RIP, Ram Dass
“We are all just walking each other home.”
In his bestseller, “Be Here Now,” counterculture icon Ram Dass described feeling each of his identities—teacher, lover, pilot, son—dissolve away the first time he tried hallucinogenic drugs. In the nearly 60 years that followed, he would take on many more identities before passing away at his home on Maui eight days ago at 88. Born Richard Alpert, he abandoned his life as a Harvard academic in 1963 to join Timothy Leary as a front man for the psychedelic movement. His pursuit of enlightenment then led him to India, where after months of study under the guru Neem Karoli Baba, he was rechristened Ram Dass (Hindi for “servant of God”).
Returning to the U.S. he gave workshops at Esalen, the New Age retreat in Big Sur, and lectured around the country on a mission to make Eastern mysticism less mystifying. Following a stroke in 1977, he finished the book, “Still Here,” declaring, “In the 60s, I was an uncle for the movement. Now, the baby boomers are getting old—and I'm learning how to get old for them.”
That pursuit of enlightenment would remain a constant along Dass’ entire life journey—leaving one to wonder on the true meaning of, “We are all just walking each other home.” Is the journey a spiritual one? Is heaven home? In the end, the fact that Dass speaks of “ALL” of us, regardless of our religious beliefs, is what speaks so profoundly to me. We need not fear. We do not go through life alone. We are—everyone of us to each other—a hand to hold in the darkness.
I’d like to think that Ram and Richard both are safely home.