Dec. 24 (UPI) — Baba Ram Dass, a pioneer of the psychedelic movement and a New Age spiritual leader, has died at the age of 88.
His death was announced on his official Instagram account Monday with a message stating that he had died peacefully at his home in Maui, Hawaii, on Sunday.
“He was a guide for thousands seeking to discover or reclaim their spiritual identity beyond or within institutional religion,” the statement said.
Born Richard Alpert, Dass worked alongside psychedelic pioneer Timothy Leary while at Harvard University were he taught during the early 1960s. Together, they collaborated with writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley and iconic American poet Allen Ginsberg on research into psilocybin, LSD and other psychedelic chemicals, according to his biography posted on the website of the Love Serve Remember Foundation, which was founded to preserve his work.
In 1963, the two were fired from the university and they moved to Mexico where they continued their exploration of mind-altering drugs.
“For Ram Dass, psychedelic work turned out to be a prelude to the mystical country of the spirit and the source of consciousness itself,” the biography said.
This realization prompted Dass to travel to India in 1967 where he met a guru named Neem Karoli Baba who christened the former university professor with the name Baba Ram Dass, which means “servant of God.”
Not long after, Dass published the spiritual guide “Be Here Now,” the book he is best known for and which turned him into a New Age icon.
In 1997, Dass suffered a near-fatal stroke that left the right side of his body paralyzed and restricted his ability to speak. However, he continued teaching but an infection in 2004 prevented him from traveling and he shifted focus to his health, the biography said.
Following news of his death, supporters, celebrities and students of Dass expressed their condolences online.
Democratic Presidential Candidate Marianne Williamson said “Be Here Now” “shifted” her world when she was young.
“Praise and thanks to a huge and radian soul,” she wrote on Twitter. “May he be forever blessed.”
Writer and actor Bill Corbett said Dass meant a lot to him over the years and praised him for his persistence to keep exploring and experiencing life despite his physical limitations later in life.
“He never stopped exploring, growing and going deeper, even after a near-fatal stroke that left him disabled,” he wrote on Twitter. “He used it (as) an opportunity to explore aging, grace and death with characteristic courage and humor.”
