Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert in 1931) is one of the true spiritual heroes of our time. Having served on the faculties at Stanford and Harvard University, he was dismissed from Harvard in 1963 due to the controversial nature of his intensive research with psychedelics in collaboration with Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, and others. In 1967 he traveled to India, where he met his spiritual teacher, Neem Karoli Baba. There Ram Dass studied yoga and meditation, and received the name Ram Dass, which means "servant of God." His books include Be Here Now, The Only Dance There Is, Grist for the Mill, and Journey of Awakening. In 1997, he experienced a stroke which left him with expressive aphasia and partial paralysis, but he has been able to resume his teaching commitments and is using the experience to explore the spiritual dimensions of suffering and the nature of the aging process. Ram Dass is also a co-founder of the Seva Foundation, an international service organization.