Be Love Now: The Path of the Heart [Hardcover]

Book Review Be Love Now by Susan Schenck, author of The Live Food Factor, The Comprehensive Guide to the Ultimate Diet for Body, Mind, Spirit & Planet

In Be Love Now, Ram Dass teaches us about real love and how he found it in his guru, Maharaj-ji. He distinguishes emotional and romantic love from unconditional love. "It's more like love for no reason, love without an object...The judging mind gets absorbed into the heart-mind. The thinking mind is extinguished in love." He explains that "Emotional love is based on external gratification, having our love reflected back to us. It's not grounded in feeling love from inside."

This book contains the memoirs of Ram Dass' encounters with Maharaj-ji. The vivid details make you feel like you are right there in India, on a vicarious journey. When his guru read Ram Dass's mind, for ten years he thought this was what had impacted him. Later he realized it was his heart that opened. Maharaj-ji had loved him more than anyone in the world had ever loved him before. It was "love on another plane," "impersonal," and something he could "bathe in."

Ram Dass gives us tools to work with, such as the mantra, "I am loving awareness." We must learn to identify with our soul, not our ego. "Souls love. That's what souls do. Egos don't, but souls do." We must develop our witness state. "As you witness yourself, the process becomes more like watching a movie than being the central character in one." He points out that as we witness our ego stuff, we can offer it into the fire of love in the heart with the mantra, "I am loving awareness." Ram Dass also silently chants Ram, the name of God, while fingering his beads when he is out in the world. He discusses the value of music and satsang, hanging out with others on the spiritual path. Surrendering to the guru is also important--but Ram Dass explains that this does not mean giving power to him, but rather "letting go of the stuff that keeps you separate."

The book is loaded with numerous fascinating and funny stories about Maharaj-ji. He put Ram Dass "in charge of the Westerners," only to pull the rug out from under his ego by undermining his authority in many ways until finally Ram Dass caught on and went along with it. Those Americans who had learned some Hindi would find that the translators would often delete some of the guru's foul language, as happened when a woman was robbed. The real translation was "Those stupid sister [...], they leave their doors open for any passing thief!"

In fact, the latter chapters of the book are a biography of Maharaj-ji from all the stories Ram Dass could collect. His life was filled with a synchronistic flow that Ram Dass calls "cosmic show biz timing." We learn of his siddhis, special yogic powers, such as bringing life back to a dead bird, making a stuck train go, being seen in several places at the same time, reading minds, finding things that were lost, and more. It concludes with a section filled with details on other saints, very reminiscent of Autobiography of a Yogi.

This book is a real inspiration for anyone on a spiritual path. If you haven't found a guru yet, don't assume you are to make Maharaji-ji your guru. As Ram Dass explains, "It doesn't matter whether you know your guru. Your guru knows you. There is no way that you can determine through your intellect who your guru is. You don't choose the guru; the guru chooses you." He goes on to say that your guru could even be posing as a cop giving you a ticket, or a beggar asking you for a handout. Unbelievable as it sounds, when you read this book and see what our consciousness is evolving to, it seems highly credible!

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in spiritual growth, regardless of who your guru is or what your spiritual path may be. It is packed with gems of inspiration.

Wow. I was first attracted to this book because in the book description, it mentions a favorable review from Wayne Dyer, a Law of Attraction author/speaker. As someone studying the Law of Attraction, I was intrigued. Though the book is written from the perspective of a man following a Hindu path, the message that threads throughout the book goes beyond religion, culture, and other demographics. The book speaks to the universal language of each person's Inner Self: unconditional love. Not the diluted, clichéd meaning of unconditional love, but a love that resonates through body and soul, a constant blissful eternal love.

Throughout the book, as Ram Dass chronicles his lifelong spiritual journey, inspired by his spiritual teacher Maharaj-ji, he invokes the divine by impressing the everlasting nature of true unbound love. He distinguishes between the "emotional love" that many of us are familiar with, that depends on some sort of condition. Once that condition is taken away, the love sours; it's temporary. The love that Ram Dass describes is one that flows from the Divine, the type of love that he calls "truth-consciousness-bliss."

What impresses me most about this book is that Ram Dass teaches us, as human beings, to tap into ourselves to create this bliss that he has been experiencing over his lifelong journey. Some of the ways he discusses to accomplish the feeling of this love is through music, chanting, and viewing the people we encounter in our everyday lives as "divine manifestation." If we're to embody what Dass explains in this book, it would be hard not to feel a real sense of love and respect for all beings-humans, animals, plants, etc. Because it is through this love that we can experience true joy, that Dass defines as "being a part of the One."

I'm delighted that I happened across this book, as I found it to be a thought provoking read. As I read through this book, I felt that joy, that natural high that one feels when you're inspired. I'd recommend this read to anyone who wants to get a better understanding--and feeling--for the real love that we can all experience and share unconditionally with others.

Reading "Be Here Now" when it was published set my life on a new course, one that continues to evolve and deepen, and has just been given an amazing lift by reading "Be Love Now." The love that Ram Dass cultivates and embodies can be felt in this book, which is also full of personal stories we haven't heard before. For example: he always thought his guru was a renunciate, but after the guru died, Ram Dass learned his guru had a wife, children and grandchildren and essentially had led a double life. While working on this chapter about his guru as a "family man," Ram Dass learned he has a family he's never known about. You can read more about this at [...]
So don't hesitate: give yourself and others the gift of "Be Love Now."

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