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Bhagavan Das is back. The 1970's guru of egregiousness, who inspired the title of Ram Dass' Be Here Now, has penned a spiritual memoir that is stranger than fiction, farther out than the Oort Cloud. We last saw our hero
...(more) when he was a spiritual rock star touring the hippie circuit with Allen Ginsberg. Soon thereafter he dropped out of the scene and took a job at a Dodge dealership to support his second family. Peyote beckoned him to the desert, then he raised magic mushrooms, sold encyclopedias to Marines, dabbled in solar power, attended Bible college, and ended up selling overpriced car insurance to poor people--until his latest 18-year-old girlfriend flipped out on acid and ended his career. Bhagavan Das's writing is guileless. He neither boasts nor apologizes. He describes the manic ride he has been on since he left California after high school. For seven years he wandered around India and Nepal, practicing austerities, sitting at the feet of gurus, studying Buddhist scriptures, and getting laid. The common denominator in his pursuits seems to be a search for the ultimate high. Whether he is kissed on the forehead by a saint, standing at the foot of a 20-foot stone statue of Vishnu, lost in meditation, dropping acid, or being initiated into tantric sex, his descriptions are in the same terms: "mind-blowing," "out-of-body," "ultimate bliss," "beyond the beyond." It's Here Now (Are You?) is an entertaining, vicarious journey through a life that you don't mind visiting, but you wouldn't want to live. --Brian Bruya(less)
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“It’s Here Now, Are You?” is the inside story of the seminal American guru Bhagavan Das, told by himself. Rich in history and certainly interesting, the book emphasizes love and personal effort as a means to knowing the Divine. That said, you'll find very little philosophy here. It's a tell-all tale that is, at times questionable, at times controversial, but I believe most of all written from the heart.
The top reviews at Amazon are especially helpful, including the third which ends by recommending the book despite pointing out several criticisms of Bhagavan's life. Personally, I ended the book recognizing some of the poorer choices made by Bhagavan Das but doing so with a sense that I did not want to judge. Had I been given (or been brave enough to take) the path that Bhagavan Das followed, I'm not sure that I would have performed any better. In the end, it's a story about God and love and adventure, and it's very human. I absolutely loved it.