We are grateful to have more from Ram Dass, who passed in December 2019. Just as we recently reviewed a re-collected volume of Mary Oliver poems, here we’re considering a regathering of Ram Dass’ talks and writings. A few of them have never appeared before in print; others are excerpted from prior books and collections. The editor of the book, Parvati Markus, realizes how these teachings are needed as much now as ever. She writes in the introduction: “These days we are collectively in need of healing the terrible divide within our society…. Ram Dass was no stranger to ‘us’ versus ‘them.’… Ram Dass encourages us to move from role to soul [she’s quoting him, with that phrase, and Chapter 7 is devoted to “From Role to Soul”] and find our identity in a polarized world.”
There Is No Other is a book about becoming mindful of your conflicting thoughts and emotions, about finding the way toward what Ram Dass calls a “unity consciousness.”
Also included here are teachings from other teachers whose names you might recognize, friends of Ram Dass, contributors to the theme. These are Anne Lamott, who writes the foreword, as well as Mirabai Bush, Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and Sharon Salzberg with reflections or spiritual practices building on Ram Dass teachings.
From Part One, “There Is No ‘Other’,” to Part Two, “Self-Awareness,” to Part Three, “Coming into Wholeness,” the build is toward seeing the world full of teachers of all kinds, its people as a vast community of spiritually seekers, God as both guru and Self (within each of us), and the loving awareness that is possible in this life, despite all of the pain and division around.
