Pausing with Ram Dass just to contemplate life
By Mary Kaye Ritz
Advertiser Religion & Ethics Writer
When you're talking to Ram Dass, the '60s figurehead-turned-New-Age grayhair who pioneered the use of LSD for spiritual purposes, you find there are spaces to wander between his words.
You can choose to get antsy and blame aphasia (damage to the language center in his brain from his 1997 stroke) for that. Or you can do what he does in slow, deliberate fashion: Take a deep breath, relax and thank God.
Ram Dass, an icon of 1960s psychedelics and spiritualism, these days presents off-the-cuff performances with a partner, and promotes the "fierce grace" that has helped him cope with the debilitation of a 1997 stroke.
It does make it easier to take notes, come to think of it.
"When I'm thinking of a word, audiences go wild with the silences, because they consider the material well," he said. "In the silence, they can work. What grace it is!"
Such grace has been his savior since the stroke left him wheelchair-bound.
More specifically, he calls it "fierce grace." That's also the name of a 2001 documentary chronicling his recovery, which played in several local theaters last year.
The man born Richard Alpert 70 years ago became a Harvard psychology professor in 1958. He and fellow '60s icon Timothy Leary were dumped by the school five years later for promoting the use of psychedelics.
Along the way was a fateful trip on mushrooms, which took place at Leary's house. "I retreated into a quiet living room" he recalled. "It was dark, and I began to feel there was a person over in the corner. I started to see the person was me, my roles in society. There was roles for professor, the son, the golfer, the pilot, things like that. Some of the roles were characterized, like the pilot was wearing an aviator's cap, which I don't use. It was symbolic.
"I said to myself, 'If those roles are over there, and I'm over here, who am I?' By asking that question, I met a part of my being that had not been evident to me in the past."
An Evening with Ram Dass and Krishna Das
He calls it the mystical aspect of himself, something the Quakers call "the still small voice of God inside." It was a peaceful feeling.
"It made me from a social scientist into a spiritual seeker," he said from his San Francisco home. "As a social scientist, I always thought of religion as product of men's minds. Now, somehow, other planes of consciousness were evident."
He has pursued spiritual practices ranging from Hinduism, yoga, and meditation in the Theravadin, Mahayanna and Zen Buddhist schools to karma yoga and Sufism.
In 1967, he traveled to India and met his guru, Neem Karoli Baba or Maharaj Ji, from whom he received his name, Ram Dass, "servant of God." And he wrote about what he learned, including his 1971 best seller, "Be Here Now," which sold more than a million copies.
Subsequent works include "Still Here," "Embracing Aging and Dying" and "One-Liners: a Mini-manual for a Spiritual Life."
He also travels with Krishna Das, a fellow performer with whom he shares a guru. There have been trips to Maui, where he says he'd like to eventually live.
It was during a trip to Hawai'i that local importer Kashmir Gellatly suggested the two bring their road show here. She set it up, renting Diamond Head Theatre during a dark night, working around rehearsal schedules.
"They hardly need the whole stage," she said. "Only the one part in the center."
What's the format of the show?
"Nobody ever knows," said Gellatly. "It's never a set thing. There's no program handed out; it's totally spontaneous. Only one person has asked, 'What's he going to talk about?' (I answered) 'Bring your open heart.' "
