‘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

‘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

‘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

‘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

‘If you think you’re free, there’s no escape possible.’ – Ram Dass

‘Your problem is you’re… too busy holding onto your unworthiness.’ – Ram Dass

‘Only that in you which is me can hear what I’m saying.’ – Ram Dass

‘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

‘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

‘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