Maharajji told me, 'Give up anger and I'll help you.' I found _x000D_ that love freed me back into the ocean of love and my righteous anger didn't do that. And I would rather be free than right.
Ram DassRead
The cosmic humor is that if you desire to move mountains and you continue to purify yourself, ultimately you will arrive at the place where you are able to move mountains. But in order to arrive at this position of power you will have had to give up being he-who-wanted-to-move-mountains so that you can be he-who-put-the-mountain-there-in-the-first-place. The humor is that finally when you have the power to move the mountain, you are the person who placed it there--so there the mountain stays.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Desire for power requires personal transformation, often leading to a realization that one's ambitions can be misguided.
This quote by Ram Dass reflects on the journey of personal growth and the paradox of ambition. It emphasizes that in the quest to achieve monumental tasks, one must transform and let go of the identity associated with those desires. Ultimately, the realization dawns that true power comes from understanding one's place in the universe, which might lead to maintaining the status quo rather than changing it. The humor lies in the irony that by the time one has the strength to move mountains, they recognize that their journey has created the very obstacles they once sought to dismantle.
Themes
CosmicHumorMountainsDesirePowerTransformationIdentity
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about personal growth.
More from Ram Dass
All quotes →The gift you offer another person is just your being.
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You can be still and still moving. Content even in your discontent.
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The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back. _x000D_ _x000D_ In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight. _x000D_ _x000D_ When we see the Beloved in each person, it's like walking through a garden, watching flowers bloom all around us.
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When I look at relationships, my own and others, I see a wide range of reasons for people to be together and ways in which they are together. I see ways in which a relationship - which means something that exists between two or more people - for the most part reinforces people's separateness as individual entities.
Ram DassRead
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