Ram Dass illuminates the trap that many of us fall into as we grow up - which is the idea that we are our thoughts.
The more accurate view would be, “I am and I think.” Thinking is a power that we have – “Intellect is a great servant but a lousy master.” Intellect is only one way of knowing the world, but the intuitive mind and heart is a more profound way of “knowing” the universe than the analytic intellectual linear mind. The more you think inwardly and self-reflect, the more you become an object to yourself until the whole universe is made up of objects.
“We can come back to the control we feel with our thinking minds. The problem is we are reinforcing our own sense of separateness, and in that world of separateness, you’re constantly locking doors, to protect something, and feeling drier and drier in the process. You’re turning off the life juice, the flow of the universe, just in order to protect something… Once you recognize who you thought you were, you say ‘yeah’, there’s my thinking mind and it defines all this, but behind it all here I am, just am.”
We need to change the relative power positions of “intellect” and “intuition” so that we develop greater balance and freedom to grow on the spiritual path.
