Ram Dass

When I used to perform weddings, the image I always had was the image of a triangle, in which there are two partners and then there is this third force, this third being, that emerges out of the interaction of these two. The third one is the one that is the shared awareness that lies behind the two of them.

When someone we love dies, we get so busy mourning what died that we ignore what didn't.

When I look at relationships, my own and others, I see a wide range of reasons for people to be together and ways in which they are together. I see ways in which a relationship - which means something that exists between two or more people - for the most part reinforces people's separateness as individual entities.

Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.

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.

Accidents are just from where you're looking; to the ego, it looks like it's miracles and accidents.

Inspiration is God making contact with itself.

I can go all over the world with Skype.

Our culture's zeal for longevity reveals our incredible collective fear of death.

In working with those who are dying, I offer another human being a spacious environment with my mind in which they can die as they need to die. I have no right to define how another person should die. I'm just there to help them transition, however they need to do it.

Your problem is you're... too busy holding onto your unworthiness.

We come into relationships often very much identified with our needs. I need this, I need security, I need refuge, I need friendship. And all of relationships are symbiotic in that sense. We come together because we fulfill each others' needs at some level or other.

Working with the dying is like being a midwife for this great rite of passage of death. Just as a midwife helps a being take their first breath, you help a being take their last breath.

You may protest if you can love the person you are protesting against as much as you love yourself.

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.

I remember my first visit with my guru. He had shown that he read my mind. So I looked at the grass and I thought, 'My god, he's going to know all the things I don't want people to know.' I was really embarrassed. Then I looked up and he was looking directly at me with unconditional love.

My guru said that when he suffers, it brings him closer to God. I have found this, too.

When you are already in Detroit, you don't have to take a bus to get there.

The Ego is an exquisite instrument. Enjoy it use it just dont get lost in it.

Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying.

If you want to cure the world, don’t emanate fear, emanate love.

If you want to see how enlightened you are, go spend a week with your family.

If I go into the place in myself that is love, and you go into the place in yourself that is love, we are together in love. Then you and I are truly in love, the state of being love. That's the entrance to Oneness. That's the space I entered when I met my guru.

Healing does not mean going back to the way things were before but rather allowing what is now to move us closer to God.

I hang out with my guru in my heart. And I love every thing in the universe. That's all I do all day.

Our plans never turn out as tasty as reality.

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

A feeling of aversion or attachment toward something is your clue that there's work to be done.

The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back.

If you feel a sense of social responsibility, first of all keep working on yourself. Being peaceful yourself is the first step if you want to live in a peaceful universe.

When you are already in Detroit you dont have to take a bus to get there.

As we grow in our consciousness, there will be more compassion and more love, and then the barriers between people, between religions, between nations will begin to fall. Yes, we have to beat down the separateness.

Our actions and states of mind matter because we are so deeply interconnected with one another.

The next message you need is always right where you are.

When the faith is strong enough, it is sufficient just to be. It's a journey towards simplicity, towards quietness, towards a kind of joy that is not in time. It's a journey that has taken us from primary identification with our body and our psyche, on to an identification with God, and ultimately beyond identification.

A Oneness of all. An evolution in consciousness of us all that isn't about the egos.

The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.

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.

If you think you're free, there's no escape possible.

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.

Pain is the mind. It's the thoughts of the mind. Then I get rid of the thoughts, and I get in my witness, which is down in my spiritual heart. The witness that witnesses being. Then those particular thoughts that are painful - love them. I love them to death!

Be patient. You’ll know when it’s time for you to wake up and move ahead.

We're fascinated by the words--but where we meet is in the silence behind them.

The stroke has given me another way to serve people. It lets me feel more deeply the pain of others; to help them know by example that ultimately, whatever happens, no harm can come. 'Death is perfectly safe,' I like to say.

Coming into the place of Soul awareness is coming home.

You can be still and still moving. Content even in your discontent.

I feel vulnerable because my mind - because of the stroke, my mind doesn't focus. And then I feel vulnerable because I don't understand the world around me.

Suffering is the sandpaper of our incarnation. It does its work of shaping us.

My whole academic career was totally out of Jewish anxiety, and issues surrounding achievement and adequacy.

In India, there's a way of seeing life as a cosmic play. It's called Lila. I can watch my life, and I can see my guru playing with me.

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.

If you want oneness in society, you have to teach people to go inside instead of going outside, because if they want peace, they need to find it within.

It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.

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

Each of us finds his unique vehicle for sharing with others his bit of wisdom.