SIDEBAR: RAM DASS (draft—need to check facts)
Spearhead of the psychological growth movement that began in
the 1970s, eloquent spiritual leader, counterculture icon, and social activist, Richard
Alpert, better known as Ram Dass, began his career as a psychologist to the hip
intelligencia.
In the summer of 1961, drug experimentation led him to the idea of God.
Alpert went to Cuerna Vaca with Timothy Leary, where they took magic mushrooms and
had an out of body experiences Alpert saw himself as God. (WHEN???) He came back to Harvard in the Fall of ’61 to do research on
consciousness-expanding drugs. In ’63, both he and Leary were fired from Harvard
faculty for experimenting with LSD with undergrads—as LSD was now illegal,
criminalized that same year.
Unlike Leary, Richard Alpert, with a Ph.D. in Motivational
Psychology (WHEN??), managed to keep his academic standing and taught at
Stanford University, where he was also Director of Psychedelic Review.
San Francisco, 1967: an electrifying year of social deconstruction and reconfiguration. In January, there was a Gathering of the Tribes where spiritual generation amassed for a Human Be-In. At the Polo Fields, guest speakers Ram Dass and Leary spoke to some 10,000 very stoned pilgrims who turned on, tuned in, and dropped out en masse. I was there.
Alpert, Timothy Leary and the Diggers hang out with the Hell’s Angels
in the Haight. Alpert lectured on LSD in San Francisco and UCLA on “Psychedelics
Drugs and the Law” Kesey’s Acid Tests in Santa Cruz).
After the breakup of the Summer of Love, and the Haight, the
hippies and anarchist Diggers moved onto the land with a circuit of communes in
Northern California, Nevada, and New Mexico. Alpert settled in??? Marin Santa
Cruz? XXX
After experimenting with mind -expanding drugs, Richard
Alpert turned to meditation to seek drug-free enlightenment. In mid-1967, Alpert’s
friend, Beat poet Allen Ginsberg returned from India and told him about meditation.
Alpert went 1st class in a Land Rover to India. In Kathmandu he met 27 year-old
Californian from Manhattan Beach? Bagawan Dass, who’d been studying in India
for years. High on peach melbas? they connected on several levels of spiritual
life, kundalini...
Bagawan
Dass toured with Richard Alpert. They went to the Himalayas where Alpert met his
future guru, Neem Karoli Baba, and became a disciple. Alpert experienced shaktipat
(spiritual awakening), and spent 3 months doing seva (volunteer work) at an
ashram while learning and practicing various lines of yoga. Alpert was given
the name, Baba Ram Dass which means “Servant of God.” When Ram Dass returned to
the United States (an expired visa), he lived in upstate New York (with
LEARY??), where he began lecturing informally about his experiences.... garnering a wide following.
Those recollections evolved in the groundbreaking book,
Be Here Now, which became something of a bible
in New Age circles. Be Here Now which
chronicles group meditation process in the New Mexico desert…xxx
“Richard Alpert used to talk about the orange basketball,”
remarked Stewart Brand some years after the Haight scene had collapsed.
“Psychologists had raised some ducklings with a basketball and they imprinted
on it as if it were their mother.
Wherever the basketball rolled, they’d follow it. That’s what the movement was
to us. That was our basketball.
Wherever it rolls, we’ll follow.”
p281 Rolling Stone editor Charles Perry, “The Haight Ashbury: A History”
(84)
Ram Dass’ guru died in 1973; Dass formed the HANUMAN
FOUNDATION in 1974 to “further the
spiritual awakening in our society.”(Hanuman is the Hindu monkey god of XXX) One
aim was to promote development of a broad base for meditation in the West. They began with a list of facilities and
helpful quotations which evolved into a best selling, popular book, Journey
of Awakening, the proceeds of which helped
to support the foundation.
Ram Dass’ continued rise in fame was partly in response to
the latent yearnings of the “Me Generation” in pursuit of spiritual connection,
of greater consciousness and equanimity, what Tibetan Lama Trungpa Rinpoche
dubbed as spiritual materialists.
“In the sixties, when we first encountered Eastern ideas of
enlightenment, we expected to be personally enlightened in a matter of a month, a year,
or a decade at most. …but now in the mid-eighties we have come to
appreciate the fine print in the Eastern texts… We have learned patience and
humility and an understanding that we practice dharma without attachment to the
goal” —Grist preface.
Ram Dass attempts to share with us “the unspeakable” to
“know what is not knowable. … For ultimately we will transcend knowing.” from
Grist, a pioneer who forged new psychological
territory in the West by bringing from the East, translations of teachings of eastern mysticism of the
westerner.
Ram Dass drifted into the Death and Dying Project late ’70s and
co-wrote a book with Stephen Levine, “Grist for the Mill” documenting one-on-one
work with death & dying and the spiritual path. The project created innovative
hotlines for the terminally ill, as well as centers, the 1st in Santa Cruz? Groundbreaking
videos of the project were filmed in Berkeley.
In the early ’80s, Ram Dass traveled extensively, visiting monks
and religious centers around the world. “The eighties are the sixties twenty
years later.” Wavy Gravy once
quipped to Ram Dass. During the ’80s & ’90s, Dass lent his name and
energies to a series of charities and volunteer projects, and was also the most
sought after speaker for new age conferences, workshops, the lecture circuit
and events where he was “known for ability to convey mystical ideas with lucidity,
humor and grace.” (Don Lattin,
5/26/97, SF Chronicle).
After his stroke in February of ’97, those closest to him said
the loss of language was the most frustrating aspect. If you listen with
patience, the old message still gets through; he communicates with what he
calls the “eloquence with silence.”
