An Islamic scholar, theologian and poet, Rumi lived in the 13th century. He produced many famous works in both prose and poem form which have a lot to say about the world, human interactions, spirituality and mysticism. Although his teachings are closely associated with the Sufi tradition of Islam, his thoughts are not restricted to that version of Islamic mysticism alone. Across the Middle East and South Asia, Rumi is considered to be one of the most influential writers of all time, certainly in the last millennium. His works are still published, and he has a significant readership in North America, among other locations. Indeed, he has been described as the most popular poet in the United States before, something that it is hard to argue against.
Ram Dass – sometimes known as Baba Ram Dass – was an American-born exponent of Eastern spirituality and yoga in the West. He was also a qualified psychoanalyst and author. He was perhaps best-known as a spiritual teacher who did a great deal to bring many aspects of Hinduism to a wider audience in the post-war generation of Americans. Ram Dass travelled to India in the late 1960s where he became a disciple of Neem Karoli Baba, a Hindu guru. It was him who gave Ram Dass his new name which translates into English as 'Servant of God'. Following a stroke in the 1990s, the spiritual teacher was left with some paralysis, but he learned to speak again and took up travelling once more until he became ill again after a trip to India in 2004. He died in Hawaii in December 2019.
