Claims

Upon first awakening to non-ordinary consciousness, Ram Dass experienced profound homesickness and a sense of having been starving in the ordinary world, realizing he had been cut off from what felt like an ocean of plenty.

When one rests in soul awareness that is not separate from others, fear becomes object-like—'oh, fear' rather than 'I am afraid'—and loses its seductive power to compel action and suffering.

To help someone with psychological suffering, one should not begin from a place of exclusive ego identification with separateness, as this reinforces their sense of isolation; instead, one should cultivate a part of oneself that is free of identification, and from that perspective, help the person access their own liberated awareness.

The practice of creating an 'imaginary playmate' with desired qualities (wisdom, humor, rascality, emptiness, devotional heart) allows one to externalize and then internalize these qualities; one eventually realizes the playmate was as real as oneself was, since both are forms of consciousness.

The experience of being thrown out of Harvard was, to Ram Dass, a liberation because it freed him from ego identification with institutional success, even though mainstream culture viewed it as failure; this illustrates the relativity of success and failure in terms of consciousness.

When one is surrounded by disorientation or loss of others' sanity, the method to keep one's center is to stop picking unnecessary battles, learn which ones can be won, and for those one cannot avoid, treat them as curriculum for awakening rather than as evidence of defeat.