Turning people into trees

Notes from a teacher I never knew on how to accept people for who they are

Few people have a reputation in pop spirituality like Ram Dass. His 1971 book, Be Here Now, is a staple in personal libraries of creative-minded people of all ages. His quotable lines are printed on t-shirts, used as podcast titles, and mentioned in celebrity interviews.

No shade. He is a master teacher with brilliant rhetorical skills for explaining abstract, esoteric ideas in accessible language. The themes he covers are deeply human: suffering, grace, self-improvement, detachment, and living simply to live fully. Browse the Ram Dass Here and Now podcast for a crash course on how to experience life more joyously.

I’ve listened to countless hours of his lectures and heard nearly every episode — and many of them multiple times. Following his teachings is an exercise in self-discipline, but they have become part of my default mode network.

When things go terribly wrong in a way that seems just a little too specific to me, his words ring in my ear: that’s the guru laughing at me. It’s just enough to pull me out a spiral to quickly learn the lesson that the disarray was meant to teach me. When my house burned down to the ground in Altadena this past January, I kept reminding myself, “Suffering is the path to awakening. How much I suffer depends on how quickly I let go of who I thought I was and be who I am now.”

The Yoga of Relationships

All of his teaching have stuck with me, but none as strongly as “The Yoga of Relationships,” what Ram Dass describes as “the hardest yoga.” Listen below if you have time.