• Menopause: The change for the better
• Excerpts from Caregiving Part II
• Excerpts from Caregiving: The Spiritual Journey

Still Here Now

His healing has come from honoring his body rather than identifying with its pain. "Healing does not mean going back to the way things were, but rather allowing what is now to move us closer to God," he writes. Ram Dass may or may not walk again; he may or may not have full use of his vocabulary again; but his quest is no longer about achievement, it's about awareness rather than identity--being on two planes of consciousness at the same time, entering the body fully yet remaining grounded in soul.

Liberation as opposed to loss. Love rather than fear. Acceptance rather than suffering. These are some of the hallmarks of aging consciously, which also requires breaking down stereotypes and biases about aging--and about death itself. Ram Dass feels that the older generations are in the vanguard of illuminating what he calls a "social conspiracy" about aging that, for example, perpetuates the strange ideas that dependency is wrong and death is an outrage.

In his own journey of aging, Ram Dass has raised the bar on suffering. If one searches for wholeness and divine union, which is the soul's single purpose, then that quest must include everything; nothing can be pushed away or grasped tightly.