Ram Dass, Going Home

Multiple references to the subject's past experimentation with psychedelic drugs. Mind-altering drugs remembered as a positive, enlightening thing that enabled the subject to both experience and effect change.

Parents need to know that Ram Dass, Going Home is a short, beautifully drawn, optimistic portrait of Ram Dass, an iconic 20th-century spiritual leader, at age 87 in his home in Maui after he had a debilitating stroke. One of the most well-known of counterculture personalities in the 1960s, '70s, and beyond, Ram Dass authored numerous books (including Be Here Now, a game changer in 1971), taught at Harvard University, and, along with Timothy Leary, was fired after experimenting with and promoting psychedelic drugs. The decades that followed -- years filled with spiritual journeys, teaching, writings, and philanthropy -- testified to the fact that Ram Dass was not, as some thought at the time, a phony or pretender. And, as this documentary shows, with only a bare minimum of attention devoted to revealing Ram Dass as he once was, the man is a master of "living in the moment" and still enjoys the profundities of nature, of awareness, connectedness, and peace. He faces his last years and death with much more than gentle acceptance. Ram Dass has "made friends with change" and sees this life's termination "not as an error, not a failure, but as taking off a tight shoe." For those old enough to remember his many years of significant impact, this film will come as no surprise. For others, it's a satisfying introduction and a comforting film that offers adults and mature teens much to think about.

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