Quotes from book
Be Here Now

Ram Dass

Be Here Now, or Remember, Be Here Now, is a 1971 book on spirituality, yoga and meditation by the American yogi and spiritual teacher Ram Dass . The core book was first printed in 1970 as From Bindu to Ojas, while the title of the 1971 publication comes from a statement his guide, Bhagavan Das, made during Ram Dass's journeys in India. The cover features a mandala incorporating the title, a chair, radial lines, and the word "Remember" repeated four times.

“I can do nothing for you but work on myself…you can do nothing for me but work on yourself!”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Source: Be Here Now (Buď tady a teď)

“There are three stages in this journey that I have been on. The first. the social science stage; the second, the psychedelic stage; and the third, the yogi stage.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Be Here Now (1971)

“It was all my identities, all rolling in over me.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Be Here Now (1971)
Context: I recall starting to "come down" and this huge red wave rolled in across the room. … It was all my identities, all rolling in over me. I remember holding up my hand and saying, "NO, NO, I don't want to go back." It was like this heavy burden I was going to take on myself. And I realized I didn't have the key — I didn't know the magic words, like "Abracadabra" or "Hocus Pocus" or whatever it was going to be that would stop that wave.

“To him who has had the experience no explanation is necessary, to him who has not, none is possible.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Be Here Now (1971)
Context: I'd get to a point with my colleagues when I couldn't explain any further, because it came down to "To him who has had the experience no explanation is necessary, to him who has not, none is possible.".

“As far as I'm concerned we are all God
That's the difference
If you really think another guy is God he doesn't lock you up Funny about that.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Contrasting the attitude of those who believe that they are especially "divine" and thus believe other people "owe" them deference — and those who assert all are divine, and thus are respectful of others proper rights and dignity as both human and divine beings.
Be Here Now (1971)

“Cosmic humor, especially about your own predicament, is an important part of your journey.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Source: Be Here Now

“Early in the journey you wonder how long the journey will take and whether you will make it in this lifetime. Later you will see that where you are going is HERE and you will arrive NOW… so you stop asking.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Source: Be Here Now

“Be here now.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Source: Be Here Now

“You may protest if you can love the person you are protesting against as much as you love yourself.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Source: Be Here Now

“If you think you're free, there's no escape possible.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Source: Be Here Now

“It's only when caterpillarness is done that one becomes a butterfly. That again is part of this paradox. You cannot rip away caterpillarness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process of which we have no control.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Source: Be Here Now

“I can do nothing for you but work on myself… you can do nothing for me but work on yourself!”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Source: Be Here Now

“Just because you are seeing divine light, experiencing waves of bliss, or conversing with Gods and Goddesses is no reason to not know your zip code.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Source: Be Here Now

“Only when I know who I am will I know what is possible.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Be Here Now (1971)

“Here I was, sitting with the boys of the first team in cognitive psychology, personality psychology, developmental psychology [at Stanford and Harvard], and in the midst of this I felt here were men and women who, themselves were not highly evolved beings. Their own lives were not fulfilled.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Be Here Now (1971)

“Every time I went to a family gathering, I was the boy who made it. I was a Professor at Harvard and everybody stood around in awe and listened to my every word, and all I felt was that horror that I knew inside that I didn't know. Of course, it was all such beautiful, gentle horror, because there was so much reward involved.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Be Here Now (1971)

“He [Bhagwan Dass] wasn't the least bit interested in all of the extraordinary dramas that I had collected … He was the first person I couldn't seduce into being interested in all this. He just didn't care.
And yet, I never felt so profound an intimacy with another being. It was as if he were inside of my heart. And what started to blow my mind was that everywhere we went, he was at home.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Be Here Now (1971)

“I learned more in the six or seven hours of this experience than I had learned in all my years as a psychologist.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

(quoting Timothy Leary's description of the Psilocybin experience).
Be Here Now (1971)

“It was as if the whole western mind-training of individual differences had been made background instead of figure, so that you'd look at another human being and say, "Here we are." You'd see differences more as clothing, rather than as core stuff.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Be Here Now (1971)

“It would be best not to impose a model too soon, because the model that exists in the west for these states is pathological, and the model that exists in the primitive cultures is mystical and religious.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

(quoting Timothy Leary's description of the Psilocybin experience).
Be Here Now (1971)

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