It's hard to summarize what Ram Dass has meant to me. He was and is the closest thing we have to a western guru. He spent most of his life in loving devotion to everything and everyone. He wanted to show us how to transcend death and transcend ourselves. Not in a kind of spiritual ascetism, the body is a vehicle to samadhi. It's OK for the western mind to let itself go and stop trying to calculate everything, and prepare, and survive. Thanks to Ram, I know how to get enlightened, but I am not sure I want to. Yet.
Meeting Ram Dass changed my life forever. I am sure it enriched my life. He was like fertilizer for my soul. I could not recommend anything else more. The best thing I could ever offer anyone are these talks.