandhi why he couldn’t have told the boy that a week earlier. Gandhi replied, “Because at that time I had not given up sugar.”
— Ram Dass, Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service
Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ What is important is that you get your house in order at each stage of the journey so that you can proceed. “If some day it be given to you to pass into the inner temple, you must leave no enemies behind.”—de Lubicz For example, if you never got on well with one of your parents and you have left that parent behind on your journey in such a way that the thought of that parent arouses anger or frustration or self-pity or any emotion . . . you are still attached. You are still stuck. And you must get that relationship straight before you can finish your work. And what, specifically, does “getting it straight” mean? Well, it means re-perceiving that parent, or whoever it may be, with total compassion . . . seeing him as a being of the spirit, just like you, who happens to be your parent . . . and who happens to have this or that characteristic, and who happens to be at a certain stage of his evolutionary journey. You must see that all beings are just beings . . . and that all the wrappings of personality and role and body are the coverings. Your attachments are only to the coverings, and as long as you are attached to someone else’s covering you are stuck, and you keep them stuck, in that attachment. Only when you can see the essence, can see God, in each human being do you free yourself and those about you. It’s hard work when you have spent years building a fixed model of who someone else is to abandon it, but until that model is superceded by a compassionate model, you are still stuck. In India they say that in order to proceed with one’s work one needs one’s parents’ blessings. Even if the parent has died, you must in your heart and mind, re-perceive that relationship until it becomes, like every one of your current relationships, one of light. If the person is still alive you may, when you have proceeded far enough, revisit and bring the relationship into the present. For, if you can keep the visit totally in the present, you will be free and finished. The parent may or may not be. but that is his karmic predicament. And if you have been truly in the present, and if you find a place in which you can share even a brief eternal moment . . . this is all it takes to get the blessing of your parent! It obviously doesn’t demand that the parent say, “I bless you.” Rather it means that he hears you as a fellow being, and honors the divine spark within you. And even a moment in the Here and Now . . . a single second shared in the eternal present . . . in love . . . is all that is required to free you both, if you are ready to be freed. From then on, it’s your own individual karma that determines how long you can maintain that high moment.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ Enough was happening that mattered — that was real.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ As you progress with your sadhana you may find it necessary to change your occupation. Or you may find that it is only necessary to change the way in which you perform your current occupation in order to bring it into line with your new understanding of how it all is. The more conscious that a being becomes, the more he can use any occupation as a vehicle for spreading light. The next true being of Buddha-nature that you meet may appear as a bus driver, a doctor, a weaver, an insurance salesman, a musician, a chef, a teacher, or any of the thousands of roles that are required in a complex society—the many parts of Christ’s body. You will know him because the simple dance that may transpire between you—such as handing him change as you board the bus—will strengthen in you the faith in the divinity of man. It’s as simple as that.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ For many years before I met Maharajji I was searching, going here and there, studying this and that. I began following strict yogic codes—brahmacharya, 3:00 A.M. risings, cold baths, asanas, and dhyan. It was during a period when I had given up coffee and tea that I met Maharajji. Tea was being offered to all of us, and I didn’t know what to do. I said nothing but did not accept a cup of tea, and Maharajji leaned over to me, saying, “Won’t you take tea? Take tea! You should drink the tea. It’s good for you in this weather! Take tea!” So I drank the tea. With that one cup of tea, all those strict disciplines and schedules were washed away! They seemed meaningless and unnecessary; the true work seemed beyond these things. Now I do whatever comes of itself.”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ And there was some point as a professor at Stanford and Harvard when I experienced being caught in some kind of a meaningless game in which the students were exquisite at playing the role of students and the faculty were exquisite at playing the role of faculty. I would get up and say what I had read in books and they’d all write it down and give it back as answers on exams but nothing was happening. I felt as if I were in a sound-proof room. Not enough was happening that mattered—that was real.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ And, to my suppressed dismay, I found that this stance was considered acceptable by most of my colleagues who seemed, in their attempt to become “scientific”, to think of personality in terms of variables.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ At night he didn’t seem to sleep like I did. That is, any time I’d wake up at night, I’d look over and he would be sitting in the lotus position. And sometimes I’d make believe I was asleep and then open sort of a half-eye to see if he wasn’t cheating—maybe he was sleeping Now—but he was always in the lotus posture.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ In India when we meet and part we often say, “Namasté,” which means: I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides; I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace. I honor the place within you where, if you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us. Namasté”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ Dina Bandhu, Dina Nath, Mere dore tere hath”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
“ Strategies in the book involve ways to use the mind to go beyond the mind, ways to understand states of consciousness that are beyond thought, and ways to identify ourselves other than through our mind, through our intuition, and so forth.”
— Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill: Awakening to Oneness
“ I was just getting more and more knowledgeable. And I was getting very good at bouncing three knowledge balls at once. I could sit in a doctoral exam, ask very sophisticated questions and look terribly wise. It was a hustle.”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ A lot of people try to counteract the ‘I am not good enough’ with ‘I am good enough.’ In other words, they take the opposite and they try to invest it. That still keeps the world at the level of polarities. The art is to go behind the polarities. So the act is to go not to the world of: ‘I am good’ to counteract ‘I am bad,’ Or ‘I am lovable’ as opposed to ‘I am unlovable.’ But go behind it to ‘I am.’ I am. I am. And ‘I am’ includes the fact that I do crappy things, and I do beautiful things. And I am.”
— Ram Dass
“ We often think that vulnerability is a kind of weakness, but there's a kind of vulnerability that is actually strength and presence.”
— Ram Dass, Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying
“ And as a therapist I felt caught in the drama of my own theories. The research data showed that Rogerian patients ended up saying positive statements, and Freudian patients ended up talking about their mother because of subtle reinforcement clues—it was so obvious. I would sit with my little notebook and when the person would start talking about his mother, I’d make a note and it didn’t take long for the patient to realize that he got his “note” taken, he got his pellet, every time he said certain things. And pretty soon he would be “Freudianized”.
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ of it. I felt that the theories I was teaching in psychology didn’t make it, that the psychologists didn’t really have a grasp of the human condition, and that the theories I was teaching, which”
— Ram Dass, Be Here Now
“ About the miracle babas Maharajji would say, “What is this? This is all foolishness.” He could do miracles, but the greatest miracle was that he could turn one’s heart and mind toward God, as he did for me.”
— Ram Dass, Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba
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