After being introduced for a
lecture, Ram Dass eschewed the stairs and, from his front row seat,
leapt up on to the stage--or tried to, anyway, but age and gravity
brought him crashing back to earth. Like other baby boomers, Ram Dass
has learned the hard way that aging is unkind to the body. But he has
also learned that it can be an opportunity for growth. While others
begin to devalue you, you can reconnect with the spiritual, grow into
wisdom, and create value for yourself. In
Still Here,
Ram Dass offers a philosophy for aging that teaches us how to diminish
our suffering despite the aches, pains, and limitations of age. This
becomes possible when we step away from the ego-self and into the
soul-self, where we can witness our thoughts and emotions and evaluate
their effects on us. If aging has brought challenges to Ram Dass, it
has also brought him wisdom, which, through his personal anecdotes and
stories of others in the struggle against aging, he shares with great
generosity.
--Brian Bruya