Maharajji’s Three Teachings

Maharajji said to me, “Love everyone, serve everyone, and remember God.” …and I have been trying to do what he told me.

So, on this one trip I took the Greyhound bus down to Santa Fe, NM from Fort Collins, CO. I get on the Greyhound bus, and I haven’t been on the Greyhound in years for some reason or another. It’s a particularly dingy Greyhound bus, and I go and I sit in the rear. Just as the bus is about to take off this huge fat man gets on the bus and I think, “He’s not gonna sit next to me.” See, and I think, I can try to use all my powers to try and keep this from happening.

So of course he sits next to me, and he takes up half of my seat and he’s fat, and oh, I just think, “This is gonna be so horrible,” the whole trip. I’ve got my book and I’m scrunching into the corner, because, “I’m gonna read my holy book.” I think I’m going to use it as some form of purification for the situation.

Then he turns to me and he says, “Going to Santa Fe?” and my first reaction is, you know, to say yes or nothing at all, or to act like I didn’t hear him. I think I will just sit next to him, but I just don’t want to have to talk to him.

Then I hear Maharajji’s voice and it’s saying, “I didn’t tell you to read books, I told you to love everyone, serve everyone, and remember God.”

So then, I suddenly realize that this is Maharajji doing a trip on me. He’s very clever, incredibly clever.

I turned to the man sitting next to me and I say, “Well as a matter of fact, I am going to Santa Fe. Where are you going?” We start up a conversation and we talk through the whole trip, and that’s what it’s about. That’s what “loving and serving and remembering” is. We got off the bus and it was just a trip. Just a trip.

 

– Ram Dass

4 thoughts on “Maharajji’s Three Teachings”

  1. I took note of this story in my diary. It’s my habit to think of being spiritual when alone and behave terribly with people around. I really need to work on that. Really.

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  2. Love serve and remember comes to mind when I think of this. I remember when i was addicted to drugs standing on a corner waiting on someone, anyone to pick me up so I could do whatever and get more drugs. I remember one person picking me up and wanting to get me something to eat and tell me i was “Too pretty to be out there” That was like 30 years ago. There is something about seeing someone for the reason they are suppossed to be there. I think this is what this teaching means, i mean, what if that man was going somewhere to run from life or a bad situation and need the reprieve of a not so meaningful conversation to ease his mind and all we want to do is read our book and not be bothered. In the prison I was in for 21 years, in Alabama the last thing i ever wanted to do was strike up a conversation with some of those girls. they were always trouble, but conversations i had for years. Years go by and girls still remember me. they love me and i love them

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