Homage To Ram Dass: 39 Quotes On Spirituality, Love, And Life

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Ram Dass (born as Richard Alpert), author of “Be Here Now” passed away this week. He was an amazing person, to say the least. Known for his scientific mind, he experimented heavily with psychedelics in order to expand his perception of life and spirituality. Believing it was the penultimate of the human experience, he did over 400 sessions. But that all changed once he met his Guru, Neem Karoli Baba.

This is the story of the first time he met his guru:

He sat really close to me, and he looked at me, and he said in Hindi, there was a translator there: “You were under the stars last night.”

I said, “Yeah,” like I mean the likelihood you are gonna be out under the stars is pretty good.

Then he closed his eyes for a second and he said, “You were thinking about your mother”. Now just put yourself in my position. Harvard professor of psychology, you know, like I’ve got my virginity to protect here. I’ve got my social science, and this quaint little man, how does he know that? I haven’t told anybody that.

I said, “Yeah.”

Then he tells me, “She died last year.”

“Yeah.”

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And I could feel the sweat started to come down my arms. My spine started to tingle, and I had a very strange feeling.

And he said, “She got very big in the belly before she died.”

“Yeah,” I said, and that was all in Hindi.

Then he leaned forward really close to me and in English, which was bizarre, because he never spoke English later, he said, “Spleen,” and I fell apart.

I went through my CIA fantasies, you know, like he’s gonna push a button, and the earth opens up and there are files and you know, but there was no way. I mean, it was too far off the wall, and I just gave up and he just stayed there looking at me, and I felt this violent wrenching in my chest, and I started to cry.

It was like something opened that was very ancient and closed, and I started to sob and sob. I cried for about two days, and don’t even know what it was about. It was like I was home or something like that. And they took care of me, and I didn’t leave that place for five months except to renew my visa.

This started a lifetime pursuit of spirituality, which had a profound impact on so many people. Here are a few quotes of things he learned along the way.

1. “Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not ‘I love you’ for this or that reason, not ‘I love you if you love me.’ It’s love for no reason, love without an object.”
2. “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.”
3. “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.”
4. “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.”
5. “Compassion refers to the arising in the heart of the desire to relieve the suffering of all beings.”
6. “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.”
7. “It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”
8. “The next message you need is always right where you are.”
9. “If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.”
10. “Compassion refers to the arising in the heart of the desire to relieve the suffering of all beings.”
11. “I hang out with my guru in my heart. And I love everything in the universe. That’s all I do all day.”
12. “Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not ‘I love you’ for this or that reason, not ‘I love you if you love me.’ It’s love for no reason, love without an object.'”
13. “The quieter you become, the more you can hear.”
14. “We’re fascinated by the words—but where we meet is in the silence behind them.”
15. “It’s all real and it’s all illusory: that’s Awareness!”
16. “Emptiness is not really empty; emptiness is full of everything. The ‘everything’ just isn’t manifest.”
17. “I am without form without limit. Beyond space – beyond time. I am in everything. Everything is me. I am the bliss of the universe. I am everything.”
18. “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.”
19. “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.”
20. “Don’t think about the past. Just be here now. Don’t think about the future. Just be here now.”
21. “The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back.”
22. “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.”
23. “Compassion refers to the arising in the heart of the desire to relieve the suffering of all beings.”
24. “The universe is made up of experiences that are designed to burn out your attachment, your clinging, to pleasure, to pain, to fear to all of it. And as long as there is a place where your vulnerable, the universe will find a way to confront you with it.”
25. “The thinking mind is what is busy. You have to stay in your heart. You have to be in your heart. Be in your heart. The rest is up here in your head where you are doing, doing, doing.”
26. “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.”
27. “Our whole spiritual transformation brings us to the point where we realize that in our own being: we are enough.”
28. “The next message you need is always right where you are.”
29. “It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”
30. “Start from where you are – not where you wish you were. The work you’re doing becomes your path.”
31. “We’re here to awaken from the illusion of separateness”
32. “The way you come to fully appreciate the infusion of the Spirit is to more and more come fully into the moment, where this moment is enough.”
33. “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.”
34. “”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.”
35. “As you dissolve into love, your ego fades. You’re not thinking about loving; you’re just being love, radiating like the sun.”
36. “Everything in your life is there as a vehicle for your Transformation. Use it!”
37. “Learn to watch your drama unfold while at the same time knowing you are more than your drama.”
38. “Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it.”
39. “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.”