Love as a Doorway, Not the Destination
Few modern spiritual teachers spoke of love with as much disarming honesty as Ram Dass. In his lectures and recordings—often weaving humor, vulnerability, and deep spiritual insight—he offered an unconventional perspective: that even in our most profound human experiences, like falling in love, what we are really touching is not another person, but a doorway into something far larger.
He called this doorway the method. A partner, a lover, or a relationship becomes the vehicle that takes us into a state of what he described as loving awareness. The paradox, he warned, is that while the love feels unconditional, we often become attached not to the awareness itself, but to the method that triggered it.
The Mechanics of Attachment: When the Method Becomes the Object
In psychological textbooks, attachment is defined as the deep emotional bond formed between individuals, typically studied first in the context of child development and later extended to adult romantic bonds. Western psychology frames attachment styles—secure, anxious, avoidant—as patterns of relating shaped early in life.
Ram Dass echoed this understanding but took it into a spiritual register. In his talks, he would say, “You turn me on to that place in me where I am love.” What begins as the magic of a new connection is really a mirror, reflecting back the love that already exists within. Yet, because we can’t easily access that state alone, we attach to the person as if they are the source, rather than the method.
This is what he compared to “getting high.” Just as a psychedelic substance can reveal a transcendent state but eventually wears off, so too does falling in love risk becoming a dependency: we confuse the trigger with the truth.
The State of Loving Awareness: Beyond the Object of Desire
The cornerstone of Ram Dass’s teaching was the concept of loving awareness—a spacious, unconditional state of being in which the self rests in love itself, not in the object of love. In his retreats and podcasts, he described this state as our natural essence, always present but obscured by ego, desire, and identification.
Love, in this sense, is not limited to romance. It is the same awareness accessed in meditation, in service, or in simple presence. The partner or beloved becomes a catalyst, but the true work is realizing that the awareness is not in them, it is in you. The task, then, is to learn to stabilize in that state without clinging to the method.
The Psychology of Falling in Love: A Western Mirror
Neuroscience now tells us what Ram Dass intuited. When people fall in love, dopamine floods the brain’s reward circuits, oxytocin fosters bonding, and stress hormones decrease. The beloved becomes, in effect, a neurochemical key that unlocks states of joy, calm, and connection.
Yet textbooks in psychology also emphasize habituation: the chemical fireworks fade, replaced by stability or, in some cases, dissatisfaction. Ram Dass saw this as proof that the beloved was never the true source. Just as the “high” of a drug is impermanent, so too is the high of early romance. The deeper practice is to recognize the awareness beneath the chemistry—what he called “being in love, not just falling in love.”
The Trap of Method: Why We Hold On
Ram Dass was not prescriptive in the way textbooks are, but he offered gentle practices. Meditation on the heart, chanting, or simply repeating the mantra “I am loving awareness” were ways of grounding oneself directly in the state that love points to.
In his later years, confined to a wheelchair after a stroke, he often reflected that his partners, his psychedelics, even his guru Neem Karoli Baba—all were methods, all were vehicles. The work was always the same: don’t confuse the vehicle with the destination.
Closing Perspective: From Falling in Love to Being Love
From a Western academic lens, attachment in relationships is both inevitable and necessary. From Ram Dass’s lens, the invitation is to see beyond it. Love is not something a partner gives us; it is the state of awareness they help us remember.
Ram Dass often poked fun at how deeply humans cling to their methods. “You made me feel love,” he would say, mimicking the mind’s script. “And now I need you, because without you, I can’t find it.”
The trap is understandable. Relationships are tangible, comforting, and socially validated. To look beyond the method—to sit quietly and access that same loving awareness in solitude—feels harder, lonelier, and less certain. But attachment to the method comes with risk: fear of loss, jealousy, dependency, and suffering when the relationship shifts or ends.
In his teaching, the evolution of love is moving from attachment to appreciation, from needing the other to recognizing the other as a reminder of what is already within.
Practices Toward Freedom: Remembering the Source
The syllabus of his teaching reads like this:
• Recognize attachment to the method.
• Honor the relationship as a mirror.
• Practice accessing loving awareness directly.
• Move from dependency to freedom.
As he once said: “When you fall in love, you fall into God. Don’t get stuck in the lover. Get stuck in love.”
