Quotes from Ram Dass

In India when we meet and part we often say, "Namasté," which means: I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides; I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace. I honor the place within you where, if you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us. Namasté

The optimum strategy is to act as if we have free choice and to choose always that which we feel is most in harmony with the way of things.

as soon as you give it all up you can have it all

We end up going through hell in meditation to quiet our mind, not because somebody says, "You ought to quiet your mind," but because our agitated mind is driving us up the wall, and it's keeping us from getting on with it.

To reconnect consciousness with the unconscious, to make consciousness symbolical is to reconnect words with silence; to let the silence in. If consciousness is all words and no silence, the unconscious remains unconscious."—N.O. Brown

Most of us are so caught in righteousness, we're afraid of truth.

The quieter you become the more you can hear.

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.

Maharajji would quote Kabir: "It is easy to dye your cloth, but it is hard to dye your heart.

you are ever again the wave     sweeping through all things     RAINER MARIA RILKE, BOOK OF HOURS

you do what you do because that's what the harmony of the universe requires. If I am a potter I make pots

We often think that vulnerability is a kind of weakness, but there's a kind of vulnerability that is actually strength and presence.

Trust the messages coming from your heart and intuition.

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.

But you know, you really don't have to worry about whether everybody else is doing it or not. You just begin to get your own house in order. Recognizing your complete interrelatedness with all of it and with your own spiritual source changes the meaning of each act, and therefore both the reason and the way it's done.

To live another's dharma, to try to be a Buddha or to be a Christ because Christ did it, doesn't get us there; it just makes us mimickers

All acts of healing are ultimately our selves healing our Self. -Ram Dass

The true devotees of God never wear saffron, carry malas (prayer beads), or put on sandalwood. You can't know them unless they want it, and then you can only know them as much as they allow.

We recognize now that we are bringing our external world genuinely and honestly into harmony with our inner perceptions, and we don't need to try so hard to create an external space to prove anything.

My colleagues and I were 9 to 5 psychologists: we came to work every day and we did our psychology, just like you would do insurance or auto mechanics, and then at 5 we went home and were just as neurotic as we were before we went to work. Somehow, it seemed to me, if all of this theory were right, it should play more intimately into my own life.

Inevitably is an excellent word—inevitably means you're on a train, and the train is going one way, and you're at the front of the train running as fast as you can toward the back of the train, in the opposite direction from where the train is headed. But it doesn't matter, because when the train gets to the station, you get there too. That's inevitably. That's my life.

If you observe well, your own heart will answer."—de Lubicz

Ram asks Hanuman, "Who are you, Hanuman?" Hanuman answers, "When I don't know who I am, I serve you. When I know who I am, I am you.

I take the dust from the lotus feet of the guru to cleanse the mirror of my mind." So begins a sacred ode to Hanuman.