With Maharaj ji's permission, Ram
Dass published the book Be Here Now
in America in 1971. He gave instructions to the publisher to print the
book and came to India with the first copy to present to Maharaj ji.
Maharaj had not studied English. Yet five months later he drew Ram
Dass' attention to some untruths in two passages of the book and said, "Lies
should not be mentioned in this book. They will hurt you. Delete those
passages from the book."
Ram
Dass became anxious because a long time had elapsed, and the book might
already have been published. He expected that about thirty thousand
copies would have been printed. He contacted Steve Durkee and found out
that the next thirty thousand copies were, in fact, in print.
Explaining the situation to Baba, he said that the changes could only
be incorporated into the next edition. It would be a loss of $10,000 to
reject the thirty thousand books. Maharaj ji said, "Money
and
truth have nothing to do with each other. When you printed it first,
you thought it was true, but now that you know it isn't true, you can't
print lies. You will be hurt by it. You must correct it now."
Ram
Dass sent a cable to Steve. After a week he received a reply reporting
a strange incident. The book could not be printed because Baba's
photograph, which was to be printed on a full page, was missing. The
original was also missing, so a new plate could not be made. The
printer had pulled the job off the press to await further instructions.
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