Ram Dass: The Vale of Tears

When we have any kind of mystical or ineffable experience, it upsets our apple cart. It upsets the security of our separateness. We get attached to our separateness and become afraid of losing it. And out of that comes greed, lust, anxiety, and fear. The main quality of that separateness is suffering, which is why it’s called “the vale of tears.” This birth, which looks to you as a kind of chaotic, random, somewhat morbid humor of God, has an absolutely exquisite perfection of the unfolding of your being in an evolutionary direction towards you becoming fully conscious of who you are, which turns out to be God.

“Whoever you think you are, you aren’t. That is truth.” – Ram Dass