I love the teachings of Ram Dass, and this quote from @babaramdass really struck a chord with me today. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.
XOXO, BeachBumPoet
“It’s allowing your own beauty. It’s allowing the beauty of your soul, which is behind your personality, it’s behind all that stuff. Just another radiant bit of light. Another soul. And I think at this moment, there’s nothing violent to do, you just observe the kind of sadness, the feeling of loneliness, the feeling of separateness, the feeling of pain. You just watch it and allow it. And don’t get too fierce about it or don’t feel too deprived about it, don’t milk the self pity of it, you know. Just notice that it’s just more passing show. It’s just another place your mind is grabbing. It’s all mind, you realice that? The only thing you’re stuck in is not even history, it’s just mind.
It’s a model you have of who you think you are and who you think everybody else is. That’s all it is. That’s exactly what’s causing your suffering at this moment is your own thought forms and your clinging to them and saying “this is real.” It’s like somebody who sees a rope and they think it’s a snake and they get frightened, and then somebody says, “it’s just a rope” and then suddenly they’re not frightened anymore. And it’s as simple as that, it really is the mind.
And that’s finally why you’re driven to work on your mind. To quiet your mind. Because you see the way your personality is really just a series of thoughts that you keep investing. Like the first moment you felt the sadness or the loneliness or the emptiness or the pain, that started a whole track of “oh, this is like I’ve always felt in the past” and you started to build the whole storyline all over again. And if at that moment it’s just “ah, sadness, oh, yes.” Comes and goes.”
— Ram Dass