Quotes from Ram Dass

Satsang is a community of truth seekers. It is a group of people with the shared awareness that there is a spiritual dimension to the universe. Goethe had this beautiful thought: "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.

So we won't take ourselves too seriously. Because taking something serious doesn't make it go away any faster. In fact, it keeps making it a little bit worse.

Drugs had changed me from a selfish, striving academic in search of recognition and power to someone who was aware of the soul. Psychedelics had introduced me to compassion, to recognizing and feeling love for others. Harvard seemed trivial by comparison.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts."—Samuel Johnson

If somebody at work is a problem for you, they're not the one who needs to change. If someone is a problem for you, it's you who needs to change. If you feel they're causing you trouble, that's your problem. It's on you. Your job is to clear yourself.

When you lose your fear of death, you gain a love of life.

I began to live in love as a state of being. It was as if love was no longer a verb with an object. In that state, I simply became a loving being, an emitter of love. It's a two-way street: as you become a loving being, the Universe is loving you. You are at home in the universe. hOMe, hOMe on the range.

Instead of seeing my life as a personal history or career, I see myself as a pilgrim on a spiritual journey. I am no longer an isolated ego narrating my own storyline; I am a soul, evolving toward oneness. I am a pinprick of awareness in the star field of the cosmos. I am part of it all.

Power comes from love, not the other way around.

Who I am is awareness and deep love, a presence beyond experience within a temporal, changing form. Who I am is a soul, a soul without a name, address, social security number, or biography, who isn't born and doesn't die. I am.

The art of life is to stay wide open and be vulnerable, yet at the same time to sit with the mystery and the awe and with the unbearable pain—to just be with it all.

True love is unconquerable and irresistible," he said, "and it goes on gathering power and spreading itself, until eventually it transforms everyone whom it touches.

LOVE IS THE STRONGEST MEDICINE. IT IS MORE POWERFUL THAN ELECTRICITY.

At night he didn't seem to sleep like I did. That is, any time I'd wake up at night, I'd look over and he would be sitting in the lotus position. And sometimes I'd make believe I was asleep and then open sort of a half-eye to see if he wasn't cheating—maybe he was sleeping Now—but he was always in the lotus posture.

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.

That thought brought enormous gratitude for the moment of light and breath I was living—how sweet, how rare, to be given a body in which to move about this world!

Dina Bandhu, Dina Nath, Mere dore tere hath

It's all right now But later?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . forget it baby That's later Now is Now Are you going to be here Or not? It's as simple as that!

Strategies in the book involve ways to use the mind to go beyond the mind, ways to understand states of consciousness that are beyond thought, and ways to identify ourselves other than through our mind, through our intuition, and so forth.

I was just getting more and more knowledgeable. And I was getting very good at bouncing three knowledge balls at once. I could sit in a doctoral exam, ask very sophisticated questions and look terribly wise. It was a hustle.

We each have our path. There are many routes up the mountain, but they all end at the peak.

Maharaji, he would tell me repeatedly, "Ram Dass, love everyone and tell the truth.

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Krishna says, "I am also Brahman. I am the formless, timeless, spaceless, beginningless, endless Brahman. In each individual, the spark of that Brahman, the Atman, is me." So Krishna produced each individual; Krishna is each individual; Krishna is within each individual. We are all Krishna. We are all God.