Somehow, a book that I had owned for a decade and that had collected dust on a shelf made its way to India, of all places. When we were getting ready for this trip, Be Here Now was one of the books he packed in his carry-on. He pulled out the book and said he wanted to read it. All these things were just words I had heard, along with other such as: meditation, mantra, and Buddhism.īe Here Now sat on a bookshelf for around ten years until a year ago when my boyfriend and I were in my childhood bedroom looking through all my books. Though I was familiar with the terms and concepts, I wasn’t ready for the real meaning of Be Here Now, zen, or yoga.
My mom and I also started going to yoga classes together, and as I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, we mostly fooled around and giggled at each other. In order to feel more comfortable in my childhood room which no longer felt “safe,” I redecorated and painted it in a soothing pale green with a ‘zen’ theme, not really knowing what ‘zen’ meant, and equating it with Chinese characters for ‘peace,’ which I stenciled on my walls. I remember looking at this page and thinking it was cool to look at, but I had no idea what he meant by any of it…I mean, how can the potter become his pot?!Īlso around this time in my life, I had deferred my college acceptance for one year because I had developed a panic disorder and was on a cocktail of medications and quite agoraphobic. Dass says things that might alienate or scare off a person who didn’t live through the Sixties, or who is anti-drug, or if your upbringing was far from ‘hippie.’ Take this for example: Written in the early 70’s, it begins with some background about Dass himself: how he was a professor at Harvard, and his work at the forefront of the 60’s LSD research and experimentation movement. In case you haven’t read it, Be Here Now is a pretty ‘far out’ book.
So it sat on a shelf alongside all my other books, and every once in a while I’d catch the title out of the corner of my eye and feel guilty for never reading it. I loved the artistic presentation and illustrations, but every time I tried to read it, I had no idea what it was talking about. I watched the movie many, many times, but when it came to reading Be Here Now, it was so over my head. When I was in my early 20’s I received a copy of Ram Dass’ Be Here Now from a friend, along with a copy of the movie Harold & Maude.
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