Ram Dass · 1971 · Two million copies, in print since 1971
Be Here Now
Be here now. Not the past, not the future: this moment.
Richard Alpert was a Harvard psychologist who researched psychedelics with Timothy Leary and was left with spiritual questions the research did not settle. The book is how he went looking for an answer in India, and what he brought back. HourLife does not recommend psychedelic drugs; this page is about the book's practices of attention.
Everything in this book follows from that. It is part memoir, part hand-lettered scripture, part practical manual, and the source of the phrase in its title.
Section one · Journey
How a Harvard professor
left Harvard for India
1961
Alpert takes psilocybin and begins researching psychedelics with Timothy Leary at Harvard. The experiences leave him anxious, with spiritual questions the research cannot answer.
1963
Harvard dismisses him. His spiritual questions stay unresolved, and he keeps looking.
1967
India. He travels there and meets Neem Karoli Baba, who becomes his teacher.
The test
He gives his teacher, Neem Karoli Baba, a dose of LSD. By Alpert's account the guru showed no apparent effect and said the same state could be reached through meditation. HourLife's point is not about the drug: lasting attention is trained, not swallowed.
Section two · From Bindu to Ojas
The middle of the book is not written so much as lettered — a free-form collection of drawings and short sayings. What follows is the part of it that survives being carried out of the incense and into an ordinary Tuesday.
You are not your thoughts.
You are the thing
noticing them.
The ego is a costume, not a person.
The trouble starts when you forget
that you put it on.
Treat the person in front of you
as though something holy
is wearing them.
None of it requires believing the cosmology. The instruction underneath is small and testable: when you notice you are thinking, notice when the thought is set.
The exercise
Sort the stream
Twelve ordinary thoughts, one at a time — the sort that go through anybody in a quiet ten minutes. For each one, say only where it is set. Then, and only then, you get to see what the deck was actually made of.
Then · already happened · Here · this room, this body, right now · Ahead · has not happened
Section three · Cookbook for a Sacred Life
The unromantic part
The last working section of the book is a manual, and it is startlingly plain after the lettered pages. Diet, posture, breath, a room, a phrase, and a warning that the whole thing fails on switching rather than on difficulty.
Somewhere to sit
The same corner every time, with nothing on the walls. Not because the corner is holy, but because a fixed spot removes the daily negotiation about where — and the negotiation is what actually ends the practice.
One phrase, kept
Any short repeated phrase will do the work. The book is blunt that shopping for a better one is the commonest failure — the power is in the repetition, and a mantra you changed twice has been repeated no times.
The breath as a handle
Not to be controlled into a state, but used as the one thing that is always happening in the present tense. When you find it, you are by definition not in last year or in Thursday.
The dead time is the practice
Queues, lifts, red lights, the walk to the car. The cushion is training; these are the match. Most people have ninety minutes a day of it and spend all ninety rehearsing a conversation.
If you think you're enlightened, go spend a week with your family.
A line widely attributed to Ram Dass, and a real test. Calm assembled in a silent room is untested calm. The people who knew you at nineteen are the exam.
Community insights
What people carried out of it
Distilled from the book in our own words. Vote for the ones that read true.
"The ego is a costume, not a person. The trouble starts when you forget you put it on."
Action steps
Be here, and then keep being here
The setup steps make room for it. The daily ones are what the book is actually asking for, and they are all unglamorous.
Write one word where you will see it
The cover of the book carries the word “Remember” four times. Put the word on a card by the kettle, on the back of your phone, on the bathroom mirror. It is the trigger.
Clear one small square of the house
A corner, a cushion, nothing on the walls, the same spot every time. Not because the spot is sacred, but because you will not negotiate with yourself about where to sit.
Name the costume you are wearing
Write down the roles you use to answer “who are you”: job title, parent, the competent one, the funny one. Knowing which are costumes now is cheaper than finding out the hard way.
Pick one mantra and stop shopping
Any short repeated phrase will do. Choose one, write it in the front of a notebook, and refuse to reconsider it for thirty days.
Set the phone to ask you one question a day
A single alarm labelled “where is your mind right now?” at an unpredictable time. The point is not the answer. It is that something interrupts the trance from outside, because from inside you will not notice it is running.
Catch the tense of one thought an hour
When you notice you are thinking, ask only this: is it about then, ahead, or here? No judgement, no fixing. Most people are startled by how rarely the honest answer is “here”.
Land in one sense before you start anything
Before the meeting, the call, the doorway — take one breath and find one physical fact: the floor, the weight of the mug, the sound behind the sound. It takes four seconds and it is the shortest route back.
Say the mantra in the dead time
Queues, lifts, red lights, the walk to the car. Meditation sessions are training; these in-between minutes are where the practice gets used, and where many of us scroll or rehearse conversations.
Watch one difficult person as though they were in costume too
Once a day, with someone who irritates you. Not forgiveness, not a conversation — just the private act of assuming there is somebody in there who did not choose the outfit either.
End the day by asking what the day was trying to tell you
Two lines before sleep. Write what happened, then what it might be pointing at.
Build your mini action book.
Pick setup actions and daily habits from Be Here Now, choose a start date, and download a printable checklist with real calendar pages.
Frequently asked
What is Be Here Now about?
Richard Alpert, a Harvard psychologist who researched psychedelics, travelled to India and came back as Ram Dass. Part memoir, part hand-lettered scripture, part manual, and the source of the phrase “be here now”.
What are the key takeaways from Be Here Now?
HourLife’s key takeaways include: The problem was never getting high. The problem was that he always came down. Don't think about the past. Don't think about the future. Just be here now. You are not your thoughts. You are the thing noticing them.
Who should read Be Here Now?
It's a strong pick for readers exploring Mindfulness, Spiritual Growth, and The Inner Peace Shelf. HourLife distills its core idea into key insights and practical actions worth trying.
What's one thing I can do after reading Be Here Now?
Write one word where you will see it — The cover of the book carries the word “Remember” four times. Put the word on a card by the kettle, on the back of your phone, on the bathroom mirror. It is the trigger.
How long does it take to read the Be Here Now summary?
About five minutes. The HourLife summary distills Be Here Now into its core idea, 8 community insights, and 10 practical actions you can apply right away.
The HourLife letter
One idea from one book and one small habit from another, every week or once a month, on the day and around the hour you pick, where you are. Nothing else, and one link stops it.
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Print it, pin it, post it. Ways to take Be Here Now off the screen and into the world.
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The core idea, key takeaways, and how to apply Be Here Now, as one clean, readable page.
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Every action from this page as a printable to-do list, with a 7-day tracker.
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Save the insights that land, build the habits that stick, and keep what you learn from Be Here Now working long after you close the page — inside HourLife.
