The soul that was
Ram Dass returned to nonphysical reality last week. Maya Angelou wrote,
“And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slow and always
irregularly, spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our
senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us, They Existed. They
Existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.” I felt that very
same way when Maya’s soul returned home to nonphysical reality. I knew that
souls do not die. Only personalities. But I felt that same way. And I felt
that way again when the soul of Ram Dass returned home. I was surprised at
how quickly the feeling came, how unstoppably. A deepness in my heart moved
without warning and pushed upward toward tears.
Linda and I shared
dinners and beach time with Ram Dass for thirteen years. My heart anchored
itself on Maui in 1990 – on my very first book tour. When we discovered
that Ram Dass moved there after a massive stroke, we reached out to his
ohana, his island family. They and he accepted us with open hearts, and our
journeys together began. They still continue. Swimming at the beach on
Mondays, lunches after swimming, and later in the week a dinner at his
house with his loving and constant caregiver, Dassi Ma, and people from
around the world. Sometimes, just us. Sometimes a kirtan (devotional
singing) in mid-week with ohana in the living room. Then more of the same
until we left the island again after two weeks. And so it went, February
after February - Maui, the Whales, our ohana, and Ram Dass. We laughed at
our adventures and shared our experiences, our gifts of grace, and the
gifts of one another.
He spoke often of
his Guru, Neem Karoli Baba. “He told me to love everybody. I said, I can’t
do that. But he told me again, love everybody.” After the stroke paralyzed
one side of his body and slowed his speech hugely (his old friend, Wavy
Gravy, told him, “You give the ‘pregnant pause’ a whole new meaning), he
appeared before a huge audience. “They rolled me onto the stage,” he told
us one evening at dinner, “and all I could do was love them.” “It seems to
me,” I quipped, “that Neem Karoli Baba had the last word about that!” That
was one of our biggest laughs together.
When a dear friend
asked him, “Do you love everything?” Ram Dass said Yes. “Do you love this
carpet we are standing on?” his friend asked. Ram Dass said Yes. “Do you
love it as much as you love me?” Ram Dass said Yes. I learned this story
when I asked about a framed piece of dirty carpet hanging in the entry-way
to his house along with images and icons of Divinity – a gift from the
friend.
I learned so much
from Ram Dass, but not by reading his famous book, Be Here Now,
which I used to illustrate a chapter in The Dancing Wu Li Masters. I
learned it from being with him during his moments of equanimity and
laughter, his moments of upset, and his constant love which I did not try
to describe when we were together, or even when Linda and I returned to the
continent. I don’t believe I could then, and I don’t believe that I can
now, but I can feel it, and that makes all the difference.
Love everybody
and everything. That was his message, and I believe that striving to
live it was the ever-flowing fountain of his joy.
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