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The Unified Theory of Ram Dass

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Re: The Unified Theory of Ram Dass

#51

Post by brianberns »

neonate wrote: post #44
brianberns wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really don't get it? He was using drugs to seduce his students from a position of power and influence over them. That wasn't cool even in 1967.

What are you basing this on? I've been reading up on Alpert and had not heard anything like it. The student who got him fired at Harvard, by the way, was Andrew Weil, who later became famous as a holistic physician. I haven't heard any suggestion that Alpert raped or seduced Weil. Listening to some of Ram Dass's talks from the 70s, I've been struck by how far ahead of his time he was in facing up to the power dynamic…

Why do you think he was fired at Harvard then? I'm not saying he actually raped anyone. I'm saying that he attempted to seduce a student with drugs. He seems to admit that himself.

Re: The Unified Theory of Ram Dass

#52

Post by qwerty456127 »

Nomentatus wrote: post #23

The most effective rape drug ever, turning adults into children who can be exploited. “I got dismissed from Harvard because I had given psychedelics to an undergraduate. We had agreed with the dean that we would not give psychedelics to undergraduates.” Ram Dass flashes a mischievous grin. “He was an attractive kid.” So do you suspect, I ask, that Maharajji had a hand in making you attracted to men because it would u…

> The most effective rape drug ever, turning adults into children who can be exploited.

LSD certainly is not. It's not the safest of psychedelics from the psychological point of view (give it to a kind loving person and they will become even more loving and enlightened, give it to a psychopath and they will become even more dangerous) yet it usually doesn't switch consciousness and reason off (quite the opposite) and doesn't stimulate sexual desire. At least when taken in reasonable doses.

Re: The Unified Theory of Ram Dass

#53

Post by brianberns »

FlyMoreRockets wrote: post #47
brianberns wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really don't get it? He was using drugs to seduce his students from a position of power and influence over them. That wasn't cool even in 1967.

Is there any actual data to support your claim?

It's in the article:

“I had leanings towards homosexuality.... I got dismissed from Harvard because I had given psychedelics to an undergraduate. We had agreed with the dean that we would not give psychedelics to undergraduates.” Ram Dass flashes a mischievous grin. “He was an attractive kid.”

Re: The Unified Theory of Ram Dass

#54

Post by babaramcuspy »

cuspycode wrote: post #14
FraaJad wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ram Dass (dāsa=devotee (of Lord Rama)). You might have known other people with similar last name (eg: Anil Dash). The most common pronunciation is "Das"

Why does anyone feel the need to take on a new name just because you change your religion? I never understood that. I have had epiphanies that dramatically changed my world-view, but I never thought "Now I must take a new name". I'm not criticizing those who do this, since people change their names all the time anyway, but I'm genuinely curious why this phenomenon is so common when people change their religion?

Sometimes it is a tribute to a great figure

Re: The Unified Theory of Ram Dass

#55

Post by saalweachter »

vijucat wrote: post #11

I've always been conflicted by these gurus, so let me play devil's advocate and present some things I found when I researched Ram Dass / Neem Karoli Baba a while ago: http://www.strippingthegurus.com/stgsamplechapters/dass.html Some interesting tales by Ram Dass about how Neem Karoli read his mind, ingested ginormous amounts of LSD without any effect, etc; here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb2BWvRN090 The specifi…

> The specific story about the Baba reading Ram Dass' mind and informing him that he was thinking about his mother and that she had died of spleen failure stayed with me. Maybe he was informed the previous night that a Professor from the US was arriving whose mother died recently of spleen failure and the rest was about creating an illusion of omniscience?

I recommend learning about cold reading.

(A major component of it isn't just that it's quite easy to talk information out of you with vague prompts, it's that after the fact you will tend to remember that information as having originated with the cold reader. For instance, if the cold-reader just says "You are thinking about someone very close to you" and you say, "I was thinking about my mother", you will later remember the cold reader saying you were thinking about your mother.)

Re: The Unified Theory of Ram Dass

#57

Post by neonate »

brianberns wrote: post #51
neonate wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you basing this on? I've been reading up on Alpert and had not heard anything like it. The student who got him fired at Harvard, by the way, was Andrew Weil, who later became famous as a holistic physician. I haven't heard any suggestion that Alpert raped or seduced Weil. Listening to some of Ram Dass's talks from the 70s, I've been struck by how far ahead of his time he was in facing up to the power dynamic…

Why do you think he was fired at Harvard then? I'm not saying he actually raped anyone. I'm saying that he attempted to seduce a student with drugs. He seems to admit that himself.

I'm afraid you're misinterpreting some well-established history. Leary and Alpert were allowed to do their psychedelic study at Harvard on condition that they only give the drugs to grad students. Andrew Weil asked to join the study and was turned down because he was an undergrad. But then Alpert allowed a different undergrad to participate (not Weil - I got that bit wrong above). When Weil found out, he wrote a story for the Harvard Crimson exposing that Alpert had done this, which triggered a scandal that got Alpert fired.

Years later, Alpert/Ram Dass mused that one reason he had slipped up and allowed an undergraduate into the study was because he had found the undergraduate attractive. There is no suggestion that he acted on the attraction. He was simply looking back on his own motivations, reflecting on what might have led to his career-destroying move.

One of Ram Dass's qualities as a spiritual teacher/speaker/seeker has been an unusual openness about his personal experiences. He was talking about being gay, for example, long before that was socially acceptable. I think it is a positive thing that he has been so willing to share his own struggles and challenges. Maybe when some other guru character admits to an "attraction" years later, that would be a euphemism for "seduced" or "raped". But there is no reason or evidence to conclude that here. This was just Ram Dass sharing his experience with the same openness he always has.

Re: The Unified Theory of Ram Dass

#58

Post by tomcam »

vijucat wrote: post #11

I've always been conflicted by these gurus, so let me play devil's advocate and present some things I found when I researched Ram Dass / Neem Karoli Baba a while ago: http://www.strippingthegurus.com/stgsamplechapters/dass.html Some interesting tales by Ram Dass about how Neem Karoli read his mind, ingested ginormous amounts of LSD without any effect, etc; here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb2BWvRN090 The specifi…

Wow, Mr. Ram Dass and friends scored some amazing tail. I could get behind this holy man business!

Re: The Unified Theory of Ram Dass

#59

Post by jamesrcole »

clay_the_ripper wrote: post #22
maxxxxx wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. A lot of famous gurus are just very charismatic people that live a very nice life and don't really have to deal with the drudgeries of the life most regular people live. When you look under the cover a lot of them are abusive and really not nice people. I think there are only very few people that are really spiritually enlightened and they are not necessarily the famous gurus. I know nothing about Ram Dad's b…

A good friend of mine went to India to sit with a guru. He made them meditate underneath a highway overpass in the “slums” for days on end. His message was basically meditation isn’t about putting on pretty music and sitting by a waterfall. Anyone can meditate at a 5 star resort spa. It’s when life hits you in the face that you need to be able to find inner peace, no matter what is going on around you.

I don't see anything wrong with meditating in pleasant circumstances, however.

Re: The Unified Theory of Ram Dass

#60

Post by krackers »

vijucat wrote: post #11

I've always been conflicted by these gurus, so let me play devil's advocate and present some things I found when I researched Ram Dass / Neem Karoli Baba a while ago: http://www.strippingthegurus.com/stgsamplechapters/dass.html Some interesting tales by Ram Dass about how Neem Karoli read his mind, ingested ginormous amounts of LSD without any effect, etc; here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb2BWvRN090 The specifi…

Never heard of UGK before, but I just looked into him and he's quite the interesting fellow. Definitely agree with his views on the "quest" for enlightenment or the aggrandization of medidation/awakening. From what I can tell the actual content of his philosophy seems to consist of a mix of nihilism and determinism
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