Richard Alpert
The first section is a short autobiography, describing Alpert's successes as a psychologist, his research with Timothy Leary into psychedelics at Harvard, and his subsequent anxiety when this research did not resolve his spiritual questions. He then describes his first journey to India and his initiation into a Guru-chela relationship with Neem Karoli Baba, and spiritual renaming as "Baba Ram Dass", or "servant of god". Ram Dass closes the first section of the book with this passage: