Ram Dass was a spiritual teacher and author who said many wise things over the years. Whether you are a seasoned practitioner or just starting out on your spiritual journey, you will find something of value in reading Ram Dass quotes.
Ram Dass was born in 1931 as Richard Alpert in Boston, Massachusetts. From an early age, he was interested in spiritual exploration, and he began to teach at Harvard University in the 1950s. There, he met Timothy Leary, and the two of them became involved in research on psychedelics. This led to their dismissal from the university in 1963. After traveling in India, Ram Dass came to believe that the true path to spiritual enlightenment lay in selfless service to others.
Ram Dass’ spiritual awakening happened during a time when he was struggling with his personal identity. He had been a successful academic and psychologist, but was now questioning everything he had once believed in.
In the early 1960s, but after travelling to India where he met a guru who introduced him to the concepts of yoga and meditation. This was the beginning of Ram Dass’ spiritual journey, and he would go on to learn more about meditation and Eastern spirituality. Through his teachings and writings, Ram Dass has helped to popularize these concepts in the Western world.
Here are some of Ram Dass Quotes on spirituality and self-awareness.
61 Ram Dass Quotes
- “Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.”
2. “The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back.”
3. “I can do nothing for you but work on myself…you can do nothing for me but work on yourself!”
4. “It’s very different because the Indians live as if they are their souls and Americans live as if they are their egos.”
5. “Who in all his works sees God, in truth he goes to God.”
6. “I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”
7. “In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.”
8. “Don’t think about the past. Just be here now.”
9. “We’re all just walking each other home.”
10. “If you think you’re free, there’s no escape possible.”
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11. “Emotions are like waves. Watch them disappear in the distance on the vast calm ocean.”
12. “Across planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things can be simultaneously true.”
13. “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.”
14. “To him who has had the experience no explanation is necessary, to him who has not, none is possible.”
15. “Your problem is you are too busy holding on to your unworthiness.”
16. “The next message you need is always right where you are.”
17. “Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it.”
18. “Our whole spiritual transformation brings us to the point where we realize that in our own being, we are enough.”
19. “Love is the most transformative medicine For Love slowly transforms you Into what psychedelics only get you to glimpse.”
20. “The quieter you become, the more you can hear.”
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21. “We’re here to awaken from the illusion of separateness”
22. “Let’s trade in all our judging for appreciating. Let’s lay down our righteousness and just be together.”
23. “As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can’t see how it is.”
24. “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.”
25. “Our journey is about being more deeply involved in Life and yet less attached to it.”
26. “Whose presence reveals how subtle is the path of Love.”
27. “The universe is an example of love. Like a tree. Like the ocean. Like my body. Like my wheelchair. I see the love.”
28. “It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”
29. “Suffering is the sandpaper of our incarnation. It does its work of shaping us.”
30. “A relationship starting out as one that awakens love can only remain a living vehicle for love to the extent that it is continually made new or reconsecrated.”
31. “It’s very hard to grow because it’s difficult to let go of the models of ourselves in which we’ve invested so heavily.”
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32. “Healing does not mean going back to the way things were before, but rather allowing what is now to move us closer to God.”
33. “Trust the messages coming from your heart and intuition.”
34. “The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it’s in the being.”
35. “What you meet in another being is the projection of your own level of evolution.”
36. “Only that in you which is me can hear what I’m saying.”
27. “The secret isn’t that you’re not being told. The secret is that you’re not able to hear.”
28. “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.”
29. “Learn to watch your drama unfold while at the same time knowing you are more than your drama.”
30. “Information is just bits of data. Knowledge is putting them together. Wisdom is transcending them.”
31. “It’s only when caterpillarness is done that one becomes a butterfly. That again is part of this paradox. You cannot rip away caterpillarness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process of which we have no control.”
32. “When the heart is open, it’s easier for the mind to be turned toward God.”
33. “You may protest if you can love the person you are protesting against as much as you love yourself.”
Spiritual Ram Dass Quotes
34. “Knowledge all by itself, without deep wisdom, ends up becoming despair.”
35. “What we’re seeing “out there” is the projection of where we’re at–the projection of the clingings of our minds.”
36. “If you listen to your own inner voice, it will tell you where you are now, and which method will work best for you in your evolution towards the light.”
37. “Let’s trade in all our judging for appreciating. Let’s lay down our righteousness and just be together.”
38. “The minute you don’t want power, you’ll have more than you ever dreamed possible.”
39. “The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.”
40. “The freer I get, the higher I go. The higher I go, the more I see. The more I see, the less I know. The less I know, the more I’m free.”
41. “Our interactions with one another reflect a dance between love and fear.”
42. “I don’t really believe anything I say. Because the nature of my work concerns the spaces between the words, rather than the words themselves.”
43. “A being whose awareness is totally free, who does not cling to anything is liberated”
44. “A feeling of aversion or attachment toward something is your clue that there’s work to be done.”
44. “The art of listening comes from a quiet mind and an open heart.”
45. “Don’t compare your path with anybody else’s. Your path is unique to you.”
46. “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?”
47. “Love is essentially self-communicative. Those who do not have it catch it from those who have it.”
48. “My belief is that I wasn’t born into Judaism by accident, and so I needed to find ways to honor that.”
49. “The ego is frightened by death, because ego is a part of the incarnation and ends with it.”
50. “Compassion refers to the arising in the heart of the desire to relieve the suffering of all beings.”
51. “I see my life as an unfolding set of opportunities to awaken.”
52. “When we’re identified with Awareness, we’re no longer living in a world of polarities. Everything is present at the same time.”
53. “I hang out with my guru in my heart. And I love everything in the universe. That’s all I do all day.”
54. “Relationships only work in a spiritual sense when you and I really see that we are one.”
55. “What you meet in another being is the projection of your own level of evolution.”
56. “Compassion is the spontaneous response of love; pity the involuntary reflex of fear.”
57. “I think the message is that you don’t need to go to anywhere else to find what you are seeking.”
58. “Grace is at the nexus of love and awareness. There it’s all open and it’s all love.”
59. “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.”
60. “As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can’t see how it is.”
61. “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.”