December 23, 2019

"Ram Dass was the master of the one-liner, the two-liner, the ocean-liner."

Said Wavy Gravy, quoted in "Baba Ram Dass, Proponent of LSD and New Age Enlightenment, Dies at 88/Born Richard Alpert, he returned from a trip to India as a bushy-bearded, barefoot, white-robed guru and wrote more than a dozen inspirational books" (NYT).
Baba Ram Dass, who epitomized the 1960s of legend by popularizing psychedelic drugs with Timothy Leary, a fellow Harvard academic, before finding spiritual inspiration in India, died on Sunday at his home on Maui. He was 88....

He was particularly interested in the dying. He started a foundation to help people use death as a journey of spiritual awakening and spoke of establishing a self-help line, “Dial-a-Death,” for this purpose.

When Mr. Leary was dying in 1996 — and wishing to do it “actively and creatively,” as he put it — he called for Ram Dass. Over the years, Ram Dass had alternately been Mr. Leary’s disciple, enemy and, at the end, friend. In a film clip of the two men preparing for Mr. Leary’s death, Ram Dass turns to Leary, hugs him and says, “It’s been a hell of a dance, hasn’t it?”...

[At one point he held] appointments, in psychology and education, at Harvard. He was ... riding high, with an apartment full of exquisite antiques, a Mercedes sedan, an MG spots car, a Triumph motorcycle and his own Cessna airplane. It was at Harvard where he crossed paths with Mr. Leary, who was lecturing there in clinical psychology. They became drinking buddies. Mr. Alpert admired Mr. Leary’s iconoclasm, telling Tufts University Magazine in 2006 that Mr. Leary was “the only person on the faculty who wasn’t impressed with Harvard.”...
The 2 men were kicked out of Harvard together  — "Mr. Alpert for giving drugs to an undergraduate, and Mr. Leary for abandoning his classes." Later, "Mr. Leary accused Mr. Alpert of trying to seduce his 15-year-old son, Jack," and Jack told his father that "Uncle Dick may be a jerk, but he’s not evil."
Mr. Alpert went to India in 1967 more as a tourist than as a pilgrim. Events led him to a twinkly, old man wrapped in a blanket: Neem Karoli Baba, who was called Maharajji, or great king, by his followers.... It was Maharajji who gave Mr. Alpert the name Ram Dass, or servant of God, and added the prefix, Baba, a term of respect meaning father.

Ram Dass gave Maharajji some LSD, but it had no effect. Ram Dass surmised that the guru’s consciousness had already been so awakened that drugs were powerless to alter it...

Ram Dass hit the lecture circuit, his presentation a mix of pithy wisdom and humor, often joined in the same sentence. “Treat everyone you meet like God in drag,” he said in one talk. Wavy Gravy, the eccentric poet and peace activist, once said, “Ram Dass was the master of the one-liner, the two-liner, the ocean-liner.”...

By the 1980s, Ram Dass had a change of mind and image. He shaved off the beard but left a neatly trimmed mustache. He tried to drop his Indian name — he no longer wanted to be a cult figure — but his publisher vetoed the idea. He said that he had never intended to be a guru and that Harvard had been right to throw him out....

He said he realized that his 400 LSD trips had not been nearly as enlightening as his drugless spiritual epiphanies.... He said other religions, including the Judaism that he had rejected as a young man, were as valid as Eastern religions.

In a 1997 interview with the website “Gay Today,” Ram Dass said he had always been primarily homosexual, despite earlier statements that he was bisexual. “I always had a front to go to faculty dinners and things like that,” he said. He said he had had thousands of clandestine homosexual encounters.

45 comments:

Lucid-Ideas said...

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!” - Hunter S. Thompson

He named his farm 'Owl Farm'. Probably because after a lifetime of drug use he knew winged death was stalking him.

chuck said...

I attended a small Ram Das event in SF back in 1969. The man had a presence.

Heartless Aztec said...

Be gone then...

robother said...

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

Quaestor said...

It was Maharajji who gave Mr. Alpert the name Ram Dass, or servant of God, and added the prefix, Baba, a term of respect meaning father.

The distinct air of bovine effluent wafts from this one.

William said...

He states he had thousands of clandestine homosexual encounters. My guess is that if any of those thousands of men found the encounter to be coercive or manipulative or even just lacking in courtesy or consideration, they will keep their views private......I can't find the upside of death. I wish to avoid it for as long as possible and hope for a quick, relative painless one.

Fernandinande said...

Ram Dass gave Maharajji some LSD, but it had no effect.

That story is told here, and yet the Maharajji dude called LSD "yogi medicine". All according to Ram Dass, anyway.

Another goofy story:
"(Maharajji had quoted exactly the words of the diary, and he had showed me that under certain circumstances LSD could be the vehicle for returning to God.)"

...because a guy had burst a blood vessel by doing breathing exercises while on LSD, and Maharajji then determined from a high-school graduation picture that the dead guy ...

"He will not take rebirth. He finished his work. Now he is one with Christ."


I want some of whatever these guys were smoking!

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

I thought it was spelled "Rammed Ass".

rcocean said...

I'm not a Jew, I'm a Buddhist
I'm not a homosexual, I'm Bi-sexual
I'm not an average guy, I'm a Guru with a Beard.
I'm not a guy who wants to live to 88, I'm interested in Death.

And so it goes. Reminds me of all those Old Leftists, who on their death beds told the truth. They'd been lying for 40 years, and really were Communists.

Howard said...

Ram Dass es No Mas

Masscon said...

I recall clearly reading "Be Here Now" and setting up a "launching pad" in my room to focus on the journey of spiritual awakening...at times assisted by a little acid. I wish I could always have had access to the purer formulas.

Good times!

The Crack Emcee said...

rcocean said...

"Reminds me of all those Old Leftists, who on their death beds told the truth. They'd been lying for 40 years,..."

No different. That's all they do.

hiawatha biscayne said...

Baba Rum Raisin. As Doug Kenney wrote in National Lampoon, "Greetings from New York, my devoted sheep. And I know that I may call you “my sheep” because who else would follow an old wrinkled goat scrotum such as my humble self?"

Paul Snively said...

Friendly reminder: Baba Ram Dass's given name was used as the name of Nestor Carbonell's immortal sidekick character in "Lost." When we first met Rousseau, I remember wondering, "Who's next, Nietzsche? Kierkegaard?" It bothered me when they put the line "The ends justify the means" in Edmund Burke's mouth, and given Ram Dass' preoccupation with death, it seemed like a little bit better association to have "Richard" be immortal. Although how a Portuguese character ended up with a distinctly Jewish name remained a mystery.

Daniel Jackson said...

I met Ram Das in New Delhi in 1971. He was surrounded by young white blond male apostles and tried to recruit me to join him. I politely declined.

He was many things, tasteful and distasteful, and certainly flamboyant.

Yet, he helped bring acceptance to transcendental perspectives to a parched western spirituality of all forms. I am not a NEWAGE (pronounced SEWAGE) by any means; but, his place in cultural history, especially the US scene, is unmistakable.

He has passed on; and if no one else will say it, I will: Baruch Atah Adonai, Dayan Ha Emet, Blessed Are You, oh Lord, the Righteous Judge.

Paco Wové said...

Namaste, Boomer.

Iman said...

Ram Dass
was ist das?
dropping Owsley
taking it in the ass

Daniel Jackson said...

And Shalom to you, too, young Paco

ga6 said...

One of the centuries greatest scam artists..

Iman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
cf said...

I can only have respect and affection for Ram Dass, a champion for Direct Experience. What a Trickster for 1970s America, exuberantly upending our spiritual norms with that accessibly childlike "Be Here Now". You didn't even have to open the book, the cover alone cheered us on to "start again", "think different", "all things are made new".

later in the 90s, his "journey of awakening, a meditators guidebook" was used in a meditation class, where we'd choose and practice a different method each week to test-drive and observe results.

I was thoroughly impressed with his careful explanations: what a practical, respectful and gently explained round-up of ways the world has developed such Mind exercise, and some of that work broke open my own practices and understandings that continue to bear fruit.

G+dspeed, good man, Ram Dass

traditionalguy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
traditionalguy said...

Ram Dass was famous for being a guide of the naive youth into spiritual experiences that originate from taking hallucinatory drugs and having gay sex with their guru. But supposedly he was a really good man. Hmmm?

Bilwick said...

I read one of his books and liked it, mainly because it promoted an above-it-all outlook on life that was very appealing to me.

Narr said...

"Steal This Book" was funnier. Guys like Rammed Ass (brilliant!) lose me at "spiritual."

Narr
Doesn't winged death stalk us all?

Howard said...

IOW, Ram Dass was a newage Donald Trump huckster.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

Be Here Now had a positive effect on my life. It is full of crazy good sense.

Jim said...

According to Martin Gardner (RIP) his brother had nothing but contempt for him, and called him "Rammed Ass" for most of his schtick.

Nichevo said...


Tyrone Slothrop said...
Be Here Now had a positive effect on my life. It is full of crazy good sense.


Doesn't sound like my type of guy, but I did get some mileage once from that BHN shtick: right after 9/11, my best friend Mike, the Maturin to my Aubrey if you like, started in about backlash and our mistakes/crimes/whatever in the Middle East and everywhere, and it worked magnificently to stem his flow:

"Be Here Now, Mike. We just got hit and now we have to deal with it. Enough with the recriminations what do we do?"

At least I didn't have to listen to another round of weeping for poor Mossadegh or whoever.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

House in Maui, huh?

hombre said...

Ram Dass has ceased to “Be Here Now.” R.I.P.

Swede said...

yeah ok bye.

fleg9bo said...

On his tombstone: Was here then

Howard said...

Is that when you were a Skipper in the Navy, Nichevo?

Michael said...

Ram Das had money and a plane which he used on occasion to fly from their lair in Mass to Canada to resupply the clan’s LSD supply. He has had a hard landing after a major stroke a few years back. RIP.

Michael said...

Try T C Boyle’s Outside Looking In a fictionalization version of Dass, Leary and the early days of LSD. See also The Harvard Psychedelic Club.

Maillard Reactionary said...

So many lives wasted, so much time wasted, so many brains fried. All for a chemical shortcut to happiness--or whatever you want to call it. I saw some of the casualties.
What a waste.



bagoh20 said...

".. It was Maharajji who gave Mr. Alpert the name Ram Dass, or servant of God, and added the prefix, Baba, a term of respect meaning father."

I think Maharajji was playing the dude. The actual translation is "keeper of the glory hole".

And I'm going straight to hell for that.

Michael said...

Johns Hopkins has reopened their long delayed study of psilocybin which is showing promise for depression. More to come.

RichardJohnson said...

For the validity of taking the guru trip, consider Nicolas Maduro, devotee of Sai Baba. Maduro is a Sai Baba devotee.

Nicolás Maduro, declared winner of the presidential election in Venezuela, is an ardent devotee of Sathya Sai Baba and even has a large portrait of the late spiritual guru in his office in Caracas.

Doesn't say much for the guru trip, does it? Perhaps Sai and friends would say that Maduro needs as much spiritual enlightenment as he can get. The reply would be that years of following Sai Baba didn't stop him from becoming a tyrant who helped destroy Venezuela, either.

A hometown peer is a big Sai Baba fan. Has been for decades. Oh well..

Nichevo said...

Which Navy, Howard?

Howard said...

Tidy bowl Navy?

Nichevo said...

Ok Boomer. Was that a thing?

Lurker21 said...

He said he had had thousands of clandestine homosexual encounters.

Sort of undercuts the whole spirituality thing, doesn't it?

It's one thing to get away from the rigid strictures of monotheistic religions and another to give in to the flesh, desire, and opportunities to such a degree.

Will there be a scandalous tell-all biography coming out soon or was Ram Dass just not important enough to be remembered?

Tina Trent said...

Few seem to remember that Ram Dass and Timothy Leary were fired from Harvard for dosing undergraduates, and they also repeatedly gave small children -- their children, and academic colleagues' children -- LSD and other drugs and raped them at the Millbrook House in New York and at a secluded mansion in Mexico where they retreated when their drugging of children came to the attention of authorities. Winona Rider was among their child victims. Leary's first wife and daughter committed suicice.

There's nothing amusing or enlightening about these sickos. They destroyed countless lives. Their research was all fake. They should have died in prison.

When my college paid Leary to "lecture" on psychedelics and enlightenment in the 80s, I stood outside his auditorium holding a sign that read "Ask Me About the Millbrook House." Leary, high and drunk, got up in my face (he was a big man) and started screaming "Mindfuck, Mindfuck Mindfuck" over and over. People had to pull him off me. Some guru. Some truthteller. Ram Dass too. Pigs and child rapists selling snake oil.