The character arc of Ram Dass
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born Richard Alpert on 6 April 1931. Between then and his death sit a Harvard psychology post, research with Timothy Leary on the therapeutic effects of psychedelic drugs, a role in the first controlled double blind study of drugs and mystical experience in 1962, dismissal from Harvard in 1963, a journey to India in 1967, a guru who renamed him, Be Here Now in 1971, two charitable foundations, twelve more books, a stroke in 1997 that took his speech, a second near fatal stroke in 2004, and a last fifteen years teaching from Maui. The line below draws the whole story.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who was Ram Dass?
Harvard let him go at thirty two. It was the making of him.
He was Richard Alpert, a psychologist at Harvard, professionally and personally tied to Timothy Leary, and in the early 1960s the two of them researched the therapeutic effects of psychedelic drugs. He also helped a divinity school student run the 1962 Good Friday Experiment with theology students, the first controlled double blind study of drugs and mystical experience. None of it was illegal at the time. All of it was controversial, and in 1963 Harvard dismissed him. He was thirty two, and the career was over.
In 1967 he went to India. A traveller guided him around the country and eventually introduced him to a Hindu teacher, Neem Karoli Baba, whom he called Maharaj-ji and who became his guru. The teacher gave him a new name, Ram Dass, servant of God. The psychologist did not come back. Somebody else did.
He stayed for a while at a community in New Mexico, and in 1971 published Be Here Now, which reviewers have called seminal and which did more than any other single book to carry Eastern spirituality and yoga into ordinary Western life. Twelve more books followed over four decades. He co-founded two charities and spent the 1970s to the 1990s travelling constantly, giving talks and retreats and raising money for causes.
In 1997 he had a stroke. It left him paralysed and with expressive aphasia: he knew what he meant and could not find the words. For a teacher whose entire work was talking, it was the cruellest possible injury. He came to interpret it as an act of grace, learned to speak again, and carried on teaching and writing.
He nearly died from a second stroke in India in 2004 and moved to Maui. He published a memoir and summary of his teaching in 2013. He did not leave the Hawaiian islands again until July 2019, when he flew to New Mexico for the consecration of a new temple, and then went home. He died in Maui on 22 December 2019, at eighty eight.
The moments
Ram Dass's timeline.
The 1960s
The Harvard research
Milestone, and it changed his direction. A young Harvard psychologist, on a research programme nobody had run before.
The Good Friday Experiment
Milestone, and it changed his direction. The first properly controlled study anybody had done of it.
Harvard dismisses him
Setback, and it changed everything. Thirty two years old, and the academic career was finished.
Rebuild the career, or go east
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: go to India, taken, or rebuild in psychology. He came back with a new name and wrote the book that carried Eastern spirituality into ordinary Western life.
India, and a new name
Milestone, and it changed everything. He went out as a sacked professor and came back as somebody else.
The 1970s
Be Here Now
Milestone, and it changed everything. One book, and a generation changed what it read.
Twelve more books
Milestone, and it changed his direction. He kept writing for forty more years.
Two foundations
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Twenty years on the road, raising money for other people.
The 1990s
A stroke takes his words
Setback, and it changed everything. He could still understand every word. He could not find his own.
He calls it grace
Milestone, and it changed everything. The worst thing that happened to him, and he called it a gift.
The 2000s
A second stroke in India
Setback, and it changed everything. He nearly died in the country that had made him, and moved to an island.
The 2010s
Polishing the Mirror
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Eighty two years old, and he set it all down once more.
One last flight
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Fifteen years on the island, and he flew out once, for a temple.
He dies at eighty eight
Milestone, and it changed everything. At home on the island, twenty two years after the stroke.
The talks are still online, in the halting voice he had to rebuild word by word after 1997. What he set moving is the phrase itself, three words that got loose from the book and into the language, left behind by a man who lost the job, lost the speech, and kept going anyway.
Your turn
Every line draws a unique story.
His was a sacking at thirty two and a stroke at sixty six, and both turned out to be the middle of it. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Ram Dass: frequently asked questions
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Where did Ram Dass die?
Where does this timeline of Ram Dass's life come from?
More character arcs
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Sources
- Ram Dass, English Wikipedia biography.
- Harvard records for the 1963 dismissal and the 1962 Good Friday Experiment.
- Publishing records for Be Here Now, 1971, and his later books.