While Beastie Boy Ad-Rock is on the road in Japan with his BS2000 side group, bandmate Mike D continues to workon another non-Beasties project — producing a solo album by religious guru Bhagavan Das. Das has been working on and off with Mike D — and frequent Beasties collaborator and keyboardist Money Mark —on the album for the last six months. Money Mark has described the album as an Eastern version of Moby's Play. According to a source close to the project, Mike D has been producing and playing drums on the Los Angelesrecording sessions with Das, an American spiritualist, born Michael Riggs, who was converted during a pilgrimage toIndia in 1964 and has studied Hindu and Buddhism. After a seven-year stint in Eastern Asia, much of which was chronicled in "Be Here Now," the 1971 tome by RichardAlpert, a.k.a. Ram Dass, Das returned to the U.S. and struck up friendships with beat poet Allen Ginsberg,counter-culture experimentalist Timothy Leary and Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia. Das penned hisautobiography, "It's Here Now (Are You?)," in 1997. Since the launch of the Tibetan Freedom Concerts in 1996, Mike D has expressed an interest in Buddhism. "ThePath of Emancipation," a book by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, was one of several volumes Mike D read whilerecovering from shoulder surgery last year (see "Beasties' Mike D To Undergo Shoulder Surgery"). Money Mark said the motivation for a Bhagavan Das studio album came in early 2000, right after Mike D asked himto help remix a track off Moby's Play for a U.K. single. "It really is inspired by Moby's record," said Money Mark, who played keyboards on the as-yet-untitled BhagavanDas album. "I think it was born out of the idea when Mike called me to help him remix a Moby song ['Natural Blues'].Then I think Mike took the idea and [went from there]. "Moby's record is based on the Lomax field recordings," Money Mark added, "and Mike actually met someone[Bhagavan Das] who is basically a walking encyclopedia of lots of old Eastern and American vocal pieces, and musicwas added to those vocals." Reps for the Beasties classify the Bhagavan Das album as a project that's "continuing to evolve," and they addedthat there were no firm plans for the album's release yet. As for Ad-Rock, BS2000 just issued a new album, Simply Mortified, which Ad-Rock recorded with Beasties touringdrummer Amery "AWOL" Smith.  : -mtv.com