Riverview Movie Night

Thursday, January 12th, 7:00 PM

This month's movie is

RAM DASS FIERCE GRACE

When Harvard expelled faculty members Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary in 1963 for LSD experimentation, Alpert, the son of a wealthy Boston lawyer, traveled to India, met his guru the Maharaji Neem Karoli Baba, affectionately know as Maharaji, and returned to the United States as Ram Dass, or "Servant of God.” Since then, Ram Dass has continued to teach, inspire and serve others for more than three decades. Named by Newsweek as one of the Top Five Non-Fiction Films of 2002, RAM DASS FIERCE GRACE offers an engrossing, poignant meditation on consciousness, healing and the unexpected grace of aging.

Now in his seventies, Ram Dass remains best-known for his 1971 classic bestseller Be Here Now, a book which sparked a generation’s quest for expanded consciousness and meaningful spirituality. The film weaves vivid archival footage from hippiedom's glory days with intimate glimpses of Ram Dass today, as he continues to remake his life since suffering from a stroke—or in his words, “being stroked”— in 1997. While the illness might have broken others, it has provided Ram Dass with a new passion: using an unexpected, uninvited challenge as a tool for spiritual transformation, and using what he learns to help others face issues of aging, death and dying.

"When I first met Ram Dass 25 years ago," says filmmaker Mickey Lemle, "one of his messages that touched me was that we are both human and divine and that we must hold both simultaneously. He would explain that if one goes too far in the direction of one's humanity, one suffers. If one goes too far in the direction of one's divinity, one runs the risk of forgetting one's zip code. So his stories and teachings were funny, self-effacing, and with an extraordinary grasp of the metaphysical. In form and content his stories are about living on those two planes of consciousness, and the tension between them. His explorations took an uninvited turn, when he suffered a massive stroke. Now, he has been forced to live his teachings in a way he had not expected.

Against the vivid backdrop of half a century of social, cultural, pharmaceutical and spiritual history, RAM DASS FIERCE GRACE is a lively chronicle of a life well lived and a portrait of a spiritual teacher who has reshaped his physical limitations into an act of fierce grace.

"A fascinating documentary about the long and eventful spiritual journey of the guru who helped launch the New Age."
-- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, SPIRITUALITY AND HEALTH

"An ingratiating and comprehensive portrait of the widely admired spiritual leader."
-- Kevin Thomas, LOS ANGELES TIMES

"A generous, inspiring film that unfolds with grace and humor and gradually becomes a testament to faith."
-- Edward Guthmann, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE