Being in Love ... Part 2

By Ram Dass

A story I have told many times reinforces this point. Some years ago I put out a set of records called Love, Serve, Remember. The records – which had music, readings from the Gospel of John, and all kinds of neat things – came in an album with a beautiful booklet with text and pictures. It was a wonderful package, and we sold it by mail order for about $4.50.

I showed the album to my father. Dad was a wealthy Boston Lawyer – a conservative Republican, a capitalist, and, at the time, the President of a railroad. He looked over the album and said, “Great job here! But, gee, you know – four and a half dollars? You could probably sell this for ten dollars – fifteen dollars, even!”

I said, “Yeah, I know”

“Would fewer people buy if it were more expensive?,” he asked.

“No,” I relied. “Probably the same number would buy it”

“Well I don’t understand you,” he pressed on. “You would sell it for ten, and your selling it for four-fifty? What’s wrong, are you against capitalism or something?”

I tried to figure out how to explain to him how our approaches are differed. I said, “Dad didn’t you just try a law case for Uncle Henry?”

“Yeah,” he replied, “ and it was a damned tough case. I spent a lot of time in the law library.”

I asked, “Did you win the case?” And he answered, “Yeah, I won it.”

Now, my father was a very successful attorney, and he charged fees that were commensurate with his reputation. 

So I continued. “Well, I bet you charged him a hand and a leg for that one.”

Dad was indignant at the suggestion. “What, are you out of your mind? That’s uncle Henry – I couldn’t charge him.”

“Well, that’s my problem,” I said. “If you find anyone who isn’t Uncle Henry, I’ll rip them off.”

The point I was trying to make is that when you see the Beloved all around you, everyone is family and everywhere is love. When I allow myself to really see the beauty of another being, to see the inherent beauty of soul manifesting itself, I feel the quality of love in that beings presence. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing. 

We could be talking about our cats because we happen to be picking out cat food in the supermarket, or we simply could be passing each other on the sidewalk. When we a being love, we extend outward an environment that allows to act in different, more loving and peaceful ways than they are used in behaving. Not only does it allow them to be more loving, it encourages them to be so.

In 1969 I was giving a series of lectures in New York City. Every night, taking the bus up Third Avenue, I got the same extraordinary bus driver. Every night it was rush hour in one of the busiest cities in the world, but we had a warm word and a caring presence for each person who got on the bus. He drove us as if he were sculling a boat down a river, flowing through the traffic rather than resisting it. 

Everyone who got on the bus was less likely to kick the dog that evening or to be otherwise hostile and unloving, because of the loving space that driver had created. Yet all he was doing was driving the bus. He wasn’t a therapist or a great spiritual teacher. He was simply being love.

Remember, we are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we are so deeply interconnected with one another. 

Working on our own consciousness is the most important thing that we are doing at any moment, and being love is a supreme creative act. --- Ram Dass