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Be Here Now
The enhanced edition of Be Here Now Two guided video meditations, 30 minutes in length * Twenty minute video retrospective of Ram Dass' spiritual journey *The first chapter of Ram Dass' new book, Be Love Now
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
About the author
Ram Dass
174 books2,078 followersRam Dass (Richard Alpert), was one of America's most beloved spiritual figures, making his mark on the world giving teachings and promoting loving service, harmonious business practices, and conscious care for the dying. His spirit has been a guiding light for four generations, carrying millions along on the journey, helping free them from their bonds as he has worked his way through his own.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,468 reviews
January 3, 2008
This book helped me a lot. It was one of many that my husband brought home from work and left around the house so someone would find it at just the right time. I'd flipped through it and thought it was just a collection of philosophical sayings in the form of trippy graphics (which it is, mostly.) I noticed a copy at Ashanti's house, which impressed me, but not enough to actually start reading it.
One night I was tripping for the last time with my best friend who was about to move to another state. I was sitting in my messy room thinking of all kinds of creative ideas and then getting frustrated because I'd already thought of those ideas, years ago, and hadn't really acted on them because I was too busy smoking pot and hiding from the world. My friend was reading "Be Here Now" and kept saying "This is amazing, you have to read this!" I noticed then it was written by Ram Dass, a name I vaguely remembered from my parents' recollections of the sixties and my explorations of City Lights book store as a teenager. My friend and I were having our minds re-blown by the Doors' "When the Music's Over." It was the first time I had heard it as someone who was older than Jim was when he died. I was fascinated by the sixties as a kid, and now I was realizing I had gotten to live out a lot of the same dreams and fallen into some of the same traps.
About a week later a therapist was trying to convince me that I could get from meditation and Yoga whatever it was I got from drugs. She mentioned something about Ram Dass. A strange coincidence, I thought.
I went home and read half the book in one night. It was about just what I'd hoped-- how you can BE HIGH instead of GETTING HIGH.
Ram Dass claims to have witnessed a lot of miracles, and seems awfully sure about a lot of things, and it can be hard to swallow at first if you spent your whole life in blind loyalty to your rational mind. But he makes the point quite eloquently that we choose to believe in the supremacy of the rational mind, just as anyone else chooses a belief system, and we suffer from its limitations. A lot of people teach this, but I needed to hear it from seventies spiritual icon Ram Dass, aka sixties psychedelic pioneer Dr. Richard Alpert and former neurotic hyper-intellectual over-achiever. Since then I've been taking every chance I can to learn about spiritual practice.
The first time I tripped with that friend was years ago under the apple tree at Firefly. I heard a chickadee, which reminded me of many sunny mornings before, and I realized that we had everything we needed from the sun and the air, as beautiful beings in a beautiful world. Now I realize I am still there, and there is here, and here is now.
One night I was tripping for the last time with my best friend who was about to move to another state. I was sitting in my messy room thinking of all kinds of creative ideas and then getting frustrated because I'd already thought of those ideas, years ago, and hadn't really acted on them because I was too busy smoking pot and hiding from the world. My friend was reading "Be Here Now" and kept saying "This is amazing, you have to read this!" I noticed then it was written by Ram Dass, a name I vaguely remembered from my parents' recollections of the sixties and my explorations of City Lights book store as a teenager. My friend and I were having our minds re-blown by the Doors' "When the Music's Over." It was the first time I had heard it as someone who was older than Jim was when he died. I was fascinated by the sixties as a kid, and now I was realizing I had gotten to live out a lot of the same dreams and fallen into some of the same traps.
About a week later a therapist was trying to convince me that I could get from meditation and Yoga whatever it was I got from drugs. She mentioned something about Ram Dass. A strange coincidence, I thought.
I went home and read half the book in one night. It was about just what I'd hoped-- how you can BE HIGH instead of GETTING HIGH.
Ram Dass claims to have witnessed a lot of miracles, and seems awfully sure about a lot of things, and it can be hard to swallow at first if you spent your whole life in blind loyalty to your rational mind. But he makes the point quite eloquently that we choose to believe in the supremacy of the rational mind, just as anyone else chooses a belief system, and we suffer from its limitations. A lot of people teach this, but I needed to hear it from seventies spiritual icon Ram Dass, aka sixties psychedelic pioneer Dr. Richard Alpert and former neurotic hyper-intellectual over-achiever. Since then I've been taking every chance I can to learn about spiritual practice.
The first time I tripped with that friend was years ago under the apple tree at Firefly. I heard a chickadee, which reminded me of many sunny mornings before, and I realized that we had everything we needed from the sun and the air, as beautiful beings in a beautiful world. Now I realize I am still there, and there is here, and here is now.
November 27, 2020
This book is very deep and profound.
I'm glad that I read this book at the lowest point in my life, it really pulled my up and helped me to get a perspective. Reading this book was a whole new experience, the visual explanations provided are deeply impactful and they got stuck in my head and I'd keep them in my head forever.
I've always wondered why I'm unable improve certain things in me, like, waking up early, be more compassionate to others, eat healthy, be gentle to my spouse under stressful times. I'm constantly striving to achieve these things, reading books but still not able to make much progress, this leading me to get upset and confused, unable to understand why I'm failing despite my efforts. Finally I found the answer.
This book is so irresistible that I wanted to complete it in a single stint, but the wisdom this book offers is so vast, so I convinced myself that I complete this book at my own pace and will revisit it from time to time to be in pure bliss.
Emotions are like waves. Watch them disappear in the distance on the vast calm ocean.
I'm glad that I read this book at the lowest point in my life, it really pulled my up and helped me to get a perspective. Reading this book was a whole new experience, the visual explanations provided are deeply impactful and they got stuck in my head and I'd keep them in my head forever.
I've always wondered why I'm unable improve certain things in me, like, waking up early, be more compassionate to others, eat healthy, be gentle to my spouse under stressful times. I'm constantly striving to achieve these things, reading books but still not able to make much progress, this leading me to get upset and confused, unable to understand why I'm failing despite my efforts. Finally I found the answer.
You've got to go at the rate you can go.
You wake up at the rate you wake up.
You're finished with your desires at the rate you finish with your desires.
The disequilibrium comes into harmony at the rate it comes into harmony.
This book is so irresistible that I wanted to complete it in a single stint, but the wisdom this book offers is so vast, so I convinced myself that I complete this book at my own pace and will revisit it from time to time to be in pure bliss.
July 16, 2008
I first read this book at 20 years old when I was just barely beginning to realize that my beliefs might be different from those of my parents. So, alas, my review of this book is purely personal in nature. However, I believe this is how Ram Dass would expect his book to be reviewed.
Reading "Be Here Now" could only be likened to having the top of my heart ripped out of my chest and shown to me. I felt as though it contained all the beliefs, fears, and questions that I had kept secret for so long out of fear that I was the only person who could possibly view the world in such a way.
It is true that the format of the writing is non-traditional and can be difficult to read at times. I think, though, that this was intentional. This book is not intented to be an easy read. It is the reflection of one man's spiritual journey and we as the reader are supposed to witness this journey through his meditations. The ideal way to read it would be to read a page, put down the book and then contemplate/journal/etc. the writing before picking the book back up again.
In the decade that has past since I first read "Be Here Now" I have purchased and given this book several times over, each time intending to keep the copy for myself only to meet someone who so clearly needs it more than I. I suspect that this book doesn't want to be held on to - it would much rather be let go. I feel that it is a book to be shared, a book that wants to travel, just as it's author did, to all the dark places only so it can discover how to let in the light.
Reading "Be Here Now" could only be likened to having the top of my heart ripped out of my chest and shown to me. I felt as though it contained all the beliefs, fears, and questions that I had kept secret for so long out of fear that I was the only person who could possibly view the world in such a way.
It is true that the format of the writing is non-traditional and can be difficult to read at times. I think, though, that this was intentional. This book is not intented to be an easy read. It is the reflection of one man's spiritual journey and we as the reader are supposed to witness this journey through his meditations. The ideal way to read it would be to read a page, put down the book and then contemplate/journal/etc. the writing before picking the book back up again.
In the decade that has past since I first read "Be Here Now" I have purchased and given this book several times over, each time intending to keep the copy for myself only to meet someone who so clearly needs it more than I. I suspect that this book doesn't want to be held on to - it would much rather be let go. I feel that it is a book to be shared, a book that wants to travel, just as it's author did, to all the dark places only so it can discover how to let in the light.
April 7, 2018
A classic exploration of spirituality and consciousness by the former Harvard professor turned drug-fueled, then clean, spiritual seeker, Ram Dass.
What a strange book.
The first part is Ram Dass' life story.
He has trouble relating exactly how his guru changed his life. He also has trouble expressing his life changing spiritual insights.
This could perhaps be because of all the LSD he experimented with, but no judgement here.
I think Dass could have added another couple hundred pages to the first part and still probably not fully described his experience.
The next section of the book is block text printed on, what seems to be, brown paper bags. Monty Python-esque photos are drawn in, and sometimes behind, the text.
It reads like a stream-of-consciousness, path to enlightenment, how-to lecture.
Some of it is worthwhile, but I can't sugarcoat it: It's pretty far out there.
My description doesn't really do it justice. Perhaps Be Here Now is one of those books that needs to be "experienced" rather than read.
The last section was a "cook book" on how to live an enlightened lifestyle.
If you have a question about how an enlightened person lives, it's probably included in there.
Dass elucidates how he believes you should eat, sleep, breathe, interact with others, think, meditate, raise a family, form a commune and so on.
I didn't like it because it felt too brain-washy, cult-ish.
Dass attempts to put the reader's mind at ease to all of the strictures. He mentions that one needn't be concerned about family or social responsibilities because, once you reach the ultimate level, you'll realize that none of those things are real anyway.
Looking back on my review, it seems as if I don't like Ram Dass, but I do.
I rather enjoyed his Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart and a documentary that I saw about him once called Fierce Grace.
I too have had life experiences that have led me to the belief that human kind is here to "be high" and not just to "get high."
I don't buy into the idea that life has to be lived a certain way to get certain results.
And, perhaps because I haven't personally had the experience yet, I don't get the whole guru relationship thing. I know it's my western background speaking, but there you have it.
Recommended for spiritual seekers, but don't forget to trust your own inner guidance.
What a strange book.
The first part is Ram Dass' life story.
He has trouble relating exactly how his guru changed his life. He also has trouble expressing his life changing spiritual insights.
This could perhaps be because of all the LSD he experimented with, but no judgement here.
I think Dass could have added another couple hundred pages to the first part and still probably not fully described his experience.
The next section of the book is block text printed on, what seems to be, brown paper bags. Monty Python-esque photos are drawn in, and sometimes behind, the text.
It reads like a stream-of-consciousness, path to enlightenment, how-to lecture.
Some of it is worthwhile, but I can't sugarcoat it: It's pretty far out there.
My description doesn't really do it justice. Perhaps Be Here Now is one of those books that needs to be "experienced" rather than read.
The last section was a "cook book" on how to live an enlightened lifestyle.
If you have a question about how an enlightened person lives, it's probably included in there.
Dass elucidates how he believes you should eat, sleep, breathe, interact with others, think, meditate, raise a family, form a commune and so on.
I didn't like it because it felt too brain-washy, cult-ish.
Dass attempts to put the reader's mind at ease to all of the strictures. He mentions that one needn't be concerned about family or social responsibilities because, once you reach the ultimate level, you'll realize that none of those things are real anyway.
Looking back on my review, it seems as if I don't like Ram Dass, but I do.
I rather enjoyed his Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart and a documentary that I saw about him once called Fierce Grace.
I too have had life experiences that have led me to the belief that human kind is here to "be high" and not just to "get high."
I don't buy into the idea that life has to be lived a certain way to get certain results.
And, perhaps because I haven't personally had the experience yet, I don't get the whole guru relationship thing. I know it's my western background speaking, but there you have it.
Recommended for spiritual seekers, but don't forget to trust your own inner guidance.
August 3, 2009
I love this book. You can dismiss it if you want as ex-hippie/druggie New Age blather, but the fact is, this book has some serious wisdom. So get over the stigma and read this book for what it has to say, not the movement you think it represents.
The central message of this book resonates powerfully with me. How many of us spend inordinate amounts of time in the past or the future? How much of our day is spent wishing we were somewhere else, doing something else? How many of us live with the assumption or hope that one day in the future, everything will be hunky dory, even if we're not satisfied now?
Don't read this book if you can't handle in-your-face challenges to your entire way of life and mode of thinking. I try to read this book at least once a year and every time I do, it forces me to change my brain (this is a very good thing!)
Besides its message, I like how it challenges the notion of what an adult book is. Just open it up and you'll see what I mean.
"MADMEN'S THEATER: PRICE OF ADMISSION: YOUR MIND!"
The central message of this book resonates powerfully with me. How many of us spend inordinate amounts of time in the past or the future? How much of our day is spent wishing we were somewhere else, doing something else? How many of us live with the assumption or hope that one day in the future, everything will be hunky dory, even if we're not satisfied now?
Don't read this book if you can't handle in-your-face challenges to your entire way of life and mode of thinking. I try to read this book at least once a year and every time I do, it forces me to change my brain (this is a very good thing!)
Besides its message, I like how it challenges the notion of what an adult book is. Just open it up and you'll see what I mean.
"MADMEN'S THEATER: PRICE OF ADMISSION: YOUR MIND!"
December 7, 2007
Ram Dass takes the wisdom of the East, and wraps it in a package a Westerner can open. This book had a profound effect on me at a time when I was at a spiritual crossroads... well, maybe the beginning of my spiritual road is more accurate.
I was an atheist until about 21. Then I had my gnosis, or series of events that brought me into a direct experience with something larger than me. Call it what you want, the divine plan, the ground of being, the true self, insanity, a hallucination... all of these are probably equally accurate. Be Here Now, came into my life shortly thereafter, and it was as if I discovered the Rosetta Stone for my experiences. Be Here Now is part of my fundamental understanding of the self and world. It is a brilliant and beautiful work, which I highly recommend to all seekers. Ultimately, I found my path in the Western, rather than Eastern traditions, but truth, is truth, is truth, and I've found that the West leans heavily on the East, as does my paradigm. Thank you Ram Dass, Namaste
I was an atheist until about 21. Then I had my gnosis, or series of events that brought me into a direct experience with something larger than me. Call it what you want, the divine plan, the ground of being, the true self, insanity, a hallucination... all of these are probably equally accurate. Be Here Now, came into my life shortly thereafter, and it was as if I discovered the Rosetta Stone for my experiences. Be Here Now is part of my fundamental understanding of the self and world. It is a brilliant and beautiful work, which I highly recommend to all seekers. Ultimately, I found my path in the Western, rather than Eastern traditions, but truth, is truth, is truth, and I've found that the West leans heavily on the East, as does my paradigm. Thank you Ram Dass, Namaste
Read
June 30, 2012I'm not comfortable rating this. From somewhere behind that all-too-familiar burnt-out hippie lingo shines moments of verisimilitude, and as much as I'd like to curl a rational upper lip and scoff, a deeply irrational part of me would be disappointed if I did so. I'll say this: it is at times compelling, and at others tedious. But as far as how many "stars" I can give it? That would be missing the point altogether.
June 16, 2013
A Roadmap to Where You Are.
in 1970, I was trying to figure out who I was. I'd left college, manned the barricades for a while, then built a cabin on a commune. Filled with anxiety about my place in the scary world of the day, I just didn't know what I should do, until a very kind yogi mentioned I should read this book. I read it. I spent weeks thinking about it, and it changed my life. Be Here Now is the erstwhile story of Drs. Timothy Leary and Richard Alperrt's struggle to take meaning from their research into psychotropic drugs and disciplines. In easy to absorb words and concepts, it illustrates one of the most significant truths about our lives. Time is a construct. Now is all there is. Learning to adopt the principles of Dr. Alpert, who took the name Baba Ram Dass and became a perpetual seeker felt so comfortable, despite my Protestant upbringing, that I experienced frissons of release and joy throughout my time with the book. It released me from many of my stresses, released me from the past and from my anxiety over the future, and freed me to make the leap to travel to New York, where I unexpectedly found my true soulmate, my life and my home. If the Hindu overtones make you wonder if this might apply to you, forget about it and buy this book anyway. For anyone who needs to figure out where they are headed, or why, it will teach you lessons you'll never forget and make your journey more graceful.
in 1970, I was trying to figure out who I was. I'd left college, manned the barricades for a while, then built a cabin on a commune. Filled with anxiety about my place in the scary world of the day, I just didn't know what I should do, until a very kind yogi mentioned I should read this book. I read it. I spent weeks thinking about it, and it changed my life. Be Here Now is the erstwhile story of Drs. Timothy Leary and Richard Alperrt's struggle to take meaning from their research into psychotropic drugs and disciplines. In easy to absorb words and concepts, it illustrates one of the most significant truths about our lives. Time is a construct. Now is all there is. Learning to adopt the principles of Dr. Alpert, who took the name Baba Ram Dass and became a perpetual seeker felt so comfortable, despite my Protestant upbringing, that I experienced frissons of release and joy throughout my time with the book. It released me from many of my stresses, released me from the past and from my anxiety over the future, and freed me to make the leap to travel to New York, where I unexpectedly found my true soulmate, my life and my home. If the Hindu overtones make you wonder if this might apply to you, forget about it and buy this book anyway. For anyone who needs to figure out where they are headed, or why, it will teach you lessons you'll never forget and make your journey more graceful.
November 24, 2020
With drugs, particularly pharmaceuticals, being so regularly abused in our culture, it is a salutary exercise to reconsider the sixties, when some psychoactive drugs, used considerately and independently of profit-driven corporations, turned millions towards the serious study of psychology, philosophy and religion. Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary were two prominent examples of this existential turn.
Of the two erstwhile Harvard academics, Alpert's is the happier story, Alpert the wiser man. This book, however, is Alpert at the turning point, Alpert telling the story of how L.S.D. turned him into the religious teacher, Baba Ram Dass.
The story is quite fun to read, even hilarious. The whole book, and what Alpert ended up with, is a joy.
I myself read this book in a study carrel on the second floor of the Grinnell College library.
Of the two erstwhile Harvard academics, Alpert's is the happier story, Alpert the wiser man. This book, however, is Alpert at the turning point, Alpert telling the story of how L.S.D. turned him into the religious teacher, Baba Ram Dass.
The story is quite fun to read, even hilarious. The whole book, and what Alpert ended up with, is a joy.
I myself read this book in a study carrel on the second floor of the Grinnell College library.
August 17, 2012
This book is the worst of everything wrong with the "new age" movement and its adherents. Coming from an author who claims that LSD crippled him, a physical impossibility, you know that there is going to have to be a total suspension of disbelief to even approach this book. Even with that, this isn't a book. This is a collection of platitudes and mindless drivel that appeals only to the mindless and the stoned. Do not for one second look for an original idea in this piece of trash that is merely a recycled amalgamation of religious and philosophical ideas. I cannot impress enough upon you how this book will only appeal to someone with a serious impediment to adult thought.
April 15, 2020
I am an indian-american who has done extensive reading on ancient indian philosophy, spirituality, and mysticism. I admire the works of many spiritual gurus and authors of all spiritual traditions, both indian and non-indian.
A friend of mine gifted me this book. I know Ram Dass has a big following in the west, especially among the baby boomer generation. I see him as espousing the "free sex with reckless abandon" mentality. Unfortunately, I feel he misrepresents and defiles many indian teachings tremendously, especially teachings regarding sexual issues.
Sure, hinduism treats sex as a normal part of life instead of making it taboo, but for hindus, sex represents the longing for union with the divine. Initially, we search for it outside of ourselves, in a partner. This is meant to evolve into finding this fulfillment through union with the divinity within ourselves, so that we are whole as a person and have more to offer any relationships we have in life. To treat "free sex" as the end point is spiritual immaturity. I'm not saying one must be a 'prude' but there's so much more to life than just sex.
I sincerely feel that teachers like Ram Dass can be dangerous. Tinsel glitters brighter than gold so be wary of the low-hanging fruit. The ideal guru is one who encourages honest introspection & meditation. Instead of answering everything for you, the ideal guru has you turn inward to search for answers from the well of divine inspiration that dwells within each one of us.
One more point: "Kama Sutra" merely means "Principle of Lust" so you can say it's a book but to say it is hinduism is like saying a 'Masters and Johnsons' book is Christianity.
Please forgive me if I have offended anyone. These are my thoughts but the decision belongs to you.
A friend of mine gifted me this book. I know Ram Dass has a big following in the west, especially among the baby boomer generation. I see him as espousing the "free sex with reckless abandon" mentality. Unfortunately, I feel he misrepresents and defiles many indian teachings tremendously, especially teachings regarding sexual issues.
Sure, hinduism treats sex as a normal part of life instead of making it taboo, but for hindus, sex represents the longing for union with the divine. Initially, we search for it outside of ourselves, in a partner. This is meant to evolve into finding this fulfillment through union with the divinity within ourselves, so that we are whole as a person and have more to offer any relationships we have in life. To treat "free sex" as the end point is spiritual immaturity. I'm not saying one must be a 'prude' but there's so much more to life than just sex.
I sincerely feel that teachers like Ram Dass can be dangerous. Tinsel glitters brighter than gold so be wary of the low-hanging fruit. The ideal guru is one who encourages honest introspection & meditation. Instead of answering everything for you, the ideal guru has you turn inward to search for answers from the well of divine inspiration that dwells within each one of us.
One more point: "Kama Sutra" merely means "Principle of Lust" so you can say it's a book but to say it is hinduism is like saying a 'Masters and Johnsons' book is Christianity.
Please forgive me if I have offended anyone. These are my thoughts but the decision belongs to you.
June 17, 2008
There is something about a square book (the shape, not the content, man), printed on paper that is almost as thick as construction paper, with the wackiest insides EVER. And, yes, while we are treated to an overview of Ram Dass' life, and given a primer for becoming practicing Hindus, it is the part in the middle with the mind-melding/melting pen and ink drawings accompanied by words on a page like, "You're standing on a bridge watching yourself go by," that make this book such a trip. Literally. I think it was printed on the same kind of paper blotter acid is "printed" on. Yeah, that makes sense. Now is NOW are you going to BE HERE or not? IT'S ALL AS SIMPLE AS THAT!
As a psychedelic souvenir, or ticket to the future, this book still rocks.
As a psychedelic souvenir, or ticket to the future, this book still rocks.
July 26, 2008
It wouldn't be fair to open this book holding on to any preconceived notions about some "hippie counterculture", you might miss the message. You must be able to accept that a book can be square in shape and that the story can be delivered as art and not only straight lines of text. And to push you just a bit further, you must be comfortable reading most of the book "sideways", not like a "regular" book.. Some of those very things are what I love about Be Here Now, to read it you must truly Be Here Now.
I've had this book for longer than almost every other book on my shelf and I still open it up and grow from the experience.
I've had this book for longer than almost every other book on my shelf and I still open it up and grow from the experience.
February 8, 2021
“To him who has had the experience no explanation is necessary, to him who has not, none is possible.”
What I gathered from this book is that all this is, is a predetermined drama — a wheel of birth and death (all our lifetimes) and through stillness, being present in the now, not hurrying or thinking about what’s next, you can reach detachment and start living in the Way. Other than not investing in yourself as a separate entity, the Tao is also about feeling compassionate love towards all other beings, a “us-ness” of brotherhood.
Furthermore, by releasing yourself from the bonds of karma you can return to the source. By seeing the inaction that is in action and the action that is in inaction you retain the calmness of your higher self. This book helped me forgive and view karma with new eyes. It helped me open up my heart chakra and feel compassionate love towards everyone. Overall, I’m very glad I picked it up. It shifted my perspective and was a catalyst for taking steps in letting go of some attachments.
“Now, as I look back, I realize that many of the experiences that made little sense to me at the time they occurred were prerequisites for what was to come later.”
It was eye-opening to the experiences of spiritual people the author came accros along his journey, particularly Maharaji, his guru. It covers the areas in practicing sadhana including exercises and powerful quotes. In essence, this review is a collection of my favourite sayings, as I want to come back to them.
“where they would look at another person and see the way in which the other person was similar, rather than different from themselves... You’d see differences more as clothing, rather than as core stuff.”
“Emotions are like waves. Watch them disappear in the distance on the vast calm ocean.”
“Unless you start again. Become that trusting open surrendered being, the energy can’t come in”
“The very moment you will wake up, is totally determined. How long you will sleep, is totally determined. What you will hear of what I say, is totally determined... To the ego, it looks like it’s miracles and accidents. No miracles. No accidents.”
“It is from this place in our heart cave — where we are now we watch the entire drama that is our lives — we watch the illusion with unbearable compassion”
“William James said: Our normal waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application and adaptation. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question — for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness. Yet they may determine attitudes though they cannot furnish formulas, and open a region though they fail to give a map. At any rate, they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality.”
“When you can center and see your whole life as a story in which chapters are unfolding then: the moment-to-moment ego involvement ‘Am I getting enough at this moment?’ ceases to be a dominant theme and: you start to live in the Tao (The Way).”
“If I’m not attached to this particular time-space locus then I can free my awareness from my body and I can become one with it all. I can merge with the divine mother.”
“You see that to do anything with attachment. With desire, with anger, greed, lust, fear is only creating more karma, which is keeping you in the game, on the wheel of birth and death.”
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”
“To become free of attachment means to break the link identifying you with your desires. The desires continue; they are part of the dance of nature. But a renunciate no longer thinks that he is his desires.”
“Another thing that people must sacrifice is their suffering. No one who has not sacrificed his suffering can work. Nothing can be attained without suffering but at the same time one must begin by sacrificing suffering.”
“Does this mean that other thoughts stop? No. Thoughts continue as a natural process in nature, but you run them through on automatic (base brain)—the same way most people drive an automobile, that is, without attending to each movement of the accelerator or steering wheel. We function under the fallacy (cogito ergo sum) that we are our thoughts and therefore must attend to them in order for them to be realised.”
“None of these things made me feel at all cast down. It was as though they happened to someone else, and I merely watched them.”
“It follows that when you have succeeded in fully breaking the identification with your body, senses, and thoughts, then you merge into pure consciousness—Universal Consciousness. What you thought was “your” consciousness turns out to be only a part of a Consciousness caught in the illusion of separateness. A person who has severed all attachments and has thus become one with Consciousness is said to be in SAT CHIT ANANDA: total existence, total knowledge, total bliss.”
“For example, if you never got on well with one of your parents and you have left that parent behind on your journey in such a way that the thought of that parent arouses anger or frustration or self-pity or any emotion... you are still attached. You are still stuck. And you must get that relationship straight before you can finish your work... Well, it means re-perceiving that parent, or whoever it may be, with total compassion... seeing him as a being of the spirit, just like you, who happens to be your parent... and who happens to have this or that characteristic, and who happens to be at a certain stage of his evolutionary journey.”
“What makes a man unworthy of the Temple is the cowardice which prompts him to avoid the experience of shame, for this avoidance breeds oblivion... The cause of such helplessness lies in ignorance of your errors; awareness thereof, on the contrary, attracts you to the power of your God.”
“Buddha says: As long as you think there is a ‘do-er’ you are still caught in the wheel of birth and death. He meant that you do what you do, but you do not identify with the doing of it. All ‘doing’ is happening as part of the dance of nature... and though your body and mind speed about their business, you remain in your calm center... here ‘where we all are’.”
“The more you talk about it, the more you think about it, the further from it you go. Stop talking, stop thinking, and there is nothing you will not understand. Return to the root and you will find the meaning. Pursue the light, and you lose its source. Look inward and in a flash you will conquer the apparent and the void. All come from mistaken views. There is no need to seek truth, only stop having views.”
What I gathered from this book is that all this is, is a predetermined drama — a wheel of birth and death (all our lifetimes) and through stillness, being present in the now, not hurrying or thinking about what’s next, you can reach detachment and start living in the Way. Other than not investing in yourself as a separate entity, the Tao is also about feeling compassionate love towards all other beings, a “us-ness” of brotherhood.
Furthermore, by releasing yourself from the bonds of karma you can return to the source. By seeing the inaction that is in action and the action that is in inaction you retain the calmness of your higher self. This book helped me forgive and view karma with new eyes. It helped me open up my heart chakra and feel compassionate love towards everyone. Overall, I’m very glad I picked it up. It shifted my perspective and was a catalyst for taking steps in letting go of some attachments.
“Now, as I look back, I realize that many of the experiences that made little sense to me at the time they occurred were prerequisites for what was to come later.”
It was eye-opening to the experiences of spiritual people the author came accros along his journey, particularly Maharaji, his guru. It covers the areas in practicing sadhana including exercises and powerful quotes. In essence, this review is a collection of my favourite sayings, as I want to come back to them.
“where they would look at another person and see the way in which the other person was similar, rather than different from themselves... You’d see differences more as clothing, rather than as core stuff.”
“Emotions are like waves. Watch them disappear in the distance on the vast calm ocean.”
“Unless you start again. Become that trusting open surrendered being, the energy can’t come in”
“The very moment you will wake up, is totally determined. How long you will sleep, is totally determined. What you will hear of what I say, is totally determined... To the ego, it looks like it’s miracles and accidents. No miracles. No accidents.”
“It is from this place in our heart cave — where we are now we watch the entire drama that is our lives — we watch the illusion with unbearable compassion”
“William James said: Our normal waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application and adaptation. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question — for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness. Yet they may determine attitudes though they cannot furnish formulas, and open a region though they fail to give a map. At any rate, they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality.”
“When you can center and see your whole life as a story in which chapters are unfolding then: the moment-to-moment ego involvement ‘Am I getting enough at this moment?’ ceases to be a dominant theme and: you start to live in the Tao (The Way).”
“If I’m not attached to this particular time-space locus then I can free my awareness from my body and I can become one with it all. I can merge with the divine mother.”
“You see that to do anything with attachment. With desire, with anger, greed, lust, fear is only creating more karma, which is keeping you in the game, on the wheel of birth and death.”
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”
“To become free of attachment means to break the link identifying you with your desires. The desires continue; they are part of the dance of nature. But a renunciate no longer thinks that he is his desires.”
“Another thing that people must sacrifice is their suffering. No one who has not sacrificed his suffering can work. Nothing can be attained without suffering but at the same time one must begin by sacrificing suffering.”
“Does this mean that other thoughts stop? No. Thoughts continue as a natural process in nature, but you run them through on automatic (base brain)—the same way most people drive an automobile, that is, without attending to each movement of the accelerator or steering wheel. We function under the fallacy (cogito ergo sum) that we are our thoughts and therefore must attend to them in order for them to be realised.”
“None of these things made me feel at all cast down. It was as though they happened to someone else, and I merely watched them.”
“It follows that when you have succeeded in fully breaking the identification with your body, senses, and thoughts, then you merge into pure consciousness—Universal Consciousness. What you thought was “your” consciousness turns out to be only a part of a Consciousness caught in the illusion of separateness. A person who has severed all attachments and has thus become one with Consciousness is said to be in SAT CHIT ANANDA: total existence, total knowledge, total bliss.”
“For example, if you never got on well with one of your parents and you have left that parent behind on your journey in such a way that the thought of that parent arouses anger or frustration or self-pity or any emotion... you are still attached. You are still stuck. And you must get that relationship straight before you can finish your work... Well, it means re-perceiving that parent, or whoever it may be, with total compassion... seeing him as a being of the spirit, just like you, who happens to be your parent... and who happens to have this or that characteristic, and who happens to be at a certain stage of his evolutionary journey.”
“What makes a man unworthy of the Temple is the cowardice which prompts him to avoid the experience of shame, for this avoidance breeds oblivion... The cause of such helplessness lies in ignorance of your errors; awareness thereof, on the contrary, attracts you to the power of your God.”
“Buddha says: As long as you think there is a ‘do-er’ you are still caught in the wheel of birth and death. He meant that you do what you do, but you do not identify with the doing of it. All ‘doing’ is happening as part of the dance of nature... and though your body and mind speed about their business, you remain in your calm center... here ‘where we all are’.”
“The more you talk about it, the more you think about it, the further from it you go. Stop talking, stop thinking, and there is nothing you will not understand. Return to the root and you will find the meaning. Pursue the light, and you lose its source. Look inward and in a flash you will conquer the apparent and the void. All come from mistaken views. There is no need to seek truth, only stop having views.”
November 21, 2014
One might say, written by a hippie for a hippie. But hippie or not one will not find the true value of this book without being on a certain stage of a certain journey. The distinction that makes them the same is perhaps that the hippie will mindlessly accept and the anti-hippie will mindlessly dismiss. While those who have partaken of that little drop of poison known as acid, likely know an experience more profound than any combination of books can provide them, and will see the value in heeding the story of an unassuming Harvard professor who became disillusioned of the so-called real world and swan-dived into Eastern mysticism. Ram Dass is wise in his own way of channeling some of that Eastern wisdom into palatable delineations for the Westerner in this sort of how-to book complete with photos, drawings, hippie vernacular, etc. Loses a star for being a bit too certain of certain things.
May 2, 2021
This is a really cool book. It starts out with a short biography on the writer, then goes into various pictures/templates/designs (or whatever you want to call them). these pictures are very thought provoking and I look at them regularly to help me spark creativity and just to keep me centered in this chaotic world. The pictures are based on Hinduism-Buddhism-Christianity-drugs-sex and psychological principles.
The book lastly goes into various exercises your should do daily and other helpful tidbits to make your life more pleasurable. This book hits on the premonition to live in the Here & Now. I enjoyed this book and look at it regularly.
The book lastly goes into various exercises your should do daily and other helpful tidbits to make your life more pleasurable. This book hits on the premonition to live in the Here & Now. I enjoyed this book and look at it regularly.
March 17, 2022
I DO NOT REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I WAS SO HAPPY TO BE DONE A BOOK
This wins worst book I've read in 2021!
I was not impressed... here's why:
As we come to learn in the book, Richard Alpert had serious problems. Emotional problems that whatever therapy/psychoanalysis he was doing were not seeming to really solve. He was a heavy drinker, started doing pot because his patient recommended it (??), felt empty in his work and achievements, called himself neurotic... which meant the Freudian psychoanalysis, therapy he received, and his enjoyment of work were garbage (he would get diarrhea when lecturing).
So far, seems like he had some emptiness and emotional problems that needed a fix. I did not quite see how those deep-rooted problems were solved by his spiritual journey throughout the book - other than the work change of course. After being tired of his life as a Harvard professor, he wanted a change. So he decided to start experimenting with taking LSD. After experiences he enjoyed, he continued experimenting with LSD, hoping it would make him feel better and give him spiritual answers. On LSD he was able to feel this - "'I'm just a new beautiful being - I'm just an inner self - all I'll ever need to do is look inside and I'll know what to do and I can always trust it, and here I'll be forever.'" (6)
But two days later, no more acid, "I was talking about the whole thing in the past tense. I was talking about how I 'experienced' this thing, because I was back being that anxiety-neurotic, in a slightly milder form.. my old personality sneaking back up on me" (6). Hmm, it seems like LSD isn't the solution either! In fact, after a three-week experiment involving constantly being on LSD (2400 mcg/day), once they came down, an 'extraordinary depression set in - a very gentle depression that whatever I knew still wasn't enough!' (9).
If taking LSD was really enough to give you all the answers, why wouldn't everyone do it?
After that, Alpert went on a journey to Asia/India, where he was influenced by various gurus and spiritual men. (Note, by the way, that all the real people who had a spiritual influence on him were MEN. There were zero women who had any role, and there was barely any mention of women as part of the story at all, actually, apart from occasional mentions of his mother. There's nothing wrong with having male gurus, but it seemed quite male-dominated/focused and didn't seem fully whole from that.)
Ram Dass told the dialogue of him and one of his gurus:
"Did I ever tell you about the time..."
"Don't think about the past. Be here now."
"How long do you think we'll be on this trip?"
"Don't think about the future. Just be here now."
"I feel really crummy, my hips are hurting..."
"Emotions are like waves. Watch them disappear in the distance on the vast calm ocean." (13)
>> First of all, my joke response: how about I watch you stfu😂
>> Serious response: I get the message, but the delivery was kind of annoying. No empathy, just a "spiritual lesson" to be taught. Of course emotions are like waves and come and go. Is this news? Does that suddenly change whatever you are feeling into a different emotion? No, at least not for me. What usually works for people to feel better is to ACCEPT their emotion - yes, you are feeling crummy and that's okay. I didn't hear any of this in the 'lesson'.
I appreciated the value in different methods of sharing messages ("One can share a message... through teaching methods of yoga, or singing, or making love. Each of us finds this unique vehicle for sharing with others his bit of wisdom" (20)), but to me, all contributions are not equal in making the world a better place. Singing someone else's song isn't of the same value as feeding the hungry, emotionally supporting others, protecting the environment, etc.
"You don't have to have that urge/that desire that unfulfilled thing. Just let it be. Just be be be be more be more more. What's holding you back? Your thoughts, huh? You've got to give them up. What are you doing? Planning for the future? Well it's all right now. But later? forget it baby. That's later. Now is now. Are you going to be here or not? It's as simple as that!"" (P2:22)
>>This is a perfect example of a quote that's trying to push you into his thinking style. NOT BEING IN THE MOMENT IS WRONG! THERE IS NO OTHER RIGHT ANSWER SPIRITUALLY! BE IN THE MOMENT AT ALL TIMES! Also, in one second, give up all your thoughts! I won't tell you how, but just listen to me and do it. Also, no planning or thinking of the future allowed! Forget it ALL! (Maybe what he's saying is a bit Buddhist - don't have hope for the future, etc. but I personally do not enjoy thinking that way, it does not make me a better person nor make me feel fulfilled, so I will not be doing that.)
Dass loved to give repetitious quotes that (it seems like he thought) were wisdom bombs, but gave absolutely zero explanation/advice of how to achieve/get to what he was talking about. Example:
"What you've got to do is create in yourself an absolutely calm center where it's always right here & now. It is just light it is just is-ness" (P2:46)
>>So, how is this calm center achieved? Maybe you will point me to the cookbook section at the end of the book... and if so, I didn't find the answer there either.
Back to the theme of 'here and now', Dass repeated that you can 'always be in a state of here and now'. But how? I find that very hard to believe. Ram Dass was always in that state 100% of the time? As a normal human it is extremely difficult, if not entirely impossible, to ALWAYS be in one state. It almost seems counterintuitive to the human experience to always be one way, or in one state.
When Guru loved Ram Dass unconditionally, no one had ever done that before.
Ram Dass was touched he could love someone "corrupt, ugly, impure" (P2:69).
This was sad. Clearly he wasn't in a good place if he was thinking those things about himself because he had 'impure' thoughts (sexual and others). He didn't seem loving towards himself.
Everyone has 'good' and 'bad' aspects or qualities, if you want to look at it like that.. (which he wouldn't, because pretty sure he doesn't like dualities)
The black and white views bothered me. "You've got to be really pure / you can't just make believe you're pure"/"Anything less than total purity back into outer darkness that's what you learn after a couple of hundred psychedelic trips I might as well go straight because I'm beginning to feel like a yo-yo I keep going up and coming down up down up down up down" (P2:100). He also says "purification of thought" is needed (100) without really explaining how to do this.
Renunciation: "As each worldly desire falls away, eventually the only desire is for bliss. Then that one must be thrown away..." (P3:9)
I really don't get how these concepts apply to people in real life with jobs, school, families, etc.
Disagree:
Recommends abstaining as much as possible from spicy/strong foods. "Most Westerners are very sensual and spend large amounts of time in titillating their palates with variety and subtlety in tastes. The sadhak realizes that all sense gratification is merely perpetuating the enslavement to desire so he attempts, early on, to surrender the taste trip in favor of his spiritual goal." (P3:18)
>>Nothing wrong with having desires or enjoying food. Sorry!
A pro for psychedelics according to Dass: they 'short-term strengthen your faith in the possibility of enlightenment to pursue systematic purification'. If you need psychedelics to be hopeful of enlightenment, YOU'RE the one with the problem.
"Industrial revolution and money economy... has caused the virtual destruction of the family as a spiritual and psychic union by compelling at least one and often both principal members to become money earners." (P3:109)
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? We don't all live on some commune or magical country with no money currency. Parents having jobs and earning money DOES NOT DESTROY ANY UNION AT ALL.
It gets better... "reliance on daycare & schools to provide spiritual foundation which they cannot be expected to provide. Society is in essence profane & continues same level of consciousness" (P3:109)
There is no reliance on them whatsoever. Nobody gave them that responsibility. It's the parent's job no matter how much they see their kids; and the time kids are at home is the time for spiritual education, should the parents so choose to do that.
"The family is dispersed, members isolated from each other and effectively only together as an economic and sleeping unit. No center to radiate from and no spiritual-psychic support system. It is dead. The outlook is bleak from this vantage point." (P3:109).
Dass is so negative and a little delusional(?). You think families have no centre and don't support each other spiritually? You think families only interact to have shelter and sleep? God...
"Can/will you let go of all the things and values and trips that you have gotten caught in? If you can adapt your present means of livelihood to your spiritual work than you're cool."He recommends families going and starting a farm, crafts, general store, restaurant, bookstore to restore the 'psychic organism' of the family. Also, put religious decorations everywhere to "make the whole environment support it" (P3:110).
>> Sigh, this is where the 'hippie-ness' came in that isn't relevant to most people. I'm not gonna move to a farm to make the way my family lives fit with your expectation of what is psychically healthy!
So, near the end of reading I talked to the wisest, most spiritual person I know -my mom. In my short discussion with her was more wisdom than I got from this entire book. She said:
#1 - In response to me having a heavy, head-achy, overall unpleasant physical feeling while reading:
"You'll know in your heart/gut if something resonates with you, in terms of a spiritual teaching. You will feel it."
#2 - When I asked about giving up all desires, she said "Why would you even be alive then?" and then elaborated she thinks the point of being alive is to live and enjoy/experience things. (Were talking about giving up strong spicy food, as recommended)
#3 - It should uplift you and not make you feel bad. Shouldn't say: "If you don't get it you're not ready" and "You haven't progressed enough" - which were the exact messages I received from the book.
#4 - When people are in a place of love, they're open and flexible and not black and white/rigid. "This is the only way" "there's something wrong with you if you don't do it this way" / "I know best". However, Ram Dass was constantly talking like that. It wasn't in-your-face arrogance, it was a subtle arrogance infused in assertive statements.
The subtle message I got all along is: you're not enlightened if you don't believe what he does. I HAVE NEVER HEARD ANY GOOD SPIRITUAL LEADER GIVE THIS MESSAGE, EVER.
Dass is trying to proselytize you the entire book, with just enough distance to make it a little unclear if that's his goal or not.
Quotes that didn't resonate with me - assorted
"If you see yourself as God and then you come back from this state and somebody says, “Hey, Sam, empty the garbage!” it catches you back into the model of “I’m Sam who empties the garbage.” You can’t maintain these new kinds of structures. It takes a while to realize that God can empty garbage." (11)
>> I'm not quite clear why people who realize they are God or God is within them or whatever spiritual way you want to phrase it are suddenly incapable of carrying out normal duties like cleaning. Is that just me?
"Fear of death only comes from brittleness of the ego... total surrender total surrender there's no more you, no more life and death"
>>If he were saying this to someone genuinely afraid of death, I don't understand how it would make them no longer afraid of death. Maybe truly believing that removes your fear, but someone afraid isn't instantly going to adopt that view and suddenly surrender? This is an example of a quote which if believed already is probably helpful, but as a new idea is not so amazing.
"Yeah I'm going to die wow! Dig that! I'm going to live wow! Dig that! Garbage wow! New blossoms on the tree wow!"
"Patterns of energy. All patterns of energy. You're part of it all. That's the place!"" (P2:20)
About Saul of Tarsus
"'Go to the next town and you'll be instructed' Thats what he heard and he went the whole trip and thats an astral trip. A very groovy astral trip." (P2:73)
>>I can't lie, the 'hippie' language both bothered me and turned me off. (Reading religious-spiritual books I'd get turned off by 'God' being used every five seconds, turns out I'm also annoyed by this).
"If I am a potter i make pots. But WHO is making the pots? I am not under the illusion that I am making the pots.
Pots are. The potter is. I am a hollow bamboo" (P2: 54)
>>First of all, this didn't make sense to me. Secondly, even if it did, how does a) this help me spiritually? b) make me into a better (or even more spiritual) human being by adopting this view?
Just the process of calming, centering, centering, calming, extricating myself from the drama
So as long as one feels that he is the doer
He cannot escape from the wheel of births and deaths"
"That doesn't mean that I'm lying in bed doing nothing / That's drama as much as this book is drama" (P2:89)
>> I see the reincarnation/karma concept here. Both of which are personally not in my spiritual viewpoint. I don't see anything wrong with you seeing yourself as the 'doer' of an action, no matter what the action is. Honestly, after that messaged getting hammered to the reader, I got tired of hearing it; seems like a waste of time to focus on that. Maybe there's some deep meaning I'm not getting, but to me, it just is like, who actually cares whether you're the doer of an action or not?
"Drama is drama is drama is drama is drama
Desire is drama
Breathing is drama
Thought is drama
Emotions are drama
All form is drama
It's all part of the drama" (P2:90)
>>There were sooo many quotes like this. Cool, so drama is drama. And everything in physical form is drama. Now, what am I left with as the reader from this? Absolutely nothing of spiritual or other value. Did this have any positive impact on me? No. Like great, you think breathing is drama. Gotta remove yourself from that! ;)
"There is all this in its OM
In its unmanifest form
Always eternally you perceive that
nothing is really happening at all
nothing ever happens
nothing is going to happen
There's nothing you've got to do
There's no doer to do it anyway" (P2:94)
>>Idk why but this quote just bothers me. Yeah, I think things do happen and will happen and there is a doer. I just don't agree with him here. Somehow he's all high and spiritual for saying what he said, and I'm just someone who doesn't Know, according to him.
"I mean: if I am going to spend life manipulating this puny ego through a set of power games and sensual gratifications what's the payoff? The end is that it's going to end anyway because it's all in time. Suddenly I dig who I am at that moment when I'm stoned! High! Out of time! I am out of space! It feels like the first real thing that's ever happened to me!" (P2:105)
>>Yikes... it took being high to get you to love yourself? Drugs don't fix your problems...
"And a mantra for taking dope: om shiva shankara hariari ganga"
After that: Okay, I can't read this book anymore.
"Make up other mantras for daily acts to bring consciousness to your center so that you break the identification with an ego who is performing the act" (P3:34)
> Don't really get how this helps anything but okay.
"Except for existing karmic commitments (such as familial or societal) there is no reason to spend time with anyone except as an aid to one's sadhana. So all new relationships, be they friendships, marriages, business, roommates, take on this contractual basis." (P3:170)
>> I could be interpreting this wrong. I get why you would decide to only surround yourself with people good for you in the future. But viewing relationships as a 'contract' is gross to me.
Again with the excluding - "In the beginning important we surround ourselves with other beings who share our faith in the Spirit. During this stage be with people who wish to discuss only ways and means of realizing enlightenment" (P3:53)
>> a) sounds culty, b) your faith must be super weak if you can only be around people who agree with you or are spiritual. Yikes. Very separate of you (and hypocritical)!
"Krishna's instruction: 'Do whatever you do, but consecrate the fruit of your actions to me.' Every act you perform, all day every day, would be done as an offering to Krishna" (P3:65)
> Not religious. My acts are not going to be for Krishna, sorry! And guess what, there's nothing wrong with that.
I personally don't find value in repeating mantras like 'om om om' and 'rama rama rama' over and over. They're supposed to remind you 'that it is all One' (P3:_). Recommendation is 30 mins each day. I could better spend that 30 mins being of service to others instead of sitting by myself chanting the same words over and over in my head, thanks. Also, I'm sure you'll suddenly be spiritually awakened after the mantra repeating!
"I am not my internal organs, I am not my senses, I am not my torso or my body, etc. "I am not my thoughts." (P3:86,87)
>>Okay, so how does believing this help improve my life? Or make me a more spiritual person?
Hari Dass Baba says "LSD is like Christ in America, awakening the young folk in Kali Yuga. America is most materialistic country therefore God has shown His Avatar in a form of LSD. This material helps approach God" (P3:93)
>>Soooo... God made LSD to help people get close to him? That seems like a really convenient reason, yeah.
General Criticisms
Organization & lack of editor
1. The giant paragraphs of quotes are really irritating to read. I don't know who thought that would be a good idea, but they really should be spread out.
2. There were so many typos (missing apostrophes, misspelled words, etc.) that made the book look sloppy. An editor could have helped.
3. The page numbers were the worst organization I've ever seen in a book. Three sections all starting at 1.
Don't know if the actual content or the way it was presented that annoyed me more
It came across as arrogant, all-knowing, rigid and like what was being said is the only right answer. WARNING: THIS BOOK IS SO DOGMATIC.
I would NOT recommend this book.. I'd only recommend to people who already like Ram Dass. There are a million better spiritual books out there.
This wins worst book I've read in 2021!
I was not impressed... here's why:
As we come to learn in the book, Richard Alpert had serious problems. Emotional problems that whatever therapy/psychoanalysis he was doing were not seeming to really solve. He was a heavy drinker, started doing pot because his patient recommended it (??), felt empty in his work and achievements, called himself neurotic... which meant the Freudian psychoanalysis, therapy he received, and his enjoyment of work were garbage (he would get diarrhea when lecturing).
So far, seems like he had some emptiness and emotional problems that needed a fix. I did not quite see how those deep-rooted problems were solved by his spiritual journey throughout the book - other than the work change of course. After being tired of his life as a Harvard professor, he wanted a change. So he decided to start experimenting with taking LSD. After experiences he enjoyed, he continued experimenting with LSD, hoping it would make him feel better and give him spiritual answers. On LSD he was able to feel this - "'I'm just a new beautiful being - I'm just an inner self - all I'll ever need to do is look inside and I'll know what to do and I can always trust it, and here I'll be forever.'" (6)
But two days later, no more acid, "I was talking about the whole thing in the past tense. I was talking about how I 'experienced' this thing, because I was back being that anxiety-neurotic, in a slightly milder form.. my old personality sneaking back up on me" (6). Hmm, it seems like LSD isn't the solution either! In fact, after a three-week experiment involving constantly being on LSD (2400 mcg/day), once they came down, an 'extraordinary depression set in - a very gentle depression that whatever I knew still wasn't enough!' (9).
If taking LSD was really enough to give you all the answers, why wouldn't everyone do it?
After that, Alpert went on a journey to Asia/India, where he was influenced by various gurus and spiritual men. (Note, by the way, that all the real people who had a spiritual influence on him were MEN. There were zero women who had any role, and there was barely any mention of women as part of the story at all, actually, apart from occasional mentions of his mother. There's nothing wrong with having male gurus, but it seemed quite male-dominated/focused and didn't seem fully whole from that.)
Ram Dass told the dialogue of him and one of his gurus:
"Did I ever tell you about the time..."
"Don't think about the past. Be here now."
"How long do you think we'll be on this trip?"
"Don't think about the future. Just be here now."
"I feel really crummy, my hips are hurting..."
"Emotions are like waves. Watch them disappear in the distance on the vast calm ocean." (13)
>> First of all, my joke response: how about I watch you stfu😂
>> Serious response: I get the message, but the delivery was kind of annoying. No empathy, just a "spiritual lesson" to be taught. Of course emotions are like waves and come and go. Is this news? Does that suddenly change whatever you are feeling into a different emotion? No, at least not for me. What usually works for people to feel better is to ACCEPT their emotion - yes, you are feeling crummy and that's okay. I didn't hear any of this in the 'lesson'.
I appreciated the value in different methods of sharing messages ("One can share a message... through teaching methods of yoga, or singing, or making love. Each of us finds this unique vehicle for sharing with others his bit of wisdom" (20)), but to me, all contributions are not equal in making the world a better place. Singing someone else's song isn't of the same value as feeding the hungry, emotionally supporting others, protecting the environment, etc.
"You don't have to have that urge/that desire that unfulfilled thing. Just let it be. Just be be be be more be more more. What's holding you back? Your thoughts, huh? You've got to give them up. What are you doing? Planning for the future? Well it's all right now. But later? forget it baby. That's later. Now is now. Are you going to be here or not? It's as simple as that!"" (P2:22)
>>This is a perfect example of a quote that's trying to push you into his thinking style. NOT BEING IN THE MOMENT IS WRONG! THERE IS NO OTHER RIGHT ANSWER SPIRITUALLY! BE IN THE MOMENT AT ALL TIMES! Also, in one second, give up all your thoughts! I won't tell you how, but just listen to me and do it. Also, no planning or thinking of the future allowed! Forget it ALL! (Maybe what he's saying is a bit Buddhist - don't have hope for the future, etc. but I personally do not enjoy thinking that way, it does not make me a better person nor make me feel fulfilled, so I will not be doing that.)
Dass loved to give repetitious quotes that (it seems like he thought) were wisdom bombs, but gave absolutely zero explanation/advice of how to achieve/get to what he was talking about. Example:
"What you've got to do is create in yourself an absolutely calm center where it's always right here & now. It is just light it is just is-ness" (P2:46)
>>So, how is this calm center achieved? Maybe you will point me to the cookbook section at the end of the book... and if so, I didn't find the answer there either.
Back to the theme of 'here and now', Dass repeated that you can 'always be in a state of here and now'. But how? I find that very hard to believe. Ram Dass was always in that state 100% of the time? As a normal human it is extremely difficult, if not entirely impossible, to ALWAYS be in one state. It almost seems counterintuitive to the human experience to always be one way, or in one state.
When Guru loved Ram Dass unconditionally, no one had ever done that before.
Ram Dass was touched he could love someone "corrupt, ugly, impure" (P2:69).
This was sad. Clearly he wasn't in a good place if he was thinking those things about himself because he had 'impure' thoughts (sexual and others). He didn't seem loving towards himself.
Everyone has 'good' and 'bad' aspects or qualities, if you want to look at it like that.. (which he wouldn't, because pretty sure he doesn't like dualities)
The black and white views bothered me. "You've got to be really pure / you can't just make believe you're pure"/"Anything less than total purity back into outer darkness that's what you learn after a couple of hundred psychedelic trips I might as well go straight because I'm beginning to feel like a yo-yo I keep going up and coming down up down up down up down" (P2:100). He also says "purification of thought" is needed (100) without really explaining how to do this.
Renunciation: "As each worldly desire falls away, eventually the only desire is for bliss. Then that one must be thrown away..." (P3:9)
I really don't get how these concepts apply to people in real life with jobs, school, families, etc.
Disagree:
Recommends abstaining as much as possible from spicy/strong foods. "Most Westerners are very sensual and spend large amounts of time in titillating their palates with variety and subtlety in tastes. The sadhak realizes that all sense gratification is merely perpetuating the enslavement to desire so he attempts, early on, to surrender the taste trip in favor of his spiritual goal." (P3:18)
>>Nothing wrong with having desires or enjoying food. Sorry!
A pro for psychedelics according to Dass: they 'short-term strengthen your faith in the possibility of enlightenment to pursue systematic purification'. If you need psychedelics to be hopeful of enlightenment, YOU'RE the one with the problem.
"Industrial revolution and money economy... has caused the virtual destruction of the family as a spiritual and psychic union by compelling at least one and often both principal members to become money earners." (P3:109)
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? We don't all live on some commune or magical country with no money currency. Parents having jobs and earning money DOES NOT DESTROY ANY UNION AT ALL.
It gets better... "reliance on daycare & schools to provide spiritual foundation which they cannot be expected to provide. Society is in essence profane & continues same level of consciousness" (P3:109)
There is no reliance on them whatsoever. Nobody gave them that responsibility. It's the parent's job no matter how much they see their kids; and the time kids are at home is the time for spiritual education, should the parents so choose to do that.
"The family is dispersed, members isolated from each other and effectively only together as an economic and sleeping unit. No center to radiate from and no spiritual-psychic support system. It is dead. The outlook is bleak from this vantage point." (P3:109).
Dass is so negative and a little delusional(?). You think families have no centre and don't support each other spiritually? You think families only interact to have shelter and sleep? God...
"Can/will you let go of all the things and values and trips that you have gotten caught in? If you can adapt your present means of livelihood to your spiritual work than you're cool."He recommends families going and starting a farm, crafts, general store, restaurant, bookstore to restore the 'psychic organism' of the family. Also, put religious decorations everywhere to "make the whole environment support it" (P3:110).
>> Sigh, this is where the 'hippie-ness' came in that isn't relevant to most people. I'm not gonna move to a farm to make the way my family lives fit with your expectation of what is psychically healthy!
So, near the end of reading I talked to the wisest, most spiritual person I know -my mom. In my short discussion with her was more wisdom than I got from this entire book. She said:
#1 - In response to me having a heavy, head-achy, overall unpleasant physical feeling while reading:
"You'll know in your heart/gut if something resonates with you, in terms of a spiritual teaching. You will feel it."
#2 - When I asked about giving up all desires, she said "Why would you even be alive then?" and then elaborated she thinks the point of being alive is to live and enjoy/experience things. (Were talking about giving up strong spicy food, as recommended)
#3 - It should uplift you and not make you feel bad. Shouldn't say: "If you don't get it you're not ready" and "You haven't progressed enough" - which were the exact messages I received from the book.
#4 - When people are in a place of love, they're open and flexible and not black and white/rigid. "This is the only way" "there's something wrong with you if you don't do it this way" / "I know best". However, Ram Dass was constantly talking like that. It wasn't in-your-face arrogance, it was a subtle arrogance infused in assertive statements.
The subtle message I got all along is: you're not enlightened if you don't believe what he does. I HAVE NEVER HEARD ANY GOOD SPIRITUAL LEADER GIVE THIS MESSAGE, EVER.
Dass is trying to proselytize you the entire book, with just enough distance to make it a little unclear if that's his goal or not.
Quotes that didn't resonate with me - assorted
"If you see yourself as God and then you come back from this state and somebody says, “Hey, Sam, empty the garbage!” it catches you back into the model of “I’m Sam who empties the garbage.” You can’t maintain these new kinds of structures. It takes a while to realize that God can empty garbage." (11)
>> I'm not quite clear why people who realize they are God or God is within them or whatever spiritual way you want to phrase it are suddenly incapable of carrying out normal duties like cleaning. Is that just me?
"Fear of death only comes from brittleness of the ego... total surrender total surrender there's no more you, no more life and death"
>>If he were saying this to someone genuinely afraid of death, I don't understand how it would make them no longer afraid of death. Maybe truly believing that removes your fear, but someone afraid isn't instantly going to adopt that view and suddenly surrender? This is an example of a quote which if believed already is probably helpful, but as a new idea is not so amazing.
"Yeah I'm going to die wow! Dig that! I'm going to live wow! Dig that! Garbage wow! New blossoms on the tree wow!"
"Patterns of energy. All patterns of energy. You're part of it all. That's the place!"" (P2:20)
About Saul of Tarsus
"'Go to the next town and you'll be instructed' Thats what he heard and he went the whole trip and thats an astral trip. A very groovy astral trip." (P2:73)
>>I can't lie, the 'hippie' language both bothered me and turned me off. (Reading religious-spiritual books I'd get turned off by 'God' being used every five seconds, turns out I'm also annoyed by this).
"If I am a potter i make pots. But WHO is making the pots? I am not under the illusion that I am making the pots.
Pots are. The potter is. I am a hollow bamboo" (P2: 54)
>>First of all, this didn't make sense to me. Secondly, even if it did, how does a) this help me spiritually? b) make me into a better (or even more spiritual) human being by adopting this view?
Just the process of calming, centering, centering, calming, extricating myself from the drama
So as long as one feels that he is the doer
He cannot escape from the wheel of births and deaths"
"That doesn't mean that I'm lying in bed doing nothing / That's drama as much as this book is drama" (P2:89)
>> I see the reincarnation/karma concept here. Both of which are personally not in my spiritual viewpoint. I don't see anything wrong with you seeing yourself as the 'doer' of an action, no matter what the action is. Honestly, after that messaged getting hammered to the reader, I got tired of hearing it; seems like a waste of time to focus on that. Maybe there's some deep meaning I'm not getting, but to me, it just is like, who actually cares whether you're the doer of an action or not?
"Drama is drama is drama is drama is drama
Desire is drama
Breathing is drama
Thought is drama
Emotions are drama
All form is drama
It's all part of the drama" (P2:90)
>>There were sooo many quotes like this. Cool, so drama is drama. And everything in physical form is drama. Now, what am I left with as the reader from this? Absolutely nothing of spiritual or other value. Did this have any positive impact on me? No. Like great, you think breathing is drama. Gotta remove yourself from that! ;)
"There is all this in its OM
In its unmanifest form
Always eternally you perceive that
nothing is really happening at all
nothing ever happens
nothing is going to happen
There's nothing you've got to do
There's no doer to do it anyway" (P2:94)
>>Idk why but this quote just bothers me. Yeah, I think things do happen and will happen and there is a doer. I just don't agree with him here. Somehow he's all high and spiritual for saying what he said, and I'm just someone who doesn't Know, according to him.
"I mean: if I am going to spend life manipulating this puny ego through a set of power games and sensual gratifications what's the payoff? The end is that it's going to end anyway because it's all in time. Suddenly I dig who I am at that moment when I'm stoned! High! Out of time! I am out of space! It feels like the first real thing that's ever happened to me!" (P2:105)
>>Yikes... it took being high to get you to love yourself? Drugs don't fix your problems...
"And a mantra for taking dope: om shiva shankara hariari ganga"
After that: Okay, I can't read this book anymore.
"Make up other mantras for daily acts to bring consciousness to your center so that you break the identification with an ego who is performing the act" (P3:34)
> Don't really get how this helps anything but okay.
"Except for existing karmic commitments (such as familial or societal) there is no reason to spend time with anyone except as an aid to one's sadhana. So all new relationships, be they friendships, marriages, business, roommates, take on this contractual basis." (P3:170)
>> I could be interpreting this wrong. I get why you would decide to only surround yourself with people good for you in the future. But viewing relationships as a 'contract' is gross to me.
Again with the excluding - "In the beginning important we surround ourselves with other beings who share our faith in the Spirit. During this stage be with people who wish to discuss only ways and means of realizing enlightenment" (P3:53)
>> a) sounds culty, b) your faith must be super weak if you can only be around people who agree with you or are spiritual. Yikes. Very separate of you (and hypocritical)!
"Krishna's instruction: 'Do whatever you do, but consecrate the fruit of your actions to me.' Every act you perform, all day every day, would be done as an offering to Krishna" (P3:65)
> Not religious. My acts are not going to be for Krishna, sorry! And guess what, there's nothing wrong with that.
I personally don't find value in repeating mantras like 'om om om' and 'rama rama rama' over and over. They're supposed to remind you 'that it is all One' (P3:_). Recommendation is 30 mins each day. I could better spend that 30 mins being of service to others instead of sitting by myself chanting the same words over and over in my head, thanks. Also, I'm sure you'll suddenly be spiritually awakened after the mantra repeating!
"I am not my internal organs, I am not my senses, I am not my torso or my body, etc. "I am not my thoughts." (P3:86,87)
>>Okay, so how does believing this help improve my life? Or make me a more spiritual person?
Hari Dass Baba says "LSD is like Christ in America, awakening the young folk in Kali Yuga. America is most materialistic country therefore God has shown His Avatar in a form of LSD. This material helps approach God" (P3:93)
>>Soooo... God made LSD to help people get close to him? That seems like a really convenient reason, yeah.
General Criticisms
Organization & lack of editor
1. The giant paragraphs of quotes are really irritating to read. I don't know who thought that would be a good idea, but they really should be spread out.
2. There were so many typos (missing apostrophes, misspelled words, etc.) that made the book look sloppy. An editor could have helped.
3. The page numbers were the worst organization I've ever seen in a book. Three sections all starting at 1.
Don't know if the actual content or the way it was presented that annoyed me more
It came across as arrogant, all-knowing, rigid and like what was being said is the only right answer. WARNING: THIS BOOK IS SO DOGMATIC.
I would NOT recommend this book.. I'd only recommend to people who already like Ram Dass. There are a million better spiritual books out there.
February 20, 2020
2020 reads, #15. The world recently saw the passing of Ram Dass, born Richard Alpert, who along with Timothy Leary was one of the non-threatening white kids who first brought counterculturalism to the suburban masses in the late 1960s; and so in honor of his passing I thought I'd finally read his classic spiritual guide Be Here Now. Unfortunately, though, instead of the well-reasoned and interesting look at mindfulness that I was expecting to find, this book is an obtuse artsy-fartsy mess, a glorified chapbook full of chicken-scratch illustrations and containing not much more than badly written poetry about how "you are one" and "I am one" and "we are all one big groovy ball of energy, maaaaaaaan." I sometimes wonder how America ever managed to get through the countercultural age still in one piece; but it certainly wasn't because of books like these, which even with half a century of hindsight still comes across less as a legitimate piece of literature and more a masturbatory fever-dream from a self-absorbed con artist. Buyer beware.
September 10, 2010
I bought this book in 1972 (at age 11) to read in secret, then return to the bookstore some days later, for fear of discovery by my fundamentalist Christian father. I was seduced by the woodblock print on grocery-bag colored paper middle section. It left an indelible impression on me--one that would germinate 30 years later in my face-to-face encounter with Bhagavan Das, a much younger version of whom I first encountered in its pages.
No other book has done more to support the healthy cross-pollenation of East and West. It is the classic text of this genre.
No other book has done more to support the healthy cross-pollenation of East and West. It is the classic text of this genre.
January 25, 2013
What a doozy of a book! I found it totally by accident. I had no idea it was by Alpert, or rather Baba Ram Dass, colleague of one Timothy Leary whose book Change Your Brain I'd just read months earlier.
This is a one-of-a-kind "trip." No, strip back those quotations marks, they dull the effect. This book IS a textual trip. I've never seen another like it. Ram Dass writes a tasty and linear account of his transition from successful doctor Richard Alpert to spiritual explorer Ram Dass. The middle section takes you out of your head--everything changes. The book turns, the text spins, but the ideas stay together in a way that, in my case at least, really did seem to dig under the rational part of me and yank up the good stuff; the Atman; the everlasting onion bulb.
If you're at all interested in exploration of self, this is probably a necessity. I'm so glad I found it by accident, and so disappointed I have to return it. I imagine I'll buy it someday. It's better than any Bible, IMHO.
This is a one-of-a-kind "trip." No, strip back those quotations marks, they dull the effect. This book IS a textual trip. I've never seen another like it. Ram Dass writes a tasty and linear account of his transition from successful doctor Richard Alpert to spiritual explorer Ram Dass. The middle section takes you out of your head--everything changes. The book turns, the text spins, but the ideas stay together in a way that, in my case at least, really did seem to dig under the rational part of me and yank up the good stuff; the Atman; the everlasting onion bulb.
If you're at all interested in exploration of self, this is probably a necessity. I'm so glad I found it by accident, and so disappointed I have to return it. I imagine I'll buy it someday. It's better than any Bible, IMHO.
January 31, 2008
This book is was perhaps the beginning of my interest in the eastern/mystical thought where I began to take meditation and Buddhist thought as less an academic study and more of an integration to my action and my belief. This book, like some others I shall review, possess not only the opinions, thought and methodology of one man, but takes the tradition of many religions and 'revealed truths' and quotes them here. I think it is perhaps necessary to the western mind to see that the perceived contradictions and esoteric leanings of 'eastern' thought can be understood by the connectedness and similarities to other ideas and words from other religions and philosophies and thinkers. This book, like many of the books of eastern thought of its kind, can be taken in small sips. For me, this is my preferred mode of mental ingestion. Such truths, deep and profound as the essence of the human experience itself, must be held on the tongue for a while to taste its fullness. The middle of the book, with drawings by Ram Das, are full of imagination and humor. Sometimes the humor makes me want to cry from happiness, and some makes me giggle like a kid. Any book that can balance profoundity and humor has achieved a rare and beautiful harmony.
September 9, 2013
I decided to read this book after seeing that Steve Jobs had cited it as a profound book that transformed him and many of friends. Within a few pages, I realized that it was definitely not for me. The book dives deep into spirituality, but was too extreme for my tastes. It is entertaining and thought provoking in parts, but far too often I would read statements that were off-putting, like "one is capable of living on light alone" and "you should be able to remember your zip code even as you drift in intergalactic ecstasy".
This book may resonate more with people who are deep on the spiritual path. Maybe one day I'll come back to it. For now though, I was better off not reading it.
This book may resonate more with people who are deep on the spiritual path. Maybe one day I'll come back to it. For now though, I was better off not reading it.
Read
December 8, 2022Ram Dass changed my life for the better, no doubt about that.
When I sat with him, and a small group of spiritual seekers, in a Brandeis classroom during the 1960s, it was a transformative evening. Thanks, Dr. Larry Rosenberg, for pulling this event together!
At the time, Dick Alpert had recently return from his life-changing pilgrimage to India. Becoming "Baba Ram Dass" was new to him.
In this review I won't try to do justice to his generosity and sweetness during this meeting, but if any of you are curious for a more personal picture of my experience, you'll definitely find that in "Bigger than All the Night Sky." (BTW, that's not a plug for my memoir but an invitation that I can't make in any better way.)
Most importantly his voice, the Ram Dass voice, was edited considerably; as many of you Goodreads authors especially will understand, his language was polished in order to produce the bestseller that "Be Here Now" became.
I'm so glad that this ex-professor, this former Harvard-style intellectual, has had such an influential career. Still I won't rate his book. The biggest reason is how I spent hours hearing his authentic voice, savoring his glowing presence, the real deal.
Commercial books can be far too autotuned for my ears.
When I sat with him, and a small group of spiritual seekers, in a Brandeis classroom during the 1960s, it was a transformative evening. Thanks, Dr. Larry Rosenberg, for pulling this event together!
At the time, Dick Alpert had recently return from his life-changing pilgrimage to India. Becoming "Baba Ram Dass" was new to him.
In this review I won't try to do justice to his generosity and sweetness during this meeting, but if any of you are curious for a more personal picture of my experience, you'll definitely find that in "Bigger than All the Night Sky." (BTW, that's not a plug for my memoir but an invitation that I can't make in any better way.)
Most importantly his voice, the Ram Dass voice, was edited considerably; as many of you Goodreads authors especially will understand, his language was polished in order to produce the bestseller that "Be Here Now" became.
I'm so glad that this ex-professor, this former Harvard-style intellectual, has had such an influential career. Still I won't rate his book. The biggest reason is how I spent hours hearing his authentic voice, savoring his glowing presence, the real deal.
Commercial books can be far too autotuned for my ears.
July 11, 2009
Goodbye Dr. Richard Alpert, Harvard Psychology professor. Hello Baba Ram Dass, Hindu spiritual seeker and devotee of the great monkey-God Hanuman!
'Be Here Now' was a phenomenon born out of the sixties counter culture movement and became "the book" that turned the spiritual consciousness of the Christian West eastwards, thus altering the metaphysical landscape forever. Not only were the ideas within this 416 page softcover book made of recycled materials a shock to the religious nervous system of the American mainstream, but the very format was a mystery all its own. Part autobiography, part Occidental psychology, part hippie philosophy, part Indian mysticism, part comic book, one was left to wonder if the text was meant to be read in the conventional manner, or somehow absorbed by simply chanting the contents out loud.
Truly a piece of 20th century American spiritual history that should be experienced by all. PARADIGM SHIFT ANYONE?
'Be Here Now' was a phenomenon born out of the sixties counter culture movement and became "the book" that turned the spiritual consciousness of the Christian West eastwards, thus altering the metaphysical landscape forever. Not only were the ideas within this 416 page softcover book made of recycled materials a shock to the religious nervous system of the American mainstream, but the very format was a mystery all its own. Part autobiography, part Occidental psychology, part hippie philosophy, part Indian mysticism, part comic book, one was left to wonder if the text was meant to be read in the conventional manner, or somehow absorbed by simply chanting the contents out loud.
Truly a piece of 20th century American spiritual history that should be experienced by all. PARADIGM SHIFT ANYONE?
October 21, 2020
All that glitters is not gold. This is such a beautiful book in terms of print, paper and artwork. Beyond that it offers very little spiritual information. It does shed light on the experience of someone who has experimented and used psychedelics as a medium to achieve 'spirituality'. For most part it sounded like ramblings of someone who is not entirely here and assumed he has touched something divine.
November 30, 2019
$7.77 edition
Always a great read! Certainly brings back memories of when I first found and read it.
Always a great read! Certainly brings back memories of when I first found and read it.
May 26, 2013
When you are ready to expand your mind, pick this up...
April 23, 2014
Harvard University professor turns yogi after taking multiple doses of LSD and mushrooms. This book, supposedly, determined Steve Jobs go to Asia. The first part of the book tells us about his journey. The second part is full of hand-written aphorisms and sketches. The final part presents a step-by-step guide to enlightenment.
The book raises multiple questions: 1) the issue of drugs and psychedelics, 2) professors are not always skeptical and purely rational 3) one can radically change his life, and there is a method to it.
At the beginning of his trip to India Ram Dass (then still Richard Alpert) gave LSD to different people and asked for their opinion. “It’s good, but not as good as meditation”, was an answer received. Both LSD and meditation seem to show glimpses of higher reality, but one path is faster and has more adverse effects. When you take shortcuts you get issues, as you carry the luggage of the lower reality where it does not belong. On the other hand, if you follow the proper but longer way, based on meditation and living a correct life, you could get there clean. Ouspensky and Gurdjieff (that are mentioned rather often in this book) seem to confirm that in the 'In Search for the Miraculous'; some esoteric schools used drugs to show their students the final destination, but then students had to walk the way.
In terms of academia, many books that I recently encountered are written by “crazy” professors taking drugs like the author of this book, Timothy Leary, the Nobel Prize laureate Kary Mullis, or John Lilly. LSD seems to have changed their mind. They stand in sharp contrast to the world of academia as I know it, which is rather conservative, even if most of my professors claim to be liberal. The only unusual article that I saw until now was by former Northwestern University professor Howard Becker on ‘Becoming a Marihuana User’. That one gets into details of how to smoke. Otherwise, nothing eccentric, until now. Who knows, maybe the answer was that these authors were active in the 60’s, while now there are different times, and professors present themselves in a different light?
In terms of the ‘cook-book’ for a life change, Ram Dass provides multiple quotes from holly and less holly books of different traditions, suggesting that all say the same thing. The concrete prescriptions, however, gear towards Bhakti yoga. Regardless of that, it is a good read to get a glimpse into how a path can look like.
The book raises multiple questions: 1) the issue of drugs and psychedelics, 2) professors are not always skeptical and purely rational 3) one can radically change his life, and there is a method to it.
At the beginning of his trip to India Ram Dass (then still Richard Alpert) gave LSD to different people and asked for their opinion. “It’s good, but not as good as meditation”, was an answer received. Both LSD and meditation seem to show glimpses of higher reality, but one path is faster and has more adverse effects. When you take shortcuts you get issues, as you carry the luggage of the lower reality where it does not belong. On the other hand, if you follow the proper but longer way, based on meditation and living a correct life, you could get there clean. Ouspensky and Gurdjieff (that are mentioned rather often in this book) seem to confirm that in the 'In Search for the Miraculous'; some esoteric schools used drugs to show their students the final destination, but then students had to walk the way.
In terms of academia, many books that I recently encountered are written by “crazy” professors taking drugs like the author of this book, Timothy Leary, the Nobel Prize laureate Kary Mullis, or John Lilly. LSD seems to have changed their mind. They stand in sharp contrast to the world of academia as I know it, which is rather conservative, even if most of my professors claim to be liberal. The only unusual article that I saw until now was by former Northwestern University professor Howard Becker on ‘Becoming a Marihuana User’. That one gets into details of how to smoke. Otherwise, nothing eccentric, until now. Who knows, maybe the answer was that these authors were active in the 60’s, while now there are different times, and professors present themselves in a different light?
In terms of the ‘cook-book’ for a life change, Ram Dass provides multiple quotes from holly and less holly books of different traditions, suggesting that all say the same thing. The concrete prescriptions, however, gear towards Bhakti yoga. Regardless of that, it is a good read to get a glimpse into how a path can look like.
March 18, 2009
I really appreciate the concept of living in the now. I truely believe that if we can find happiness now, our life will not be filled with regret. I did feel like the book was very disjointed, and that the message would have probablly have been better portrayed if the author had not done quite so much LSD on the path to spiritual enlightenment, but nonethelass, the message is a good one. The illustrations are beautiful in a very trippy way. Overall, I am glad to have read the book.
October 23, 2015
"Be Here Now" is a crazy, crazy ride. I didn't know what I was in for when I read it. Essentially, it is one of the best-written guides to the world of genuine spiritual questing I have ever read. Even one who fancies himself to have been walking the path to enlightenment for a long time will get something from this book because everyone needs a helpful reminder and everyone needs to affirm what they believe in.
If I wanted to get someone who I saw possessed the potential to embark on the quest for enlightenment, this book and "Turning the Mind into an Ally", and "Autobiography of a Yogi" are what I would get them to read.
The first part of the book is a short autobiography of Ram Dass. In his lifetime he learns, as all people must one day, that prestige, wealth, and pleasure (which he possessed in abundance) are not enough to satisfy the human soul. He goes to India, meets a guru, and learns that all the answers to the deepest questions of our minds and all the wants of our souls can only be answered and satisfied through Sadhana (spiritual seeking and practice).
The next part, the real meat of the book, is a very intense journey through a handful of important concepts meant to arouse a sense of wonder and spiritual seeking in the reader. It is done through a combination of poetry (ALWAYS IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS AND VERY! RARELY! WITH PUNCTUATION) and simplistic illustrations, almost like a graphic novel. This approach seriously, seriously works. Ram Dass could have written an essay about the kinds of things he talks about, but by going about in this way he gets around the Rational Mind (a big obstacle to genuinely new information for the westerner) and gets straight to the heart, which is what he is trying to communicate with. It is well done.
The third part of the book is a more thorough guide to spiritual practices, covering everything from the paramount importance of transmuting sexual energy to bhakti-yoga and all in-between. All throughout there are quotes and practices to do meant to help the aspirant. As I said before, even the seasoned seeker will find this information useful.
The fourth part of the book is a list of books that Ram Dass recommends. The title of this section is "Painted Cakes Do Not Satifsy" - his fancy way of saying that one does not progress spiritually by merely reading books, though it can be helpful. Spiritual progress does not equal mere book-learning.
All in all, this is a superb book. I'm going to go meditate now. Om!
If I wanted to get someone who I saw possessed the potential to embark on the quest for enlightenment, this book and "Turning the Mind into an Ally", and "Autobiography of a Yogi" are what I would get them to read.
The first part of the book is a short autobiography of Ram Dass. In his lifetime he learns, as all people must one day, that prestige, wealth, and pleasure (which he possessed in abundance) are not enough to satisfy the human soul. He goes to India, meets a guru, and learns that all the answers to the deepest questions of our minds and all the wants of our souls can only be answered and satisfied through Sadhana (spiritual seeking and practice).
The next part, the real meat of the book, is a very intense journey through a handful of important concepts meant to arouse a sense of wonder and spiritual seeking in the reader. It is done through a combination of poetry (ALWAYS IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS AND VERY! RARELY! WITH PUNCTUATION) and simplistic illustrations, almost like a graphic novel. This approach seriously, seriously works. Ram Dass could have written an essay about the kinds of things he talks about, but by going about in this way he gets around the Rational Mind (a big obstacle to genuinely new information for the westerner) and gets straight to the heart, which is what he is trying to communicate with. It is well done.
The third part of the book is a more thorough guide to spiritual practices, covering everything from the paramount importance of transmuting sexual energy to bhakti-yoga and all in-between. All throughout there are quotes and practices to do meant to help the aspirant. As I said before, even the seasoned seeker will find this information useful.
The fourth part of the book is a list of books that Ram Dass recommends. The title of this section is "Painted Cakes Do Not Satifsy" - his fancy way of saying that one does not progress spiritually by merely reading books, though it can be helpful. Spiritual progress does not equal mere book-learning.
All in all, this is a superb book. I'm going to go meditate now. Om!
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