Ram Dass Still Getting His Message Across

A turn-away crowd of more than 1,200 paid $10 apiece Monday night to hear New Age spiritualist Ram Dass discuss his heart’s journey into compassion, but Lynn and Ron Montbleau of La Jolla may have thought he was specifically addressing them.

Ron Montbleau, 33, said he first heard Ram Dass more than 15 years ago, “when I was more idealistic. But I wasn’t as willing to be committed to something as I am now. Now, I have the power to change things. I can do what he’s calling us to do.”

His wife, also 33, added: “What’s lacking in our society is a sense of service to others. So I want to hear a blastful of what he has to say.”

And so it was that Ram Dass on Monday night challenged an auditorium crammed with the people of the ‘80s to live out their values of the ‘60s--to love themselves first, and then, with the power and influence they’ve accumulated in the ‘80s, to direct that love to others, where it can do some good.

“This is a very heterogeneous group,” Ram Dass remarked before taking his place on the stage--a straight-back chair, an end table beside him holding a Tiffany lamp. Three soft floodlights shone down on him as he sat there, cross-legged.

Ram Dass, a one-time Harvard psychologist by the name of Dr. Richard Alpert who experimented with psychedelics and buddied with the notorious Timothy Leary, seemed pleased that he was now speaking to a much larger cross-section of society than he once was able to command.

“I used to speak to people in a 10-year range (of ages),” he said. “Look out here now. There are people in their 20s, up to 75.

“Whatever has happened in culture has made me more relevant. I’m interested in taking the people of the ‘60s . . . the idealism within them and their desire for compassion . . . and showing them how to live life in affluent society. Our culture--government and the media--has offered sentimentality in place of real compassion.

“So the challenge now is to combine the idealism of the ‘60s with the reality of the ‘80s. This isn’t the time for a guilt trip, but for integrating what we’ve achieved in society . . . to use what you’ve got.”

He found an open and willing audience at the Scottish Rite Center in Mission Valley and drew consistent waves of chuckles as he softly weaved from one story to the next.

“I figured out what I’m doing here,” he opened. “I just say what we all know well. What we come together for is to reassure ourselves that what we know is true, is true.

He told the audience that he didn’t hold any secrets to love or how to serve society but perhaps could say them more clearly than others. “When I say the wisest things and I look out onto the audience, I see you (nodding affirmatively). So, you must already know it!”

He warned the audience not to get so caught up in society’s expectations for success that they lose sight of their own happiness. “When I was born, I went into ‘somebody’ training,” he said. “My parents were somebody, and they wanted me to be somebody--to be an achiever, to be successful, to be a source of pride to my family. And if it didn’t interfere with any of those, I was also to be happy.”

Members of the audience offered a wide variety of reasons why they had come to hear Ram Dass. Leo Ledbetter, 53, a computer specialist for the Navy, said he was anxious to hear Ram Dass’ philosophy of love so he could better apply it to “personal diplomacy” as a way of bringing about world peace.

“World peace is still an attainable objective,” Ledbetter said. “I’m so tired of the evening news, about muggings and violence. I’m tired of all that stuff. Maybe this person has something to tell us. He certainly won’t be giving us any football scores.”

Lance Collins, 28, said he hoped to see Ram Dass’ aura. “I probably won’t listen to his speech,” he said. “He’s not my guru; he’s just another person of notoriety contributing to the whole, the mass movement toward consciousness, of loving everyone and everything unconditionally. But mostly I want to check out his aura.”

Tom Clare, 39, said he was drawn to hear Ram Dass because “his message is timeless.”

Clair Killen, 66, said he has become a Ram Dass devotee.

“I was doing my thing in the business world years ago when he first started doing his thing,” he said. “But now I realize there is more to life than materialistic things, that more is not better, that there is a spiritual component to sustain someone to a ripe old age.

“I don’t need the things I strived for when I was younger. Now, I’m interested in making a difference in the world, to have my spiritual component massaged.”

Then there was Steve Smith, who said he hadn’t heard of Ram Dass until Monday morning. “My last guru lecture was with my dad 15 years ago--I forget who it was, but he was real entertaining,” Smith said. “So I finished sailing this morning, and someone said we ought to go to this lecture, and I thought what the heck, it might be entertaining like the last one I heard.”