The stroke has given me another way to serve people. It lets me

The words of Ram Dass, the sage who once walked between the worlds of intellect and spirit, echo with a serenity born of suffering: “The stroke has given me another way to serve people. It lets me feel more deeply the pain of others; to help them know by example that ultimately, whatever happens, no harm can come. ‘Death is perfectly safe,’ I like to say.” In this profound utterance, we hear not the lament of a man broken by illness, but the song of one who has transcended it. It is the voice of a soul who has learned that even in pain, there is grace; even in death, there is peace.

Ram Dass, once known as the Harvard professor Richard Alpert, walked the path from the mind to the spirit. In his youth, he sought knowledge through intellect and science; in his later life, he sought it through surrender and love. When the stroke struck him in 1997, it took from him the ease of speech and movement, yet it gave him something greater—compassion without barrier. He could no longer merely teach that we are not the body; now he lived that truth. Through his suffering, he discovered that the true self, the divine essence within, remains untouched by circumstance.

This is what he means when he says, “Whatever happens, no harm can come.” To the ordinary mind, this seems impossible—how can one be unharmed amidst pain, paralysis, or loss? But to the awakened soul, the harm is only to the body, not to the spirit. The eternal self, like a flame untouched by wind, burns quietly beneath all the storms of existence. The stroke, which could have been a prison, became his teacher. It stripped away the illusion of control and revealed that service, empathy, and surrender are the highest forms of freedom.

Consider the story of Helen Keller, who lost her sight and hearing before she could even speak. Yet from her silence and darkness, she became a beacon of light to millions. Her life, like Ram Dass’s, teaches that limitation can be liberation. When the body falters, the soul awakens. When the outer world falls away, the inner world unfolds. Helen Keller once wrote, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” Ram Dass lived this same truth: his stroke did not end his journey—it completed it.

When he says, “Death is perfectly safe,” he is not speaking from denial or naivety. He speaks from the ancient wisdom known to the mystics, the saints, and the enlightened of every age. Death is not the destroyer—it is the revealer. It strips away all illusion and brings the soul home to its source. To those who fear it, it appears as an end; to those who know, it is a return. The fear of death is the root of all other fears; when that is gone, life can be lived fully, freely, joyfully. Thus, Ram Dass, even in his frail body, radiated the calm of one who had already crossed the threshold of fear.

His message is a teaching of service through suffering. Before his stroke, he served with words and teachings; afterward, he served through presence and example. His body became a vessel of compassion. In his pain, he could meet others in theirs. In his silence, he could hear the cries of the world more clearly. To serve others is the highest purpose of the awakened life, and his illness became a new path to serve—not by doing, but by being.

Lesson and Practice:
Let suffering not harden you, but open you. When pain comes, do not curse it; ask what it has come to teach. See in every loss an invitation to grow in compassion. Remember that no matter what befalls the body, the soul remains unscarred. Live as though you are already free, for in truth, you are. And when fear of death whispers in your ear, answer it with the calm of Ram Dass: “Death is perfectly safe.” For life and death are but two breaths of the same divine rhythm—and once you see that, you will live in peace no storm can touch, and love in a way no death can end.