Quotes About Acceptance

Cosmic humor, especially about your own predicament, is an important part of your journey.

The world is won by those who let it go.

Death has such great importance in this society that it affects everything. I learned from my guru that death is not the enemy, I see it as another moment. Yet it's the end of an incarnation and means going on to other incarnations.

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.

Free yourself from the illusion of good and bad days. Labeling time makes us nostalgic of the past and demanding of the future. There is only here and now. Let it be.

At times Maharajji's behavior reminds me of a story Ramakrishna tells of a saint who asked a snake not to bite but to love everyone. The snake agreed. But then many people threw things at the snake. The saint found the snake all battered. "I didn't say not to hiss," said the saint.

This getting straight not only applies to people but to things as well, such as favorite music, disliked foods, special treats, avoided places, all your toys, etc. Everything must be rerun through your compassion machine.

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.

Allow that you are at this moment not in the wrong place in your life. Consider the possibility that there have been no errors in the game. Just consider it. Consider that there is not an error, and everything that's come down on your plate is the way it is and here we are.

Just relax and trust the process.

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.

When you are in the presence of unconditional love, you are in the optimum environment for your heart to open.

No matter what someone else does to you, never put anyone out of your heart.

My Guru, Maharaj-ji, once told me, "Enjoy everything!" These days I try to simply love everything that comes my way, whether animate or inanimate, pleasant or painful. I hope you too can learn to absorb life's ecstasies and distresses into your spiritual practice so they are just more grist for the mill.

Whatever you need to do to get ready to die, you should have done it a minute ago. Do it now and get ready. Every moment is the moment you die. Every breath is the first and last. A conscious being holds on nowhere.

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.

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

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.

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

Did I ever tell you about the time that Tim and I . . ." And he'd say, "Don't think about the past. Just be here now." Silence. And I'd say, "How long do you think we're going to be on this trip?" And he'd say, "Don't think about the future. Just be here now." I'd say, "You know, I really feel crumby, my hips are hurting . . .

Sooner or later the realization comes that nothing we can think of is going to do it.

Maharajji invited a famous pundit to come to Kainchi and recite the Shrimad Bhagavatam. This man was used to reciting before large and very receptive crowds, and he complained to Maharajji that on this occasion he had to recite to only a few illiterate villagers. Maharajji gently rebuked him and said, "Don't worry. Hanumanji is listening.

Compassion simply stated is leaving other people alone.

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.