What Was Ram Dass' Net Worth?
Ram Dass was an American spiritual teacher and author who had a net worth of $100 thousand at the time of his death in 2019. Due to decades of incredible charity, Ram Dass was much "poorer" than he could have been when he died.
Incredibly, Dass donated all his book royalties to charity every year. It's estimated that his royalties generate as much as $1 million every year for various charities. In his later years, Ram lived in a house in Maui that is worth several million dollars but it was reportedly owned by a friend and not Mr. Dass himself.
Ram suffered a debilitating stroke in 1997 that left his body paralyzed on the right side and caused aphasia (extreme difficulty speaking). He is known for traveling to India to visit Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba as well as his professional association at Harvard University with Timothy Leary during the 1960s. Dass founded the charities Hanuman Foundation and Seva Foundation, and one of his best known works is his 1971 book "Be Here Now." Ram also authored the books "Identification and Child Rearing" (with R. Sears and L. Rau, 1962), "The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead" (with Timothy Leary and Ralph Metzner, 1964), "LSD" (with Sidney Cohen, 1966), "Doing Your Own Being" (1973), "The Only Dance There Is" (1974), "Grist for the Mill" (with Stephen Levine, 1977), "Journey of Awakening: A Mediator's Guidebook" (1978), "Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba" (1978), and several more. He was the subject of the documentaries "Ram Dass, Going Home" (2018) and "Becoming Nobody" (2019). Ram passed away on December 22, 2019, at the age of 88.
Early Life
Ram Dass was born Richard Alpert on April 6, 1931, in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the son of George and Gertrude Alpert, and his father was a lawyer. During his early years, Dass considered himself an atheist, and he told "Tufts Magazine" in 2006, "I didn't have one whiff of God until I took psychedelics." His family was Jewish, and during an interview with Arthur J. Magida at New York's Omega Institute, he stated, "What I mostly remember about my bar mitzvah was that it was an empty ritual. It was flat. Absolutely flat. There was a disappointing hollowness to the moment. There was nothing, nothing, nothing in it for my heart." Ram graduated cum laude from the Williston Northampton School in 1948, then he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Tufts University four years later. In 1954, he graduated from Wesleyan University with a master's degree in Psychology. Dass later enrolled at Stanford University, where he wrote a thesis on "achievement anxiety" and earned a PhD in Psychology in 1957. He subsequently spent a year teaching at Stanford and started psychoanalysis.
Career
Ram took a job as an assistant clinical psychology professor at Harvard University in 1958. He served as a therapist at the school's Health Service, and he also worked with the Psychology Department, Social Relations Department, and Graduate School of Education. Dass published "Identification and Child Rearing," his first book, during his time at Harvard. As part of the Harvard Psilocybin Project, he worked with Timothy Leary on researching whether hallucinogenic drugs had therapeutic effects. The duo co-founded the nonprofit organization International Federation for Internal Freedom (IFIF) in 1962. The following year, they were dismissed from Harvard; Ram allegedly gave psilocybin to a student. That year Dass and Leary moved to the Hitchcock Estate, located in Millbrook, New York, with their followers, and the IFIF was renamed the Castalia Foundation. At the Hitchcock Estate, the group experimented with psychedelic drugs and had group LSD sessions. Dass and Leary co-wrote the 1964 book "The Psychedelic Experience" with Ralph Metzner, and Ram co-wrote the 1966 book "LSD" with Lawrence Schiller and Sidney Cohen. In 1967, Dass went to India and met spiritual seeker Bhagavan Das as well as spiritual master Neem Karoli Baba, who gave him the name "Ram Dass" ("servant of God").
Photo provided by Ram Dass
After Ram returned to the U.S., he stayed at New Mexico's Lama Foundation, and the residents edited and illustrated a manuscript he wrote, which became the best-selling 1971 book "Be Here Now." In the '70s, Dass founded the service organization the Hanuman Foundation and the nonprofit health organization the Seva Foundation and taught workshops about conscious aging and death. He was instrumental in creating the Dying Project with Hanuman Foundation executive director Dale Borglum, and they opened the Dying Center, which was America's first residential facility that people checked into to die "consciously." After surviving two strokes, Ram continued to teach through the use of live webcasts and make public appearances. When he was asked to sum up his life's message, Dass stated, "I help people as a way to work on myself, and I work on myself to help people … to me, that's what the emerging game is all about." In 2013, he published the memoir "Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart," and he followed it with "Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying" in 2018. The book "Being Ram Dass" was posthumously published in 2021.
Personal Life
Ram spoke about his bisexuality in the '90s, and in an interview for the book "Gay Soul: Finding the Heart of Gay Spirit and Nature," he stated, "I've started to talk more about being bisexual, being involved with men as well as women." He added, "I would say that if gay people who read this are willing to really sit down and examine their own minds in a systematic way, they may experience the freedom to take more delight in life and in their gay expression of it. And they will see that who they are isn't gay, and it's not not-gay, and it's not anything–it's just awareness." When he was 78, Dass found out that he had fathered a son, Peter Reichard, with Karen Saum while attending Stanford. In February 1997, Ram suffered a stroke that resulted in expressive aphasia. In 2006, he told "Tufts Magazine," "The stroke was giving me lessons, and I realized that was grace—fierce grace … Death is the biggest change we'll face, so we need to practice change." He nearly died in 2004 after having another stroke, and he subsequently moved to Maui and didn't leave again until July 2019 when he traveled to New Mexico to attend the consecration of the Sri Neem Karoli Baba Hanuman Mandir.
Death
On December 22, 2019, Dass passed away at the age of 88. The sad news was announced on his Instagram account, which stated, "With tender hearts we share that Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert) died peacefully at home in Maui on December 22, 2019 surrounded by loved ones. He was a guide for thousands seeking to discover or reclaim their spiritual identity beyond or within institutional religion. Memorial services will be announced shortly. In the meantime, if anyone would like to share their reflections on Ram Dass, please email [email protected], or post with the hashtag #lovingramdass. We are grateful for the heart to heart connection we have cultivated here and appreciate all the love that has poured out today. Thank you. ❤️❤️❤️"
Awards
In 1991, Dass was honored with the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award for "teaching us to be here now and that compassion is the true source of service."
