Ram Dass - Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying

[Ram] Dass delves into the aspects of aging that terrify most of usand affirms there is an awareness in each of us that transcends all the attributes that necessarily diminish with age. Ram Dass shows readers of all ages that it is possible to stay present in the midst of suffering, to be still and know that God is here now.

Publishers Weekly

Ram Dass is a superb writer. His example of gentleness and loving compassion is infused with profound wisdom of the heart and mind, a welcome sense of humor and a savvy effectiveness in the real world.

San Francisco Chronicle

This book is an astonishing gift of love and clarity. Ram Dass guides us through many dimensions of aging with courage, humor, and profound wisdom.

Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and A Heart as Wide as the World

Ram Dass has entered the often stormy relationship between our physical and spiritual sides, and he has lived to tell about it. This is no gussied up, glossed over personal account of illness, but an honest, courageous book that flows from the soul. Listen up, everybody, while Ram Dass tells it like it is.

Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Reinventing Medicine and Healing Words

This is elder wisdom that our society badly needs to hear, and we can be glad that Ram Dass... is still here to engage us.

The Denver Post

If you are growing olderno matter what your ageI suggest you read Still Here.

Gary Zukav, author of The Dancing Wu Li Masters

The heroic account of a heroic life, by one of the great storytellers of our time and a humanitarian to inspire us all.

Huston Smith

Still Here encourages acceptance of aging and dying in a culture with a pervasive fear of both. It speaks to many of the core fears about growing old, including senility and loneliness, and suggests facing them by turning both inward (through meditation) and outward (to old friends and new).

New Age

Dasss personal honesty and sense of hope make this a worthwhile purchase.

Library Journal

An honest and engaging book that aging boomers should be able to relate to. With personal stories and his trademark humor, Dass guides his readers through the demons of aging (senility, loneliness, embarrassment, powerlessness, loss of role, depression and fear), and how to keep them in perspective.

Rocky Mountain News

A LSO BY R AM D ASS (Richard Alpert)

I DENTIFICATION AND C HILD R EARING

T HE P SYCHEDELIC E XPERIENCE

LSD

B E H ERE N OW

G RIST FOR THE M ILL

J OURNEY OF A WAKENING

M IRACLE OF L OVE

H OW C AN I H ELP ?

C OMPASSION IN A CTION

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Permissions and credits can be found on p. 207.

Copyright 2000 by Ram Dass

Book design by Deborah Kerner

Cover design Walter Harper

Photograph of the author Lisa Law

All rights reserved.

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RIVERHEAD is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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First Riverhead hardcover edition: May 2000

First Riverhead trade paperback edition: June 2001

The Library of Congress has catalogued the Riverhead hardcover edition as follows:

Ram Dass.

Still here : embracing aging, changing, and dying / Ram Dass.

p. cm.

ISBN: 978-1-101-66160-4

1. Aged. 2. Aging. 3. AgingPsychological aspects. 4. AgingReligious aspects. 5. Ageism.

HQ1061.R285 2000 99-086015

305.26dc21

To Neem Karoli Baba

A CKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are so many people to thank. First, I would like to thank Tara Bennett Goleman for enticing me into teaching our first conscious aging course together many years ago. There were also a number of fellow faculty at the Omega seminar for Conscious Aging Conference in 1992 whom I would also like to thank: Rabbi Zalman Schachter, Drew Leder, Bob Atchley, Connie Goldman, Rick Moody, Tom Cole, Carter Williams, and Carol Segrave.

I would also like to thank the members of the aging class in Marin.

Thank you to my father and the other older people Ive met along the way. Thank you to the people whose deaths I have been present for.

And to Dan Goleman, Roger Walsh, Frances Vaughn, and Stephen and Ondrea Levine, for their metaphysical guidance.

Thank you to my superb editor, Amy Hertz, and my publisher, Susan Petersen Kennedy. They taught me how compassionate a publisher can be.

Thank you to Jai Lakshman, for taking care of the nuts and bolts.

I would like to thank those people who helped me to find the words to finish this book after my stroke: Bokara Legendre, Shana Walter, Jo Anne Baughan, Mark Matousek, and Marlene Roeder.

STILL HERE

P REFACE

B e Here Now was first published in 1971. It recorded the two major experiences I had had during the Sixties: one of them was psilocyben mushrooms, and the other was my guru, Maharajji. Both of themmushrooms and Maharajjidid many things for me, one of which was to give me a familiarity with other planes of consciousness. They showed me that theres much more in any given moment than we usually perceive, and that we ourselves are much more than we usually perceive. When you know that, part of you can stand outside the drama of your life.