ArtistInfo

Ram Dass
From Bindu To Ojas

Album US 1970 on Elektra Records label
Spoken Word, Folk, World and (Education, Religious, Therapy)

Main artist and release title are not present on the record itself. This collection of chants come from the originally released "From Bindu to Ojas" box set in 1970, a predecessor to the release of "Be Here Now" - the box set contained the brown pages from Be Here Now, as well as vinyl recordings of chants and lectures. Ram Dass shares about the origin of Be Here Now… “When I went to India the first time, and I had been with my guru a few months, he said, ‘I give my blessing to your book.’” Ram Dass explained that he had, at that time, no intention of writing a book. But, back home in America, he did write a book. He submitted the book to nine publishers who all rejected it. Then, speaking of Neem Karoli Baba, his teacher in India, Ram Dass added, “I said to myself, ‘If this guy is who I think he is, he’s the publishers and he can’t be turning down his own book.’” Then he said that, after giving a lecture series (at the Sculpture Studio series in NYC recorded in 1969) based on his time in India, a woman came to him, a court stenographer, and gave him a huge stack of paper. He asked what the paper was, and she said, “These are your words.” “With that stack of paper in the trunk of his car, Ram Dass {drove cross country} went to Esalen (one of the important centers of spiritual exploration in the West at the time) where he was assigned to share a cabin. Ram Dass continued the Be Here Now story. “They said, ‘you’re staying with this couple.’” {John and Catty Bleibtreu} He found himself housed with a man who was a gardener at Esalen, but otherwise an author from New York. The man asked what the stack of paper among Ram Dass’s belongings was. He was told what the stenographer said about the lecture transcripts. “He marked them,” said Ram Dass, indicating that the man underlined sections.” Rameshwar Das continues the From Bindu to Ojas story in the preface to the book Be Love Now by Ram Dass and Ramshwar Das “From Esalen, Ram Dass drove to the Lama Foundation near Taos, New Mexico, a back-to-the-land commune of artists and hippies that he had helped found before his trip to India. Steve Durkee, a visionary artist who had spearheaded an art group called USCO in New York, was a friend and the main man at Lama. He also noticed the transcript and asked what it was. Over dinner with five or six of the resident artists at Lama, they brainstormed ways that the passages John Bleibtreu had checked could be illustrated. During the fall and winter of 1969-70, Ram Dass, Steve, and the Lama commune went to work on making Ram Dass’s works into text art. At his talks Ram Dass gave out postcards that people could send in to Lama to get a copy of whatever emerged. I even did my part and copied some of the photos of saints ram Dass had brought back from India. In early 1970, the Bountiful Lord’s Delivery Service at Lama mailed out several thousand copies of a twelve-by-twelve corrugated box, the contents and printing of which were financed from the proceeds of Ram Dass’s lectures. It was distributed at no charge.” Ram Dass adds to our story: from Be Love Now page 149. “From California I drove to the Lama foundation commune up on a mountainside outside Taos, New Mexico. I had been part of its conception before going to India. A group of creative artists were living there, Dwarka Bonner, Francis von Briesen and Tenney Kimmel, and of course, Steve and Barbara Durkee, who were the founders. Steve was the head honcho of Lama. He also noticed the manuscript in the trunk of my car. He said the same thing as John, “What’s that?” Steve read it, and sitting around at dinner we all came up with idea for the artwork and publishing it in a twelve by twelve corrugated box that was the original Be Here Now. The box was called From Bindu to Ojas, which signified the evolution of consciousness up through the chakras to liberation in the crown of the head. The core text with the with the art was printed on brown paper and bound with string, and there was a HisStory section about Maharaj-ji, a part about practice called A Spiritual Cookbook, pictures, and a book list called Painted Cakes. It also had an LP record with kirtan chanting, which sounds pretty homemade now. We produced a thousand boxes paid for with contributions from my lectures. Anyone who sent in a postcard requesting it received one for free in the mail. They were all sent out, and more people wanted them. When I went back to India, Steve put together a distribution deal with Bruce Harris, who worked for Crown Publishers, and the box became a book.”

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