Maharajji told me, 'Give up anger and I'll help you.' I found _x000D_ that love freed me back into the ocean of love and my righteous anger didn't do that. And I would rather be free than right.
Ram DassRead
In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights how people often seek validation of their identities from others in relationships.
Ram Dass's quote suggests that in many of our interactions, we prioritize the appearance of our identities over genuine connection. We wear 'costumes' or personas that we feel we must adjust and reassess, often relying on others to confirm that we fit these roles adequately. This behavior can lead to superficial relationships that lack authenticity and deep understanding.
Themes
IdentityRelationshipsValidationAuthenticityConnection
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote during a discussion on the importance of authenticity in friendships.
More from Ram Dass
All quotes βThe gift you offer another person is just your being.
Ram DassRead
Let the natural flow of the universe, course through your being, and harmonize your soul.
Ram DassRead
You can be still and still moving. Content even in your discontent.
Ram DassRead
The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back. _x000D_ _x000D_ In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight. _x000D_ _x000D_ When we see the Beloved in each person, it's like walking through a garden, watching flowers bloom all around us.
Ram DassRead
When I look at relationships, my own and others, I see a wide range of reasons for people to be together and ways in which they are together. I see ways in which a relationship - which means something that exists between two or more people - for the most part reinforces people's separateness as individual entities.
Ram DassRead
Similar quotes
I want to write about the great and powerful thing that listening is. And how we forget it. And how we don't listen to our children, or those we love. And least of all - which is so important, too - to those we do not love. But we should. Because listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force...When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life.
Brenda UelandRead
The point of feminism is you shouldn't have to be a man to be treated with equal respect.
Kimberle Williams CrenshawRead
A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark.
H. L. MenckenRead
I was always aware of what the language I was using meant in terms of my bond with my parents - how it defined the lines of affection between us. When I spoke English, I felt I wasn't completely their child any more but the child of another language.
Jhumpa LahiriRead
No matter how much you know a human being, you don't know him enough.
Isaac Bashevis SingerRead
She wore her sexuality with an older woman's ease, and not like an awkward purse, never knowing how to hold it, where to hang it, or when to just put it down.
Zadie SmithRead