I don’t believe it’s all-important to be what our culture calls
“optimal.” Before the stroke, I wrote a great deal about the terrible
things that can happen in aging, and how to cope with them. Now I’m
happy to say that having gone through what some would view as the worst,
it’s not so bad after all.
Getting old isn’t easy for a lot of us. Neither is living, neither is
dying. We struggle against the inevitable, and we all suffer because of
it. We have to find another way to look at the whole process of being
born, growing old, changing, and dying, some kind of perspective that
might allow us to deal with what we perceive as big obstacles without
having to be dragged through the drama.
It really helps to understand that we have something — that we are
something — which is unchangeable, beautiful, completely aware, and
continues no matter what. Knowing this doesn’t solve everything — this
is what I encountered and told about in “Be Here Now,” and I’ve still
had my share of suffering. But the perspective of the soul can help a
lot with the little things, and it is my hope that you’ll be able to
take from this book some joy in being “still here.”
Recently, a friend said to me, “You’re more human since the stroke than
you were before.” This touched me profoundly. What a gift the stroke has
given me, to finally learn that I don’t have to renounce my humanity in
order to be spiritual — that I can be both witness and participant,
both eternal spirit and aging body. The book’s ending, which had eluded
me, is now finally clear. The stroke has given me a new perspective to
share about aging, a perspective that says, “Don’t be a wise elder, be
an incarnation of wisdom.” That changes the whole nature of the game.
That’s not just a new role; it’s a new state of being. It’s the real
thing.
At nearly seventy, surrounded by people who care for and love me, I’m still learning to be here now.
– Excerpt from Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing and Dying by Ram Dass
