Ram Dass: Changes in Perception – Shifting the Perspective of Our Awareness
"In response to the stroke, I chose not to identify with my ego. I chose to change my identification to my soul. It was clear to me that the soul didn't have a stroke, just like the soul does not die. And the ego dies. I found out that the soul merely witnesses the drama, not lives it."
Ram Dass was born in 1933 as Richard Alpert, son of a wealthy lawyer who was the president of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad. While at Harvard, Ram Dass' explorations of human consciousness led him to conduct intensive research with LSD and other psychedelic elements, in collaboration with Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, and others.
In 1967, he traveled to India where he met his spiritual teacher, Neem Karoli Baba, and received the name Ram Dass, or "servant of God." Ram Dass's first book, "Be Here Now," has become a classic spiritual guide.