Be Here Now

 

Somewhen, about the time the Beatles broke up, we read Be Here Now, a new-age book of Eastern religion, written by Baba Ram Dass.

Ram Dass, formerly known as Richard Alpert, was a psychologist, a budding spiritual leader, and who, with his colleague, Timothy Leary, had experimented with psychedelic drugs, notably LSD, which was still legal at the time.

He went off to India to study.

His book was a mish-mash of Eastern religion, a rock skipping over a mostly Hindu sea, with elements of Buddhist thought and other odd bits, and a revelation to westerners who had never heard of such things. 

It had a purple cover, was square, opened from bottom to top, and looked to be printed on paper-bag stock. It was full of drawings, odd multiple-sized types, and it offered an eye-opener for seekers who had watched our favorite rock group go from weed and acid to the Maharishi.

It became the hippie bible, and the core of further reading and study at our house. 

It is hard to convey what a magic thing this was at the time, a gateway to a world view most of us had never known about.

Ram Dass went on to teach for the remainder of his life, writing much more, in-depth books. We saw him speak once, even got to ask a question, and he has remained a touchstone to this day.

The phrase on the accompanying picture was one of his from a later work, and while it is one of those what-does-that-mean? pop New Age kind of things, it has a certain, comforting resonance: “We’re all just walking each other home.”