This is an archive article published on December 27, 2019

Opinion Walking home

On his final journey, Ram Dass has become ‘nobody’, a condition to which he aspired all his temporal life.

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Slapping sedition charges on people for staging a play that allegedly insulted the prime minister, raising slogans and statements shows a deliberate misinterpretation of the law with the intent to curb dissent.

By: Editorial

December 27, 2019 12:14 AM IST First published on: Dec 27, 2019 at 12:14 AM IST

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Ram Dass, who has died aged 88, was born Richard Alpert, the son of a Jewish railroad company director in Boston.

White guru guy back from India with kundalini chakra on fire. LSD freak who gave it away too freely. Magic mushroom researcher who turned his own body into an organic chemistry lab. Such are the stereotypes that Ram Dass, disciple of Neem Karoli Baba of Kainchi Dham and fellow traveller of Timothy Leary of Harvard, discarded throughout his eventful life. He was one of the very few icons of the counterculture era who adapted to a rapidly changing world, and became a proselytiser of decency and humanity in everyday life.

From Leary’s “turn on, tune in, drop out” to Dass’s own exhortations to “be here now” and to “treat everyone you meet as if they are God in drag,” you see the trajectory of the counterculture as it swept down from LSD towards the contemporary nirvana of spiritual wellness. While hot yoga and levitation powered by transcendental meditation fail to inspire, and Carlos Castaneda is stuck fast in the country of the quaint, Ram Dass remains a comfort for hearts and minds bruised by life.

Dass, who has died aged 88, was born Richard Alpert, the son of a Jewish railroad company director in Boston. He was an alumnus of Tufts and Stanford, taught psychology at Harvard, flew a Cessna and drove a Mercedes. After he was kicked off campus along with psychedelic co-conspirator Leary, he came to India and was strongly influenced by Neem Karoli Baba, a humour-loving guru who was interested in the here and now, and who valued happiness. His teacher named him Ram Dass, and he is the link in the chain of being that drew the young Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg to Kainchi Dham in Uttarakhand. Dass touched innumerable lives before leaving this plane of existence. As he always said, “We’re all just walking each other home.”