Quote:The spiritual leader and author Ram Dass has died at the age of 88. He was an icon of the psychedelic drug movement of the '60s and '70s, as well as a champion of a mindful philosophy.

According to [font=Georgia, serif]his official Instagram account, he died Sunday at his home in Maui.[/font]
Ram Dass was born Richard Alpert to a Jewish family in Boston. His [font=Georgia, serif]landmark 1971 book, Be Here Now, opens with his origin story: He was a successful, if anxious, professor in Harvard's psychology department. Feeling a certain malaise about his middle-class existence, he began experimenting with psychedelic drugs with his colleague Timothy Leary.[/font]
"A deep calm pervaded my being," Ram Dass wrote. "Then I saw a figure standing about 8 feet away, where a moment before there had been none. I peered into the semi-darkness and recognized none other than myself, in cap and gown and hood, as a professor. It was as if that part of me, which was Harvard professor, had separated or disassociated itself from me."
He and Leary started studying LSD and its effects — research that garnered them a reputation and a large following. It also led to them getting fired.