Ram Dass Quotes

Without remaining open to change , we can not remain open to life

You are joy, wisdom, peace, compassion, and love

There is a larger frame to the painting than the one that bounds our life's events.

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

You can't build joy on a feeling of self-loathing.

Suffering brings me so close to God.

The universe is an example of love. Like a tree. Like the ocean. Like my body. Like my wheelchair. I see the love.

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

When we're identified with Awareness, we're no longer living in a world of polarities. Everything is present at the same time.

In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.

Real happiness lies in that which never comes nor goes, but simply is.

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

Prolong not the past Invite not the future Do not alter your innate wakefulness Fear not appearances There in nothing more than this

In India, there's a way of seeing life as a cosmic play. It's called Lila. I can watch my life, and I can see my guru playing with me.

Our journey is about being more deeply involved in Life and yet less attached to it.

From a Hindu perspective, you are born as what you need to deal with, and if you just try and push it away, whatever it is, it's got you.

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.

When you see the beloved all around you, everyone is family and everywhere is love.

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

Dying is the most important moment that exists in any incarnation

My work as a human being is to quiet my mind, open my heart and do what I can to relieve the suffering with as much wisdom, skill, whatever I got.

We gain internal freedom through external actions.

Being in love means seeing the Beloved all around me.

The soul is not ruled by time and space. The soul is infinite. It blends with the One in infinity.

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

I can do nothing for you but work on myself ... you can do nothing for me but work on yourself!

The Ego is an exquisite instrument. Enjoy it, use it
just don't get lost in it.

Consciousness equals energy = love = awareness = light = wisdom = beauty = truth = purity. It's all the same trip.

If you keep examining your mind, you'll come to see that thoughts of who you are and how it all is are creating the reality you're experiencing.

Nature is really important because it's a manifestation of love that hasn't been run through human minds.

Who in all his works sees God, in truth he goes to God.

Birth, death, and suffering all bring us to the very edge of what our minds can understand.

The Ego ages ... the Soul evolves ... and to the Awareness, nothing happened!

Faith is what is left after all your beliefs have been blown to hell.

The person who says, 'I'm enlightened' probably isn't.

A being whose awareness is totally free, who does not cling to anything, is liberated.

Compassion and love, that's all.

There is only one of us. One consciousness manifesting into different forms.

I can go all over the world with Skype.

All you can do for another person is be an environment in which if they wanted to come up for air, they could.

Suffering lets us see where are attachments are - and that helps us get free.

Cosmic humor, especially about your own predicament, is an important part of your journey.

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

Don't take yourself so personally.

You look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is ...

To him who has had the experience no explanation is necessary, to him who has not, none is possible.

Be open to all teachers And all teachings, And listen with your heart.

As one individual changes, the system changes.

When your guru gives you a command, you better listen to it. I love everybody. Even George Bush.

We've gotten lost in our Ego and have forgotten that our Soul's only motive is to merge with the Beloved.

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

At the moment when there's nothing more to lose, the Ego breaks open - and then we see who we are behind who we thought we were.

Institutions don't change the world in fundamental ways. The way the world changes is heart to heart to heart by individuals, not by institutions.

If you think you're enlightened go spend a week with your family.

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.

Meditation raises the question: Who are we really?

Inspiration is God making contact with itself.

Knowledge all by itself, without deep wisdom, ends up becoming despair.

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

I experience each moment like baklava: rich in this layer, and this layer, and this layer.

Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it.

Coming into the place of Soul-awareness is coming home.

You see that who you are isn't moving in time. Time is describing the incarnations, the packing changes.

Don't compare your path with anybody else's. Your path is unique to you.

Each of us finds his unique vehicle for sharing with others his bit of wisdom.

If you want to cure the world, don't emanate fear - emanate love.

If you want to see how enlightened you are, go spend a week with your family.

Behind everyone's learned behaviors and odd eccentricities lurks a soul, ready to make contact if only coaxed out through a crack in the ego.

The soul is love, joy. Joy. Peace. Wisdom.

I like to look at a tree and see that it's love. Don't you?

Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying.

When you know how to listen everyone is the guru

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

Give it all up and you can have it all.

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

Our plans never turn out as tasty as reality.

The World is perfect as it is, including my desire to change it

I have always said that often the religion you were born with becomes more important to you as you see the universality of truth.

Love is the most transformative medicine For Love slowly transforms you Into what psychedelics only get you to glimpse.

In the depth of the soul is the atman, the oversoul. And that oversoul is really love and compassion, peace, joy, and wisdom.

Faith is in the soul. Belief is thought. Faith is so rich. Faith gives me my spiritual self.

Your problem is you're ... too busy holding onto your unworthiness.

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

When you want to become free, your righteousness and anger are much less interesting than they used to be.

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.

I hang out with my guru in my heart. And I love every thing in the universe. That's all I do all day.

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.

When we practice dying, we are learning to identify less with Ego and more with Soul

We live life in the marketplace and then we go off to the cave or to the meditation mat to replenish ourselves.

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

Compassion is the ability to see how it all is.

you base your faith on experience, your faith is

Words engage our minds, but in the silence we hear the Presence of God.

It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.

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

I like walking in the pool. That isn't what makes me feel spiritual. But alive.

There are wars and poverty and so on - it's based on fear. You can cure that with your being by not being afraid.

Our souls are evolving towards becoming the one. That's what we're doing and we're using our incarnations as teaching devices.

Look at the people you don't love and see them as an exercise for you to open your heart.

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