Ram Dass does not specifically guide people to become happy, what he does is guide people to remove what is blocking happiness. This is very similar in his approach to self-love, but that is because we are already whole.
Which this belief is supported through the understanding that full presence and full awareness is the truth of who we are. Join us for our 30-day beginner meditation course if you are interested in diving deeper into meditation.
Who Is Ram Dass?
For those of you who don’t know Ram Dass is, he is most popularly known for being the author of Be Here Now, Ram Dass. He has inspired and created giant waves of consciousness awakening throughout the west. He has become widely well known for studying the mystical and therapeutic benefits of hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD and Psychlocibin.
Ram Dass made an incredible and heartfelt impact in his life with countless projects and contributions such as founding the human kindness foundation. This foundation worked to offer spiritual teachings in prisons in the prison-ashram project and co-founded the Seva Foundation, which helped blind people in developing countries.
Read our favorite quotes from Be Here Now.
Become Free of Attachment
To dissolve our attachment to our own feelings, shortcomings, and even perception of unworthiness means to simmer our viewpoint of ourselves down to our true selves. This sifts through identity and attachment until we are left with the part of us that says I am.
Similar to the quote from Buddha below, freeing ourselves of attachment is the secret to happiness because our natural state is bliss. Simply look at a child and see how pure they perceive and enjoy the world.
Befriend Death
Allowing yourself to see death as some of the gurus in India do you can view it as dropping a body. What this means is that you don’t go anywhere, who dies is who you thought you were. The personality you perceived yourself as.
Highly enlightened gurus specifically feel that when they die they are not going anywhere at all. The reason this is important for happiness is it helps us to release the deep and personal identification with our personality.
We step deeper into the knowledge that we are the observer and that helps us to let go of attaching to perceptions of limitation and difficult experiences. Through befriending death we also begin to fully become friends with life.
If we remember we are going to die then we can remember to live life to our fullest.You may enjoy listening to Deepak Chopra’s take on death here.
Come Out of Feelings of Unworthiness
When you allow yourself to feel lovable, and not despite all of your humanness, then you can dissolve the fear of being in the presence of love. Through quieting the mind, you can begin to see the true you that exists behind your personality.
This you exists beyond any sadness or suffering you feel. It is also the part of you that can observe your sadness, suffering, anger, and judgments. Through quieting the mind you can allow this beauty to shine through. Eckhart Tolle, another wise spiritual teacher explains how to quiet the mind here.
