Ram Dass
Submitted by avi on Thu, 01/31/2008 - 13:29.Tags:
Biography
Richard Alpert was born in 1931, the son of a wealthy lawyer who was the founder of Brandeis University. Alpert studied psychology and earned an M.A. from Wesleyan and a Ph.D. from Stanford.
From 1958 to 1963, he taught and conducted research at the Department of Social Relations and the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.
While at Harvard, Alpert's explorations of human consciousness led him to conduct intensive research with LSD and other psychedelic elements, in collaboration with Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, and others. Because of the controversial nature of this research, both he and Leary were dismissed from Harvard in 1963.
In 1967 he traveled to India where he met the spiritual teacher, Neem Karoli Baba. Under his guru's guidance, he studied yoga and meditation and received the name Ram Dass, or "servant of God." Since 1968, he has pursued a variety of spiritual practices, including Hinduism, Karma Yoga and Sufism. His book Be Here Now brought him further into the public eye in 1971.
In 1974, Ram Dass created the Hanuman Foundation, which has developed many projects, including the "Prison-Ashram Project," designed to help inmates grow spiritually during incarceration, and the "Living/ Dying Project" which provides support for conscious dying. He is also a co-founder and board member of the Seva Foundation ("service" in Sanskrit), an international organization dedicated to relieving suffering in the world.
In 1997, Ram Dass suffered a stroke which paralyzed the right side of his body and significantly affected his ability to speak. Despite this challenge, he continues to teach, write and lecture.
Locations
Following a stroke in 1997 and a life-threatening infection in 2004, Ram Dass now resides on Maui using the Internet as the main vehicle for to share his being in online satsangs.
Ram Dass's online satsang includes Monthly Live Streaming Satsang with Ram Dass (live via webcast), Heart-to-Heart (one-on-one) Webcam conversations with Ram Dass, Historical and current Video and Audio archives via on-demand streaming, Meditations guided by Ram Dass, Shared Experiences: Anecdotes from satsang members about how Ram Dass or Maharaji have affected their lives, Daily Words of Wisdom.
57361 Hillcrest Drive,
Yucca Valley, CA 92284, USA
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Books & Media
(Paperback)
A Lama Foundation Book. Describes one man\'s transformation upon his acceptance of the principles of Yoga and gives a modern restatement of the importance of the spiritual side of man\'s nature. Illustrated.
Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook
(Paperback)
Ram Dass is an American psychologist and spiritual teacher who has studied and practiced meditation for many years. Here he shares his understanding and explores the many paths of meditation--from mantra, prayer, singing, visualizations, and \"just sitting\" to movement meditations such as tai chi--and suggests how you can find methods suitable for you. He illuminates the stages and benefits of meditative practice, and provides wise and often humorous advice on overcoming difficulties along the way.
(DVD)
Harvard professors Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary made countercultural history in 1963 when they were fired from that institution for conducting controversial psychedelic drug research. In the purple haze aftermath, Alpert journeyed to India and found his guru Maharaj ji, who renamed him Ram Dass (\"Servant of God\"). Best known for his 1971 bestseller BE HERE NOW, which was a spiritual touchstone of the era, Ram Dass became an inspiration to people across the globe. Filmmaker Mickey Lemle--who has known his subject for more than twenty-five years--intersperses vivid archival footage from hippiedom\'s glory days with intimate glimpses of Ram Dass today, as he continues to remake his life since being--in his words--\"stroked\" in 1997. Named by NEWSWEEK as one of the Top Five Non-Fiction Films of 2002, RAM DASS FIERCE GRACE is an engrossing, poignant meditation on spirituality, consciousness, healing and the unexpected grace of aging.
Open to the Infinite: Live at the Inner Directions Gathering
(DVD)
After a major stroke, Ram Dass returns with a vibrant joy and deepened wisdom, resulting from a profound encounter with Silence. In this video, he joins with singer Krishna Das for a very special presentation. This remarkable event is like a circle: Ram Dass speaks about his stroke as an act of grace, and about the profound gift of silence he has been given, while the melodious chanting of Krishna Das carries the words home to the heart. This is an inspiring video, which demonstrates that the silence of Spirit and the eternal chant of India both emanate from the same source.
(Audio CD)
In Part One: Finding and Exploring your Spiritual Path, Ram Dass speaks from the heart with wisdom gained from a lifetime spent on the path to enlightenment about the often rocky yet profoundly transforming road to living the spiritual life. With personal anecdotes and commentary, he illuminates a wide variety of ancient and contemporary philosophies, drawing from such sources as the Buddha, Russian philosopher Gurdjieff, Mahatma Ghandi, and many others. Here is down-to-earth advice for those on the path to spiritual fulfillment, the pleasures and pitfalls you will encounter en route, the value and potential dangers of teachers and gurus, and the importance of following your intuitive heart.In Part Two: Journey of Awakening, Ram Dass focuses on the moments crucial to the serious seeker of the spiritual path. Meditation is an essential part of that practice. Why meditate? To live in the moment. To dwell in the harmony of things. To awaken. Those moments in your life when there is an openness, a spacious quality to your existence —those are the moments that truly make life remarkable.
(Audio CD)
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