[4] Saltman was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the youngest son of Russian-Jewish (Ukrainian) immigrants.

After graduation he took a job at Sierra College near Auburn, California where he, along with around seven students, started a literary magazine named Viewpoint.

[6] In 1967 he received a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School where he wrote his doctoral thesis "The Descent to God: Religious Language in Several Contemporary American Poets".

At Claremont Ben Saltman became good friends with poet Bert Meyers, whose friendship and encouragement inspired him to start writing poetry seriously.

[9][10][11] After reading the Swami Prabhavananda's translation and commentary on the Bhagavad Gita,[12] Saltman started frequenting lectures at the Vedanta Society of Southern California[5] along with disciples Aldous Huxley and Christopher Isherwood.