All you need to know about Ram Dass: Renowned American Novelist

Ram Dass was an American spiritual teacher and novelist who died in 2019 with a net worth of $100,000. Ram Dass died much “poorer” than he could have been due to decades of tremendous charity.

Every year, Dass gave up all of his book royalties to charity. It is anticipated that his royalties earn up to $1 million for various charities each year. Ram lived in a house in Maui worth several million dollars in his final years, but it was reportedly owned by a friend rather than Mr. Dass personally.

Who was Ram Dass?

Ram Dass was born Richard Alpert in Boston, Massachusetts on April 6, 1931. He was the son of George and Gertrude Alpert, both of whom were lawyers. Dass considered himself an atheist in his early years, telling “Tufts Magazine” in 2006, “I didn’t have one whiff of God until I took psychedelics.”

His family was Jewish, and he told Arthur J. Magida of the Omega Institute in New York, “What I mostly remember about my bar mitzvah was that it was an empty ritual.” It was completely flat. Completely flat. The moment had a disappointing hollowness about it. There was absolutely nothing in it for my heart.”

Ram graduated from Williston Northampton School with honors in 1948, and four years later, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Tufts University. He received his master’s degree in psychology from Wesleyan University in 1954. Later, Dass enrolled at Stanford University, where he prepared a thesis on “achievement anxiety” and received his PhD in Psychology in 1957. After a year of teaching at Stanford, he began psychoanalysis.

How old was Ram Dass?

He was 88 years old when he died.

What was Ram Dass’s net worth?

He was estimated to be worth $100 Thousand.

What was Ram Dass’s career?

In 1958, Ram accepted a position as an assistant clinical psychology professor at Harvard University. He worked as a therapist at the school’s Health Service, as well as with the Psychology Department, the Social Relations Department, and the Graduate School of Education. Dass’ first work, “Identification and Child Rearing,” was published during his stay at Harvard. He collaborated with Timothy Leary on the Harvard Psilocybin Project to investigate if psychedelic substances had therapeutic effects.

In 1962, the two co-founded the non-profit International Federation for Internal Freedom (IFIF). They were expelled from Harvard the next year when Ram allegedly provided psilocybin to a student. Dass and Leary relocated to the Hitchcock Estate in Millbrook, New York, with their followers that year, and the IFIF was renamed the Castalia Foundation. The group experimented with psychedelic chemicals and had group LSD trips at the Hitchcock Estate.

Dass and Leary co-wrote “The Psychedelic Experience” with Ralph Metzner in 1964, and Ram co-wrote “LSD” with Lawrence Schiller and Sidney Cohen in 1966. Dass traveled to India in 1967, when he met spiritual seeker Bhagavan Das and spiritual teacher Neem Karoli Baba, who gave him the name “Ram Dass” (“servant of God”).

When Ram went to the United States, he lived at the Lama Foundation in New Mexico, where the residents edited and illustrated a manuscript he created, which became the best-selling 1971 book “Be Here Now.”

Dass launched the humanitarian group Hanuman Foundation and the nonprofit health organization Seva Foundation in the 1970s, and he gave workshops on mindful aging and death. He co-founded the Dying Project with Hanuman Foundation executive director Dale Borglum, and they opened the Dying Center, America’s first residential facility where people may die “consciously.”

Ram continued to teach via live webcasts and made public appearances after surviving two strokes. “I help people as a way to work on myself, and I work on myself to help people,” Dass said when asked to summarize his life’s mission.

In 2013, he released “Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart,” and in 2018, he published “Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying.” In 2021, the book “Being Ram Dass” was published posthumously.