Thread by @itstheASK

Book 5: Be Here Now. Remember. by Baba Ram Dass
A powerful Bluebook which reminds that whatever there is to life, it is in HERE and NOW.
30+ odd tweets 📚🧵 #books #BeHereNow #RamDass #NeemKaroliBaba

1. The Book is divided into 3 parts
The Journey: of How Dr. Richard Alpert transformed to Baba Ram Dass
From Bindu to Ojas: The Core Book
CookBook of Sacred Life: A Manual for a conscious being.

2. A Cult is a shared system of belief. What a cult do is intensifies one’s expectations.

3. When you hear your mind say, Did I tell you about the time that,
Tell your brain, “Don't think about past, be here Now”.
When you hear your mind say, “ This is what I want to do:”
Tell your brain, “Don't think about Future, be here Now”.

4. The Point is Consciousness= Energy= Love= Awareness= Light= Wisdom= Beauty= Truth= Purity. It’s all the Same Trip, it’s all the same. Any trip you want to take, take it, all lead to the same place.

5. The Potter becomes his Pot
When you have quieted your mind enough and transcended your ego enough, you can hear how it really is. Then When you are with a candle flame, you are the candle flame, When there is a task to do, you are the task.

6. If you want to see the patterns unfolding of life, you have to leave the gravitational field of Time and space ( the matrix).

7. I am without form, without limit, beyond space beyond time. I am everything everything is me. I am the bliss of the universe, everything Am I.- Ram Tirtha

8. The circle of Life and Death is a whole endless trip together and is fraught with Paradox. And the most exquisite paradox: As soon as you give it all up, you can have it all.

9. As long as you want power, you can’t have it, The minute you don’t want power, you will have more than you’ve ever dreamt of

10. The message you communicate with another human being has nothing to do with what you say it has nothing to do with the look on the musculature of your face, it's much deeper than that. Much deeper. It's the Vibrations that Emanate from you.

11. If your vibrations are paranoid, thats what being received. When you are around kids or pets ( Birds or Cats particularly) or very young children they will know you immediately.You can come and say “ Hello How are you” and they will know immediately.

12. Later never exists. Either you do it as if its a big weight on you vs you do it as if its a part of the dance. Desire is a Trap, Desirelessness is Moksha. Desire is the Creator, Desire is the Destroyer, Desire is the Universe.

13. Buddha’s 4 noble truths are very straightforward and simple.
The first one: Concerns the fact that life always has in it the element of unfulfillment. Call it suffering. Birth Old age, Sickness Not getting what you want, getting what you don’t want, even getting what you

14. want in this physical plane is going to be suffering:Because: You are going to lose it. It’s always in Time. Anything that is in time has to pass away. That’s the Trap of time: Anything that you want in time must pass away because time passes away.

15. The second Noble truth: The cause of suffering is desire. ( or craving). The Opposite of craving is saying Baby: This is the way it is. Yeah, Ok. Here and Now. This is it. Accept the Here and Now Fully. As it is. Right at this moment.

16. That's third Noble Truth: That’s why Buddha said, the cause of suffering is attachment and desire, Give up attachment Give up desire.
Fourth Noble truth is the Eightfold path for getting rid of desire. Which says: Get your Life straight.

17. Do your work, do everything you’ve got to do. Watch your speech, what your thought, watch your calmness, get your calm center going. Live your life in such a way as to get yourself straight, to get free of attachment that just keeps sucking you in all the time.

18. So I can do nothing for you except to work on myself… You can do nothing for me but work on yourself.

19. Why the western man is not satisfied. He/she has everything, every sensual gratification he can possibly desire and it's not enough. Because there’s no Here & Now. Here & Now is the doorway to all heaven.

20. What you’ve got to do is create in yourself an absolutely calm center where it’s always right here & Now. Its just Light it is just IS-ness.

21. Chopping wood and fetch water - that's karma yoga. It does not mean you go to the Mountains and do things there, it does not mean you renounce your desires. It means you do what you do because that’s what the harmony of the universe requires.

22. If I am a potter I make pots, but who is making the pot.
You can’t rip the skin off the snake. The snake must moult the skin. That’s the rate it happens.

23. Stop talking about things which are talkable enough but has no value to current things.

24. The Way Bhakti works, you just Love. Until you and the beloved become one.

25. The funny thing about all the secrets of the east or the secrets of mysticism is- they are not secrets. They are all in front - right there but we do not see it from the right place.

26. Roam in the world as a lion of self-control; don't let the frogs of sense weakness kick you around.

27. Stop Talking Stop Thinking and there is nothing that you will not understand

28.The highest form of Pran is known as Ojas the lower form is known as Bindu.

29. I know that I know and that I don’t know.But I forget.
I see that I am blind, & I see the blinding light in everything,but I forget.I See what I know, I think, I know what I See,But sometimes I Forget. & this is the way It should be., At the end of every forget I remember

30. Limitation of the Book:
The book talks very little about the journey of Ram Dass and more of his learnings. It's a good reminder to go through the book once every month.