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1. Our Story
In what would become the classic opening lines of Be Here Now, Ram Dass illuminates the stages of his transformation from social scientist, to psychedelic voyager, to yogi. Inviting listeners beyond the politics and sensational news surrounding LSD in the 1960s, Ram Dass sets the stage to outline his internal journey from mind to heart.
2. Success (1:21)
Illustrating his prior relationship with success, Ram Dass depicts his earlier life as an achiever and “good game player” – a wealthy Harvard Professor enmeshed within materialism, success, and rational thought. Opening listeners to his nuanced view of Western Psychology, Ram Dass lays out the limitations and pitfalls of traditional success.
3. Dissatisfaction (8:27)
Outlining his dissatisfied malaise within the vapid social hierarchy at Harvard, Ram Dass details the life-changing catalyst of meeting fellow professor and far-out rascal, Timothy Leary. After recounting a harrowing flight to Mexico, Ram Dass shares Leary’s glowing review of his revolutionary first psychedelic trip on psilocybin mushrooms.
4. Turning On (20:18)
Retelling the infamous winter night in 1961 at Tim Leary’s house which would mark his groundbreaking first psilocybin experience, Ram Dass describes the metamorphic qualities encased within letting go of his roles to leave only awareness “minding the store.” Primed to the life-changing properties of the psychedelic experience, Ram Dass shares results from the psilocybin studies he and Leary succinctly began at Harvard.
5. Coming Down (42:20)
Recognizing limitations in the potential lasting effects of their otherwise enlightening psychedelic voyages—namely that what goes up, must come down—Ram Dass outlines an otherworldly LSD experiment, which despite its undaunted nature, still left them “cast out of the Kingdom of Heaven” and back into personality structures upon coming down.
6. Environmental Changes (44:01)
Meeting both internal and external roadblocks back home—and inspired by the unmistakable congruences between the psychedelic experience and Eastern spiritual literature—Ram Dass describes his first journey East to India, initially bringing LSD around to Holy People to try to find “someone who knew.”
7. Bhagwan Das (53:52)
Noting his catalytic first meeting with Bhagavan Das at the Blue Tibetan in Nepal, Ram Dass chronicles their sadhana-focused pilgrimage through India, apexing at a small temple in the Himalayas where Bhagavan Das’ Guru—Neem Karoli Baba (Maharajji)—would open Ram Dass to a world of unconditional love, mind-stopping miracles, & intuitive wisdom beyond anything he had ever experienced.
8. Ashtanga Yoga (1:25:22)
Illustrating the peculiar spiritual scene in India which he had just been adopted into, Ram Dass discusses ashram life, shares miracle stories of Maharajji, and describes the focused sadhana training which he received from his silent teacher, Hari Das Baba.
