Surya Das Quotes

#1. May all beings everywhere with whom we are inseparably connected, be fulfilled, awakened, liberated and free. May there be peace in this world and throughout the entire universe, and may we all together complete the spiritual journey.

Surya Das

#2. Spiritual seekers particularly are on a quest to understand life; we want to examine our own lives and find meaning in what we do and who we are ... We find meaning in the seeking itself. Every step along the way is the Way ...

Surya Das

#3. It's not like we're all animalistic people trying to become more spiritual. We're really living spirit, trying to find out how to live embodied in this nitty gritty world, these corporeal forms, in these fleeting bodies in the material world where everything's changing and we're not in control.

Surya Das

#4. Who's willing to face the unknown- the difficulties, the disappointments, the surprises of the unfamiliar. If you're going to change, you have to face those things, and who's able? Who has the skillful means, the knowhow, the perseverance, the help, the fortitude to keep going?

Surya Das

#5. Well Buddhism, 'shmoodism', I didn't go to India looking for Buddhism. I was looking for truth, or God, or a better way of life or happiness, fulfillment, meaning, purpose. And a way to become peace in the world and not just fight for peace, as we had in the 60's.

Surya Das

#6. Embracing our environment is a good direction, a very spiritual direction. It's too Aristotelian to separate man from the animals and man; humans from the environment.

Surya Das

#7. Spiritual joy is devotion, it's like a virus you know? It's a benevolent virus, but it spreads. It's infectious. Ram Dass was like a mentor in those days.

Surya Das

#8. There's plenty going on that's substantial and transformative, beneficial and authentic. Just because somebody is in the media, it doesn't mean they're bad. It may mean they're the best, and occasionally you know the cream rises to the surface, but not always everything on the surface is cream.

Surya Das

#9. So we have to be ready, willing, and able to really transform ourselves, and each other in the world, not just say it and affirm it, "Oh, I want to change". Intention is important, but so is action.

Surya Das

#10. Well there were other Maharajis, so Neem Karoli Baba was his technical name, like there are a thousand Lamas called Rinpoche.

Surya Das

#11. We're human beings trying to understand and cultivate what it means to feel divine love. We have to start with small, realistic goals.

Surya Das

#12. Sex, creativity, music, art, family, love, beauty, and creative imagination are all part of the spiritual path in the tantric traditions. So I think that for today that has a lot to say to us about not dividing ourselves from ourselves.

Surya Das

#13. Also not being afraid to stand up for what you believe in while taking into account that you could very well be wrong, or maybe there's another way to look at it- that things are not what they seem to be, and that everything is subjective.

Surya Das

#14. We learn by doing, not just by thinking. So I feel like beyond Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Judaism, or Christianity we need today to think about a global spirituality. We need to make it very personal and transformative for one self, and each other, together for those who are interested.

Surya Das

#15. One-half plus one-half does not equal one; one whole plus one whole equals relational wholeness.

Surya Das

#16. We all have spiritual DNA; wisdom and truth are part of our genetic structure even if we don't always access it.

Surya Das

#17. There's many lanes on the highway of enlightenment, they don't have to be on the razor's edge like the yellow line dotted in the middle. Balance is appropriate, not too tight, not too loose, the Middle Way as we call it in Buddhist dharma teachings.

Surya Das

#18. Well neither of us were "Buddhists" then because it was new to us. We were 60's people. Psychedelic relics, you know ... whatever, right on, radicals and world changers, social peaceniks perhaps, with a Buddhist spiritual veneer.

Surya Das

#19. We each need to make peace with our own memories. We have all done things that make us flinch.

Surya Das

#20. Why'd he name Ram Dass that? And Krishna Das that, instead of vice versa? Is Krishna Das more Krishna like and Ram Dass more Ram-like? Maybe ... why not? We grow into our names. But why did my parents named me Jeffrey and my brother Michael? Who knows?

Surya Das

#21. The Pearl Principle - no inner irritation, no pearl.

Surya Das

#22. I realize that was becoming a contradiction in terms, especially after my friend Alison Krauss was shot and killed in Kent State in 1970 on campus by the National Guard.

Surya Das

#23. Everyone has values, and values their family, values their health, their sanity, their safety and security, and their families, their parents, their children, their pets, their environments, well-being in general.

Surya Das

#24. I think that today, integration is the name of the game and not separating these things out, and not trying to find the razor's edge, the narrow path. There's a lot of lanes in the highway, the trick is not fall into the ditches on either side, like a one sided nihilism, nothing matters life.

Surya Das

#25. You have to go through the darkness to truly know the light. This may sound like a cliche, but it's true nonetheless. Often the greatest doubts occur just before a breakthrough.

Surya Das

#26. When the sunset of life arrives, and its twilight shadows fade away; while dreams of the next begin to appear more vividly; may the inner-light essence of the Buddha, and all the radiant awakened ones, continuously guide us onwards and upwards, on the path of spiritual enlightment.

Surya Das

#27. We cannot expect miracles of mindfulness in our own lives without preparation, commitment & continuing to energetically progress along our spiritual way.

Surya Das

#28. I always thought he gave me that name because I have a kind of outgoing or sunny disposition. And in those days I was kinda blonde and bearded and had an afro and was bushy like a sun. So I don't know, he named me Surya Das but who knows.

Surya Das

#29. Spiritually speaking, everything that one wants, aspires to, and needs is ever-present, accessible here and now - for those with eyes to see.

Surya Das

#30. I started to think more about becoming peace rather than fighting for peace, and the contradiction in terms, and the anger and violence that we were prey to and involved in to some extent in those days.

Surya Das

#31. On the other side, is a substantial, more materialism, everything is real long to the extent we can see or measure it, and things are as real as I think they. That's way too materialistic or substantialist, because things are not really what they seem to be.

Surya Das

#32. Don't wait to find solid ground. Dance in emptiness.

Surya Das

#33. If we accept and internalize the fact of our own mortality, then, by definition, we have to deal with the essential questions of how we live and spend our allotted time. We have to stop procrastinating, pretending that we have forever to do what we want to do and be what we long to be.

Surya Das

#34. Spirit is love, spirit is connection, inclusive, and that's what I'm interested in, and that's what moved me. That's what I got more and more into as I grew up and as I was in college in the 60's with consciousness raising and other kind of things, gestalt psychology etc.

Surya Das

#35. Mother Teresa- cream. Exemplars, exemplary models we can learn from and become more like, but we don't have to imitate them. We can become more authentically ourselves, impeccable and unselfish, and beneficial to many like a wish fulfilling jewel.

Surya Das

#36. Our lack of compassion stems from our inability to see deeply into the nature of things.

Surya Das

#37. So we're all living spirit. It's not about isms and schims or religions. Religions are almost like political institutions, but the heart of it is the spirituality.

Surya Das

#38. Like many others, I sometimes find that cooking can be naturally grounding.

Surya Das