Ram Dass

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

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

"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."

Facing Weaknesses

We have all been enchanted with getting high, having a free awareness, and so we have tried to repress or deny lows when our awareness once again gets caught in this or that. We love the illusion of being high but are afraid of coming down. As your journey proceeds, you realize that you can't hold on to your highs and deny your lows. Your lows are created by the remaining attachments that blind your awareness. Facing your lows--your anger, loneliness, greed, fears, depressions, and conflicts--is the most productive fire of purification you can find.

Ram Das---Journey of Awakening

The Practice of the Presence of God

The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquillity as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.

---Brother Lawrence

Mount Analogue

I had heard about a superior type of man, possessing the keys to everything which is a mystery to us. This idea of a higher and unknown strain within the human race was not something I could take simply as an allegory. Experience has proved, I told myself, that a man cannot reach truth directly, nor all by himself. An intermediary has to be present, a force still human in certain respects, yet transcending humanity in others. Somewhere on our Earth this superior form of humanity must exist, and not utterly out of our reach. In that case shouldn't all my efforts be directed toward discovering it? Even if, in spite of my certainty, I were the victim of a monstrous illusion, I should lose nothing in the attempt. For, apart from this hope, all life lacked meaning for me.

---Rene Daumal

Finding a Guru

Seeking one's guru is like going on a pilgrimage. It is a useful journey, but you don't have to take it to finish the path. There is a good possibility you will never meet your guru. But because you do not meet your guru does not mean you do not have one. Any person that reaches toward God, toward liberation, toward the spirit, is noticed, and a contact is made with the vehicle or form that will ultimately draw one home. You needn't know your guru. It is only necessary that your guru know you.

Ram Das---Journey of Awakening

Finding God

Before a man can find God....all his likings and desires have to be utterly changed...
All things must become as bitter to thee as their
enjoyment was sweet unto thee.

--John Tauler

He who contemplates the Lotus Feet of God
Looks on even the most beautiful woman as
mere ash from the cremation ground.

Sri Ramakrishna

The dark night of the soul is when you have lost the flavor of life but have not yet gained the fullness of divinity.

Ram Das-- Journey of Awakening