Ram Dass: From Psychedelic Professor to Heart-Centered Guru

Harvard Psilocybin Project – A Psychedelic Beginning

In the early 1960s, Richard Alpert (who later became Ram Dass) was a promising psychology professor at Harvard. Alongside colleague Timothy Leary, he co-led the Harvard Psilocybin Project, conducting experiments with psilocybin and LSD to probe their therapeutic and spiritual potential. Unlike earlier researchers who focused on psychedelics as inducing psychosis, Alpert and Leary were interested in expanding consciousness – studying mystical experiences and altered states these drugs could catalyze. Under carefully crafted “set and setting,” they gave psychedelics to graduate students, theologians (in the famous 1962 Good Friday Experiment), inmates, and even themselves, observing profound effects on perception and identity. Alpert later recounted that his first psilocybin trip with Leary and poet Allen Ginsberg was life-changing: he felt roles and even his body “drop away” until he reached a state of pure consciousness and love, repeatedly thinking “I’m home”. These early psychedelic journeys gave Alpert a tantalizing glimpse of a higher reality.

However, the Harvard project soon courted controversy. Reports of faculty giving psychedelics to students drew media scrutiny (one Newsweek headline queried “God in a Pill?”) and alarmed university officials. In 1963 Harvard dismissed both Alpert and Leary – Leary for neglecting teaching duties and Alpert for allegedly giving an undergraduate psilocybin outside approved research. This “Harvard drug scandal” effectively ended their academic careers but propelled them as counterculture icons. Alpert and Leary decamped to a mansion in Millbrook, New York, continuing their psychedelic explorations in a communal setting. By the mid-60s, LSD had escaped the lab and seeped into youth culture, fueling the hippie movement’s “turn on, tune in, drop out” ethos. Alpert later admitted that despite hundreds of psychedelic sessions yielding “ecstatic states,” he and Leary struggled to integrate those insights into everyday life. As he famously put it, “the highs and lows of psychedelic sessions had not led to stable [spiritual] expression in our lives”, and mere intellectual knowledge wasn’t enough for true wisdom. This realization set the stage for Alpert’s next journey – one that would take him far from Harvard and deep into the Himalayas in search of lasting truth.

An Encounter with the Guru Beyond LSD (India, 1967)

By 1967, disillusioned with the limits of chemical enlightenment, Richard Alpert traveled to India on a spiritual quest. There, in the foothills of the Himalayas, he met the man who would change his life: Neem Karoli Baba, affectionately called Maharaj-ji. This legendary Indian guru, wrapped in a simple blanket, had a profound presence of love. Eager to see if Eastern mysticism held the “map” he was seeking, Alpert posed the ultimate test – he offered Maharaj-ji a hefty dose of his best LSD, the very “yogi medicine” he’d been carrying for such a purpose. What followed has become the stuff of spiritual lore. The guru swallowed 900 micrograms of LSD – several times an ordinary potent dose – yet sat blissfully unaffected. Alpert waited in awe (and a bit of panic), but nothing happened. Maharaj-ji simply laughed. On a later occasion, the guru even feigned a goofy “crazy” face to tease Alpert, then snapped back to normal, again demonstrating complete immunity to the drug’s effects.

Maharaj-ji’s message to the astonished psychologist was gentle but clear: Yes, these substances can open doorways – but one can reach the same state through meditation and devotion. “LSD can put you in the room with Christ for a couple of hours,” he told Alpert, “but you can’t stay”. In other words, the psychedelic high is fleeting, whereas the spiritual bliss attained by a mind “firmly fixed on God” can be lived continuously. And the greatest key, Maharaj-ji said, was love – “Drugs can be useful, but love is the best medicine,” he counseled. This encounter was a turning point. Alpert had found a living example of the enlightened state he sought – a being who simply was, without need of any external chemical to experience cosmic consciousness. Humbled and inspired, Alpert became Maharaj-ji’s devoted student.

The encounter was even more profoundly transformative because Maharaj-ji demonstrated a seemingly impossible intuitive awareness. Without any prior information, he gently revealed to Alpert that his mother had died specifically from a spleen disease. This revelation deeply stunned Alpert, as he had never mentioned this personal detail to anyone in India. Maharaj-ji's accurate and inexplicable insight was undeniable proof, settling any lingering skepticism Alpert had about the guru's spiritual authority and the genuine depth of consciousness accessible beyond chemical methods. This moment of extraordinary knowing solidified Alpert's trust, cementing his path toward spiritual devotion.

Over months of living in India, Alpert embraced the yogic path of Bhakti (devotion). The guru gave him a new name: Ram Dass, meaning “servant of God” – in essence, servant of Ram, the divine. With that name came a new identity and purpose. Maharaj-ji’s core teaching was elegantly simple: “Love everyone. Serve everyone. Remember God.” Ram Dass absorbed this wisdom, experiencing firsthand the “unconditional love” radiating from his guru. He learned that serving others selflessly (like Hanuman, the monkey-god devoted to Lord Ram) was as potent a vehicle to awakening as any psychedelic vision. By the time Ram Dass returned to America in 1968, the wealthy, intellectual professor named Richard Alpert had, in a sense, “died” in the Himalayan foothills. In his place was Baba Ram Dass, a barefoot, bearded yogi bursting with compassion – a Westerner utterly transformed by Eastern spirituality.

Be Here Now – A Countercultural Classic

Ram Dass came home eager to share the profound truths he had learned. Settling for a time at the Lama Foundation commune in New Mexico, he distilled his journey into an unusual manuscript titled From Bindu to Ojas. The community helped to edit, illustrate, and publish it in 1971 under a new title – Be Here Now. Part memoir, part spiritual guide, and packed with mind-expanding aphorisms and whimsical drawings, Be Here Now became an instant classic. This 416-page manual chronicled Ram Dass’s metamorphosis, from Harvard exile to Hindu guru disciple, and offered Western seekers practical techniques (meditation, yoga, chanting) to discover their own higher selves. Its central message was encapsulated in the title: live fully in the present moment – “Be here, now!”

The book struck a chord in the early 1970s, when thousands of young people, disillusioned by war and social norms, were exploring consciousness through psychedelics and Eastern mysticism. Be Here Now guided many onto a more grounded spiritual path. It sold over two million copies, turning Ram Dass into one of the era’s most influential spiritual teachers. Reviewers described the book as a “countercultural bible” – a seminal roadmap for Americans embracing meditation, yoga, and the wisdom of India. In its pages, readers encountered not an abstract philosophy but the voice of someone who had been there: a relatable Westerner who openly shared his foibles and insights. Ram Dass wrote, “Ask yourself: Where am I? Answer: Here. Ask yourself: What time is it? Answer: Now.” – a deceptively simple exercise that introduced millions to the practice of mindfulness. Through Be Here Now, Ram Dass inspired a generation to look beyond material success or drug-induced highs and instead pursue a lasting awakening of the heart and soul.

Blending Psychedelics with Spiritual Practice

Crucially, Ram Dass did not reject his psychedelic roots; rather, he integrated them into a broader tapestry of spiritual practice. He often acknowledged that psychedelics had “shown him the mountaintop” of higher consciousness, but the challenge was figuring out how to stay there without continually taking drugs. “We did not know how to integrate these illuminations into life,” he observed of his Harvard days. The teachings of Neem Karoli Baba provided the answer: through daily practices of love, service, and remembrance of God, one could stabilize the enlightened perspective that psychedelics only fleetingly revealed. Ram Dass likened psychedelics to a ladder that can give a peek over the wall of ego – but genuine transformation required building a staircase via spiritual disciplines. He humorously quoted mystic Alan Watts: “When you get the message, hang up the phone.” In other words, once you’ve glimpsed the truth (the message), you should focus on actually living it rather than continually seeking more psychedelic experiences.

Through the 1970s and beyond, Ram Dass became a bridge between the psychedelic counterculture and the new spirituality blooming in the West. He co-founded organizations to promote service and consciousness – for example, the Seva Foundation (which fights blindness and poverty in developing countries) and the Hanuman Foundation (which launched projects like the Prison-Ashram Project, bringing spiritual tools to inmates). In talks and retreats, he guided followers in meditation, bhakti yoga (devotional chanting), and compassionate service. He encouraged people to treat all of life as a spiritual classroom, whether through caring for the dying, working through relationship challenges, or simply chopping vegetables in a mindful way. “Knowledge all by itself, without deep wisdom, ends up becoming despair,” he warned, reflecting on how intellectualism alone had failed to fulfill him. True wisdom, he taught, flowers from the heart – by seeing God in each other and in every moment. “Treat everyone you meet like God in drag,” he quipped, encapsulating the idea that the divine hides within all beings.

Heart-Centered Wisdom and Lasting Legacy

Over the ensuing decades, Ram Dass became a wise elder of the spiritual community, continually evolving in his understanding. He authored numerous books that deepened or expanded upon the teachings of Be Here Now. In Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita (2004), for example, he drew on the Hindu scripture to illuminate practical paths to enlightenment in modern life. “The freer I get, the higher I go… The more I see, the less I know. The less I know, the more I’m free,” he wrote, celebrating the paradox that true freedom comes from humility and surrender, not accumulating concepts. He emphasized letting go of attachment – “The world is won by those who let it go,” he quoted from the Gita’s wisdom. Such insights spoke to the journey he himself had made from head to heart.

In 1997, a profound lesson arrived in the form of a massive stroke that left Ram Dass partially paralyzed and initially unable to speak. He came to regard this ordeal as “fierce grace” – a final initiation into patience, vulnerability, and acceptance. “The stroke was giving me lessons, and I realized that was grace,” he said, noting how facing mortality helped him practice releasing control and living in the present. He later wrote Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing and Dying (2000) to share these reflections on conscious aging. Despite physical challenges, Ram Dass continued to smile and teach from his wheelchair, radiating the same joy. In Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart (2013), released when he was in his 80s, he gathered a lifetime of teachings into a warm, wisdom-packed guide. The title itself conveyed his core message: we are polishing the inner mirror to recognize our true divine nature. He encouraged practices like meditation, mantra, and gratitude as ways to “live in the eternal present, here and now.” As he wrote, “You can stay in touch with your soul by dwelling in the moment.” In these later years, Ram Dass often spoke of himself simply as “loving awareness.”

Despite decades of study and adventure, his teachings grew ever simpler and sweeter: Be present. Love everyone. Tell the truth. In Walking Each Other Home (2018), a conversational book on dying, he shared that approaching the end of life is the ultimate spiritual practice in letting go – and in extending compassion to others doing the same.

Ram Dass passed away in December 2019, at age 88, at his home in Maui. But his legacy lives on vibrantly in the millions of hearts he touched. His life journey – from a successful but dissatisfied professor, to a psychedelic explorer, to a devoted servant of God – stands as a map for inner transformation. He showed by example how one can move from intellectual exploration to heart-centered wisdom, using every experience as fuel for awakening. As Ram Dass often said, “It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path.” His path led him to embrace both psychedelics and prayer, both psychology and spirituality, East and West – integrating it all into a message of hope, unity, and love. To this day, when someone reminds themselves to “be here now” or to see others as reflections of the divine, the spirit of Ram Dass is smiling. In his words: “We are all just walking each other home.”

Key Teachings and Inspired Quotes

• Presence and the Here and Now: Ram Dass taught that living in the present moment is the doorway to the soul. “Ask yourself: Where am I? Here. What time is it? Now,” he advised – a practice that became a mantra for mindful living. As he wrote in later years, “You can stay in touch with your soul by dwelling in the moment.”

• Love and Compassion: The thread of love runs through all of Ram Dass’s teachings. Influenced by his guru’s mantra “Love everyone, serve everyone, remember God,” Ram Dass emphasized seeing all beings as part of one divine family. “Treat everyone you meet like God in drag,” he often quipped – a reminder to look past differences and honor the spark of goodness in each person. One of his most famous sayings encapsulates this ethos: “We’re all just walking each other home.”

• Service as a Spiritual Path: Ram Dass believed selfless service (seva) is a powerful way to transcend the ego and connect with the divine. Whether it was feeding people, working with the sick, or simply listening with full presence, he encouraged devotees to “love and serve all as a form of worship.” In his view, helping others purifies the heart and brings one closer to God. As his guru advised him when asked how to awaken kundalini energy: “Feed people.”

• Balancing East and West: A psychologist by training, Ram Dass had a gift for translating Eastern mystical concepts into down-to-earth Western language. He could discuss karma, dharma, and guru kripa (grace) in one breath, and talk about psychotherapy and personal growth in the next. This integrative approach helped mainstream meditation and yoga in America. Be Here Now and subsequent works like Paths to God showed that ancient scriptures like the Bhagavad Gita still speak to modern dilemmas, from finding one’s purpose to handling anxiety.

• Death and Dying: Later in life, especially after his stroke, Ram Dass became a compassionate voice on facing mortality. He taught that conscious aging and dying are the capstone of our spiritual work – opportunities to practice letting go. “Death is the biggest change we’ll face, so we need to practice change,” he reflected, framing illness and loss as teachers of surrender. In Polishing the Mirror, he wrote, “Whatever you need to do to get ready to die, do it now… Every moment is the moment you die. Every breath is the first and the last.” – urging us to live with an awareness of life’s fragility, and thus to live more fully and kindly.

Ram Dass’s journey through altered states of consciousness ultimately led him back to the most basic truths of the heart. He showed that enlightenment is not somewhere “up there” in exotic experiences, but right here in this very moment – in a shared laugh, in the act of helping a stranger, in the silent depth of one’s own being. His life invites each of us to blend mind-opening adventures with the daily work of becoming a more loving human being. As Ram Dass lovingly reminded us, “Be here now,” because the present moment – when met with an open heart – is where the divine and the ordinary become one.