Jackie Dobrinska speaks with devotional musician Benjy Wertheimer about dharmic shifts, discovering how our unique gifts can evolve into deeper forms of selfless service.
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This time on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Benjy and Jackie explore:
- Benjy’s unconventional journey from music and technology to spiritual service
- The idea of a “dharmic shift” and how life can redirect our path
- Ram Dass’s influence on Benjy’s music and spiritual calling
- Using our unique gifts in service of something larger than ourselves
- Walt Whitman’s shift from poet to Civil War nurse
- Deep practice as a form of service and connection
- Balancing personal gifts with humility and non-attachment
- Listening, finding common ground, and navigating disagreement
- Grief, anger, self-care, and “healing the healer”
- Service as an evolving practice of love and compassion
About Benjy Wertheimer:
Benjy Wertheimer is an award-winning devotional musician, composer, vocalist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist equally accomplished on tabla, congas, percussion, esraj, guitar, and keyboards. Benjy’s connection to Ram Dass predates his birth. His father, Professor Michael Wertheimer, was Richard Alpert’s Masters Thesis adviser at Wesleyan in the early 1950s. Some half a century later, Benjy joined Ram Dass and Krishna Das in Berkeley for a joint program in 2002, and since 2003 Benjy – along with his wife Heather – has often provided music and kirtan for Ram Dass pilgrimages and retreats in Maui. Keep up with Benjy on Instagram.
“The Dharmic shift that I went through from that point, somebody who was maybe helping a lot of people with computer systems, and I was maybe pretty good at it, but I never would have been great because my heart wasn’t there, was suddenly called into service with music and with the practice of kirtan, using whatever gifts I could bring to honor something bigger than myself.” –Benjy Wertheimer
About The Host, Jackie Dobrinska:
Jackie Dobrinska is the Director of Education, Community & Inclusion for Ram Dass’ Love, Serve, Remember Foundation and the current host of Ram Dass’ Here & Now podcast. She is also a teacher, coach, and spiritual director with the privilege of marrying two decades of mystical studies with 15 years of expertise in holistic wellness. As an inter-spiritual minister, Jackie was ordained in Creation Spirituality in 2016 and has also studied extensively in several other lineages – the plant-medicine-based Pachakuti Mesa Tradition, Sri Vidya Tantra, Western European Shamanism, Christian Mysticism, the Wise Woman Tradition, and others. Today, in addition to building courses and community for LSRF, she leads workshops and coaches individuals to discover, nourish and live from their most authentic selves.
More Be Here Now Network Podcasts:
Lama Rod Owens covers the dharma of freedom, loving ourselves, ancestral work, and the power of meditation: Dedication to Liberation
JoAnna Hardy shares a guided meditation all around the first foundation of mindfulness – mindfulness of the body: First Foundation Guided Meditation
Through bearing witness, love & service, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee shares how we can collectively heal the crisis of disconnection & ecological devastation: Love & Service
Buddhist Master Thich Nhat Hanh explores how we can joyfully bring mindfulness into everyday activities like phone calls, driving, and walking: The Ojai Foundation Presents: Under the Teaching Tree with Thich Nhat Hanh