From ‘Be Love Now. The Path of the heart’ by Ram Dass with Rameshwar Das

Imagine a mountain of solid rock six miles long, six miles wide, and six miles high. Once every hundred years a crow flies by with a silk scarf in it's beak, just barely caressing the top of the mountain with it. The length of time it would take to wear away that mountain is how Buddha described the journey to enlightenment.



A perfected being lives in harmony with the universe with no clinging whatsoever. In Buddhism that state may be called “nothing special,” “crazy wisdom,” or the arahat. Taoists call it wei wu wei. Hindus may refer to such beings as avadhoot, without body consciousness, or siddha purusha, merged in the cosmos, or, again, as sat guru, gurus who bestow ultimate truth.

Perfected beings rest in emptiness, in presence, in nonconceptual, nondiffrentiated awareness of every moment. Out of them comes the optimal response to any life situation.



You have to let go of your self-pity, feelings of unworthiness, feelings of inadequacy, and the desires that increase your separateness and push the universe away.



Although the Guru and disciple appear to be two,
It is the Guru alone who masquerades as both.
When you look in a mirror and see your own face,
You know that both are only yourself.


If one could see his own eye without a mirror,
There would be no need of this sport of the Guru.
Therefore he nourishes this ultimate relationship
Without causing duality or disturbing the Unity.

- Jnaneshwar



As the karma lightens, your faith gets stronger and you become more attuned to the feeling of that presence or guidance, even though you can’t know it through your senses or your thinking mind. That faith allows you to come into a deeper intimacy with your guru.



The guru is constantly showing you where you’re not, your most secret places where you’re holding on to your stash of attachments.



When asked how to get enlightenment, Maharaj-ji sad, “Bring your mind to one point, and wait for grace.” ……. The end of karma is a quiet mind completely concentrated on God, and what take you beyond that is truly grace.



O servant, where dost thou seek Me?
Lo! I am beside thee,
I am neither in temple nor in mosque; I am neither in Kaaba nor
in Kailash;
Neither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and renunciation.
If thou are a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me: thou shalt meet
Me in a moment of time.
Kabir says, “O Sadhu! God is the breath of all breath.”

- Kabir



………. saint standing in the river who saw a scorpion floating by. He thought to save it's life and picked it up from the water, but it stung him with it's tail, causing immense pain, which he could not bear, so the scorpion fell back in the water as his hand recoiled. Again, the saint picked it up, and the same story repeated itself. Someone asked the saint why he kept doing this, when the creature was causing him so much pain. The saint said, “It is following it's nature. When such a creature does not leave it's nature, why should I leave mine?”



Shirdi Sai Baba …….. His statement, “I give people what they want in the hope that they will begin to want what I want to give them,”



Ramana Maharshi …… He said, “Each one thinks of God according to his own degree of advancement,” and told people to “Worship God with or without form until you know who you are.” ……….
Q: What are the hindrances to the realization of the true Self?
R: Memory chiefly, habits of thoughts, accumulated tendencies.
Q: How does one get rid of these hindrances?
R: Seek for the Self through meditation in this manner, trace every thought back to it's origin which is only the mind. Never allow thought to run on. If you do, it will be unending. Take it back to it's starting place – the mind – again and again, and it and the mind will both die of inaction. The mind exists only by reason of thought. Stop thought and there is no mind. As each doubt and depression arises, ask yourself, “Who is it that doubts? What is it that is depressed?” Go back constantly until there is nothing but the source of all left. And then, live always in the present and only in it. There is no past or future, save in the mind.



Dwell, O mind, within yourself;
Enter no other’s home.
If you but seek there, you will find
All you are searching for.
- Sri Ramakrishna