Sustainable transformation - then and nowOctober 4, 2005 5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Maharaji, Ram Dass's guru, said this book was his "Ashirabad" or blessing. The ripple effect of this singular work has likely created greater modern acceptance of yoga & meditation in the West than any other.
Clearly a product of its era, "Be Here Now" combines Alpert's metamorphosis into Ram Dass, a free-wheeling survey on the possibilities of transformation, and a cookbook outlining sustainable methodologies dating back thousands of years, which are just as effective today when applied correctly.
Despite the cynicism of our consumer culture, there is such a thing as "perfect timing", as well as the reality - more familiar in the East - of the "Guru's Grace". As a seminal work that has inspired millions, "Be Here Now" stands the test of time as a classic example of both.
I hope we've grown up since thenSeptember 11, 2005 28 out of 69 found this review helpful
Like many others, I read this in college and was sucked in. However, reading "Ringolevio" later I uncovered the Richard Alpert used the same approach he used in B.H.N. to promote a beatific vision for drug use prior to his India trip. In other words, the message was the same, the theatrics were the same - only this time a unique journey through India offered him a new pedestal upon which to preach from, one that made him feel 'special'. Why would someone wish to actively seek such world acclaim. Perhaps the answer lay in my also having met his boarding school master from when Alpert was a teenager. From this older man's own words, Alpert was gay and felt forced to hide it - one must remember the times he lived in back then. He was, however, also very much ostracized by his fellow classmates for possibly this very same reason. In short - my amateur interpretation: a teen with a secret, lonely and shunned, seeks mass approval later in life, and a solution for stifling his own inner demons - first through an incredibly heavy use of drugs, which he openly pushes in an effort to make society more like him (so that they might like him more), and later through a pseudo eastern philosophy, that he pushes using the same tactics he used before when he pushed his (addictive & DNA altering) drugs onto others. I attended several of his 'spiritual' retreats and, to my surprise, found his compatriots insulting and intentionally demeaning to those of us who attended looking to them for answers. But the most revealing was when one time Mr Be Here Now was asked a serious question and, after an embarrassing silence, Dr. Alpert/Ram Dass admited he didn't know the answer. And that, when he didn't know, he admitted that he often made up an answer, but in this case, he couldn't even think of an answer to 'make up.' And I thought, why am I sitting here being treated this way, listening to a man who is knowingly lying to us. I got up and left. Some time later I sat next to a woman on a plane who's own mother used to help Dr. Leary distribute drugs to his college students and others when they lived up in the country. This would have been after Dr Leary had been fired from Harvard. She was his right hand in passing them out. This woman shared that her mother, now older, lives with a sense of remorse that, after all those drugs they took, that she still feels no closer to God or her own inner spirituality. I suspect the same may be said about anyone who followed Ram Dass from when he preached a pseudo spirituality mixed in with admitted lies. Part of why I had been so pulled in was Dr Alpert's credentials. Had he not been a professor at Harvard? And even from Dr Leary's own autobiography, wasn't his being fired from Harvard for political reasons more than that he pushed LSD onto his students? One must respect 'the' institution, right? Yet, in the past year, Harvard's very own president has insinuated that females may have an inherent weakness when intellectually competing with men. Re; this book and those times: strip away the 'feel good', explore what is really true, and then move on to something that's a lot more honest, I would humbly suggest.
Be here nowAugust 2, 2005 9 out of 47 found this review helpful
Unlike the great title and the great cover page, this book was not good. It was about drugs and stupid stuff and although I read many books like this one and enjy them, this one I didn't like much. Maybe it had to do with too much talk of drugs and the sixties attitude.
Awareness in consciousnessJuly 20, 2005 3 out of 7 found this review helpful
BE HERE NOW is a cookingpot,a spiritual stew.If one understand this book,no other book is necessary. I read this book first time in 1985,and the taste of this "love Stew"has never left me. A must for any serious seeker of Love and Thruth (Gods trademark)
The Hippie BibleJuly 12, 2005 9 out of 11 found this review helpful
While the hippie movement was a disparate phenomenon, if there were to be one book that stood out as the hippie bible, it would be this book. I read it as originally printed, when it was in a larger, all brown paper format. I'd love to have one of those. After that, I got the regular edition for myself...still have it over 3 decades later.
I think this is a unique and very beautiful book, as well as reflecting something worthwhile from those times, something that had a lasting value for many of us.
Update (2/9/2006): I found a copy of the 11x11" original edition of Be Here Now, which was entitled "From Bindu to Ojas." This was the core book, in brown craft paper 3-hole punched and bound simply with twine, one of the four parts of what was to become Be Here Now. I want to pass it down to my son and grandchildren. Priceless.
