Reflecting on Ram Dass’s core teachings, Hanuman Dass and Raghu Markus discuss the immense power of love, service, and compassion.

Check out There is No Other for more of Ram Dass’s teachings on the path to harmony. Also, stay tuned for the release of Hanuman Dass’s forthcoming book Be Yourself, formed out of his conversations with Ram Dass.

This week on Mindrolling, Raghu and Hanuman Dass have a conversation on:

• Hanuman Dass’s experience growing up in a deeply connected, matriarchal family
• Living spirituality in everyday life, household puja, and devotional practices
• How karma dictates our lives and puts us right where we are supposed to be
• Hanuman Dass’s relationship with Ram Dass and becoming inspired to serve through food donation
• The Upanishads, self-inquiry, and Ram Dass’s perpetual devotion to Maharaj-ji
• Compassion as the direct road to enlightenment
• Empowering those we help rather than impoverishing them or pitying them
• Reflecting on the dharma of humanity and our shared responsibility to one another

You can now watch Bridge of Grace to learn more about KK Sah, a Maharaj-ji devotee and close friend of Ram Dass. Click here to learn more.

About Hanuman Dass:

Hanuman Dass is the founder of the UK-based charity Go Dharmic (GD). GD’s core mission is global hunger relief, supported by their humanitarian crisis response work and campaigns for environmental action, poverty alleviation, education, and plant-based and organic diets. Hanuman Dass was inspired into service through his relationship with Ram Dass, whom he met in his 20’s. GD's founding ethos is based on the philosophy of Sanatana Dharma. Their mission is to “Love All. Feed All. Serve All.” Check out the GD website for more information and stay in touch with Hanuman Dass on social media. Pick up a copy of this guide to the Hanuman Chalisa created with Hanuman Dass

“I feel lightest here, I feel happiest in service and love…drink is nice, you go up and down. Drugs might be nice, you go up and down. But, love is forever, you can stay in that space.” –Hanuman Dass

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This week, we pause to remember the life, presence, and artistry of a friend of the show who will be deeply missed.

Recorded in 2021, this conversation features Grammy-winning artist John Forté in his first appearance on the podcast. John and Raghu talk about the spirit of music, the highs and lows of success, and John’s experience headlining the Ram Dass Soul Land Music Series.

John Forté (January 30, 1975 – January 12, 2026) is survived by his wife and two children. If you’d like to offer support, a donation link is available here: Honoring John Forte by Supporting His Family

This special episode features an inspired conversation on:

• Community as the spirit of music: John Forté’s Brooklyn upbringing in the economic downturns of the 70s and 80s
• The emotional, mental, and physical hardships of struggling to get by in an underserved community
• Perseverance through love: John’s inspiration for his musical career
• John’s highest highs, lowest lows, & what it is like to start over
• John’s friendship with the iconic Ms. Lauryn Hill, linking up with The Fugees, and their co-creation of a Grammy-winning, multi-platinum record, The Score
• John's stint in prison, where in his cell, his refuge and musical rebirth came in the form of an acoustic guitar
• Music as internal alchemy and Ram Dass’s influence on John’s song Gong Guru from his album Riddem Drive
• Venturing further into spirituality: John’s deep affinity for wisdom teachers like Ram Dass, Terence McKenna, Alan Watts, and Abraham Hicks

Listen to John’s other visit to the Mindrolling Podcast on Ep. 405 and a conversation about resonance, integration & catharsis on this special Ram Dass Fellowship with host, Jackie Dobriska, available on Ep. 124 of the Be Here Now Network Guest Podcast.

About John Forté:

John Forté is a Grammy-winning recording artist best known for his work with the hip-hop group, The Fugees, writing and producing songs on their multi-platinum record The Score. After a stint in prison while riding the volatile waves of success and failure, John coupled his refuge of music with messages of wisdom and love from inspirational spiritual teachers. Listen to John’s album Riddem Drive, and don’t miss him on the Soul Land Music Series: Songs & Stories Inspired by Ram Dass.

“My journey with music has been the relationship of having it, experiencing it, seeing it morph and take on different colors and shapes. It showed me from a very early age that collaboration was going to be the key for the source of my continued inspiration—working with others, finding that harmony—that’s the spirit of it. The spirit of music is community, it’s communication, it’s air itself.” –John Forté

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Author and nonviolence practitioner Kazu Haga explores why fierce vulnerability is a vital practice for inner and outer transformation.

Read an excerpt of Kazu’s book, Fierce Vulnerability, and purchase your own copy HERE.

This time on Mindrolling, Raghu and Kazu Haga chat about:

• Kazu’s difficult upbringing and how meeting Japanese Buddhist monastics transformed his life
• Combining social action and spirituality
• The legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and addressing both inner violence of the spirit and outer systemic violence
• How an “us vs. them” worldview fuels division, suffering, and ecological destruction
• Healing childhood trauma and collective trauma by integrating the fractured parts of ourselves
• How getting vulnerable opens up our capacity to heal
• The Seven Fires Prophecies from the Anishinaabe people
• Rebuilding the world through spiritual practice rather than material accumulation
• Remembering that personal healing is inseparable from collective healing in an interdependent world
• Listening deeply and being comfortable with uncertainty

Check out the book Hospicing Modernity for more powerful insights on social action

About Kazu Haga:

Kazu Haga is a trainer and practitioner of nonviolence and restorative justice, a core member of the Ahimsa Collective and the Fierce Vulnerability Network. He is a Jam facilitator and author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm and Fierce Vulnerability: Healing from Trauma, Emerging from Collapse. He works with incarcerated people, youth, and activists from around the country. He has over 25 years of experience in nonviolence and social change work. He is a resident of the Canticle Farm community on Lisjan Ohlone land, Oakland, CA, where he lives with his family. You can find out more about his work at www.kazuhaga.com.

“The work of nonviolence has to start by looking at the ways in which we hold internal violence of the spirit, that unhealed anger, hatred, resentment, delusion, as well as our unhealed traumas, and understanding how all of that is the source of external violence in the world. Yes we need the social movements, but if we’re not grounded in some sort of inner work and introspection a lot of the violence we want to change out there gets replicated in our own work, in our own communities.” –Kazu Haga

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