A compact teaching collection assembled by Ram Dass and his co-author Rameshwar Das in the years after his 1997 stroke, summarising the major practices Ram Dass returned to in his late teaching: the I-am-loving-awareness instruction, devotional remembering of his guru Neem Karoli Baba, the dying-into-loving-awareness contemplation, and the practice of seeing oneself in the other. The book runs in short prose chapters interleaved with photographs and excerpted talks; it is closer to a working manual of Ram Dass's mature practice than to the long narrative arc of Be Here Now.
Contents
Being Here Now
Polishing the Mirror
Bhakti Yoga: The Path of Devotion
Karma Yoga: Living in the World
Aging and Changing
Conscious Living, Conscious Dying
From Suffering to Grace
Content to Be
Practicing Practicing
Reception
Polishing the Mirror has remained in print steadily since 2013 and is the most-recommended Ram Dass starting-point after Be Here Now for readers who want his late teaching rather than the 1971 countercultural register the earlier book carries; it is frequently the assigned reading in the Love Serve Remember Foundation's online programmes. Reviewers within the bhakti-Hindu lineage Ram Dass came from (via Neem Karoli Baba) read the book as a faithful but heavily simplified late-period summary; critics outside the lineage (most explicitly James Swartz on traditional Advaita) have raised the same neo-Advaita and devotional-hybrid concerns they raise against Mooji and Tony Parsons. Ram Dass's own framing — that he was, throughout, more bhakta than jnani — is the response most often given to those concerns by readers inside the lineage.
Frequently asked
What is Polishing the Mirror about?
It is a late-period teaching collection assembled by Ram Dass and Rameshwar Das after his 1997 stroke. The nine chapters gather the major practices Ram Dass returned to in his final teaching years: the I-am-loving-awareness instruction, devotional remembering of his guru Neem Karoli Baba, karma yoga, and the practice of conscious dying.
How does Polishing the Mirror differ from Be Here Now?
Where Be Here Now (1971) is a wide-ranging account of Ram Dass's transformation from Harvard psychologist to devotee, Polishing the Mirror is a compact manual of his mature practice. The emphasis has shifted toward bhakti — loving devotion — and toward the spiritual dimensions of aging and death, themes that became central to his teaching after the stroke.
Who is Rameshwar Das?
Rameshwar Das (Mark Linden) is a longtime collaborator of Ram Dass. He co-wrote Polishing the Mirror and co-authored the memoir Being Ram Dass (2021). He is a trustee of the Love Serve Remember Foundation and served as the primary compiler and editor of this volume.