Dass Quotes & Sayings

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

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

The giving and receiving is the tricky thing. It's not the gift. It's what the heart says in giving the gift, and from my point of view, one doesn't give or receive - that's a role we have to play. But the gift - it's God's gift. I think that it's better to be souls than roles. — Ram Dass

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

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

We're all just walking each other home. - RAM DASS — Parvati Markus

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

The sooner one develops compassion in this journey, the better. Compassion lets us appreciate that each individual is doing what he or she must do, and that there is no reason to judge another person or oneself. You merely do what you can to further your own awakening. — Ram Dass

The gift you offer another person is just your being. — Ram Dass

Counseling has to do with intuition, with work on oneself, with the quietness of one's mind and the openness of one's heart. — Ram Dass

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

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. — Ram Dass

I don't think too much about the future. Not because I'm hiding my head in the sand but because I figured out that whatever the future was going to be, the thing I had to do was to quiet my mind and open my heart and do what I could to end suffering. — Ram Dass

I think the question is, how do we live with change? Change in our friends, change in our lovers? Change in me and change in my body, from the stroke. Things have changed this plane of consciousness. We've tried to keep things the same. It causes suffering. This suffering is another step in your spiritual life, in your spiritual journey. — Ram Dass

Relationships only work in a spiritual sense when you and I really see that we are one. — Ram Dass

Pain is the mind. It's the mind. It's the thoughts of the mind. — Ram Dass

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

You have everything in you that Buddha has, that Christ has. You've got it all. But only when you start to acknowledge it is it going to get interesting. Your problem is you're afraid to acknowledge your own beauty. You're too busy holding on to your own unworthiness. You'd rather be a schnook sitting before some great man. That fits in more with who you think you are. Well, enough already. I sit before you and I look and I see your beauty, even if you don't. — Ram Dass

Meditation raises the question: Who are we really? — Ram Dass

Suffering is the sandpaper of our incarnation. It does its work of shaping us. — Ram Dass

In our Western culture, although death has come out of the closet, it is still not openly experienced or discussed. Allowing dying to be so intensely present enriches both the preciousness of each moment and our detachment from it. — Ram Dass

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

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

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

Old age spiritualizes people naturally — Ram Dass

You may have expected that enlightenment would come ZAP! instantaneous and permanent.This is unlikely.After the first ah ha expereince, it can be thougth of as a thinning of a layer of clouds. — Ram Dass

Who realizes what? That is realization. — Baba Hari Dass

I am not this body. I am in this body, and this is part of my incarnation and I honor it but that isn't who I am. — Ram Dass

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

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

Across planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things can be simultaneously true. — Ram Dass

Husband and wife are like the two equal parts of a soybean. If the two parts are put under the earth separately, they will not grow. The soybean will grow only when the parts are covered by the skin. Marriage is the skin which covers each of them and makes them one. — Baba Hari Dass

I love everybody and they, in turn, love everybody, and that's spreading love heart to heart to heart. That's my approach of my work. — Ram Dass

As you look at many people's lives, you see that their suffering is in a way gratifying, for they are comfortable in it. They make their lives a living hell, but a familiar one. — Ram Dass

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

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

It wasn't until after I'd been around Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley and Alan Watts, that I started to reflect about issues like the evolution of consciousness. — Ram Dass

There are no accidents whatsoever in the universe. — Ram Dass

At first you think that your sadhana Is a limited part of your life. In time you realize that Everything you do is part of your sadhana. — Ram Dass

As you dissolve into love, your ego fades. You're not thinking about loving; you're just being love, radiating like the sun. — Ram Dass

We kill each other over which name to call the Nameless. — Ram Dass

My belief is that I wasn't born into Judaism by accident, and so I needed to find ways to honor that. — Ram Dass

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

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

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

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

When you know how to listen everyone is the guru — Ram Dass

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

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

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

The richness of a moment comes when it's both full and empty at the same time. The truth is, we live simultaneously in time and timelessness. — Ram Dass

Along with faith comes the requirement for dogged persistence. At first meditation may bring you mild highs or some relief from suffering. But there may come a time - just as there does in the development of any skill - when there will be a plateau. You may be bored, discouraged, or even negative and cynical. This is when you will need not only faith, but persistence. — Ram Dass

I think the game is to bear the unbearable with a giggle. With your heart breaking. And then do what you do. — Ram Dass

Compassion is the basis of all truthful relationship: it means being present with love-for ourselves and for all life, including animals, fish, birds, and trees. Compassion is bringing our deepest truth into our actions, no matter how much the world seems to resist, because that is ultimately what we have to give this world and one another. — Ram Dass

The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering. — Ram Dass

If you would truly bring peace to the world, identify with that place within you where you are Peace. — Ram Dass

Giv Herren sin Aere, giv Kongen sin Told. — Petter Dass

I love everybody. Even George Bush. — Ram Dass

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

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

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

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

I can go all over the world with Skype. — Ram Dass

The stroke has given me another way to serve people. It lets me feel more deeply the pain of others; to help them know by example that ultimately, whatever happens, no harm can come. 'Death is perfectly safe,' I like to say. — Ram Dass

The soul is not part of the incarnation. It comes into the incarnation. And the soul is not afraid of death because it has done it so many times. — 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

The healing begins when we can start to feel more gratitude that our child came into our life than despair and outrage that our child died. The gratitude is what heals the despair. — Ram Dass

My whole academic career was totally out of Jewish anxiety, and issues surrounding achievement and adequacy. — Ram Dass

A Oneness of all. An evolution in consciousness of us all that isn't about the egos. — 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

Now is now. Are you going to be here or not? — 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

1. Mahabharata (3.281.34) 34. adrohah sarva-bhuteshu karmana manasa gira anugrahas cha danam cha satam dharmah sanatanah Never displaying malice towards any living being through actions, thoughts or words, acts of kindness, and giving in charity; this is the Sanatana Dharma adhered to by righteous persons. — Hanuman 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

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

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 inner connected 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. — Ram Dass

Thoughts are going by like a river; awareness simply is. — Ram Dass

Turn your melodrama into a mellow drama. — Ram Dass

Compassion is the ability to see how it all is. — Ram Dass

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

Being in love means seeing the Beloved all around me. — Ram Dass

If I see one dilemma with Western man, it's that he can't accept how beautiful he is. He can't accept that he is pure light, that he's pure love, that he's pure consciousness, that he's divine. — Ram Dass

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

The world is not a burden; we make it a burden by our desires. When the desires are removed, the world is as light as a feather on an elephant's back. — Baba Hari 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

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 root of compassion is not empathy; that is kindness. Kindness is great, but it is not the ultimate compassion. Ultimate compassion relieves the suffering that comes from separateness. The suffering that comes from separateness is relieved only when you are fully present with another person, not when you are separately present. — 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

Let the natural flow of the universe, course through your being, and harmonize your soul. — Ram Dass

If we can give up attachment to our roles as helpers, then maybe our clients can give up attachment to their roles as patients and we can meet as fellow souls on this incredible journey. We can fulfill the duties of our roles without being trapped by over-identifica tion with them. — Ram Dass

The final awakening is the embracing of the darkness into the light. That means embracing our humanity as well as our divinity. What we go from is being born into our humanity, sleep walking for a long time, until we awaken and start to taste our divinity. And then want to finally get free.
We see as long as we grab at our divinity and push away our humanity we aren't free. If you want to be free, you can't push away anything. You have to embrace it all. It's all God. — Ram Dass

Everything in your life is there as a vehicle for your transformation.
Use it! — Ram Dass

If we are to help heal the world, we need to remember that it is a sacred place. Our actions need to be positive statements, reminders that even in the worst times there is a world worth struggling for. — Ram Dass

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

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

In meditation we can watch the itch instead of scratching it. — Ram Dass

When someone we love dies, we get so busy mourning what died that we ignore what didn't. — Ram Dass

These are planes of consciousness, and I think human beings exist on two planes of consciousness, the soul and the ego. — Ram Dass