User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
This book is very deep and profound.
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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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
Rating: really liked it
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!"
Rating: really liked it
I'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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
“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.”
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
