book 22: Be Here Now by Ram Dass

I was a sophomore in high school when George Harrison died and I took it very hard. Firstly, my obsession with the Beatles was a coping strategy and secondly, my dad had walked out a year before and my mother had forbidden me from expressing any emotion about that other than joy - so grieving George was a way for me to grieve my dad safely (I had no idea that's what I was doing at the time). Although I was deep into the kind of Wicca found on the bookshelves of Borders at the time, my obsession with George brought me to the Hare Krishna movement and eventually to this book. 


My mother forbade me from having or borrowing copy of this, so I got it when I was in college! The first section of the book is a quick autobiography of the author and his LSD journey, the second section is the artistic treaties of his teachings, and the third section was so boring I had to stop. The first time I read this, I barely understood his autobiography since I'd been so sheltered (I had drunk the D.A.R.E. Kool-Aide); the second section was what I had wanted anyway, and I adored it. I wanted posters of the artwork around my dorm room but didn't have a way to do that at the time. Without fully understanding it, I began adorning myself with the Om symbol - which points to the core issue with the book.


This rereading is the first time I've read it since college, and while I could understand the autobiography much more, it also soured the second section for me. It's hard for me to really believe somebody has done the work to to see how connected they are with others when all they write about is themselves! His white upper class academic background totally explains the rest of the book, and he doesn't seem aware of that. He writes about meditating through suffering, which is great but I began to wonder if that was his excuse to not help other people deal with their suffering. He also doesn't connect suffering with any larger movements (e.g. genocide, colonialism, white supremacy), he doesn't seem aware that these larger movements exist. This is also a misogynistic book in a passive aggressive way: the only women are either his mother or the Divine Mother.


Nevertheless, I'm still grateful for this book. I think when I reread this book in the future, I'll only read the second section since it's significantly better without the context of the author! The core message of the book is one I appreciate: just try. I don't mean try prayer or try religion or try belief, more like try to figure out how we're all connected to each other on any level, whether it's that we all go to the bathroom or we're all cosmic beings or both. When I worked at the bookstore at O'Hare and the employees finally got the ability to order copies of books to sell, I ordered a copy of this and loved how many people saw it and said "my hippie aunt has that book on her coffeetable!"

This book was originally published in 1971, my edition is a re-release from 1977. This book would fit perfectly well alongside either The Autobiography of Malcolm X or Covenant With God & Other Tenement Stories, all three books attest to how spiritually loud the time was. 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41580312-be-here-now 

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