Be Here Now (1971) by Ram Dass — Overview, Context, and Reception

Introduction

Be Here Now (also published as Remember, Be Here Now, 1971) is a widely read spiritual book by Ram Dass—born Richard Alpert; also known as “Baba Ram Dass,” from Sanskrit राम दास, “servant of Rāma”—produced with the Lama Foundation community in New Mexico and first distributed in the early 1970s [1]. More than a memoir, it became a counterculture touchstone that introduced yoga, meditation, and Hindu- and Buddhist-derived ideas to a broad American audience through simple language and visually striking, hand‑lettered pages [1].

Library cataloging clarifies that the book is organized into four parts [2]:

• Journey
• From Bindu (बिन्दु) to Ojas (ओजस्)
• Cookbook for a Sacred Life
• Painted Cakes: Books (also titled “Painted Cakes Do Not Satisfy Hunger”)

Be Here Now is widely credited with shaping how a generation encountered “Eastern” practices and ideas in the United States [1]. Its message—centered on present‑moment awareness, or simply “be here now”—arrives in a format meant to be sat with, not rushed through.

About the Author

Ram Dass (Richard Alpert, 1931–2019) was an American psychologist who taught at Harvard University and became a public figure in the 1960s through psychedelic research and advocacy alongside Timothy Leary. In 1967 he traveled to India, where he met the North Indian Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba (नीम करौली बाबा), affectionately called “Maharaj‑ji.” There he received the name “Ram Dass” (often without the honorific “Baba”), meaning “servant of Ram,” and undertook devotional practices associated with bhakti (भक्ति), as well as yoga and meditation [1].

Returning to the United States in 1968, he lectured widely and, while living and working with the Lama Foundation near Taos, New Mexico, produced Be Here Now with the community’s editorial and design help [1]. He later combined teaching, writing, and service projects; he died in Maui, Hawai‘i, on December 22, 2019 [1].

What the Book Covers

Be Here Now is not a conventional monograph; it is a collage‑like manual in four parts that move from story to visual aphorisms to practical guidance and then to a curated book list [2]. Across all sections, Ram Dass presents psychedelics as door‑openers rather than destinations; insights, he argues, must be stabilized by discipline and service—a theme he attributed to guidance from Neem Karoli Baba [1].

• Journey: The Transformation
  The opening section narrates Alpert’s shift from a Harvard psychologist with conventional success to a seeker. Psychedelic experiences raised questions about identity and the nature of mind, leading him to India. Meeting Neem Karoli Baba reframed his search as a path of devotion and service [1][2]. The tone is confessional and accessible: it describes disillusionment with academic life, the limits and aftereffects of drug‑induced insight, and the appeal of a lived spirituality oriented around compassion and present‑moment awareness—the core invitation to “be here now.”

• From Bindu to Ojas (the “core book”)
  This central, graphically distinctive section offers hand‑lettered teachings, mantras, and brief passages arranged with mandala‑like symmetry. Sanskrit‑inflected terms—bindu, ojas, karma, bhakti, dhyāna—sit alongside short instructions and reflections. The design and pacing intentionally slow the reader, inviting contemplation rather than linear consumption. Many pages distill a practice principle to a single sentence, paired with simple iconography. The emphasis is on nonattachment, mindfulness, service, and seeing the divine in every person [2].

• Cookbook for a Sacred Life: A Manual for Conscious Being
  The “cookbook” presents everyday practices—meditation and pranayama basics, dietary suggestions, asana and devotional routines, and guidance on service (seva)—as recipes for cultivating awareness rather than medical advice. Its tone is pragmatic and ecumenical: readers are encouraged to experiment with practices from multiple traditions while watching their motive (e.g., using practice for egoic gain versus compassion) [2]. It reflects the 1970s American moment when yoga and meditation were being adapted for lay use outside monastic settings.

• Painted Cakes: Books
  The concluding section—titled after the Zen saying that “painted cakes do not satisfy hunger”—offers a curated, thematically grouped bibliography across traditions. The implicit counsel: read widely, but prioritize practice and direct experience; books are resources, not ends in themselves [2].

Throughout, the language blends Western psychological vocabulary with Hindu and Buddhist teachings in an approachable, sometimes playful register. The multimodal form—handwritten script, drawings, white space—was a creative publishing experiment designed to be returned to, slowly, as one’s understanding deepens.

How People Received It

Upon publication in 1971, Be Here Now reached a large audience of young Americans exploring alternatives to institutional religion. It has remained continuously in print and is often described as a “counterculture Bible,” signaling both its reach and emblematic status within the era’s spiritual experimentation [1]. Publisher materials for Ram Dass’s later book Still Here explicitly refer to Be Here Now as a “two‑million‑copy bestseller,” a common benchmark in trade discussions of its long‑run sales [3].

In practice, the book functioned as a starter kit: a narrative that validated seekers’ questions, concise teachings presented visually, and actionable instructions that any reader could try without joining a formal institution. Its voice—warm, confessional, slightly mischievous—traveled easily across subcultures (yoga studios, meditation circles, student groups) and proved resilient amid shifts in the spiritual marketplace. Artists and designers also drew from its look and lines, extending its presence through quotations and visual homages in posters, album art, and studio décor.

Readers’ motivations varied. For some, the book offered an on‑ramp from psychedelics to non‑pharmacological contemplative practices. For others, it served as a bridge into bhakti‑inflected devotion to figures such as Neem Karoli Baba, or as a gateway into broader interfaith reading via the annotated book list. Educators and community leaders used it as a discussion text because its hybrid form invites reflection and models a nonsectarian approach to practice.

Its Impact and Criticism

Impact

Be Here Now contributed to a broader late‑1960s and 1970s shift in American religious life toward individualized, experiential practice. Encyclopaedia Britannica’s overview of Ram Dass calls the volume “influential” for popularizing yoga, meditation, and a repackaged “Eastern” spirituality for a mass American audience; its production at the Lama Foundation also shows how alternative communities became publishing incubators for this spiritual turn [1]. The manualized “cookbook” section normalized do‑it‑yourself contemplative routines outside monastic or temple contexts, while the eclectic bibliography encouraged readers to self‑curate cross‑tradition reading lists—habits that anticipate later “spiritual but not religious” patterns of practice and consumption.

The book’s present‑tense ethos—“be here now”—resonated with an emerging therapeutic culture that valued mindfulness and embodied awareness. Although Be Here Now treats these as spiritual disciplines rather than clinical interventions, its widespread adoption helped seed language and basic techniques later seen in secular mindfulness programs. It also joined in shifting perceptions of yoga in the United States—from a primarily ascetic or devotional path to a broader life practice with ethical, contemplative, and communal dimensions [1].

Criticism

Scholarly critiques of the late‑20th‑century Western “spirituality” boom provide frameworks for assessing Be Here Now’s limits. Jeremy Carrette and Richard King argue that much contemporary spirituality in the West operates within a neoliberal marketplace that “rebrands” religious ideas as consumable, privatized wellness goods and often domesticates Asian traditions to fit Western expectations [4]. Their critique is not a review of Ram Dass’s book, but it raises questions relevant to it: Does the volume simplify complex Sanskritic and Buddhist concepts for ease of uptake? Does its beauty as an object encourage a consumer relationship to teachings? And does presenting multiple traditions side‑by‑side, while inclusive, risk flattening their differences and institutional contexts?

A second area of critique concerns cultural translation and authority. Be Here Now draws heavily on Hindu and Buddhist sources but is authored by a Western convert and edited within an American intentional community. For some scholars this raises issues of representation: which voices are amplified, which are absent, and how “guru devotion” is reframed for an American readership. The book’s own concluding section, “Painted Cakes,” admits a limit—that books (including this one) cannot substitute for practice or lineage‑guided instruction [2]. That concession aligns with concerns about cherry‑picking: the bibliography invites exploration, yet without tradition‑specific pedagogy, readers may assemble eclectic practices that lack the interpretive frameworks from which those practices emerged.

A final caution: readers sometimes conflate the book’s spiritual practices with therapeutic claims about health or psychological outcomes. The text itself situates meditation, pranayama, and service as paths of spiritual cultivation; it does not present clinical evidence or medical guidance. Contemporary research on meditation and yoga includes promising findings in some areas, but robust, generalizable clinical claims require careful study design and are beyond the book’s scope. Any health application should be evaluated with appropriate medical advice and current evidence.

In Sum

Be Here Now helped translate and normalize a set of practices and ideas for a wide American audience at a particular cultural moment. Its lasting appeal lies in its invitational tone, visual immediacy, and insistence that spiritual work is present‑tense and relational. Its limitations—inevitable in any cross‑cultural, mass‑market introduction—are best addressed by reading it alongside voices rooted in the traditions it draws from and by engaging teachers or communities that can situate practice within a coherent framework. Approached this way, the book remains a historically important doorway into modern American explorations of yoga, meditation, and devotion [1][2][4].

Sources

[1] Roland Martin and The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Ram Dass,” 2025. Authoritative biography with publication context for Be Here Now and its influence. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ram-Dass

[2] Ann Arbor District Library (catalog record), “Be here now, remember,” 1978 (reprint). Verifies the book’s four‑part structure and bibliographic details; library catalog entry. https://aadl.org/catalog/record/10444558

[3] Ram Dass, Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying, 2001 (publisher page). Notes Be Here Now as a “two‑million‑copy bestseller,” supporting reception/sales context. https://www.randomhousebooks.com/books/333847/

[4] Jeremy R. Carrette and Richard King, Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion, 2004. Academic critique of the Western “spirituality” marketplace; provides analytical frame for criticisms. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780203494875/selling-spirituality-jeremy-carrette-richard-king