Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Ram Dass & Wayne Dyer with Dassi Ma

76min

0:00:01 - Nadia

Welcome back to the Change your Thoughts - Change Your Life podcast. I'm so excited for this episode. I had an amazing conversation with Dassi Ma, who was a member of Ram Dass' household. She was a primary caregiver for him for the last 15 years of his life. We had a chance to meet during my family trip to the island last September. You can hear more about all of that in the episode titled Landing at Ram Dass' Door. I had an opportunity to bring her on for this conversation about the friendship between Wayne Dyer and Ram Dass, the times that they spent together and also just what it was like living with Ram Dass and their day-to-day routines. Dassi has such a big heart. I know that you're going to love her as much as I do. 

Welcome to the Change Your Thoughts- Change Your Life podcast. I'm your host, Nadia Delacruz, founder of the Wayne Dyer Wisdom Community. You can get more details about this podcast, upcoming events and more at nadiadelacruz.com. Now, today, I have a very special guest joining me. Dassi Ma was the primary caregiver and assistant to Ram Dass on Maui for the last 15 years of his life. You can read part of her story in a segment she wrote in the book Whisper in the Heart: the ongoing presence of Neem Karoli Baba, and she continues to support Ram Dass' legacy as the president of Hanuman Maui, where his home and gardens are preserved as a spiritual sanctuary. Dassi, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really excited to have this opportunity for us to chat. 

0:02:17 - Dassi Ma

Truly my pleasure. Thank you so much. 

0:02:21 - Nadia

We got connected a few months ago. I was on a family trip to Hawaii with my husband and my kids and a truly unexpected series of events came together where I was able to come and visit Hanuman Maui. That was not part of the plan. I didn't know that was going to happen. There were so many synchronicities that came together. I actually talked about all of that in a previous episode called Landing at Ram Dass' Door, and that's episode 38 for anyone who wants to hear that. But that's where we met and I just loved what all of what you are doing there and the love that you carry on in that space, and that's why I wanted to reach out and have you on the podcast. 

0:03:06 - Dassi Ma

Thank you so much, Nadia. 

0:03:08 - Nadia

Why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey and how you got started in spirituality? Were you always spiritual? 

0:03:20 - Dassi Ma

Not really. I was brought up a Catholic and I had 16 years of Catholic education and frankly, I credit Wayne as the individual who got me back on the spiritual path. So in the 70's I sort of rebelled against my religion at the time. I was turned off to organized religion, as were many, many others during the 70's, and at that point I even considered myself to be agnostic. That lasted for almost 10 years. And then in the 80's, in the corporate arena, several of my fellow managers would exchange motivational leadership cassette, I guess they were cassette tape albums, and they were really cool. 

There were six or 12 of them in an album, six cassettes, and when you got a good one it was great. And somehow or other, Wayne Dyer, one of his albums, I believe it was How to be a No-Limit Person, I think it was that, I'm not sure, but it was one of them and I just loved it and I loved what he was saying and I think at that point he was deepening into spirituality himself. And so you know, as I would get a new cassette album, it was like, wow, here's the next level and this is where Wayne is now. It was really an exciting time and you know, I just loved his storytelling ability and his humor and the way he was able to simplify complex spiritual concepts so that everyone could readily understand them. And I love that. He was open to all forms of religion. He was truly a spiritual seeker. 

So after I listened to the album, I sought out all of Wayne's works and looked forward to new releases as the years went by. So you know, without a doubt, Wayne was a major key to opening my door of spirituality. Now me, as well as hundreds of thousands of others you know here and people who come here to Hanuman, Maui, whether they're caregivers or personal retreatants or whatever. Many times hear them say, "I was introduced to spirituality by Wayne Dyer." So anyway, in the late 80's I plunged into a Zen practice and Wayne's work at that point was a springboard to other spiritual teachers. I started to attend a lot of spiritual workshops, including lectures by Wayne, and at that point I even had a group that would come over to my house on a weekly basis, a group of friends, and we would discuss different spiritual concepts. So, I came a long way from my agnostic period in the 70's. 

0:07:04 - Nadia

You sure have. What an interesting arc to your personal story, right? That you had this exploration where you really you covered the gamut. Being raised religious, probably traditional religious upbringing, from very traditional to agnostic to Wayne Dyer. And, you know, he didn't start speaking about spirituality until the late 80s, and I think his first book on spirituality, You'll See It When You Believe It, was published in the early 90's. But, of course, he'd been starting to get into that a few years before, probably also because of his marriage to Marcie, because she was quite a spiritual woman as well. 

0:07:47 - Dassi Ma

Wow, that's great. 

0:07:48 - Nadia

I had a similar experience as you, in that I discovered Wayne Dyer and my first book was his first spiritual book, and everyone that came after that I was like it was getting deeper. 

0:08:00 - Nadia

And as he was exploring, this, I was exploring it. I discovered other teachers, which is also how I discovered Ram Dass. 

0:08:08 - Dassi Ma

Yeah, wow. And so, Wayne talked about Ram Dass in his books and particularly in his audio cassettes, and I didn't follow up until someone actually handed me a tape of Ram Dass, a cassette tape. It was in 1993. And, yeah, I, you know, I put it in my car cassette player on my way home and I arrived at my destination and I just sat there and listened to the entire tape and I just felt like I am home. I am home. 

He spoke of, I think it was called Compassionate Heart. Compassionate Heart, yes, and he spoke of love and compassion and God and it just rang so true to me. Yeah, I really felt that I found my home and he showed how to live in love and constantly reminded me that, you know, he was only the worm. That his teacher, Maharaji Neem Karoli Baba, was the fisherman and we were the fish. So you know, even to the end he said, "I'm just the worm." He didn't want to be considered a guru, but you know, he really introduced me to the concept of heart space. He did it not by lecturing but just by being and loving and in the end, dying, exactly as he was. You know, he was basically a fellow pilgrim, eager to share his missteps, and that's Wayne and him. Maybe we can talk about this in a few minutes, but Wayne and him, their lecturing style was very similar. They used their missteps as springboards for great spiritual stories. And Ram Dass just radiated love even later on from his wheelchair. 

0:10:25 - Nadia

Definitely, yeah. 

0:10:28 - Dassi Ma

So, at that point I didn't know if he was living or dead and the next day I remember going back into work and trying to figure out if he was still living and what he had done since the tape that I had, it seemed like it was a homemade tape by someone who was in the audience. But, I didn't have access in 93 to the internet, as most people didn't, but I found out that he had written some books, and one of them being Be Here Now. I guess I was just in the corporate world and missed it, but I found out he was going to do a lecture in Washington, DC. I was living in South Jersey, right next to Philly at the time, and he was doing it the next month. So I signed up for that and a bunch of us rode down to Washington, DC and then shortly there, and I thought seeing him in person, it was like he kept morphing into into Maharaji. After that, I went to an Omega Institute retreat at Rhinebeck Spiritual Retreat Center and I did a week with him that summer. And then, from then on, all my vacation time and time off was dedicated to following around. Wherever you went, you know whether it was Costa Rica or Canada or all over the country for retreats and workshops or just an evening lecture sometimes. At that point, I volunteered to do some Seva for them. I did some photography and edited tapes for the tape library, his first foundation. And I do that after you know, my day of work ended, which sometimes was eight, nine o'clock at night. So I did this and followed him and then, a few years later, in 1997, he had a major, a major hemorrhaging stroke. 

It was just a miracle that he lived. It was so, so bad and with that stroke he was partially paralyzed and had aphasia, as well as as other things. But he continued to teach and I remember at one point it was after his stroke I had this really vivid dream and in the dream I was taking care of him and I woke up. I was in a sweat. It was like and there was nothing supernatural or, you know, extraordinary about the dream. It was just, I was giving him medicine and helping him wash, and it was so real. And so the next day, I went into work and I inquired about- is there any possibility of an early retirement? My wish wasn't granted, but the seed was planted. So and then you started. 

After he was recuperating from a stroke, he started to go out and to lecture again and he was going to make a trip to Brazil and I was going there. There was a whole group of satsang, I guess you'd call it that, went and that was amazing to be there a couple of weeks with him. Now that was probably in 2002, and in 2004 he was going to India. Turned out to be his last trip to India and I was asked if I wanted to join the group. We met in Delhi and took a bus down to Kainchi, which is the major Maharaji ashram. So that was fantastic and we spent three weeks at the ashram and just being there. Around us there was Siddhi Ma, who was running the ashram. She's an extremely special person.

It was just an amazing three weeks, but towards the end of that that stay, Ram Dass started to get sick. He had some kind of... it was, I don't know. It seemed like, to me, it was close to the moment. It was a really bad cold, really bad, really bad. And you know most people would, especially in his condition, would have, you can imagine, in a wheelchair and traveling from the San Francisco area all the way to India. 

He came back to touch base in San Francisco in California, was there overnight and the next day went to Maui. Got to Maui and did a retreat and and by the end of the retreat he was really, really fried. He had such a bad infection. It was sepsis, you know sepsis and everything. So he ended up in the hospital and he was there for several weeks and you know they weren't sure then if he was gonna make it. But, he decided at that point, yes, I am going to stay on Maui. It's where he had, for many years, decided he'd love to retire. And, of course, he never retired. He was still working up until he died. In the meantime, so there he was, he's on Maui. He just got out of the hospital. He was in this house, and this person was taking care of him. 

A dear friend of mine was going back to India so they needed someone to help out and I left my job as a director of Human Resources. It was my plan to travel for about a year and then make a decision whether I wanted to go back into the corporate world. 

So I was visiting in San Francisco and I visited with some friends and they said, "hey, we're going to Maui next week and we're gonna be visiting with Ram Dass, so if you'd like, come with us?" Alright. So I went back home to New Jersey, packed my bags and met them in Maui and we had some lovely dinners with Ram Dass. It was beautiful. And one night we had dinner at his house and after dinner, we're in the kitchen and he he wheeled his chair around the kitchen island, and he said to me, "so you want to be my nurse?" And of course I said yes! I said I can do it for about two months, and that two months turned into 15 years of loving service. 

0:18:20 - Nadia

Wow, wow, what an incredible journey. I love all of these trips that you took following him around the world. Hearing him speak and participating in that. It's like he he not only brought that heart energy into your experience of life, but an answer right all of these going. When you were going to see him talk, especially maybe the first few that you went to, were you able to interact with him? Because, if you do a whole week long thing, you really spend a lot of time together. 

0:19:02 - Dassi Ma

Yeah, you know for a long period of time I was really intimidated by him. There was no reason to. He was the easiest man to talk to. But you know, I guess I probably had him on a pedestal and it was just difficult. I mean, I would go up and I would hug him but I could hardly talk in front of him the first several years. 

0:19:28 - Nadia

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean the way that he not only impacted your life, but so many. He was one of the biggest voices that came back from the east in the 60s and 70s bringing these concepts and these practices that are so infused into our culture today. That were completely brand-new at the time. I just think it was this time of exodus, right? These brave seekers went looking for something, because it didn't feel right the way we were doing it here. Looking for those answers and coming back with gurus and lessons and yoga and meditation and things that. I'm so grateful for that, because I feel like we benefit from all the work that they did. And the way that Ram Dass, especially, was able to just articulate and reach us on a heart level. My my first meeting with Ram Dass, actually, the only time I saw him in person was when I went to see Wayne in Maui in 2007. Now, I think you said you were you were probably at that conference? 

0:20:00 - Dassi Ma

I was definitely at that conference at the Westin, yes. 

0:20:05 - Nadia

So, I came to see Wayne, and I've been following Wayne forever, right? And I knew a little bit about Ram Dass, but not a lot. I didn't feel like I knew enough to take up his time, basically. 

But you know, they lifted him up in his wheelchair on the stage. He speaks very slowly but I was mesmerized! He's telling these funny stories, you know, of all of his experiences with psychedelics and going to India. He's so charming and it was just really unexpected that I was just drawn in. After the talk, he's off by the side and there's just a few people standing around him. You know, milling about during the break and I sort of walked up. But, I was just like, well, they probably know a lot about him and I don't want to take up his time. Like who am I, you know? And so I stopped about 10 feet away and he made eye contact with me and I still get choked up when I think about this, because it was just this, this energy that never left me. And when I learned more about it, I think it was actually the love from Maharaji that he was radiating. 

When we locked eyes, it's like it just went in me and it never left me. I just had this sense that he totally understood why I was standing there, why I was keeping my distance, how I felt, and it was all okay. I didn't have to push. I didn't have to come forward. It was all okay. Like, we had that connection in just this moment, I've never experienced anything like it. And it wasn't until later that I learned more about his guru, that I was like- that's exactly what this, it's exactly what this sounds like. That's wow, ...that's wonderful! 

And the connection between Wayne and and Ram Dass. So, Wayne Dyer really looked up to him as a mentor and a teacher and there's a quote from a letter he wrote in 2004, asking for support when Ram Dass decided he was going to stay on Maui right after that last trip to India. He's going to stay and Wayne was already living there. He's like, "yes, you should stay." But, of course, Ram Dass hadn't taken any money for all the work that he'd been doing, so he didn't have all this money saved away like Wayne was doing. Right? Wayne was the businessman and he wrote this letter, called Be Here For Him Now. 

There's a quote here I'm going to read. It says, "To me, Ram Dass was and is the finest speaker I have ever heard, period. He was my role model on stage, always gentle and kind, always speaking without notes, from his heart, sharing his inspiring stories and always with great humor. I tell you this, from my own heart, I could listen to his lectures for hours and always felt saddened when they would end." 

0:23:56 - Dassi Ma

Wow, nice. Beautiful. 

0:23:59 - Nadia

So, Ram Dass was the foundation for so much of the way Wayne showed up in the world. 

0:24:04 - Dassi Ma

Yeah, you know, when you think of it, they really shared, particularly before Ram Dass' stroke. I mean, his humor prevailed throughout his whole life, even post-stroke. But I mean they both used humor. They both made fun of themselves. They were both able to interpret complex spiritual concepts and make it easy for people to digest. Yeah, yeah, you know, I've heard Wayne say that he had followed, and sometimes from afar, Ram Dass for 40 years, from the early 60s, and he would listen to his cassettes and occasionally he would go and see him. You know, it was really interesting and that letter was just about the time that I was getting there, in 2005 it was, I think, that the letter went out. I think it was in April. And what happened was, yeah, you know, Ram Dass was never that concerned with money. His guru, Maharaji, told him not to handle money and so when he was in India he had a money holder, someone who actually carried his money. He declined the inheritance from his father and he was a co-founder of this organization called the Seva Foundation. He would do like 50 city tours to promote and to acquire money for the Seva Foundation and took enough so that he could do the traveling. Even his book, Be Here Now; the majority, large majority, of the proceeds went elsewhere and not to him. I don't know if you remember that Be here Now book, but there was a little graph with where all the different allocations for the book went. The Lama Foundation was a really big one and yeah, so it was good. So when he got here at that point, when he had the stroke, one of the things that was affected was his ability to understand figures and numbers. So, he was coming for a week and no concept. And the first person that was here went to pay the rent and looked into the checkbook and it was like $11 for the month. 

So, a good friend of ours, chuck Blitz, met with Wayne, and Ram Dass was there too. Chuck was explaining the situation and Wayne said, "you know what I can do. I've got a base of three million people followers on the internet and I can write a letter and maybe that might help." So he went home and wrote this letter and it was totally inspired. He said he felt it was inspired by God or Maharaji, and so he had his letter the next morning. It was a beautiful letter. 

You read some of his thoughts about Ram Dass. The letter went out and Ram Dass was a little, ...well, he was always the giver. So, it was complex for him to be the receiver. He was brought up wealthy and never really had to think that much about money. So, it was a big deal for Ram Dass, as well. But it was a beautiful letter and it brought in, oh I don't know, probably close to $300,000. And these beautiful letters came in and we would hand write responses to just about every one of them. When Wayne would come over, we would read some of the special letters to him. He loved it. 

0:29:05 - Nadia

Yeah, I know, there's a two part YouTube video with a conversation between Ram Dass and Wayne shortly after this all happened. I remember Ram Dass sort of admitting, in that conversation, that he wasn't totally comfortable with being in that position of receiving. 

And it's interesting, with his journey too, that maybe the first half of his life or more was all giving, giving, giving. And then he was put in a position to practice on the receiving end for all the years after his stroke. That was 97 to 2019. So, yeah, more than 20 years, right? More than 20 years. You must have seen sort of a process with him in making that part of his practice- to let all of that in, because everything was grist for the mill, right? 

0:30:17 - Dassi Ma

Yeah, you know it was when he had a stroke. He had to give up a lot of things. He had to give up driving a car and playing golf, and he had airplanes and an airplane and he had to give that up. And so there was a lot. He had to learn how to be dependent and how to receive. He was always on the giving end and he said, you know, "this is really difficult for me." But, you know what- he did a really good job and he really accepted that he needed help. 

0:31:08 - Nadia

Yeah. 

0:31:09 - Dassi Ma

So it was really, really something that back in the 90s, he wrote this book, How Can I Help? And then, all of a sudden, he would say now, how can you help me? 

0:31:29 - Nadia

Yeah, and I love that he could laugh about it too. 

0:31:33 - Dassi Ma

Yeah. 

0:31:33 - Nadia

And that's part of what made him so relatable is that he wasn't trying to act like he'd got it all figured out and he was fully enlightened. And that was that. And he's sitting on the mountaintop. He said, you know, after meditating with real meditators and all this time, I haven't lost one of my neuroses. 

0:31:52 - Dassi Ma

Yeah. 

0:31:53 - Nadia

I just I adore him for that, because he's like a model for us. That it's okay to be human and you can still be on this path. You can still be plugged into the work of loving awareness. 

0:32:13 - Dassi Ma

Yes, mm, hmm. 

0:32:17 - Nadia

For me, I think it's amazing how long he lived. For one, he was about 10 years older than Wayne Dyer, I believe. 

0:32:32 - Dassi Ma

Yeah, he was born in 1931 and I think Wayne was born in 1940.

0:32:33 - Nadia

Yeah, and so you can see how that sort of mentor relationship began. There was also a difference in age and experience there, but Ram Dass outlived Wayne, he outlived Louise Hay, you know. And I always felt like, just from my little tiny glimpse into his life from way over here, was that after the stroke, a lot of people would have just given up. 

Like, with the struggles that he faced, and I'm sure he had moments, but I think a lot of people just would have lost their motivation to keep going. I am just amazed to have witnessed the little pieces that showed us that all the way through the rest of his days, he would take the pain, he would take the experience, he would take the paralysis and use it. And use it. I mean, wow! 

0:33:37 - Dassi Ma

Yeah, yeah, it was truly, truly amazing and you know, many people said that the last 15 years of his life is when he really grew into being Ram Dass. That was his time when he was here and he wasn't traveling. He was so content and, although he had lots of pain, he looked at it, to a degree, as grace, fierce grace, as his first documentary talks about. You know, it was just beautiful to watch him. He would sit actually in this study, right here. He would sit and look out at the ocean and, and listen to the wind on the trees and the birds go by, and he was very, very happy. And to the very end, he continued teaching and being with people. He had weekly interviews or sessions with people. They were called Heart to Heart. People could sign up on the website and get a free hour with Ram Dass. He would do two every week.

0:34:00 - Nadia 

I should have signed up for that. I would have loved it. 

0:34:04 - Dassi Ma

He loved listening and interacting and giving some advice to people. Right over here, there was a chair right next to his chair and people would come and just spend so much time with him. And you know, it's really funny. Part of my job was to be a gatekeeper, because you know he had limited energy, and so I would prep people before they'd come up and spend some time with him. I'd say things like, "well, you know, he's not really doing all that well today, so it would be wonderful if you could just spend an hour." "Oh yeah, oh yeah, no problem, we'll do it." 

So they would come and they would speak with him and they would get engaged. And maybe about the two hour mark, I'd come up and I'd say, "how's everything in here?" And Ram Dass would wave me off. He knew what I was doing and that promise to keep it to an hour. If I were one of them, I would have done the same, but he always had someone that was coming, whether it was a local person or whenever anybody came into town.

0:36:26 - Nadia

It seemed like he was like a magnet for community. It seemed like always people gravitated to him. I gotta say, I didn't know what to expect. Going to Ram Dass' house, I was so excited just to be able to be in that space and it's so beautiful there. But I think one of the things that I left with, was the sense that he was surrounded by love. Because of people like you, who were with him every day, and I can see that he wasn't just cared for, he was loved. That sort of puts me at ease. Going, well, it must have been hard, all those years with the stroke and health issues and getting older and all of that, but it makes me feel happier. It's like a sense of relief to witness that. Oh yes, of course, of course he had people loving him right to the end! 

0:37:31 - Dassi Ma

Well, he was very lovable. So yeah, that's true, it wasn't hard, it wasn't hard. 

0:37:39 - Nadia

Can you tell us more about what your position was at the house? So you came, was it 2005? You came up and what was it that you did? Or what was a typical day like?

0:37:51 - Dassi Ma

Oh yeah, a typical day, let's see. Well, we were in another location in Maui up until 2007. And then we moved to this location and I would come up every morning and I'd say, at eight o'clock, you'd like to get up at eight? So I'd come up and say good morning, oh, we had an intercom, so I would push the button. It's "good morning, Ram Dass." And you'd fumble around and and one of the caregivers, just last week, sent me an audio of the intercom thing. He would push the button after he found it and he'd say, "good morning, Dassi Ma." So, you know, I'd bring his medications upstairs and we'd help him wash and took his vital signs and sometimes gave him injections, depending. 

He had multiple, multiple infections and many times ended up in the hospital, probably averaged at least once a year, sometimes a couple of times a year. So, we would do that and then one of the guy caregivers would help him in the bathroom and Ram Dass would do his own shaving with his left hand and he'd go downstairs. We had an elevator, it was called a parallel elevator that would come from the top of the steps down to the bottom. Most of the time, he would eat in the dining room area, if he didn't eat outside. His favorite breakfast was plops plops, which were poached eggs on toast with marmalade and butter. That was his eggs Benedict. Since he was watching what he ate. Some of his doctors were very health conscious and so that was his favorite breakfast. But, you know, he loved things like oatmeal and things of that nature. And then, generally, we'd go through the emails that had come in, if we had to do some correspondence. And, depending on if he was meeting somebody, he had lots of doctors visits and physical therapy and part of the day was dedicated to that. Sometimes he would take a rest. 

We tried to get into the pool as often as possible. He loved the pool, although he was restricted by the stroke, but when he got in the water he was free and he loved it. Sometimes he would dance in the water. It was really beautiful. We had a pool that we built right outside and it's a great pool. He'd get a pool noodle around him and he would actually be able to walk in the water. 

And, it's interesting, to go into another subject for a moment. Early on, when Wayne visited, Ram Dass was able to do a little tiny bit of walking and he worked on that really hard with a physical therapist. Wayne says, "okay, next time I see you, when I come back from my trip, I expect you to be walking all over the place." So, the next time Wayne came to visit, Ram Dass walked from the end of the corridor into the living area to meet Wayne. I think we have a picture of that someplace.

0:42:22 - Nadia

I would love to see that picture. Let me know if you find it? 

0:42:25 - Dassi Ma

Okay, all right. Yeah, I guess that must have been 2005/2006. And he was making good progress. And then in 2008, I think it was, might've been 2009, a couple of things happened. He fell and broke his hip, and then his left arm that he used to help himself up got a couple of rotator cuff injuries and they couldn't do anything about it. So, that ability to help himself up was taken away from him, as well as the problems with the hip. So, you know, he tried really hard to walk after that and went to physical therapy on a regular basis and sometimes they would say, okay, now we're gonna stand. You know, we're gonna stand and we're gonna take some steps, but it wasn't to be. 

And then, getting back to a typical day, he might have a meeting in the afternoon and then after we'd go into the water and then he'd take a little rest and we'd have dinner, usually around 6:30 in the evening. Sometimes we'd watch television. We'd watch things like Stephen Colbert (we both love Stephen Colbert), or the Daily Show. And, there is a series on the Hindu spiritual book, the Ramayana, and we watched that probably seven times. It's like, I don't know, 20 DVDs and it was made in the 80s, so we watched that a lot. Or sometimes we'd watch some series like West Wing or Six Feet Under. We watched the Boston Legal, you know that's fun. 

And then, yeah, so that was great. And then, every night we'd have this routine where we'd come up and help him get ready for bed and take his vitals again and any injections or whatever was needed. He had this group of doctors, so there was always something new that we were trying. I'd say, "Good night, Ram Das. I love you." And he would say, "I love you too." And we did that every night until his final day. That was the last thing he said to me was, "I love you." 

0:45:41 - Nadia

What else is there, right? 

0:45:42 - Dassi Ma

Yeah. 

0:45:43 - Nadia

That says it all. Wow, it's so interesting to think about Ram Das watching TV, too. I think because we get these ideas in our heads of oh, he's this great speaker on the stage. I love hearing about that more human side of the day to day. Now did you guys have the pool put in at the house? So, it wasn't there when you moved in? 

0:46:10 - Dassi Ma

We did, and it's a nice big pool. It's interesting, last week we had these horrendous windstorms and we had this small house on the property and this set of solar panels flew off and flew onto the solar panel for the pool, broke the solar panel and then one of the fellas turned the pump off for the pool but didn't turn it off right. Three quarters of the pool drained, so we're still working with that. 

0:46:52 - Nadia

Oh no, that was quite a windstorm. Yeah. Trade winds, right? You get the trade winds over there. 

0:46:57 - Dassi Ma

We sure do. 

0:47:00 - Nadia

Now, you also would go down and bring him to swim in the ocean right? I remember seeing pictures of that. 

0:47:07 - Dassi Ma

Yeah, that was a weekly tradition. We would go to the south side. We live on the north side, in Aikuu, and we would go to Kihei, the camp one, every morning and every Monday morning. It started off with just three of us and then more people would find out about it and join us. Sometimes there'd be 30, 40 people there. And Wayne joined us a couple of times there as well. One time he was scheduled to join us and never made it, and a friend of his said, "oh Wayne, he's got a terrible sense of direction. He's always getting lost." 

0:48:02 - Nadia

I understand he wasn't very good with time either. 

0:48:05 - Dassi Ma

He wasn't really watching the clock. But yeah, so we would swim in the ocean and we had this little ritual afterwards we would do. He would say, "oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy," because we'd swim out to a buoy. And so buoy boy. Then he'd say, "oh joy, oh joy, oh joy, oh joy." And it was named. We named this the Bobbing with Baba. And then we had this gal who has declared herself to be the minister of fun. So we had to do the minister of fun routine. And then we had another fellow who studied Hawaiian chants and we'd do a Hawaiian chant and maybe we'd do a little bit of Row, Row, Row Your Boat. One of the problems- so we always used row, row, row your boat before he had a speed, just to make sure that his throat was opened up. We did that all week and then we'd go to lunch. 

0:49:21 - Nadia

Well, yeah, you get hungry being out in the ocean, of course, yeah. Did you guys do weekly kirtan back then too?

0:49:32 - Dassi Ma

We did regular kirtans. We didn't do them weekly. Yeah, so whenever. It would probably be every other week, depending what was going on. We'd send that in the mail and people would come. 

0:49:44 - Nadia

That's great. 

Now, I understand that his spiritual interests and his practices were a bit eclectic. I know his book collection certainly is. Did he have something that he did on a regular basis, or what was his practice like? 

0:50:04 - Dassi Ma

You know, towards the end we would meditate. Sometimes, most times, we'd meditate before dinner and he looked at the time he spent in his chair as a meditation. So, you'd look at the clouds and how the clouds would come and how they would split and he really used that as a spiritual practice. Towards the end, he always said you use a method and then you slay it. But his life, other than maybe watching TV, it was a spiritual practice. 

0:50:59 - Nadia

Yeah, yeah, I can see that. 

If anybody hasn't seen the Netflix video Ram Dass Going Home that was taped on the property there, it's just so beautiful and I had seen it years ago when it came out, I think that was 2018. And then when we were flying home from Maui, I actually watched it on the plane. It was so different to see it after having just been in that space. I love that you've preserved his study. You can see it in the video too, that so much of the house, you've kept the same as when he was there and the energy is so strong. Did you plan on keeping the house after he passed? 

0:51:49 - Dassi Ma

No, not at all. It was interesting, unfolding this foundation, which is Love, Service, Remember. They're located in California and they contemplated at one point about keeping the house. Ram Dass thought, well, that might be nice, just to have a place for people to touch base, but financially it wasn't really feasible for them to do it. So, when Ram Dass died, a lot of the caregivers (over the years some would come for six months, some would come for a year, some would come for three years), they all gathered back together. They would meet at night and they'd say, we can't let this place go. This is so. It's just his spirit is so deeply embedded, we just can't let it go. So after three nights or so, they called for a meeting and we had about 25 people in the meeting. My thought was, okay, once we settle up here, I'll probably get a small cottage on Maui and live out the rest of my life there. 

But they had this meeting, and I don't know if you can see that portrait of Ram Dass behind me? That was in the living room and I was sitting there and I was looking at Ram Dass during this meeting. The caregivers were so impassioned about keeping the house and how important it was for people to come by and other people, other spiritual teachers, had a place where you could go and just feel their presence. So they were so deeply committed to having this happen. 

And then there was someone in the meeting who was saying, well, you know, then you have to form a 501C3 and it's very difficult to have a nonprofit. And then you have to have a board and there's always disagreements and the energy in the room was going down and down and down. I looked up at that portrait of Ram Dass and, you can't see it, but his eyes are so vibrant in that portrait. And I looked and, it's almost like he's smirking. I looked in that portrait and it was like, yes, you can do it. So I turned around to the group and I said, ""okay, let's do it. And that's how we formed Hanuman Maui and my mission is to continue his legacy here on Maui. 

0:55:00 - Nadia

I love it. So are you open to the public? And what's next for Hanuman Maui? 

0:55:04 - Dassi Ma

What's the plan? Well, we're open to the public, but on a limited basis, because we have a Homeowner's Association and we want to be in good stead with them. One of the things we're starting to look at is, Ram Dass never owned this house. That's another story which, if we have time, I'll tell you. But we paid the mortgage and the owner of the place, Dr. Raj, who lives in Florida. The last thing Ram Dass asked him was to make sure that I was taken care of. So he agreed to rent us the house, the same deal that Ram Dass had. So we're paying the mortgage. So right now, we have it. Today, as a matter of fact, we had our first meeting to look at the feasibility of buying the house. What was the question? I got lost in that. 

0:56:20 - Nadia

What's next for Hanuman Maui? 

0:56:22 - Dassi Ma

What's next for Hanuman? Oh yeah, and we've done several things already since the 20th. As a matter of fact, our third anniversary is coming up, is it? I think it's next week. And the first thing we did was we made the loving awareness garden, the Ram Dass loving awareness garden. As you remember, we made a labyrinth and it, of course, had to be a heart-shaped labyrinth, and we buried some of his ashes in that garden and then had a ceremony and put a mango tree on top of the ashes, which is now starting to grow very nicely. 

And the next project we had was a building; a temple. So that was extraordinary that we were able to do that in so short a time. We do prayers in there twice a day, and this afternoon, as a matter of fact, we're going to do 11 Hanuman Chalices, because it's the first Tuesday of the month and that's when we do it. And then the third big project we had was to create an additional retreat cottage, and it's beautiful. It turned out really beautiful. It's right on the ocean and people come typically for like a five-day retreat, and sometimes more, sometimes a little less. 

0:58:01 - Nadia

And is that on the same property? 

0:58:04 - Dassi Ma

It's on the same property. Yeah, so many times during the month we have personal retreats, which is lovely, and so our major thing right now is determining whether we can purchase the house, and we have a lot of people that are helping us. We have Paul Selig, who I believe you know. He's a great guy, and next week he's going to do a benefit for Hanuman Maui. This is the third year he's done that. Yeah, that's great. And then on Ram Dass' birthday, which is April 6, jack Cornfield and Trudy Goodman are going to do a Zoom for the benefit of Hanuman Maui. So, we're really looking forward to that. Yeah, and people can come. We do have meditations on Thursday and we do have chanting on Sunday, but, as I mentioned, we are part of a Homeowners Association, so we have to be a little careful. We don't want to upset any of the neighbors. 

0:59:28 - Nadia

Yeah, it is a private property.

0:59:31 - Dassi Ma

Yeah, this is the only place we can do it. This is where people who come here really feel Ram Dass' presence, so there's no other. You know, if this doesn't work, there's no other place we would consider doing it.

0:59:41 - Nadia

Well, it feels right and I believe that what's meant to be will be. So, I am certain you have forces on both sides conspiring for your benefit. I love that Ram Dass went out of his way to make sure that you were going to be taken care of. I mean, you know, you were more than family to him. More than family. 

So, for all of our listeners, if they want to offer support, what's the best way that we can support Hanuman Maui? 

1:00:25 - Dassi Ma

Well, our email address is info@hanumanmaui.org and we also have a website, Hanuman Maui. They can go on there and, if they felt so inclined, they could make a donation. 

1:00:47 - Nadia

All right, hanumanmaui.org. You can make a donation. You've got a little shop there. I know you guys do some other events and benefits once in a while. 

One of the things that I was thinking about when I was getting ready to talk to you today is, how, for decades, Ram Dass was known for talking about death and dying and end-of-life care. It was something he participated in. I think he was very courageous in the way that he opened the conversation because, particularly in our culture, we we keep it behind closed doors. So, I was wondering, now that he's passed (he passed in December of 2019), from your perspective, what kind of impact did did all of those years of work have on his own experience of dying? 

1:01:42 - Dassi Ma

Yeah, really it had an excellent impact. Well, I think Ram Dass was ready. He was accepting of death, probably even before he had the stroke and he was very interested in in death and dying. You know, he did those workshops and he even started the dying center in the 80s in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where where people would come to die a spiritual death. There would be caregivers and doctors who were interested in the spiritual path, too. And, you know, one of one of the things he would say was that that the environment was so good that no one wanted to die, that they lived on. And that organization is still alive and well in in California. Now, it's not a physical place, but it's an organization, and I the name of it, I'm blanking on that right at this second. But anyway, Ram Dass did workshops and and he talked about death and he has a whole big section in his library on death and dying, on near-death experiences, on what happens after death. He was really fascinated with that and he wrote that book, a great book with Mirabai Bush on Walking Each Other Home. It's one of those books where you can open it up and just read a page or two and it's helpful. You know, it was really good. 

And you know, in terms of his death, he wanted to have a very conscious death. He wanted to be conscious when he died. He was hoping that he didn't have to have a lot of morphine or medication that would fog his brain, or certainly, you know, some people think of Ram Dass, as one of the kings of psychedelics. But he didn't want that. He didn't want that. When he died, he was so excited for the process, for the journey, that he wanted to fully embrace it and to travel clear. So, one of the things that happened there was he knew that I was attached to him, and so he said you know, I, I really want to have a clear death. 

So, I don't want anyone holding me back. I just want, ...you know, I don't want pictures of family or, you know, maybe a picture of Maharaji, but that's it. And I just want people to be there and it to be a clear field so I can I can exit. So that was a major challenge for me. There were about five of us at his bedside that last day. It was just to be there and not to have any emotion whatsoever and and you know, I'm pretty proud that I was able to accomplish that and his death was, you know, his death was... it was quiet. It was peaceful and he just took, at the end, he took 3 breaths and he was gone. 

1:05:56 - Nadia

What did that feel like? What was the energy in the room with that? Well, first of all, your practice of surrender and what a release. Could, you feel that when he left? 

1:06:22 - Dassi Ma

It wasn't like he was gone. It was, yeah, ...he was still there. As a matter of fact, I said to one of the doctors that was there, "I'm not sure he's still breathing." So, they got out a stethoscope and checked to see if there was any pulse, and there wasn't. But it was. It was the air. You could feel the air in the room, just to feel it, and it wasn't. You know, we didn't. It wasn't a day that we get up. We got up and said, okay, this is going to be his last day, but he was not in great shape. 

Two weeks prior to his death he did his last retreat and that whole year of 2019 was a really tough year for him. It was a roller coaster with his health. You know, he'd get a major infection and he'd end up in the hospital and at one point we said to him around us, you know, do you want to go on? And he said he stopped, thought about it and said, "I still have people I need to tell About Maharaji." And so up until two weeks before he died, he was still teaching. 

You know, we thought he'd go to this retreat and just be there and we talked about that. He said, yeah, he went there and he taught as as hard as he could. As a matter of fact, at the end of every retreat, we have what we call the mala ceremony. So we would give out malas and we would put little threads of Maharaji blanket on the on the mala and everyone would get up, go up to Ram Dass and and get a mala and then be introduced to to to Maharaji. And so that last retreat we said, okay, Ram Dass, why don't you just bless the malas and then you leave and we'll give out the malas? When we got there, he said, "no, I'm giving a mala." So, to 400 people! 

And he loved it! He loved that interaction, looking people in the eye and looking into their soul. Not just their eyes, really looking deeply into each soul. He was looking into his soul. 

1:08:56 - Nadia

Wow, he was really something special and he still is. Yeah and boy, whoo! What a journey, what an incarnation! Huh, what a life. Sure, I think it's wonderful that he had an opportunity to sort of, you know, make that exit on his own terms and in his own space. 

And so many people don't. I think that's that's part of the work he was doing, is to open our eyes to death as not a failure. And this is the next great adventure. That the way that we can just sit with a person through whatever their experience of that is - I feel like I haven't learned that anywhere else. I'm sure there are other people talking about this, but his life is his message - that's the one that reached me, so I'm grateful for that. 

Now, before I let you go, one more question. Do you have, or what is one of your favorite memories With Ram Dass? Because you must have so many what's one of your favorite memories? What brings you joy to think about? 

1:10:16 - Dassi Ma

Oh, there's so many. You know what comes to my mind is, at one point I was going to take three or four days off and go over to another island here. And, uh, I had told Ram Dass I was going and then, right before I left, I went up to him and I said, "Ram Dass, you know I'm leaving?" And he said, "oh no," and he started to cry. He said, "I thought we would be together until we died." 

You know, as a group we would go on adventures wherever, whether it was going down to the, into the, into a tahana, or, you know, into the woods, up in the mountains, or, you know, just to the beach, or Um, we loved doing that. You know, occasionally we we take a trip over to Lanai and stay there for two or three days and he would love it. He would sit there in his chair and, you know, go in the pool and the hot tub and look at the ocean, and it was great. 

1:11:44 - Nadia

And I bet that when you go on adventures now, you still feel him with you, right? I feel like they experience it through us and with us. Without the body; without the limitations of the body. So, maybe that's a beautiful thing. I know that you've seen my paintings here of Ram Dass and I've been working on a new one. It's not quite finished, but I wanted to give you a peek of Wayne and Ram Dass in Hawaii. 

It's based off of (and I'd be happy to send you this when it's finished), but this is based off of the photo that I brought with me on our trip to Hawaii. 

Okay, so, so we rented a house from Karl, but we didn't know that he had any connection to Ram Dass, and you know any of that. The first day we get there, I set up my sacred space. I brought this framed photo and a candle and a mala, and I set up my sacred space and I do a little meditation. And that night, that night I was thinking, "wait, I think Ram Dass' house was near here." Because, normally when we go we stay on the West side of the island, not the north side. I tell my husband in the morning he's like, oh, you should ask Karl, because I think he said he was like an old hippie or something. Oh yeah, I'm like, yeah, he probably at least knows who Ram Dass is. But I feel all of this happened with me meditating with my Wayne Dyer & Ram Dass photo, the one picture I brought with me. 

1:13:21 - Dassi Ma

Let me see that picture again? Oh, there it is. Yes, I took that photo! And that's at Wayne's condo in Ka'anapali. 

1:13:36 - Nadia

You took it?! Thank you for telling me that. Thank you for taking the picture. I love this photo! And so now, the painting I'm making is based off of that photo, but I always wanted to see them side by side. But it's just so funny how it all came together. 

So when I talked to Karl and I said, "do you know Ram Dass?" He's like, "yeah, I know Ram Dass. I was friends with Ram Dass." "Oh, you were?" Oh, yeah, "I knew him for 50 years." "You knew him for 50 years!?" "Yeah, we went to India together." 

I almost, I almost fell over!! It's just like the way that there were so many synchronicities. I won't take up our time today on it, but the way that everything came together and getting to meet you and getting to come to the house and bringing my kids back to Hawaii. We hadn't been there since our wedding. Oh and it was just such a magical trip. It was a highlight getting getting to come there. 

So, thank you for everything that you've done for Ram Dass. Thank you for the your own spiritual path. Maybe you were behind him, but you are certainly reaching so many people and maintaining the sanctuary. Whenever I see pictures and videos of Ram Dass, I almost always see you by his side and knowing you, that really warms my heart. Just to know that he was loved. 

1:15:04 - Dassi Ma

And thank you for all that you're doing for Wayne as well. 

1:15:07 - Nadia

Well, he had a big impact on my life and and he led me to a lot of other great teachers, but these two are the ones that really have impacted me the most and just embedded themselves in in my heart and my soul in a way that I don't even understand, but it drives me today. So, thank you for spending this time with me today, and I can't wait 'till I get to come back to the beautiful island of Maui and and spend more time and get to see the sanctuary again. 

1:15:37 - Dassi Ma

I can't wait for you to come back. 

1:15:40 - Nadia

Yeah, it's so beautiful. That's always been my backup plan is move to Maui, so you never know, one day the timing might be right. 

1:15:50 - Dassi Ma

Yeah, it was Wayne and and Ram Dass' vision to do that and they did it. 

1:15:55 - Nadia

I can see why. There's just something special. You can feel it. You can feel it in the land and it's a beautiful place to live. Thank you for coming on today. And for all our listeners, thank you for following Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life and telling your friends about it. Until next time, take care of yourself and take care of each other. Namaste.