Ram Dass Quotes About Suffering

Quotes about: Suffering

• I would say that the thrust of my life has been initially about getting free, and then realizing that my freedom is not independent of everybody else. Then I am arriving at that circle where one works on oneself as a gift to other people so that one doesn't create more suffering. I help people as a work on myself and I work on myself to help people.

  Ram Dass

  Independent, Circles, People

• Within the spiritual journey you understand that suffering becomes something that has been given to you to show you where your mind is still stuck. It’s a vehicle to help you go to work. That’s why it’s called grace.

  Ram Dass

  Spiritual, Journey, Grace

• Watch how your mind judges. Judgment comes, in part, out of your own fear. You judge other people because you're not comfortable in your own being. By judging, you find out where you stand in relation to other people. The judging mind is very divisive. It separates. Separation closes your heart. If you close your heart to someone, you are perpetuating your suffering and theirs. Shifting out of judgment means learning to appreciate your predicament and their predicament with an open heart instead of judging. Then you can allow yourself and others to just be, without separation.

  Ram Dass

  Heart, Mean, People

• Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.

  Ram Dass

  Wise, World Suffering, Training

  Ram Dass (2007). “One-Liners: A Mini-Manual for a Spiritual Life”, p.85, Harmony

• Compassion refers to the arising in the heart of the desire to relieve the suffering of all beings.

  Ram Dass

  Heart, Compassion, Suffering

  Ram Dass (2011). “Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service”, p.11, Three Rivers Press

• The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.

  Ram Dass

  Spiritual, Yoga, Acceptance

• My work as a human being is to quiet my mind, open my heart and do what I can to relieve the suffering with as much wisdom, skill, whatever I got.

  Ram Dass

  Heart, Skills, Mind

  Interview with Douglas Gillies, www.douglasgillies.com.

• When you look back at your own life, you see ... the sufferings you went through, each time you would have avoided it if you possibly could. And yet, when you look at the depth of your character now, isn't a part of that a product of those experiences? Weren't those experiences part of what created the depth of your inner being?

  Ram Dass

  Character, Suffering, Depth

• Suffering is the sandpaper of our incarnation. It does its work of shaping us.

  Ram Dass

  Suffering, Doe, Sandpaper

  Ram Dass (2007). “One-Liners: A Mini-Manual for a Spiritual Life”, p.79, Harmony

• As you look at many people's lives, you see that their suffering is in a way gratifying, for they are comfortable in it. They make their lives a living hell, but a familiar one.

  Ram Dass

  People, Suffering, Looks

  Ram Dass (2012). “Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook”, p.15, Bantam

• We're being trained through our incarnations--trained to seek love, trained to seek light, trained to see the grace in suffering.

  Ram Dass

  Life, Light, Grace

• Compassion and pity are very different. Whereas compassion reflects the yearning of the heart to merge and take on some of the suffering, pity is a controlled set of thoughts designed to assure separateness. Compassion is the spontaneous response of love; pity, the involuntary reflex of fear.

  Ram Dass

  Heart, Compassion, Suffering

  Ram Dass, Paul Gorman (2011). “How Can I Help?”, p.62, Knopf

• Along with faith comes the requirement for dogged persistence. At first meditation may bring you mild highs or some relief from suffering. But there may come a time - just as there does in the development of any skill - when there will be a plateau. You may be bored, discouraged, or even negative and cynical. This is when you will need not only faith, but persistence.

  Ram Dass

  Persistence, Skills, Bored

• Birth, death, and suffering all bring us to the very edge of what our minds can understand.

  Ram Dass

  Acceptance, Mind, Suffering

  Ram Dass (2007). “One-Liners: A Mini-Manual for a Spiritual Life”, p.84, Harmony

• Suffering lets us see where are attachments are - and that helps us get free.

  Ram Dass

  Freedom, Attachment, Suffering

• Do what you can on this plane to relieve suffering by constantly working on yourself to be an instrument for the cessation of suffering. To me, that's what the emerging game is all about.

  Ram Dass

  Life, Spiritual, Wisdom

• What the word God means is the mystery really. It's the mystery that we face as humans the mystery of existence, of suffering and of death.

  Ram Dass

  God, Mean, Suffering

• I don't think too much about the future. Not because I'm hiding my head in the sand but because I figured out that whatever the future was going to be, the thing I had to do was to quiet my mind and open my heart and do what I could to end suffering.

  Ram Dass

  Heart, Thinking, Mind

  Interview with Eliot Jay Rosen, www.vegetarianusa.com.

• Suffering brings your heart to bear. It gets you where you are!

  Ram Dass

  Heart, Suffering, Bears

  "Grace is Here!". Interview with David Ulrich, creativeguide.com. 2013.

• The root of compassion is not empathy; that is kindness. Kindness is great, but it is not the ultimate compassion. Ultimate compassion relieves the suffering that comes from separateness. The suffering that comes from separateness is relieved only when you are fully present with another person, not when you are separately present.

  Ram Dass

  Kindness, Compassion, Roots

• Suffering brings me so close to God.

  Ram Dass

  Suffering

  Ram Dass (2007). “Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita”, p.166, Harmony

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

  Ram Dass

  God, Suffering, Guru

• The suffering is in the mind. The mind. In the mind. Witness it. From your spiritual heart.

  Ram Dass

  Spiritual, Heart, Mind

  "Ram Dass, Spiritual Teacher, Talks Soul, Spirit And Accepting Change With Origin Magazine". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 08, 2013.

• Suffering only shows where you are attached. That is why, to those on the path, suffering is grace.

  Ram Dass

  Grace, Suffering, Path

• I think the question is, how do we live with change? Change in our friends, change in our lovers? Change in me and change in my body, from the stroke. Things have changed this plane of consciousness. We've tried to keep things the same. It causes suffering. This suffering is another step in your spiritual life, in your spiritual journey.

  Ram Dass

  Spiritual, Journey, Thinking

  "Ram Dass, Spiritual Teacher, Talks Soul, Spirit And Accepting Change With Origin Magazine". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 3, 2013.

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