I want to offer a public apology. This is no joke. Some years ago I wrote a profile of Ram Dass which appeared in West Magazine, the Sunday magazine of the San Jose Mercury News. He told me something in a way that I didn't understand. Now I do. I think I do. I didn't see it then. I'd like to apologize.  He was seeing AIDs patients and then on his 60th birthday he was going off to Australia to go surfing.  He'd always wanted to do that.  And I asked him how he would do that, thinking it must be very difficult to leave people who depend on you so much.  He said, "well I'll be surfing and they'll be dying. And that's just the way it will be."  Something like that.  And I thought how coarse, how tough.  What kind of guru is this?  Where's the compassion in any of that?  But I understand now.  I get it, as best I can.  I see how this works.  Although quite honestly I can't explain it.