Ram Dass

“You may protest if you can love the person you are protesting against as much as you love yourself.”

“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.”

“If you think you are enlightened; go home for Thanksgiving.”

“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.”

“Prolong not the pastInvite not the futureDo not alter your innate wakefulnessFear not appearancesThere in nothing more than this”

“Be here now.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.”

“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.”

“As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can't see how it is.”

“Remember, we are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we're so deeply interconnected with one another. Working on our own consciousness is the most important thing that we are doing at any moment, and being love is the supreme creative act.”

“Healing does not mean going back to the way things were before, but rather allowing what is now to move us closer to God.”

“By acting compassionately, by helping to restore justice and to encourage peace, we are acknowledging that we are all part of one another.”

“Compassion refers to the arising in the heart of the desire to relieve the suffering of all beings.”

“Learn to watch your drama unfold while at the same time knowing you are more than your drama.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“It's very different because the Indians live as if they are their souls and Americans live as if they are their egos.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I'm not interested in being a "lover." I'm interested in only being love.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Your problem is you are too busy holding on to your unworthiness.”

“The next message you need is always right where you are.”

“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.”

“Treat everyone you meet like God in drag.”

“We're being trained through our incarnations--trained to seek love, trained to seek light, trained to see the grace in suffering.”

“What we're seeing "out there" is the projection of where we're at--the projection of the clingings of our minds.”

“Every religion is the product of the conceptual mind attempting to describe the mystery.”

“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.”

“The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back.”

“When the heart is open, it's easier for the mind to be turned toward God.”

“When we see the Beloved in each person, it's like walking through a garden, watching flowers bloom all around us.”

“I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion--and where it isn't, that's where my work lies.”

“Information is just bits of data. Knowledge is putting them together. Wisdom is transcending them.”

“A feeling of aversion or attachment toward something is your clue that there's work to be done.”

“Everything in your life is there as a vehicle for your transformation.Use it!”

“My life is a creative act--like a painting, or a concerto.”

“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.”

“I see my life as an unfolding set of opportunities to awaken.”

“If you want to be surrounded by Souls, become identified with your Soul.It takes one to know one!”

“All spiritual practices are illusions created by illusionists to escape illusion.”