The notes below are designed to give prospective readers an idea of what to expect from the book, and to aid in making a decision on whether to buy it.
Be Here Now, Ram Dass
General Notes
Foreword: knew all knowledge as Harvard professor but didn’t experience it. With LSD found the now. 3% went into a white light.
Unless you start becoming that trusting, open, surrendered being, the energy can’t come in that is the kingdom of heaven. The energy is the same thing - cosmic consciousness.
Consciousness = energy = love = awareness = light = beauty = truth = purity. It is all the same and leads to the same place.
It is only when you reside quietly in your own hridayam that you become the of total light, unbearable compassion, and infinite power.
If you can get far enough you can see karma. You can see the patterns unfolding, but in order to do that you have leave the gravitational field of time and space. You see your own birth, death, etc. Your thoughts are still in time.
You are a totally determined being. No miracles. No accidents. It’s just your vantage point in which you are almost stuck.
It’s the vibrations that emanate from you. What you communicate is much deeper than you know.
Desire is a trap. Tirelessness is Moksha (liberation). Desire is the creator, destroyer, and universe.
Receiving extrinsic rewards at some point is not enough. You need a calm center which is HERE AND NOW. Light just IS. It just IS.
Making it sacred is karma yoga. The way we live daily.
This is om (home) it’s going om. This is the place to be with God. Stillness, calmness, fulfillment. Right here!
You’re standing on a bridge watching yourself go by.
Where am I? Here
What time is it? Now
Don’t think about past or future, just focus on the now.
You
Be unbearable compassion.
Understand the possibilities.
If you want to change your environment, you need to change your head.
Give up the desire to be experiencing the bliss and you have it all with the divine mother.
Have faith. You are in prison. If you think you are free you cannot escape. You have to first understand where you are.
Work on yourself, not others.
Worship Divine Mother.
Conserve your powers. Daily renewed sense yearnings sap your inner peach. They are like openings in a reservoir that
allow vital waters to be wasted.
You can live on light alone. Don’t eat too much.
Revelations
I am everything, everything is me. I am the bliss of the universe.
You will die but there will be an essence.
Despair and surrender get you closer to the state of fulfillment.
Surrender eternal union; pure energy and pure light.
This is it! It’s all here right now.
The cause of suffering is the attachment to desire (third noble truth).
When you get calmer, you notice your senses more.
Ocean of existence is right here.
Everything is done without attachment. It is all sacred.
When you have crossed the ocean of Samskara, illusions and attachment, you will come to formlessness. Eternally quiet. It never was.
The magic theater is always there. Can you see it?
Nothing is secret, but some people are just not tuned to the right frequency.
Highest plane is pure white light.
A man bound hand and foot in the endless chain of cause and effect cannot free another. Judge not that ye be not judged.
Gurus
Love the guru. He is pure. He taught me everything I was ready to learn. He is like a crystal.
You just love until you and the beloved become one.
The guru is the way. He and you would then be one. He understands time and space.
You are the guru!
When you know how to listen, everybody is the Guru.
There is nothing to do. There is nowhere to go.
You are the laws of the universe.
Purification with Guru Rimpoche: Imagine a loved one sitting on a lotus flower in front of you. He or she will magically elevate and come into your heart:
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Close your left nostril, then take three deep breaths out of your right nostril. Visualize the air as red and filled with diseases.
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Close your right nostril, and now breathe out through your left and imagine the anger being exhaled.
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Now visualize bright white light coming into your mind via your third eye center (anja) and purifying you.
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Red light into the throat which rids you of speech issues.
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Blue light into heart clears ignorance or wrong thoughts which turns into an avenue.
Notes from Be Here Now and other sources
Notes below here I’m not 100% sure of. They are somewhat from Ram Dass, but I’m not sure if they are from a meeting, another book, or Be Here Now.
He was a professor at Stanford, Harvard, and Berkeley. 3 levels of study:
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Social sciences
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Psychedelics
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Lost yoga
Loads of drugs, mushrooms and backpacking. He thought that he needed to find something and went backpacking. Started with psilocybin which was LSD and gave him oneness. He was fired from Harvard. Found the Tibetan book of the dead which was interesting. Met an Indian guy who told to him to be here now and leave behind the past and the future. He told him what to do, how to eat, how to sit, how to sleep in lotus posture. His guru knew so much more than him. His guru was Maharaji. Lama Govindas wrote the Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism and Way of the White Cloud.
Consciousness = Energy = Love = Awareness = Light = Wisdom = Beauty = Truth = Purity
From Bindu to Ojas.
We live in our heart. You are the light, the task, the others’ mind.
To see things unfolding you have to leave.
Why don’t ideas get fulfilled? Posturing, thoughts, organizing, plans and exploring.
Inevitable. Things just happen this way. The same way the caterpillar did not set out to become a butterfly. It just does.
It’s an unfolding process with no control, and no accidents.
Paradox is that you cannot have what you want. Faith for realized beings is not experienced or interrupted.
Surrendering externally gives union, pure light and eternal life.
Do what the guru says.
Now are you here or not? Always being in the future costs too much.
What you share with others gives deeper vibrations, not looks, not words just vibrations. Paranoia from getting in other’s minds. Vibrations come back.
Love cannot be forced, only awakened.
See how opposites are. The spirit is just the spirit.
Later never exists. Just be here now.
It’s all in your head. You dance through life or resist.
Desire is a trap; freedom from desire is moksha or liberation.
4 Nobel truths: 1. Life has suffering. 2. Desire is the cause of suffering. 3. You must give up desired attachment 4. It’s an 8-fold path.
Let others help but give it time.
Sadhansa is to see the true self.
Kids may hear you more, but they will not let you know.
Others feel calm.
The divine mother is our nature. Honor her and worship her. She can always teach us something.
You must go and defend the liberation. You’re right here right now.
Make it sacred. Do what you do but dedicate the fruits to me. Do it without attachment and to your own desires.
Do sadhana in all not separately.
You cannot rip the skin off as a snake. You must molt.
Guru: the highest thing is being at his feet. Do anything he asks; taught me everything when I was ready to learn it; Right here, laughing being here; you just love until you and the beloved become one; it is the way; guru is all external time and space; no relationships just go with your karma; you are the guru; guru is the perfect mirror; guru knows all and loves all; is a sea of love.
Sahaj Samadhi - where the divine mother merges into self.
Vairagya - return to innocence via all senses, do not have a thinking mind.
Have faith when you find your guru. You are the universe and the enlightenment. You are the guru.
You are always hill and will always be. Such a cosmic joke.
Your roots are your karma.
Tman - place where true self is separated from false self.
Om = lace harmony and reattachment. Calmness. Father and son.
The thinking mind is the servant and lousy.
God => Causal plane (pure) => Astral plan (dreams) => physical plane. All you can do with things is to create karma.
Secrets are not secrets when we discover them.
If you don’t have room in your living room for an elephant, don’t make friends with an elephant trainer.
Let a shell dry. You cannot teach a hunter it is wrong to kill.
Guru is not someone you seek. You meet them in some life (current or past) or in a dream.
Renunciation is nonattachment when you get nothing you have nothing to lose. By letting it all go, it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. If a pickpocket meets a holy man he will only see a lack of a wallet.
If you eat too much, then you will fast too much.
“Those who know do not talk. Those who talk do not know.”
On sleep- go to bed in the early morning, walk early. Meditate before sleep. Eat small meals, simple foods, avoid hot foods. Vegetables are best.
If a person eats with anger, the food become poison.
Body: If you seek hatha yoga as a form of exercise then you will get a more beautiful body. If you undertake yoga as a form of yoga it will become about your body calmness, sensitivity, and lightness.
Thoughts: Keep us separate. Single thought may calm waves. Number waves may calm the mind.
“Have patience, candidate, as one who fears no failure has no success. Fix the soul’s gaze upon a star whose ray thou has, then follow the star from within, the depth of every being.” -Blavatsky
Giving up all attachments = Samadhi. Stopping all breathing and thoughts = Samadhi.
Prana is energy via food, water, and air. Vibrations occur in all planes. Ojas is pure consciousness. Bindu.
Could just eat light like plants do. Energy is who you are. Key is how you use the energy to avoid desires and fulfill desires to be done. Not to build up new karma.
Can transmute energy via chakras. Can also avoid desires.
Powers will appear. If in doubt do not use them. If you do use them then use them only for unconditional love.
Preview all desires in the light. Be present.
Guru knows the truth already.
Keep conscious at all levels, know your zip code too, no attachment. You may protest if you love the person. You protest as much as yourself. We are all manifestations of the spirit.
Karma activities for us. Do not be a giver. Thanks is absurd. All happens in the dance of nature—just stay calm. Add a third person (Krisna) to all situations and ask, “what would he think?” Money increases separations between all of us.
I live in a sea of knowledge.
Giving up the ego and attachment is the key. Observe your own heart. Bhakti yoga is love and devotion. Love without attachment is light. Pray to divine on the inhale and exhale to advance meditation.
When meditating: 1. See thoughts 2. Describe purpose, suitability, spirituality, and impressionability.
Sit with mula banda.
Attachment causes pain.
Vibrations link us all together.
Death go to the peace of light.