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Summary: Sorry I didn't think the reader fit the book
Review: This review only refers to the audio version. I must say that the book "Still Here" is WONDERFUL and has inspiring information on the personal journey of Ram Dass before and after his stroke...or as he would say-"he was stroked." Once you read the book version I recommend seeing the documentary "Fierce Grace". Keep in mind that the only reason I gave this a low rating was because the reader didn't match the spirit of Ram Dass!!
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Summary: Touching Ram Dass
Review: We're fans of Ram Dass at his most ebullient -- i.e., Be Here Now, when he was like a teenager in love with his newfound guru. However, Still Here is insightful, meditative, and profound at times. Loving, certainly. Ram Dass is still here in all his spiritual glory, open-minded as ever (note the part in the book about taking channeled guidance from "Emmanuel.") Ram Dass's ideas, to us, often seem Buddhist-oriented. Patience, acceptance, and peace of mind are highlighted -- especially in this book. We wish Ram Dass nothing but joy, and are pleased to read his newest sharing. The only thing lacking, perhaps (perhaps not) is the bubbling, risk-taking joy that first brought Ram Dass to the spotlight.
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Summary: not unlike Signals by Joel Rothschild an important book
Review: Well worth the read. It's a book like Signals that will changeyour life forever.
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Summary: So Glad That You Are Still Here!
Review: What can I say the book is wonderful! Yeah, somehow that word fits. Ram Dass shares himself with such candor that I truly know and feel that we are all on this 'life's journey' together. I feel that the style in which it is written can open the heart and calm the mind. I encourage both Elders and Youngers to read this WONDERFUL book. Bhavani
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Summary: Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying- A Book Rev
Review: When I picked up the book "Still Here" from a roadside bookstall at MG Road, Bangalore, I was attracted by the title and the face on the front cover that looked very Western and yet carried a Hindu name, Ram Dass. The title raised certain questions in my mind. Why still here? Where was the author before?
This book is about an American Professor who gave up a cosy middle-class life for drugs, regained his paradise lost through a spiritual awakening and lost it again: this time to be wheelchair bound from a massive stroke in 1990. "Still Here" is not an academic work on social gerontology but an account of how one copes with disability and embraces the frailty of ageing. One may well call it a book on spiritual ageing or conscious ageing.
Ram Dass, born Richard Alpert, was a professor of psychology at Harvard. Together with Timothy Leary another psychology professor at the same university he explored human consciousness through the use of LSD and psilocybin ("magic mushrooms"). They promised a new experience for the restless American youth of the 1960s through the free use of drugs. That led many of the youth of that era down the slippery road of LSD tripping. Their book, the "Psychedelic Experience" became a sort of a guide for experiencing such drugs as LSD and psilocybin. In 1963 they were both dismissed from Harvard for the controversial nature of their research.
In 1967 Richard Alpert sought spiritual enlightment and became a disciple of Neem Karoli Maharaja a highly respected yogi who lived in the Himalayas. He went through a spiritual transformation and took on the name RAM DASS or "servant of God" given by his Master. He returned to the United States charged with the desire to do what he could do to alleviate the suffering of his fellow human beings, to "spread the grace around". He set up many helpful projects such as the Prison Ashram Project, Dying Project and Creating Our Future Project. He became an inspiration to a new generation of spiritual seekers and his book, "Be Here Now *", that sold millions of copies, changed the lives of many including prisoners.
Leaving spirituality aside, "Still Here" is a must read for the "young old" who need to face the inevitability of increased frailty as they age even further. Health care providers and social workers engaged in the care of the frail and aged sick, stroke patients, and also those providing hospice care will find it a timeless compendium. Written in a caring and sharing style, the book is easy to read and comprehend. It exudes an honest and unpretentious attempt to reassure that growing old or being afflicted with stroke and becoming wheel-chair bound, is not the end of the world but a new challenge to embrace the changes that are going on within and without us.
It is an inspiring and warm personal account of the physical and psycho-social problems that one has to confront with advancing age or physical disability. He draws immensely from the anecdotal experience of others. Among his "top ten hits" of possible inevitable medical woes are arthritis, insomnia, constipation, high blood pressure, hardening of arteries, blindness, deafness, loss of bowel and bladder control, prostrate cancer, osteoporosis and stroke.
The usual psycho-social aspects are even more difficult to handle: for example, loss of role and meaning and independence. These are accompanied with a sense of powerlessness, depression and fear. With the feeling of powerlessness comes a loss of meaning. As our roles to which we were accustomed change, we "cease to become individuals" and tend to view ourselves as meaningless and a burden to our family and community: the more so when we find ourselves in nursing homes, homes for the aged or a home for the destitute aged. Our lives become deprived of socially activity and our decision making process sadly curtailed.
Ram Dass devotes a whole chapter to coping with his stroke. For some days after the stroke he was just observing, not thinking wide-eyed he was watching "everything that was taking place with a kind of wonderment". As he went through the medical world of doctors and therapists of various disciplines, he observes with affection that "therapists and doctors believe it's their techniques that make the difference, but I've come to realise that it's much more the power of the certainty that counts. It's their heart-to-heart resuscitation".
The message, Ram Dass projects is clear. The problems of ageing need not overwhelm us. We need to embrace them for all the ups and downs as a natural response, and age gracefully with worth and dignity even in a "society that would like to pretend that old people don't exist." In a culture where old people are sometimes treated like yesterday's old computers, the real treasure the old have is wisdom and it cannot be ignored: "wisdom is one of the few things in human life that does not diminish with age."
There is no right or wrong way of growing old, says Ram Dass. If we could have managed to live through marriage, parenthood, work and other areas of social functioning, age should not pose intractable problems. We must, however, accept the futility of our continued attachments to power and other worldly possessions and persuasions. We need to give them up. The pursuit of spirituality can help. As Ram Dass points out, "cures aim at returning our bodies to what they were in the past, healing uses what is present to move us deeply to Soul Awareness, and in some cases, physical improvement".
Ram Dass, past seventy, is still learning the joy in being "STILL HERE".
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Summary: Ram Dass Rules
Review: When I was embarking on middle age, Ram Dass' Be Here Now, helped make it an easier transiton. Now, that I've become a "geezer", again it's Ram Dass to the rescue. In my late 60's, it was getting so confusing - that I finally took some courses in Gerontology at nearby American River College. Ultimately, I became a gerontologist; I was a perfect student - my interest was keen...and personal. Then, Ram Dass wrote Still Here - it is, I think, the definitive text-book on what it's like to be a wonderfully wise and validated Elder. If you could only read one book on the subject of aging - this is it ! God bless you Richard... And, me too... Dave Robinson daveyrob@juno.com ...Make the price right and I'll order ten.
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Summary: Ram Dass Rules
Review: When I was embarking on middle age, Ram Dass' Be Here Now, helped make it an easier transiton. Now, that I've become a "geezer", again it's Ram Dass to the rescue. In my late 60's, it was getting so confusing - that I finally took some courses in Gerontology at nearby American River College. Ultimately, I became a gerontologist; I was a perfect student - my interest was keen...and personal. Then, Ram Dass wrote Still Here - it is, I think, the definitive text-book on what it's like to be a wonderfully wise and validated Elder. If you could only read one book on the subject of aging - this is it ! God bless you Richard... And, me too... Dave Robinson daveyrob@juno.com ...Make the price right and I'll order ten.
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