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U.S. NEWS Tuesday 24 december 2019
Baba Ram Dass, spiritual guru

and LSD pioneer, dies at 88

MAUI, Hawaii (AP) — Baba "In the 60s, I was an uncle him to yoga, meditation,
Ram Dass, the 1960s coun- for a movement," he told Buddhism and Sufism, and
terculture spiritual leader The Associated Press in gave him the name Ram
who experimented with 1998. "I was always showing Dass, Hindi for "servant of
LSD and traveled to India to people where they could God." (He is often called
find enlightenment, return- go. I went east, and then Baba Ram Dass; "baba" is
ing to share it with Ameri- there was a big movement an honorary title.)
cans, has died. He was 88. east." Ram Dass wrote "Be Here In this Oct. 21, 1998 file photo, Ram Dass, best known for the
Dass' foundation, Love Now, he said, "the baby Now" when he returned to 1971 bestseller "Be Here Now," smiles during an interview at his
Serve Remember, an- boomers are getting old the United States. Around San Anselmo, Calif., home.
nounced late Sunday that — and I'm learning how to the same time, he told Associated Press
the author and spiritual get old for them. That's my The New York Times that
leader died peacefully at role." he had turned away from helped create the Seva years in the quiet town of
his home earlier in the day. The Boston-born son of a drugs, saying: "I don't want Foundation, which works San Anselmo, Calif., about
No cause of death was prominent attorney, Ram to break the law, since that to prevent blindness and 20 miles (32 kilometers)
given. Dass entered the public leads to fear and para- helps community groups north of San Francisco, sur-
He had suffered a severe sphere in the early 1960s as noia." in developing countries. rounded by the markers of
stroke in 1997 that left him a young Harvard psychol- In 1974, Ram Dass founded His Love Serve Remember his life straddling East and
paralyzed on the right side ogy professor. Alpert, as he the Hanuman Foundation, Foundation is dedication West: Japanese prints and
and, for a time, unable to was then known, earned a which set up programs to preserving his teachings statues of Buddha, sea-
speak. More recently, he doctorate at Stanford Uni- such as the Prison Ashram and those of Neem Karoli shells from the South Pacific
underwent hip surgery af- versity. Project to introduce in- Baba. and a well-used player pi-
ter he was injured in a fall in He and Leary, a Harvard mates to spirituality. He also Ram Dass lived for many ano. q
November 2008, according colleague, began a series
to his website. of experiments with hallu-
"I had really thought about cinogenic mushrooms and
checking out, but your LSD, giving the drugs to pris-
love and your prayers con- oners, philosophers and stu-
vinced me not to do it. ... dents to study their effects.
It's just beautiful," he told Ram Dass later wrote that
followers in a videotaped he tried psilocybin, the
message at the time from compound found in hal-
his hospital bed in Hawaii. lucinogenic mushrooms, in
Over the years, Ram Dass Leary's living room.
— born Richard Alpert — "I peered into the semidark-
associated with the likes ness and recognized none
of Timothy Leary and Allen other than myself in cap
Ginsberg. He wrote about and gown and hood," he
his experiences with drugs, wrote. "It was as if that part
set up projects to help pris- of me, which was a Har-
oners and those facing ter- vard professor, had sepa-
minal illness and sought to rated or dissociated itself
enlighten others about the from me."
universal struggle with ag- The experiments got him
ing. and Leary kicked out of
But he was best known for Harvard in 1963.
the 1971 "Be Here Now," "It was a little too sensation-
written after his trip to India. al," Ram Dass said in 1998.
The spiritual primer found "We were the starters of it."
its way into thousands of He and Leary retreated to
backpacks around the an upstate New York man-
world. sion that drew Beat Gen-
"I want to share with you the eration figures Ginsberg,
parts of the internal journey William Burroughs and Jack
that never get written up Kerouac.
in the mass media ...," he By the late 1960s, LSD and
wrote. "I'm not interested in other hallucinogens had
what you read in the Sat- become part of pop cul-
urday Evening Post about ture and a rite of passage
LSD. This is the story of what for many young Americans.
goes on inside a human But Alpert eventually sought
being who is undergoing all a way to reach a state
these experiences." of enlightenment without
Among his other books drugs. Following Ginsberg's
were "How Can I Help?" advice, he headed to India
and "Compassion in Ac- in 1967, where he met the
tion" and "Still Here: Em- man who became his guru,
bracing Aging, Changing, Neem Karoli Baba.
and Dying." There, his guru introduced