Lama beans5/25/2023 With the generosity of residents and visitors, the first solar power system was installed, and the place continued to grow. With no electricity, the early buildings were made with hand tools, and the group lived by candlelight. They began construction on the first buildings in 1968. ![]() In 1967, Barbara Durkee (Asha Greer) Stephen (Nooruddeen) Durkee, and Jonathan Altman started the community when Altman purchased 100 acres of land adjacent to the Carson National Forest. They may be even more surprised to learn that in 2017, the spiritual community celebrated its 50th anniversary and this year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Be Here Now, just one of many books and products that come out of Lama. Many local residents do not know that this spiritual retreat and educational center of world renown is just outside our back door. People from all over the world visit the Lama Foundation. What a wonderful service…and that is just one of many good things that goes on at the Lama Foundation. She stayed there for “…three nights and four days filled with fear and rodents and timelessness and joy and all the hermits who’d been up there before quoting scriptures, giving out house advice from the hermit journals…” I thought of my friend as I gazed up at the Hermitage on a spring day. She left with a profound love for solitude. Her companions were her journal and the Hermitage journal, which she wrote in feverishly, and a few critters who came to visit. A friend of mine had a life-long fear of being alone and stayed at the Hermitage. The kitchen crew brings food and leaves it in a bear-proof box, picks up dishes from the previous meal, retrieves notes if the retreatant needs anything, and leaves supplies. There people can stay without company, telephones, or communication with the outside world. The Lama Foundation offers a hermitage retreat cabin way up the mountain. Over the years I became friends with people from Lama who were known as “Lama Beans.” I always wished I was a “Lama Bean!” I camped in a tent, worked in the kitchen, and felt like I was part of the community. In the 1990s I spent a week in silent meditation with about 50 others. I was stricken with the place and the people. ![]() I first went there in 1975 and met the author, Ram Dass. It was written by Baba Ram Dass, illustrated and edited by Lama residents, and originally published by the Lama Foundation. ![]() In high school, my sister worked at a bookstore and came home with the book, Be Here Now. My perspective on the Lama Foundation is personal.
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