When I go out into the woods, and I look at trees, I say, “Oh, look at that one, oh look at that one, oh how interesting!” I don’t ask why an Elm isn’t an Oak… I just appreciate them for what they are.
Somehow it’s different when I get near humans, I somehow feel that it’s a whole different category, and I move into my judging mode, saying, “If that person was more like that person, things would be better.”
Now I don’t elevate human relationships that much. I see them as just more of the interaction with the phenomenal world, and another person is a set of phenomena manifested, and I see that I'm getting upset because somebody is a certain way, I take that upset and ask, “Why am I upset?” I realize that a part of my upset is because I have a model that I am holding of how the world should be other than the way it is.
I have the choice of either trying to change the world to adhere to my model, or let go of my model to be with the world.
Somehow it’s different when I get near humans, I somehow feel that it’s a whole different category, and I move into my judging mode, saying, “If that person was more like that person, things would be better.”
Now I don’t elevate human relationships that much. I see them as just more of the interaction with the phenomenal world, and another person is a set of phenomena manifested, and I see that I'm getting upset because somebody is a certain way, I take that upset and ask, “Why am I upset?” I realize that a part of my upset is because I have a model that I am holding of how the world should be other than the way it is.
I have the choice of either trying to change the world to adhere to my model, or let go of my model to be with the world.
-- Ram Dass --
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