It’s not possible that he could have met the mother of his child on LSD at a Dead concert in the 50s. The Dead wasn’t founded until the early 60s and his son was born in the 50s.

It is noted that mr alpert had been a cellist before losing the ability to a stroke. This got me to thinking about the sounds of the universe: beyond the atmosphere of earth, sound is mute in a vacuum. It is said that the next order of "sound" after total silence is not speech, but music. In many monasteries of a 1000 years ago, (and perhaps today) silence was literally the order of the day. The observation of silence, first, and then perhaps the melody, rhythm, and harmony of music...I would like to have had the opportunity to discuss these concepts with Ram Dass. He no doubt spent much time in meditative silence. I suspect that there are modes of silence, not involving thought, and with a kinship to the modes of, say, a C scale, though I cannot prove it. Perhaps , for example, phrygian silence informs ionian, while having its own "colour", and the set of all modes form the entire onion, which in their unity inform the universe, and are at the root, all that there is. Perhaps in death, ("just another moment" -RD) the decaying cadaver is shucked by the soul. The soul moves on, taking its music with it, to be built on in a noteworthy evolution.

Exceptional title, "Ram Das is ready to die." America is waking up in spite of itself. Echoes of Nothingness resonating from the pages of national newspapers: Ego is ready to die. Nothing is infinitely more powerful than all the somethings creating "everything." Who could have imagined such nonsense (except maybe Lennon?) But here we are. The Nothingness is seeping in. Quantum physic's dark energy & dark matter. The Nothingness is percolating, and Ram Das is pointing out the path from elements to Nothing. :)

I've been trying for 2 days now to share my reaction to this Talk interview. So far, it hasn't appeared, and Emma at Chat tried to help. I emailed David Marchese at the address she gave me. Still no reply. So I'm gonna try again now. RAM DASS IS READY TO DIE https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/02/magazine/ram-dass-interview.html “The ego, this incarnation, is life and dying. The soul is infinite.” I think I remember two past lives; what might I remember of this one? Skeptical re memory or dream, I assure you. But those two remind me at times that we might be other than we think. One night, I floated above a sacred grove, an abandoned site I knew I’d known; the other was in sunshine glare above cliff stairs, my family home, my father on his ship returning to harbor, my dress white and wind-blown like a flag welcoming him. I wonder if I’ve already lived the moment in this life I’ll remember when I am no longer me. Will it be a whimper or a kiss? Apparently, we cannot choose our dreams or the moment we’ll remember. Just one from each life? A good one offers too many choices. A bad life is one you’re glad to forget.

I am amused to see how some of the commenters on this thread are irritated at reading about an old man who talks about the soul, mind, and his life of seeking and teaching. How they struggle! Things change when you decide to be loving and open now and stop the monkey from leaping from thing to thing, chattering as it does: Good! Bad! Want! Don't want! Me! You! Having a human intellect and will is an irony in itself. Best to just smile and accept it.

The desire is be freed from desire is a desire, Ram! Are you really riding the vehicle of no support?

Well then... Have a safe journey and don't forget to write...

I think that the realm of the soul is simply a different dimension from that of the mind, to the degree that it is not possible for the mind to imagine what it is like. Let's say for example, one lives in Manhattan, and that is all that one as ever known, nor has one ever seen any images or videos of any other place. Then how would it be possible for such a person to imagine places like the ocean, or like the top of a mountain? Perhaps the very best thing one can do is to fully accept that one does not know. "I accept that I am asleep, I am living in a dream, and there is nothing I can do to wake myself up, not do I have any idea of what it is to be awake." With this attitude, I believe that things can indeed change.

Read B.H. Friedman's book titled Tripping.

Throughout human history, except for a very few, all humans had to," be here now," as just working for the needs of daily life, especially the females, was our lot in life. Most choices for society have evolved because of borrowed money, which in reality has made the world a much worse place, money for weapons to destroy the other, too much money to become overweight, obese, and unhealthy, and enough borrowed money to end one's life with deadly drugs. Money just brings boredom, and having to attend to the needs of children, elders, and neighbors brings satisfaction, and harmony.

Ok, please excuse my cynical hat. I think the fact that "Ram Daas" is homosexual, is enormously relevant to his choices in life. His slavish following of a "guru" is profoundly disturbing to me, not because of what they say, but because of that photo in this article. We're talking super creepy. I've seen that 'crazy in the eyes' look before, from a hermit I befriended while camping in 'hippy cove' in Cordova, Alaska, in the year of the Valdez oil spill. The hermit wanted me to 'join his army to march with jesus against the devil in the battle of Armeghedon'. Not a joke. Crazy is crazy, there's no need to sweat the details. Ram Daas can't accept his sexual identity, so he found a way to lose it. Nicely done. Not a judgement, just saying. Don't follow troubled souls, they will lead you to no good end.

If we are supposed to be free from desires, then why should I care what Ram Dass is saying? His message is self-refuting.

I went to hear Ram Dass in the early 70s at the Student Union at the University of Texas. I was already on a path that included him. I feel love and gratitude that I read the Beatitudes, Kahlil Gibran and heard Ram Dass.

I recently experienced Ram Dass's presence and received his darshan when he came to the mainland for the inauguration of the new mandir for Hanuman in Taos, NM. Simply put, he beams love. Not transactional love, limited love, but boundless, universal heart opening love. He has become truly Ram's servant - a conduit for love. In that space, faith is established, strengthened to continue the journey right in the midst of the lila, the dance, the melee.

My former therapist was a devotee of Ram Dass, so though I never met RD, I feel like I benefited directly from his teachings, along with viewing and reading his lectures. After my wife died a few years ago, leaving me a single dad to two middle schoolers, I got really good at meditation and living mindfully in the moment, with the help of my therapist and reading spiritual teachers, like Pema Chodron. Too good, really, to the point where I spent far too few cycles actually planning for the future. Now I have to play catch up. Be careful of what you ask for and seek, balance between the now and the future is a more pragmatic way to live, even in the face of incredible grief and the nihilism that can come with it.

Ram - Your message has always been lovely and true. Thank you for sharing your journey. It has made a difference in the world. jk

As a clinical psychologist myself, and one who sat in lectures from Ram Das at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Co. and met with him and had discussions of philosophy, theory, and psychology I always have a warm and compassionate feeling when I encounter Ram Das in his more recent incarnations. Naropa was a dynamic place back in the days when Gregory Bateson was teaching his book "Steps to an Ecology of Mind" and Ed Dorn and Ann Waldman resident poet laureates of the Jack Kerouac school of disembodied poetics at Naropa were making fun of D.D. Lawrence and giving oral readings of their own poetic works. Billy Boroughs Jr. would regale us with stories of his father's craziness playing William Tell with a revolver down in Mexico when he was just a kid to mention just one of his wild memories. I used to go to his readings from the Bhagavad Gita. There I was in a room full of whirling dervishes spinning in ecstacy in my golf clothes asking Richard Alpert fine points comparing Anna Freud's Ego an the Mechanisms of Defense with the Gita on the nature psyche. I liked to talk to Richard the psychologist still buried within his reborn self of Ram Das. What has yet to be explored are the similarities between theories of Jung, the french analyst Jacques Lacan, and Ram Das. What they have in common is some idea concerning the death of the ego and realization of the subject or soul. This intersection of great minds deserves further study and investigation.

From where I sit, the muscle that forever needs attention is "Be here now." One observation I've made is that with all the "out"lets of social media, it is so much easier for all of us to "Be THERE now."

'Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.' Carl Jung. 'I looked outside and saw shallow mediocrity I looked within and saw the same thing.' Daphne Sylk 'It's always something — if it ain't one thing, it's another.' Roseanne Roseannadanna

Such pablum will always be welcome, of course, but given that Ram Dass was born in Newton, MA to a Jewish family, all I can think about is the punchline to the classic old Jewish joke: "Come home, Sheldon." Whatever Dass has or hasn't done, the main result of this New Age, quasi-Eastern whatnot is to locate the cause and solution of all ills inside individual people's mental attitudes. Whether Dass approves of that or not, that's the higher egotism of this slippery hippie stuff out there in The Real World: "I want peace; thus, I'll factor out anything, right or wrong, that doesn't give me peace." Taken to not even much of an extreme, you get what my sister said after Trump was elected: "You can either choose to be upset about it or choose to be happy." I said, "OK, but if and when we pass climate failsafe, with all that will portend for not just us but your daughter, aged 15, how, precisely will we be able to choose to be happy? How about if and when the nukes fall, after we abandon all nuclear arms control, and the resources start running out in an increasingly fascist global system?" That's when I was chided for being egotistical. Interesting, no? Selflessness is apparently not caring about others, ever ("attachment"; "desire"). Selfishness is caring about others, whether alive today or in the future. *Should* any of us even *want* total peace of mind -- those well off enough to read and write comments on the NYT, especially -- when the species is in serious trouble?

So where does service to others fit into this paradigm? That requires action, not just contemplation.

As someone from a privileged life, I followed Ram Dass for over two decades, read his books, listened to his lectures, even met him. It is mostly the very privileged who can live their lives spending money and time in adulation of gurus, often on very expensive retreats. With all his devotees and assistants Ram Dass hasn't needed to think about the things too many in the world desperately seek on a daily basis, food to eat and a safe place to live. It's easier to "let go of attachments" when your basic needs are always taken care of. He talked of service to others, but it seems now to have been mostly talk and not very much action.

Fierce Grace was the first documentary that I saw Ram Dass in 2001 and since then have been listening and following to his satsangs and kirtans. What a truly amazing journey that crosses boundaries of religion and cultures. In times of these, The world needs more warriors like Baba Ram Dass.

Excellent and truly enlightening article. The concept of the inner (infinite) witness to the infinite soul is very moving. And the remark to the effect that Trump's karma is visible while his soul is not, seems exactly right. Thank you!

Mr. Marchese misleads us by omitting the time frame of this "conversation." This article leads the reader to believe that Ram Dass (RD) is in better health and more communicative than he is. Now aphasic and surrounded by beloved friends and caregivers in Hawaii, RD is indeed ready to die. Fortunately, the compassion and wisdom that he embodied is timeless. Namaste.

From the mind to the heart to the soul. The counselor ever advises us on the right course for the journey, leaving the details to us. Many years ago, I had the joy of attending a three-day retreat with Ram Dass, stood in line to thank him for what I had received, only to have him literally pick me up off the ground and whisper "it takes all of us to play" in my ear. Thank you for this gentle look at one of the gentlest of teachers.

Thank you Mr. Marchese. I personally don't subscribe to going to ashrams or gurus, etc. But, I do think each one of us arrives at our souls' doors, in our own ways. And those who unfortunately don't, they have a very different tale to tell. I (personally) am not in favour of psychedelic drugs, they have known long-standing detrimental physical side effects. However using meditation, spartan living, silence, solitary traveling, voluntary medical/teaching/humanitarian services... using some form of exercise for introspection and self-sacrifice, most humans arrive at universal truths of harmony and love, fairly often. I feel disconnecting from the world completely and going away is a coward's way out. The real test of the soul is to live in the middle of this mayhem and connect with the Divine (I'm referring to believers, atheists are of course excluded)... and develop that indifference to the mundaneness and uniqueness of materialism, which does annihilate our soul, our psyche, our true selves bit by bit. Until all that is left is anxiety and fear of the unknown. "Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." Carl Jung. Something to note, in german (in which Jung wrote), word "Seele" means both psyche and soul. Perhaps that is the more accurate way to talk about souls.