Ram Dass was born in 1931 as Richard Alpert. His father, George, was a lawyer; he was a co-founder of Brandeis University, and was President of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. Ram Dass studied psychology, specializing in human motivation and personality development. He received an M.A. from Wesleyan and a Ph.D from Stanford University. He then served on the psychology faculties at Stanford and the University of California, and from 1958-63 taught and researched in the Department of Social Relations and the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. During this period he co-authored, Identification and Child Rearing, published by Stanford University Press.
While at Harvard in 1961, Ram Dass' explorations of human consciousness led him to pursue intensive research with psilocybin, LSD-25, and other psychedelic chemicals, in collaboration with Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, and others. From this research came two books: The Psychedelic Experience (co-authored by Leary & Metzner, University Books, based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead) and LSD (with Cohen & Schiller, New American Library). Because of the then controversial nature of this research, Ram Dass was dismissed from Harvard in 1963.
Ram Dass continued his research under the auspices of a private foundation until 1967. During that year he traveled to India, where he met his Guru (spiritual teacher), Neem Karoli Baba. Under Neem Karoli's guidance he studied yoga and meditation, and received the name Ram Dass, which means "servant of God." Since 1968, Ram Dass has deeply pursued a variety of spiritual practices including: devotional yoga based in the Hindu holy figure Hanuman; meditation in the Buddhist Theravadin, Mahayana, Tibetan, and Zen schools; karma (selfless action) yoga; Sufi practices, and Jewish studies.
Ram Dass has authored a number of spiritual and self-help books including the 'classic', Be Here Now, published in 1971 (1.2 million copies sold, 34th printing, Crown Publishers); The Only Dance There Is (Anchor, Doubleday); Grist for the Mill (with Stephen Levine, Celestial Arts); Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook (Bantam Books); Miracle of Love: Stories of Neem Karoli Baba (Penguin, NAL, Dutton); How Can I Help? (with Paul Gorman, Knopf) - used as a training manual in colleges, psychiatric care centers, nursing schools & volunteer agencies; and Compassion In Action (with Mirabai Bush, Bell Tower).
In 1978, Ram Dass co-founded the Seva Foundation--an international service organization working in public health and social justice issues in communities throughout the world.
Currently, Ram Dass continues to lecture and teach throughout the world on such topics as: utilizing service to others as a spiritual path; aging and its awakening potential; the relationship of business and social responsibility; personal relationships; spiritual awakening and techniques for such; and social activism.
Ram Dass is a co-founder of the newly create Elder Institute Project, which seeks to change the culture's prevailing attitudes and myths concerning aging and the role of 'people of age' in the society. During the past ten years Ram Dass has also served on the boards of the Omega Institute (8 years), The Hospice at Mission Hill - (a Boston center for AIDS patients), The Albert Hoffman Foundation, and has been closely associated with the International Transpersonal Psychology Assn. He continues to train AIDS volun-teers and to befriend many who find themselves with terminal illness.
