How do you let go of drama?

Don’t treat yourself so gingerly; you can let go of stuff. Sometimes it takes three breaths instead of two to do it, but you can do it. Be a little tougher and don’t cling to stuff. People go around carrying everybody’s stuff all of the time. I just pick it up and put it down. Pick it up and put it down. That doesn’t mean I’m not compassionate, it doesn’t mean I don’t love people. But holding onto people’s suffering is not compassionate… for them or for you. That’s what is so bizarre about it.

In order for your consciousness to not be trapped in the stuff of life, it takes some effort, discipline and work with one’s mind.

The earlier you start the better, because the earlier you start, the less you’re going to be trapped in the stuff later on. The daily stuff of what we call suffering. Whether it’s suffering or not depends on where you are inside of your being. And it’s for that reason that a contemplative investment in your life starts to have so much pay off, because it’s very hard to contemplate once you are all toxic.

The more you extricate yourself from the personal dimension of looking at your stuff and instead look at the whole set of systems, the more you are able to appreciate the way in which you are a part of the whole thing and as you not only appreciate it thinking, “oh, yes, I am part of the whole thing,” but, “oh. Look at the whole thing,” and feel the whole thing, then your compassionate action comes out of a place that itself is not toxic. If you are doing compassionate action from down here, while it is wonderful that you are… because this person feels pity for somebody else’s suffering and does something to alleviate it, that’s a good thing to do. However, that makes the other person piteous. And, furthermore, it’s pity as a way of keeping the pain at a distance.

As your consciousness expands to be more embracive, it begins to feel that this person’s suffering is the suffering, is my suffering, it is the nature of suffering.

Out of that comes my heart’s desire to take away the suffering, and it starts to guide my life’s actions. And if there’s a chance to do something about it I’ll do it. If there’s no chance to do it, I’m not going to get freaked because there’s no chance to do it. As you start to operate from this place, you look through a set of glasses at the world which allow you to find ways to relieve the suffering.

-Ram Dass

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