Ram Dass Quotes

Powerful Ram Dass for Daily Growth

About Ram Dass

Ram Dass (Richard Alpert, born Richard Alpern on December 6, 1931 – April 22, 2019) was an American spiritual teacher, psychologist, and author who played a significant role in the counterculture of the 1960s. Born to Jewish parents in Boston, Massachusetts, he spent his early life exploring Western philosophy and psychology, eventually earning a Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University in 1958. In 1962, Alpert conducted experiments with psychedelics under the guise of a government-funded project at Harvard, where he met Timothy Leary. Their groundbreaking work with LSD led to their notoriety and the infamous "Good Friday Experiment." However, Alpert's spiritual transformation occurred during a trip to India in 1967, where he met Neem Karoli Baba (a spiritual guru), who gave him his new name, Ram Dass. Ram Dass returned to the U.S. and became a key figure in the counterculture movement of the 1960s, spreading Eastern spirituality and the teachings of Neem Karoli Baba. He authored numerous influential books, including "Be Here Now" (1971), which has sold over a million copies and remains popular today. In it, he shared his experiences and insights from his time in India, emphasizing mindfulness and service to others. Throughout his life, Ram Dass continued to write, teach, and advocate for spiritual growth and understanding. Despite struggles with health issues, including a severe stroke in 1997, he maintained an active presence in the spiritual community, creating online courses and workshops that reached countless individuals seeking wisdom and enlightenment. Ram Dass's legacy continues to inspire and impact generations of seekers, combining Eastern spirituality with Western psychology and fostering a deep sense of connection and compassion in his readers and followers.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."

This quote by Ram Dass encourages embracing change rather than avoiding or resisting it. He suggests that instead of trying to understand change from a distance or detachment, one should immerse oneself fully in it, adapt and flow along with its rhythm. It's about accepting change as an integral part of life and finding joy in the journey of transformation and growth. In essence, it's a call to dance with life, not just watch it from the sidelines.


"Remember, you are all just visiting this planet. Treat it kindly."

This quote by Ram Dass encourages empathy and respect for Earth, suggesting that humanity is merely temporary inhabitants on our planet. The message underscores the importance of treating the Earth gently, acknowledging its intrinsic value and our role as caretakers during our brief stay. It's a call to action for environmental stewardship and compassion towards all living beings and natural resources.


"If you think you're enlightened go spend a week with your family."

This quote highlights the idea that true spiritual or personal growth is often tested in challenging interpersonal relationships, particularly within one's own family. It suggests that if one believes they have attained a high level of self-awareness (enlightenment), spending time with their family may reveal hidden flaws, biases, or triggers that could challenge this self-perception. The quote underscores the importance of humility and ongoing personal growth in our interactions with others.


"The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be a source of suffering."

This quote by Ram Dass suggests that the more we cling to permanence in our lives – whether it's people, things, or ideas – the more we are likely to experience suffering. By recognizing that everything is impermanent, we can let go of attachment, find peace, and reduce our own emotional distress. Embracing change and impermanence can help us live more mindfully and with less resistance to life's natural flow.


"Be Here Now. This is your sacred space, your place to create, write, share, play and grow."

This quote encourages an individual to live fully in the present moment and appreciate its value as a sacred space for self-expression, creativity, connection, and personal development. The essence of "Be Here Now" is about mindfully engaging with life's experiences and recognizing that the present moment is where one can create, share, play, and grow.


You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don't have to do anything to earn it. Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success - none of that matters. No one can take this love away from you, and it will always be here.

- Ram Dass

Love, Self-Esteem, Here, Existing

As we grow in our consciousness, there will be more compassion and more love, and then the barriers between people, between religions, between nations will begin to fall. Yes, we have to beat down the separateness.

- Ram Dass

Love, Grow, Consciousness, Barriers

When the faith is strong enough, it is sufficient just to be. It's a journey towards simplicity, towards quietness, towards a kind of joy that is not in time. It's a journey that has taken us from primary identification with our body and our psyche, on to an identification with God, and ultimately beyond identification.

- Ram Dass

Faith, Strong, Simplicity, Psyche

In our Western culture, although death has come out of the closet, it is still not openly experienced or discussed. Allowing dying to be so intensely present enriches both the preciousness of each moment and our detachment from it.

- Ram Dass

Death, Out, Our, Detachment

The stroke has given me another way to serve people. It lets me feel more deeply the pain of others; to help them know by example that ultimately, whatever happens, no harm can come. 'Death is perfectly safe,' I like to say.

- Ram Dass

Death, Harm, Perfectly, Another Way

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.

- Ram Dass

Love, I Remember, Guru, Directly

You can be still and still moving. Content even in your discontent.

- Ram Dass

Still, Your, Even, Discontent

Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It's not 'I love you' for this or that reason, not 'I love you if you love me.' It's love for no reason, love without an object.

- Ram Dass

Love, Deep, Reason, Object

Working with the dying is like being a midwife for this great rite of passage of death. Just as a midwife helps a being take their first breath, you help a being take their last breath.

- Ram Dass

Death, Last, Passage, Helps

We come into relationships often very much identified with our needs. I need this, I need security, I need refuge, I need friendship. And all of relationships are symbiotic in that sense. We come together because we fulfill each others' needs at some level or other.

- Ram Dass

Some, Other, Very, Identified

Maharaj-ji, in my first darshan, my first meeting with him, showed me his powers. At that point I was impressed with the power. But subsequently, I realized that it was really his love that pulled me in. His love is unconditional love.

- Ram Dass

Love, Pulled, Impressed, Subsequently

When I used to perform weddings, the image I always had was the image of a triangle, in which there are two partners and then there is this third force, this third being, that emerges out of the interaction of these two. The third one is the one that is the shared awareness that lies behind the two of them.

- Ram Dass

Behind, Weddings, Shared, Triangle

In working with those who are dying, I offer another human being a spacious environment with my mind in which they can die as they need to die. I have no right to define how another person should die. I'm just there to help them transition, however they need to do it.

- Ram Dass

Die, Another, However, Transition

I can go all over the world with Skype.

- Ram Dass

World, Go, Over, Skype

I sit with people who are dying. I'm one of those unusual types that enjoys being with someone when they're dying because I know I am going to be in the presence of Truth.

- Ram Dass

Going, Being, Types, Sit

When you are already in Detroit, you don't have to take a bus to get there.

- Ram Dass

Bus, Get, Take, Detroit

From a Hindu perspective, you are born as what you need to deal with, and if you just try and push it away, whatever it is, it's got you.

- Ram Dass

Need, Deal, Away, Push

If I go into the place in myself that is love, and you go into the place in yourself that is love, we are together in love. Then you and I are truly in love, the state of being love. That's the entrance to Oneness. That's the space I entered when I met my guru.

- Ram Dass

Love, Myself, Guru, Together

If you think you're free, there's no escape possible.

- Ram Dass

Free, Think, Possible, Escape

I feel vulnerable because my mind - because of the stroke, my mind doesn't focus. And then I feel vulnerable because I don't understand the world around me.

- Ram Dass

Mind, Understand, Feel, Stroke

Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying.

- Ram Dass

Me, Only, Which, Hear

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 Dass

Own, Reasons, Wide Range, Entities

Each of us finds his unique vehicle for sharing with others his bit of wisdom.

- Ram Dass

Unique, His, Finds, Sharing

Pain is the mind. It's the thoughts of the mind. Then I get rid of the thoughts, and I get in my witness, which is down in my spiritual heart. The witness that witnesses being. Then those particular thoughts that are painful - love them. I love them to death!

- Ram Dass

Love, Mind, Which, Painful

When I look at my life, I see that I wanted to be free of the physical plane, the psychological plane, and when I got free of those I didn't want to go anywhere near them.

- Ram Dass

My Life, Want, Plane, Near

My guru said that when he suffers, it brings him closer to God. I have found this, too.

- Ram Dass

Him, Guru, Suffers, Closer

My belief is that I wasn't born into Judaism by accident, and so I needed to find ways to honor that.

- Ram Dass

Honor, Born, Needed, Accident

It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.

- Ram Dass

Nothing, Including, Proceed, Steps

Inspiration is God making contact with itself.

- Ram Dass

Inspiration, Making, Itself, Contact

Your problem is you're... too busy holding onto your unworthiness.

- Ram Dass

Problem, Holding, Too, Onto

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