Recently, I heard a few popular quotes by Ram Dass that included the one in the title: “We’re all just walking each other home.”

Isn’t that a lovely thought to ponder?  We’re one humanity on one planet under one sun. We all love, laugh and struggle; strive, fail and achieve. 

We all share the same basic human needs, and even the politically polarized extremes have been found to have 85% of views in common. The chasm is in the thoughts on how to get there. It’s akin to divorced/divorcing parents with irreconcilable differences, but similar feelings and goals for their children.

Don’t Dwell

When we focus on how we can help rather than on how we may have been hurt… on what we can do to improve ourselves and learn and grow, rather than on what was done to us. When we focus on the positives of any person or situation rather than dwell in anger and arguments, we shift from self-centric to love-centric, from hurt to empathetic, from outrage to homage.

This brings to mind the famous Yoda Quote:

Do or do not. There is no try.
~Yoda

What we focus on makes all the difference.

When it comes to dwelling in negatives versus redirecting or reframing toward positives, we might say it like this:

“Dwell or advance. There is no in between.”
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

Saving Ourselves

How do we create the kind of world we wish to live in? 

Saving humanity really begins with saving ourselves. And then we can help our loved ones… and friends… and neighbors. Those who wish for it that is, for trying to help someone who will not be helped… who doesn’t wish it or ask for it is a thankless task.

We begin saving humanity by saving ourselves… by becoming that which our soul yearns to become.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®

Excerpts and Quotes by Ram Dass on Unity Versus Polarity

EXCERPT FROM GQ Article Titled: The Unified Theory of Ram Dass,

By Will Welch, Editor in Chief, GQ Magazine

“As my wife and I hurtled down the highway listening to the podcast, one of Ram Dass’s digressions gonged me so good it would have been safer if I had pulled over the car. 

Trumpism had just dawned in America. The air was rife with fear, anger, and bluster: The Women’s March had taken place in January and then Charlottesville in August. “I think there’s blame on both sides,” Donald Trump had said. All of it was still raw. I remember being particularly anxious about the way the political moment was playing out on social media. My feeds were full of strident partisan rhetoric and hard lines drawn in the sand. If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention. 

That’s when Ram Dass articulated an idea that held as much truth and force in 2017 as it did when he said it 49 years earlier. 

Ram Dass Quotes on Unity, Polarization and Karma

“I know many of you will feel uncomfortable when I say this, but the hippies create the police as much as the police create the hippies,” he said, his Kennedy-esque Boston accent still intact. “That the liberals create the conservatives. The protesters create the John Birchers just as much as the John Birchers create the protesters. That as long as you are attached to whatever pole you are representing, the vibrations which you are sending out are creating its polar opposite around you. If you can do whatever is your karma—which may be walking in a protest march or fighting in Vietnam, or being a conservative or a liberal or being a housewife or being a yogi—and can do it without attachment, and do it fully and thoroughly but without attachment, then you do not create that karma. You do not create the polar opposite.”

Ram Dass’ living room altar also holds figures of the Hindu gods, Maharajji (Dass’ guru), along with Buddha, Christ, Gandhi, Mary, and other saints—as well as those of both Barack Obama and Donald Trump. 

Ram Das says, “They’re all faces of the beloved.”

The message is simple: Love everyone.

Ram Dass Quotes

“Love everyone.”
~Ram Dass’  

“We’re all just walking each other home.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

SOURCE: Book titled Walking Each Other Home

“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.“
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion — and where it isn’t, that’s where my work lies.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“Be here now.”
~Ram Dass, author, 1931-2019

“Your problem is you are too busy holding on to your unworthiness.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can’t see how it is.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it’s in the being. When I need love from others, or need to give love to others, I’m caught in an unstable situation. Being in love, rather than giving or taking love, is the only thing that provides stability. Being in love means seeing the Beloved all around me.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“The 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 Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“Let’s trade in all our judging for appreciating. Let’s lay down our righteousness and just be together.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“A feeling of aversion or attachment toward something is your clue that there’s work to be done.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“I would say that the thrust of my life has been initially about getting free, and then realizing that my freedom is not independent of everybody else. Then I am arriving at that circle where one works on oneself as a gift to other people so that one doesn’t create more suffering. I help people as a work on myself and I work on myself to help people.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“Every religion is the product of the conceptual mind attempting to describe the mystery.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“Learn to watch your drama unfold while at the same time knowing you are more than your drama.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“It’s only when caterpillarness is done that one becomes a butterfly. That again is part of this paradox. You cannot rip away caterpillarness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process of which we have no control.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

SOURCE: Be Here Now book

“When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.

The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“Our whole spiritual transformation brings us to the point where we realize that in our own being, we are enough.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“When we see the Beloved in each person, it’s like walking through a garden, watching flowers bloom all around us.”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019

“Everything in your life is there as a vehicle for your transformation. Use it!”
~Ram Dass, spiritual teacher, author, 1931-2019