Be Here Now
In the late 1960s, Richard Alpert was a respected Harvard psychologist—successful, accomplished, and deeply curious about the nature of consciousness. Yet despite professional accolades and intellectual exploration (including psychedelic research with Timothy Leary), he felt an inner restlessness- a sense that something essential was missing from his understanding of life. Material success and temporary mystical insights couldn’t satisfy a deeper longing for truth.
Driven by this existential unease, Richard undertook a transformative journey to India, where he encountered the teachings of Eastern spirituality and, most importantly, his guru Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaj-ji). In that remote Himalayan landscape, the searching academic encountered a presence that cracked open his heart. Maharaj-ji’s simple, penetrating way of being challenged Richard’s old assumptions about identity, success, and the purpose of existence. He was given a new name - Ram Dass - “Servant of God” and embarked on a life entirely reshaped around love, devotion, and presence.
From this crucible of personal transformation sprang the core teaching of the book: “Be Here Now.” That phrase - simple yet profound - became a guiding star. It points not to some distant goal in a mystical heaven but to a truth immediately available in every moment. Past regrets and future anxieties are mental constructions; real life unfolds only in the present moment. If one can dwell here fully - without clinging, resisting, or projecting, one accesses a deeper, more luminous reality.
The book itself is structured in four parts that reflect this awakening:
1. The Journey - Transformation of Self 2. From Bindu to Ojas -The Heart of the Teaching. 3. Cookbook for a Sacred Life -Practical Tools 4. 4. Painted Cakes (Do Not Satisfy Hunger)—Recommended Readings Central Message & LegacyFor millions of readers, Be Here Now was not merely a book but a door: a doorway into a life lived with open awareness, deep love, and an ever-present sense of wonder.
The opening section is autobiographical, recounting Richard’s evolution from Harvard academic to spiritual seeker. He traces his experiments with psychedelics, which initially opened doors in consciousness but proved temporary, and his growing hunger for enduring truth. India becomes a turning point: a place where rituals, devotion, and an unconditional teacher dissolve his old sense of self and invite him into a radically present-centered way of being.
The heart of Be Here Now abandons conventional prose and instead unfolds like a meditative poem—rich with illustrations, sketched insights, and spiritual aphorisms. Here Ram Dass pours out the essence of what he learned:
· The “self” is less a fixed identity and more a flux of awareness.
· Attachment to ego, stories, and fear obscures our innate connection to love and being.
· True power emerges not from controlling life but from surrendering to it.
· Love and service are not abstract ideals but living practices anchored in present-moment awareness.
Where typical books lecture, this section transmits experience. You don’t just read - it invites you to feel and inhabit its teachings. The text itself becomes a kind of meditation: each word and image is meant to draw you back to right now.
Having opened the heart and mind to the “now,” the book then offers a manual for how to live it. Here, Ram Dass lays out traditional practices adapted for Western seekers:
· Yoga and breathwork to anchor awareness in the body.
· Meditation techniques to steady the mind.
· Chanting and mantra to align heart and mind.
· Quotations and affirmations from mystics across cultures.
This section reads like a compassionate friend or mentor - offering tools not to escape life but to enter it fully, moment by moment.
Finally, Ram Dass shares a curated list of spiritual books - classified as ones to revisit often, visit occasionally, and simply have met. His playful title, Painted Cakes, is a reminder that intellectual knowledge alone cannot nourish the soul; only direct inner experience can.
At its core, Be Here Now is not a philosophy to memorize but a way of life to embody. The teaching is deceptively simple:
Arrive in this moment. All else is a story.
When you are truly present - fully here now - the barriers between self and other dissolve. You find compassion, aliveness, and an abiding sense of connection that is the real ground of being.