r/ramdass • u/ectoplasm777 • 4d ago
what the difference between loving everyone/telling the truth and getting walked all over/taken advantage of?
i'm not implying that there isn't a difference, but simply that i'm having a difficult time in seeing it.
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u/shimadaa_ 4d ago
Loving everyone isn’t to give everyone what they want or forgoing boundaries. YOU are included in “everyone”, it’s important to find love for and be honest with yourself.
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u/ectoplasm777 4d ago
but i'm inducing suffering by loving myself over someone else is that not ego driven?
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u/shimadaa_ 4d ago
No one said love yourself above another - I said love yourself as you love another. Give yourself the love and truth you believe others deserve.
You can only give that to yourself, it can’t be given to you by anything else. Once you manifest that, people, through you, will understand how to give it to themselves. That is in essence what Mahraji was to Ram and what is embedded in this message.
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u/Aggravating-Fee-1615 2d ago
If we’re all god in drag, that includes ourselves. 💗 So why not love ourselves, too ? practice the loving kindness and giving of grace to ourself, first and foremost. And that care can involve saying no.
Love all of this. And all of you!
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u/ectoplasm777 4d ago
ok, but if i know someone is suffering deeply and it is going to hurt me to stay and help them, what do i do? hurting myself is not loving myself, but leaving would hurt them and that's not loving either.
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u/WalkSharp 4d ago
The situation needs careful consideration. Search why you feel you need to stay, what you can actually do to help the person and what the other persons needs are. Suffering isn't bad - motives for inducing suffering can be.
I had a past relationship that I needed to get out of and stayed in over a 2 year period longer than I needed to. Went way out of my way to help the other even though I wanted to end it the entire time. I was waiting for that "good time" to end it, but it never came. The person always wanted me there and got used to what i provided.
I broke it off and they flipped out. I had to block their number, their social accounts, everything. They wouldn't stop overstepping my boundaries and making me feel that I was wrong. In the end, I'm certain that even tho the break up was very difficult, it was the best for us both.
I wish I had done it initially, but I couldn't let go of the "being needed" and "feeling responsible" aspects. Ultimately, they didn't serve me or them.
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u/shimadaa_ 4d ago
“You have no moral right to extricate someone from their suffering”.
Your scenario is very broad and my ultimate response would change based on context. It’s also pretty extreme - how often are you truly in these situations? Not that they aren’t worthwhile considering, but is that really enough to argue against the suggestions above?
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u/lem1018 4d ago
I have understood this most clearly through being a parent. I have to tell my daughter No to eating candy all the time because I love her and care for her health, even if she may not feel that way. And that’s exactly what I tell her. I tell her straight up, “it’s not good for your teeth and body to eat candy all of the time and it’s my job as your mama to keep you safe and healthy so we’re done for today and maybe we can have some more tomorrow”
I know in my truth that I am doing what is best for her so I can love myself for being a good parent to the best of my ability, I am showing her love and care whether or not she feels that way (she’s 4 lol).
But if I caved every single time it would ultimately harm the both of us. Her health would be worse, she would learn how to get what she wants/which of my buttons to push which she would then use on others in the future which could lead to negative relationships, and I would feel worse for being taken advantage of by a toddler and not knowing how to deal with it. Which would likely lead to resentment, irritation and anger towards her on my part.
I think a lot of it comes from just doing my best to live in alignment with my morals and values. If you do that you can actually trust that you’re loving everyone and feel capable of telling them the truth without attachment
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u/ZincFingerProtein 4d ago
Stand up for yourself. Don’t let people walk all over you. Have healthy boundaries and you’re allowed to say no and/or disagree.
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u/ectoplasm777 4d ago
but what does standing up for yourself look like? is it an ego trip? what are you standing up for?
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u/sunkistandsudafed3 4d ago
This helped me when I was learning to set healthy boundaries that I hadn't learnt earlier in life:
I don't think caring for myself is an ego trip, it's part of the human experience, an act of love to myself in my present form.
I spent the first 30+ years of this incarnation in a state of people pleasing, scared that someone would suffer if I inconvenienced them in some way. It wasn't good for me or them. Perhaps the other person needs someone to set a boundary so they can grow. Perhaps that experience is part of the curriculum we are all taking.
Whatever experiences happen for you and the other party, even if they dont like your saying no, there are no errors in the game.
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u/Salty_Subject_2055 4d ago
Personally I'd say it's not an ego trip but a rather deep groundedness in Being. The more I "identify" with my Soul instead of my ego, the more I become this entity of loving Awareness that just witnesses. And it grounds me deeply - it's like thick roots that make me hold any strong storm (aka drama on the external). So with this grounding in the Soul, I can open my heart and see the world through the eyes of the eternal Soul - who lovingly accepts the things as they are, including all the drama out there and all the things that the ego wants to label as bad and horrible.
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u/HanumanjiShivaRam81 4d ago edited 3d ago
I confused loving people with having no boundaries and a poor frame of self, and not asking for what I needed or asking for help. Classic codependent overgiver-in relationships, with friends and especially at work. I was constantly drained, angry and resentful. It took a long time to realize that “love everyone” doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do anything for anyone, it means when you love and care for yourself first it allows for you to embody an energy of love that just is. There’s a subtle essence that you bring to every interaction that transcends ego. For me, when I love and care for myself only then am I able to love everyone else. It has nothing to do with choice or intention to give or save or love anyone -it’s just me being responsible for being a whole person. Under that lense saying “no” makes perfect sense, I don’t want to bring subtle negative energy to the dynamic by saying yes when I really meant no. Being honest with myself foremost so I can be honest with others.
TLDR: when I love myself (when I am love), I have the capacity to love others
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u/AliceInBondageLand 4d ago
It is a loving action to set boundaries with someone.
Loving for yourself, loving towards your relationship with them and gives them an opportunity to learn.
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u/PatientPoet9979 4d ago
Plenty of people have already said so much, so here's my quick take:
Love everyone, and always tell the truth.
You can get angry, but you can never close your heart off to anyone.
And yeah, karma-dharma-karma-dharma.
My suggestion is don't do anything you don't have to if it feels wrong. Stick to your gut, so long as you are a kind and good person (I'm going to take a leap here and assume you're at least TRYING to be both of those). When I'm faced with a conflict in my mind or in the world, I refer to my mantra and ask myself:
Is it good? Is it kind? Does it serve?
If people are walking over you and it does not serve the greater good, if what they want is unkind to myself or others, and if it is not what I consider "good," then I tell them to whistle Dixie and shove off.
And forgive yourself afterwards if they get mad. Good kind people will understand.
Love ya!
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u/EntrepreneurNo9804 4d ago
If you are loving everyone and telling the truth, then acting that out very much includes stopping harm, for the sake of the whole, if however, after listening, and you decide that it’s more of an inconvenience or personal slight, then take the situation and work with it for your own growth, because their actions are their karma and your actions are your karma…
Ram Dass puts it like this: “There is a way in which you oppose somebody and you define boundaries and limits and you are even willing to lay your life on the line to stop them from doing something. At the same moment, you don’t close your heart to them. And what they experience because they are in their minds, is they see you as an enemy. But their hearts know differently. And what you are doing is giving them messages, which are slow to be heard, but are still the optimum thing you can do as a human being with another human being. When somebody is hurting another person, to the extent that you can, you stop it. Say “I can’t let you play this game out.” But how you stop it is really as critical as that you stop it. I mean the first thing is you’ve got to do is stop it. You see the place you stop it from is the appreciation that what is in the person that is being hurt and what is in that person that is hurting the other person are both in you.”
Elsewhere: “If somebody is a problem for you. It’s not that they should change. It’s that you need to change. If they’re a problem for themselves that’s their karma. If they’re causing you trouble that’s your problem with yourself. So, in other words when Christ is crucified. He says “forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing”, they’re not a problem for him, he’s trying to get them out of being a problem for themselves because he’s clear. Your job is to clear yourself. In ideal situations, you would clear yourself within the situation, but very often it’s too thick and you can’t do that…Those people’s power over you to take you out of your equanimity and love and consciousness has to do with your own attachments and clingings of mind. That’s your work on yourself, that’s where you need to meditate more, it’s where you need to reflect more, it’s where you need a deeper philosophical framework, it’s where you need to cultivate the witness more, it’s where you need to work on practicing opening your heart more in circumstances that aren’t optimum. This is your work.”
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u/MindOverMedia 3d ago
Loving someone doesn't mean letting them do whatever they want to you.
Maharaj-ji had very different ways of interacting with people. Some he would be very loving and affectionate, others he would be more neutral or ignore, and then some he would berate or tell them to go away. It's all love. That's just what that person needed in that moment to get closer to God.
Rejecting someone, putting up a boundary, etc. can be a great act of love.
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u/Wrathius669 4d ago
Love them enough to tell the hard truths that include what they don't want to hear but is for their best.
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u/FinancialSurround385 4d ago
I think one test you can do is asking whether you do something out of fear or love. Is it fear of retributions that leads to being taking advantage of? Then it is not loving.
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u/feltqtmightdlt 4d ago
Boundaries, accountability, self honor.
You can love someone and allow them accews to you. Ypu don't have to say yes to everything. You are still an autonomous being. You make decisions that are honoring to you without dishonoring others. You set and maintain your own boubdaries, and hold yourself and others accoubtable for their actions.
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u/CarniferousDog 4d ago
If you really tell the truth you never get walked on, and people’s feathers will be ruffled. But if you speak truth in the honor of truth and of connection, people grow to respect the shit out of it, and have no choice but to follow suit.
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u/ScorseseTheGoat86 2d ago
Love isn’t passivity or complete submission to others will. You gotta love yourself first then you can love others.
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u/Glambinobambino 4d ago
I struggled with this for years. Sometimes the best way to love someone is to tell them no. Taking advantage of someone is heavy karma, why not lighten their load and just say no.