Be Here Now

I was sitting on the floor in the spirituality section at my local Borders bookstore when I saw it—the purple spine caught my eye. It was probably 20 years ago now, but I remember the moment well. 

I spent many hours in that exact spot, skimming through anything and everything that looked interesting, searching for something I couldn’t quite name. Something that would feed a hunger the left brain’s world couldn’t satisfy.

As soon as I flipped through the pages of Be Here Now, I knew I had to take it home with me.  

In the 1960s Richard Alpert was a successful but disillusioned Harvard psychology professor. When he met Timothy Leary, they started exploring higher consciousness through psychedelics. Alpert experienced profound states of awareness, but after a number of years, became desperate to know how to maintain that consciousness without the drugs. 

He headed to India seeking answers, met his guru, and returned as Baba Ram Dass. For the next 50 years, he served as a beloved spiritual teacher. 

And in his book, he graciously shares all of his self-perceived flaws and failings throughout the journey.

Be Here Now is both the name of the book and a powerful practice for maintaining presence. The left brain is constantly thinking about the past and the future—analyzing, rationalizing, worrying. But when we can quiet those ego-driven thoughts and remain in the now, we have access to the right brain. 

And that takes us to a world that exists beyond the left brain.

The middle section of the book is a long series of illustrated text pages discussing the journey of spiritual awakening. It includes several pages on the Divine Mother, the feminine principle that only the right brain knows.

The Divine Mother presences herself as the entire physical world. She is our bodies, she is nature, she is the Earth. 

She is the cosmic illusion of maya.

The left brain tells us she is simply a series of individual objects made of atoms and molecules. But from the present moment, we begin to sense that she is something more. We begin to see beyond the veil of separation the left brain has created. We begin to know that she is both the veil and the consciousness that exists beyond it.

She is the Pachamama, the Great Mother, and Mother Earth.

And we are one with all of it. I Am that.

“We’re talking about metamorphosis
We’re talking about going from a caterpillar to butterfly
We’re talking about
How to become a butterfly.
I mean: the caterpillar isn’t walking around
Saying: Man I’ll soon be a butterfly
Because: As long as he’s busy
Being a caterpillar
He can’t be a butterfly.
It’s only when caterpillarness is done that one starts to be a butterfly” 

Ram Dass’s Be Here Now is a practical guide for the journey from ego-driven separation to soul-centered presence.