Ram Dass received his M.A. from Wesleyan and Ph.D. from Stanford University. He served on the psychology faculties at Stanford and the University of California, and from 1958 to 1963 taught and researched in the Department of Social Relations and the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. He has pursued a variety of spiritual practices, including guru kripa; devotional yoga focused on the Hindu spiritual figure Hanuman; meditation in the Theravadin, Mahayana Tibetan, and Zen Buddhist schools; karma yoga; and Sufi and Jewish studies. Many of his books, including Be Here Now, are international bestsellers and classics of their kind. Ram Dass died in 2019.