Lisa Arch

[janey]

Paul, without in any way intending to nanner you or be mean, I must say that I'm sorry you don't know who Ram Dass is. Or maybe I'm happy for you that you have his wonderful compendium of teachings to dive into for the first time as an adult.

Ram Dass was named Richard Alpert until adulthood. He was a colleague of Timothy Leary, famous for his use of hallucinogenic drugs, specifically LSD, to heighten the spiritual journey while a professor at Harvard. Both were fired, and Alpert went to India to continue his search. He met his guru who gave him the name Ram Dass, which means "Servant of God." Ultimately, what he found was that his spiritual practices could take him to the same place that acid did, only without having to come down and without having any potential side effects. His first book was "Be Here Now" which was one of the first books published in the West that talked about Eastern philosophies and practices. For a long time, it was basically him and Alan Watts for Eastern thought in the West. Be Here Now is definitely worth a read even though it is clearly a product of its time. He has also written about the spiritual practice of hanging out with your parents, as you found -- when his father had a stroke, he spent quite a long time living with him and using that as his practice. Later, he himself had a stroke and now his practice is, in part, the very difficult task of letting other people take care of him (his book on this topic is called "Still Here"). For me, the most important of his writings is How Can I Help? Stories and Reflections on Service, which was cowritten with Paul Gorman. Paul, as someone who see service and gratitude as means to alleviate one's own depressive tendencies, you really owe it to yourself to take a look at this book. It's got some of the clearest discussion of what service is about that I've ever read, and believe me, I've read a lot on the topic.

I consider Ram Dass to be one of my original teachers, even though I only saw him speak in person one time. I still think pretty frequently of some of the things he said during that talk. He has eyes that bore right through you and a hug that makes you feel very held and treasured. The Western Buddhist community treasures him, as well. He's someone who has always been very committed to his journey of awakening.