There Is No Other

Best Spiritual Books of 2025 - Spirituality and Practice

An essential balm for these tumultuous times, this thoughtful and inspiring guide features newly gathered teachings to abandon the idea there is an “other,” bridging differences and cherishing our lives in the world, from beloved spiritual leader Ram Dass.

With the world seeming to teeter between democracy and authoritarianism, between humanitarianism and individualism, Ram Dass’s teachings on wholeness and unity are more needed than ever.

There Is No Other is a groundbreaking work showcasing the late spiritual leader’s thoughts and insights on broaching the divide and bringing disparate souls together. In these profound, newly gathered writings, Ram Dass shows us how a house divided against itself—whether that “house” is our individual self or the society in which we live—can come together in wholeness. There is no “other,” he explains. It is all one.

Structured in three sections, There Is No Other teaches us to open ourselves, come together in community, and love one another—and ourselves—across all our seeming contradictions and divisions. Anne Lamott contributes a beautiful foreword and each section is followed by a short essay reflecting on the endurance of Ram Dass’s ideas penned by Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and Mirabai Bush, as well as guided meditations to deepen each lesson.

As he leads us toward wholeness within our unique selves and as a human community, Ram Dass gives us the most precious gift: hope. Only in seeing ourselves in our complexity can we come together and honor our incarnations on the sacred planet we inhabit.

Ram Dass is the author of the landmark classic Be Here Now and the acclaimed Still Here and Be Love Now. After meeting his guru in India in 1967, Ram Dass became a pivotal spiritual influence on American culture, introducing the West to Eastern spiritual practices.

Parvati Markus is the author of Whisper in the Heart: The Ongoing Presence of Neem Karoli Baba and Love Everyone: The Transcendent Wisdom of Neem Karoli Baba Told Through the Stories of the Westerners Whose Lives He Transformed. She is the co-author of a children’s book, Isabella Castaspella: The Happy Little Witch and Her Friends, with Radha Baum. Parvati has been “midwifing” spiritual nonfiction books as a developmental editor and writer since Ram Dass’s classic Be Here Now. She is a former president of the board of the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram and Temple and a former development consultant for the Global Peace Initiative of Women Religious and Spiritual Leaders, held at the U.N. in Geneva, Switzerland, and is on the Advisory Board of the Love Serve Remember Foundation. She lives in Los Angeles.