Steps on the Path

“It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”
― Ram Dass

There are a handful of quotes I return to again and again, ones that have helped me tremendously. The Ram Dass line above is one of them.

Over the weekend, I experienced what I’ll call a minor setback on my journey to living more mindfully (and, dare I say, spiritually). Nothing dramatic, but I overindulged a bit and felt crummy on Sunday. It was minor and thankfully only affected me, but I was still annoyed with myself and spent most of the day feeling lousy and beating myself up.

Eventually, I sat with it and decided to take the Ram Dass approach: stay calm, stay non-reactive, and keep going.

I love this quote because it gives immediate permission to move forward, to take a negative experience as just another “step on the path” and proceed.

It doesn’t mean we can’t learn from our mistakes or set boundaries when we’re treated poorly. But there’s a neutrality in this teaching that I find grounding. It doesn’t demonize negative experiences, gloss over them, or create unrealistic expectations that life will stop being hard once we reach a certain “point,” whatever that means.

When we drop expectations, we also step out of a victim mindset, the sense that things should go a certain way, that people should behave a certain way, or that we are entitled to specific outcomes. Expect nothing, take each experience as it comes, and merely proceed. (I love the word merely here, too.)

Try not to wallow, self-flagellate, or get caught in the woulda-coulda-shouldas. Just proceed.

This kind of neutrality in response is actually a show of strength. It takes a certain steadiness to keep carrying on when things don’t go as planned.

Maybe this is the heart of vairāgya—non-attachment or dispassion. Taking experiences as they are, without exception, and seeing them as simply steps on the path.

✌️oṃ śāntiḥ

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