Was Here When: Ram Dass dead at 88

Andrew Limbong, All Things Considered obituary (National Public Radio, NPR.org, December 23, 2019); Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Sheldon S. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Ram Dass (formerly Harvard's Dr. Richard Alpert) alive and well in Hawaii for Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman's wedding. Ram Dass was alert and active but slow with a speech impediment due to a stroke. He was helpful to the Buddhist organization and founder of insightLA.org.

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Ram Dass, spiritual teacher and psychedelics pioneer, dies at 88

Ram Dass, 1st Unitarian Church, SF, 1970 (Altman/Ochs)

The spiritual leader and author [of Be Here Now] Ram Dass ["Servant of the God Ram"] has died at the age of 88. He was an icon of the psychedelic [entheogen] drug movement of the '60s and '70s, as well as a champion of a mindful philosophy.

According to his official Instagram account, he died Sunday at his home in Maui, Hawaii. He was born Richard Alpert to a Jewish family in Boston. His landmark 1971 [Buddhist, Hindu, Eastern Philosophy] book, Be Here Now, opens with his origin story:

He was a successful, if anxious, professor in Harvard's Psychology Department. Feeling a certain malaise about his middle-class existence, he began experimenting with psychedelic drugs with his colleague Timothy Leary.

Important books on the topic of entheogens

"A deep calm pervaded my being," Ram Dass wrote. "Then I saw a figure standing about 8 feet away, where a moment before there had been none. I peered into the semi-darkness and recognized none other than myself, in cap and gown and hood, as a professor. It was as if that part of me, which was Harvard professor, had separated or disassociated itself from me."

He and Leary started studying LSD and its effects — research that garnered them a reputation and a large following. It also led to them getting fired.

Ram Dass at home in 1998 (Susan Rajan/AP)

Alpert and Leary continued their research at a mansion in Millbrook, N.Y., where the two solidified themselves as counterculture icons until the pair had a falling out.

Alpert then traveled to India in 1967 and met a Hindu mystic named Neem Karoli Baba, who gave him the name Ram Dass — meaning "servant of God."

Ram Dass returned to the United States dressed in white robes and sporting a long beard. He toured the country lecturing about mindfulness and spirituality. He wrote books that helped popularize New Age thinking.

Be Here Now the classic book

He also started foundations and charities that helped incarcerated people, blind people and, especially, the dying. He helped create The Living/Dying Project, which was devoted to helping people die consciously.

As his stature grew, he became increasingly uncomfortable as the object of a cult of personality. He told WHYY's Fresh Air in 1990 that his aesthetics — the beard and beads and robes — made it difficult for people to connect to him. So he ditched them.

"It turns off a lot of people that could be people with whom I could share a shared awareness or awakening, or our social concerns or our ecological concerns," Ram Dass said. More