My son just discovered 'Be Here Now". This is what I wrote to him.

[greenman3610]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVb0BYasFGY&NR


Ram Dass in a more recent video, since he looks pretty old.
( he must have been about 40 when he wrote "Be Here Now")

When I was a freshman at U of M, I came across that book in
the University Coop bookstore, in the basement of the Student Union.
Something about the title spoke to me immediately, and
I bought it. Read the whole thing practically in one sitting, and
it was one of those books that really is life changing. A lot of
people felt the same way at the time.

The big gift of the book was that it kind of gelled what a lot of
people were getting- that our ordinary, culturally conditioned state of
mind is merely one of many possible states of consciousness. Ram Dass
was good at pointing out that what all the great spiritual traditions
are pointing to is a sense of one-ness, a sense that what we
need is inside ourselves, and not handed to us from an authority.
It was the nature of the times that his frame of reference and language
were heavily influenced by his psychedelic experiences.
For those of us that had experimented in that area, it helped to
make some sense of what we were going thru.

In retrospect, having pursued these ideas thru my life, the book's perspective, while
valuable, is incomplete. It gives too short shrift to what is profound and
valuable in the course of everyday life. ( or maybe it was just me that was
too interested in the occult and esoteric aspects of the book..)
Fact is, the very best, most powerful stuff happens not only when
doing some kind of "spiritual" practice, but right in the midst of
the inevitable experiences of life, ... the practice of patience when things go awry,
the enduring of unpleasant or painful passages, the birth of a child, the death of
a father.
One idea that the book hits a little too hard is the metaphor of "high" for
spiritual experience. Actually, it turns out, getting "high" , while it
provides a clue that other perspectives are out there, does not really
bring us any kind of long term development.
Drugs allow some people to kind of start
out at a "high" place ("it's all groovy and we're all one") without actually
having to do the slow but necessary work of growing strength, patience and
knowledge that make that realization come more naturally.
Simply seeking to be "high", without really dealing with one's own
dark stuff, laziness, anger, selfishness, has lead a lot of people to
consider themselves a lot more "spiritual" than they actually are.

What a lot of folks have since realized is that the real journey begins with
going down. "Down" doesn't appeal as much, because it leads thru
grief, critical self appraisal, and the need for patience, discipline, and
letting go of some cherished beliefs about ourselves. This is usually
experienced as painful by most folks, so we generally avoid it at all
costs. As Carl Jung, the great psychologist, once said,
"All neuroses are the result of avoiding legitimate suffering."


The truth of this has become clear to me in my own life, and I see it
every day in other folks as well. This is why all forms of addiction have
always been popular, because they allow us to stay "up" and not
do the hard and dirty work we need to do. And, of course, we
have infinite ability to fool ourselves into maintaining our addictive
behavior.

There's no better example than George Bush. The drunk who devoted
his life to 'getting high" in response to his overwhelming Father and
cold mother, suddenly dropped the drink and switched to Jesus
as his addictive upper, without doing the real grieving that would
have allowed him to become a full human being. He was unfortunate
enough that manipulative people around him saw the advantages of
his famous name, and kept protecting him from the consequences of
all his undisciplined, inept actions. Now he's in a position, unfortunately,
of having taken the whole country in to his neurotic, unconscious
drive to outdo his Father, and he is completely unable to admit to
the error, because at this point, if he does, his psyche would
crack. There are always enough people in similarly addictive
states of denial that someone like him can present an attractive
leader of role model, and that's been the secret of his "base".

So, by all means enjoy the book. I probably still have a copy of
it somewhere, and maybe I should crack it open sometime.
The "cookbook for a spiritual life" section has lots of good
little tips and references to other spiritual resources, authors and
saintly types. And, by all means, enjoy the "highs" in your life,
music, exercise, laughing, sex, love - they're all good.
But remember you're not necessarily bad or wrong when things
don't go well, when the story gets off track. You need that
part, too.
That smelly pile eventually makes good fertilizer, it
just requires time and a lot of shoveling.

[NMDemDist2]

1. i should re-read that book

it's been at least 30 years

:hug: