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We kill each other over which name to call the Nameless.
Ram Dass
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Interpretation

What this quote means

People often conflict over differing beliefs and labels rather than understanding the deeper essence of reality.

This quote by Ram Dass highlights the tendency of individuals and groups to engage in conflict and violence over differing interpretations, beliefs, or names attributed to the divine or to fundamental truths. It suggests that these disagreements distract from a deeper connection to the ultimate reality, which is beyond names and labels, and emphasizes the importance of transcendence and understanding over division.

Themes

ConflictUnderstandingBeliefsNamesEssence

In practice

Example use cases

This quote could be inspiring in a discussion about religious tolerance.

More from Ram Dass

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.
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The gift you offer another person is just your being.
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Let the natural flow of the universe, course through your being, and harmonize your soul.
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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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