Week 4 · modern

Ram Dass

In 1963, a Harvard psychology professor named Richard Alpert got fired for giving psychedelics to students. He flew to India, met a barefoot guru who seemed to already know everything about him, and came home as Ram Dass. He spent the rest of his life translating Eastern wisdom for people who'd never sit on a meditation cushion, and he did it with a warmth that made everyone feel like they were already enough.

“"We're all just walking each other home." He said that in his seventies, after a massive stroke left him partially paralyzed and unable to find words easily. The sentence he kept was the simplest one.”