Two days after the memorial service for Ram Dass in Maui, I drove with my sister and a friend down the bumpy road to the house where he’d lived for the past 12 years. We knocked on the door and a young man with a long dark ponytail opened it. He was one of the “super monkeys”—young people who’d volunteered to care for Ram Dass, who’d been partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair after a stroke in 1977. Ram Dass and his guru had revered the Hindu

monkey God, Hanuman, said to be “the perfect servant,” so these volunteers had been named the “super monkeys.”

One of them led us to the room overlooking the ocean where Ram Dass had meditated, worked, and counseled people, and where his body had been laid out on a table after he died December 22.

“Enjoy the presence,” the super monkey said, closing the door behind us. Presence? I hadn’t been at the house since 2010 and wasn’t sure what he meant. The moment I stepped inside, though, a powerful energy moved through my body, as if penetrating the cells. Difficult as it is to describe such experiences, I would say that it felt sweet, uplifting, and filled me with awe.

Ram Dass’ room; table with
roses where his body had lain

I looked at my sister, Terry, who was beaming, as was our friend, Les. This presence, as they call it, had not been present ten years before.

I’d planned to visit Ram Dass this February, but hadn’t known I’d be coming for his memorial. I called Dassima, who’d been Ram Dass’s caregiver and manager for 15 years, who said, “We don’t know if there’ll be two hundred or two thousand people at the service.” But they’d booked the largest auditorium on the island.

Dassima in ocean with Ram Dass

The program was set for 3 p.m., doors were scheduled to open at 2:30, and before that, there would be free chai and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. We’d heard rumors that people would be lining up in the morning, despite the fact that it would probably be raining. One friend advised us to be there “no later than 1 p.m.”

We decided not to chance it. At 11 a.m., carrying rain gear, scarves, lunches, and a ukulele, we drove with a friend, Susannah, to the auditorium. All the doors were locked, but this was not, as they say in Hollywood, “my first day in pictures.” As a reporter, I’d been trained to be creative in finding a way in.

We walked around the back and saw people unloading gear for the stage and sound system. “We’re here to volunteer,” I said. They put us to work carrying statues and vases of large tropical flowers onto the stage.

Later, we walked down from the stage to the seating area and spread our scarves over seats about six rows back. No one challenged us. We went back outside and had a picnic.

At 1 pm, as predicted, waves of people began arriving. There were doors in front and on the side of the auditorium, and we took up posts by the front. People were gathering in clumps on all sides.

Dassima came out, took in the disorder, and called, “We need some leadership!” Spotting me, she said, “Tell people to line up here.” She pointed to the side of the building and said everyone would enter there.

We moved there, and as people approached that side of the building, I called in a loud voice, “This is the beginning of the line—you need to move around to the back.” Some turned around but most just stood there, staring at me. Several said a man had directed them to line up on the side. “That’s wrong,” I said, “you need to move back there.” But larger and larger waves kept arriving. It was like trying to hold back a river.

Dassima came out again and I told her, “It’s a mess.” She headed back inside and I followed, for more instructions, but she was conferring with sound technicians.

I walked to the seats where we’d left our scarves and sat down, texting my sister that I was going to stay inside.

Suddenly a man came up and held out his hand. “Hi, I’m Peter.”

It was Peter Reichard, who’d discovered in his fifties that Ram Dass was his biological father. It had been a shock to both, but they’d developed a strong bond.*  Peter had flown in from North Carolina for the service, and later told the crowd, in his charming drawl, “I came into Ram Dass’s life in a much much different way from you all.” Everyone laughed.

When the doors opened, almost every seat was quickly taken. Krishna Dass played harmonium and led a group in chanting, and twelve spiritual teachers and colleagues of Ram Dass gave tributes. You can watch the program here. but I’ll relate some of the highlights for me.

Your absence has gone through me

Like thread through a needle.

Everything I do is stitched with its color.

We were silent, savoring the precision of the image.

Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman, the couple who are master teachers of Insight Meditation, shared memories of Ram Dass, interrupting each other like a spiritual George Burns and Gracie Allen. Jack described how, before the last retreat with Ram Dass in December, weeks before he died, his friends had urged him not to participate; he didn’t have the energy to hand out a mala (prayer beads) to each of 400 people. But Ram Dass insisted on being there, and simply looked into the eyes of the people filing past him.

Jack said, “In India, when a guru looks at you with so much love… it’s called the glance of mercy. Everything drops away and you are the mystery—consciousness itself—taking the form that you are.” When people walked by Ram Dass, Jack said, “he looked at them with so much love, they would stand there and start to weep.”

Trudy said, “He taught us we are not just bodies, we are souls.” She described sitting in his room that morning, “enveloped in his stillness and peace that were just as palpable as when he was in his body. I could hear him saying, ‘We have to get out of our thinking minds,’ and the way he did that was by using the mantra, ‘I am loving awareness.’” Before meditating, she said, “He would wrap a blanket of love around the world.”

Later, Surya Dass, an American lama who’d been in India with Ram Dass, said, “We learned so much from him. He came to understand that his paralysis and pain were not a calamity. He realized that he’d been ‘stroked’ by the guru—so he could to go beyond.…into love.” Surya said that after centuries of gurus and spiritual teachers talking about enlightenment, mindfulness, and awareness, Ram Dass had added the word ‘loving’ to awareness. That aint nothin’, my friends.”

The last person to speak was Dassima, who said, “Ram Dass’s favorite expression has always been, ‘Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.’” After his stroke, it was hard for him to access words, so he’d say, “Oh boy,” when he was delighted. In his honor, she said, “Let’s close with that chant.” She punched out her arm and 2000 people punched out their arms with her as they roared: “Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy!” Then she led them in “Row Row Row your Boat.” Putting their arms around each other, the crowd spontaneously sang it in a round, swaying, ending with the mystic phrase that every toddler knows: “Life is but a dream.”

Before boarding the plane to leave Maui, basking in the energy of Ram Dass’s room, I had a sudden memory—one I hadn’t thought about in years. On my first trip to India in 2001, a friend and I had hired a driver in New Delhi to take us to Vrindavan, so we could visit the temple where Ram Dass’s guru had left his body. Vrindavan has more temples than any city in India, and people greet each other not by saying, “Hello,” but calling out the names of gods: “Hare Krishna!” “Sita Ram!” It’s said to be the city where Krishna was born and spent his youth, playing his flute to enchant the milkmaids.

At the temple, we were ushered into the room where the guru had died. There was a table covered with the blanket he’d worn, and a giant photo of him on one wall.

We sat down on the cement floor and there was a cacophony of noise from surrounding streets. A school band was practicing for a parade, but their skill level was so low it sounded like random bleats and shrieks. On top of that were the sounds of traffic, horns, people shouting, and temple bells. But within five minutes, we were rolling around the cold concrete floor in delight. I heard a voice in my head say, “Lighten up!”  My friend said, “I’ve never felt such peace, with all this noise!”

Back in Ram Dass’s room, the energy was of a different flavor but almost equally strong. In Vrindavan, it had been playful; in Maui it was serene. The power of the energy signaled to me how much Ram Dass, in the past ten years, had come to embody love. He’d always insisted that he was not a guru, not an enlightened being. But what we (and others) felt in his room suggested that he had ascended.

* I wrote a Kindle single about their connection, Ram Dass Has a Son