Maharaj
Omniscience · Omnipresence · Omnipotence · Other Divine Lilas · Mahasamadhi Lila · After Mahasamadhi
Divine Reality
Ram Dass
Richard Alpert, former Harvard University professor, came to India in 1967. He accompanied another American devotee to Bhumiadhar ashram to see Baba. The professor was a psychologist and a man of the world, so Baba seemed very strange to him. Baba praised the Land Rover in which they arrived and asked Alpert to give it to him, prompting feelings of anger and resentment in Alpert. Baba sent both the westerners to have prasad, and when they returned, Baba looked over to Alpert and said, "You were standing under the open sky last night. What did your mother say to you? Your mother died last year? She died of spleen?" Baba's questions surprised Alpert. The first statement concerned an incident that had taken place more than a hundred kilometers from Bhumiadhar the previous night. He had gone outside and enchanted by the calm, beautiful night, stayed standing, looking up at the stars. He had felt a oneness with nature as well as his mother's presence. She had died nine months earlier in America of a diseased spleen. He had not told anyone about this, so Baba's questions made his mind spin. Unable to find a rational explanation, he began to weep uncontrollably. He felt that he had come home. He became devoted to Baba, and Baba gave him the name Ram Dass.
