Ram Dass: Break Cycle of Addiction (audio)

Ram Dass; After Skool, May 23, 2023 (YouTube.com); edited by Wisdom Quarterly

Break the Cycle of Addiction: Ram Dass

Neem Karoli Baba reads about himself in Be Here Now

(After Skool) The Love Serve Remember Foundation (LSRF) is dedicated to preserving and continuing the teachings of an Indian guru and his famous American disciple.

[Love and sexually abusive Guru] Neem Karoli Baba [aka Ram or "God"] and Ram Dass ["God's Servant/Slave," formerly Harvard Prof. Richard Alpert].

Ram Dass got older and wiser.

The foundation facilitates the continuation of these teachings through online courses, blog content, films, podcasts, social network channels, and collaborative projects with conscious artists and musicians.

To learn more or support, please visit ramdass.org.

ABOUT: Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert, April 6, 1931–Dec. 22, 2019), also known as Baba Ram Dass, was a psychologist, American academic, spiritual teacher, guru of modern yoga, entheogen user [most notably LSD], and writer.

Be Here Now

Earliest book cover of Ram Dass' Be Here Now

His bestselling 1971 book Be Here Now, which has been described by multiple reviewers as "seminal" [full of semen carrying seeds that germinate or spawn further generations of influence], helped popularize Eastern spirituality and yoga in the West.

He authored or co-authored a dozen more books on spirituality over the next four decades, including Grist for the Mill (1977), How Can I Help? (1985), and Polishing the Mirror (2013).

Ram Dass was personally and professionally associated with Prof. Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s.

Miracle of Love (compiled by Ram Dass)

Then known as Dr. Richard Alpert, he conducted research with Leary on the therapeutic effects of entheogenic/psychedelic drugs.

In addition, Dr. Alpert assisted Harvard Divinity School graduate student Walter Pahnke in his 1962 "Good Friday Experiment" with theology students, the first controlled, double-blind study of entheogenic drugs and the mystical experience.

While not outlawed at the time, their research was controversial and led to Prof. Leary's and Prof. Alpert's dismissal from Harvard in 1963.

Romantic Western female hippie disciples couldn't get enough of Love Guru Neem Karoli Baba

.

Young Neem Karoli Baba was hot.

In 1967, Alpert traveled to India and became a disciple of Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba, who gave him the spiritual name "Ram Dass," meaning "Slave of Ram," but usually rendered as simply "Servant of God" for Western audiences.

In the coming years, he founded the charitable organizations Seva ["Selfless Service"] Foundation and Hanuman [the monkey headed deity] Foundation. He traveled extensively giving talks and retreats and holding fundraisers for charitable causes in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.

In 1997, he had a massive stroke, which left him with paralysis and expressive aphasia, which made it very difficult for him to talk.

It's not how you look. It's how you love others.

He eventually grew to interpret this event as an act of grace, learning to speak again and continuing to teach and write books.

After becoming seriously ill during a trip to India in 2004, he gave up traveling and moved to the island of Maui in Hawaii, where he hosted annual retreats with other spiritual teachers [like awakened Buddhist teachers Trudy Goodman and Jack Kornfield, whom he married] until his death in 2019.