PRACTICE
By Amy V. Dewhurst // Photos by Perry Julien
Ram Dass: Hail The Goer!
B
efore Ram Dass was Ram Dass, he
was Richard Alpert ---- a psychology
professor who had been famously
kicked out of Harvard with Timothy Leary
for experimenting with LSD. Acid-adventurer
Aldous Huxley gave Alpert and Leary a copy
of the Tibetan Book of The Dead, a Buddhist
manual that prepares the reader to leave this
lifetime, and travel directions for transcending
into what’s next. Within it the mantra, “Gate
Gate Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha”
is repeated. The duo couldn’t help but notice
their psychedelic experience mimicked the
process of dying described in the book.
Young Alpert meditated in his mom’s ICU
room. She was down to 80 pounds after her
enlarged spleen was removed. Ram Dass
remembers, “The entire hospital staff and all
the visitors seemed to be involved in a huge
conspiracy to deny the fact that somebody was
dying. I would watch the doctors and nurses
come in with that sort of professional cheeri-
ness: ‘You’re looking better. Did you have a
little soup? Oh, your color’s improved! How
are your teeth? The doctor has a new treatment
for you,’ and they would walk out into the cor-
ridor and say, ‘She won’t last two more days’.”
The leukemia was peeling off layers of
Gertrude’s personality. The nagging Jewish
mother concerned with job titles and material
accomplishments melted away. She spoke
softly, “Rich, you know you’re the only one
I can talk to about dying. Nobody will talk
to me about it. What do you think death is
about?” Richard Alpert answered honestly,
“Well, mother, from where I’m looking at
you, it looks like a house that’s crumbling or
on fire. But inside on the second floor there
you are...Our relationship is the same, but
this body is obviously falling apart.” She
nodded knowingly. He continued, “And from
what I understand from my own experiences
and my studies, I now feel firmly, deeply, and
intuitively that you’re not going anywhere.”
During their 44 years of marriage, George
and Gertrude Alpert exchanged a single rose
on each anniversary. As Gertrude’s casket
rolled down the aisle, a solitary rose fell to
George’s feet. Ram Dass reflects, “We all
looked at it. My father, who was a very con-
servative Boston Republican and philanthro-
pist lawyer; my oldest brother who was also
a lawyer; my middle brother, who believed
he was Christ; and me on LSD. As we looked