If you want to see how enlightened you are, go spend a week with your family.

A Tibetan Lama said to me, "The best place to stand, Ram Dass, is halfway between hope and hopelessness." So I can write a scenario for the 21st century in either direction. One is that it all goes to hell and that it's truly the dark age.

We've gotten lost in our Ego and have forgotten that our Soul's only motive is to merge with the Beloved.

If you could stand back far enough and watch the whole process you'd see you are a totally determined being.

I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are

Finally you come to a point where you almost know it all. You are very wise. You are very pure... except for the fact that you may well have gotten caught in the last trap... the desire to know it all and still be you, "the knower." This is an impossibility. For all of the finite knowledge does not add up to the infinite. In order to take the final step, the knower must go. That is, you can only BE it all, but you can't know it all. The goal is non-dualistic - as long as there is a "knower" and "known" you are in dualism.

Our plans never turn out as tasty as reality.