It was the fall of 1971, during my junior year in high school, that as I was exploring my favorite bookshop across from Alexander’s off of 63rd Drive, that I came across this blue square book with the title “Remember Be Here Now”.
I was instantly attracted to it and didn’t hesitate for a second and just bought it. It was written by Ram Dass who was the controversial Harvard professor, Dr. Richard Alpert, whose compatriot Timothy Leary had raised many eyebrows for his experiments with LSD. Leary went to India, found a teacher and it transformed his life and he became Ram Dass. This book was a product of that transformation and it totally drew me in so deeply that I just couldn’t put it down. Looking back now, it was one of those precious moments in one’s life that changed absolutely everything that followed it.
The book emphasizes the importance of being here now. As simplistic as that sounds, it is so incredibly difficult to do. Spiritual practioners around the world for millennia have struggled desperately to achieve that very state. We spend so much of our lives either worrying about the future and obsessing about the past, that we actually are very rarely here and now.
Another wonderful aspect of this book is it had a section in the back called “Books to Hang Out With”. It had at least a hundred book suggestions across so many cultures and encompassed so many aspects of spiritual life. It became my reading list for the next 20 years and was the seed pack of so many adventures in the coming years.
My connection to this book deepened as I sought out opportunities to meet with him over the course of the following 40 years. We corresponded and became friends. During these years, he had a devastating stroke that severely limited his ability to communicate the way he used to but he still stayed in contact. In early 2019, I went to San Luis Obispo to introduce my daughter to him. I tried to express to him how his efforts had changed my life and how much I appreciated him. His response was “You and I are one”. He passed on later that year and I was so grateful to have had those final moments with him.
Robert
