I first became aware of Ram Dass when I was working with a client who had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. She was a student of mine in the first school that I taught; I was very fond of her and knew her quite well. In fact a few months before she was diagnosed, she attended a seminar I led in Hawaii. At that seminar, during a private session I did with her, I received the guidance that there was a particular issue around being a spiritual warrior that she needed to deal with right away. If she did not do so, she would become very sick. I counseled her on how she might do that and with whom. I didn’t hear from her again until she called to tell me of her diagnose and to request healing work. She had not proceeded with any personal work since the seminar. Shortly afterword, she came to see me for a week of intensive work in Arizona where I lived. She was already showing cognitive difficulties and had some intermittent paralysis on her left side. Oh, that we would listen to guidance when we get it!
I don’t remember now how a tape from Ram Dass came into my hands at that time; it is interesting the way Spirit works. But I had in my possession a tape on the meaning and the process of dying that he had recorded in a seminar he had conducted. It was very moving and insightful. I gave it to my client to take home with her. It was really too late for her to turn things around at that point. She had missed the window of opportunity where change could have occurred. But that was my introduction to Ram Dass.
I recently visited his website, after hearing of Wayne Dyer’s passing, I knew that they were good friends, and wondered if he had posted anything. I found some outstanding articles on his blog about the nature of spirituality and the place of psychology on the path to awakening. They fit very much with my life experience_ that we have to develop a strong functional ego before we can let go of it and the place of a teacher and a guru. If you resonate, you can find these at https://www.ramdass.org/open-heart-extra/.