Pure Compassion: an interview  with Rev. Myron Jones                                        

PURE COMPASSION

An interview with Ram Das Batchelder,

author of “Rising in Love: My Wild and Crazy Ride to Here and Now,

with Amma, the Hugging Saint”

By Rev. Myron Jones (author of “Healing Family Relationships” and “Hey, Holy Spirit, It's Me Again”)

Rev. Myron Jones:  So, tell us a little bit about your new book, “Rising in Love.” I love the subtitle: “My Wild and Crazy Ride to Here and Now, with Amma, the Hugging Saint.” What does it mean, “My Wild and Crazy Ride to Here and Now”?

Ram Das Batchelder:  Well, that’s my way of stating the spiritual goal, to be completely centered in the here and now, and abiding in the Supreme Peace that’s always present. And of course, my story is a wild and crazy ride. No way around that!

RMJ: I gather you’ve spent many years with Amma. How long, exactly?

RDB: I met Amma in 1987, on her first US Tour, and have spent something like 18 years in her ashram in India. So I’ve had a lot of hugs!

RMJ: I guess so! That’s her way of giving a blessing, isn’t it? I’ve read that she’s given something like 30 million hugs in all.

RDB: Yes, and in the old days at the ashram, the people living there could get eight hugs every week! That was like living in a heaven realm. I guess it goes without saying that her hugs are not ordinary hugs; they’re direct contact with the Divine. And after all these years, even though now it’s more like four or five hugs a year, due to the large crowds, I’m still totally amazed by Amma. I feel like she’s hugging me all the time now. In my eyes, she’s one of the greatest divine incarnations every to walk the Earth.

RMJ: So, you believe she’s a divine incarnation?

RDB: Well, yes, that’s definitely my own experience of what she is. But each person is free to have their own ideas about her. Some think she’s just a humanitarian, and that’s fine with Amma. Everyone’s free to come and have a hug, think whatever they like, and create their own relationship with Amma.

RMJ: Have you met other Gurus, or is Amma the only one?

RDB: Yes, I’ve met many other Gurus; I guess you could say it was part of my spiritual education. At one point, I actually left Amma’s organization, and spent seven years visiting other saints in India, and in the West also. I’ve seen many miracles, and I’ve had several satori experiences…

RMJ: Satori?

RDB: It’s a Zen term for temporary Enlightenment experiences. You get zapped with so much bliss and peace, and your mind dissolves… You feel like you’re totally Enlightened, but eventually satori experiences fade, leaving you wiser, hopefully, but still seeking. They’re kind of like sign posts on the way to Enlightenment.

RMJ: So, after some years with Amma, you left her organization, and after seven years of seeing other Gurus you came back to Amma’s organization?

RDB: Yes, with a fiancé, and Amma married us. My wife and I have been living as a couple at her ashram for the last 13 years.

RMJ: And… what do you do in the ashram? Can you describe a typical day?

RDB: One thing I love about Amma’s ashram is that even though there is a recommended schedule, people are free to make their own. My wife and I feel completely free there to do our own thing. I’ve been writing books for Amma’s organization, four children’s books and a novel in rhyming verse prior to this new book, my autobiography. So I spend a lot of hours at the computer, writing or editing art on Photoshop, or designing books. And I also do a lot of meditation, and spend some time helping out in the dining hall each day, as a contribution to the community. When Amma’s there, I try to spend as much time as I can in her presence. She’s like a giant sun of Love, radiating bliss and peace in all directions. I’m convinced that she knows every thought in my mind all the time.

RMJ: Really?

RDB: Well, that’s been my experience for more than two decades, but everyone is free to have their own experience with Amma. I long ago accepted Amma’s omniscience as just a fact of nature, but it’s also clear that she wears a disguise much of the time, hiding her omniscience, you could say, to allow people from all walks of life to come closer to her. More important than something like omniscience, what Amma embodies is pure compassion. She’s constantly expressing unconditional love for all beings, love in action. That’s something anyone can discover. Her programs are free.

RMJ: So how did an American kid end up leading such a life? Were your parents into Gurus?

RDB: No, not at all. They did went to an Ivy League divinity school for their Masters degrees, so that’s a pretty lucky set of parents to get, I guess. But American religious education in the 1950s had more of a focus on the intellect than on developing a direct spiritual connection, and they graduated with probably less faith than when they entered the seminary. In my childhood they were more interested in social action and politics than finding a direct relationship with God. I guess they just didn’t know it was possible.

RMJ: Were you spiritually inclined as a child?

RDB: Well, not really. I mean, as a young boy, I remember feeling not so much faith, but total certainty that God was everywhere; it was somehow as obvious as air when I was very young. But by my early teens I picked up my parents’ science-based agnosticism, and finally decided that God was nothing but bunk. It wasn’t until my third year of college, when a combination of psychotherapy, intense emotional work in theater classes, and experimentation with marijuana opened me up to directly experience the existence of God.

RMJ: You had some kind of awakening?

RDB: Yes, a huge awakening. I went from cynical atheist to deluded prophet in about a year! I was hearing God’s voice… I even met an angel.

RMJ: You met an angel?

RDB: Yes, angels really do exist. Her name was Serenity.

RMJ: Drugs were involved in that?

RDB: Yes, but nothing more potent than a joint. A couple of days after that incident, I connected with an old friend of mine from high school, and before I’d said anything, he told me that he had just had a vision of an angel. You could call it divine synchronicity. It was potent confirmation that it hadn’t been just my imagination.

RMJ: So, you started by meeting an angel. That’s quite a beginning. I’m curious how you ended up with a Hindu Guru.

RDB: Well, it’s a long and very wild story. But one night, when I was alone in a park near my parents’ house, I had a powerful experience. At that point I didn’t even really believe in God, and thought the whole Jesus thing was a lie. But that night, out of nowhere, Jesus Christ came into my body, filling me with exquisite energy and incredible bliss. It totally blew my mind! And what’s interesting about it is that when he left, after about ten minutes, I suddenly knew that reincarnation was true. That knowledge was his gift for me. And it was the beginning of a whole new way of seeing the world. I felt as if he was subtly pointing me towards the Masters of Hinduism.

RMJ: That’s fascinating.

RDB: But it took me a long time to get centered on the path. I was quite confused for several years, in fact, for a while, I thought I was the Messiah! It’s a very funny story, really, how I finally overcame that delusion. I just didn’t know anything about the spiritual path at all, and the experiences I was having were so totally divine, and so incredibly beyond anything I’d ever heard of before, that the Messiah idea seemed like the only explanation. My confusion was, well, I guess you could say it was part and parcel of awakening to God in the midst of a spiritually ignorant culture. That’s one excuse, anyway! I was also smoking heaps of marijuana in those days. It wasn’t until I gave up drugs completely that I really got my sanity back and discovered the true spiritual path.

Rev. Myron Jones: So, do you now consider yourself a Hindu?

Ram Das Batchelder: No, I really wouldn’t say that; I never like to limit myself in that way. Hinduism is amazing, in that it is so broad that it can accommodate just about any approach or concept. And there are some very potent truths revealed in the Hindu scriptures that seem to be not yet understood in the West. But as I see it, the various religions are really just fingers pointing at the moon. The point is to reach the moon, not obsess about one of the fingers. If I had to define myself, the only true thing I could say is that I am the Atman, the Divine Self, which is timeless, limitless, pure Awareness. I experience that every day in meditation. But that doesn’t make me special in any way; the Atman is the true Self of all beings. It’s beyond any categories. And it’s always here, now, awaiting our discovery.

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Rising in Love is available as a paperback in bookstores

and as paperback and ebook on Amazon

and other major online stores.

978-1-78279-687-9 (Paperback) 

978-1-78279-686-2 (eBook)

For reviews, info and links to Amazon see: www.rising-inlove.org