Baba Ram Das

It was 1972. My house-mate Gerry and her layabout declasse patrician boyfriend Ned Dibble and I were driving back to school at UMass Amherst. They started out in Fairhaven and had collected me in my hometown Fall River. We were bound for our rented house on Route 9 in Belchertown.
Traveling on the Massachusetts turnpike, we decided to pull into the rest stop and hit the Howard Johnson's. On our way out of the place we approached our car and took notice of Volkswagon bus parked next to us along the sidewalk by the front door. It had been gotten-up very attractively with yogic emblems, meditation cushions, Indian fabrics, and a guru's photo on the dashboard.
Just as we were admiring it the driver came up.
"Richard Alpert," I said. I had instantly recognized a face then ubiquitous in the contemporary world of natural foods stores, yoga magazines, New Age events, and the whole boatload of trendy spiritual materialism. But I had used his obsolete name.
"Or Baba Ram Das, I should say," I added.
"Yes, either way is fine." He responded in a gentle voice.

Unlike today's headlong rush toward the next event horizon and concomitant jumpy reaction time, people in those days had a great way of just smiling and quietly feeling it a while. It was like letting the rush wash over you a second before going on to the next thing. It's kind of like an anachronistic hippie thing that drives coffee-achievers crazy. And this we did for a moment.

"You want to smoke some pot?" little, enthusiastic, and quite cute Gerry interjected just then.
As bearer of the stash in question, I took the responsibility of clarifying while he deliberated.
"It's hash, actually." I was actually a little concerned that she had asked because I'd read his books. "Be Here Now" was a counter-culture bible, and I had assumed from it that for him meditation had replaced the psychedelic experience.

"Sure, why not?" he answered. He suggested we move to some picnic tables which were in a fairly deserted area nearby. It was in the middle of the wide open parking lot and under flood lights, which made it a riskier spot than we ordinarily would have chosen. But he was self-possessed and confident about it and we were not about to miss this opportunity.
I asked him if his spiritual philosophy wasn't opposed to pot-smoking. I told him about some devotees of a Kundalini yoga ashram I took a course with in the Education department at school. I rode with them one night to see the Gandharva string choir at Mt. Holyoke college in South Hadley. When I said I did the yoga in the morning and smoked dope at night they became more than judgmental. It's clogging up your chakras they warned me. I later attended a lecture by their fearless leader Yogi. He said, "What does this mean to get stoned? If you turn yourself into stone you must wait again until you are dust then go through the entire process of evolution until you are human again." It sounded kind of like fun.

Ram Das explained that his spiritual philosophy consisted of not regarding himself as either a pot-smoker or as a person who does not smoke pot, to make his determinations anew as new situations arise. Coming from the guy who teamed-up with Dr Timothy Leary at Harvard University to begin the psychedelic revolution in earnest, this revised wisdom sounded sage and serviceable.
We sat on top of a picnic table and I filled a stoneware bowl with some feisty Afghani hashish. I set it afire and we passed it around-- and around. I made it a memorable chalice-full to give the experience some duration. It was such a joy. We became warm and intimate friends in minutes.
Minutes was all it took for our abandonment of caution to bear the fruit of fear. We found ourselves in a prolonged moment of surveillance as a Massachusetts state police car pulled off the turnpike. Following the roadway, they quite noticeably slowed down while driving toward us, then turned right by us. While we went immobile with dread, Ram Das showed none.
He calmly laid the pipe down on the table next to him. Whether they had seen it we knew not. It was rendered out of sight to the roadway but would be a bother if they exited their vehicle, as they like to put it, with those Doberman eyes fixed on us. They wouldn't need to search us--it was like a cop's dream come true. It's what they always say happened anyway--"Your Honor, the controlled substance was in plain sight."
His saintly peacefulness inspired us to be peaceful as well and our police karma was good. They drove on by without troubling these peaceful citizens of Massachusetts, all were natives even. (Ram Das was from Newton, I think, and Ned was from Leary's hometown of Longmeadow.)

Delivered, we sat and enjoyed each other's company for at least an hour. I remember him saying apropo of Richard Nixon, that no man is free of karma.
Then we boarded our respective motor vehicles and drove West. As I recall, he drove rather slowly and we soon lost him from sight.

I should note that Massachusetts state policemen are a highly formidable breed of cop. They are not like some California Highway patrolmen. They rule, and they know it, like ubermensch in high pointy hats and polished boots. All hip kids and most other people knew you did not want to get on the bad side of one. Had our fate been a different one however, we would at least have had glory with our notoriety--busted for smoking hash with Baba Ram Das at a HoJo's on the Mass 'pike!

Within a year or so after our chance encounter, Ram Das came to speak at a free campus event at UMass. I brought with me my copy of "Be Here Now" and I went over to see him milling at the lectern before it began. "Hi, remember me from the Mass 'pike last Summer?"
He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. In my book he wrote,
"On the road, we meet again and again until..."
I returned to my seat. Seated behind me was Judy Roberts, a lovely red-haired girl who had been a year ahead of me in high school. She was one of most hip girls in town-- rode a bike when nobody did. I had a crush on her but never knew her until meeting again in Amherst. The crush was over pretty much over, even with her nude-modeling for my advanced drawing class. But we were friends now and I patronized her little natural food cafe.
She leaned over next to my ear and said, "I saw you get kissed." It was quite an honor.

Looking back in all humility, I may have in fact been the charm that made him accept our invite. I later learned from his writings that he was queer. He wrote that his father called him, "Baba Rammed Ass." I was the unattached one in the trio he had met, and, blushingly but to create a complete picture, I'll admit I was pretty cute in those days too.