Unqualified endorsementOctober 25, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
5 thumbs up. A classic, as far as my journey has gone. Especially useful for academics as it is written by an academic.
honest & enlightening....a must read!!!May 3, 2008 A real page turner....simple,brutally honest with real life personal stories that are stranger than fiction!.....Ram Dass is a funny,down to earth yet extremely far out dude simultaneously...making far out illogical concepts not only understandable and believable but knowable provided you do the work.. he really knows his stuff and walks his talk so to speak....excellent teachings from a being of extraordinary intelligence,wit and love...one of the best books I've ever read...also hang out with his book "be here now"
Good book--to be read with a large grain of saltMarch 11, 2008 Although I generally feel positive about this book, the unqualifiedly positive nature of the other reviews has motivated me to point out some of its short-comings. But I also hope that my criticisms will help defuse the knee-jerk rejection that many empirically-oriented readers might feel toward this book, since I do believe that the book is worthy of being read.
First of all, it is apparent that Ram Dass has forgone the use of critical thinking. For Dass, it seems that any and all ideas have some veracity. Being a former professor at Harvard University, he admits to the validity of genetics and the socialization process in having some impact on the development of character. But at the same time, he seems to favor a 'self' found only at higher, metaphysical planes of existence (inaccessible to some of us). Dass rejects nothing: everything goes.
With critical thinking thrown overboard, many readers will be tempted to skip this book as being too soft, too fuzzy, and too accepting. That would be misguided. Dass has an attitude of unconditional acceptance that has had two distinct advantages. First, it has allowed him access to people, places, and ideas that critically-minded researchers might never have. All people (even gurus in India) are hesitant to share beliefs with others who might find those beliefs repugnant or even ridiculous. It is no secret that the most productive way in getting another person to open up is with an attitude of sincere and unconditional acceptance. Dass has just such an attitude, which allowed him to go far in India.
Second, his attitude also allows us as readers to survey a wide gamut of ideas. After being exposed to those ideas, we can determine for ourselves what we think is valid, what we think is fake and what we think is fluff. Take as an example a kid learning to hit a baseball. What would it mean if you threw only pitches that he could hit? He and you would never learn what he was fully capable of. To do that, you need to throw difficult pitches, many of which he will not hit. But that is ok. Part of a learning experience should be the discovery of outer limits--and you cannot reach those outer limits unless there are failures along the way.
In my own opinion, Dass often exceeds the limits of the believable. In fact, there are many pages of text where I feel that Ram Dass has gone off the deep end and is floundering in incomprehensible waters. But that is ok. I still want to learn about the far-out things that he believes. And I would never know what not to believe unless I heard it at some point. Even then, it is still a mind-expanding experience to learn about far-out things, even if you reject them in the end.
There is another feature of the book that might prove an obstacle to some readers: the miracles. Dass' guru appears in many of these miracle stories: his guru can apparently read minds, engage in remote viewing, and perform other supernatural acts. Stories of the miraculous will leave some readers feeling skeptical and even cynical, and they will simply stop reading. But I found it worthwhile to read though these accounts (which are still entertaining) to reach more meritorious material.
Dass' stories of the miraculous do have possible alterative explanations. Here is one example. Once when Ram Dass arrived at a temple, his guru met him and immediately said that Ram Dass was angry because the women would not get out of the bus to help push. That is exactly what had had happened, and the guru seemed to know this without being there or being told. This appears to be a clear case of telepathy or clairvoyance. But let us suppose this guru is simply a very bright intuitive person. The guru sees Ram Dass' face and immediately intuits anger. He sees Ram Dass' traveling companions, the men looking sweaty and the women appearing neat and dry. He sees the small microbus that carried all these people. And from memory, he knows of the steep hill leading to the temple. The guru then grasps all these disparate elements and intuitively reaches the conclusion that Ram is angry because the women did not help push. The guru's use of such intuition is impressive, yet reference to the miraculous is not needed.
Not all the miraculous stories are subject to such neat alternative explanations. Nevertheless, for other accounts, it could be that Ram Dass did not notice or no longer remembered some crucial fact that would aid in the development of such an explanation. Moreover, it is not that I particularly care about developing an alternative explanation for every event; for me the salient point is that such explanations could be developed. More importantly, I suspect that these gurus are unwittingly engaged in 'cold reading,' the technique used by some psychics of making educated guesses and then quickly following up promising leads. The result is merely the appearance of knowing more than would seem possible.
That is enough criticism. There are still many valuable insights contained in this book. Here are three.
'And the whole history of knowledge is a drop in the bucket compared to wisdom.'
'My whole leaning was toward Buddhism because Buddhism is very neat and clean and intellectually exquisite and Hinduism is generally kind of sloppy. You know those posters of Hinduism: the colors are kind of garish and the whole thing turns you off. A little too gauche for my taste ... too maudlin emotional.'
'Whatever you can have and want isn't what it all is. ... [T]he final peace ... does not come from getting it, but from being it. You cannot "get" peace, just like you cannot "get" wisdom, but you can be wise. You can "get" knowledge but you can only be wise--those are two different spaces entirely.'
The Dance Of LifeApril 15, 2007 4 out of 4 found this review helpful
A wonderful thing happened on April 6, 1931. Richard Alpert was born. Years later, he was essentially reborn as Ram Dass, and, as they say, the rest is history. His wonderful talks in the early 1970's at the Menninger Foundation and Spring Grove Hospital are the heart of this book. His transformation from a Harvard psychologist to the first American Guru have been well documented. Ram Dass is the real McCoy, the genuine article. He was a pioneer of 20th century spirituality and the major voice for new age wisdom. "The Only Dance There Is" is a favorite of mine. I still have my original marked up 1974 copy that I can't imagine that I'll ever part with. It is a treasure. Ram Dass is the master storyteller of this lifetime, and most of his books contain very quotable stories that will have an impact on you. I use many of his stories when writing my own books. Ram Dass has been a mentor of mine and he has enriched my life with his books, including this one.
Take My Reincarnation...PleaseFebruary 26, 2007 4 out of 6 found this review helpful
If I am reincarnated, I just hope it's not in another one of these silly bodies, stuck in time, confused about life, wanting to hide from my know-it-all guru, in desperate need of a restroom.
Ram Dass is a trip - 300 + of them to be inexact. I have to laugh when I hear people like Michael Savage, who is another trip, reviling the culture of the 1960s (all of it) and blaming all of our current problems on a bunch of diaper-doper communists from Brooklyn. While I agree with him about the diaper-doper communists from Brooklyn, I also believe that the only really intelligent spiritual literature in the last 50 years was written when the pinko flag was apparently being unfurled behind closed doors, amidst some heated argument, in a cloud of garlic. I also believe that this literature is now pretty much irrelevant, however quaint it may still somewhat be. Just like Regis and Dave hanging out on "Late Night:" Funny, cute, hollow, high-income. I'd puke but I can't find my bag.
Fortunately at the time of the garlic epidemic in Brooklyn, Ram Dass was in India or Kansas. He was really trying to find himself and you should watch what you pray for, as his swami could have already told you. There's a lot to ponder and Ram Dass does a lot of pondering. I love the metaphor he uses where he sees himself as one who is being led somewhere, like a trout that thinks it is zigging and zagging in a state of free will, but, in fact, is being slowly reeled in by its guru. He also tells his audience that, though he is in a 41 year-old body, HE is not 41 years old. His guru, the CEO of Allied Chemical, agrees and sends him a check. Dad is impressed and sends him another check. Pretty soon the guy is rich.
The problem now, as I suggest feebly, is that enlightenment is a commodity, just like love: witness "Still Here," by post-stroke "victim" Ram Dass. I'm sure the book has some NEAT things to say, and he is a good guy, but part of me wishes he hadn't survived the stroke. Capitalism has won, big time and the mouses are rolling, the texts are messaging and the "medicine" and the chanting isn't working.
What ever happened to the Greg Allman character Ram Dass hooked up with in India, you know the 7-foot Norwegian-American from Long Beach who hadn't exhaled in three years. Probably picked up some chick and drove off with the Land Rover, spitting peanut shells out the window. Now, THAT's enlightened!
Dr. Frey's remedy: collect one cat per week from the Humane Society, mixing it up with FAIR to avoid them getting suspicious, preferably a breed or color you don't already own. As you immerse yourself in an ever-growing crowd of felines (remember the pack animal thing doesn't apply here), you will reach a point where, wherever you look in the room, your gaze will be returned by that of a lover, and this, my friends, is a good thing.
