Super Soul Special: Ram Dass: The Life of a Spiritual Teacher

Summary

Oprah's Super Soul Special: Ram Dass — The Life of a Spiritual Teacher

Podcast: Oprah's Super Soul
Host: Oprah Winfrey
Guest: Ram Dass
Release Date: October 16, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Super Soul, Oprah Winfrey sits down with Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert), the renowned spiritual teacher, author of Be Here Now, and pivotal figure in the East-meets-West spirituality movement. Together, they trace Ram Dass’s remarkable journey: from Harvard professor and psychedelic pioneer, through his spiritual awakening in India, to his later years living with the effects of a stroke. Interwoven with personal reflections, anecdotes, and philosophical insights, the conversation highlights themes of presence, unconditional love, transformation, aging, and the meaning of faith.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Life: The "Boxed" Success of the 1950s

• Ram Dass recounts his life as Richard Alpert:
  • Prestigious Harvard professorship, material success ("I had the antiques and the Mercedes and everything." - Ram Dass, 04:54)
  • The environment was "so in the boxes," with little space for spiritual self-knowledge.
• He reflects on the disconnect in academia:
  • “They knew up here, but they didn’t know down here. And it never got to this. It never got to this. It stayed up here.” – Ram Dass, 05:07
  • Oprah clarifies: “This meaning coming from your soul, from your heart. Space.” (05:28)

2. Psychedelics & The Search for Meaning

• Entering Psychedelic Culture with Timothy Leary:
  • Ram Dass describes psychedelics as opening him to something beyond intellectual knowing.
  • “The mushrooms showed me Harvard was a box.” – Ram Dass, 07:17
  • Oprah: “I have read that psychedelics gave you the first whiff of God… Was that the first whiff?”
    • “Absolutely. The first whiff, yeah. I mean, I had bar mitzvahs and all that. None of that gave me a whiff.” – Ram Dass, 07:55
• On public and personal regrets around drug culture:
  • “I have regretted making drugs positive for people.” – Ram Dass, 08:35

3. Leaving Harvard & Spiritual Transformation in India

• Journey to India in Search of a “Map”:
  • Motivated to find guidance for understanding consciousness (12:56)
  • Describes physical and sensory culture shock in India: “It’s like nothing I’d ever seen…” (12:06–12:36)
• Meeting Maharaji — A Heart-Opening Awakening:
  • The pivotal encounter where Maharaji immediately "read" his thoughts and deceased mother’s illness:
    • “He was reading my mind—and I said, if he knows that, oh, he'll know. Ooh, ooh, ooh.” – Ram Dass, 14:48
  • Experience of unconditional love for the first time:
    • “He was loving me totally. It never happened before… all the stuff of me that I never wanted anybody to know.” – Ram Dass, 15:03
    • “He knew me and he loved me.” – Ram Dass, 15:42
• Homecoming & Sharing Spiritual Wisdom:
  • Describes returning to the U.S. transformed, much to his father’s bewilderment: “…wrapped in what, beads, and long hair and Indian clothes …and my father meets me and says, ‘get in the car quick. Somebody sees you.’” – Ram Dass, 16:58
  • Motivation: “I wanted to share the jewel.” [of Maharaji’s love] – Ram Dass, 18:19

4. Guru vs. Teacher — What Is a Guru?

• “Is a guru the same as a teacher?”
  • “Oh, yes. Oh, yes. [A guru] is a higher being, not necessarily the highest… He sees your future, your past.” – Ram Dass, 19:01
  • On being called a guru: “I say to them, find a real one. This isn’t a real [guru].” – Ram Dass, 19:18

5. Faith, Suffering, and the Meaning of Living in the Moment

• Faith vs. Belief:
  • “Faith is not a belief… belief is up here. Faith is down here.” – Ram Dass, 22:12
  • Oprah: “Faith is what is left when your beliefs have all been blown to hell.” (22:15)
• Transformation Through Stroke and Physical Suffering:
  • Loss of faith—not the physical effects—was the most difficult part post-stroke:
    • “I realized I was missing my faith… The stroke has taken faith in Maharaji, and everybody says, are you depressed about your stroke? No, I don't care about my stroke. I care about my faith.” – Ram Dass, 22:49
  • No self-pity or “why me?”:
    • “Don't feel sorry for me, because that's just wasting your time to feel sorry.” – Ram Dass, 23:25
  • Suffering as spiritual grace:
    • “Suffering is grace, not the stroke itself. But spiritual life is in the moment. In the moment is where you see God. Not in the past, not in the future. Past and future are thoughts, just thoughts. This is the moment.” – Ram Dass, 24:01

6. God, Identity, and East vs. West

• “Is God in the Maharaji? Do you see the Maharaji as a manifestation of God… Where is God?” (24:46)
  • “God is all over. They're all over. Maharaji has God in him. We all have God in us.” – Ram Dass, 25:12
  • “In the west, is a God outside of you. In the East, God is inside of you.” – Ram Dass, 25:38

7. On Aging, Joy, and Regrets

• Letting Go of the Past & Embracing the Now:
  • "I used to walk. Oh, if I could walk. But that isn't. That's the past." – Ram Dass, 26:15
• Perception of aging:
  • “Boy, oh boy, now I’m 80 and it’s just amazing that they don’t know the joy that comes in.” – Ram Dass, 27:03
• Practicing Love & Presence:
  • Advice: “The mind should say, I am loving the wind. And then you’ve got. That’s a direction.” – Ram Dass, 27:29
  • “You don’t have to worry about what to do. The doing comes naturally… because you’re doing and operating from the love space.” – Oprah & Ram Dass, 27:49–27:56
• Happiness vs. Joy:
  • “I’m joyous. Not happy… I’m joyous in the moment.” – Ram Dass, 28:05
• Final Regret:
  • “No, I wish you. I wish I. I’d be more love now. And that’s what Maharaji gave me. And I’m wishing I could do it.” – Ram Dass, 28:33
  • Oprah: “You just did.” – 28:49

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On spiritual awakening:

  • “He [Maharaji] was loving me, all of me… He knew me and he loved me.” – Ram Dass, 15:03–15:42

• On faith:

  • “Faith is not a belief… Faith is what is left when your beliefs have all been blown to hell.” – Oprah & Ram Dass, 22:12–22:19

• On suffering and presence:

  • “Suffering is grace, not the stroke itself. But spiritual life is in the moment. In the moment is where you see God. Not in the past, not in the future.” – Ram Dass, 24:01

• On the East/West divide about God:

  • “In the west, is a God outside of you. In the East, God is inside of you.” – Ram Dass, 25:38

• On joy and regrets:

  • “I’m joyous, not happy. I’m joyous in the moment.” – Ram Dass, 28:05
  • “I wish I’d be more love now… And that’s what Maharaji gave me. And I’m wishing I could do it.” – Ram Dass, 28:33

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Important Timestamps

• 03:57 – The boxed-in feeling of 1950s academia
• 05:35 – The moment psychedelics opened a new path
• 07:55 – First spiritual experience (“whiff of God”) with psychedelics
• 12:56 – Journey to India in search of spiritual map
• 14:33 – The miracle of Maharaji knowing intimate details about him
• 15:03–15:42 – Experience of unconditional love (“He knew me and he loved me.”)
• 18:19 – Motivation to share Maharaji's message in the West
• 19:13 – Clarification on being called a guru (“Find a real one. This isn’t a real [guru].”)
• 22:12 – Distinction between faith and belief
• 24:01 – Suffering as grace and spiritual life in the present moment
• 25:38 – The concept of God: inside vs. outside the self
• 28:05 – Joy as living fully in the moment
• 28:33 – Final reflection: “I’d be more love now.”

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Summary

This deeply personal and philosophical conversation explores how Ram Dass transformed from an academic elite into a spiritual guide, emphasizing the power of unconditional love, present-moment awareness, and faith. He candidly shares wisdom on suffering, aging, and regret, always returning to the theme of love as the essence of spiritual life. The episode is a profound reflection on awakening, being, and the continuous journey toward embracing and sharing love—making it an illuminating listen for anyone exploring life’s biggest questions.

Transcript

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[Oprah Winfrey]

Welcome to Super Soul Convoy Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of the most.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Valuable gifts you can give yourself is time.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Taking time to be more fully present. Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now. At 27, Richard Alpert was an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard University and had all trappings of big success. A corner office, golf outings, extravagant vacations. In 1959, a young professor named Timothy Leary moved into the office next door. He was brilliant, charismatic and believed mind expanding psychedelic drugs could be used in psychological treatment, a theory that also intrigued Richard Alpert. The professors tested this theory on students and were famously fired from Harvard for their research in 1963. That's when Richard realized he needed to follow an entirely different path to enlightenment and it led him to India. It was there he met Maharaj, who became his guru or spiritual guide and taught him the power of unconditional love. Richard returned to Boston renamed Ram Dass, which means Servant of God with a new sense of purpose to teach a generation a lesson. He learned in the east to live in the moment. And he wrote his classic best selling book, Be here now. In 1997, at 65, Ram Dass suffered a massive stroke. Doctors gave him a 10% chance of survival, but Ram Dass is still here and his message as strong as ever. So on a magnificent Maui day with the Pacific Ocean as our backdrop, I met Ram Dass for the first time in his own backyard.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

So it's an honor to be here.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

It's an honor to have you Here.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

So I wanted to do this interview because it is my goal with my new network to use it as a platform for opening people up to the best of themselves. I want to elevate consciousness wherever I can. Wow. And the very idea of having you to sit with me is really a gift, not just for me, but I think for anybody who has the opportunity, as you are one of the great leaders of the tribe of the personal growth and spirituality movement. From where you sit right now, looking at where we've come from as a Western nation, in terms of our acceptance of opening up to it, compared to where we were when you first started, what do you see?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

The 50s were all so different than the 60s. Everything was so in the boxes. And the 60s are just ecstatic and feeling that you had a voice of your own.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Let's talk about the 50s and the kind of boxed life your words, you were leading at the time. You were, you know, renowned. You were doing what everybody wants their son to do. You'd gone to Harvard and you'd gone to Wesleyan, and you had the degrees and you had the corner office at Harvard, and you were living the. This is the life, were you not? Did you not think that was it at the time?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had the antiques and the Mercedes and everything.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

You had that.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

My cello and I really.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

You were the Harvard professor.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

You know, I sat and looked at the fellow faculty members and I didn't see such a spark. They knew up here, but they didn't know down here. And it never got to this. It never got to this. It stayed up here.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

This meaning coming from your soul, from your heart. Space.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

The path of the heart.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

The path of the heart. Then I got involved with psychedelics and that opened me up to what I hadn't been opened to.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

You got involved, not just involved with psychedelics, you got involved with psychedelics with the king of psychedelics, Timothy Leary moved into an office right next to yours at Harvard.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

The professor who moved in next door. Timothy Leary, would later be described by the media as the most dangerous man in America, called an acid evangelist and a renegade who advocated for psychedelics with that famous phrase, turn on, tune in, drop out. For decades, he was the public face of the era's drug culture. Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary's paths diverged after Alpert's spiritual transformation to Ram Dass. But they maintained a friendship and a deep connection.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Were you ever, you know, in all the stories I've read about it, you know, had your father, you know, we were just. That generation was just. Was the drug culture generation. Had you been warned against the drugs? Had you been told not to use drugs? Had there been this stigma against the drug?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

My father said, my God, you could be a doctor. What are you doing with this crowd? My family didn't quite understand what I was doing, what psychology was. It wasn't like it is now.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Yes. It was considered crazy at the time, right?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

It was crazy, yeah. So they were one side and Timothy was another side. Very different. And I looked at academia as I was proud of Harvard, but the mushrooms showed me Harvard was a box.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

The psychedelic mushrooms.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yeah.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

I have read that psychedelics gave you the first whiff of God, that you hadn't even had a whiff of God prior to that. Yes. Was that the first whiff?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

First whiff.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

The first whiff, yes.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Absolutely. The first whiff, yeah. I mean, I had bar mitzvahs and all that. None of that.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Because you're raised Jewish.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yeah.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Yes.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

None of that gave me a whiff. A whiff.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Do you ever regret taking the drugs? With all of the fear and the fact that they're illegal? In all of the people who lost their lives and their way to drugs, did you ever regret doing it?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

I have regretted making drugs positive for people.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Were you disappointed to be thrown out of Harvard?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

No. No.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

I bet your dad was.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yes.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Yes.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

But I was so I knew there was drugs in my system because when I went into the president of Harvard, he says, I'm sorry, we'll have to let you go, and all that. And I looked at him and he just looked like a small man. And he was frightened because frightened by mysticism. We were mystics and they were intellectuals.

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[Oprah Winfrey]

1967, a few years after leaving Harvard, Richard traveled to India, marking the beginning of a life changing spiritual journey. Goodbye Harvard.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Hello India. Yeah, I just came from there. God only knows what it was like in the 60s because my experience just a month ago was you look out one side of the window and there are ox and camels pulling people in the street and then there are people zooming through on motorcycles with their sari sitting to the side. It's like nothing I'd ever seen.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Isn't it wonderful?

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

This is wonderful.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I felt like I was in the.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Middle of a video game. I didn't know which way to look or where to turn. And your senses, you're overwhelmed. And people are burning things on the side of the road and they're cooking. And this smell, the smells. You're taken over by the smell. So you arrived in the 60s?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yeah.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

But why had you gone? Why had you gone? Can you tell me why you wanted to go?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

I was going to find out who had a map for my planes of consciousness. So I said, I'm going to these.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Richard knew he had come to India, as he said, to find something. When he met a Californian known as Bhagwan Das in Nepal, he had a feeling he was getting closer. They drove in a borrowed Land Rover towards the foothills of the Himalayas with Mozart playing on the eight track and stopped at a roadside temple.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

And there is a scene. A man with a blanket, he's on a table, and there are about 20 people around him.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

And he's talking, sitting at his feet.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Sitting at his foot. And they all look like white gowns. It all looks like cultish things. Yech. You know? So I stood back because I didn't want to get involved in any of that cultish business.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Yes.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

He pointed at me. He's speaking Hindu, and he said, you were out under the stars last night, and you were thinking about your mother. Your mother died. As I said, yes. Now, how did he know that? But he said spleen, which is just the name of the organ that killed my mother.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

That's when you went, whoa. Who is this guy?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yeah. Who is that?

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Who is this guy?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

How did he know? I didn't tell anybody. That was a miracle, in a way. He was reading my mind.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

He was reading your mind?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

And I said, if he knows that, oh, he'll know. Ooh, ooh, ooh.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

He's gonna know. If he knows that, then he knows me. He knows all my secrets.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

And I looked up at him, and he was looking at me with unconditional love. Unconditional love. He was loving me totally. It never happened before. People love you because. Because you're a good boy. You're a good friend. And he was loving me, all of me. Because all the stuff of me that I never wanted anybody to know.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Right. That's what everybody fears. If you really knew me.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Exactly.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

If you really knew me, you wouldn't really love me.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

He knew me and he loved me.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Yeah.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

And I found myself saying, home again, home. Again, home again.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

And how do you explain that when you sit in front or sat in front of the Maharaji, you not only felt love, but became love and loved people too? Is it because his.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

He mirrored my soul and made me identify with my soul, not my ego. This was who I thought I was and who I was really. And he said, I want you to love everybody.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

So you came back to spread the love, the message of love.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yes, yes.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

You've got to tell the story of coming back to New York, getting off the plane, your father has come to meet you. And there you are getting off the plane, wrapped in what, beads and long.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Hair and Indian clothes, the white, white garb stuff, beard. And my father meets me and he says, get in the car quick. Somebody sees you. And I was just off the graph. And my father, Father. His grayness, his gray, gray Cadillac, his cigar.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Your father had been a pretty traditional yet successful person. You all had 300 acres, I think.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yeah, 300.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

He seems like he openly accepted you and your transformation and, you know, allowed all these hippies to come to his house and dance on the lawn.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

But he. That was for the camera.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Oh, really?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yeah.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

So you came back and all of these people are coming to your father's house. You came back. Did you feel filled by the message that you had received when you were in India and therefore then wanted to express it?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Well, what I felt was that Maharaji was a jewel and the west didn't understand people like Maharaj ji.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Right.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

And I wanted to share the jewel.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

The guru, the way you write about him takes on a quality that is not human. Usually when we think of gurus, we think of human. Is a guru the same as a teacher? No.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So the guru is above the teacher?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Is the guru like an enlightened being in a physical body here on earth?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yes, they are. A higher being, not necessarily the highest.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Not the highest.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

He sees your future, your past.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

People call you a guru. Do you think you are one? No.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

I say to them, find a real one. This isn't a real.

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[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

One let's talk about what you say on page 158 about faith. I loved this. You said faith is not a belief. Now that just struck me because so many people do believe that belief is up here. Belief is up here.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

And faith is down here.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Wow.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Faith is what is left when your.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Beliefs have all been blown to hell.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yeah. And then the stroke.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

You got stroked.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

What do you call it, that stroke? I looked around the hospital, and that was around me. They were all saying, too bad you've got a stroke. Oh, that's too. Oh, too bad. You stroke and negative thoughts. And there was very negative feelings in me because I realized I was missing my faith. The stroke has taken faith in Maharaj, and everybody says, are you depressed about your stroke? No, I don't care about my stroke. I care about my faith.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

So it wasn't the stroke, but the loss of your faith? Yeah. Did you go through your why me? Period? Why me?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

No, don't feel sorry for me, because that's just wasting your time to feel sorry.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Did you ever, in this period of being stroked, feel sorry for yourself?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

No.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

No. You never felt sorry?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

No.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

No.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

It just was a new. New stage of life.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Did you think you came to understand what being spiritual meant in a different way with the stroke?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yeah.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

How so?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Suffering is grace, not the stroke itself. But spiritual life is in the moment. In the moment is where you see God. Not in the past, not in the future. Past and future are thoughts, just thoughts. This is the moment.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

This is the moment where God lives. Right there in the stillness. Right there in the stillness.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

The moment is God lives. Beautiful.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

So that's what I wanted to ask you, too. For people who are, you know, the majority of the people in our country are Christian people. Where is God in all of this? Is God in the Maharaji? Do you see the Maharaj ji as a manifestation of God yourself? All of us, lots of questions. But where is God?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

God is all over. They're all over. Maharaji has God in him. We all have God in us. He identifies with God.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

God in him in a way that we don't.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

We don't got it. So there is a sense of. In the west, is a God outside of you. In the East, God is inside of you.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Yes. Are there moments now where you wish that you were not in this wheelchair, that you could get up and dance or do whatever you would be doing where you're not in the chair? Are there still moments? No.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

And I used to dance, but see that I used to. As a thought form of the past. It's like I used to walk. Oh, if I could walk. But that isn't. That's the past.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

And a waste of time.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

And a waste of energy.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

That's right.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Going into what I wished I could have been or wished I could have done.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yeah.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Even though the strokes surprised you, because I know you were in the midst of writing a book on aging at the time. Right. To try to help people through it.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Yeah.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

To help people accept it. And interesting the way our culture perceives aging, isn't it?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Boy, oh boy, now I'm 80 and it's just amazing that they don't know the joy that comes in.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

So how do we practice being love? Now.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

The mind should say, I am loving the wind. And then you've got. That's a direction.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Because the moment you get tucked off means you've been taken out of the right space. That's right. I get that. Once you can get yourself back to that space.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

That's right.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

You don't have to worry about what to do. The doing comes naturally.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

That's right.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Because you're doing and operating from the love space.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

That's right. And this is being and this is doing.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Doing. Yes. Are you happy?

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

I'm joyous. Not happy.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

That's even better.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

I know it. Yeah. It's just in the moment. I'm joyous in the moment.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Do you have any regrets? Do you look back at your life with any regrets? I wish I couldas.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

No, I wish you. I wish I. I'd be more love now. And that's what Maharaji gave me. And I'm wishing I could do it.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

You just did. You just did. You just did. Thank you.

[Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)]

Thank you.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

That was great. Thank you. That was great. Good. That's good.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I'm Oprah Winfrey and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. You can follow Super Soul on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. If you haven't yet, go to Apple Podcasts and subscribe.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Rate and review this podcast.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Join me next week for another Super Soul conversation.

[Interviewer (likely Oprah Winfrey)]

Thank you for listening.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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