WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.180 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. We are so glad 00:00:02.180 --> 00:00:03.940 you are here with us today. Glad to be here. 00:00:04.120 --> 00:00:08.400 We are unpacking a story today that is, well, 00:00:08.539 --> 00:00:10.820 it's a bit of a shapeshifter. It's a biography, 00:00:11.119 --> 00:00:13.699 sure. But if you look at the source material 00:00:13.699 --> 00:00:16.179 we have in front of us, it almost looks like 00:00:16.179 --> 00:00:19.820 the file. on two completely different human beings. 00:00:19.879 --> 00:00:22.219 Oh, it really does. I mean, it's uncanny. If 00:00:22.219 --> 00:00:24.120 you were to take the documents from the first 00:00:24.120 --> 00:00:26.960 half of this life, and you stack them against 00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:29.019 the documents from the second half, you would 00:00:29.019 --> 00:00:31.000 swear we were talking about two distinct people. 00:00:31.280 --> 00:00:35.380 No question. One stack is just full of... Academic 00:00:35.380 --> 00:00:37.880 transcripts, tenure tracks, Brooks Brothers suits 00:00:37.880 --> 00:00:41.320 and, you know, high society Boston dinner parties. 00:00:41.460 --> 00:00:44.420 Exactly. The whole nine yards of East Coast establishment 00:00:44.420 --> 00:00:47.320 success. And the other stack is it's just robes, 00:00:47.320 --> 00:00:50.439 incense, beads and these these really heavy discussions 00:00:50.439 --> 00:00:53.020 about. planes of consciousness and serving God. 00:00:53.159 --> 00:00:55.460 Right. And the fascinating thing, and this is 00:00:55.460 --> 00:00:57.659 really why we're doing this deep dive, is that 00:00:57.659 --> 00:00:59.820 these two lives were lived by the exact same 00:00:59.820 --> 00:01:02.600 biological person. We're talking about the transformation 00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:06.060 of Dr. Richard Alpert, the buttoned up Harvard 00:01:06.060 --> 00:01:09.079 psychologist, into Ram Dass, the, you know, the 00:01:09.079 --> 00:01:12.099 counterculture icon and spiritual teacher. And 00:01:12.099 --> 00:01:13.780 I think for a lot of people listening, that name 00:01:13.780 --> 00:01:16.730 Ram Dass rings a bell. Oh, for sure. Maybe they've 00:01:16.730 --> 00:01:19.810 seen that square blue book, Be Here Now, on a 00:01:19.810 --> 00:01:22.310 friend's coffee table. Yeah. Or maybe they just 00:01:22.310 --> 00:01:24.790 know the name as a sort of vague cultural reference 00:01:24.790 --> 00:01:27.269 to the 60s. Right. He has this massive cultural 00:01:27.269 --> 00:01:29.310 footprint. You mentioned Be Here Now. That thing 00:01:29.310 --> 00:01:32.290 sold two million copies. It's wild. Two million. 00:01:32.780 --> 00:01:35.920 But what often gets lost in the haze of the 60s 00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:38.219 is the actual trajectory. How do you get from 00:01:38.219 --> 00:01:41.060 point A to point B? Exactly. Because this isn't 00:01:41.060 --> 00:01:43.379 just a story about a guy who decided to change 00:01:43.379 --> 00:01:46.579 careers. This is a story about someone who completely 00:01:46.579 --> 00:01:50.379 dismantled his own identity brick by brick. And 00:01:50.379 --> 00:01:52.239 that is really the mission for this deep dive, 00:01:52.359 --> 00:01:54.140 isn't it? Yeah. We aren't just doing a history 00:01:54.140 --> 00:01:57.549 lesson. We're using his life. as a kind of lens 00:01:57.549 --> 00:02:00.870 to look at identity itself. Precisely. And looking 00:02:00.870 --> 00:02:02.569 at our sources, which, I mean, they range from 00:02:02.569 --> 00:02:05.150 his early academic work on anxiety. Which is 00:02:05.150 --> 00:02:08.090 so ironic. Oh, we'll get to that. But yeah, from 00:02:08.090 --> 00:02:10.969 that to the Harvard controversies, his pilgrimage 00:02:10.969 --> 00:02:13.930 to India, and then all the way to his later writings 00:02:13.930 --> 00:02:16.270 on stroke recovery, we're essentially looking 00:02:16.270 --> 00:02:19.530 at a case study in human reinvention. Yeah. We 00:02:19.530 --> 00:02:21.669 want to understand how a tenure -track professor 00:02:21.669 --> 00:02:25.580 became this... This bridge between Western intellect 00:02:25.580 --> 00:02:28.000 and Eastern spirituality. And there are some 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:29.900 really heavy themes here that I think are super 00:02:29.900 --> 00:02:32.199 relevant today. We're going to talk about success. 00:02:33.219 --> 00:02:35.479 Specifically, why getting everything you ever 00:02:35.479 --> 00:02:38.719 thought you wanted sometimes feels just awful. 00:02:38.860 --> 00:02:41.759 The hollowness of it. We're going to talk about 00:02:41.759 --> 00:02:43.680 service. And we are definitely going to talk 00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:46.620 about aging and the body. Because his concept 00:02:46.620 --> 00:02:49.139 of fierce grace is something I think everyone, 00:02:49.319 --> 00:02:51.449 and I mean everyone, needs to hear. It's just 00:02:51.449 --> 00:02:53.930 a profound insight into how to handle suffering. 00:02:54.169 --> 00:02:56.189 But, you know, you can't really understand the 00:02:56.189 --> 00:02:58.349 resolution without understanding the tension. 00:02:58.550 --> 00:03:00.729 So we have to start at the beginning. Before 00:03:00.729 --> 00:03:03.610 he was a guru, before the beard, before the robes, 00:03:03.610 --> 00:03:05.750 he was living what you might call the gold star 00:03:05.750 --> 00:03:08.370 life. Let's open that file then, the file on 00:03:08.370 --> 00:03:11.789 Richard Alpert. Because this guy, he wasn't an 00:03:11.789 --> 00:03:14.349 outsider looking in. He was the ultimate insider. 00:03:14.629 --> 00:03:18.110 Oh, completely. Born in 1931 in Boston. And to 00:03:18.110 --> 00:03:19.990 understand Richard Alpert, you really have to 00:03:19.990 --> 00:03:22.610 understand the family dynamic. His father was 00:03:22.610 --> 00:03:24.569 George Alpert. And this wasn't just some guy. 00:03:24.770 --> 00:03:28.389 No, not at all. This was a man of immense prominence, 00:03:28.449 --> 00:03:31.550 a super successful lawyer, a founder of Brandeis 00:03:31.550 --> 00:03:34.430 University. And he eventually became the president 00:03:34.430 --> 00:03:37.550 of the New Haven Railroad. Wow. So we're talking 00:03:37.550 --> 00:03:40.509 about a high achieving, wealthy, upper middle 00:03:40.509 --> 00:03:44.330 class Jewish family. The expectations must have 00:03:44.330 --> 00:03:47.080 been just. sky high. They were stratospheric. 00:03:47.280 --> 00:03:48.919 I mean, you can almost picture it. There was 00:03:48.919 --> 00:03:51.560 a checklist of success and Richard was expected 00:03:51.560 --> 00:03:54.419 to tick every single box. And for the first 30 00:03:54.419 --> 00:03:56.219 years of his life, that is exactly what he did. 00:03:56.560 --> 00:03:58.340 I'm looking at the education timeline in the 00:03:58.340 --> 00:04:01.599 notes here, and it is relentless. It's one prestigious 00:04:01.599 --> 00:04:04.159 institution after another. He goes to the Williston 00:04:04.159 --> 00:04:07.199 Northampton School, graduates cum laude in 1948, 00:04:07.560 --> 00:04:09.800 then he's off to Tufts for his B .A. Right. And 00:04:09.800 --> 00:04:11.939 here's a little detail that really matters. His 00:04:11.939 --> 00:04:14.259 father wanted him to go to medical school. Of 00:04:14.259 --> 00:04:17.180 course. Of course. That was the crown jewel profession 00:04:17.180 --> 00:04:19.759 for a bright Jewish boy in Boston at that time. 00:04:19.779 --> 00:04:23.160 It was the path. But at Tufts. Albert pivots. 00:04:23.360 --> 00:04:25.860 He switches to psychology. Which, to be fair, 00:04:25.939 --> 00:04:28.199 is still a very respectable pivot. It's not like 00:04:28.199 --> 00:04:30.220 he dropped out to join a circus or something. 00:04:30.339 --> 00:04:32.220 No, not at all. It was still academic. It was 00:04:32.220 --> 00:04:34.259 still serious. So he goes on to Wesleyan for 00:04:34.259 --> 00:04:37.819 his master's in 1954. And this is where the networking, 00:04:37.980 --> 00:04:40.399 you know, the academic old boys club really kicks 00:04:40.399 --> 00:04:43.699 in. His mentor at Wesleyan is a man named David 00:04:43.699 --> 00:04:46.480 McClelland. And McClelland sees something in 00:04:46.480 --> 00:04:49.680 Albert, this intense drive, this intellect. And 00:04:49.680 --> 00:04:51.579 he's the one who pushes him towards standard. 00:04:51.629 --> 00:04:54.290 for his PhD. Stanford. So he's moving from the 00:04:54.290 --> 00:04:56.889 Ivy League orbit of the East Coast all the way 00:04:56.889 --> 00:04:59.089 out to the prestigious West Coast. And he just 00:04:59.089 --> 00:05:01.610 crushes it. He earns his PhD from Stanford in 00:05:01.610 --> 00:05:04.410 1957. But I want to pause for a second on his 00:05:04.410 --> 00:05:06.949 PhD thesis because looking back on it now, it 00:05:06.949 --> 00:05:09.389 is almost painfully ironic. Oh, I saw this. The 00:05:09.389 --> 00:05:11.930 title is just, you can't make this stuff up. 00:05:12.050 --> 00:05:14.930 Achievement anxiety. So just to get this straight. 00:05:15.399 --> 00:05:17.699 The man who is frantically chasing degrees and 00:05:17.699 --> 00:05:21.139 titles and his father's approval is writing his 00:05:21.139 --> 00:05:24.100 doctoral dissertation on the anxiety caused by 00:05:24.100 --> 00:05:27.000 the need to achieve. It is the absolute classic 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:29.899 academic trap of research is research. Right. 00:05:30.060 --> 00:05:32.360 He was trying to intellectualize his own suffering. 00:05:32.540 --> 00:05:35.300 He spent years writing this dense statistical 00:05:35.300 --> 00:05:38.180 exploration of the anxiety produced by the need 00:05:38.180 --> 00:05:40.939 to win, all while he was drowning in that exact 00:05:40.939 --> 00:05:43.860 anxiety. It's like he was dissecting the bars 00:05:43.860 --> 00:05:46.079 of the cage he was living in, but he couldn't 00:05:46.079 --> 00:05:48.600 find the door. So he gets the Ph .D., he ticks 00:05:48.600 --> 00:05:51.360 that box, he teaches at Stanford for a year, 00:05:51.399 --> 00:05:53.680 he starts psychoanalysis, which, let's be honest, 00:05:53.800 --> 00:05:56.480 was basically a requirement for a wealthy intellectual 00:05:56.480 --> 00:05:58.879 in the 50s. What's part of the uniform. And then 00:05:58.879 --> 00:06:01.899 he gets the call that changes his career trajectory, 00:06:02.079 --> 00:06:04.389 at least for a while. The call to Harvard. His 00:06:04.389 --> 00:06:06.649 old mentor, David McClellan, moves to Cambridge 00:06:06.649 --> 00:06:09.069 to teach at Harvard and he pulls Alpert in with 00:06:09.069 --> 00:06:12.189 him. This is 1958. Alpert lands a tenure track 00:06:12.189 --> 00:06:13.910 position as an assistant clinical psychology 00:06:13.910 --> 00:06:16.709 professor. And just for context, for you listening 00:06:16.709 --> 00:06:20.430 who aren't in academia, landing a tenure track 00:06:20.430 --> 00:06:24.040 job at Harvard before you even hit 30. That is 00:06:24.040 --> 00:06:25.720 like being a first round draft pick into the 00:06:25.720 --> 00:06:28.779 NBA. It is the absolute summit. It's the pinnacle. 00:06:28.879 --> 00:06:31.240 And he wasn't just hiding in some basement lab. 00:06:31.579 --> 00:06:33.839 The sources say he had appointments everywhere. 00:06:34.540 --> 00:06:36.120 Like where? The social relations department, 00:06:36.439 --> 00:06:38.000 the psychology department, the Graduate School 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:40.079 of Education. And on top of all that, he was 00:06:40.079 --> 00:06:41.920 working as a therapist at the University Health 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:44.180 Service. He was everywhere. He was specializing 00:06:44.180 --> 00:06:46.939 in human motivation and personality development. 00:06:47.240 --> 00:06:49.660 He published a book called Identification and 00:06:49.660 --> 00:06:52.740 Child Rearing. So by every single external metric 00:06:52.740 --> 00:06:55.819 available in 1958 America, Richard Alpert had 00:06:55.819 --> 00:06:58.019 won the game. He had won. He had the prestige. 00:06:58.199 --> 00:07:00.699 He had the money. He drove a Mercedes Benz. He 00:07:00.699 --> 00:07:02.660 flew his own airplane. He threw these lavish 00:07:02.660 --> 00:07:05.279 dinner parties. He had the respect of his peers. 00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:08.439 He had made it. But, and there's always a but, 00:07:08.560 --> 00:07:11.120 in a story like this, what was actually going 00:07:11.120 --> 00:07:13.259 on inside his head? Yeah. Because if you look 00:07:13.259 --> 00:07:15.019 at his internal accounts, the picture is very, 00:07:15.079 --> 00:07:18.279 very different. A disappointing hollowness. That 00:07:18.279 --> 00:07:20.259 is the phrase that keeps coming up in his later 00:07:20.259 --> 00:07:23.180 recollections. Despite all the accolades, despite 00:07:23.180 --> 00:07:26.939 all the gold stars, he felt empty. There's a 00:07:26.939 --> 00:07:29.459 specific anecdote from the sources about his 00:07:29.459 --> 00:07:32.019 bar mitzvah that really stood out to me. It feels 00:07:32.019 --> 00:07:34.060 like the root of this whole feeling. It really 00:07:34.060 --> 00:07:37.500 is. He described standing there as a 13 -year 00:07:37.500 --> 00:07:40.639 -old boy performing the ritual, you know, reading 00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:43.319 the Hebrew, facing the congregation. It's supposed 00:07:43.319 --> 00:07:45.560 to be this huge moment of spiritual initiation, 00:07:45.920 --> 00:07:48.420 right? Becoming a man in the eyes of God. And 00:07:48.420 --> 00:07:51.019 what did he feel? He said it was flat, absolutely 00:07:51.019 --> 00:07:53.860 flat. He later said, and this is a quote, there 00:07:53.860 --> 00:07:55.699 was a disappointing hollowness to the moment. 00:07:56.040 --> 00:07:58.139 There was nothing, nothing, nothing in it for 00:07:58.139 --> 00:08:01.480 my heart. Nothing in it for my heart. Wow, that 00:08:01.480 --> 00:08:03.800 is just devastating for a kid. And he carried 00:08:03.800 --> 00:08:06.899 that feeling, that sentiment straight into adulthood. 00:08:07.040 --> 00:08:09.459 He identified as an atheist. He said he was inert 00:08:09.459 --> 00:08:12.279 to religion. He didn't have one whiff of God, 00:08:12.360 --> 00:08:16.839 as he put it. So religion was just another system. 00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:19.920 Just another social structure, another set of 00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:22.459 rules to follow. So you have this man at the 00:08:22.459 --> 00:08:24.980 absolute top of the academic mountain looking 00:08:24.980 --> 00:08:28.180 down and realizing the view doesn't make him 00:08:28.180 --> 00:08:30.920 feel anything at all. He's structurally successful, 00:08:31.139 --> 00:08:34.519 but he's spiritually starving. He's an expert 00:08:34.519 --> 00:08:37.139 on human motivation who has no real motivation 00:08:37.139 --> 00:08:40.179 himself other than maybe the fear of being found 00:08:40.179 --> 00:08:42.679 out. It is a volatile combination. I mean, he 00:08:42.679 --> 00:08:45.169 was... prime for a shake -up. And that shake 00:08:45.169 --> 00:08:47.409 -up arrived in the form of a new colleague who 00:08:47.409 --> 00:08:49.549 walked into the Center for Research and Personality. 00:08:49.789 --> 00:08:52.629 Enter Timothy Leary. The famous, or, you know, 00:08:52.649 --> 00:08:54.889 infamous Timothy Leary. Now, we need to strip 00:08:54.889 --> 00:08:56.649 away the caricature for a second. We think of 00:08:56.649 --> 00:08:59.309 Leary as this, like... counterculture jester. 00:08:59.389 --> 00:09:01.610 The turn on, tune in, drop out guy. Exactly. 00:09:01.970 --> 00:09:05.669 But in 1959, 1960, he was a serious academic. 00:09:05.809 --> 00:09:08.309 He was a lecturer in clinical psychology at Harvard. 00:09:08.450 --> 00:09:11.330 He had a very well regarded personality assessment 00:09:11.330 --> 00:09:13.129 model. He wasn't wearing tie dye and flowers 00:09:13.129 --> 00:09:15.350 in his hair yet. He was wearing a suit. Exactly. 00:09:15.980 --> 00:09:18.039 Alpert and Leary started working together. They 00:09:18.039 --> 00:09:21.039 were colleagues. They were friends. And in 1961, 00:09:21.360 --> 00:09:24.100 after Alpert came back from a visiting professorship 00:09:24.100 --> 00:09:27.600 at UC Berkeley, they decided to dive into a new 00:09:27.600 --> 00:09:30.779 and let's say controversial area of research. 00:09:30.940 --> 00:09:32.740 The Harvard projects. The Harvard psilocybin 00:09:32.740 --> 00:09:35.240 project. They began investigating the therapeutic 00:09:35.240 --> 00:09:37.620 and potential religious effects of hallucinogens, 00:09:37.820 --> 00:09:41.259 primarily psilocybin from mushrooms and LSD -25. 00:09:41.639 --> 00:09:44.059 OK, we have to pause and contextualize this for 00:09:44.059 --> 00:09:46.580 a second, because today. If you hear professors 00:09:46.580 --> 00:09:50.000 giving psychedelics to students, it sounds immediately 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:52.600 criminal. It sounds like a massive scandal. Right. 00:09:52.659 --> 00:09:55.019 The alarm bells go off. But in the early 1960s, 00:09:55.019 --> 00:09:57.860 this was completely legal. LSD and psilocybin 00:09:57.860 --> 00:10:00.259 were not illegal substances yet. They were viewed 00:10:00.259 --> 00:10:02.639 as these cutting -edge psychiatric tools. So 00:10:02.639 --> 00:10:04.799 they were seen as medicine, potentially. Yes. 00:10:05.279 --> 00:10:07.659 Sandoz Laboratories in Switzerland, the company 00:10:07.659 --> 00:10:09.879 that discovered LSD, was actually sending it 00:10:09.879 --> 00:10:11.679 out to researchers, hoping they would find a 00:10:11.679 --> 00:10:14.419 medical use for it, maybe curing alcoholism. 00:10:14.570 --> 00:10:17.029 maybe treating schizophrenia. This was seen as 00:10:17.029 --> 00:10:19.070 the frontier. So they weren't like hiding in 00:10:19.070 --> 00:10:21.289 a basement. This was sanctioned Harvard University 00:10:21.289 --> 00:10:24.190 research, at least at first. Correct. They founded 00:10:24.190 --> 00:10:26.470 the International Federation for Internal Freedom, 00:10:26.610 --> 00:10:29.649 or IFF, which is a mouthful. They were looking 00:10:29.649 --> 00:10:32.149 at how these drugs affected the mind. And this 00:10:32.149 --> 00:10:34.629 all culminated in one of the most famous studies 00:10:34.629 --> 00:10:37.309 in the history of psychedelic research, the Good 00:10:37.309 --> 00:10:40.370 Friday Experiment of 1962. I love this story. 00:10:40.450 --> 00:10:42.649 It sounds like the plot of a movie. Tell us about 00:10:42.649 --> 00:10:44.889 the setup. It was a controlled double -blind 00:10:44.889 --> 00:10:48.090 experiment. Albert was assisting a graduate student 00:10:48.090 --> 00:10:51.049 named Walter Ponke, and the goal was to test 00:10:51.049 --> 00:10:54.470 a very specific hypothesis. Could psilocybin 00:10:54.470 --> 00:10:58.370 reliably trigger a mystical experience in religiously 00:10:58.370 --> 00:11:00.210 inclined people? So they aren't just testing 00:11:00.210 --> 00:11:01.710 it on random people off the street. They are 00:11:01.710 --> 00:11:04.440 specifically testing it on... Theology students. 00:11:04.700 --> 00:11:07.559 Exactly. The perfect test group. They took 20 00:11:07.559 --> 00:11:09.759 divinity students from Andover Newton Theological 00:11:09.759 --> 00:11:12.779 School. Half of them were given a dose of psilocybin. 00:11:12.879 --> 00:11:15.480 The other half were given a placebo. And it was 00:11:15.480 --> 00:11:17.340 a good placebo, right? Not just a sugar pill. 00:11:17.580 --> 00:11:20.480 A very clever one. They gave them nicotinic acid, 00:11:20.580 --> 00:11:23.480 which is basically a high dose of niacin. It 00:11:23.480 --> 00:11:26.039 makes your face flush and tingle and feel warm. 00:11:26.179 --> 00:11:28.720 So they wanted the placebo group to feel something 00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:30.779 so they wouldn't know immediately that they got 00:11:30.779 --> 00:11:34.129 the dud. Smart. And the setting. This is the 00:11:34.129 --> 00:11:37.450 best part. Marsh Chapel at Boston University 00:11:37.450 --> 00:11:41.870 on Good Friday during the actual three hour Good 00:11:41.870 --> 00:11:44.809 Friday service. I mean, talk about set and setting. 00:11:44.870 --> 00:11:46.929 I can't make it up. You're taking theology students. 00:11:47.049 --> 00:11:49.250 You're putting them in a church on the holiest 00:11:49.250 --> 00:11:51.610 day of the Christian calendar. You're piping 00:11:51.610 --> 00:11:54.690 in organ music and then you're adding a powerful 00:11:54.690 --> 00:11:57.529 psychedelic compound. And what happened? What 00:11:57.529 --> 00:11:59.389 were the results? The results were staggering. 00:12:00.059 --> 00:12:02.039 The experimental group, the ones who got the 00:12:02.039 --> 00:12:04.740 psilocybin, overwhelmingly reported profound 00:12:04.740 --> 00:12:07.500 mystical experiences. Like what? What did they 00:12:07.500 --> 00:12:09.960 say? They reported a sense of unity with the 00:12:09.960 --> 00:12:12.360 divine, a transcendence of time and space, a 00:12:12.360 --> 00:12:14.960 feeling of oneness with all things, a sense of 00:12:14.960 --> 00:12:17.539 sacredness. It was statistically off the charts. 00:12:17.740 --> 00:12:20.240 It was considered for a while the first real 00:12:20.240 --> 00:12:23.120 scientific proof that mysticism could be catalyzed 00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:26.620 by chemistry. But Harvard is a very conservative 00:12:26.620 --> 00:12:29.730 institution. The administration could not have 00:12:29.730 --> 00:12:32.049 been thrilled about theology students tripping 00:12:32.049 --> 00:12:34.809 in a chapel. They were not thrilled. Not at all. 00:12:34.870 --> 00:12:37.679 The controversy started to build There were questions 00:12:37.679 --> 00:12:39.679 about the scientific rigor because, frankly, 00:12:39.879 --> 00:12:42.440 Leary and Albert were participating in the drug 00:12:42.440 --> 00:12:45.299 taking, too. Oh, yeah. They were breaking the 00:12:45.299 --> 00:12:48.120 objective observer rule. They weren't just scientists 00:12:48.120 --> 00:12:51.220 studying a phenomenon. They were becoming evangelists 00:12:51.220 --> 00:12:53.659 for the experience. They were just studying the 00:12:53.659 --> 00:12:55.320 drug. They were promoting the lifestyle that 00:12:55.320 --> 00:12:57.779 came with it. Exactly. And the rumors started 00:12:57.779 --> 00:13:00.559 flying around campus. They had a very clear agreement 00:13:00.559 --> 00:13:02.460 with the university that they would not give 00:13:02.460 --> 00:13:04.620 these drugs to undergraduate students, only graduate 00:13:04.620 --> 00:13:06.929 students. But, you know. The boundaries were 00:13:06.929 --> 00:13:09.250 getting very, very blurry. And that leads directly 00:13:09.250 --> 00:13:12.769 to the dismissal. 1963. A watershed moment in 00:13:12.769 --> 00:13:14.529 his life. They were both formally fired from 00:13:14.529 --> 00:13:16.850 Harvard. And the reasons are very specific in 00:13:16.850 --> 00:13:19.529 the record. Leary was dismissed for basically 00:13:19.529 --> 00:13:22.350 abandoning his post. He was skipping classes, 00:13:22.490 --> 00:13:24.730 leaving Cambridge without permission. But Albert. 00:13:25.440 --> 00:13:28.500 He was fired for allegedly giving psilocybin 00:13:28.500 --> 00:13:30.679 to an undergraduate student. Which was the one 00:13:30.679 --> 00:13:32.700 rule he absolutely could not break. He broke 00:13:32.700 --> 00:13:35.120 the pact. And the significance of this cannot 00:13:35.120 --> 00:13:37.799 be overstated. This severed Richard Alpert's 00:13:37.799 --> 00:13:40.059 tie to the establishment. He was no longer Professor 00:13:40.059 --> 00:13:42.120 Alpert of Harvard. He was an outcast. He was 00:13:42.120 --> 00:13:45.039 a drug guy. He lost the tenure. He lost the prestige. 00:13:45.200 --> 00:13:48.179 He lost that whole identity. He essentially fell 00:13:48.179 --> 00:13:50.679 off the ladder of success that he had been so 00:13:50.679 --> 00:13:53.299 desperately climbing his entire life. It was 00:13:53.299 --> 00:13:56.679 a complete and total break. So the safety net 00:13:56.679 --> 00:14:00.440 is gone. The academic career is over. Where do 00:14:00.440 --> 00:14:03.100 you go when Harvard kicks you out? Well, if you 00:14:03.100 --> 00:14:06.139 have wealthy, supportive patrons, you go to Millbrook, 00:14:06.139 --> 00:14:08.779 New York. The Hitchcock Estate. This part of 00:14:08.779 --> 00:14:10.500 the story always feels so cinematic to me, like 00:14:10.500 --> 00:14:14.179 a scene out of a 60s film. It is. In 1963, Peggy 00:14:14.179 --> 00:14:16.500 Hitchcock, who was an heir to the Mellon fortune, 00:14:16.820 --> 00:14:19.559 arranged for her brother, Billy, to rent this 00:14:19.559 --> 00:14:23.139 massive 64 -room estate in Millbrook to Leary 00:14:23.139 --> 00:14:25.500 and Albert's group. Wow. They set up a communal 00:14:25.500 --> 00:14:27.879 living situation there, and they renamed their 00:14:27.879 --> 00:14:30.600 organization the Castalia Foundation. Castalia. 00:14:30.799 --> 00:14:32.799 That's a reference to Herman Hess, isn't it? 00:14:32.860 --> 00:14:35.509 Yes, from the glass bead game. Castaglio was 00:14:35.509 --> 00:14:38.590 this sort of utopian intellectual colony in the 00:14:38.590 --> 00:14:41.470 book dedicated to the life of the mind. And it 00:14:41.470 --> 00:14:43.649 shows you how they viewed themselves. They didn't 00:14:43.649 --> 00:14:46.090 see themselves as a bunch of dropout junkies. 00:14:46.090 --> 00:14:48.450 They saw themselves as an elite avant -garde 00:14:48.450 --> 00:14:51.850 group exploring the very frontiers of human consciousness. 00:14:52.250 --> 00:14:54.450 So what were they doing at Millbrook? Was it 00:14:54.450 --> 00:14:57.769 just a nonstop party? From the outside, maybe 00:14:57.769 --> 00:15:00.309 it looked like a party, but their state of objective 00:15:00.309 --> 00:15:03.149 was very serious. They were conducting group 00:15:03.149 --> 00:15:05.669 LSD sessions. They were practicing meditation, 00:15:06.210 --> 00:15:08.909 yoga. They were trying to map the territory of 00:15:08.909 --> 00:15:11.870 the mind. They were actively seeking a permanent 00:15:11.870 --> 00:15:14.190 route to higher consciousness. They wanted to 00:15:14.190 --> 00:15:16.590 stay in that Good Friday state forever. Exactly. 00:15:16.690 --> 00:15:18.909 But this is where Alpert starts to hit a wall. 00:15:19.049 --> 00:15:20.690 And I think this is a really important insight 00:15:20.690 --> 00:15:23.129 for you listening, especially today with all 00:15:23.129 --> 00:15:26.289 the talk about microdosing and biohacking. and 00:15:26.289 --> 00:15:29.730 using substances for personal growth. The problem 00:15:29.730 --> 00:15:33.490 of coming down. Gravity. Mental gravity. They 00:15:33.490 --> 00:15:35.929 could take the drug and they would go up. They'd 00:15:35.929 --> 00:15:40.210 have these profound, ego -dissolving unity experiences. 00:15:40.769 --> 00:15:43.070 They would feel one with the universe. They'd 00:15:43.070 --> 00:15:44.809 feel like they understood the secrets of the 00:15:44.809 --> 00:15:48.049 cosmos. But... The drug wears off. The drug always 00:15:48.049 --> 00:15:49.830 wears off. You know, it's the Monday morning 00:15:49.830 --> 00:15:53.029 problem. Yeah. Albert would have this incredible 00:15:53.029 --> 00:15:56.509 revelation of universal love. on a Saturday afternoon, 00:15:56.830 --> 00:15:59.870 and by Tuesday morning, he was just depressed, 00:16:00.090 --> 00:16:03.850 anxious, neurotic Richard Alpert again. He realized 00:16:03.850 --> 00:16:06.009 that the chemicals provided the experience of 00:16:06.009 --> 00:16:08.190 the destination, but they didn't provide the 00:16:08.190 --> 00:16:10.149 transformation of the traveler. That's a really 00:16:10.149 --> 00:16:11.929 great way to put it. The experience versus the 00:16:11.929 --> 00:16:13.649 transformation. He said he felt like he was crashing 00:16:13.649 --> 00:16:15.769 the party. He could get in the door, but he wasn't 00:16:15.769 --> 00:16:18.009 allowed to stay. He was still Richard Alpert 00:16:18.009 --> 00:16:20.389 when the LSD wore off. He was still dealing with 00:16:20.389 --> 00:16:22.830 all his neuroses, his depression, his hollowness. 00:16:23.009 --> 00:16:26.110 So the chemicals were like a sneak peek, a movie 00:16:26.110 --> 00:16:29.399 trailer, but they weren't the actual film. Exactly. 00:16:29.399 --> 00:16:31.980 And that dissatisfaction, that feeling of, is 00:16:31.980 --> 00:16:34.259 this all there is, is what pushed him to look 00:16:34.259 --> 00:16:36.659 elsewhere. If chemistry couldn't sustain the 00:16:36.659 --> 00:16:39.480 high, if Western science couldn't fix him, maybe 00:16:39.480 --> 00:16:43.120 he needed to look east. So in 1967, he leaves 00:16:43.120 --> 00:16:46.039 the estate, he leaves the U .S., and he goes 00:16:46.039 --> 00:16:49.399 to India. The classic journey to the east. Yeah. 00:16:49.440 --> 00:16:52.820 But this is important. He didn't go as a devotee 00:16:52.820 --> 00:16:55.259 initially. He wasn't going to find God. No. No. 00:16:55.299 --> 00:16:57.220 He was still a Western psychologist at heart. 00:16:57.320 --> 00:16:59.000 He was still a skeptic. He was searching for 00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:01.379 a map. He wanted to find someone who understood 00:17:01.379 --> 00:17:04.200 how the mind worked better than he did. And he 00:17:04.200 --> 00:17:06.680 travels around for a bit. And eventually he meets 00:17:06.680 --> 00:17:09.480 this guy named Bhagavan Das. Describe Bhagavan 00:17:09.480 --> 00:17:11.660 Das for us because the visual contrast here is 00:17:11.660 --> 00:17:13.759 just hilarious to me. Oh, it's incredible. Albert 00:17:13.759 --> 00:17:16.500 is this, you know, 36 -year -old former Harvard 00:17:16.500 --> 00:17:18.700 professor, probably wearing Western clothes, 00:17:18.819 --> 00:17:20.420 carrying luggage totally out of his element. 00:17:20.619 --> 00:17:23.420 And Bhagavan Das is this tall, young American, 00:17:23.559 --> 00:17:27.589 maybe 23, with long dreadlocks. Barefoot, carrying 00:17:27.589 --> 00:17:29.430 a one -stringed instrument, just living completely 00:17:29.430 --> 00:17:31.349 in the moment. Total hippie. The ear hippie. 00:17:31.529 --> 00:17:34.390 And Bhagavan Das becomes his guide. He leads 00:17:34.390 --> 00:17:37.049 Albert barefoot through the country. And eventually 00:17:37.049 --> 00:17:39.589 he leads him up into the foothills of the Himalayas 00:17:39.589 --> 00:17:43.670 to this tiny ashram to meet his guru. Neem Karoli 00:17:43.670 --> 00:17:47.150 Baba. Known to his followers as Maharaji. And 00:17:47.150 --> 00:17:49.470 this meeting, I mean, this is the pivot point 00:17:49.470 --> 00:17:51.670 of the entire life we are discussing. It's the 00:17:51.670 --> 00:17:54.269 axis on which the whole story turns. I want to 00:17:54.269 --> 00:17:56.549 focus on one specific story from this first meeting 00:17:56.549 --> 00:17:58.730 because I think it perfectly defines the clash 00:17:58.730 --> 00:18:01.549 between the Western mind and the Eastern spirit. 00:18:01.890 --> 00:18:05.589 The LSD test. It's a fascinating, almost mythological 00:18:05.589 --> 00:18:08.609 moment. So Albert is there at the ashram. He's 00:18:08.609 --> 00:18:10.710 skeptical. He just sees this old man wrapped 00:18:10.710 --> 00:18:13.049 in a plaid blanket, sitting on a wooden tucket, 00:18:13.109 --> 00:18:15.089 surrounded by a few followers. And Albert has 00:18:15.089 --> 00:18:17.250 something in his pocket. He does. He has a stash 00:18:17.250 --> 00:18:19.650 of what he called white lightning LSD. This wasn't, 00:18:19.650 --> 00:18:22.490 you know, some blotter acid made in a bathtub. 00:18:22.630 --> 00:18:26.009 This was high grade laboratory LSD from the Sandoz 00:18:26.009 --> 00:18:27.990 days. The good stuff. The very good stuff. And 00:18:27.990 --> 00:18:30.230 Albert is curious. He wants to know what this 00:18:30.230 --> 00:18:39.069 guru, this man who is supposedly in love. It's 00:18:39.069 --> 00:18:41.069 almost like a challenge, isn't it? Let's see 00:18:41.069 --> 00:18:43.009 if your meditation is stronger than my chemistry. 00:18:43.309 --> 00:18:45.710 It's exactly that. He explains it to Maharaj 00:18:45.710 --> 00:18:49.410 Ji as a medicine from the West. The guru asks 00:18:49.410 --> 00:18:52.289 for it. Now, we need to talk dosage here because 00:18:52.289 --> 00:18:56.309 this is key. A standard heavy trip, the kind 00:18:56.309 --> 00:19:00.279 that makes the walls melt. Is maybe 100 to 150 00:19:00.279 --> 00:19:03.119 micrograms. Okay, got it. 150 is heavy dose. 00:19:03.279 --> 00:19:07.259 Albert Hansen, a vial containing 915 micrograms. 00:19:07.259 --> 00:19:11.490 Wait, what? 915. 915. It is a massive, massive 00:19:11.490 --> 00:19:14.730 dose. It is roughly nine times a standard heavy 00:19:14.730 --> 00:19:17.609 dose. That is a dose that would shatter most 00:19:17.609 --> 00:19:21.910 people's reality for 12, maybe 24 hours. You 00:19:21.910 --> 00:19:23.430 wouldn't be able to speak. You wouldn't know 00:19:23.430 --> 00:19:25.710 your own name. So Alpert hands it over, probably 00:19:25.710 --> 00:19:28.269 terrified that he's about to like kill this old 00:19:28.269 --> 00:19:30.650 man or send him into a permanent psychosis. He's 00:19:30.650 --> 00:19:32.829 watching him like a hawk. Maharajji takes the 00:19:32.829 --> 00:19:35.369 pills, swallows them, and Alpert just waits. 00:19:35.829 --> 00:19:38.150 He waits for the eyes to dilate. He waits for 00:19:38.150 --> 00:19:40.089 the trembling. He waits for the guru to start 00:19:40.089 --> 00:19:42.250 talking to the trees. Nothing happens. What do 00:19:42.250 --> 00:19:45.849 you mean nothing? Zero. No psychotropic effect 00:19:45.849 --> 00:19:49.289 whatsoever. Maharaji just sat there twinkling. 00:19:49.490 --> 00:19:52.130 He talked to people. He laughed. He ate. He didn't 00:19:52.130 --> 00:19:54.549 go crazy. He didn't hallucinate. He just looked 00:19:54.549 --> 00:19:56.849 at Albert with this little smile. Did Albert 00:19:56.849 --> 00:19:59.869 think he faked it? Like maybe he palmed the pills 00:19:59.869 --> 00:20:01.869 and threw them over his shoulder? He suspected 00:20:01.869 --> 00:20:05.009 it initially, but later on, other disciples confirmed 00:20:05.009 --> 00:20:08.309 that they saw him swallow them. The lesson that 00:20:08.309 --> 00:20:11.410 Maharaji offered him was profound. He told Albert 00:20:11.410 --> 00:20:14.089 that it was possible to be in that state, the 00:20:14.089 --> 00:20:16.589 state that the LSD mimics permanently. What did 00:20:16.589 --> 00:20:18.769 he say, exactly? He said something to the effect 00:20:18.769 --> 00:20:21.359 of, You can take the medicine, and it allows 00:20:21.359 --> 00:20:23.619 you to visit Christ, but you can only stay for 00:20:23.619 --> 00:20:26.559 two hours. Wow. He told Albert that through meditation 00:20:26.559 --> 00:20:28.660 and spiritual practice, you can live in that 00:20:28.660 --> 00:20:30.980 place. You don't need the car to visit. You can 00:20:30.980 --> 00:20:33.440 build a house there. He said something like, 00:20:33.519 --> 00:20:36.059 the medicine is good, but it is not necessary 00:20:36.059 --> 00:20:38.720 for one who is already there. That must have 00:20:38.720 --> 00:20:41.019 just completely destroyed Albert's entire worldview. 00:20:41.460 --> 00:20:43.680 Shattered it. He thought he possessed the ultimate 00:20:43.680 --> 00:20:45.799 power in that little pill, and this guru just 00:20:45.799 --> 00:20:48.359 shrugged it off like it was an aspirin. It humbled 00:20:48.359 --> 00:20:51.180 him completely. It broke the last of his Western 00:20:51.180 --> 00:20:54.740 scientific arrogance. He just surrendered. He 00:20:54.740 --> 00:20:57.740 realized that this illiterate old man in a blanket 00:20:57.740 --> 00:21:00.140 knew something fundamental about the human mind 00:21:00.140 --> 00:21:03.240 that Harvard and Stanford and Timothy Leary had 00:21:03.240 --> 00:21:06.619 no clue about. So he stays. He studies yoga, 00:21:06.700 --> 00:21:09.539 meditation, devotion. And this is when Richard 00:21:09.539 --> 00:21:11.839 Alpert dies, metaphorically speaking. And Ram 00:21:11.839 --> 00:21:14.730 Dass is born. Maharaj gave him that name. Ram 00:21:14.730 --> 00:21:16.529 Dass means servant of God or more specifically 00:21:16.529 --> 00:21:19.880 servant of Ram who is a Hindu deity. But the 00:21:19.880 --> 00:21:22.299 translation servant of God is the one he always 00:21:22.299 --> 00:21:24.900 used. This marks the death of the professor and 00:21:24.900 --> 00:21:26.839 the birth of the teacher. He spent about six 00:21:26.839 --> 00:21:29.039 months there just soaking it all up. And then 00:21:29.039 --> 00:21:31.200 he had to come back. He returned to the US in 00:21:31.200 --> 00:21:34.980 late 1968 or early 69. But he wasn't coming back 00:21:34.980 --> 00:21:37.019 to a university. He was coming back to a counterculture 00:21:37.019 --> 00:21:39.579 that was starting to kind of burn out. Right. 00:21:39.660 --> 00:21:42.059 The summer of love was over. The 70s were looming. 00:21:42.599 --> 00:21:45.960 Altamont was on the horizon. Exactly. The initial 00:21:45.960 --> 00:21:48.700 beautiful optimism of the hippie movement was 00:21:48.700 --> 00:21:51.460 fading. Hard drugs were moving in. People were 00:21:51.460 --> 00:21:54.319 confused. They had blown their minds open with 00:21:54.319 --> 00:21:56.619 acid, but they didn't know how to put the pieces 00:21:56.619 --> 00:21:59.140 back together. They were lost. And Ram Dass walks 00:21:59.140 --> 00:22:01.500 in with a manual. He goes to the Lama Foundation 00:22:01.500 --> 00:22:05.039 in Taos, New Mexico, this countercultural commune 00:22:05.039 --> 00:22:07.740 up in the mountains. And he has this stack of 00:22:07.740 --> 00:22:11.180 papers with him that he called From Bindu to 00:22:11.180 --> 00:22:14.640 Ojas. That title. Definitely not a bestseller. 00:22:14.819 --> 00:22:17.940 No. It sounds like, I don't know, a Swedish medical 00:22:17.940 --> 00:22:20.900 textbook. But the community there, they helped 00:22:20.900 --> 00:22:22.720 him. They edited it. They illustrated it. And 00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:25.240 we have to mention the design. Those famous, 00:22:25.279 --> 00:22:28.559 intricate, psychedelic line drawings. The brown 00:22:28.559 --> 00:22:31.339 paper bag style cover. It looked like an artifact. 00:22:31.480 --> 00:22:33.059 It didn't look like a book you'd buy at a normal 00:22:33.059 --> 00:22:35.779 bookstore. Exactly. And in 1971, they published 00:22:35.779 --> 00:22:38.960 it as Be Here Now. And it just explodes. It becomes 00:22:38.960 --> 00:22:41.240 the Bible of the counterculture. As we said, 00:22:41.339 --> 00:22:43.660 it sold two million copies. You have to understand 00:22:43.660 --> 00:22:45.539 why it worked so well. It wasn't just another 00:22:45.539 --> 00:22:49.039 book about Hinduism. Ram Dass was a translator. 00:22:49.380 --> 00:22:51.220 What do you mean by a translator? Well, he was 00:22:51.220 --> 00:22:53.259 a Harvard psychologist. He understood the Western 00:22:53.259 --> 00:22:56.140 mind with all its anxieties and neuroses. He 00:22:56.140 --> 00:22:59.299 could take these ancient esoteric Eastern concepts, 00:22:59.539 --> 00:23:03.299 karma, dharma, ego, chakras, and explain them 00:23:03.299 --> 00:23:05.660 using the language of Western psychology. He 00:23:05.660 --> 00:23:07.859 could say, here is your ego, here is your neurosis, 00:23:07.960 --> 00:23:10.339 and here's how this practice of meditation directly 00:23:10.339 --> 00:23:13.509 addresses that. So he built a bridge. He made 00:23:13.509 --> 00:23:15.549 it safe for an intellectual to talk about God. 00:23:15.750 --> 00:23:18.009 Precisely. Before this, if you were a Western 00:23:18.009 --> 00:23:21.130 intellectual, spirituality was seen as this fuzzy, 00:23:21.289 --> 00:23:24.369 anti -intellectual superstition. Ram Dass made 00:23:24.369 --> 00:23:26.829 it psychological. He made it accessible. I saw 00:23:26.829 --> 00:23:28.789 in the notes that the cultural impact was just 00:23:28.789 --> 00:23:30.970 massive. Steve Jobs mentioned it. Steve Jobs 00:23:30.970 --> 00:23:33.630 credited Be Here Now as a major influence on 00:23:33.630 --> 00:23:35.910 his life and his philosophy. George Harrison 00:23:35.910 --> 00:23:37.730 wrote a song called Be Here Now. That was on 00:23:37.730 --> 00:23:40.730 his 1973 album. I had no idea. And the phrase 00:23:40.730 --> 00:23:43.319 itself just entered the lexicon. Before this 00:23:43.319 --> 00:23:46.180 book, Be Here Now was not a common saying. Now 00:23:46.180 --> 00:23:48.900 it's almost a cliche of mindfulness, but Ram 00:23:48.900 --> 00:23:51.079 Dass is the one who planted that flag in the 00:23:51.079 --> 00:23:53.700 cultural consciousness. Now, usually when someone 00:23:53.700 --> 00:23:55.599 writes a book that sells two million copies, 00:23:55.819 --> 00:23:58.220 the next part of the story involves a yacht, 00:23:58.299 --> 00:24:01.259 a mansion in Malibu, and eventually a tax scandal. 00:24:02.720 --> 00:24:05.299 Usually, yes. And this is where the servant of 00:24:05.299 --> 00:24:07.900 God part really comes into play. He didn't keep 00:24:07.900 --> 00:24:10.160 the money. The sources are very, very clear on 00:24:10.160 --> 00:24:12.819 this. Really? None of it? He set up the copyright 00:24:12.819 --> 00:24:15.279 so that all the proceeds went to the Lama family. 00:24:15.309 --> 00:24:18.289 and later to the Hanuman Foundation, which he 00:24:18.289 --> 00:24:21.650 started. Throughout his life, his royalties and 00:24:21.650 --> 00:24:23.990 his teaching fees, which were substantial, I 00:24:23.990 --> 00:24:27.049 mean, estimated between $100 ,000 to $800 ,000 00:24:27.049 --> 00:24:29.630 annually at his peak, all went to charity. He 00:24:29.630 --> 00:24:31.430 didn't keep it. He wasn't living large. No, he 00:24:31.430 --> 00:24:33.430 lived on a very modest stipend. He walked the 00:24:33.430 --> 00:24:35.210 walk. He wasn't building an empire for himself. 00:24:35.289 --> 00:24:37.470 He was funding service projects. Which transitions 00:24:37.470 --> 00:24:41.049 us perfectly to the next phase of his life. If 00:24:41.049 --> 00:24:43.150 the first phase was achievement and the second 00:24:43.150 --> 00:24:46.329 was exploration, this third phase is very clearly 00:24:46.329 --> 00:24:49.920 service. Seva, that's the Sanskrit word for selfless 00:24:49.920 --> 00:24:53.059 service. And Maharaj Ji's core instruction to 00:24:53.059 --> 00:24:55.619 him wasn't go meditate in a cave for the rest 00:24:55.619 --> 00:24:58.539 of your life. It was love everyone, serve everyone, 00:24:58.619 --> 00:25:01.559 and remember God. The serve everyone part was 00:25:01.559 --> 00:25:03.960 key. So it wasn't just about personal enlightenment 00:25:03.960 --> 00:25:06.940 or feeling good. It was about karma yoga, the 00:25:06.940 --> 00:25:10.200 yoga of action in the world. Exactly. In 1974, 00:25:10.559 --> 00:25:13.160 he founded the Hanuman Foundation. And through 00:25:13.160 --> 00:25:16.099 that, he started the Prison Ashram Project. What 00:25:16.099 --> 00:25:18.240 was the Prison Ashram? It was about bringing 00:25:18.240 --> 00:25:21.099 spirituality into prisons. He corresponded with 00:25:21.099 --> 00:25:23.640 literally thousands of prisoners. He sent books. 00:25:23.839 --> 00:25:26.559 He treated them not as criminals, but as trapped 00:25:26.559 --> 00:25:29.059 souls who could use their time for profound spiritual 00:25:29.059 --> 00:25:31.920 growth. He famously said that a prison cell is 00:25:31.920 --> 00:25:34.329 a perfect monastery if you use it right. That 00:25:34.329 --> 00:25:36.309 is such a radical shift in perspective. And then 00:25:36.309 --> 00:25:38.150 there was the SIVA Foundation, which is still 00:25:38.150 --> 00:25:40.690 going strong today. A huge one. Co -founded in 00:25:40.690 --> 00:25:43.269 1978 with Dr. Larry Brilliant and the activist 00:25:43.269 --> 00:25:46.210 Wavy Gravy. Their main focus was on eliminating 00:25:46.210 --> 00:25:48.769 curable blindness in places like India and Nepal 00:25:48.769 --> 00:25:51.450 and other developing countries. And this is what 00:25:51.450 --> 00:25:53.960 strikes me. This is such nuts and bolts practical 00:25:53.960 --> 00:25:56.759 work. This isn't just sending good vibes to the 00:25:56.759 --> 00:25:59.299 world. This is organizing cataract surgeries. 00:25:59.440 --> 00:26:02.259 This is public health logistics. And that refutes 00:26:02.259 --> 00:26:04.700 the common critique that the whole new age movement 00:26:04.700 --> 00:26:08.240 is just navel gazing and narcissistic. Ram Dass 00:26:08.240 --> 00:26:10.980 argued that helping others is a powerful method 00:26:10.980 --> 00:26:13.779 of working on yourself. How so? He said if you 00:26:13.779 --> 00:26:16.019 are serving soup to a homeless person and you 00:26:16.019 --> 00:26:18.059 feel superior to them, you know, I'm the great 00:26:18.059 --> 00:26:20.720 helper, you are the helpless one, then your ego 00:26:20.720 --> 00:26:23.640 is still in the way. Service becomes a mirror 00:26:23.640 --> 00:26:26.599 for your own stuff. He also tackled the one topic 00:26:26.599 --> 00:26:29.000 that Western culture tries desperately to ignore, 00:26:29.180 --> 00:26:32.500 death. The conscious dying movement. He collaborated 00:26:32.500 --> 00:26:35.660 with the famous Dr. Elizabeth Kubler -Ross. The 00:26:35.660 --> 00:26:38.660 woman who defined the five stages of grief. The 00:26:38.660 --> 00:26:41.119 very one. Ram Dass began teaching these workshops 00:26:41.119 --> 00:26:43.839 on conscious aging and dying. He helped create 00:26:43.839 --> 00:26:45.799 the Living Dying Project, which was the first 00:26:45.799 --> 00:26:48.039 residential facility in the U .S. designed for 00:26:48.039 --> 00:26:50.500 people to die consciously. What does that actually 00:26:50.500 --> 00:26:53.200 mean? To die consciously? Well, in the West, 00:26:53.339 --> 00:26:56.880 we tend to view death as a medical failure. We 00:26:56.880 --> 00:26:59.799 hide it away in hospitals. We sedate it. We fight 00:26:59.799 --> 00:27:03.410 it until the bitter end. Rondas argued that death 00:27:03.410 --> 00:27:06.210 is a natural transition. It's a spiritual opportunity, 00:27:06.529 --> 00:27:10.369 a final letting go of the body and the ego. He 00:27:10.369 --> 00:27:12.730 wanted to create a space where people could approach 00:27:12.730 --> 00:27:15.730 that moment with awareness, without fear, surrounded 00:27:15.730 --> 00:27:18.210 by love and support rather than just buzzing 00:27:18.210 --> 00:27:20.430 machines and panic. It's a beautiful concept. 00:27:20.609 --> 00:27:22.549 And it's also a little bit of foreshadowing, 00:27:22.549 --> 00:27:24.569 isn't it? Yeah. Because for a guy who spent decades 00:27:24.569 --> 00:27:26.829 teaching about how to handle suffering and how 00:27:26.829 --> 00:27:29.640 to handle the failing of the body. The universe 00:27:29.640 --> 00:27:32.220 decided to give him a very, very personal final 00:27:32.220 --> 00:27:35.380 exam. The stroke. Let's go to 1997. Ram Dass 00:27:35.380 --> 00:27:38.279 is in his late 60s at this point. He's 66. It 00:27:38.279 --> 00:27:41.319 was February 1997. And the irony here is just 00:27:41.319 --> 00:27:44.259 so deep. He had just started seriously exploring 00:27:44.259 --> 00:27:46.059 his Jewish roots again for the first time since 00:27:46.059 --> 00:27:48.460 that hollow bar mitzvah. He was feeling healthy. 00:27:48.500 --> 00:27:51.460 He was writing a book. And then just boom. A 00:27:51.460 --> 00:27:54.039 massive hemorrhagic stroke. It was catastrophic. 00:27:54.420 --> 00:27:56.299 What was the physical fallout from that? It left 00:27:56.299 --> 00:27:58.440 him paralyzed on the right side of his body. 00:27:58.599 --> 00:28:00.839 He was wheelchair -bound for the rest of his 00:28:00.839 --> 00:28:03.660 life. But the cruelest part of it, for a man 00:28:03.660 --> 00:28:06.440 like Ram Dass, was the effect it had on his speech. 00:28:07.480 --> 00:28:10.420 Expressive aphasia. Yes, expressive aphasia. 00:28:10.440 --> 00:28:13.160 And what this means is that his intellect was 00:28:13.160 --> 00:28:15.319 fully intact. He could understand everything 00:28:15.319 --> 00:28:17.519 you were saying. His mind was as sharp as ever. 00:28:17.799 --> 00:28:20.740 But he couldn't find the words to respond. The 00:28:20.740 --> 00:28:22.500 connection between the thought and the mouth 00:28:22.500 --> 00:28:26.400 was just... broken. For a man whose entire career, 00:28:26.519 --> 00:28:30.000 from Harvard lecturer to spiritual teacher, was 00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:32.839 based on talking, that seems almost like a cosmic 00:28:32.839 --> 00:28:35.400 joke. It does. And initially, he really struggled. 00:28:35.500 --> 00:28:37.900 He was deeply depressed. He questioned his faith. 00:28:38.059 --> 00:28:41.119 He said he railed at his guru, Amar Rajji, asking, 00:28:41.339 --> 00:28:43.539 why did you do this to me? I've spent my life 00:28:43.539 --> 00:28:45.740 serving, and this is my reward. But he didn't 00:28:45.740 --> 00:28:47.740 stay in that place of self -pity. He reframed 00:28:47.740 --> 00:28:50.480 it. This is where that concept of fierce grace 00:28:50.480 --> 00:28:53.440 comes in. Fierce grace. Let's unpack that phrase. 00:28:53.539 --> 00:28:55.599 It sounds like a contradiction. He argued that 00:28:55.599 --> 00:28:58.019 the stroke was a gift. It was grace, but it was 00:28:58.019 --> 00:29:00.779 wrapped in very, very rough sandpaper. It was 00:29:00.779 --> 00:29:03.880 fierce. How on earth was it a gift? It forced 00:29:03.880 --> 00:29:06.500 him to slow down. It forced him to stop traveling 00:29:06.500 --> 00:29:09.819 constantly. It forced him to be silent. And most 00:29:09.819 --> 00:29:12.180 importantly, it forced him to be dependent on 00:29:12.180 --> 00:29:15.180 other people. It completely destroyed that helper 00:29:15.180 --> 00:29:18.309 identity he built. Exactly. He couldn't be the 00:29:18.309 --> 00:29:21.430 big, strong guru helping the poor, sad student 00:29:21.430 --> 00:29:24.150 anymore. Now he needed help to go to the bathroom. 00:29:24.269 --> 00:29:26.670 He needed help to eat. He said it burned away 00:29:26.670 --> 00:29:29.690 the last remnants of his spiritual ego. Wow. 00:29:29.930 --> 00:29:31.789 And he had this great quote about it. He said, 00:29:31.890 --> 00:29:34.509 the strength was giving me lessons. Death is 00:29:34.509 --> 00:29:36.710 the biggest change we'll face. So we need to 00:29:36.710 --> 00:29:39.269 practice change. That is a level of acceptance 00:29:39.269 --> 00:29:42.309 that is just. Yeah. It's hard to comprehend, 00:29:42.430 --> 00:29:44.849 to look at your own paralysis and say, this is 00:29:44.849 --> 00:29:47.650 practice. This is a lesson. It changed his teaching 00:29:47.650 --> 00:29:50.009 style, too. He had to learn to speak again, but 00:29:50.009 --> 00:29:52.230 it was very slow. There would be these long, 00:29:52.329 --> 00:29:55.609 long silences between words. But people who attended 00:29:55.609 --> 00:29:57.829 his talks said the silence was just as powerful 00:29:57.829 --> 00:30:00.650 as the words. He became a living example of how 00:30:00.650 --> 00:30:02.869 to exist in a broken body with a whole spirit. 00:30:03.130 --> 00:30:04.789 He wrote a book about this experience called 00:30:04.789 --> 00:30:07.690 Still Here. He did. And I love the addendum to 00:30:07.690 --> 00:30:11.150 that. In 2013, when he was in his 80s, he admitted 00:30:11.150 --> 00:30:13.250 that his earlier writings on old age, the ones 00:30:13.250 --> 00:30:16.509 written before the stroke, were naive. Really? 00:30:16.690 --> 00:30:19.269 He called himself out? Yes. He basically said, 00:30:19.369 --> 00:30:21.289 you know, I thought I understood aging, but now 00:30:21.289 --> 00:30:23.210 that I'm actually here, now that I'm paralyzed 00:30:23.210 --> 00:30:26.349 and in constant pain, it's much, much harder 00:30:26.349 --> 00:30:29.109 than I thought. I just love that honesty. He 00:30:29.109 --> 00:30:31.190 never claimed to be a finished product. He was 00:30:31.190 --> 00:30:33.329 always still learning. I want to touch on his 00:30:33.329 --> 00:30:35.329 personal life a bit more because for a long time, 00:30:35.349 --> 00:30:38.769 the guru image can seem sort of asexual or distant. 00:30:39.190 --> 00:30:41.549 But he opened up about his sexuality later in 00:30:41.549 --> 00:30:44.650 life. He did. In the 1990s, he discussed being 00:30:44.650 --> 00:30:48.000 bisexual. But in true Ram Dass fashion, he didn't 00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:50.779 like the labels. He said it isn't gay or not 00:30:50.779 --> 00:30:54.079 gay. It's just awareness. He refused to be boxed 00:30:54.079 --> 00:30:56.720 in by any social categories. He saw sexuality 00:30:56.720 --> 00:30:58.660 as just another costume we wear, another part 00:30:58.660 --> 00:31:00.680 of the human play. And then there was the surprise 00:31:00.680 --> 00:31:04.259 son. This story is just wild. It is straight 00:31:04.259 --> 00:31:07.180 out of a movie. At age 78, Ram Dass finds out 00:31:07.180 --> 00:31:10.079 he's a father. A man named Peter Reichard, who 00:31:10.079 --> 00:31:13.200 was 53 years old at the time, took a DNA test 00:31:13.200 --> 00:31:16.220 and it came back a match. And it turns out that 00:31:16.220 --> 00:31:19.519 way back when Albert was 24 and teaching at Stanford, 00:31:19.619 --> 00:31:21.079 during that brief period he was trying to be 00:31:21.079 --> 00:31:23.400 a normal academic, he had a relationship with 00:31:23.400 --> 00:31:25.839 a history major named Karen Saum. And he never 00:31:25.839 --> 00:31:29.079 knew she got pregnant. Never had a clue. So suddenly, 00:31:29.240 --> 00:31:32.960 in his late 70s, paralyzed, living on Maui, he 00:31:32.960 --> 00:31:35.019 becomes a father and a grandfather overnight. 00:31:35.380 --> 00:31:37.779 How did he react to that? Did he deny it or push 00:31:37.779 --> 00:31:40.039 it away? No, by all accounts, he embraced it 00:31:40.039 --> 00:31:42.839 with total joy. He didn't hide it. He welcomed 00:31:42.839 --> 00:31:45.359 Peter and his family into his life. He just saw 00:31:45.359 --> 00:31:48.180 it as another unexpected form of grace, another 00:31:48.180 --> 00:31:51.059 role to play in the drama, Father. So let's look 00:31:51.059 --> 00:31:53.380 at the final years. After the stroke, he moved 00:31:53.380 --> 00:31:56.200 to Maui, right? Yes. After a nearly fatal illness 00:31:56.200 --> 00:32:00.140 while visiting India in 2004, he physically couldn't 00:32:00.140 --> 00:32:02.720 handle the long travel anymore. He settled in 00:32:02.720 --> 00:32:04.759 Maui. And since he couldn't go to the world, 00:32:04.839 --> 00:32:07.119 the world came to him. He hosted retreats there 00:32:07.119 --> 00:32:09.480 right up until the end. And did he ever patch 00:32:09.480 --> 00:32:11.549 things up with Timothy Leary? I know they had 00:32:11.549 --> 00:32:13.390 a pretty serious falling out back in the day. 00:32:13.529 --> 00:32:17.309 They did. In 1974, Ram Dass had actually publicly 00:32:17.309 --> 00:32:19.910 denounced Leary. You know, Leary was being very 00:32:19.910 --> 00:32:22.410 chaotic, getting arrested, becoming this media 00:32:22.410 --> 00:32:25.690 figure. And Ram Dass felt it was damaging the 00:32:25.690 --> 00:32:28.190 serious spiritual work. But they did reconcile. 00:32:28.650 --> 00:32:32.369 When was that? In 1983 at a Harvard reunion of 00:32:32.369 --> 00:32:34.349 all places. You're kidding. The reunion of the 00:32:34.349 --> 00:32:37.430 fired professors. Exactly. And they stayed connected 00:32:37.430 --> 00:32:40.619 after that. Before Leary died of cancer in 1996, 00:32:41.059 --> 00:32:43.319 they reunited. There's a wonderful documentary 00:32:43.319 --> 00:32:46.000 called Dying to Know that chronicles this. Oh, 00:32:46.039 --> 00:32:48.099 I'll have to watch that. It's a beautiful closing 00:32:48.099 --> 00:32:50.799 of the circle. You see these two bad boys of 00:32:50.799 --> 00:32:52.740 Harvard coming back together at the very end 00:32:52.740 --> 00:32:55.099 of their lives. One chose the path of the rebel. 00:32:55.220 --> 00:32:57.579 The other chose the path of the saint. But you 00:32:57.579 --> 00:32:59.579 could see they still loved each other. Rumdust 00:32:59.579 --> 00:33:01.420 passed away pretty recently, didn't he? Yes. 00:33:01.640 --> 00:33:04.859 December 22, 2019, he was 88 years old. He died 00:33:04.859 --> 00:33:07.240 peacefully at his home in Maui. Leaving behind 00:33:07.240 --> 00:33:09.640 just a man. massive legacy. The Love Serve Remember 00:33:09.640 --> 00:33:12.299 Foundation is still going. He has all these later 00:33:12.299 --> 00:33:14.279 books like Polishing the Mirror and Walking Each 00:33:14.279 --> 00:33:18.140 Other Home. And I would argue a permanently changed 00:33:18.140 --> 00:33:21.039 Western consciousness. He really was a pioneer. 00:33:21.259 --> 00:33:24.400 He made yoga and meditation accessible. He made 00:33:24.400 --> 00:33:27.059 the idea of spiritual seeking acceptable for 00:33:27.059 --> 00:33:30.519 a skeptical Western intellectual. He proved you 00:33:30.519 --> 00:33:32.460 didn't have to check your brain at the door to 00:33:32.460 --> 00:33:34.599 open your heart. So let's zoom out here at the 00:33:34.599 --> 00:33:37.180 end. We've gone from the high achieving, anxious 00:33:37.180 --> 00:33:40.240 Richard Albert to the psychedelic explorer to 00:33:40.240 --> 00:33:43.920 the devout Ram Dass to the stroke survivor. What 00:33:43.920 --> 00:33:46.960 is this? So what? Why does this story matter 00:33:46.960 --> 00:33:49.559 to someone listening today who might not be a 00:33:49.559 --> 00:33:52.240 hippie or a yogi? I think Ram Dass represents 00:33:52.240 --> 00:33:54.740 the ultimate capacity for human reinvention. 00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:57.500 We so often feel stuck in our identities. We 00:33:57.500 --> 00:34:00.019 say, I am a lawyer, or I am a failure, or I am 00:34:00.019 --> 00:34:01.900 an anxious person, I am the responsible one. 00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:03.839 We think these things are solid, like they're 00:34:03.839 --> 00:34:06.180 carved in stone. But Ram Dass' life shows that 00:34:06.180 --> 00:34:08.260 they're really just costumes. Exactly. They're 00:34:08.260 --> 00:34:10.000 roles you're playing, and you can take them off. 00:34:10.059 --> 00:34:12.119 Richard Alpert took off the suit and tie, and 00:34:12.119 --> 00:34:13.880 then Ram Dass had to take off the robes of the 00:34:13.880 --> 00:34:16.619 helper when he had a stroke. But the core awareness 00:34:16.619 --> 00:34:19.000 underneath it all remained. And that concept 00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:21.639 of walking each other home. It's such a beautiful 00:34:21.639 --> 00:34:24.539 idea. It's one of his most famous quotes. We 00:34:24.539 --> 00:34:27.659 are all just walking each other home. It reframes 00:34:27.659 --> 00:34:30.019 all human interaction, doesn't it? It's not a 00:34:30.019 --> 00:34:32.400 competition. It's not a transaction. It's a shared 00:34:32.400 --> 00:34:36.119 journey. We are all just souls in these bodies 00:34:36.119 --> 00:34:38.460 helping each other get back to that place of 00:34:38.460 --> 00:34:40.860 unity. It really raises a final provocative thought 00:34:40.860 --> 00:34:43.019 for us to leave you with. It does. I mean, think 00:34:43.019 --> 00:34:45.730 about Richard Alpert. Here was a man who needed 00:34:45.730 --> 00:34:48.849 every credential, every degree, every bit of 00:34:48.849 --> 00:34:52.309 external validation just to feel okay. And he 00:34:52.309 --> 00:34:54.909 had to become nobody. He had to lose the title, 00:34:54.929 --> 00:34:57.590 lose the job, and eventually even lose his fluent 00:34:57.590 --> 00:35:00.960 speech to finally find peace. So the question 00:35:00.960 --> 00:35:03.840 for all of us is? The question is, what credentials, 00:35:04.079 --> 00:35:06.079 what identities, what gold stars are you holding 00:35:06.079 --> 00:35:09.320 on to right now? And could it be that those very 00:35:09.320 --> 00:35:11.880 things that you are clinging to so tightly are 00:35:11.880 --> 00:35:14.280 the things keeping you from being truly here 00:35:14.280 --> 00:35:16.840 now? That is something to chew on. Thank you 00:35:16.840 --> 00:35:18.480 so much for listening to this deep dive into 00:35:18.480 --> 00:35:20.619 the life of Ram Dass. We'll see you next time. 00:35:20.719 --> 00:35:21.400 Be here now.