Ram Dass Quotes

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.

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.

When you lose your fear of death, you gain a love of 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.

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.

Our whole spiritual transformation brings us to the point where we realize that in our own being, we are enough.

In all spiritual practice, the strategy is the same: to identify the thing that frightens you and come as close to it as you can before you freak out.

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.

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

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”.

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.

The game is not about becoming somebody, it's about becoming nobody.

The greatest thing you can do for another human being is to get your own house in order and find your true spiritual heart.

I help people as a way to work on myself, and I work on myself to help people… To me, that’s what the emerging game is all about.

Perhaps the most appropriate initial step in view of your present predicament is to continue with you daily life in the customary manner with the simple addition of a mantra. Such a mantra can initially be used for 15 minutes in the morning and evening as suggested by Maharishi Mahesh in his program for Transcendental Meditation. You can set up a corner of your room for this purpose.