Ram Dass

The art of escaping reactivity

by Ram Dass

When people say, “What should I do with my life?” the more interesting question is, “How do I cultivate the quietness of my being, where ‘what I should do with my life’ will become apparent?”

Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. The journey is constant, between listening to the inner voice and making the choice to take an action. The minute you make a decision, if you feel it is disharmonious with some other plane of existence, you must go back inside again. The art form of continually emptying to hear freshly. Imagine being in a relationship where the two people are meeting each other anew all the time. Imagine how freeing it would be for you.

Now, sometimes I’m in one place, sometimes I’m in another. When I meet somebody they say, “Oh, I know Dick,” or, “I know Richard,” or, “I know Ram Dass,” and they peg me into a model and their minds define it for their efficiency. “He’s who I always thought he was.” So if you come down to breakfast one day and you turn out to be the Divine Mother, but somebody else thinks of you as somebody who didn’t do the garbage last night, you begin to see how the conspiracy of mind defines reality, you know?

You can use your membership in groups as spiritual practice by exploring the power of your boundaries, because the whole issue of awakening also has the quality of expanding to embrace more and more of the universe. There has to be the dissolving of a certain boundary in order to be a part of another kind of existence.

My work constantly requires me to empty so that I become more of an instrument for some other kind of wisdom or presence or force. It’s true for each of us.

My job is to continually get out of the way. It’s interesting in my business to use personal stories impersonally. I mean, I use my personal life because it’s anecdotal and it’s easy to get to, but it has nothing to do with me particularly. I don’t take it personally.

It’s really interesting, the soul does not take the ego’s trip personally. Like somebody comes up and says, “You’re really a disappointment to me.” I figure that’s their problem. I may take it and work with it and look at it. I’ll ask myself if I’m disappointed, and I either say, “You know, they got something there, I’ll clean up my act,” or “Nope. It’s the projections of their mind.” If I’m not mindful I’ll react initially with, “What do you mean I’m….” or,“Well, I think you are…” or whatever else. To escape from reactivity is such an art form. Such an art form.



-Ram Dass