Being Ram Dass

"Professor Richard Alpert's star fell fast. To the dismay of his wealthy Boston family, he got fired from Harvard over experimental use of psychedelics with his psychology students. In 1967, he traveled to India to lick his wounds and find himself. And he did, at Neem Karoli Baba's ashram, in a direct encounter with unconditional, unlimited divine love. He returned to America as Baba Ram Dass, countercultural activist for expanded human consciousness. As a spiritual guide, at the bedside of the dying, and as a stroke survivor, he has always been ahead of his time, pulling the world along behind him. The author of over a dozen books, he now shares for the very first time the full story of how his life of service intersected with an era of profound cultural upheaval. From the details of his groundbreaking research in psychedelics to his bumpy path to becoming a spiritual icon, from his struggles with his sexual identity to what it was like to find out in his late 70s that he was a father and grandfather, Ram Dass traces the pivotal points of his life against the backdrop of a mind opened by drugs, and a heart opened by a guru. Ram Dass brought America yoga, the use of psychedelics in psychotherapy, and a revolution in how we relate to death and dying. He has opened the door to the most important and healthiest conversations about the heart and mind in our culture. With this book, he opens his heart and mind to us"--

“Ram Dass lived a full life and then some. His final statement is thorough and, yes, enlightening.” —Kirkus ReviewsPerhaps no other teacher has sparked the fires of as many spiritual seekers in the West as Ram Dass. If you’ve ever embraced the phrase “be here now,” practiced meditation or yoga, tried psychedelics, or supported anyone in a hospice, prison, or homeless center—then the story of Ram Dass is also part of your story.From his birth in 1931 to his luminous later years, Ram Dass saw his life as just one incarnation of many. This memoir puts us in the passenger seat with the one-time Harvard psychologist and lifelong risk-taker Richard Alpert, who loved to take friends on wild rides on his Harley and test nearly every boundary—inner or outer—that came his way.Being Ram Dass shares his life’s odyssey in intimate detail: how he struggled with issues of self-identity and sexuality in his youth, pioneered psychedelic research, and opened the doorways to Eastern spiritual practices. In 1967 he trekked to India and met his guru, Neem Karoli Baba. He returned with a perspective on spirituality and psychology that changed millions.Featuring 64 pages of color photographs, this intimate memoir chronicles the cultural and spiritual transformations Ram Dass experienced that resonate with us to this day, a journey from the mind to the heart, from the ego to the soul.Before, after, and along these waypoints, readers will encounter many other adventures and revelations—each ringing with the potential to awaken the universal, loving divine that links us to this beloved teacher and all of us to each other.