Rick Archer: Welcome to “Buddha at the Gas Pump.” My name is Rick Archer, and “Buddha at the Gas Pump” is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually awakening people. There have been well over 300 of them now, and if you’re new to this, go to Batgap.com, check out the Past Interviews menu, and you’ll see them categorized and organized in various ways. Also, this show is dependent upon the support of appreciative viewers and listeners, so if you feel inclined to support it, there’s a “Donate” button there. My guest today, December 16, 2015, is Jane Anderson-Ross. Hi, Jane.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Hi.
Rick Archer: Jane is a wife, mother, and grandmother currently living in Rochester, New York. She was raised in a Jersey suburb of Philadelphia. She always had the gifts of love and compassion, and even as a young child felt that her life was to help others heal. But in 1988, during the throes of her own trials and difficulties, Jane experienced a transformation that was prompted by a singular prayer. She surrendered to the Divine Creator and asked: Let me be your eyes, your ears, your hands, and your heart. From that prayer came what she can only describe as a rebirth, a profound transformation with a pure “divine directive.” However, still very much Jane, she continued on as a devoted wife and mother of two babies.
What became extraordinary to her though, were the divine events, healings, and transformations that touched not only her own life, but that of many others with whom she came in contact. Nevertheless, Jane’s love, humility, and simplicity never wavered, and she decided to enter into the field of holistic healing arts. She began sharing her gifts through a spiritually based newsletter, which included divinely inspired writings and poetry. Later, she added more formal professional training and became a Shiatsu and Thai massage therapist, Reiki Master, and aromatherapy and naturopathic esthetician. Other modalities included ancient palmistry and psychic mediumship. Jane is happy to share her story with all who ask and feels that her expression is best stated by the following: It matters not what we do, but from where we come whilst doing it. Okay, great. Well, thanks, Jane. That gave everybody a little bit of a synopsis. Incidentally, I just want to say that a lot of people who come onto this show are pretty well known; they’ve written books, and so on. But the original intention of the show was, and, in fact, the subtitle of the show is “Interviews with Ordinary Spiritually Awakening People.” And sometimes people even grumble: Why do you have all these famous people on; what happened to the ordinary people?
Irene Archer: We consider all the people “ordinary.”
Rick Archer: Yes, as I was about to say, and as Irene just said, I consider everybody ordinary. I mean, we all perform the same bodily functions. But it’s nice to have somebody on the show from time to time who isn’t well known because I think people can sometimes relate to them more easily. Sometimes there’s an aura of specialness around somebody like Eckhart Tolle or Deepak Chopra, or somebody like that.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes.
Rick Archer: But we all put our pants on one leg at a time — if we wear pants — and so on.
Jane Anderson Ross: Mm-hmm, definitely.
Rick Archer: Yes. So anyway, where shall we pick up the story?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Well, I just want to thank you for what you do, first of all, and also, I really liked listening to what you read about my bio, and it touched me. I haven’t read it in a long time, and Charles helped me write it.
Rick Archer: Oh, good.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And it just touches my heart again and again. And that’s probably my whole embodiment is how I’m touching someone’s heart. Just saying that makes me feel that emotion. I think that’s where we all connect in this journey, no matter what we’re doing. And for me, my journey has always been about simplicity. And I think what happened to me in ’88 came from embodying simplicity, innocence, and some level of purity. Because before I had this awakening — I think it’s hard to say what you are when you are it; do you know what I mean? But I perceived myself through myself as a pretty pure-hearted being, child, and finding myself very sensitive and not really understanding maybe how other children were treating other children. I was always connected to nature and always looking up at the sky. I was out there playing hard and climbing trees, but then I would sit in the trees —
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: — and I would commune with the trees. And I have had friends who do that, too. A lot of us did that back in that day and time, and I wish people would do it more.
Rick Archer: Did you have much of a religious upbringing?
Jane Anderson-Ross: My mother was turned off by the church, and we were raised Catholic, so I didn’t. So mine was pretty much just being in nature and my own connection. But I did have a re-entry into our religious upbringing when my mother came to her own spiritual awakening. But hers was different than mine because it was within her paradigm of Catholicism.
Rick Archer: Hmm. There seems to be something in your bloodlines because your cousin also had an awakening, which we’re going to talk about. So I think that’s actually kind of interesting and significant. You mentioned purity. There’s that saying in The Bible that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons, or some such thing, and that there can be a certain degree of purity or impurity in us, and that it can actually be passed on from generation to generation. And of course one can work through it if something negative has been passed on, but often, you do find that there’s a correlation between parents who have — not always, but sometimes — parents who have a spiritual awakening or a spiritual inclination or something, and then children who also do, like the specialness is handed down.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, I would think that I would cling to anything that had to do with love.
Rick Archer: As a child?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, and so that part of what I saw in the religion, my eyes were always fixed on where love was coming from as a child. At about five years old, one of the pivotal things that I remember is going to the doctor’s; I loved the doctor’s.
Rick Archer: Really?
Jane Anderson-Ross: In a sense that I loved what they were doing, how they were reaching people and helping. What was I doing all day? I wasn’t doing very much, but I really enjoyed that healing aspect. I think that’s why my life gravitated to that, and we can talk about later how it became instrumental and more professional. But anyway, I used to tell my mother very expressively, like achingly, that I love people. I love them so much, and I want to be a doctor. But I said, but the kind of doctor I’ll be will be someone who goes door to door helping people, but I won’t charge them any money. And I was so passionate about that, and I understood it later.
Rick Archer: That’s nice. There are some medical traditions, I think maybe in China and India or at least there used to be, where the doctors got paid as long as people were healthy. When people got sick, the doctor stopped getting paid.
Jane Anderson-Ross: I agree with that.
Rick Archer: Yes. Interesting. Are there more significant things we should touch upon before 1988?
Jane Anderson-Ross: So, when my mother had her awakening, we didn’t really know about it, except that I just wanted to touch in on that religious aspect.
Rick Archer: Yes, sure.
Jane Anderson-Ross: We were brought into the church. So suddenly, in Catholic Church, we had our baptism. We missed the Holy Communion, for Catholics out there, and our confirmation, in my case, because I was 11, I think at that time. And what happened was, I was excited to be in this place where people were talking about love, like in a community, because earlier in my life, I had sensed love; I was connected to love. I was in nature with that. And here I was, and some of my classmates in this Catechism-type thing talking about, singing about loving each other, sharing each other’s burdens, sharing each other’s joys. And usually, the boys were trying to push you out of the way to get in line. So I’m like, this is, like, what I’ve been looking for; this is it, you know? And so I was very grateful about that, but then it sort of petered out in the teenage years —
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: — which has its own interesting plays. But at about age 13, I was very attracted to — and God knows where it came from — Carlos Castaneda. My first book outside of the storybooks that you would have to read was The Teachings of Don Juan.
Rick Archer: Impressive at the age of 13, yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Thirteen! Yes. And I don’t know if I should say it or not, but I actually felt this lift, and I felt like I could fly. And I only had a one-story bedroom. We had a two-story house, and I jumped out. I remember my father got mad at me.
Rick Archer: Yikes!
Jane Anderson-Ross: It wasn’t much of a jump for tree-climbing and nature people like me.
Rick Archer: Well, there was a thing at the end of one of Castaneda’s books where he jumped off a cliff, and that was the end of the book, and you had to wait till the next book to see what was going to happen. And I hope not too many people actually tried that. It sounds like you did.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Mm-hmm. Yes, I did. And who knows, maybe it was sort of like, as you bring up, maybe an initiation or sort of a passage into trying to understand whatever it was that I was trying to understand about who I’d be or who I was.
Rick Archer: Did you kind of expect you were going to fly when you jumped out the window?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Huh-uh.
Rick Archer: No.
Jane Anderson-Ross: No. But anyway, so what’s interesting is, and this is pivotal: My mother would cut our hair back in the day, and I would get my hair cut. So I said: I’ve got to get my hair cut at a salon, Mom; I’m getting teased. And there were these really cool ladies who worked at the salon, sort of hippie ladies. And I remember having sort of therapy sessions, you know, with my hairdresser for the first time with another adult, and someone who was open and someone who seemed somewhat esoteric, if I could imagine what that would have been at that age. Over the years, I lost track of her and grew up; but years later — I was about in my 30s — I reconnected with her at another salon. And I said, you know, it’d be interesting to find out what I was like in your eyes at that age. Because I had gone through my transformation in ‘88. And she said, Jane, you marched to the beat of a different drummer. And she said, and I ached when I listened to you, because you had this wisdom that 11-12-and-13-year-olds shouldn’t have, and you were struggling to fit in with your peers with that. There was a lot of common sense in my personality, and I couldn’t understand why some friends, when I would say certain things to them would think, what’s wrong with you; why aren’t you just going along with everybody? So I kept quiet. I think I just started to be more introverted if I wasn’t already.
Rick Archer: Interesting, yes. You mentioned teenagers. A lot of people I interview who had profound experiences as a child ended up losing them during their teenage years and even sometimes getting into drugs and stuff. But did you come through your teenage years relatively unscathed?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Well, what was interesting, as I look back, is that I guess, age 13, in my area, where I grew up, which was just over the bridge from Philadelphia, was a blue-collar area.
Rick Archer: Camden?
Jane Anderson-Ross: No. No, a couple over from Camden — Maple Shade, near Cherry Hill. So anyway, a lot of friends of mine started turning and doing drugs and testing things, and I didn’t want to do that; I wanted to keep myself pure. And I was very sad that I couldn’t find anybody who wanted to do it. And my best friend, because when I love friends, I was loving, very, like, wholly, just wholly, so I was very disappointed that my best friend was turning in that direction and asked of me if I wouldn’t follow. So it’s really hard as a teenager trying to keep that. I mean, at that point, it would have been nice to enter the ashram.
Rick Archer: Yes. It’s interesting that you had a concept of purity. Because a lot of kids, I mean, I didn’t really have any concept of it at that age. I just sort of did whatever kind of felt good, you know, and then had to do a lot of repair work later on. But it’s a blessing that you had that.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Well, I didn’t know it was purity. It just was absolutely right. It was absolute. So I had a couple years where I didn’t involve myself, and I would go to school, and I’d come home, and I’d get teased. So you know, I was called names and perhaps viewed as being stuck-up because I was just on my own, in my own — I was doing what I had to do. It was, like, these years are tough, and let’s see how we can get through them.
Rick Archer: Yes. That’s great.
Jane Anderson-Ross: So maybe that was important, too, to have that.
Rick Archer: Oh, I think it was, yes. That’s a good example. I mean, if any young people are listening to this, you might be an inspiration to them not to succumb to peer pressure.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. And that inspiration translates to my — Charles and I have a daughter. I have two others from my first marriage. They’re the ones who were around during the time that I had the rebirth, what I call a rebirth, because I didn’t have words back then.
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: I didn’t know what to call anything, which makes the experience interesting because it’s organic. So even though words came to me through understanding, and “transformation” would be a key word — we’re moving ahead a little bit to ‘88 — it just stays with you when it sort of reverberates throughout you as a way to understand what’s happening to you. But I wanted to just go back. So when I integrated back into the “teen scene,” I kind of came back in on my own terms. I came in and just saying, you know, no, I will do this, you know; maybe I’ll try a cigarette, and these things are okay, and hanging out this way is okay. And I hung out with whoever they were, but I hung out on my own terms. I said, you do what you’re going to do, and I’m going to stand, and because I did that, I think it shocked everybody. They were like, oh! They didn’t know what to say, and what do you do with that? And I just stood there; I stood my ground. And I said, I wouldn’t want to smoke pot, because I just think it makes you foggy, and it makes you — why do you want to be like that, you know?
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And so they would let me stand there, and I’d say, well, don’t let my mom watch this. She probably still doesn’t know, but, I mean, that’s what happened. I mean, that’s what was happening.
Rick Archer: No, that’s great. Yes. I know — I shouldn’t keep talking about myself so much — but when I kind of decided to clean up my act, I went through a period of several months where I didn’t have any friends. I just walked the dog every morning and meditated and stuff like that, and it was just because I felt like I had to make a clean break with people who were doing stuff that I knew I shouldn’t keep doing. And then eventually your life gets reconstructed with new friends and new habits and patterns. There’s an ancient Bengali saying, which is that if no one comes on your call, then go ahead alone. So it’s a good guiding principle of not succumbing to peer pressure and doing what you know to be the right thing.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, and Charles and I have a daughter who has just turned 18, and she’s walked that same path, and we’ve encouraged it, and she’s really getting her spirit strong and understanding what that means.
Rick Archer: That’s great.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And I’m, like, this is wonderful that you’re carrying this with you into your life as you get ready for your life. So that’s pivotal, what I teach my children: Don’t go out there without your suitcases of security and your suitcases of strength, your faith, all of those things. Then go out because otherwise you’ll go back and forth. And when they’re out, I want them out. They can visit.
Rick Archer: (Laughter) Yes. All right. How old were you in 1988?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Twenty-six.
Rick Archer: Twenty-six. Okay, and so that was your big breakthrough time?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. I want to just preface it with a tiny piece.
Rick Archer: Oh, sure. Go ahead. I’m glad you’re doing it this way because you have the timeline in mind, and I appreciate that.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, I actually don’t, but thank God, it’s coming through that way —
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: — and I was hoping it would because details sort of elude me and have eluded me through the years as I integrate. And it’s been a while. Just to remind, it’s been 27 years since ‘88. So anyway, back in — I guess I was 21, and I had gotten married. I got married at 20. And so by 21, I had become pregnant, and I wasn’t really expecting that. But then I lost the baby, and I suffered a great — I wasn’t very far along, but I suffered very, very deeply for the whole time I would have been pregnant.
Rick Archer: Depression, you mean?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, all the things that — grief, depression.
Rick Archer: Remorse, grief, yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. We’re all moving forward to that.
Rick Archer: Sure.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And it was at that time that I was searching a little bit more about the suffering, and I wanted to know why I was in such pain and agony and how this was a connecting point for me. And so a friend of mine and my husband’s at the time was reading Edgar Cayce, so I was, like, Edgar Cayce? What’s that, you know? That sounds awesome. And he seemed real cool about it and stuff. And so, there was this one day, in my agony, I decided to go to the library. I was supposed to meet my cousin, and she actually couldn’t go, and so I decided I needed to go. I needed to go there; I didn’t know why. And so then I went there, and I didn’t know exactly where I was going, but I was in a state of surrender, and I just walked to this certain area; I didn’t know what the topics were. I looked down, and there was Edgar Cayce’s Story of Jesus. And I thought, wow, that connects Jesus, what I know, with Edgar Cayce, and so it was sort of broadening my horizons. And I went home, and I just devoured it. I stayed up till midnight reading, reading, reading. And finally I got to this point — I was halfway through the book — and I did this thing that probably a lot of people do: open the book to the passage of something that gives you the answer you need. And so I opened up to this passage, and it said: You have a great love for children. Because of what he gave — I forget exactly the words at the moment because I’m live — but it is: “Rachel, who is not comforted until that which is lost is placed in her arms material again.” And I had been reading about Rachel in the Bible. So I was thinking, she really suffered and really wanted a child. So I was relating to that, and that was very personal for me.
And prior to that, I had had a dream where I literally woke up from the dream, and I had my arms out like this. And I literally had this dream that was at the same time a waking dream that a baby was placed in my arms, and I knew that I would have a child. So this passage that I read actually confirmed that, and that was my way of finally understanding the personal relationship that I have with God or the Divine or whatever you want to call. And it was so real and so palpable, it took away everything. And an example of how it takes away everything in that relationship for me is, I had then eventually tried to get pregnant again. And I went to my obstetrician, who was the head of Obstetrics at one of the major hospitals, and I had actually started losing the baby again. And he just said: Go home and put your feet up; it’s probably not going to work out. And I said, oh, no, I said, God promised me a baby. And I said, and I will have that baby. And he gave me an ultrasound, and certainly the baby’s heartbeat was there. And that is my son.
Rick Archer: Great.
Jane Anderson-Ross: So that’s important because I think it made me believe and understand that I was in contact, through all of my experiences, through all of my suffering, that I was still — that contact wasn’t broken, that I was still seen, that I was still heard, that I was still known, that I was still answered; my prayers were still answered.
Rick Archer: Yes, that’s beautiful. Thanks for telling that story. That’s great. And it might be worth adding that of course, it goes without saying that everybody is, whether they know it or not. But there’s always that divine intelligence and the various agencies of that divine intelligence that are orchestrating everything.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Absolutely. Yes.
Rick Archer: Yes. Cool.
Jane Anderson-Ross: So, but to add the purity, the innocence, and the simplicity. So if we start adding the equation of this life, and then we add to it something that you know absolutely, you just don’t doubt. Nobody’s ever told me I should doubt, you know? So perhaps this is like the ashram, even though it’s a 9:00 to 5:00 life.
Rick Archer: Yes. And regarding purity, innocence, and simplicity, you know: “Except ye be as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” I think that kind of sentiment is expressed in every spiritual tradition, that those sorts of qualities are necessary and conducive to spiritual realization.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. Yes.
Rick Archer: Yes. And regarding the ashram point, there’s no harm in going into an ashram for a while, or going into periods of retreat, but it certainly isn’t obligatory or mandatory, as this show evidences. I mean, there are so many people who never did that who are having profound spiritual awakenings.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yep. I can only speak for myself, though.
Rick Archer: Yes, sure.
Jane Anderson-Ross: (Inaudible) that I’ve experienced and that aspect of it, because I think that that aspect, like you said, it’s in everyone, so what’s nice is that we can find those moments in our lives. We can find those times where we were alone by the sunset while we were crying, and we felt that maybe the sunset was part of our comfort, you know? So everybody has that within them. And we certainly can see it in our children, seeing as how I’m here representing the mother. I have my grandchildren, and they absolutely speak to you without those constructs. I have just recently hurt my knee, and I was so worried because I didn’t know what it was. And my grandson got on Skype with me, and he just said, get up. He just kept saying — he’s two — get up! And I’m, like, why would you say that? He never says that. Usually it’s whatever they do. He just said: Get up, Grandmom, get up! That was his way of letting me know. I’ll be okay
Rick Archer: You have this! Okay, so 1988.
Jane Anderson-Ross: So now I have two children.
Rick Archer: You mean in 1988, you did?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, because I had my son in ‘86. And then in ‘87, I had — and I can’t verify for sure if it was near-death, but it felt like a near-death experience with my second child. So I had what was called a placental abruption, in which the placenta detaches, and I was hemorrhaging to death in my home.
Rick Archer: Wow.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And it was taking a while for the ambulance to get there, and I went into shock, which is interesting when you’re in shock, by the way, another thing to examine where consciousness is. Because I could hear everything that everyone was saying because I was losing massive amounts of blood, and I was answering them, which was interesting, but it wasn’t good enough because it wasn’t using my mouth.
Rick Archer: Right.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And then, I told them later, I said, when they got the fluids and everything, why didn’t you hear me? It was, like, in a way, you know? They said, we didn’t hear you until we really needed to make you speak. We needed to, like, bring your consciousness forward so we could keep you around here. But it was very close, touch-and-go. So when I was in surgery, something happened then. I actually felt as if it was real that I was running through a field, and it was the happiest I’ve ever been in my existence, in a field. And so I’m running, and I’m running, and my son happened to be with me, which is, if you have a near-death, is your little son with you? But where is time in this? Who knows, you know? So what happened was, I felt this sensation after I was completely happy. And I guess it could be, like, people might see this as like a “heaven” experience: you’re running in the fields in heaven. And then suddenly, there was this feeling of being ripped away from the scene, just absolutely against my will, just ripped. And suddenly I’m in my body, but I’m in the middle of surgery, and so then I started thrashing. And they actually told me it took, like, six guys to hold me down. And I was upset, and I was angry.
Rick Archer: You were angry because you’d been brought back from the field, or what?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, it was the contrast.
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: It was the contrast. And so later, I saw the anesthesiologist, and he said, oh, so this is what you’re like when you’re not thrashing around and these guys holding you down?
And I said, I had this dream that I was in this wonderful place, you know? And he said, you could not be dreaming. Now if there are anesthesiologists listening, and I’ve talked to them, they’ve said that you can’t really be dreaming when you’re under, and that you woke, and you felt the tube in your throat. They said that, so there’s no real way that you could have been dreaming. And I said, I was absolutely dreaming, and it was wonderful! You ruined it for me, but —
Rick Archer: Well, you know, I mean, I’m sure you’ve read near-death experience stories, and so many people have these marvelous things going on when they’re in comas and given up for dead, and then they come back and tell about it, and everybody tries to rationalize it away. But there’s just so much evidence about that, it’s kind of overwhelming.
Jane Anderson-Ross: So that next year was kind of dark before ‘88. So we’re talking about — she was born in July ‘87.
Rick Archer: So that baby that you had the placental abruption for —
Jane Anderson-Ross: She lived, yes.
Rick Archer: She lived — good, good, good. Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yep! And so then I had two babies in diapers and bottles. So that’s what makes this story come to an interesting type of experience is that first year is kind of dark for anybody who’s had babies kind of back-to-back.
Rick Archer: Yes, you don’t get much sleep, and all of that.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, just basic functions, if you can get to them. And so whatever was happening then and brewing in me, I started to — that’s when I made my prayer. I sort of reached out because I was not seeing anything in life around me. I was seeing the way man was and the way people were treating each other. It sort of came to this culmination where I was very dissatisfied with the way of the world, and I felt almost like, you know, a mother feels like a slave at that time, and I felt almost a slave to it. And so then I put out this prayer that I’m — I’m done. But I prayed like everyone from time to time: Oh, geez, you know, help me with this or that, going through this. But this one, there was some kind of contact that it felt in a place — and it’s hard to put into words — but it felt like it came from a place that was so much who I am, and it had the right and the integrity to ask for this one-time prayer. So it’s that place that I sometimes evoke, but not always. It’s like a sacred place that I won’t go to unless it’s like — it’s like your “call a friend” card, to make it light.
Rick Archer: Oh, on that quiz show?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Like, you get three cards or something?
Rick Archer: “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” Right.
Jane Anderson-Ross: That’s how it feels, it’s like, you get three cards.
Rick Archer: I see. You don’t use this prayer trivially.
Jane Anderson-Ross: You get, what, three for your life, and I’m pulling one. I’m just making up an amount. And I didn’t want anything in this experience, other than to be the eyes — and I want to say it emphatically, because I want to feel it; I want that feeling to be translated. And I want to be your mouth; I want to be your ears; I want to be your heart. It just flowed straight out of me and straight to God. I didn’t ask for — I didn’t have a master or a guru. And even though Jesus is part of Catholicism, I didn’t reach to anything. And I gave it a name; I gave it the name of “The Creator of All That Is, Was, and Ever Will Be,” you know, something like that. I tried to make it all-encompassing and say with, even though these words are small in comparison to that which is everything, it’s that, that I wish to be totally given to and to be totally a vehicle for.
Rick Archer: Nice.
Jane Anderson-Ross: I’m adding some words, but it was it was absolutely implicitly —
Rick Archer: Kind of your own version of the prayer of St. Francis.
Jane Anderson-Ross: — mm-hmm, yes, very close to St. Francis and was considering being a lay person in that order.
Rick Archer: And so when you voiced this prayer ardently, that precipitated the awakening?
Jane Anderson-Ross: So then this was, like, in the Spring of 1988, I think. And so what I started noticing happening is that things that were deep within my heart and only important to me — and this, I think, is really pivotal as well; it’s about self-love here — is they started to show up in the world. Because usually, now you have to think you’re a mother, and you’re last on the plate, get the last piece of pie, so you don’t have any expectations from the world. And this is good in a way because I’m learning about this through my life, about expectations from the world and what the world gives, and I surrender that world. And so then these things that are meaningful start to manifest, and I can’t remember the details, but I remember it was, like, it felt bigger than a synchronicity.
Rick Archer: Can you think of an example or two?
Jane Anderson-Ross: I think what comes to my mind are just silly little things, but these things would be simply purposeful and important to me. You know, if someone simply said, I’ve gotten tickets to that concert you’ve always wanted to see, and that was one of the things. Actually, the concert didn’t happen because they got sick. But I was, like, me? And it was, like, something inside of me never thought that I could ask for something just for me personally. And that started me on the road to understanding how self-love precipitated the extraordinary experiences that happened. And so what I determined is that these synchronicities, as I was looking back through my life, started to get bigger and bigger, and sort of closer and closer together.
Rick Archer: It’s always nice to ask for examples, so I get the sense that they became more significant than concert tickets. So, bigger, more important, more profound things.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Not necessarily.
Rick Archer: Oh!
Jane Anderson-Ross: Because who knows what’s meaningful to our hearts? Only you know what really touches your heart and why, and because it’s a concert ticket, it’s just an external representation of what it is that’s meaningful to you. Perhaps it was that particular music — it happened to be Pink Floyd.
Rick Archer: Oh, okay.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And you know how that sort of takes you into a transcendental place, and I loved that as a teenager, and I didn’t know why; I just gravitated to that, and songs like that, probably that music really was important to me. So being in a live concert would really take me to whatever space that was. So it is meaningful, and even though it seems trivial, it’s meaningful in the whole grand scheme of things.
Rick Archer: Yes. Good.
Jane Anderson-Ross: So the synchronicities grew and grew, and they actually got bigger. So they were bigger in a sense that they enlarged — I’ll use the phrase “inside of you.” It was getting louder. And the way I thought to describe it is that imagine that in the culmination, the apex, which I’m getting to, of a spiritual awakening, that you had the most profound synchronicity that you ever had and magnify that in time, spread it out into time, every minute, every moment, every hour, every day, for days and days at a time.
Rick Archer: Mm. Just out of curiosity, in addition to the synchronicities in which things you wanted were just coming to you effortlessly, did you also find that there was a sort of an unfulfillment of things you wanted that probably weren’t in your best interest? Or were you too much in alignment to have that sort of thing?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Things that I didn’t want that were just pleasing?
Rick Archer: Well, for instance, when I started this show, I had this idea, I’m going to do an interview show on the little local radio station here in Fairfield, and it has a radius of about 10 miles broadcast, and it kept getting resisted and resisted, resisted, you know? And I was, like, why don’t they want to do it? It seems so appropriate. Everybody in this town meditates. They’d love it. Irene is saying, because it was a stupid idea.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Aw! God love you, Irene.
Rick Archer: And finally, when I thought, wait a minute; let’s get this out on the Internet and make it a bigger thing, then it started getting all this support and success. So the desire was there; it was just a little bit misaligned. My concept of it was just inadequate.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. No, not at this point. There’s no resistance at this point.
Rick Archer: But I mean, back in ’88, prior to this shift.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Correct. That’s what I meant. At this point where I’m talking about, in 1988, there was no resistance.
Rick Archer: Right. Okay. Good.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. So anyway, for the first time, and I have to preface this by saying that as a mother with two children — now, they’re one-and-a-half and two — and you can’t get out of the house. I hope I’m not being too redundant with this, but I have to preface this with the mother part of it.
Rick Archer: I think there are a lot of mothers listening who will be able to relate.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Oh, God bless you all. But anyway, there was really no way for me to get out, and with all due respect — my ex-husband has passed away — he was not wanting me to go anywhere, probably because he didn’t want to do anything that I was doing. He was, like, that’s crazy! Who wants to do that? And he worked all day, and that was enough for him. So what happened was — oh, I just lost my place.
Rick Archer: Well, you couldn’t get out of the house; your children were one-and-a-half and two-and-a-half.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Oh. I started to see things that were going on outside, and I noticed that there was this Adult Education class in “The New Consciousness.” So I was like, oh, wow. So I had a little bit of time for myself. So I, like, very, very cautiously asked: Could I possibly do this class? It’s six weeks’ exploration; I’m thinking Cayce and things like that. And this is about in September, October now in 1988. And so my awakening was in the December time frame. So I quietly asked my husband, I said, if I put the kids to bed, if I do every possible thing, and it’s only, whatever it was, $50, and I’ll be gone from 7:00 to 9:00, and I’ll be home, and he said okay, so we came to an agreement. And so there I learned a little bit more about chakras. It was a very, very basic introduction. There were all ages, but in there was this woman who was compelling; I was drawn to her, and I didn’t understand, and she was an older woman, and she just had her eyes on me, and I don’t know what it was. And I was so afraid and so timid, but finally I let her know. I said to her, I feel like I love you, and I don’t even know you. I said, I think about you all the time, and so she said the same about me. And so she said, you know, I go to this healing group, and in this healing group, I asked what this was, too. I was curious: what is this strong, compelling thing I’m feeling with this lady? And she said that whoever ran the group and was the facilitator had the ability to see said that, oh, because she’s a gem to God, or something like that. But at first, she didn’t want to tell me that. She said, I’m not going to tell you what he said, because I don’t want you to get a big ego. And I said, oh, please, I need something. Somebody give me something that’s good about myself. And so she finally said it, and I contemplated that “I’m a gem to God.” And when I say that, I don’t mean me apart from anybody else in the world. But because I was so contracted and into myself as not worthy or teased a lot through high school, you know, you start to develop this belief about yourself. But it was that contact, with the possibility of being absolutely loved and absolutely special in some way that I wasn’t aware that I think was an important part of opening this doorway to the heart between myself and the Divine into unity.
Rick Archer: Nice. Great. So any more preludes to the 1988 awakening thing?
Jane Anderson-Ross: No. I hope everyone’s on the edge of their seat.
Rick Archer: Yes, the popcorn is being consumed in massive quantities.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Wouldn’t that be fun, yes? So then, okay, so ‘88, in September, and then October — I can’t remember exactly as it started to happen. But at the time, my cousin and I were studying herbals a little bit, trying to find natural ways to help ourselves. We lived in the farmlands of New Jersey out in the Pine Barrens. And so I tried to get a lot of things natural, but it was at the time that our lives joined, and she had children, and she lived in the same area. But we were speaking more, so she joined me in this experience of this awakening. And if she hadn’t, without having any context, I would have wondered what it was that was happening to me. Because prefacing it, I didn’t know that anyone else in the world had this experience. I didn’t know anyone would want this experience or try to have it. You know, it was so simple. And so the awakening was just starting to happen, where I was having these experiences of — I guess our bodies, our vibrations were, like I said, it was getting more synchronistic.
Rick Archer: You and your cousin?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, we were feeling this — we were giving it words like “communion.” And we were feeling sort of elevated and sort of high, and, like, our hearts were racing a lot. We both knew it was that this — it was God, you know, but we didn’t know what was happening, and at the same time, we were in the midst of taking care of our children and everything. So we started to, from time to time, call each other, and it was getting so heightened that every time we talked to each other, it would get even more heightened, and then we would have to hang up and get back to what we were doing. It started to be internally broad and immense and consuming. But I could speak to her, and I would say, today I felt like I was walking this path that Jesus walked; I felt like I was going through some kind of purification, and I don’t know what it means. And she’d say exactly what I felt. So we kept conferring, and it was all happening simultaneously, which I had no idea that anything could happen. I don’t even know if anybody’s had simultaneous awakenings in ashrams or anything.
Rick Archer: I have heard stories of people who are connected with one another. There were two sisters on my TM teacher training course who would have remarkable experiences, and even though they were living in different rooms in the place and everything, they would come down to dinner, and they’d both been going through the same thing. So some people are connected like that, yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: So here we get to this time now where I begin to sort of hear within myself, hear and know what’s happening. I hear and know whatever my contact is with God, and it’s a different voice than any voice I’ve ever heard. And I want to describe this, and it makes me emotional, too. It feels like when you hear this voice that everything in you is satisfied. The body quiets; the mind quiets Every level that needs some kind of satisfaction — pain disappears; you just become immersed in this absolute fulfillment. You feel completely satisfied, completely fulfilled. And so these kinds of things where — and you’re just drawn to it, and it expands. It even expands into your everyday life, and everything that’s happening becomes a miracle. You can see that all of life is perfect.
Rick Archer: Is it an actual voice speaking English, or are you speaking kind of metaphorically here?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Well, you understand it. Sometimes a word would come that was meaningful and impactful. But it was more like, gosh, the language of the Divine. It’s a knowing understanding. That’s the only thing — it’s one whole complete concept that you understand beyond words — I guess that’s how I would put it. And it evokes such peace and stillness. It took care of all the fears, any fears that I might have had. Trying to describe it again, again, and again. Although, I have to tell you that I haven’t told anybody this — well, maybe four or five people in my entire life. So now I’m telling everybody.
Rick Archer: Your husband and a few people?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes.
Rick Archer: So let’s try to drill into it a little bit more —
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. Yes.
Rick Archer: — so that people can get a clear understanding.
Jane Anderson-Ross: I just need to take a breath through it.
Rick Archer: You take a breath, and I’ll ask you a question or two. So, so far, what I’ve heard you say: Qualities like the silence and the peace and so on are typical of people’s descriptions of awakening, because they say, well, my mind became completely silent, and I just felt, like, this absolute stillness and things. But hearing a voice is not so typical, so we need to elaborate on that a little bit. And usually, when people talk about a spiritual awakening, they discuss, well, I realized my true nature; I realized I’m not just this individual, but I am that. I am pure consciousness. I am being; I am pure existence, or whatever. So they speak in that kind of terminology.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Okay. Yes. I got something.
Rick Archer: Okay, good.
Jane Anderson-Ross: So I didn’t know what that was, either, so what I did is I saw through the church. They call it in Catholicism “inner locution.” Have you ever heard that phrase?
Rick Archer: I have heard, but please define it.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Mm. That’s just the term for what I said is sort of like a dialogue. That’s what it becomes. It’s like a dialogue. Oh, let’s see.
Rick Archer: With whom?
Jane Anderson-Ross: The Divine. It’s sort of like if you imagine some of the saints and how they wrote — this is how I understood it — it’s like they were making this connection, and it was flowing, and it wasn’t coming through their mind. There was a dialogue, there was an inquiry, and then there was this beautiful dialogue that was unfolding, but the unfolding satisfies at all levels, and it sort of exudes, and you want to express it, and you want to write it. And because I didn’t have a place to put this, I started writing because my husband didn’t want to hear about it. He, just, you know, was wanting me to get busy to take care of things. So it became very, very internal, except for the times I talked with my cousin. And it still gets to a greater epiphany, because what happened was I started to see and notice that — and I didn’t have experience with my third eye — but that it was throbbing, and that if I was speaking to anybody, and I heard some element of truth, that was its pure level, and it would have to come from the heart, that I would almost want to grab my head because it would just feel like it was throbbing out of my head. So I only had also my mother to discuss this, and she had had a mini-awakening with, but she didn’t understand the Eastern part of it, okay?
Rick Archer: Chakras and all?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. So I was still struggling with having some kind of person to help me navigate, and at the same time taking care of the children and the family. And also this was fulfilling. Any time I was asking where do I go outside of myself, what was inside would come and fulfill that and teach me and broaden me and satisfy me and love me. And the love became so great that I describe it in one of my poems as just a mere drop of the love that’s available in that ocean, and if I had one inkling more of it, I would explode. It’s just beyond any possible thing that even the amount of everything you experienced in love in your life compiled and intimacy, and it’s just a tiny drop of that. And so along the journey, even with the love, it felt like this voice kept saying, kept coming in, and at the same time, I had this choice that I could say yes or no to it. It was still in that phase. It’s, like, I was saying to it, I would always say, stop, because it was such extreme love that it felt explosive, that I would say: Stop, but don’t stop. Can you do that? You know, something like that, can you do something like that? So it’s like, can you moderate it?
Rick Archer: Yes, tone it down a little.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And at that time, I would just say stop, but don’t stop, you know? Treat me with it perfectly, which it was doing anyway; it’s perfect anyway.
Rick Archer: Was it hampering your functionality in any way, as a mother, as a person?
Jane Anderson-Ross: No.
Rick Archer: Sometimes you hear people going into ecstasies, where they just kind of fall on the floor, and they’re unconscious or something because they’re so drunk with the Divine, you know?
Jane Anderson-Ross: No. The ecstasies started to happen as a phase of it, too. And they happened while — here’s an example — as I was putting toast in the toaster, and then I was having ecstasy. So my kids were there at the table getting ready to get their food, and I guess they were chattering enough that they didn’t realize Mommy saying, oh! There was nothing I could do that could contain the voice, but I had to let out an ecstatic cry. So I was letting out ecstatic cries through the day while I’m making toast, and thank God, I had such a simple, routine life, because I’ve heard some interviews, too, where people say that it’s hard to function —
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: — but at least I had routine. It’s not as if you have think about when you’re driving to work where are you going because you know, and you don’t have to look at what you’re doing. So that routineness and the simplicity and the beauty of my children really kept me grounded. They keep you grounded. And I have to say that at that age, they were absolutely in tune with this. And some of the things, the epiphanies that would happen — for example, it was a hot day — oh, where were we? I know this is further along. Because this lasts for years, although I had a two-week period where it was absolute communion 24/7, and it still includes other things that I haven’t mentioned.
Rick Archer: Yes, we’ll get into this.
Jane Anderson-Ross: For example, I guess, I was having some kind of “inner touching” at the moment, and I had them a lot, even through the years, though they did span out in time, but my daughter would come over and just start washing my feet, and I would start crying.
Rick Archer: Huh! Wow.
Jane Anderson-Ross: You know, it was like a way for the outer environment, the outer world, the purity in the environment to come back and touch me and say: This is valid; you’re valid, or whatever it was that I felt that needed attention.
Rick Archer: Hmm. So you were kind of getting signs from the environment. What would be the word — confirmations?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Confirmations, absolutely.
Rick Archer: Yes. Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And even small children, like, for —
Rick Archer: I remember that from Carlos Castaneda, actually. There’s something where Don Juan and Carlos were discussing something, and then the teakettle went off or something, and Don Juan said: The teakettle agrees.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. I know I’ve talked about Catholicism a lot, but this was heavy in my life at that time. You know, I think Jesus said, If they don’t say who I am, even the rocks and the trees and everything will speak it. And that’s just that exact place that I was, that place where I am knows that I am, and so it knows that everything else in its environment is in the same place with you. I had to break it down, but there’s no separation between that state and the state around you. So everything is speaking the same language. Everything is that knowing, that understanding — everything. And so when I looked further into that, even just walking out into my front yard, at one point, I looked at a leaf, and as I saw into that leaf, I saw its structure, its molecules. I felt the love that made it; I felt its integrity. I felt its beauty and perfection and the majesty of how special it was, you know? And I remember peering into it and feeling like, you know, in the movie “Ghost” where he goes through the door, where he’s trying to put his hand through the door?
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: It was the character played by Patrick Swayze. And he starts to see the wood structure, and he’s like, whoa! You know that?
Rick Archer: Yes, uh-huh.
Jane Anderson-Ross: It’s kind of like that. Like, I’m looking at this leaf, and I’m seeing it’s I guess subatomic structure or, you know, universal fabric.
Rick Archer: Yes. That’s really cool.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And I pulled back, because it felt like if I — kind of like Patrick Swayze, because when I saw it, I was like, that’s a good example. I felt like if I (overlapping) —
Rick Archer: Did you see the interview with Bruce Joel Rubin a couple weeks ago, by the way?
Jane Anderson-Ross: No, but I will.
Rick Archer: He was the screenwriter for “Ghosts.” I interviewed him about two or three weeks ago.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Oh, my gosh!
Rick Archer: He won the Oscar for it.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Oh, wow.
Rick Archer: Yes. Anyway, I didn’t mean to get you off track.
Jane Anderson-Ross: That’s okay.
Rick Archer: I thought maybe that’s why you thought of “Ghosts.”
Jane Anderson-Ross: No, it’s just, that scene was an extraordinary way — like, when he’s getting into the wood, the fabric of the wood, he — and the idea was to get through that for him —
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: — but for me, it felt like if I went into it, that I would lose myself completely.
Rick Archer: Was that just the initial reluctance or hesitancy? I mean, have you since acclimated and adjusted, and you can allow yourself to —
Jane Anderson-Ross: It was just an experience.
Rick Archer: Yes. I mean, well — okay, go ahead.
Jane Anderson-Ross: It was just an experience, and it was an awareness, but it had all the components of something that would be long-lasting. It’s, like, these experiences sort of burn themselves into you that you can tap into because it’s momentous and magnanimous enough that it translates through your life. It’s, like, I can remember all of that. I don’t see that now. I don’t need to see that now, but I understand it.
Rick Archer: Yes. That’s an interesting point. Let’s dwell on that for just a second. I’ve heard people discuss this also, where they’ll have some really profound experience. And it’s like, that’s all you need, you don’t need to have that profound experience 24/7. It’s, like, you extract the juice from that experience, just having it for as long as you have it, and then you’ve got that under your belt, so to speak, and you move on, but it taught you what you needed to know about that particular thing.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Well, you don’t want to lose yourself in it. I didn’t want to lose myself in it. It was like, okay, that’s there. If at any time ever that my consciousness needs to explore that —
Rick Archer: Right.
Jane Anderson-Ross: — I can do that.
Rick Archer: You’ve developed that muscle, so to speak.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Mm-hmm. I think what was happening — and here’s another way to describe it — is that I was creating, and I’ll just use the word “portal;” there was a portal being created. And I guess that chakra was opening up, which I learned later. So this portal, this entry into this place that there’s communication; there’s understanding, grand understanding and knowing of the Absolute. And “Absolute” was a big word for me, and it still is. It’s a way to encompass. Words were so important to me. If I got one word, that I can just reflect on what is — and people could do that with the Absolute. They use it; I’ve seen it. It’s just a grand way to describe it because it’s inclusive of everything.
Rick Archer: Hmm. Were there many such things, and the leaf was just a case in point? I mean, were there, like, hundreds of little epiphanies, and you just kept metabolizing each one and continued (overlapping)?
Jane Anderson-Ross: If you modulate it back, then you can see it’s sort of like where you see yourself. I wrote a poem that I’m watching, you know, the bugs flying in my yard, but they’re dancing, but no one sees that.
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And I wrote this poem that actually got published, and it ends with this sort of: oh, my gosh, the grass is growing all the time so fast, and we don’t see it, and yet I am the grass. It ends with “I am all of that.” So you have that experience without going into subatomic structure, but you’re sort of interfacing with the reality that’s mostly not seen, that’s mostly — it comes out in poetry and art, and you understand some deep level of where that comes from. And if I were, like, Deepak Chopra, I could probably tell you what I saw, but it was enough.
Rick Archer: Oh, I don’t know. I think Deepak Chopra would be a little bit envious of some of your experiences. And while you may not quite have his gift for gab, I think you’re very articulate, and you’re explaining this stuff very well.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Oh, thank you for the affirmation. I appreciate it.
Rick Archer: Yes. And what you’re saying here actually really fascinates me because I find myself dwelling on this all the time of just how incredibly miraculous the everyday, or ordinary, as we call it, everyday, ordinary reality is, and we take it for granted. You look at this cup or something, and if you could actually see what’s going on here and what an immensely complex bundle of intelligence this is on every single molecule and every single atom, and the whole thing is just like this living, breathing impulse of intelligence — and what to say of a cup? I mean, a ladybug or a dog or anything else — we’re kind of swimming in this ocean of intelligence, and every one of its expressions is miraculous. And yet, we just kind of go through our day not really appreciating that. And I think if we could fully appreciate it all the time, we’d be unable to function because we’d be so thunderstruck. Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Well, that’s it!
Rick Archer: Yes! Yes!
Jane Anderson-Ross: And you are, and I’m going through my day like that, and I’m having ecstasies. And one of the ecstasies during the toast experience was the formation of the universe. And this is really interesting and pivotal to me, too, and probably will be, is that I was being sort of fed this clump, like a clump of information that has to do with the how the entire universe was made. And I can’t remember, and I remembered thinking, what am I going to do with this? You know, and the kids are right below me eating, and I’m like, why is this important in my life, you know? And then there would be this sort of wave of understanding where it said: It is for my dispensing and in my time.
Rick Archer: Interesting.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And it comes with this “all;” it really does, with this “all” of like, a, like a boom, not a, you know, there’s sort of this boom, you know, like the God Presence. I’ve heard about several interviews, and I’ve heard on BatGap, and I heard one person say it: It’s sort of this reverberating awesomeness that has this quality that it just feels like it’s a “got to be God” kind of feeling. I mean, there’s no doubt about it; it’s just, you just stand still. And it’s, like, even I thought, you know, even if you were absolutely out of this type of touch with what I’m experiencing, and perhaps you’re engaged in criminal activity, it would just stop you dead, maybe like Paul —
Rick Archer: On the road to Damascus?
Jane Anderson-Ross: — yes! It just stops you in your tracks, and at the same time, it absolutely loves you for what you are, aren’t, will be, weren’t — anything, everything. It absolutely loves you. And I remember feeling, like, when you get that kind of love, and you probably have had it in relationship with your special someone, you want to just say, I just love you immensely. You don’t know how to give back that kind of love. And so you muster it up, and you just want to return it back to that Divine that’s fulfilling you, and the minute you do that, you say: You are the most awesome — and this happened a lot — you are the most awesome, you are the most beautiful, amazing — the gratitude that I have for you and the Divine is immense. And then you let it go, and it comes back to you and says: You are the most amazing, the most awesome, the most beautiful, my creation, my child. And then you’re weeping, and it’s just, like, this cycle of this all day. And as a matter of fact, my husband at the time — very grounded, very 3D, very, you go to church on Christmas, maybe, you know, he’s like, are you having a love affair? And I said I absolutely am, but it is not with a man. It is not with any one human, and it is with everyone human.
Rick Archer: That’s beautiful. I got goosebumps all over my body while you were saying that. It reminded me of some Sanskrit phrase. I can’t remember the Sanskrit, but the English translation of it is: Thy gifts, my Lord, I surrender to thee.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, and there’s so much even in the look, after you say it, this look that we have that transfers it to us. And I just want to jump ahead a little. There was a lady who came into my life who helped me with the Eastern esoteric nature of this because I needed someone to talk to, someone to help me understand what I was going to do with all of this and because I didn’t know about it. And so she took me to a Jungian meeting. She would take me little places here and there.
Rick Archer: Who is this?
Jane Anderson-Ross: I’ll tell you about her in a minute, my friend Kathy. I just wanted to bring this in because it fits. She took me to a Jungian meeting. She was around my mother’s age. She was a helper and friend of my mother’s, a helper in my navigating, and she would slowly introduce me to things to show me that we can find some similarities in some things and people who are out there and what they’re doing. And at the end of the meeting, there were three or four of these PhDs and psychologists talking to me, and I was talking about a piece of music that was on the piano stand that I was reading and feeling. And they were examining me, like, look, it’s, like, it’s coming from her eyes. So I was, like, looking at them, and I’m, like, they can see it, and this is how they see it. They see it’s coming through the eyes.
Rick Archer: What was coming through your eyes?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Whatever this love and this translation of this piece Beethoven wrote or something that I was reading and expressing. And I play the piano, so I was expressing what I felt but from this God point of view, and so they were seeing it and feeling it. And it’s like, they almost wanted to see where it was coming from. And for them, it seemed that it was coming from the eyes. So perhaps like Darshan or something.
Rick Archer: Cool.
Jane Anderson-Ross: But I didn’t know it was Darshan. I just —
Rick Archer: What is it they say? The eyes are the windows of the soul.
Jane Anderson-Ross: That’s what I thought, That’s what I thought when they said, well, the eyes are the window to the soul, right?
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Simple.
Rick Archer: Hmm. So, we haven’t quite congealed this whole thing yet. I don’t know if we’ll be able to. But you’ve been describing this beautiful awakening and various facets of it: the experience with the leaf, the experience with the Jungians, the experience with what you described as that love affair, and so on. But if you had to define awakening, let’s say, as you know it, as you experience it, or have experienced it in a sentence or two, if you had to sum it up, you know, put it on a business card, how would you define it?
Jane Anderson-Ross: I would have to say what I had when I was 21 was an awakening.
Rick Archer: An awakening.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And that was the word that was used; this may bring an awakening to you like no other may. This is written in that book, the Edgar Cayce book, and that was an awakening. And this, from my perspective —
Rick Archer: This meaning the ‘88 thing and continuing thereafter.
Jane Anderson-Ross: The ‘88 — I had, yes, and I just want to say this, because I think it’s pertinent to how I see things, is I asked for a word for what was happening, and I got “transformation,” and it felt like a rebirth. And I knew that I was reborn; I absolutely knew. So I can only use descriptions like two sentences; I’m not sure. But I would say that from what I’ve seen in other people, it has these markers that I’m talking about in stories and pieces of my life in experiencing this. And there’s still a couple more markers that — it still crescendos, and it goes to a unity where I know that God and I are one. I wasn’t even knowing it; I was it. And it got to that point where it was a struggle to say — I would say, “Jane,” when I would talk to some people or “this one,” and I wanted to say that. So I think these markers are important. I wanted to say —
Rick Archer: You wanted to say “this one,” or you wanted to say “Jane?”
Jane Anderson-Ross: — I wanted to say something other than me.
Rick Archer: Because it seemed so limiting?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, I wanted it because I was in that all-inclusive nature that felt like — I’ll use a movie buddy, Elf: “I’m in love, and I don’t care who knows it!” I’m one, and that’s the way it is.”
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: We’re one, you know, and we don’t know it. And so there are these absolute markers that I think my whole entire speaking to you highlights, these absolute markers, that, like I said, Paul: you’re stood still; you cannot move. And it envelops your life in such a special, loving way that it compares to absolutely nothing that you could ever fathom and muster in your life experience, and I have no doubt of that.
Rick Archer: So would it be fair to say that the whole nature of your life ever since 1988, at least, has been one of wholeness, oneness, unity, an abiding realization, but it’s hard to describe that because it’s kind of universal; it’s kind of amorphous in a way? And so when you try to describe it, it’s easier to describe specific experiences such as the leaf, or this, or this, but that that doesn’t do justice to it?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, you know, I love you. I love listening to that, and at the same time, it sort of feels so contracted to try to limit it —
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: — — into a tiny little understanding. Because the whole expression of what you were asking within the moment when you had goosebumps and tears —
Rick Archer: Right. Mm-hmm.
Jane Anderson-Ross: — that’s where it lives. It’s in that absolute intimacy that lives with you all the time and knows you. And even when you’re separate from it, it’s there for you. And I was meditating before we came together for this meeting, and I was recalling a time in my meditation. I can go through this portal into this space as I dialogue through my heart. And I was thinking of this time when I was having pain after the experience, emotional pain, because coming back into this, slowly coming back into this reality is stark and painful. It’s, like, when you come out of — people who have near-death experiences, it’s the same kind of — it’s very painful and stark. So in the morning, my husband would get up first, and then the children, but I would get up before all of them. And it was dead winter and cold, and I would walk in the stillness, in the cold, when no one else was out, and I would walk in it through the cemetery in my backyard, behind the backyard. And I could feel what I felt on the inside on the outside in the crispness of the snow and in the marker graves with different lovely things on them, and yet this absolute stillness, but seeing life, like people putting little flowers and knickknacks and things. And what it did is it made the balance of what I was feeling inside equal on the outside. And so there was no separation between the inside and the outside. And in that perspective, that — it’s with me in the pain. It’s absolutely there. And speaking of St. Francis — and I love “Brother Sun, Sister Moon,” and I’ve watched it one million-hundred – lots of times. Anyway, so many elements in that movie are very telling, and if someone wanted to try to discover it, watch it, and listen to the music of the blessed Donovan, those simple musical melodies and those simple words, you know, day by day, stone by stone. If you just say those, that’s your mantra to it day by day, stone by stone, in my heart, you know, all of this — it’s not words; it’s that what translates. It’s the love; it’s what you’re feeling when we talk, It’s the Absolute touching the Absolute, and it isn’t a concept. It’s a living, breathing, loving you.
Rick Archer: That’s beautiful. I kind of love the way you’re putting it in your own terminology and your own way of expressing it. You know, there are so many people I interview who talk about this stuff and who are basically using words that everyone is using and that they’ve gotten from Ramana Maharshi or from various things. And I tend to do that too; I have my own terminology, but it feels like you’ve kind of evolved your own expression of it from your own heart, you know, from your own experience.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And what’s pivotal there in that is that I wasn’t directed to be around people. Speaking of the word “purity,” you know, think of those monks, I’m thinking, who go, you have to go 500 million feet up into the mountains through, right, you know, and if you survive that, then you’re there. Well, I was kept from people, and so there was a pain in that because there suddenly became this stark separation. Suddenly, my husband wasn’t the love of my life. He was a man. He was a consciousness that had its way of seeing, its clouds and its lenses, and he wasn’t seeing the fullness like I was seeing, so he wasn’t with me. And thank God I had my cousin, who was with me. She was what saved my life because if I hadn’t, and believe me, I didn’t know that anyone on the planet — you’re so immersed in this, and I had no reference. And it was almost frightening because I thought, oh my God, what does this mean? Please don’t make me a saint or anything like that. I think we talked about that in my little pre-interview. I just was like, you know, why me? Why would this happen to me, and I’m just a simple lady living this very simple life, and it came to me, that reverberating God voice that said, it is in the uncluttered mind that I come.
Rick Archer: Nice.
Jane Anderson-Ross: It is in the untethered heart — I’ll just say that something like that — that I live. And then I could accept that. I could accept that. I’m like, okay, well, I can own that because I’m ordinary, and I’m simple. And I don’t know what’s going on, and you chose me. And also, in that beautiful purity, like when you see your newborn children, you start them out, and you want them to be absolutely protected, and you don’t want the bad stuff to come in. Well, I was treated that way, and I wasn’t allowed to sort of indoctrinate in any way. And I used to just ache for that because I wanted some kind of company, and I still ache for that. And that’s been my problem all this time is that I feel apart from everyone I know and love, because I can see where they’re at consciously. And the only time I get to have company is when someone’s heart opens. When someone, like, you know, when you’re having goosebumps, or you’re crying. And then it’s like this little bit of heart opening gives me that the Divine is meeting divine company that I long for that I no longer can have (inaudible).
Rick Archer: Well, that brings up a couple of things, yes. First of all, isn’t the Divine your best buddy, you know? I mean, you’ve always got that, right?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes.
Rick Archer: And I guess you’re saying, well, it’s nice to have human company, too, who can appreciate this. But on that note, within a week or so, 5,000 people will have listened to this, and I’m sure that there are many people who will very much resonate with what you’re saying and who could be your best buddies if they happened to live in Rochester, but who may want to reach out to you through Skype or something. You might end up establishing some very beautiful friendships. I mean, I can think of just a half-a dozen-people off the top of my head, whom I’ve interviewed who could be really good friends of yours if you connected —
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes!
Rick Archer: — and I ‘d be happy to help you make that connection.
Jane Anderson-Ross: I love a couple of them already. I contacted one, David, yes, I just —
Rick Archer: Oh, David, yes, he’s great — Buckland.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, I just completely feel like, yes, I want to just hug him.
Rick Archer: Yes, he’s a wonderful guy.
Jane Anderson-Ross: You probably want to, too, right?
Rick Archer: I have hugged him, actually. He’s a great guy.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, you can just tell. So that’s just an example of someone who has an open heart. And it’s interesting, because sometimes I’ll go to, like, little satsangs — we’re involved in some satsangs — and there’s this one lady, and she’s so open, and she just runs over to me — she’s the only one — and puts her head right into my chest here, just buries — no inhibitions. And I’m like, oh, thank you. I mean, it seems like she needs that, but I need that, too.
Rick Archer: Yes, that’s sweet. I was at the Science and Nonduality (SAND) Conference this year. They had a new thing, where on your badge, you could have a little sticker put on that said “Huggable.” So everybody was walking around with these “Huggable” badges. I don’t want to make it sound too hippy-trippy, but a lot of hugging tends to take place at that thing because the heart value gets so enlivened with everybody.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Absolutely.
Rick Archer: Yes. Now, you’ve alluded to your — and feel free to interject anytime if there’s something that I’m not thinking to ask you that you want to say; I mean, we’re just flowing along here — but you’ve alluded to your cousin a few times. And when we spoke a few months ago when we were talking about doing this, you mentioned that you and your cousin had these parallel awakenings, but that your cousin didn’t get it accepted or supported in the same way you did and ended up running into some difficulties.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes.
Rick Archer: So maybe we can talk about that a little bit if you don’t think your cousin would mind. And also, I think the very fact that the two of you synchronistically had this transformation take place is interesting.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, and there’s one thing that I’ll say before I talk about her, is that though I had God, my best friend, to say it lightly, I did have some human interaction that way with my cousin. But because so many people in my family didn’t understand this new way that I was or this way that I was speaking, or what was happening because people in my family knew what was happening. They knew something.
Rick Archer: They knew something was happening.
Jane Anderson-Ross: They knew something was happening; they couldn’t understand it. But my husband got a little frustrated with it because then when it started to get into the family — and I’ll tell you about my husband.
Rick Archer: And this is your previous husband who is no longer with us, right?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Correct. I said fine; I said, I will go to a psychiatrist, and I will tell him everything, and I will let him be the determining factor. You know, because a lot of people can just sum it up as crazy; that’s — come on! And so I did. And I kind of put my life on the line there, because being somebody who’s just going through this, you’re quite raw and like a newborn, and I’m putting myself in the face of this man.
Rick Archer: That’s kind of a crapshoot, too, because there are so many different types of people who are licensed psychiatrists — you’re taking your chances.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Oh, yep. And so I just said, you know, I don’t know what it is, but when I speak to people, and I don’t even have to say the word God — this is how simple I was at 26 — I said, but they start crying. And, you know, maybe I was just talking about their uncle or a tie that was given to them, and I didn’t know, but somehow it opened their heart. And so I would tell him a lot of the things I went through, and he just said: I have nothing to say except that you’re very wise.
Rick Archer: Oh, nice.
Jane Anderson-Ross: So then I went back with a report, like a rite.
Rick Archer: You got a stamp of approval from a psychiatrist.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, but my husband’s take was: Crap happens. I won’t say the bad word. And mine was: Everything happens for a reason. We actually played the opposite view.
Rick Archer: Yes. That’s an interesting thing. I mean, that’s very good. There’s that popular bumper sticker, you know, and I think Forrest Gump coined it when he was running and stepped in something. I know you’re kind of a movie buff. But, you know, it does imply randomness and arbitrariness and sort of a cold, mechanistic universe, whereas “everything happens for a reason” implies what I was saying earlier: we’re swimming in an ocean of intelligence and that nothing is arbitrary or capricious.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. And on behalf of my cousin, though, we haven’t had a lot of time to speak because she’s had a very rough time in her own personal life with health and her children’s health in her family, and lots of things. But I did call her and ask permission to talk about and some of the things that I wanted to share. So she has given me — I have a little outline over here that I’m looking at. But she did go through this, and it did turn out different. But the first thing that she said is, what is the moral of the story? Like for her, it’s what was the outcome of it? And I said, well, what is the moral of the story to you? And she said not to have faith in any person, that it’s all God; take the good and leave the bad, and things like that, of that nature. But she verified all that we went through, but for her, there was a more traumatizing aspect to it, because my mother had some type of awakening and openness. And her mother, though, she’s my mother sister, she did not. I want to be careful what I say about people when I’m talking about them. And so there was more fear, and her husband was quite fearful because she was having ecstasies that were somewhat uncontrolled, that were very uncontrolled. And she believed that some of the things, she said she felt there was a mixture, that some of the things were not good, and some were good. So she felt like some was like hallucination. But there’s a lot of mix of fear and trauma in her experience apart from when we were together. And what happened is it culminated — — and she did want me to say that it culminated — in her ecstatic epiphany being carted away to a mental institution in a straitjacket.
Rick Archer: Yes. Well, it’s hard to give a pat assessment of such a thing. My mother had what was diagnosed as a nervous breakdown. She started to see auras around trees, and she started feeling like she was communicating with her deceased mother and having all these perceptions. And even though there was some kind of awakening taking place in some sense, she really was becoming unhinged. And I’ve been communicating with a woman in Australia whose daughter is going through something really intense; this daughter has opened up to all these subtle realms, and she can’t shut it down. She’s being hounded day and night by some subtle entities, and she can’t sleep, and she can’t eat. So I would just caution that not everything that might pass as a spiritual awakening is necessarily wholesome and 100 percent great. There can be all kinds of a little bit pathological things mixed in. Maybe you can take it from there.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. So what happened was we were not allowed, especially with her side of the family. They started to try to say, where is it coming from? Well, it seems to be more pronounced when she and Jane are together, so we’re going to keep her out. And so all kinds of witch-hunt things started happening, and where is this coming from? But I did get to hear — I forget how — but I would get to hear what was going on with her from time to time, I guess through a family member, family member, and then back through my mom to me. But people were getting healed in the presence that she was there for a couple weeks. They drugged her up, and people were getting healed.
Rick Archer: In the mental hospital?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Mm-hmm. And so I was like, you know, yay! It doesn’t matter where you are; it’s (overlapping) happening (overlapping).
Rick Archer: Or even that she’s drugged.
Jane Anderson-Ross: So is it really a problem that this happened this way, or was it perfect?
Rick Archer: Yes, and good point.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And one of the examples was, there was a young teen fellow who had, she said, a swastika on his third eye, and he was into Satanism. And so he believed in that power wholeheartedly, and when he met my cousin in their group, he could see, and he said, through her eyes, and through her, he could see that there was a God. And so he completely renounced his way and his belief. And he brought his parents to her and said, Mom, you know, Dad, this is the woman who saved me.
Rick Archer: Wow!
Jane Anderson-Ross: She didn’t say anything about you should follow God or anything.
Rick Archer: Right, just her influence.
Jane Anderson-Ross: She was just living her experience and probably articulating her connection that she had with God, you know, her divine source. And there were people who were very stuck, like, there was a Vietnam vet who was really, really stuck that she said she was instrumental in — oh, I guess whatever; he just kept going through therapy, therapy, therapy, therapy, and he was not unlocking from whatever he was trying to unlock from. And so she was at the right place in the right time, and you learn that very quickly that you could be placed in the fire, and you find that you’ll never burn, and those kinds of things happened. For example, to get off this topic, but add to it, I was sent to the inner city with my friend Kathy, who helped me and my mother to the Jungian meeting. We had to take the subway back through Philly, and it was, like, midnight, and I’m just not a city mouse; I’m a country mouse. And I was young and 26, and girly, and they were, like, mother types, so it was a little frightening for me. And so I was discussing in the subway. And there were lots of lovely, seedy characters there, God love them, but you know, they sort of were the type they put in films that make you worry about what your next step and move might be around them. But there was this one very tall, ominous-looking fellow, and I was talking to my mom and Kathy about my experiences in this Jungian meeting, and how it was touching my heart from my perspective, and he kept looking over at me, and I’m thinking, uh-oh.
Rick Archer: Could he hear you? Could hear what you were saying?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, because we were in the subway, and he wasn’t too far from me. And I could see him looking and listening, and I’m thinking, oh, boy, and then he starts walking toward me, and I thought, oh, gosh, I’m done. And I just thought I’d offended him in some way. And he came over, and the first thing he said was, I’ve been listening to what you said. And I was like, oh, no, sorry! And he said, and I feel that, sister. And he just started rolling with his, whatever he was getting, you know, if it was a transmission or something; he was just, he was being fed by the Holy Spirit. And he was announcing and pronouncing it, and I was like, oh, whew, okay! So that, and it’s helping him with his story; it’s still a learning; it was a very powerful learning that it doesn’t matter where you’re sent. And so, for me, I go wherever I need to go. And because I haven’t spoken about this in 27 years — to only a few people — I asked a good friend of mine; you might know John Mosher.
Rick Archer: The name is familiar.
Jane Anderson-Ross: He’s like a father type. I think he was in TM with you back in the day.
Rick Archer: Yes, he’s in the Rochester area I guess, right?
Jane Anderson-Ross: He’s helped us a lot with different things. So I said, about going on public, I usually like being hidden and in the background in my life, or one-on-one, or something. And so, I’m uncomfortable with being out in the front. And he said: What is it that is limiting you from that? Perhaps that’s what needs to happen. And I said, oh, so something’s in the way. Okay, so I need to just do and go where I need to go, do what I need to do, and not think about it and not let it be my business. And that’s my practice is to get out of the way and not let it be my business.
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: After the long haul of integration and weaning off of this epiphany experience in 1988, because there is a weaning; there is definitely a weaning process. And there’s after that, and there’s a depression. And for my cousin, she was in a year-long, dark depression, where I was moving through it a little bit more. I was able to make contact with this lady, Kathy. It was important to me to have that key person who was so well versed. This is a lady who understood Eastern philosophy. She’s somebody who was able to connect herself with the Spirit; she had a rich spiritual life. And so, for example, when I first met her, she was absolutely accepting. And I was afraid because a lot of people are like, what do you mean? Or, what do you mean, you’re awake? And what do you mean, you’re reborn? And what is this, you know? And what do you mean, you’re Oneness? That’s, like, heresy. But she was, like, I’m so fortunate to meet you today. She embraced it, and she started me with a good book. And it was neat just how perfectly I would say the Divine allowed her to filter in purely to me just what I needed at the right time. And it was Hinds’ Feet in High Places; it’s an allegory. So she started me with an allegory. So there were no names, there was just — did you ever read that?
Rick Archer: No, I haven’t heard of it.
Jane Anderson-Ross: So it just talks about Joy and Love reaching the mountain on the apex, and it’s about their journey. And so I could find what I was experiencing in that in a very soft, like a newborn — like a storybook. And it soothed my soul as I transitioned from that place, in this expanded place and this all-loving, all-knowing place into this world that has rebellion and cruelty, and harshness and its levels of consciousness that filter in front of what its heart really is.
Rick Archer: Yes. I just want to loop back to your cousin a little bit. We were talking about how awakenings are not always 100 percent integrated; there can be some kind of actual imbalance or pathology going on. But by the same token, a lot of times, I think there are probably a lot of people locked up in psychiatric hospitals who have had genuine awakenings, and nobody understood them. And this ties right into what you’re saying now. It’s so important to have somebody who understands you and affirms what’s going on. So I just wanted to kind of balance out the thing I had said previously. But let me ask you, so how is your cousin doing now?
Jane Anderson-Ross: In 27 years we have barely had time to talk about this. I moved away, and it seems like it’s still taboo in in her family. It’s like, we’d have to go somewhere, but the situation doesn’t really allow for that.
Rick Archer: It seems like she’s old enough to be her own person now.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. She is a very faith-filled person. And the struggles that she’s had to deal with in her life — they can’t cure her daughter; she has a very difficult disease, and there’s no cure for it, and they don’t know how she keeps living. I mean, she’s just — we’ll see. She’s nearly 40, thank God. But anyway, she has that and several other things. But what it gave her she said, was the strength to endure the next 27 years of her life. And people say, how does she do this? How is she still loving? How is she still patient? Well, she isn’t always patient, but there’s some embodiment of patience. I mean, patience, I think it burns into you through life: you have kids; you have to be patient, or whatever, you know, you have to learn patience. But there’s this patience that comes with this that lets you see that everything is unfolding in some other plan that’s way beyond yours. And so she has that scope.
Rick Archer: Well, that’s nice.
Jane Anderson-Ross: The magnanimity of it translates into her life no matter what happens. And, you know, there have been times in my life, though, it’s been fortunate for me that I’ve called on her. When I’ve had hard times, where there’s a culmination of issues in the family or my children, and I’ll call her and ask her, like, one thing, and she’ll come back; she’ll get me back in line. She’ll just say, why not you? Like, if I say, “why me” in this situation, in this calamity, or something like that, she just sets me right. So it’s that kind of thing.
Rick Archer: That’s great. Yes. So it seems you’ve given a fair amount of thought to this interview before we started doing it, which is great. And a number of times I’ve jumped ahead, and you’ve said, wait a minute, we’ve got to cover this point first. So what points do you also have in mind that we haven’t covered yet? Because we’ve just been sort of going one step after the other as we talk.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, and what’s interesting is it, again, in the element of perfection, getting out of the way allows things to unfold most perfectly. And I have to tell you that last night — and Charles, my husband, calls it the last little bits of — the remnants of, oh, geez, what if I don’t remember, I’m not chronologically right, or, you know, or I have a headache or something. You know, it’s like all these human things, and everybody feels that, you know, and that’s just totally acceptable. But definitely, you wrestle with it. Finally, I said, my soul is wrestling. And he said, you’ll wake up in the morning, and you’ll feel better. So there’s always that wrestling that occurs as you go through your life, and getting out of the way includes that. And one of the things that naturally flows from this experience for me is contemplation. You get to this place where you experience the Divine, and all you want to do is contemplate. It’s like “contemplating the divine navel,” they say. It’s, like, it’s just an offshoot of it, and it’s all you really want to do. And there have been times in my life when I’ve been in dark night of the soul where I’ve been cut off for years from any inspiration. And that was a time when I moved to Rochester, and several family members died in a row. It was like a warzone — my father, my grandmother, key people, my very special spiritual aunt all in one year. And then a year and a half later, my ex-husband suddenly died young at 48; my children were still teenagers. So then I had to deal with all of that. And even in that absolute darkness, even if it was just a memory, because you can’t feel all that love at that moment; you’re on fire with pain and grief. I mean, grief is a powerful process, and I delved into it, like I did when I walked in the snow and when I was walking by those gravestones, and feeling what that outer experience feels like. And sometimes you can’t even get to call the Divine, you’re so stifled. But those experiences are important, and those experiences are important because they give you a rapport with the people that God touches through your lives. That’s what makes it easier for me to know and be compassionate with people because I feel I’ve been there. I know what it’s like; I’m just as darn human down to the blood and everything, sweat and tears, that you’ve cried. And in that, I mean, I learned that back in the rebirth because at that time in the rebirth period, I was crying because I was so sensitive to anybody who was unkind. Unkindness just felt, like, so visceral to me, like, in the face of this absolute, enormous love. And I remember I had to often turn my head because I was crying so much, and I didn’t want my husband to say, what are you crying about now? And I was just crying out of epiphanies. And this was years later. And I would hear something that would console me that would say, and for every tear that you cry, the angels in heaven cry thousands.
Rick Archer: Hmm. Wow.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And I would feel like my grief, though it felt so big, was so small compared to the immensity of the beings who are so much purer and see the suffering through that level of pure eyes. My pure eyes felt immensely small. My tears and pain felt immensely small.
Rick Archer: It’s beautiful, Jane. You haven’t written any books, have you? I know you have a blog.
Jane Anderson-Ross: I have, like, through the years — I have a tote full of stuff.
Rick Archer: So you’ve been noting stuff down? Because you have a beautiful way with words. I think you could distill some of this into some books.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Well, it must be time, then.
Rick Archer: Yes. But the point you just brought out, I think it’s nice to just touch upon it again, which is that, you know, as they say, life is — who was it, it’s a Joni Mitchell song, I think, “life is for learning” was one of the lines, and it might have been from “Woodstock.” And in any case, you know, the point you just made is beautiful, which is that, if it is a divine universe, if the Divine is really omnipresent and is just interacting with itself, and we are the eyes and ears and noses and stuff of that, then how could anything not be, ultimately, in our best interest, some sort of lesson, some sort of experience that is going to add to our toolkit to make us more or better for others, or whatever?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. And so before we talked, I had this experience in my meditation I think is pertinent. And so what it is, is that it comes in the statement that “God is not in the argument.” That was the statement that it formed around. And it’s like this, that, when we talk about the experiences, that’s when — and I think you can feel more viscerally what’s transpiring between us when we talk about the love, when our hearts are healed, when they’re open, we get out of the way. We’re just like a little kid, in essence, who’s just, oh, you know, like maybe when you see your loved ones after you pass, and you imagine seeing them and hugging them, just that you just run into the arms of that. We’re so starved from it. Not everybody and not all the time — I don’t mean to categorize; I’m just trying to express. But that’s where it is, and it’s so simple that we look everywhere else. And I noticed that when sometimes questions come that it seems like it closes a door; it almost closes the door on the beauty of that moment. It’s like when you analyze your newborn’s first glances at you, you can’t translate it; you have to just stay with it. And that’s where it is, and it’s so simple. This world has so many mechanics to it and thoughts and judgments, and our hearts have them, too. And so when you remove all of that, you have that essence that we all long for, that we all want to be with. And not only that, but for some people, it’s very uncomfortable; it’s too vulnerable. They are not ready to let down that guard. And so sometimes I’ve experienced retaliation. Back in that day, if I would bring something forward, because the love was so transparent, that it would be painful, and someone would say something harsh or push me back. So I learned that I have to be very patient and sit back with my love. And it doesn’t matter if you’re sitting back a thousand miles away, you still feel that; you can translate it but maybe not face to face or in words.
Rick Archer: Mm.
Jane Anderson-Ross: You can sort of modulate how you express it.
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And I think that’s what God does. There’s a modulation. We have our own will; we have our own timing. And like I said, I even cried out, “Modulate this love, please, because I’m going to explode. And yet, don’t modulate it; explode me. You know, it’s like, you’re ready to be exploded.
Rick Archer: Kind of a balancing act.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, there’s a lot of paradox in that, and there are a lot of opposites in our world.
Rick Archer: Well, you’re kind of touching on the “pearls before swine” principle here, you know? There’s a verse in The Gita: Let him who knows the whole not disturb them who only know the part. And so you have to sort of modulate it, you have to parcel it out, according to the openness and receptivity of the listener.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Mm-hmm. And my daughter, my teenager said, Mom, what are you going to talk about for two hours? I said, well, this is something you could talk about for a lifetime.
Rick Archer: Yes, that’s kind of how I feel.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And you do. And you do.
Rick Archer: And what could be better to talk about, you know, more interesting, more profound?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. Some people are talking about it when they’re doing art and poetry and music. They’re speaking it; that’s the same language. I mean, it’s like, God language; what is “God language?” It’s just that in an awakening, you’re having this absolutely condensed experience of it. So, like, the art becomes alive, living, living art, and you become living art. Your expression is living art.
Rick Archer: There about 40 people listening or watching live as we speak, and I just want to remind people that if any questions occur to you, on the Upcoming Interviews page on BatGap, there’s a form at the bottom you can type the question into, and it’ll come to me here, and I’ll ask Jane So, what is your day-to-day life now? Like, right now, this morning, tomorrow, and yesterday? And how does your day-to-day life compare and contrast, if it does, with what it was when you first had that awakening in 1988?
Jane Anderson-Ross: I am regularly contemplating, but my life has slowed down a little bit. So that helps.
Rick Archer: The kids are grown up.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, one daughter just started college, and the others are all out and married, and so that makes a big difference. But the contemplation has never stopped, even though I’m in the mix of whatever I’m doing.
Rick Archer: And define contemplation as you’re using it?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. So I’m always learning. I was telling you about God, that it’s not an argument; I’m understanding at a deep level what that means. So I’m still learning, and I’m still contemplating all the time. That’s all that I really do and enjoy in my life. That is my life. And then what I do on the external part of my life is sort of like the karma yoga. It’s like, I’m going through my day and doing the things I do. But what’s interesting is when you interact with people and living things, there’s a difference in that quality. There’s almost an absolute joy that somehow, we get to meet. I teach cake decorating, and it’s been, like, why am I teaching cake decorating? But who knows, right? It doesn’t matter what you’re doing. And these lovely people come, and they start to open up about — because they’re in this creative flow, it’s a creativity, and they start to tell me about their life and the hardships. Little by little, they trust, and so there’s a rapport that’s built, and so the healing takes place in those interactions. And I did this, it’s called a soul blueprint reading I did a year ago. It’s an astrology form that only several people do in the world.
Rick Archer: Something you had done for yourself?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, I had this blueprint done for myself. So the fellow starts to tell me certain things. And I said, wait, wait, can we cut to the chase? Can I just tell you that I had this experience? And I wanted to know why I’m so uncomfortable. I had been contemplating my being uncomfortable for 27 years. And he said, and it’s helped me a lot — he said, it comes with the territory, Jane. And I said, and why do I feel like this is so hidden? Like, I just feel like I want — I don’t know; I sort of have a very quiet, hidden life, and you would think that it would be something that would be more prevalent. I think that from time to time; I contemplate that from time to time,
Rick Archer: And why are you uncomfortable? I mean, I guess you sort of said, well, you know, you’re a bit of an odd fish, because you don’t know too many people who are on the same wavelength. Is that what you mean by uncomfortable?
Jane Anderson-Ross: He said, “It comes with the territory.” And in a way, it’s sort of like this unfolding into the world. And these layers are being — the contemplation is, there could be a million examples of what I’m contemplating. But whatever it is that I’m learning and growing and reaching, and whatever is reaching through me that’s learning and growing, and what I’m learning when I interact with people and through my experiences, it’s everything that I contemplate, everything in my life. If I’m frustrated, why am I frustrated? So everything sort of goes into that big pot of soup, you know, and I just keep staring through it and staring through it and finding myself in the center of the eye of the hurricane and back out, and finding the eye within the swirling pieces that I go into on the outside of the hurricane, attaching to that, and why am I attached? But, so, in the uncomfortableness, he said, when you have that expanded consciousness, you’re in the eye of the hurricane, and so you’re wondering when you come back out, it’s like, what? It’s, like, a whole new — that’s why I call it a rebirth. Because then you’re contemplating, where was I, and what is this now? And it grows. It grows and grows, and that’s the offshoot.
Rick Archer: Yes. Just to make sure we’re clear. So when you say contemplating, so you’re cooking, you’re cleaning, you’re driving, you’re doing cake decoration, you’re talking to some friend or something. But you’re saying that inside, there’s always this sort of self-referral going on, this kind of self-scrutiny, or this sort of probing into the — I don’t mean significance in an intellectual sense, like analyzing it to death, but sort of like, where’s the divine hand in this? Is that what you mean by contemplating?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Well, a lot of things that I contemplate get used. It gets integrated; it’s like digestion.
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: So everything that — I meditated this morning, and I (little me) wanted to just keep quiet and just keep everything quiet, so I didn’t start to feel nerves or anything but this beautiful divine dialogue and picturesque vision of when I was walking in the field. And finally, in my little (inaudible) I say, well, I just want her to be quiet. And then I kind of get the sense: but this is important for what’s to come. So that’s an example.
Rick Archer: Ah! “For what’s to come” meaning our conversation?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes.
Rick Archer: That you needed to have that vision in order to be able to convey it in the conversation?
Jane Anderson-Ross: This is how is how the Divine is translating. So this is what’s important for what I want to say.
Rick Archer: Nice.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Everything is being said, anyway, but in this particular moment, in this form, that’s what’s wanting to be said. And what’s interesting is at that time, the sun, and we’re in Rochester, which is very cloudy and cold and known for not having sun, broke through the window and shone on me. And it happens often like that, and this always happens, and probably other people know what I’m talking about. It’s a signifier. Like, how could the sunbeam literally land right on me, and at a particularly pertinent moment? It’s a way of showing that the element is reaching you, that element that is that “all that is,” is reaching you.
Rick Archer: Yes. There’s a whole topic of omens, good and bad, and the fact again that it’s an intelligent universe. So even something like that, obviously, can be easily dismissed as, well, the sun’s shining because the sun is shining, but there’s a kind of a divine timing to everything.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And speaking of a ray, I had this particular experience in the beginning that showed me that these sun rays, in case anybody’s into this, when I was writing and doing a spiritual newsletter, I was writing it by hand from my home while the kids were sleeping. And it was a completely cloudy day, and I had skylights in my house. And I usually turned myself over: What do you want? How do you want to use me today? And I was thinking about going to take these — because I mailed some to people — letters with newsletters to the mailbox. So I closed my eyes and contemplated and meditated for what the Divine wants to use me for and today. I opened them, and a sunbeam, nowhere else, just one little, tiny one, landed right on the letters on the table. Like, I had just put them on the table. They weren’t lined up astrologically, but it was lined up astrologically that that sunbeam would be in the right place at the right time, and that’s what happens next. And you find this, that this happens, that each person, the closer you are to that place that is open to all this — that’s why I’m always saying I’m getting out of the way; I’m getting out of the way, is because then the nature of miracles, which is an everyday occurrence, happens, and sometimes I get to witness it. And sometimes I don’t, but I know that it’s always happening, so I get in that space as often as I can. Because it isn’t me that I serve anymore. That’s another characteristic is that you no longer serve yourself. Your life is surrender and getting out of the way. And that’s I think a big marker. And any type of ego that says that it’s going to be something or teach something is in the way. And if you’re giving, like, you’re giving beautifully in your experience, it’s from your heart that you do what you do.
Rick Archer: Yes, nice.
Jane Anderson-Ross: It’s not to get anything.
Rick Archer: Right. Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: So that’s what keeps people in the background, I think. That’s what keeps them not putting themselves in the front, in the forefront. And I’ve talked to a fellow meditator of mine, and he said all the people you don’t see on interviews are, like he was saying, like, really — how would he put it — you don’t see them, because they’re not really putting themselves — they’re not interested in putting themselves first. There were times when people were building things like churches and stuff, and it was always these big egos starting churches: This is a new church, the church, like — we lived in Sedona. So it was like the Church of the Mother-Father God, this and that.
Rick Archer: Holy moly, yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And it starts out with a pure intention, and I’ve seen this time and time again. I always seem to get hooked up with grassroots projects right at the beginning. Somehow there’s — I’m seeded with it, and then it always turns into politics, and that’s religion. I mean, religion has its pure beginning, and then it’s politics. And if you have a stickiness in it, you’re not bringing through the most pure feed.
Rick Archer: Yes. Well, I know what you mean. And actually, if you watch that panel discussion we had at Sofia University a month-and-a-half ago — we’ve talked about this quite a bit — it’s a paradox; it’s a Catch-22, because on the one hand, Christ said: Don’t hide your light under a bushel: you want to let it shine. And on the other hand, if you begin stepping into some kind of teaching role prematurely, it can go to your head. And there are so many examples of people who get caught up in the adulation, or the fame, or the attention they begin to get when they’re into the role of a spiritual teacher, and then they kind of spin out of control and often crash and burn. So it takes a lot of strength and purity and innocence — some of those qualities you mentioned earlier: innocence and simplicity and so on — to assume a more public role and not let it be your downfall.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, and it also takes the fire of suffering through it. These years, these long years that I’ve been through, these dark nights, where I wondered, why am I in a dark night for ten years? How are you going to use that information? You still get in this place. Like, you could be out speaking to people, you could be healing hearts, you know, but you’re in here in grief, and you’re crying. And I actually had a grieving group, so I mean, I definitely was working with people within that group, and they were touching my heart; we were all gently being taken care of. And I learned from that; I felt that I was part of that experience. So it’s, you’re tried; you really are tried through it, in my experience — humbled.
Rick Archer: Yes. And you know, there are some traditions — I think I was talking about this last week or the week before with somebody — that in certain traditions such as Zen, if you have an awakening, the teacher says to you, okay, fine. Now, wait ten years before you start teaching. There’s supposed to be this holding period where you mature into it, and you don’t just go rushing out and put up a shingle.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Oh, no, and in the beginning, it’s heart-fluttering. It’s like, you know, when you can’t contain it when you’re in love, you know? You can’t contain it, and you’re making a fool of yourself. And then you think after you integrate this, there are some kinds of tests; the tests get harder, and the challenges and the firings of life get harder. And though maybe it feels like you’ve been through this purification, but your life has become a service to all life. And whatever your fires are, you embrace them, and where you can embrace them is where you need to burn.
Rick Archer: Yes. So now that you have done this interview, and a lot of people are going to find out about you, do you see yourself playing a more public role, or is it just going to be this interview? Do you want to interact with people in a more proactive way than you have been?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Well, it seems to appear that the blog appeared, but there needs to be something.
Rick Archer: There’s not a heck of a lot going on with that blog.
Jane Anderson-Ross: There’s not a heck of a lot.
Rick Archer: You have a little blog.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. There have people who have contacted me through Skype and phone consults.
Rick Archer: So do you feel like you could be of benefit to people doing phone consults and Skype consults? And you would want to charge a little bit of money or something for your time, or whatever, however you want to do it?
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes. Yes, if it doesn’t — I have to get out of the way and do whatever’s next to do, and if that’s what’s next to do, then that’s absolutely in line.
Rick Archer: Yes.
Jane Anderson-Ross: But I’m not really attached to it, but I’m open.
Rick Archer: You’re open to how it unfolds.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes, whatever needs to unfold, you know? I don’t know what that would be like, and so I can’t really surmise. But I am open because I’m always open to loving and loving hearts. And people I’m most attracted to, or people who really want to do the work, who really are looking to find their heart, those are the people I love to have around me, people who have been through a lot of fire and haven’t even had some kind of connection or personal relationship. You know, people who suffer a lot tend to be around me. And so then they’re able to find love, find compassion and friendship and acceptance, and I think acceptance is really important. So I think people like that, you know, not people who are trying to find the answer with the mind, and, you know, like, what am I going to tell you? What could I tell you? I can only love you. And I think that’s the whole message.
Rick Archer: Nice.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And that’s the Divine’s message.
Rick Archer: Yes. Is there some kind of a contact thing on your blog, so if people want to email you or contact you, they can?
Jane Anderson-Ross: No, but I’ll have to make sure there is, now, huh?
Rick Archer: Yes, you’d better do that — by Monday.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Okay, I will. By Monday, and my husband will help me, hopefully.
Rick Archer: Yes, and incidentally — well, I’ll tell you this later; it’s just a technical thing about your blog. But okay, so is there anything else that we should cover, that you’re going to think about an hour from now — oh, gosh, I should have said that! Anything else like that?
Jane Anderson-Ross: I just listened to one of your interviews, and there was a fellow, Moss.
Rick Archer: Richard Moss, mm-hmm.
Jane Anderson-Ross: And he said, there’s nothing you need to do. What did he say? Oh, it was so beautiful. You just need to love this person, you know? And I think that that’s just the whole, that’s the entire message is to get out of the way, keep loving, and keep finding your heart, and don’t give up. Know that you are love, and that’s the entry point. Find your goodness and expand it.
Rick Archer: That’s beautiful, and I won’t try to improve upon it by elaborating, but that’s great. Okay.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Thank you.
Rick Archer: Yes, thank you, Jane. So I’ve been speaking with Jane Anderson-Ross, who lives in Rochester, who is available by Skype to any place in the world — and we’ll see how things unfold for you — who appears to have a book or two in her, or in her notes. And it’ll be interesting to see how things go for you.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Yes.
Rick Archer: Yes, because I think you’re kind of a little different, you know, than a lot of people I’ve interviewed, and there’s just something very, kind of, like you said, well, the “love” word is — that really comes across as a lot — you radiate a lot of love, and there’s kind of a uniqueness and originality or something in the way you present yourself, which I really like. I think other people will like it, too.
Jane Anderson-Ross: I appreciate that.
Rick Archer: Yes. So I’ll be linking to Jane’s blog, as I always link to people’s websites and things, and you can get in touch with her through that if you’d like and see what comes of it. And as I said in the beginning, and as most of you know, this is an ongoing series of interviews. There are hundreds of them now. And I intend to continue doing this until my last breath because I love it. And you know, it’s my way of being an instrument of the Divine, the point we started out with in this interview. So if you want to explore some of the older ones, go back to the Past Interviews menu on BatGap com. And actually, more people will listen to this as an audio podcast than view it as a video thing on YouTube. So if you don’t have time to sit for two hours and watch something at your computer, subscribe to the audio podcast; you can listen to it while commuting or something. Then also on the site, you’ll see a place to sign up to be notified by email each time a new interview is posted, which is usually one a week. And there’s a “Donate” button which I mentioned at the beginning, which we appreciate people contributing if they can, and a few other things. There are even, like, little fun things, like, you know, ring tones you can put on your phone, the BatGap theme, so poke around among the menus, and you’ll see that stuff. So thanks for listening or watching, and thank you again, Jane —
Jane Anderson-Ross: Thank you.
Rick Archer: — and we’ll see you next time.
Jane Anderson-Ross: Okay. Bye-bye.
Rick Archer: Bye.