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. He was the voice for Applied Spirituality - his life was the model. When he was threatened by having his own private sexual preference exposed, in a time when a closet was the only place that was even mildly safe, Ram Dass called a press conference and proudly announced his preference to the world. He is a hero to everyone who ever lived in fear of any kind of spiteful exposure. He paved the way for tolerance and love when no one else would dare to do so. Most of us could only dream of defying the conventional life and living out our inner callings to promote a cause that was bigger than our own lives - to leave the security of a guaranteed career - to leave a country where comfort was ensured; all to live in a foreign land with few conveniences, traveling and meditating for a more peaceful world. It is what St. Frances did in the 13th century and what Ram Dass did in our lifetime.
