Krishna Das Quotes

#1. 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

#2. Until you are fully enlightened, you can never know what another person's reality is like for them.

Krishna Das

#3. The heart is like a mirror. When we dust it off, we are able to see ourselves. The dust is all our stuff - guilt, anger - this stuff is reflected back to us. Practice removes the dust from the mirror of our hearts.

Krishna Das

#4. All we can know is our own subjective version of reality. That's the way we go through our lives. Everybody.

Krishna Das

#5. Hanuman not only gives liberation, he also fulfills our beneficial desires.

Krishna Das

#6. Even if somebody tells us something, the hit, the light goes on inside of us, not out there. We learn and understand everything within ourselves.

Krishna Das

#7. The repetition of the holy names reveals a presence hidden within the heart. Something begins to happen that's very disturbing - we get happy.

Krishna Das

#8. The heart in us is deeper than any emotion or psychological issue.

Krishna Das

#9. Practice is not about how you feel while you are doing it. You are planting seeds.

Krishna Das

#10. We are just here, right? We are just people doing our thing. And the most important aspect of anything we do is our motivation, why we do it.

Krishna Das

#11. Ultimately when I am with you all, what I see is my Guru. And what is he? He is love.

Krishna Das

#12. I just try to keep my heart open. By this, I mean to try not to let my own programmed reaction to things keep me closed down for too long.

Krishna Das

#13. This is what I do to keep my head screwed on semi-straight and keep my heart open. Whenever I sing, that's why I sing. Whether it's at the Grammys, whether it's in the bathroom, whether it's in front of 10,000 people or three people, by my guru's grace, my head stays in that place.

Krishna Das

#14. It's inexplicable why somebody can lose a leg and it doesn't effect them at all emotionally; and another person can lose a foot and be destroyed for the rest of their lives.

Krishna Das

#15. Whenever I'm really stuck, when I really need to go 'in there,' I sing the Chalisa and that connects me to Maharajji, to Hanuman, to that powerful presence that's deeper than any of that stuff. And, by touching that, I'm able to overcome whatever I'm stuck in ... at least for 10 minutes.

Krishna Das

#16. The presence of real love in the world inspires me.

Krishna Das

#17. You can never really know what a guru is as long as you are imprisoned by your own thoughts and circular ego.

Krishna Das

#18. You can't manipulate a heart open. You can only allow it to open in the right circumstances.

Krishna Das

#19. The Presence is our own presence. We are not getting anything from the outside. We already have all we need inside.

Krishna Das

#20. I'm reconnecting, I'm deepening, I'm opening, I'm releasing negativity and negative thoughts and all the limitations I carry around with me - again and again and again and again and again and again. And again! And that's the only thing that keeps me alive.

Krishna Das

#21. As we do practice something unexpected starts to happen-we get happy!

Krishna Das

#22. Surrender happens by Grace. All we're doing is cleaning up the room so when Surrender walks in, He can sit down.

Krishna Das

#23. Chanting is a way of getting in touch with yourself. It's an opening of the heart and letting go of the mind and thoughts. It deepens the channel of grace, and it's a way of being present in the moment.

Krishna Das

#24. Compassion is a college education. It's a doctorate.

Krishna Das

#25. If you stub your toe, you don't need to dialog yourself to be good to your foot, do you? When you see things that clearly, there's no dialogue or emotional manipulation that you need to do to extend compassion to that being, because that being is a part of you, and if that being hurts, you hurt.

Krishna Das

#26. Grace removes obstacles that we don't even know are there. Grace is what arranges our lives so we are forced to look within.

Krishna Das

#27. Bhakti yoga isn't something you join, it's love. It means falling in love.

Krishna Das

#28. When our desires are fulfilled, and we still feel unhappy - this is the moment we begin the process of letting go.

Krishna Das

#29. Devotion is a way of being, it's not something you do. It's dedication to finding awareness and Love. Chanting is like asanas for the mind and the heart.

Krishna Das

#30. Unlimited inner strength can only be awakened when it is in the service of Love ... When we align ourselves with that love and act in service of that love, anything is possible.

Krishna Das

#31. Let's just chant and be good people, alright?

Krishna Das

#32. Devotion is a disease. And you catch it from those people who have it.

Krishna Das

#33. Letting go does not mean pushing away or negating thoughts or feelings that come to us - but instead being with the feeling. We start to feel that we are no longer victims of the stuff that happens to us. There is something we can do about it ... if we just take a look at it.

Krishna Das

#34. It takes two to tango! I need everybody to sing with me.

Krishna Das

#35. We have to learn to love people even if they are not giving you what you want ... and then not take it personally. If you feel hurt, you have to recognize that they are not hurting you because you are you, but because they are them. You have to try not to be so hard on yourself.

Krishna Das

#36. The ultimate act of power is surrender.

Krishna Das

#37. Bliss is easy, just take a drug. What is hard is feeling good about our real selves.

Krishna Das

#38. Don't give up on your dreams. You can become the person you know you really are.

Krishna Das

#39. When you meet your guru or a being who knows, who is no longer loving, but has become love, a being who is sitting in truth, and in compassion and kindness for all beings - you know. When I met my guru, I knew. And it was before I met him physically, actually.

Krishna Das

#40. We instantly believe everything we think. Isn't that insane? It's good for us to explore the depravity of our minds, so we know we are just as crazy as everyone else!

Krishna Das

#41. I chant to save my heart. Every time I sit down, that's what I'm doing.

Krishna Das

#42. I chant to save my miserable ass. That's what I do.

Krishna Das

#43. I mope around less. It is horrible. I miss it.

Krishna Das

#44. At sunset, on the river ban, Krishna
Loved her for the last time and left ...
That night in her husband's arms, Radha felt
So dead that he asked, What is wrong,
Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said,
Not not at all, but thought, What is
It to the corpse if the maggots nip?

Kamala Suraiyya Das

#45. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I knew whatever it was that I was looking for was real.

Krishna Das

#46. You can't think yourself out of a box that's made of your thoughts.

Krishna Das

#47. We are not separate. So if one being hurts, I also hurt.

Krishna Das

#48. One of your biggest lessons so far in life has been to learn to forgive myself over and over again and not to be so harsh with myself.

Krishna Das

#49. The practice of the Name turns us in the direction of the light. The practice of the Name removes the dust from our eyes so that we can see the world as it really is: lit up by the light of the guru.

Krishna Das

#50. You cannot think your way out of a box made of thought.

Krishna Das

#51. Meditation is defined by not just the mode of thinking, but also the object of thought

Chaitanya Charan Das

#52. Love is what we are; we don't get it from somebody, we can't give it to anybody, we can't fall in it or fall out of it. Love is our true Being.

Krishna Das

#53. There is an eighth color that we don't have the sense apparatus to see or experience.

Krishna Das

#54. Just the slightest turn toward the inside is a very big thing.

Krishna Das

#55. There is love in this world, and it lives within us as who we really are, not who we think we are.

Krishna Das

#56. If I had been born in Germany with family of Nazis and if I had been raised with those beliefs, there was very little chance that I wouldn't be exactly like all those guards and all those people who tortured everybody.

Krishna Das

#57. On the Path, it's impossible to know how you are doing because it's the judger who is disappearing.

Krishna Das

#58. I knew that if I did not start chanting with people, that I would never be able to clean out the dark corners of my own heart. I knew it with every cell in my body and mind.

Krishna Das

#59. To love somebody is to let them be who they are and do what they have to do.

Krishna Das

#60. Don't wait for a Guru. Your life is your Guru.

Krishna Das

#61. When we start to talk about gurus, we're talking about beings who actually know what this is all about. They know who we were, where we came from, and where we're going. They are not imprisoned in a selfish or self-centered view of the universe.

Krishna Das

#62. Chanting is the main thing in my life.

Krishna Das

#63. We all inhabit our lives, in different ways to some degree. We see ourselves a certain way, and based on how we see ourselves, that's how we see the world.

Krishna Das