Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
I Am Loving Awareness
To shift identity from the thinking, role-playing ‘me’ to the loving awareness in the spiritual heart that simply witnesses — and loves — all of experience.
In 4 lines: Drop attention from your head into the middle of your chest and take a few slow breaths. Silently rest as “I am loving awareness.” Watch body, senses, and thoughts arise — and notice you are the awareness that loves them, not the contents. Your roles are costumes; loving awareness is who you are. Carry it into the day.
What it is
This is the central practice of Ram Dass’s later years, and the phrase he wanted to die with on his lips: “I am loving awareness.” Most of us, he taught, take ourselves to be the contents of the mind — our thoughts, roles, history.
This practice relocates identity from the head (the thinker, the ego) to the spiritual heart in the middle of the chest, and rests there as the awareness that simply witnesses everything — and loves what it witnesses.
The roles (“Richard Alpert,” “Ram Dass,” your name and story) are seen like costumes hanging in a closet — worn, but not who you are. What you are, in this teaching, is the loving awareness behind them: in his words, the soul.
It is at once a meditation and an ongoing answer to the question “who am I?” > Distinct from the siblings here. Tara Brach’s hand on heart is a self-compassion soothing gesture; witness practices like Aurobindo’s witness purusha and de Mello’s self-observation emphasise detached observing; metta directs goodwill outward in phrases.
Ram Dass’s practice uniquely fuses the two moves — witnessing from the heart — so the watching is saturated with love rather than detachment, and crucially makes loving awareness one’s identity, not just an attitude. It answers the “who is here now?” of.
The Method
A faithful rendering of the practice as Ram Dass taught it (talks and Polishing the Mirror):
- Bring attention into the chest. Move awareness from the head down into the middle of the chest — the spiritual heart. A few slow, deep breaths into the diaphragm help you settle there.
- Repeat the phrase, identifying with it. Silently say “I am loving awareness,” not as a slogan but as a felt recognition — let attention become the loving awareness in the heart rather than the thinker watching from the head.
- Witness the body and senses. Notice sights, sounds, sensations arising — and notice that the loving awareness is aware of them and loves them. You are not the sensation; you are that which lovingly knows it.
- Witness the mind. Watch thoughts and emotions come and go. Rather than being pulled into them, rest as the awareness in which they appear, holding even difficult thoughts in love.
- Disidentify, gently. Where it helps, use the contemplation “I am not this body. I am not these thoughts. I am loving awareness” — releasing each costume to rest in what remains.
- Love everything you’re aware of. The hallmark is loving the contents, not just neutrally observing them — extending the heart’s warmth to body, mind, others, and the world.
- Carry it off the cushion. Through the day, return to “I am loving awareness” and meet whatever arises — and whoever you meet — from the heart. (Sourcing note: “I am loving awareness,” the chest/spiritual-heart locus, the costumes-in-the-closet image, and “I am not [X], I am loving awareness” are Ram Dass’s published teachings, attributed; the protocol is faithfully described, not reproduced verbatim.)
Source & Lineage
Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) developed “loving awareness” as his core teaching especially after his 1997 stroke, presenting it in talks, on ramdass.org, and in Polishing the Mirror (2013); its roots reach back to Be Here Now (1971) and to his guru Neem Karoli Baba’s instruction to “love everyone” and rest in the heart.
It blends bhakti (devotional love) with the nondual witness of Advaita and Buddhist awareness practice — the heart of bhakti meeting the witness of jnana.; lineage.
Common refinements
Staying in the head. Reciting “I am loving awareness” while still watching from the thinking mind misses it. The move is to relocate into the heart and rest there.
- Cold witnessing. Detached observation without warmth turns this into a different (and for some, dissociative) practice. The loving is essential — hold the contents tenderly.
- Forcing disidentification. “I am not this body/these thoughts” is a release, not a denial or suppression. If it feels like numbing or floating away from yourself, drop it and reground in breath and sensation.
- Refinement: if access to the heart feels blocked, start with a hand on the chest and a few slow breaths to warm the area, then begin the phrase.