And Dying, Changing, Still Here: Embracing Aging

Ram Dass is an American spiritual teacher well-known for his bestselling 1971 book Be Here Now, as well as his personal and professional relationships with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the 1960s, his travels to India and relationship with his guru Neem Karoli Baba, and for founding the charitable organizations Seva Foundation and Hanuman Foundation. He wrote the book Still Here: Embraced Aging, Changing, and Dying after experiencing a stroke in 1997.

The book covers many topics (mostly related to aging and dying) that a person may encounter on their spiritual path. As we age, many things change with our physical bodies and minds, as well as our roles in society. However, Ram Dass attempts to point out that there is another level of being—the Soul level, which is experiencing reality through a human body while simultaneously being untethered to it.

A section discussing changes with our minds—due to the aging process—introduces the concept of mindfulness practice and covers several mentally-related common fears of aging: senility, loneliness, embarrassment, powerlessness, loss of role and meaning, and depression. Following that, Ram Dass gives some advice for facing those fears head on.

The next section covers bodily changes that occur due to aging, such as discontent with body image, low energy, focusing on a list of physical woes, the difference between healing and curing, working with pain, and disease.

Following the discussion on the body, Ram Dass explains how our societal roles change and shift during the aging process, how to live in the present moment, learning to die, and the effects (both positive and negative) that a stroke had on his life.

I greatly enjoyed this book. Like Be Here Now, it is filled with wisdom and sage advice for spiritual travelers. I would recommend this to anyone interested in stepping further down their own spiritual path, especially those who are currently in the later stages of life. I imagine that Still Here would have a lot to offer the average person that is on the verge of entering the next phase of their Soul journey.

I remember when I first got into spirituality and metaphysics, I was so naive about certain things. I really thought that once a person begins to practice their True Self...their Inner Spirit...when they remember that they were a Soul with a body and not a body with a Soul...than they were automatically free from all things human; they were impervious to any thing from the sniffles to cancer to death. But the thing is, that no matter how "advanced" we are on the Spiritual Path, and I use that word with some hesitation, because there is no advancing on the Spiritual Path, we are already as Spiritual as we are ever going to be, the bottom line is that we are still in the world of form. This is where the words of Jesus ring so clear, "Be in the world, but not of it..." In other words, remember that no matter what may be going on in your world, you are still a Spiritual Being NO MATTER WHAT!

I love this book because I love Ram Dass. This man has added so much to humanity in so many beautiful and wonderful ways so when I learned that he had a stroke, I was really taken aback. I almost slipped into judgment about it and I almost thought and felt more than a few times of how unfair that he should be going through such a thing.

But I believe that the Soul that we truly are knows exactly what it needs to be doing on Its path. There is a lot of talk in metaphysical circles that if you manifest a certain disease your thinking is out of alignment with the Divine. For instance, a manifestation of cancer might mean hidden rage, or a stroke might be unability to deal with life, or developing cataracts may be that you are refusing to "see" something in your life that needs to be healed. In some ways, I believe that these metaphysical "diagnosis" may have some validity, but in some ways I really feel that the Soul is always and in all ways in charge and is always seeking Higher Understanding of Itself and if It can manifest a disease or condition to learn from, so be it.

I read this book when I was recovering from back surgery. By the way, a problem with the spine means that I am out of alignment with my true Purpose. I had many well-meaning friends tell me that this is what was going on with me. I did listen to them, but not as much as I listened to my own heart. Being laid up allowed me to get even more quiet and just reflect on the Blessing that is Life Itself; that each and every day is sufficient unto Itself.

I lost my mother when I was very young. When I saw her body laying in that coffin, I had an "instant" awakening. I knew that that body in the coffin was not my mother; that it was only her "shell" that my real mother was still very much alive and continuing her journey in a splendid way. Of course, explaining this to the rest of my family made me about as popular as a turd sandwich. Somehow I was made to feel guilty and bad that I wasn't mourning the loss of my mother, so instead of feeling joy that she was now free of a body that no longer worked, I was made to feel bad...in fact, horrible that she was no longer with us when the Truth was she was with me more than ever.

I thought that realization was gone forever when at 22 years old, after 13 long years of unnecessary grieving and mourning, I had the same ephiphany. This time I kept it to myself and let her Love be a guide to the Love that is also within me...the Same Love that everyone really is behind the various masks of illusion.

And that is what this book gave me, that we are all playing "peek-a-boo" that everything is an illusion...albeit a persistent one...that the only Reality is the Eternal; that every thing is just backdrop. Even my cherished spiritual practices are part of the illusion because in Reality I am already there, so are you, so is everyone. Our life spent here while on this Earth Plane is just to learn how to make the hallucination work for us. Going through painful rehabilitation became easier when I remembered I am not the body.

This book is a gift and it can really make us clearly aware that although we are Life Itself, our form is but a temporary shell that we can either use to free us from illusion or to imprison us in limitation. It is a read well worth it.

Peace and Blessings.

Ram Dass is such an engaging writer and this book is a must for anyone dealing with debilitating illness and aging or for seniors who are beginning to feel or become curious about the onset of aging. And of course any age person can gain from his profound wisdom. As in Be Here Now, he directs our consciousness to the present moment and guides us through a conscious approach to aging (and dying) and as you read it you notice that it just really makes you feel better about yourself, living in a constantly changing world, dying, and the aging process. It is funny too and as you laugh at his descriptions of his own life experiences, you realize that you are really having a grand laugh at yourself. Reading his book is a great way to sit quietly with yourself, as the reading of it feels like a meditation in it self. Reading this book relieves and quiets your worrying mind by putting words to familiar human experience that have perhaps not previously been as speech ripe in your mind as they are as you read his writing. I felt such peace as I read it. Still Here is on my Christmas list to gift many of my friends and family.

Martha Char Love
author of What's Behind Your Belly Button?: A Psychological Perspective of the Intelligence of Human Nature and Gut Instinct

Ram Dass has once again established his role as mentor for those who seek solace at times of despair. The world situation at present set aside, this book dares to raise a mirror to our mortal fear of aging and dying. But that mirror doesn't reflect sagging skin, bruised egos, and loneliness of marching toward demise. Quite the opposite. Ram Dass re-cycles his always potent understanding of Eastern philosophy and focuses those tennants on our preoccupation with remaining youthful. His patient reiteration of the diferences among Ego, Soul, and Awareness leads him into a very warm, personal, sensitive aura of learning to embrace aging and dying as processes within the framework of the cosmos. The fact that he has had a debilitating stroke makes his words of nurturing and care all the more credible. This man knows how to write/think/share in a way that makes the reader feel as though this book is a private session with the guru. His personal experiences are good humored, delicate, and poignant. Here is a book we all need to read, to share, and to join in the obligation to enlighten our fellowmen about the entire cycle of being. It is food for contemplation, for immediate advice on how to help ouselves and our friends deal with "tragedy", and for sharing. Please read it.

Indeed Ram Dass is still here in this moment after a crippling stroke to guide us toward an understanding of our place among our fellows in the world as we grow old. Once he was Richard Alpert, Harvard professor, and then, after turning on and dropping out in the sixties, became Ram Dass, author of the best-selling Be Here Now (1971), the axiom of the title from the ancients of the East thereby becoming a mantra for a generation of flower children.

In this inspiring and eminently readable book, Ram Dass celebrates aging as a time of self-discovery and of selfless service to others. What could be more appropriate for a man who has lived so passionately, who has traveled so widely and learned so much than to share his experience and wisdom with others? And Ram Dass does it well, without sanctimonious posturing or self-serving claptrap, in a prose style that is familiar, warm and sharing, and at times brilliant. Especially beautiful are the passages on pages 141-144 in which he recalls his Jewish home and then a visit to India in 1970. Of course he does remind us of the many friends and note worthies he has met along the way; and, true, he is not adverse to indulging himself a little with reflections about how HE has been of service to the aged, the infirm, and the dying. But this is only right. There is, as we are freed from many of the constraints of society and its shallow proprieties, no place for a false modesty, and if one has done well, one should be pleased with oneself, and like Walt Whitman, celebrate oneself. As a young man, Ram Dass went against the shared "wisdom" of the society that had so well nurtured him and sought his own way, and he found it. He is to be admired and listened to.

His way now is not that of renunciation, as one might expect from the Hindu influence on his life, but a more social orientation. He practices karma yoga, from the Bhagavad Gita in which one finds salvation and freedom through the non-attached performance of one's duties--one's dharma--without expectation, without seeking reward or the fruit of labor.

Ram Dass believes he suffered the stroke through the "fierce grace" of his guru because of this continued "attachment to the Ego" (pp. 200-201). By learning a deeper level of suffering first hand he drew closer to God. As his guru once said, "See? That's the way it works. Suffering does bring you closer to God." He was unable to totally renounce the delusions of this world, the social and political fruits that he loved so much, being such an intensely social person, and so the attachment remained. Now confined to a wheelchair he spends more time "hanging out" with his guru (p. 202), the deceased Maharajji, whom he reveres as a god, which is the way of the guru-devotee relationship. His faith was tested by the stroke, but he came away with his faith intact. He writes in closing the book, "I know now that my faith is unshakeable. That assurance is the highest gift I have received from the stroke..."

I think the most important thing this book does is to inspire us to treat our advancing years with wisdom and dignity, with a sense of self worth and to discard the empty notions found in the noxious and insidious suggestion that growing old is some kind of disease or reason for shame. Instead one embraces the natural changes that are taking place and sees them as a new challenge, full of unique surprises and experiences, and yes, pain and sorrow and loss. It takes a strong and focused person to grow old gracefully. (Growing old is not for the faint of heart!) And finally there is an understanding that death is part of life, its fulfillment to be sure. As Ram Dass writes on page 156, "by allowing the mystery of death...to inform our everyday life, we begin to see things anew." The key word is "inform." Death informs our life and makes it whole. Like Browning's Rabbi Ben Ezra, we might also say, "Grow old along with me!/The best is yet to be"; and in believing that and living it, and knowing that death itself is a great adventure, we are freed.

Ram Dass shares his experience through little stories about inspirational people he has met and how they guided him to an appreciation of what it means to change and grow old. His gentle and uplifting style, emphasizing the spiritual aspects of life, make reading this book a warm and fulfilling experience. Incidentally, the typographical style of the book, with its tinted pages with muted yantra symbols and the light wine/purple color of the letters makes for a very pretty book, pleasingly reminiscent of the wildly decorated, paper bag-colored pages of his best seller from long ago.

--Dennis Littrell, author of "Yoga: Sacred and Profane (Beyond Hatha Yoga)"

Could anyone other than Ram Dass bring such a light-hearted, unattached, almost whimsical approach to the subject of aging and the accompanying physical problems that go with it as we journey towards death. Ram Dass shares his personal journey of aging with us just as he has everything else in his life for almost half a century now. Though his body has changed with time he still maintains that infectious smile, those bright, mischevious eyes and a beguiling wit and wisdom that has so endeared him to a generation of seekers who still look to him not so much for answers, but to posit the questions we cannot quite grasp ourselves.

One of the greatest gifts of understanding Ram Dass has given me is the realization that EVERYTHING in life is a lesson to be embraced. For him even a catastrophic stroke can be transformed into a form of yoga.

The lessons continue! Enjoy!!

Alot of the previous comments, go way in depth about the book. If you know who Ram Dass is, then you should expect whats coming. Now my comment, i love this book, to me its more valuable than be here now. I am not even finished and already wanted to write a review to show how grippy and page to page this book is. Anyone of any heritage or religious background can simply enjoy the book without taking offense to the context. Great book, worth it, life changing, great man, live on.

Ram Dass explores the profundities and challenges of human frailty in a very personal way in Still Here: Emracing Aging, Changing and Dying. Written in part after Ram Dass's stroke in 1997, Still Here touches the core of weakness and all the bogeymen that come with it. Loneliness, embarrassment, powerlessness, loss of role/meaning, and depression are explored in the early part of the book--and that's all before Ram Dass gets to the good stuff. As in Journey of Awakening and Be Here Now, the author does a wonderful job of clearly explaining the cause of human suffering and its remedy.
I bought this book because I wanted to better understand my grandmother's world and what my parents are beginning to face, but I ended up experiencing its apt relevance to 36-year-old me.

...and put them in a calming, thoughtful perspective. I love Ram Dass' writing style, and the openhearted generous-spiritedness he has worked toward so consciously throughout his life. Having also sustained a stroke at an earlier stage in life than ever expected, I can say that his insights about the drawbacks and blessings of that state ring thoroughly true. And because many others have reviewed this book so ably, I needn't say anything else except to recommend that those with misgivings about the few low-ratings, take an actual LOOK at those reviews!

The Harvard Ph.D. who dropped acid, dropped out and went to India in search of enlightenment. Your mother's nightmare. Your mother would be glad to know that Ram Dass hung in there, bringing comfort and light to people for the last 40 years. He has attained something worth attaining. I'm told by a friend that Ram Dass was at his most impressive last year, leading a seminar after a stroke that left him barely able to speak. He credited that stroke with teaching him humility. The hard way. A heavy hitter worth reading. Ram Dass writes from a Hindu/Eastern perspective, though he is a trained Western psychologist.

I am just beginning to feel the serious symptoms of getting older -- joint problems, vision changes, achy teeth, etc. Having read almost to the halfway point in this book, I believe it is a great inspirational tool for people of my generation. Ram Dass' attitude toward his own physical problems is truly a miracle. And since I haven't read his previous books, his sense of humor took me by surprise! I recommend this very readable book for everyone over 50!

I purchased "Still Here" at the Pittsburg airport enroute to my brother's funeral. Throughout the weekend as I prepared to lay my brother to rest, Ram Dass' exploration of aging, change and death was with me every step of the way. It is about letting go, accepting, meditating and dispelling fear of aging, change and death. I found it a wonderfully life-affirming book and very informative. It was like having Ram Dass beside me, in his wheelchair, saying every once in a while throug the silence of my mourning, "Ah, and now this..." Thank you Ram Dass. This book is highly recommended, but please materialists and realists may need to find succour elsewhere.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I'm glad to know that Ram Dass is out there in front, leading the way for the rest of us. We are all going to die and the more we read and talk about it the better life is while living it. It's especially meaninful to read the insights of a person who has spent their lives exploring the inner world. Read this book - you will be glad that you did.

at age 58 this book is extremely relevant, now, and in the future, having read ram dass't books, listened to ram dass in person, and having listened to his tapes this book sends me thorough the roof, this book is timeless wisdom, to much wisdom for just one reading. At omega instutute ram dass sat at a table with me for breakfast and i asked ram dass about going to india and doing service work, his reply was do not invite the elephant trainer unless you have room for the elephant, my recommendation is make room for the elephant.

This is a beautiful book, packed with wisdom from Ram Dass. He draws from many traditions to paint a picture of aging with grace and with joy in the midst of the inevitable pain. He shares his own journey, his own struggles, his own overcomings, and invites us to make them in some way our own. I found it hard to put this book down since it spoke to so many of my own concerns and questions.

This is a beautiful book, packed with wisdom from Ram Dass. He draws from many traditions to paint a picture of aging with grace and with joy in the midst of the inevitable pain. He shares his own journey, his own struggles, his own overcomings, and invites us to make them in some way our own. I found it hard to put this book down since it spoke to so many of my own concerns and questions.

Exceptional book for those with a realistic view on mortality and aging. For those who have aging parents, a must have! To truly understand life and growing.....not only growing older, growing wiser.