Ram Dass
Ram Dass
Ram Dassis an American spiritual teacher and the author of the seminal 1971 book Be Here Now. He is known for his personal and professional associations with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s, for his travels to India and his relationship with the Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba, and for founding the charitable organizations Seva Foundation and Hanuman Foundation. He continues to teach via his website...
ProfessionYoung Adult Author
Date of Birth6 April 1931
CityBoston, MA
journey long asking
Early in the journey you wonder how long the journey will take and whether you will make it in this lifetime. Later you will see that where you are going is HERE and you will arrive NOW...so you stop asking.
moving wake-up patient
Be patient. You'll know when it's time for you to wake up and move ahead.
thinking mind consciousness
Faith, consciousness, and awareness all exist beyond the thinking mind.
issues evolution consciousness
It wasn't until after I'd been around Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley and Alan Watts, that I started to reflect about issues like the evolution of consciousness.
thinking two soul
These are planes of consciousness, and I think human beings exist on two planes of consciousness, the soul and the ego.
people community despair
There is message to the community that a non-governmental process is underway to bring about social change, it's a public one, and people like Margaret Thatcher, George Bush, and Mikhail Gorbachev are throwing their weight behind it. In a world where there's a lot of cynicism and despair, this has a candle-lighting effect.
writing dark age
A Tibetan Lama said to me, "The best place to stand, Ram Dass, is halfway between hope and hopelessness." So I can write a scenario for the 21st century in either direction. One is that it all goes to hell and that it's truly the dark age.
games splits revolution
As the haves and have-nots split further and further apart, destabilization ultimately leads to revolution, not evolution. If we're playing the evolution vs. revolution game, we are closer to revolution than we are to evolution in my concept.
heart suffering bears
Suffering brings your heart to bear. It gets you where you are!
christian buddhist heart
The satsang is - within the mass culture - like little mushrooms here and there, and somebody, maybe a Christian and a Hindu and a Buddhist, come together; doesn't matter, because those are paths. They're paths to the One. But those satsangs are what the world needs. And as I say - heart to heart - that's what satsang is.
yoga heart practice
I'm a Bhakti, meaning I practice devotional yoga and the heart and love, so I say to people, start with your ego and go down to your heart.
giving guru command
When your guru gives you a command, you better listen to it. I love everybody. Even George Bush.
mean mind trying
Religions are institutions that push you up the mountain and then they have their fantasies about the spirit. I mean they try to make God like the human psyche and it's wrong. I mean it's a projection of the mind, and you can use it to get a start and then you must leave it behind.
spiritual alive pool
I like walking in the pool. That isn't what makes me feel spiritual. But alive.