At wits end about any number of my personal life dysfunctions, one Friday night I decided to go see a video at Maui Booksellers, a tiny little bookstore in Wailuku, on Maui. That night, they were showing a movie called Fierce Grace, a documentary about Ram Dass, an icon of American spirituality for my generation, the Baby-Boomers.
With about 10 people in the store and about a half-hour before show time, the door opens and a wheelchair comes through. In the wheelchair sits Ram Dass himself, followed by just three people who weren?t so much attending to him as being with him.
The owners of the bookstore, obviously honored by his unplanned presence, graciously welcomed him and introduced themselves and then left their guest to their patrons. I wasn?t surprised to see only a couple of people approach him; I barely knew what to do or what I wanted to do.
But what did startle me was the degree of veneration that they bestowed on him. It was as if an other-than-human had entered the room.
Now Ram Dass, to me, has always been one of the most wondrous of human beings. Some people, like The Beatles, for example, are the embodiment of what those of their generation are experiencing. The Beatles put the experience to music, while Ram Dass placed the experience into a spiritual context. And yet, by his words and actions, he stayed completely human in the doing.
In the 1960s, as Richard Alpert, a professor at Harvard, he and his colleague, Timothy Leary, were fired from their positions for experiments with psychedelics that involved students. Whereas Leary went on to greater depths of psychedelia, Alpert went to India where he met his Guru. He came back as Baba Ram Dass (Servant of God).
Since then, as the author of such seminal books as Be Here Now, Grist for the Mill,The Only Dance There Is, Miracle of Love, a collection of reminiscences of his guru, and most recently, ?Still Here? ? which speaks of his spiritual struggles surrounding his 1996 stroke ? and as a peripatetic lecturer, he has embodied perhaps one of the West?s best conceptual bridges to understanding Eastern thought and ways of being.
In the process, continually and more explicitly as time went on, he reported the truth of his experience with an honesty that left him with nowhere to hide. That is exactly the way he wanted it.
So as I noticed others around me exhibiting what I interpreted as deferential behavior, I wondered ? since, after all, most know him only at a distance through mass gatherings ? what is it like to be the center of such reverential focus? And how does he, who spent a good chunk of his life being the one with nothing to hide, handle it?
Naturally, I didn?t ask at that time. But I did want to connect. I was lucky; I happened to have finished assembling a portfolio of my photo images that very morning. So, in a small void between visitors, I sat down next to him and invited him to leaf through the portfolio and pick a picture for himself, if he liked one.
Just so there?s no illusion, clearly, it was a bribe so I?d get to spend time with him.
For about 10 minutes we sat there, small comments passing back and forth; just little curiosities, nothing about nothing, really. He chose an image, I gave it to him, thanked him for his life, and went on to watch the video, glancing over my shoulder now and again to see how he responded to himself.
Actually, that?s not quite accurate. I began by asking permission to show him my work and then babbled on for what had to be a full minute on why I could accept him as Teacher. It was because of a time, pretty much at the peak of his guruship (for want of a better word), that he gathered his key followers together and instructed them to get on with their lives and quit following him because he didn?t know anything.
I was being double the kiss-ass of anyone I observed. I just had a prop, an excuse, and a slightly more open window of time to interpose words. And then, in my illusion, I convinced myself that I was meeting him as an equal.
Once a month there is a gathering of people that centers around Ram Dass at a private location here on Maui. I began going. It includes Kirtan (yoga chants), music, sometimes poetry, a short talk by Ram Dass, and a potluck feast.
Each time I?d go, I?d manage to spend a little time with him. I noticed a few key people who attended to him. They all maintained an attentive distance. I asked if he had anyone to talk to about some of the deeper conflicts surrounding his stroke. Since I had been a paramedic for 12 years, of course I would be just the person to talk with if it ever came up. I made sure he knew that.
He declined.
Another time, I just hovered nearby while he, balancing a plate of food on one leg, braced by his stroked arm within the confines of the wheelchair arms, spoke with one after another of people on line to be with him. This after a good 2? hours of singing and chanting. In my view, he was clearly pretty tired and needed respite and some food, and when the plate was brought to him, I expected the people in the room to give him a bit of a pause while he refreshed. They didn?t.
Since I ?knew? what he needed, I wanted to intervene. But I didn?t. I just watched. What I kept noticing was, there would be a break between people, he?d pick up a fork and begin to eat, and then, someone else would come up. He?d graciously put his fork down, stop eating and converse. This repeated itself time and again.
At one point, noticing that he hadn?t drunk anything, I found his glass of water on the floor out of his reach. In a pause, I picked it up, handed it to him and went back to my position as a sort of silent guardian. He took a few sips, and put the glass down on the empty chair next to him. Sure enough, someone came up, took the glass off the chair, put it down out of reach, sat down on the chair and began talking.
Somehow, I got the idea people didn?t see him for who he is ? a man who had a stroke and by no means had the stamina they assumed. I felt protective. My curiosity and arrogance grew. I was feeling astonished that I seemed to be the only one in the room who was truly looking out for him.
Later on that week, I decided ? using this magazine (Voice of Choices) as a cloak of legitimacy ? I could ask him for an interview. So I put together a couple of samples of the magazine and included the questions I was really curious about:
Are you still pissing people off and are those around you bold enough to challenge you when you do it?
Have you been actively setting new limits and boundaries on how you wish to be treated by others since you?ve been stroked, or is it more in the realm of an acceptance thing for you?
Do you ever feel the loneliness of not being seen for who you really are?
May as well ask, then ? who are you, really?
What is it that people are asking of you today that they weren?t asking of you pre-stroke?
I hand-delivered the package to his home. The next Kirtan, I could not just relax and be myself around him. I had an agenda driving me. Very off balance, I found myself waiting on line to see him, dropping out of it to get centered, getting back on again, and then stepping away when I saw his food come.
A couple of times, after someone moved his glass out of range again, I moved it back to within his reach and then stepped away while he ate. At one point, he motioned me to come over.
I reintroduced myself to him, assuming he might not remember who I was ? falsely ? and without any subtlety or restraint, just blurted out, ?Did you get the package I left you??
He nodded yes, and went back to his food as the room of about 50 people chanted and sang. Being in his presence, finally, I relaxed and just sat with him, silent. Content. After all, I was getting to hang out with a legend of my time.
At first becalmed, it didn?t take me long to get fidgety because I had that agenda going. Right at the point of the music and voices coming to a very enthralling crescendo, when it looked like he was entering another phase of ecstasy, I clumsily leaned over.
I saw I had broken his flow, but, still, he leaned over to meet me. Putting my mouth close to his ear and speaking out loudly, as if he were deaf, I asked, ?Could I have the interview??
At first, he looked up at me with a glint of, not anger, but more like annoyance like at that pesky mosquito. Then, he took in a breath, sat back in his chair and, motioning me to sit back in mine next to him, swept his hand lovingly over the scene of people, hearts and souls a-singing.
Smiling at me, Ram Dass said these words: ?This is it!?
I sat back and settled into the space that I was part of. For what had to have been a full minute, I swear, I just sat there with him, empty. I may have even been breathing.
Then, remembering the business at hand, I leaned over close to his ear, and with much more subtlety in my voice this time, and maybe even a little softer, I asked him: ?Can I quote you on that??
He wrapped his arm around me and, embracing me close and pulsating, he laughed.
It was then that I realized I hadn?t really met Ram Dass,
I had met me. And that, I believe, is his point.
Russ Reina shares over 35 years of experience in the healing arts through his web site http://mauihealingartist.com. It is a potent resource for those wishing to deepen their abilities in connection and develop their powers as healers. For a powerful free tool to explore your inner world, please check out his adjunct site http://thestoryofthis.net
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