Please Note: The LIVE version of this course has completed. You can still access the content from the evergreen virtual course library below.
A 6-week virtual course re-imagined from Ram Dass' 1974 Naropa University Course
“As we proceed with the Gita, you will be able to explore yourself – the inner being of who you really are. You will be able to realize that the work on yourself is that of uncovering a much deeper being in you.”
– Ram Dass
The Gita serves as a roadmap to help us make sense of our turbulent, changing world.
In the last few years, we've been forced to reckon with an enormous amount of groundlessness and unknowing. Uncertainty is a hallmark of our innate human experience, so what can we do to ease our own suffering and the suffering of those around us? Well, fortunately, many wise beings walked the earth before us, leaving an abundance of wisdom teachings, practices and methods to help us guide the way back to our hearts.
When Ram Dass first traveled to India in 1967, he was introduced to an incredibly important ancient Hindu text called the Bhagavad Gita (“The Song of God”).
Ram Dass immersed himself into its 700 verses, coming to recognize that both symbolically and literally, the Gita offered a wellspring of incredibly important teachings that everyone, especially Westerners caught in their rational mindsets, could use to live more balanced and conscious lives.
Eventually, when Ram Dass returned to the United States, he began to travel, lecture and teach on the philosophies he brought back from India. In 1974, he arrived at the Buddhist-inspired Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Founded by Tibetan Buddhist master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Naropa served as fertile ground for Ram Dass to explore the Gita. Over several weeks in the summer of '74, Ram Dass taught a course entitled The Yogas of the Bhagavad Gita.
As he sat on stage on the first day at Naropa, Ram Dass introduced the course:
“This course is more concerned with a commentary about certain points in the Bhagavad Gita as they relate to our daily lives. The Gita, as I understand it, is a way of making one's entire life a vehicle for becoming conscious, or coming into the spirit, or coming to God—whatever metaphor you particularly feel comfortable working with.”
These teachings are more relevant than ever in today's world...
We are thrilled to announce the release of the re-mastered original footage from Naropa in an updated 6-week virtual course: Finding Harmony in Today's World: Ram Dass on the Mystical Wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita
This 6-week course weaves timeless teachings with present-day introspection and provides context for walking confidently through a rapidly evolving world.
Using archival audio and video teachings and practices from the original Naropa course, each weekly lesson will be supplemented and contextualized with live teachings from contemporary teachers, a virtual Facebook community, and a bi-weekly community Zoom discussion looking at the Gita from different points of view. This is a great opportunity to connect and ask questions from a supportive group of peers and teachers.
Ram Dass said it best in the original course introduction:
“This predicament that many of us in the West are facing is the recognition that the values that we were living by were only intermediate values to get us to a certain point where we then could go the next step, which is a deepening of our beings. And in order to do that, we had to reexamine the values to which we were originally attached…
… This introduction, then, is preparation for you to proceed with the lectures which are designed to take you through the major concepts that are dealt with in the Bhagavad Gita, and as a vehicle for finding your own dharma, your own path, your own way through, your own method to come into the spirit so that your life can be that of living in harmony with the universe, and in harmony and opening to you the potential of your highest consciousness.”
“At a symbolic level, what the Gita is, is a dialogue between God and the Seeker. And the battlefield turns out to be the inner battlefield—the battlefield of our own inner-evolutionary being.” – Ram Dass
Discover if this course is right for you...
- Do you struggle to make sense of this world? Of your own life?
- Are you caught in disharmony and divisiveness?
- Do you struggle with your heart, your relationships, and your own predicament? As well as our collective predicament?
- Are you uncertain of your purpose and path?
- Do you wish you could more skillfully work with your doubts, fears, and obstacles?
- Do you feel disconnected from yourself, your deeper wisdom, and your true nature?
- Do you simply want to have more clarity and become more conscious?
If you answered yes to these questions, this course may be a great resource for you.
What's included in this course...
Over 19 hours of archival audio and video recordings from the original Naropa course, with downloadable transcripts for accessibility and ease-of-use.
*Please note that we have re-mastered the original audio from almost 50 years ago for better sound. Given the age of the videos, some may appear grainy, dark or shaky.
Replays of the weekly teaching and Q&A sessions on the course content with wisdom keepers of today.
Weekly "going deeper" practices which are the original practices given to the students of Naropa by Ram Dass in 1974.
Access to an easy-to-use course dashboard (Teachable.com) that contains weekly teachings and practices from our wisdom teachers.
Meet your Dharma Teachers
Acharya Shunya
Dr. Robert Svoboda
Shalini Bahl
Mirabai Starr
Michael Sternfeld
Nina Rao
Your weekly course syllabus
How the Gita Informs Our Lives Today
Setting the stage to dive into the themes within the Gita, Ram Dass explores opening to wisdom not as an accruing of knowledge, but as a transmission of being.
He introduces the main characters from whose perspectives we will be exploring the Gita, and begins to show us the possibility of applying this ancient knowledge to our modern everyday life.
Featured Dharma Teacher: Acharya Shunya
The Balance of Life (Reincarnation & Karma)
Ram Dass takes a deep dive into one of the Bhagavad Gita’s core foundational concepts: reincarnation. Reflecting on the cycle of death and rebirth in his own life, as well as within the greater historical context, he shares quotes and stories helping us move past the limitations of our small self, instead expanding to that within us which was never born and never dies. He also shares various stories and perspectives on the Eastern notion of karma— as an eternally functioning law of cause and effect.
Featured Dharma Teacher: Dr. Robert Svoboda
Knowing What to Do and Doing It (Dharma and Yoga of Action)
Building from the lens of karma and reincarnation, Ram Dass shares hilarious lilas and lessons from India, reflecting on how he came to somewhat reluctantly follow his own dharma as a “sloppy bhakti.”
Introducing Karma Yoga (selfless service), Ram Dass highlights the seeming paradox of renunciation—finding freedom in action. Ram Dass pulls inspiration from the Tao Te Ching, Anandamayi Ma, and Carlos Casteneda in this classic teaching on one of the Gita’s main themes: not being attached to the fruits of one’s actions.
Featured Dharma Teacher: Shalini Bahl
Discover Your True Nature
Illuminating the nuances of “using the mind to go beyond the mind,” Ram Dass explores Jnana Yoga (union through intellect and wisdom). He shares tangible real-world examples to help us move past the tendrils of mind, down into the intuitive heart. Applying passages from the Gita to his own life, Ram Dass perspectives on how we can begin to extricate ourselves from attachments.
Interplaying Buddhist wisdom with this Hindu epic, Ram Dass rounds out this session with talk on Trungpa Rinpoche, Spiritual Materialism, and Karma Yoga.
Featured Dharma Teachers: Mirabai Starr
Becoming Free
Offering wisdom for making every action an offering, Ram Dass explores a topic often misconstrued in the West, but very close to the heart of the Bhagavad Gita: sacrifice.
Then he explores laying a tangible path for extricating oneself from the illusion of separation while still performing one’s dharmic duties and actions in the world.
Ram Dass offers social perspectives on satsang, family, and doing one’s dharma in the modern world.
Featured Dharma Teacher: Michael Sternfeld
Growing into the Heart/Mind
Ram Dass offers a framework for seeing life through an energetic lens, touching on the chakra system, kundalini, and the 5 Yamas. He expounds on one of the key elements of the Bhagavad Gita—Bhakti Yoga—which he describes as the juice behind many of the practices and perspectives which have been covered.
He tells about his personal spiritual path of Guru Kripa—the grace of the Guru—sharing bhakti-infused passages, amidst personal stories with Maharajji, which highlight devotion, the witness, and Ramana Maharshi’s statement that God, Guru, & Self are One.
Featured Dharma Teacher: Nina Rao
What people love about our courses...
"I would like to thank you for the amazing tools you are providing us to live a much greater life. For me it is an incredible opportunity to listen, watch and read what these great masters can share with people like me who are involved in a transformational live journey. Thank you for teaching me how to listen with my heart and to connect with my real inner self.”
- Nicolette
“I just have to tell you that this course is magnificent and I am so glad I signed up! I have loved Ram Dass since the 70’s and followed his teachings. Going through a lot of changes now as my husband is ill and I quit working. This course is well put together and has helped my husband and me! Thank you with all our hearts for bringing this gift to us!”
- Chris and Linzy
"I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate what you and all those who are involved are doing. Including Ram Dass, of course! This is enough information to last a lifetime for me, and may take that long and more! .... Even just one of the bonus links, not to mention the main parts of the course. Many thanks!"
- Marie M.
