“We had gotten over the feeling that one experience was going to make you enlightened forever. We saw that it wasn't going to be that simple.
And for five years I dealt with the matter of "coming down."”

—  Ram Dass , book Be Here Now

The coming down matter is what led me to the next chapter of this drama. Because after six years, I realized that no matter how ingenious my experimental designs were, and how high I got, I came down.
At one point I took five people and we locked ourselves in a building for three weeks and we took 400 micrograms of LSD every four hours. That is 2400 micrograms of LSD a day, which sounds fancy, but after your fist dose, you build a tolerance; there's a refractory period. We finally were just drinking out of the bottle, because it didn't seem to matter anymore. We'd just stay at a plateau. We were very high. What happened in those three weeks in that house, no one would ever believe, including us. And at the end of the three weeks, we walked out of the house and within a few days, we came down!
And it was a terribly frustrating experience, as if you came into the kingdom of heaven and you saw how it all was and you felt these new states of awareness, and then you got cast out again.
Be Here Now (1971)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We had gotten over the feeling that one experience was going to make you enlightened forever. We saw that it wasn't goi…" by Ram Dass?
Ram Dass photo
Ram Dass 100
American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of t… 1931–2019

Related quotes

Ram Dass photo

“We had gotten over the feeling that one experience was going to make you enlightened forever.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Be Here Now (1971)
Context: We had gotten over the feeling that one experience was going to make you enlightened forever. We saw that it wasn't going to be that simple.
And for five years I dealt with the matter of "coming down." The coming down matter is what led me to the next chapter of this drama. Because after six years, I realized that no matter how ingenious my experimental designs were, and how high I got, I came down.
At one point I took five people and we locked ourselves in a building for three weeks and we took 400 micrograms of LSD every four hours. That is 2400 micrograms of LSD a day, which sounds fancy, but after your fist dose, you build a tolerance; there's a refractory period. We finally were just drinking out of the bottle, because it didn't seem to matter anymore. We'd just stay at a plateau. We were very high. What happened in those three weeks in that house, no one would ever believe, including us. And at the end of the three weeks, we walked out of the house and within a few days, we came down!
And it was a terribly frustrating experience, as if you came into the kingdom of heaven and you saw how it all was and you felt these new states of awareness, and then you got cast out again.

Jesse Owens photo

“I decided I wasn't going to come down. I was going to fly. I was going to stay up in the air forever.”

Jesse Owens (1913–1980) American track and field athlete

On his final record-breaking leap in the long-jump competition.
Jesse Owens, Champion Athlete (1990)

Michelle Pfeiffer photo

“Even from the beginning, when I was doing junk television, I still had this focus. I knew I wasn't going to be doing that forever, that I wasn't going to be like that…”

Michelle Pfeiffer (1958) American actress

Vanity Fair (1989) http://www.pfeiffertheface.com/Mag_1989-02_Vanity.htm

Aleister Crowley photo

“Don't talk for five minutes, there's a good chap! I've a strange feeling come over me--almost as if I were going to think!”

Aleister Crowley book Moonchild

Source: Moonchild

Joe Biden photo

“We have to take care of the cure. That will make the problem worse, no matter what. No matter what. We know what has to be done. We know you have to — you're tired of hearing the phrase, you got to flatten that curve where it's going up like this, people getting it, and then it comes down.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2020, March 2020

Mike Parson photo

“People ask how it feels when we had such a big (Republican) sweep in Missouri, and they ask how we are going to answer that. I’ll tell you: it’ll be responsibility. Before we go around high-fiving each other, let’s see what we’re going to do as a team, what examples we’ll set, and what we’re going to do differently to make Missouri a better state.”

Mike Parson (1955) American politician

Mike Parson brings variety of experience to Missouri lieutenant governor job http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/mike-parson-brings-variety-experience-missouri-lieutenant-governor-job#stream/0 (December 20, 2016)

Everett Dirksen photo

“We have been through this biennial convulsion four or five different times over the past 10 or 12 years, and now it appears that we are going through this quiet agony all over again.”

Everett Dirksen (1896–1969) United States Army officer

Remarks in the Senate on a resolution to amend Senate Rule 22 (cloture), Congressional Record (January 11, 1967), vol. 113, p. 182
1960s

Richelle Mead photo

“But as I guided her to my belt and then laid her down on the bed, I knew which way our path would go. Webe together forever. We had to be. There was no way that all these feelings between us could ever dim or be defeated.”

Richelle Mead book The Fiery Heart

Source: The Fiery Heart

Eddie August Schneider photo

“From the beginning I had wanted to do something with my flying. Just being able to go up in the air and come down at the same spot wasn't very exciting. Airplanes are for going places quickly, safely and comfortably. I don't know why, but my longing had always been to go to the West Coast. First, because I had never been there, and then for various reasons you fly over all sorts of country on the way, and it is the best way to see the country.”

Eddie August Schneider (1911–1940) American aviator

[I Break a Record and have a Swell Time Besides, Flying magazine, http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Eddie_August_Schneider_October_1931_Flying_magazine_page_1_of_5.png, October 1, 1930, Eddie August Schneider]

John Fante photo

“Come down out of the skies, you God, come on down and I'll hammer your face all over the city of Los Angeles, you miserable unpardonable prankster. If it wasn't for you, this woman would not be so maimed, and neither would the world, and if it wasn't for you I could have had Camilla Lopez down at the beach, but no!”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Source: Ask the Dust (1939), Chapter Eleven

Related topics