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Ram Dass Quotes

These Ram Dass quotes are the mystical wisdom of Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert; April 6, 1931), an American spiritual teacher and author of the 1971 well known book Be Here Now. He associated with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s, traveled to India and formed a friendship with Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba.  He founded the charitable organizations Seva Foundation and Hanuman Foundation. He continues to teach via his website.

Though Ram Dass and Timothy Leary are known for having advocated the use of psychedelics, we discourage the use of drugs as being opposite in action and purpose to enlightenment.  Enlightenment is the peak of sobriety, of awareness and full living, whereas drugs constitute escapism from living.  Below are some of Ram Dass spiritual quotes:

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

"The quieter you become, the more you can hear."
— Ram Dass

"We're all just walking each other home."
— Ram Dass

"As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can't see how it is."
— Ram Dass

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

"In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight."
— Ram Dass

"Let's trade in all our judging for appreciating. Let's lay down our righteousness and just be together."
— Ram Dass

"The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back."
— Ram Dass

"Your problem is you are too busy holding on to your unworthiness."
— Ram Dass

"The most exquisite paradox… as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all. As long as you want power, you can't have it. The minute you don't want power, you'll have more than you ever dreamed possible."
— Ram Dass

"Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise."
— Ram Dass

"I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion--and where it isn't, that's where my work lies."
— Ram Dass

"I'm not interested in being a "lover." I'm interested in only being love."
— Ram Dass spiritual quote

"If you think you're free, there's no escape possible."
— Ram Dass

"Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it."
— Ram Dass

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

"Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying."
— Ram Dass famous quote

"Every religion is the product of the conceptual mind attempting to describe the mystery."
— Ram Dass

"The next message you need is always right where you are."
— Ram Dass

"It's very different because the Indians live as if they are their souls and Americans live as if they are their egos."
— Ram Dass

"In our relationships, how much can we allow them to become new, and how much do we cling to what they used to be yesterday?"
— Ram Dass

"It's all real and it's all illusory: that's Awareness!"
— Ram Dass quote

"Suffering is the sandpaper of our incarnation. It does its work of shaping us."
— Ram Dass

"Everything in your life is there as a vehicle for your transformation.
Use it!"
— Ram Dass

"A feeling of aversion or attachment toward something is your clue that there's work to be done."
— Ram Dass famous quote

"Information is just bits of data. Knowledge is putting them together. Wisdom is transcending them."
— Ram Dass quote

"The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it's in the being. When I need love from others, or need to give love to others, I'm caught in an unstable situation. Being in love, rather than giving or taking love, is the only thing that provides stability. Being in love means seeing the Beloved all around me."
— Ram Dass

"We're here to awaken from the illusion of separateness"
— Ram Dass

"Treat everyone you meet like God in drag."
— Ram Dass quote

"Learn to watch your drama unfold while at the same time knowing you are more than your drama."
— Ram Dass

"The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering."
— Ram Dass

"The game is not about becoming somebody, it's about becoming nobody."
— Ram Dass spiritual quote

"What you meet in another being is the projection of your own level of evolution."
— Ram Dass

"All spiritual practices are illusions created by illusionists to escape illusion."
— Ram Dass quote

"When we see the Beloved in each person, it's like walking through a garden, watching flowers bloom all around us."
— Ram Dass

"I would say that the thrust of my life has been initially about getting free, and then realizing that my freedom is not independent of everybody else. Then I am arriving at that circle where one works on oneself as a gift to other people so that one doesn't create more suffering. I help people as a work on myself and I work on myself to help people."
— Ram Dass

"We are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we are so deeply interconnected with one another."
— Ram Dass quote

"Spiritual practices help us move from identifying with the ego to identifying with the soul. Old age does that for you too. It spiritualizes people naturally."
— Ram Dass spiritual quote

"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."
— Ram Dass

"There's much more in any given moment than we usually perceive, and that we ourselves are much more than we usually perceive. When you know that, part of you can stand outside the drama of your life."
— Ram Dass quote

"Be here now."
— Ram Dass

"Our whole spiritual transformation brings us to the point where we realize that in our own being, we are enough."
— Ram Dass

"The question we need to ask ourselves is whether there is any place we can stand in ourselves where we can look at all that's happening around us without freaking out, where we can be quiet enough to hear our predicament, and where we can begin to find ways of acting that are at least not contributing to further destabilization."
— Ram Dass quote

"When the heart is open, it's easier for the mind to be turned toward God."
— Ram Dass

"You and I are the force for transformation in the world. We are the consciousness that will define the nature of the reality we are moving into."
— Ram Dass famous quote

"It's only when caterpillar-ness is done that one becomes a butterfly. That again is part of this paradox. You cannot rip away caterpillar-ness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process of which we have no control."
— Ram Dass

"Inspiration is God making contact with itself."
— Ram Dass

"The Ego is an exquisite instrument. Enjoy it, use it--just don't get lost in it."
— Ram Dass quote

"Across planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things can be simultaneously true."
— Ram Dass

"In mystical traditions, it is one's own readiness that makes experiences exoteric or esoteric.  The secret isn't that you're not being told.  The secret is that you're not able to hear."
— Ram Dass

"Working on our own consciousness is the most important thing that we are doing at any moment, and being love is a supreme creative act."
— Ram Dass quote

"Our rational minds can never understand what has happened, but our hearts.. if we can keep them open to God, will find their own intuitive way."
— Ram Dass famous quote

"Compassion refers to the arising in the heart of the desire to relieve the suffering of all beings."
— Ram Dass

"By acting compassionately, by helping to restore justice and to encourage peace, we are acknowledging that we are all part of one another."
— Ram Dass quote

"A moment comes when "other" is no longer other."
— Ram Dass

"When we're identified with Awareness, we're no longer living in a world of polarities. Everything is present at the same time."
— Ram Dass

"If you want to be surrounded by Souls, become identified with your Soul.
It takes one to know one!"
— Ram Dass quote

"I see my life as an unfolding set of opportunities to awaken."
— Ram Dass

"We're being trained through our incarnations--trained to seek love, trained to seek light, trained to see the grace in suffering."
— Ram Dass

"When you are already in Detroit, you don't have to take a bus to get there."
— Ram Dass quote

"Do what you can on this plane to relieve suffering by constantly working on yourself to be an instrument for the cessation of suffering. To me, that's what the emerging game is all about."
— Ram Dass

"The dance goes from realizing that you're separate (which is the awakening) to then trying to find your way back into the totality of which you are not only a part, but which you are."
— Ram Dass

"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 interconnected 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."
— Ram Dass quote

"As one individual changes, the system changes."
— Ram Dass

"Prolong not the past
Invite not the future
Do not alter your innate wakefulness
Fear not appearances
There in nothing more than this"
— Ram Dass

"Religions are founded by what mystics say when they come back; but what the mystics say is not the same as what happened to them."
— Ram Dass

"You give up not meditating. It's called meditation action. There's no way out of it. Meditation means to be constantly extricating yourself from the clinging of mind."
— Ram Dass

"I am embarrassed to admit what drew me to psychology. I didn't want to go to medical school. I was getting good grades in psychology and I was charismatic and people in the psychology department liked me. It was as low a level as that."
— Ram Dass quote

"What we're seeing "out there" is the projection of where we're at - the projection of the clingings of our minds."
— Ram Dass

"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."
— Ram Dass famous quote

"What the word God means is the mystery really. It's the mystery that we face as humans the mystery of existence, of suffering and of death."
— Ram Dass spiritual quote

"My life is a creative act--like a painting, or a concerto."
—    Ram Dass quote

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