Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - June 16, 2019 💌

For my spiritual work I had to hear what Alan Watts used to say to me: “Ram Dass, God is these forms. God isn’t just formless. You’re too addicted to formlessness.” I had to learn that. I had to honor my incarnation. I’ve got to honor what it means to be a man, a Jew, an American, a member of the world, a member of the ecological community, all of it. I have to figure out how to do that—how to be in my family, how to honor my father. All of that is part of it.
That is the way I come to God, acknowledging my uniqueness, if you will. That’s an interesting turn-about in a way. That brings spiritual people back into the world.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Softening One’s Self-Concern

All meditation practices require that one relax self-preoccupation. Just like being too tense to ride a bike, when people are too concerned with themselves it can be very difficult for the mind to be soft enough to settle into meditation.

—Gil Fronsdal, “Evaluate Your Meditation”

Via Daily Dharma: The Jeweled Net of Family

The Net of Indra is a vast, bejeweled matrix spanning and encompassing the whole universe. From every knot hangs a jewel, and each jewel reflects all the other jewels within the net. My father’s life was one jewel hanging from a knot in that infinite web, and in that jewel was reflected my life, and my brothers’ lives, and my mother’s life.

—Eugene Richards, “A Life Too Long”