The Mind-Reading Revelation that Created Ram Dass

In 1967, Dr. Richard Alpert was an elite Harvard psychologist who had researched consciousness, psychedelic substances, and Eastern mysticism. Having traveled across India searching for a true guru who was completely unswayed by drugs or money, he arrived in the foothills of Nainital in an attitude of cynical academic skepticism. When brought before Neem Karoli Baba, Maharaj Ji looked at the tall, bearded Westerner and asked abruptly through a translator: "Did you sit outside under the stars last night?" Alpert nodded cautiously. Baba continued: "Were you thinking about your mother?" Alpert felt a jolt of astonishment. Yes, he had walked away from the house in the dead of night and looked up at the stars, remembering his mother who had passed away from spleen illness in a Boston hospital. Then Maharaj Ji leaned forward, looked straight into Alpert’s eyes with infinite maternal warmth, and whispered: "Did she die of a disease of the spleen? ... Spleen?" Alpert was instantly frozen to the core. Nobody in all of India knew his mother had died, let alone the extremely obscure medical fact that her cause of death was an enlarged spleen. The thought had occurred only within the private sanctity of his own mind hours earlier. In that single instant, the towering intellectual fortress of the Harvard professor collapsed. Alpert realized that Neem Karoli Baba was not merely a holy man, but an omniscient manifestation of unconditional divine love. Alpert burst into uncontrollable tears of profound relief. Baba Ji placed his warm hand upon his head and gave him the name "Ram Dass" (Servant of God). Ram Dass would return to the West to author "Be Here Now", introducing millions of seekers around the globe to the path of loving devotion and selfless service.