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.
Ram DassThe point isn't to deny our Egos, but to extricate ourselves from our exclusive preoccupation with them.
Ram DassWhen you get old, everything changes - your body changes, your family changes. You can't do what you've always done, anymore. And, either you can complain about things changing - or you can be content. Instead of complaining, you can say: "Oh, yesss! Look at all this change!" You can welcome it.
Ram DassThe spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can't be organized or regulated. It isn't true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth.
Ram DassThe giving and receiving is the tricky thing. It's not the gift. It's what the heart says in giving the gift, and from my point of view, one doesn't give or receive - that's a role we have to play. But the gift - it's God's gift. I think that it's better to be souls than roles.
Ram DassThe greatest thing you can do for another being is to provide the unconditional love that comes from making contact with that place in them that is beyond conditions, which is just pure consciousness, pure essence. That is, once we acknowledge each other as existing, just being here, just being, then each of us is free to change optimally. If I can just love you because here we are, then you are free to grow as you need to grow.
Ram Dass