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Ram Dass’s Wisdom Helps Me to See My Own
Over five decades later, his voice and insights endure
Your entire life is a curriculum. Everything you’ve got right on your plate is where the stuff for your enlightenment is. It’s breathtaking when you stand back and see the beauty of that design. ~ Baba Ram Dass
When Be Here Now was published in September 1971, I was a grumpy 16-year-old big-city girl facing her final year at a small rural high school in the middle of nowhere. My father lost his job on Long Island, where I’d grown up, and we were about to land in a small town in the Midwest. The high school I was leaving had about 1,500 students, roughly one-third the size of the entire town of Wauseon, Ohio.
I heard of Ram Dass’s book when it first came out, but at the time its message meant little to me. Having been forced to leave the drama club, my boyfriend, and a few close girlfriends behind, Anywhere But Here was closer to the truth for me as I settled into our small apartment building on Linfoot Street, surrounded by oppressive humidity, a continuous chorus of cicadas, and cornfields. Many, many cornfields.
Throughout my young adult years, I never understood Ram Dass as much more than Timothy Leary’s pal, formerly known as Richard Alpert, from Harvard. As many people know, both were psychology…
