Quotes from Ram Dass

I started to get extremely, extremely depressed. I'm sure part of it was due to the hashish.

we are all fellow human beings walking each other home.

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone here and there who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.

We are all just walking each other home.

Why are we still alive in these useless old bodies? This is a heartrending question to hear from old people who, in most other cultures of the world, would be the pride and joy of their communities, while in our own they are outcasts.

The freaky thing about death is the anticipatory fear of it.

There are a number of bogeymen that accompany us into adulthood. The biggest one is this: "I'll be old and alone with no mind, and when I die I'll be alone, adrift, isolated in a cold, dark universe." The Ego is the only part of us that believes this.

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.

Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter

As I understand the law of it all, we are all dwelling in Grace all the time. The only thing that ever falls out of Grace is our own thinking mind:We fall because we think we fell.The minute we give up our thoughts—just our thoughts!—there we are. God is always exactly one thought away—and the minute we quiet that thought, here we are again.

As they say in the Sikh religion—Once you realize God knows everything, you're free. I had been through many years of psychoanalysis and still I had managed to keep private places in my head—I wouldn't say they were big, labeled categories, but they were certain attitudes or feelings that were still very private. And suddenly I realized that he knew everything that was going on in my head, all the time, and that he still loved me. Because who we are is behind all that.

but who's minding the store?" When I could finally focus on the question, I realized that although everything by which I knew myself, even my body and this life itself, was gone, still I was fully aware!

The witness is not evaluative. It does not judge your actions. It merely notes them. Thus, if you perform an act because of desire, such as eating something that is not sattvic (helpful to your sadhana), and then you put yourself down for having eaten it... the witness—when it finally appears—would merely note: (a) he is eating such-and-such, and (b) he is putting himself down for eating such-and-such.

The seeds of the ability to be able to confront, and even disagree with, an existing institution and know and trust that inside place that says it's all right. It's something I could never have done without anxiety until that moment—until that day.

Not my but Thy will, O Lord.

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.

The Great Way is not difficult for those not attached to preferences. When neither love nor hate arises, all is clear and undisguised. Separate by the smallest amount, however, and you are as far from it as heaven is from earth. —Seng-ts'an, Third Patriarch of Zen

And then there was a still less frequent experience where one looked at somebody and he started to see the other person as cellular structure or patterns of energy rather than as a person. And finally, a few subjects (maybe 3% or something like that) transcended all form and saw just pure energy—a homogeneous field. It has been called the White Light.

Home is where the heart is. Home is the quality of presence. It's the quality of being. Home is always here.

Who you think you are will always be frightened of change. But it doesn't make any difference to who you truly are.

What often happens when we face this stripping away of our models is that we will give up this and that, and instead grab onto that and this. It's too uncomfortable not to have anything to cling to, and so we substitute a new set of attachments for the old ones.

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 am the thought I.

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.