RAM DASS
Be here now. Ram Dass
Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) was born in the USA in 1931. He became an assistant clinical psychology professor at Harvard in 1958 and assisted Timothy Leary with experiments with psychedelics. As part of the research they were especially interested in LSD and the spiritual experience.
Having been dismissed from Harvard with Leary, they began operating a foundation that used psychedelics to develop the divinity in everyone using LSD and other psycho-active substances with yoga, meditation and mysticism.
In 1967, Alpert traveled to India and met Neem Karoli Baba aka Mahara-ji, a Hindu guru and devotee of Hanuman. He became Alpert’s guru and called him Ram Dass. Ram Dass studied with him for the next four years. In 1971, back in the USA, Ram Dass published Be Here Now which detailed his spiritual journey and became a guide to New Age movements. It became a counter-culture “bible” and influenced many including George Harrison. He also began teaching conscious aging and dying.
“We’re all just walking each other home.”
“We’re fascinated by the words–but where we meet is in the silence behind them.”
“I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion–and where it isn’t, that’s where my work lies.”
“Treat everyone you meet like God in drag.”
“The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can’t be organized or regulated. It isn’t true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth.”
Ram Dass died in 2019 at the age of 88.
Books:
Polishing the Mirror; How to Live From Your Spiritual Heart
Paths to God, Living the Bhagavad Gita
Resources: