Becoming Nobody

After seeing some other reviews of this film that I don't believe did it justice (based on my experience) I felt compelled to write this review.

Overall, I was coming to this film the way I would go to a dharma talk. To hear Dass share wisdom, and see some of him in the process. Didn't really know what to expect.

What I found left me very moved and at the end absolutely transfixed, and deeply in touch with my being and truth. One interaction in particular between Ram Dass and the film maker moved me so deeply that I could learn more of his teaching from the interaction than from the talks.

Other views are certainly valid. I felt the need to share because depending on the mindset and expectations you have going in, you may find this film speaking to you in a way the raw score would not suggest.

Blessings.

First Hit: Moments of delight with Ram Dass are mixed with Jamie Catto's own agenda.

Instead of producer and director Jamie Catto eliciting information about Ram Dass and his life, we get him doing this and also spending time sharing his own spiritual journey and points of view. It isn't that this is wrong; however, I came to see a film about Ram Dass, a man who has influenced so many of us baby boomers and others with his willingness to expand our understanding of life as it is.

Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert) found a yearning from within to better understand life as he and others were experiencing it. He had questions about what and why life, the way it was unfolding for him, was unsatisfactory. With these questions, he began a quest to better understand it all.

Meeting with Dr. Timothy Leary, he started taking various types of drugs, psilocybin and then LSD to expand his consciousness. But it wasn't until he met Neem Karoli Baba, a Hindu spiritual teacher in India that he called Maharaj-ji, did he find his guru and path. In Maharaj-ji he found loving acceptance and limitless love for who he was.

The film intersperses current time interview segments with Catto, with previously recorded film and video segments of Ram Dass teaching groups of people. These clips cover a broad spectrum of his life and help to make this story interesting.

Moments, where Catto shared his understanding of Dass's teachings looking for approval and pats on the back from Dass, got tiring. At one point Jamie outright told Ram that he thought of Dass as his father figure and it came across, to me, as needy and approval seeking.

The film did not spend as much time on Ram's hospice work, for which he's very well known and respected. But Dass did talk a little about it by telling a couple of stories, in video clips, of patients he worked with. He also spoke about the importance of embracing both the concept and actual death as it arrives at each of us.

It was in these segments along with a couple of other discussions that I fell into enjoying this film wholeheartedly. I've come to understand many of the same things that Dass has learned through my own meditation practices and readings, including his books "Being Here" and "Still Here."

Catto, as I previously indicated, spent too much time sharing his own teachings and understandings, as I came to see this film about Ram Dass.

Overall: Not quite the film it could have been, but there are genuinely out-loud enjoyable moments.

I do not agree with reviewers that felt Jamie Catto was speaking too much or was egoic at all. I felt he asked good questions, beared his soul at around the 1hr 7 min point in thinking about losing Ram Dass, and from that point onward, it was the purest concentrated dose of Ram Dass's pure wisdom...absolutely beautiful, inspiring, heart opening, ego reducing, and reminding us to continue letting go and to keep evolving. Thank you Jamie Catto for this magnificent film that I have now watched for the 3rd time and still frantically writting notes on!! I love Ram Dass. I love this film. And love to you Jamie Catto!

Captures the essence of Ram Dass perfectly! This movie is a vibe. Love

I love Ram Dass to begin with, I've listened many of his old talks and watched the movie, Going Home as well. His humor, humbleness, his honesty about his own journey, openness about his own feelings and thoughts make you feel much closer to him and relate to as well. He is not preaching, as he says in the movie, he just tells his story like a close friend and a beautiful soul, so that we can see and discover the truth and the path to freedom in ourselves.

Although there a few things that would better not to take place in the movie, first being the producer's long talks that even outtalk Ram Dass most of the time and the clips that cause so much distraction that it becomes harder to concentrate on what Ram Dass is saying (that's why I've closed my eyes and just listened him most of the time), I still found the movie really beautiful and meditative.

I've just finished watching in the middle of the night in silence and it made me cry so much and I felt his presence in my heart. For me he was not a "perfect being" or a "saint" or a "guru", he was a beautiful human being who has gone through more or less the same journey and difficulties as all of us, has never played a role of a "guru" and has always been open about it with his humbleness and humor. I really love him and although I think the movie could have been better, I still loved it and would definitely recommend everyone to watch it.

The world has so much to learn from his love, compassion, beauty, humor and humbleness.

I'm glad for having the chance to know you Ram Dass.

Namaste.