Ram Dass Quotes

Do you want to be right more than you want to know the truth? It's the truth that set me free. Acceptance, peace, and less attachment to a world of suffering are all effects of doing The Work. They're not the goals. Do The Work for the love of freedom, for the love of truth.

People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don't suffer anymore.

The secret self knows the anguish of our attachments and assures us that letting go of what we think we must have to be happy is the same as letting go of our unhappiness.

Attachment is the root cause of all misery - and our mind is such that it starts clinging to each and everything. It starts becoming identified, attached, it does not know how to keep a distance; hence the misery.

To remember non-attachment is to remember what freedom is all about. If we get attached, even to a beautiful state of being, we are caught, and ultimately we will suffer. We work to observe anything that comes our way, experience it while it is here, and be able to let go of it.

Real change isn't found in some new way to think about yourself, but in freedom from the need to think about yourself at all.

I just loved being divorced from my own wretchedness.

Our pain hides beneath these fluttering, random thoughts that run through our heads in an endless loop. But there's so much freedom in getting to know what's under there, the bedrock.

I have achieved an inner freedom.

I think that what I have been truly searching for as a person, as a writer, as a thinker, as a daughter, is freedom. That is my mission. A sense of liberty, the liberty that comes not only from self-awareness but also from letting go of many things. Many things that weigh us down.

I looked at myself and realized I had a lot of boundaries up about what I would talk about, what was private for me and what wasn't. I decided to just get rid of them. It was quite liberating.

The purpose of spiritual life is not to create some special state of mind. A state of mind is always temporary. The purpose is to work directly with the most primary elements of our body and our mind, to see the ways we get trapped by our fears, desires, and anger, to learn directly our capacity for freedom.

We must be able to appreciate and enjoy the places where we tarry and yet pass on without anguish when we are called elsewhere. In our spiritual development we are often required to pull up roots many times and to close many chapters in our lives until we are no longer attached to any material thing and can love all people without any attachment to them.

Dance as if this is the last dance. Dance with abandon, holding nothing back. That will bring transformation to your being, and a possibility of transformation for other people too.

The liberator who destroys my property is fighting to save my spirit. The teacher who clears all possessions from my path will set me free.

Discovering a richer quality of being-ness means to keep surrendering and letting go of resistance.

The only way to heal the pain which will not heal itself is to forgive the person who hurt you. Forgiveness heals the memory's vision. ... You set a prisoner free, but you discover the real prisoner was yourself.

Goddamn, sometimes it hurt to be free.

Pain is inevitable as long as you are identified with your mind.

Now I'm free of him and I'm light as a feather. There's no weight holding me down; I'm ready to spread my wings and fly.

To become truly free, you must surrender.

No matter how many times I tell you this, you're still thinking, thinking, judging, judging, coming to conclusions, trying to work out your life. You have to let go. Totally, absolutely, completely. You have to let go so completely that you will feel no body, no mind, no pain, nothing.

You have the power to let power go

It's a great freedom to give up on love, and get on with everything else.

Craving brings pain; craving brings fear. If you do not yield to craving, you will be free from pain and fear