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
I remember my first visit with my guru. He had shown that he read my mind. So I looked at the grass and I thought, 'My god, he's going to know all the things I don't want people to know.' I was really embarrassed. Then I looked up and he was looking directly at me with unconditional love.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the experience of feeling vulnerable yet embraced with love and acceptance.
In this quote, Ram Dass describes a profound moment with his guru, where he felt exposed and embarrassed due to the guru's perceived insight into his thoughts. However, this feeling of vulnerability is transformed by the guru's gaze filled with unconditional love, illustrating the idea that true understanding and compassion can alleviate embarrassment and foster a deeper connection between individuals.
In practice
During a meditation retreat, you might share this quote when discussing the themes of vulnerability and acceptance.
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.
The gift you offer another person is just your being.
Let the natural flow of the universe, course through your being, and harmonize your soul.
You can be still and still moving. Content even in your discontent.
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.
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.
Sometimes it's best to speak from ignorance: that way, you can see the wood without being distracted by the trees.
Envy, if surrounded on all sides by the brightness of another's prosperity, like the scorpion confined within a circle of fire, will sting itself to death.
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
Invest in the "process" rather than the product. Process living neutralizes the depleting and impoverishing effects of chronically living in anticipation. Even when impossible goals occasionally are reached, satisfactions derived from them are invariably disappointing unless the process has given ample satisfaction along the way.
Nothing can be done except little by little.
The way people look at me these days - that's the same way I looked at President Obama before I met him. We tend to forget that people who've attained a certain position are human.
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