These are excerpts from Ram Dass’ benefit lecture for THE SUN in Chapel Hill last August.

In our last issue (71) we printed an interview with Ram Dass, the former Harvard professor turned psychedelic explorer turned spiritual teacher, who has done for religion what the Beatles did for music.

In his books — Be Here Now, The Only Dance There Is, Grist for the Mill, Journey of Awakening, and Miracle of Love — Ram Dass translates Eastern ideas for Westerners and tells of his remarkable experiences with his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, or Maharaji, who died in 1973.