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Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer, and my guest today is Sandy Jones. Buddha, the gas pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually Awakening people. And if you if this is the first year we’re aware of it, please go to batgap.com. And check it out. There are hundreds of interviews that have been done. They’re all archived there. And if you’d like to support our efforts, you can do it through the donate button on that page on that site. So Sandy, is the literary executor for William Samuel. And many of you will not have heard of William Samuel, but I’ve gotten a couple of emails from people since I announced that I was going to do this interview, saying, oh boy, William Samuel is, you know, he’s, he was really special, and not many people know about him. So I’m so glad you’re doing this. So Sandy’s gonna tell us about William Samuel. And she’s also gonna tell us about herself because I think that the quality of a teacher, the effectiveness of a teacher can be judged by getting to know some of the students. And they tend to reflect the quality of a teacher. And Sandy was a close student of William Samuels. She lives in Ojai, California and take it from this and tell us a little bit more about yourself and and about William.
Sandy Jones: Well, let’s see I, I agree, William is like an undiscovered gem. And I, he had been teaching in the 50s, and 60s. And I discovered him in the 70s. My mother used to be a reader of metaphysics. And so she had his books. And then years later, I found his book again, and I, that’s when I found him. And he’s just absolutely brilliant. And he was making statements about the presence now, the Power of Now really, is way back in this early 60s. And his message is incredibly clear, and simple and beautiful. And so, yes, I would love to have people rediscover him. And that’s kind of why I’m starting to come out here and say what I’m what, you know, give what I want to give.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And if anybody’s thinking, Well, you know, I mean, how important can somebody who is no longer alive be for me, as a teacher, you know, just think of Ramana Maharshi, or Nisargadatta, or Papaji, or Jesus or any of these people, I mean, we we tend to give a lot of attention to teachers who have deceased and derive a lot of value from studying their, their teachings. So the same would apply to William. So William, is live he died, what 96 or so? Yes, exactly. Yeah. Born and 24. Thank you, sir. 20.
Sandy Jones: Something? Yeah, I think he was in his early 70s. So he was fairly young. But yeah.
Rick Archer: And he was a military man. And he was involved in World War Two in China, battling somewhere or other in western China, right. And then he had a, he had a break, and he went down and met with Ramana Maharshi, for a couple of weeks.
Sandy Jones: That’s exactly what the story is. He went to see Ramana Maharshi in 1944, I believe, yeah. And he never told anybody about that. He always kept it very, he did just say that he went to visit the silent guru, and that the silent guru had taught him how one can actually receive a beautiful message, let’s say or some kind of inspiration or insight through the silence just sitting there with that guy, and but he didn’t tell anybody who it was. It took me it took me 30 years to figure out who it was, you know, because he wouldn’t tell a soul, which is a very interesting part of his. What I loved about His teaching was that he didn’t want anybody to be a follower of a particular teaching or dogma or here was anti kind of anti? How would you say it? That sort of
Rick Archer: adulation? But yes, there you go. Thank you. So would you think that maybe he didn’t want people he didn’t want to name who that teacher was because he didn’t want to sort of necessarily attach an endorsement to himself by saying, Oh, I spent two weeks with Ramana, I was the first Westerner to be their first American. And so he just wanted whatever he had to say, to stand on its own merit without some kind of premature from his having been with Ramana.
Sandy Jones: You that is exactly what it was he he wanted. What I love about his teaching is that I know what inspired me when I was first reading his books, and everything is that he was all about freedom. And my heart is about freedom. And so when I started picking up on that, that there was not going to be any rituals or disciplines or restrictions, or I’m going yes, this is my kind of teacher. So, and we clicked right off, I mean, our compatibility. And the way he would say things would just the lights would go on. And what he loved about me was that he didn’t have to really teach me he only had to say something, and I would go Yeah, okay. And so we would both get really enthused about this interchange of my enthusiasm for, for what he would open a door for me. And rather than clinging to him, I was finding freedom. And that gave him great joy to see that I did understand it, and that it was about freedom
Rick Archer: to spend much actual FaceTime with him or was this mostly through correspondence,
Sandy Jones: a lot of letter writing back and forth, telephone calls, spent, went to see him in Alabama about four times, and would stay maybe, maybe two days, not too long. And then, um, and then he came to visit us in Aspen with his wife, Rachel. And that was really fun. I got to find out. I mean, every time I’d go to see him, it was always such a kick. Because he had the best sense of humor. He was so funny and entertaining. Often he wouldn’t even want to talk about this stuff, which he would just want to just enjoy. And he’d say, Why are you coming here? Why don’t you take your husband and go to New Orleans? Very free to just go. Okay. So yeah, he just, he was special.
Rick Archer: There’s an interesting story around how you discovered that it was this teacher he had visited in 1944 was Ramana Maharshi. I’d like you to tell that story. If you wouldn’t mind. You told it in your interview with Jerry cats. And
Sandy Jones: well, yes, it. It’s such a kind of a weird, convoluted story. It’s a little hard to tell it was not easy to write. But I everybody kept asking me who was this silent teacher that Bill mentions? And I said, I don’t know. I have asked everybody who used to know him. I even asked his wife, Rachel, Rachel, before she died? No, but he knows he told no one. So there came a point about I think it’s been about four years ago. And I said Bill, every but I mean, I’m speaking to him across the cross the distance here, because he’s gone, right? But I’m saying, Bill, if you could show tell me who this guy is, I will get a double net. It’ll be a double message. It’ll be first of all, that you’re ready to reveal who it was. And second of all, if you reveal it to me, I will share it with everyone. Because I think it’s important, but I said I think people really want to know, and everybody suspects that it’s Ramana Maharshi. And so I want to know, so I asked this out there and gosh, within days, it was just astounding. I don’t know it was few weeks, whatever it was. I’m on the I don’t know how it happened. But it was one of those weird searches on the internet. And I’m going here and there and doing this in that unsuspecting. I come upon a website called The Wonder link. And where I turn up on his millions of pages, I turn up on this one page that says And then among the people that I recommend is William Samuel because I met him when I was a little boy at Ramana Maharshi his place and Uh, William Samuel was in China he came to visit I was a little boy, I was with the, there was another little boy, Osbourne. Anyway, another little boy there. His father was like the biographer of Ramana Maharshi is work. And so anyway, he tells the story about how he met William Samuel in 1944. And how they took that walk around the mountain in the moonlight. And so I go on, I look, when was there a walk? When was the moon out? And I look at it, it was like full moon, April 4, something like that. And I just go, oh, my gosh, this is my answer. It was, it was the bill truly was there. And that’s who it was. And it was so clear to me. I mean, it was absolutely obvious that that’s what it was. And that I had gotten led to this wanderings website was so mystical. And I just went, Wow, Bill really did come through to me and guided me here. And wonderwing, who was a little boy, at the time of meeting Bill tells the whole story about him being there and who he was. And, and so I put it all together, and I had my answer. And there was no doubt. So that’s a cool story. Yeah, really nice.
Rick Archer: So what I’d like to do over the next hour, hour and a half, or however long we talk is, first, have you kind of tell us a bit more about Williams, spiritual unfoldment, you know, his his awakening or whatever he might have called it and you know, how that came about, and when and whatever. And then summarize, and it doesn’t have to be a brief summary, it can be quite extensive unfolding or expression of his teaching, you know, if you can do that, and then after that, and we might mix the order up, but then probably after that, your own story in the same respect, you know, I mean, your course of events that led to your spiritual development, and you know, your perspective on things. You know, I heard some interesting things when I was listening to other interviews with you, that resonated nicely with the way I see things. So what do you think about that?
Sandy Jones: I think that sounds lovely. Let’s see if I can do it.
Rick Archer: So we’ll start with William and you know, we’ve we’ve had some tidbits now of you know, he was a military man he went to, he was fighting World War Two, he went to Ramana Maharshi his ashram, but that’s pretty sketchy. So let’s unpack it some more.
Sandy Jones: Well, okay, so he grew up in Alabama, which is, you know, there in the Deep South, and he was, it was not an easy childhood. And his mother was a Christian Scientist. So that’s what sort of got him started in understanding that God, truth is a principle, the power of love, because the Christian scientists, even though they seem to have kind of, I feel that and Bill felt it too, that they sort of lost track of what the true what their original teaching was, which seems to happen with everything that gets turns into an organized religion, it gets kind of destroyed. But anyway, he started with that, and that was sort of the roots of his beginning was that everything is metaphysical. It isn’t, everything is made of love, and God is all and that’s the basic premise, God is all. What is this God. And then he goes on to explain in all of his works, where he’s coming from when he uses this term, God is all and but it’s very much based on God is love. God is the Infinite Light God is God, his life, and a divine principle anyway, so that’s what he was sort of raised with. And then his father sent him off to military school. And that was only he was like 14 years old. And he was a very sweet, kind, sensitive little boy that ended up in military school. And that was rather brutal. And he tells a lovely story, that during military school, he kept getting these visions of being this pure child. There was a child that would sort of come to him and sort of saved him during this time in military school. He had some profound visions, and he was a profound being even as Little Boy,
Rick Archer: I mean, like it was his own inner child or, or what
Sandy Jones: it was, it was the feeling of an uplifted joy, it was the feeling of everything’s okay that there was something watching over him that everything was going to be all right. And it felt very, he called it a child, the child because it was so pure and guardian angel, like a guy or any angel Yes. And it was sort of lift his spirits. And it had a lot to do with his he related it a bit to like, because he had been raised with the Christian Science, he at that time, related a bit to this sort of Christ Consciousness kind of thing that people will talk about, that this light would sort of fill his being. And so he called it this child. But he said he would lose this child, it would come and go, and he’d lose it, and you’d feel so bad when it was gone. So um, anyway, he suffered through military school, but by the end of military school, he had become a captain, Captain. And they made him captain of infantry. And they sent him off to the worst place in China, at 18 years old, years old, 18 years old captain of infantry, leading his troops through the outbacks, and the mountains and the treachery of this ends of the earth place in China. And that’s what he did. And the stories are amazing, because this young man had to go through killing, I mean, there was killing and squalor. And I mean, and then in mass, destruction, and bombs going off, and he writes about that in some of it, and in one of his books, or a couple of his books. And as a student of, you know, wanting to understand Enlightenment, let’s say, you start reading this, and you go, wow, this is amazing. This man walked this, that he had this light within him and still had to go into a war, and do battle and live like this. And you just, you’re amazed by his Bhagavad Gita. Yeah, if he truly. And he writes about it beautifully, because one of his stories is about how in the middle of bombs going off, and his men dying and people dying. And he writes about the state of silence that occurred to him, that happened to him. And that were in this silence above, beyond all the commotion and all the terror, he was at peace, and there was this beauty in this light, and he could walk through and go over to his men and make sure they were okay. And he was calm. And, and you read about this in his book. And so that’s a very inspiring, and you start to pick up on what he’s talking about, because he writes in a way that this is the beauty of his work, he writes in a way that you can feel, you can actually get in touch with this presence, this sweet, silent awareness. And it washes over you as you’re reading his work. And you just go, wow, this is amazing. And those were his first few books, he takes a big leap and his third book, but I’ll get to that later. But so those books set that foundation of the discovery of this presence that is here, no matter what might be going on that one can find this inner grace, balance, light, peace, and walk through things. And that for me was that was the key that was like, Yes, that’s it if you can, if you can walk through this world with that inner calm, understanding what it is you’re looking at understanding what this world is. And so that’s how we would communicate when we started communicating with each other. But anyway, back to
Rick Archer: this stage. He hadn’t really no spiritual practice, or much seeking or anything, he’s just a kid. Right? But he already was imbued with a lot of silence, which, right so he did quality for a military commander to have actually
Sandy Jones: beautiful and he doesn’t even say he will even give us you know, maybe in the middle of battle, these things happen. You know, it’s just you know, maybe you’re so all stressed that this is some way of protecting yourself, you know, so it’s kind of beautiful the way he is always open to not drawing major conclusions about anything. And I love that, you know, because for me, it’s all keeps growing and going and we keep learning. So although
Rick Archer: these days, you know, a lot of soldiers are coming back with PTSD and AR so they don’t really have the resilience
Sandy Jones: he did. Yeah, he had resilience he had that spirit somehow. I think it was the background found, I think it was his background, he came from where he was just meant to be this I you know, you never know,
Rick Archer: it also suggests that he was born and a high level of consciousness exam already had a lot of be
Sandy Jones: stablished. You know, I think that was it. And so during his time in China, and he writes this so cute and so funny, and this is where you get his humor, and I have, I don’t have a gift for humor. I have a gift for laughter but not a gift for telling jokes. So anyway, he during the war, he was given an interpreter. And he tells us funny story about because he was the youngest kid there, he got the last choice. And he ends up with this little fat Chinaman, who turns out to be almost royalty. He had been a Taoist monk, a very revered Dallas monk who could speak English and speak English very fluently. And so Bill ends up with this, this Dallas monk, who was to be his Chinese interpreter. And this is Mr. Shea. And he writes about Mr. Shea and Mr. Shea walks hand in hand with Bill through this war, and becomes way more than his interpreter and teaches him keeps teaching him the Tao of living the flow the light the truth, and teaches them all the way through. And there’s a wonderful story about how they’re trying to escape. The Japanese and the Japanese are after them and, and they’re on the run. And they’ve got their troops and they’re climbing through mountains. And I It sounds at this point, it’s almost just bill and Mr. Shea out there in the middle of the mountains. And Mr. Shea falls down and can’t he’s an old guy, and he falls down and he can’t get up and he’s pointing at something and he’s pointing across and Bill says what do you Why are you pointing? And Mr. Shay’s, like, almost sick, you know, just laying there just almost dying. And he keeps pointing at something. And Bill says, What are you pointing out? What? Yes, I see the damn mountains beyond I know, we got to get there. I know. Get up old man get up. And then he looks and he gets down at his level. And he says, Wait, and he looks at Mr. Shea is pointing at a beautiful little flower coming up through the snow. And he goes, Oh, my God. And so it was this kind of teachings, you know that you just go wow, extraordinary. Now the other thing Bill does that I really appreciate and I know that people are so speedy nowadays. It’s hard to do this. But Bill teaches in stories. He’s a storyteller. And that rings really beautiful to my heart. I get stories. I understand storytelling. I am kind of like, you know, a fan of the mythical and the Joker. The Joseph Campbell kind of you know, all that I love that stuff. And Bill teach us with that formula. And it worked. For me. It’s a beautiful way to teach for me. I I’m very poetic and an artist and so that worked. I can barely listen anymore to the very intellectual inquiry or however they’re calling it I mean, I almost get belligerent I best don’t wait. You know, just stop, you know, find your heart speak from speak your truth, you know, don’t just rattle off. Intellectual nonsense. That doesn’t mean anything. Anyway, sidetracked again. But so yes, Bill, the war. Then he also he came home. His father owned a bakery in Alabama. And Bill took the bakery over when he came home from the war.
Rick Archer: So before he came home from the war, he did this stint with Ramana. Oh, exactly more to say about that.
Sandy Jones: Yes. After what he writes in his book is that he says yes, words can get in the way and his little description is one He’s saying words can get in the way. And he says, I went and sat with a silent guru and I came, I came out of there with more than I’ve ever gotten from words. He said, Don’t let words get in the way. He said, You can get it by just listening with your heart.
Rick Archer: So he sat at Ramona speak for two weeks, and Ramona didn’t say a word didn’t say on the day, they were leaving, Ramona said, you, you’ve, you’ve learned a lot here.
Sandy Jones: Yes, exactly. And he says, he says, wow, you know, I didn’t think I had and he said, by three months later, I went, Wow, I have learned a lot. It really, he had really been given something. It was. And of course, bill wouldn’t use those terms that they use today, you know, like this transmission, or however they call it, but I, you do know that something incredible happened between the two of them. And the gift for me was when I made this discovery, who it was, and then that Bill had given me license to tell people now who it was. I was such a joyful feeling, because I know how many people respect him and admire Ramana Maharshi his teachings and I haven’t read any of his stuff, I must say, I just don’t read a lot. And I, my inspiration has been purely just my own self, my own heart, my own little trip. But I don’t know anything about Indian philosophies. And I, I’m, I’m slow at that. So So you know, you won’t get a lot out of me with all that. But I know I do pick up enough that I realized how important Ramana Maharshi is to everybody. And I feel so honored that between Bill and Ramana Maharshi. And me there is this sweet little triangle of love. And I’m here to share that. And that’s what I want to do.
Rick Archer: Okay, so then he came back to Alabama after the war, back to
Sandy Jones: Alabama, ran his little bakery and wrote his first little book because the atheist would always come by his bakery back then it was like his bakery this kind of like the Starbucks like, yeah, like us. Yeah. Where people would kind of meet and have little talks, while the atheist would come through every year going on their way to Florida from California. And they was
Rick Archer: funny, you should say that, because I was thinking, how did he scrape up atheists in Alabama? But I guess they were coming through from California
Sandy Jones: or California? Yeah, they would. I don’t know how they found him, you know, but also, I know that the university was there. And I know, the university students, you know, would come to see Bill too. So he was very hip with the young people at that time. This was in the late 50s, I’d say and get starting to go into the 60s. So he wrote his first little book called two plus two equals reality. And it was a little basic book, because he wanted to explain to these atheists what he meant by his term, God, because he they came to talk about God. But of course, they came to argue about God. And he would say, Wait, you’re only arguing about the definition. You’re not arguing about the truth. And so he wrote that first little book two plus two equals reality. I have it in many different formats. One of them is a free gift, I just give away in a little PDF for people and you can find it on the internet. The other it’s, you can find it on Amazon and all that went through it from that. Yeah. But it’s a wonderful little book, because it it, he describes so beautifully with analogy again, and he uses a lot of analogy, which works with me. How God, when he uses that term, he’s talking about a principle, something you can’t see, but something that’s real. There is and then he describes how math, mathematics arithmetic is a principle. And all the numbers exist because the principle exists. And so he relates this to his word and why he can use the word God so freely, which was beautiful to me because I think I like to use the word God i It means everything to me. It’s like yes, it’s how else did you describe something that’s infinite and impossible to describe? We use the term God.
Rick Archer: You saw abundantly intelligent.
Sandy Jones: Exactly, exactly. And it has no beginning and no end and it existed before anything existed. And how does that be? It’s got to be what we call God some kind of beginning the It didn’t begin, you know, and yes, we can call it first cause and we can call it source. But to me, those don’t touch my heart, or the word God is beautiful to me, and I love it. So I use it.
Rick Archer: Now, before we go on. So he, one of the things I noticed the Williams, one of his books is that he emphasizes that you really don’t want to be talking about things that you haven’t personally experienced, or, you know, investigated on the basis of experience. So at this stage in the story, William is still fairly young man in his early 20s. And already, he’s, you know, beginning to write books. So, you know, I know you consider William to have been an enlightened man or a self realized, man, so at whatever point is relevant in your weaving of this story, please describe his when that realization took place, or what the nature of it was, because there are a lot of people out there, and I want to probably emphasize that William was not one such person, who are good philosophers, you know, but who are not necessarily realized in an experiential sense.
Sandy Jones: Yes, yes, yes. He was experiencing all kinds of light and truth and Enlightenment, all dirt. Well, during the war, after the war, while he was working at the bakery, I mean, this book was written on what he did, know, and discover, and he was living it all those years he was living it, he was, he would often say, you know, you just really have to, if you get a message, if you’re here, if you get a glimmer of the truth, put it to practice, test it, try it, see if it works. He always recommended, prove it, test it. He says, don’t take my word for it, test it, go find out for yourself.
Rick Archer: So for him, was there any sort of Enlightenment under the Bodhi tree moment? Or was it just much more of a mental kind of a development,
Sandy Jones: it was incremental, and he often very often uses the expression which I love, and it’s biblical, but it is line upon line, precept upon precept here a little there a little. And so for him, it was, it was a slow, gradual unfolding, and a discarding of what wasn’t it. And his, his living it his journey, it was slow. He does tell about like that the experience of the silence during the war is was a major moment. He also tells about what he calls his pond experience, which he says was when he learned he says he felt he was taking, he used to like to hike the hills of Alabama, he loved nature. And so he was on a walk. He was constantly searching, he was always open to, you know, learning and living and seeing the truth. So he would go on his nature walks, and he was going to go camping, and he came to a pond and he tells the story that he bends down to take a drink from the pond, and he looks back up and the whole world had changed. He said, It was just filled with beauty and light and love and glory. And it was a new dimension. And he was just going, oh my god, I found it. I found it. This is it. And he’s joyfully going on as little hike. And he’s gonna go camp out on the top of the mountain and he comes to a man on a little farm on the side of the road and they chat and he says he’s just, it’s just glorious. And he gets to the top of the mountain, he lights his little fire and then this, this gloom, this darkness just starts to come over him and he’s just there alone. fire burning in the darkness on this mountain, and he’s just the agony and the pain and the sorrow and the loss and the suffering is huge. And then how he tells his story is by the morning, he wakes up and he realizes that this was to show him that this this light, it has an isness to it. And not is to it and he had the hardest time trying to explain this and he calls it contra distinction. And eventually in my life. I I saw what he’s talking about, I saw exactly what he meant. It is very difficult to explain but this this seeing that what is not is exactly what leads us to what is. And so its beauty is in that it is a part of the journey to take us to what is and we don’t discard it, we understand it. And
Rick Archer: then I understand the whole Dark Night of the Soul experience, which many, many people have. Where there can very often be, you know, profound spiritual awakening. And that serves to sort of dredge up a lot of hidden stuff, you know, that ultimately has to be cleared through in order for that awakening to really be established. So it could very well be that he had that experience by the pond. And that kind of really stirred up some sleeping elephants that needed to really be cleared out of the territory before he was free to roam in that territory without fear of getting trampled.
Sandy Jones: Very, very true. Yeah. So beautiful way to put it. I’m sure that that was probably exactly what that was. And that’s right. The fearlessness those to see that the darkness isn’t real, that’s when the fearlessness happens. That’s when the true joy of living in that freedom happens. And yeah,
Rick Archer: so after that morning, when he had that, you know, the dark night, and then the morning, kind of like, you know, it’s almost literal and figurative, figurative here.
Sandy Jones: Yeah, exactly.
Rick Archer: Was that sort of like an epiphany? And thereafter? He was, you know,
Sandy Jones: I would say, yes, he Yes, I would say that’s true, but he often wants that he wants to tell people, you know, just because you have a road to Damascus experience, he says it’s not necessary. And he does, he does say that this is a slow, long journey. So even though that did happen for him, he still doesn’t put a whole lot of, you know, emphasis on the, that’s how one has to arrive there.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I’m just kind of probing you here. Because, you know, I agree with that, and a lot, but a lot of people are kind of looking for the, the big, wow experience after which they’re just gonna be able to rest on their laurels and be home free. You know, but um, you talk to even very advanced spiritual teachers, and they say, you know, well, I’ve had many awakenings. And it just keeps
Sandy Jones: exam folding. Yes, yes. And that’s how it was with Bill too, even though you know, he had this and he had that. And yes, there were glorious moments. There’s, I have two boxes full of his old journals that haven’t ever been published. So it’s kind of like his private journals. He, he suffered a lot, he went up and down and, and it took a lot for him to give what he’s given to us. It killed him really? Well, I think that’s what kind of made he he died of a heart condition. And I do believe that his heart had just been kind of like, literally torn to pieces, you know, trying to bring what it was he was supposed to bring to us. And I think he gave us the gift of his life in a way. I mean,
Rick Archer: why would that be a heart rending experience trying to teach truth?
Sandy Jones: It’s hard for he No, he, he didn’t like he didn’t like it. It wasn’t what it was. He didn’t he wanted to just go wander the hills and, and enjoy the rivers and, and he tried to teach in a very simple, joyful, easy way. And he did do that. But
Rick Archer: people were complicating it.
Sandy Jones: Yes, exactly. It was very difficult. And he didn’t really want all this, he would turn people away until they would come to him for the third or fourth time. He would not just let anybody come to see him he did not want to following he did not want to be idolized or be thought of as a guru. He didn’t even want to be thought of as a teacher. He says I’m just telling you my story. And but he knew he knew that he was here to give us what he had to give. So yeah,
Rick Archer: so So you think that casting pearls before swine actually killed the guy?
Sandy Jones: I’m not so sure but you know, people will say well, if he was so enlightened, why did he you know have this physical, you know, problems and I’m just
Rick Archer: oh, that’s silly. Yeah, exactly. You can name any number of spiritual teachers who had physical problems. Yeah. Cigarettes and everything. Right
Sandy Jones: doesn’t have anything to do with it. I mean, I, I’ve discovered that as you know, the beauty is the freedom to live with what you are and what you do and be and and not put any importance on the physical conditions.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Which is not to say I mean, some people say, Oh, do whatever you want drink and smoke and take drugs, doesn’t matter. It’s just physical. But you know, the body is the temple of the soul, and it’s the vehicle to higher consciousness. But nonetheless, there had been some very enlightened people who’ve, you know, had cancer, or various other things and didn’t lose their life.
Sandy Jones: Exactly. And that was that’s another point. What, what, what he brings with this is that it isn’t because he did come out of Christian Science, which is very much about trying to manifest what you’re with how, you know, manifesting the beauty of the light within you should be manifested in the world. So there should not be perfection everywhere. And of course, he had to leave that behind, because he realized that isn’t how it works, either. So there was a lot of things that he had to leave in the dust and, and realize that that wasn’t it either. And which is a gift in itself, because it’s like he already sort of, for me, he he broke the trail, you know, and he said, that’s, that’s not it, trying to manifest your world to look like this this perfection that you understand or, or realize, you know, the realization of God’s perfect perfection, being everything, it doesn’t manifest necessarily, and what we think of as perfect.
Rick Archer: Yeah, because we actually are not running the show.
Sandy Jones: That’s right.
Rick Archer: God is, right?
Sandy Jones: And we don’t know what perfect is
Rick Archer: Yeah,
Sandy Jones: exactly. Yeah,
Rick Archer: I mean, well, we could we could elaborate on that. But all right, so. So we’ve gotten a sense of William’s personal journey in terms of continual unfoldment, and exploration and deepening and, you know, greater and greater clarity. So if you were to summarize, let’s say you’re on a plane flight with somebody, and you had an hour or so not that we have to go on nonstop for an hour about it, but you had a good bit of time to really explain to them, what he taught, how would you summarize his teaching?
Sandy Jones: For me, he taught the very basic premise, and if you get this, if you really trust this, it’s true. But his basic premise is that God is all there is there’s nothing else. This is this experience we’re living is the light and presence of God. And we are the expression of this infinite presence. And to be able to really see that is to trust, to trust to walk in it, to see if it’s real, and then to walk in this. And to realize it is true. This is this is this is it. I mean, it’s exactly what it that’s all there is to it. It’s that simple and not pure, really.
Rick Archer: So most of the people who are listening to this will agree with that statement that God is all there is as long as we understand what we mean by God and most people listening this program will not think of God as some old dude in the sky with the all pervading intelligence in every level of creation governing things. And so, but it’s one thing to hear a statement like that, and another thing altogether, perhaps for it to become a living reality that one sort of lives and breathes 24/7 So, you know, many philosophers and others have we’ve all read spiritual books with that kind of concept presented. So how does how do we go from appreciating the concept to having it be kind of a living, breathing nitty gritty, you know, 24/7 experiential reality for us.
Sandy Jones: First, I would say you have to you have to be brave. You have to Don’t let go of it. It’s just like everybody else describes it’s exactly that you do have to like, uncover let go. Trust that this is true. I don’t know, I don’t know. See, that’s why I can’t. Why I keep saying I’m not a teacher, I can only tell what I have discovered, but, and live what I’ve discovered, I’m not even so sure if I can tell what I’ve discovered. I can live with, I’ve discovered, and I’m living what I’ve discovered. And I know it’s real. And I, I have been the joy of this wonder of this presence is here. And I would give that if I could. And that’s what Bill gave to me. And so I guess for me, it’s almost like, boy, he wrote all those books page after page. If it did it for me, and maybe this is this is why I out here in these days is if he did it for me. And he did his his words eventually took a long time. But eventually, they soaked in soaked in, I got a little here, it got a little there, you still have to go on your journey, you have to go on your own heart felt listening to yourself and not to anyone else. You have to trust what your self is telling you. You have to trust your own words, you have to trust, it all comes back to you. And and so to say, What did Bill say? What he said was for me to do it myself, for me that I had it that it’s in me that I can do it, that it isn’t in him that it’s mine. And it’s in my heart and it’s always there. And I was given this since time began. And so I start going okay, okay, I can do this. And and I think that’s more of his message than anything else. Even though he’s written these three books that are profound. Those books, all they did was they kept bringing me back to me. They didn’t take me anywhere else. But back to me. And I think that may be where the message really is.
Rick Archer: So I’m getting two things here. One is, Bill spent a couple of weeks sitting at Ramana Maharshi his feet. Rama Rama didn’t say a word at the end. He said you’ve learned a lot and Bill went on his way. So obviously, we don’t maybe he didn’t use the word transmission. But if Ramana had any effect on him, and I’m sure he had a profound effect. It was at a level beyond words there was there was some transmission or resonance, or entrainment or whatever we’re
Sandy Jones: Oh, yeah, that’s, that’s Bill’s word. Thank you. To you that word. Yeah, that’s
Rick Archer: a good word. Yeah. And train, it means like, two, two frequencies kind of come in, like a laser light, you know, ordinary light, it’s all in coherent, you have all the wavelengths going every which way. But in the laser light, all the photons line up synchronously, and they become entrained. And even if a small percentage of the photons begin to do that, all the rest of the photons kind of join in and follow suit, and you have like one big beam of light that acts like a single photon. So so there’s this entrainment principle when you sit at the feet of somebody like Ramana and Ramana. And so that was major for Bill. And then for you, obviously, you immerse yourself in Bill’s books and read them over and over again. And but and you had conversations with Bill and Eaton not emails in those days, but letters with Bill, but you also got together with Bill, so you actually had time spent time with a guy who had spent a couple of weeks with Ramana and it seems to me that for you, perhaps even also, the entrainment principle was more significant than all the words, but I’m going a little long here but also I would say that the words were very important because you have to remove doubts you have to sort of gain self self confidence and build did that with you like layer after layer after layer and, and instilled in you over time, the confidence to kind of stand on your own two feet and live this?
Sandy Jones: Thank you. Beautiful. Exactly. Going back to that entrainment idea to he does tell a story. He did a talk his last talk. It was held in white in white Georgia, and it was a weekend and he talks about entrainment and he uses rather than your description, but I must say he loved quantum physics loved it. His last book is has a lot of the quantum physics in it. So if you’d like quantum physics for you to love his last book, which even the last book was the child within us lives, a synthesis of science, religion and metaphysics. So that was, that’s very good. That one just that one blew my mind. That one was the one that took me took me there. Took me a steal again, I must say, it took me a long time I first I read that book, and I just said, What is he writing about? He’s completely gone off from his absoluteness you know, his, his. There’s only one you know, and then what is this child? What are we doing here? But I knew I knew that I trusted him. I knew he knew something I didn’t know. And so I kept going with it. And he said, he told me keep going, you’re gonna get there keep going. This is it. I’m not. If you’ve trusted me this for believe me. And anyway, that’s his last book. But he talked about entrainment he was saying that. And I don’t he he said that if you put all these pendulum swinging clocks in one room, that eventually they’ll all start swinging together. Yeah, I was going Wow, is that magical?
Rick Archer: There are a lot of examples of that
Sandy Jones: description of it.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I mean, in nunneries, all the women eventually begin to have their menstrual cycle, right sync with one another, you know, there’s all kinds of examples. Yeah.
Sandy Jones: So he loved that. That was his word entrainment. So I think he just spoke to you there. He he’s there with you. Yeah. And, anyway, I mean, he loves this. I can feel him he used to just like he could go, Oh, I’m clapping my hands. Clap his hands like a little boy. And just, he had such a little boy to him. I just loved it. You know, and I love that spark of I mean, after all he’d been through amazing that this man was so delightful.
Rick Archer: Yeah, really. I mean, considering all the brutal and he also went to the Korean War. I mean, he could have been, could have ended up a basket case in a VA hospital or something. Oh, hope that wasn’t politically incorrect. I get I get blasted for saying things like it could have been, it could have turned out very differently.
Sandy Jones: Yeah. But what what happened was after the bakery, he got called, I don’t know, when Korean War started. We are 50 to 50. Somewhere in that range. He had to go back in and he went into the Korean War. He doesn’t talk about that one as much. But he said that was even worse than being in China. But this time, he knew who he was. And he did it. And he walked it. He that was his confirmation of that he had had found and was living this, this new light that was coming to him. And so do going into battle again, was his living proof that he was I just I’m hearing the word immune. But you
Rick Archer: know, establishing equanimity, you know the story of the Bhagavad Gita don’t you that our Juna, the great warrior, didn’t want to fight the battle. And he said, I’m just not going to do it. And he sat down in his chariot. And then his charioteer happened to be Lord Krishna said, Well, you have to, but first, get established in Bing, you know, get established in the self, then perform action and you won’t, you won’t be making mistakes, and you won’t be overshadowed or overwhelmed by the experience, you’ll be established in equanimity, in the midst of all the intense diversity that you’re about to experience.
Sandy Jones: Wow, yes, that’s exactly what it was like for him on the second the second time, he had to go to war. And I guess in some ways, it was kind of a beautiful experience, because he realized how much he understood now and how it had transformed him. I mean, he had been transformed. So he was capable of going through that and doing whatever he had to do there and yeah, Korean War, and then he came home and that’s when he really started writing his books. And yeah, so
Rick Archer: Alright, so I had been asking you about to summarize his teaching. And you said one major thing is just that God is all and all this within God. There’s a friend of mine, Francis Bennett, who likes to say his little slogan on his Facebook page or something is like, every God is in everything and everything is within goddess. So it’s like this totality kind of statement. So that’s a good starting place. Now. What are some other like tidbits and details and facets of what each On.
Sandy Jones: Well, he did beat long before all the non duality books started coming out, you know, in the last 1015 years, whatever it’s been and gotten very popular. He was writing, you read the beginning of his, of his book, A Guide to awareness and tranquillity. And he starts right off with, there’s only now and you just go, well, his guy was writing about, there’s only now you know, and he writes it so beautifully and makes it so available. And this is why I love his work is because, and this many people have told me this. What happens when you read his work is you will be able to understand all the other guys who have come along behind him, he makes it possible to understand everybody else’s stuff. Because something about the way Bill writes, and the way he makes these statements about here and now and the presence and the allness. And the oneness, you begin to understand this all inclusive, there’s no more there isn’t a battle with an ego, there isn’t a battle with trying to get rid of something, there’s not this annihilation thing that the very absolute guys tend to, you know, there’s always this struggle, there’s always this almost, almost an anger and bitterness about that there’s this terrible part of us that stands in the way of the truth. And I’m just going Yeah, Old Time Religion, you know, if you’re still carrying around that there’s the sinner standing in your way. And, and Bill’s messages, this, the truth is, is that you are already this holy beauty, this holy light of this presence. And it include for me, and, and, and this is the only way I can kind of get into bills work is to say how it how it’s understood for me. But for me, it was the realization that there wasn’t any thing standing in my way. And, and I just thought, wow, this is amazing that they use this word ego, as if it’s like, some, something real and I go, it you shouldn’t even be using the word because it like it, it it, you start believing there’s something there that is connected to this word, and I’m going the if there’s an ego, it’s, it’s the all encompassing identity that we are, it’s the identity that makes us aware of knowing I’m here, it’s my wholeness, it’s the it’s the it’s the sense of knowing I am and and I don’t want to even use the word ego in a negative sense anymore. It’s like to me I want to use the word ego is the joy that leads me. And if it if it did anything, if there was something in me, that caused me anguish, it caused it so that I would walk through the doors so that I would search so that I would go so that I wouldn’t just accept the world as a as an objective place, that I would go Wait, what is this world about? Who am I you know, it’s like the ego was a beautiful part of me it was it was holding me and walking with me and saying, look, it isn’t the way you think it is. And and so there’s a whole combination of a lot of things but but that was part of it for me was that he explained ego in a way that made it so that it wasn’t something I had to get rid of. It was something I had to understand. And there’s a difference there,
Rick Archer: my understanding of ego and let you can tell me how well this jives with with Bill’s understanding or teaching of it is that it’s a it’s a necessary faculty without which we wouldn’t be able to function in the world we wouldn’t know how to put food in our mouths we there’d be no distinction between ourselves and a fire or rock or anything else. And on some level there is no distinction but there needs to be another level some distinction in order for us to function and but that functioning faculty tends to become our the be all and end all for many people they think well That’s all I am is this thing. And so the to, to the people who say, there is no self, I am not a person, I would say, sure you’re a person, you just not only a person, you know this, there’s probably fundamentally primarily and predominantly you are much more than just a person, but you’re also a person, otherwise you couldn’t be talking to me.
Sandy Jones: Exactly. And that’s when the beauty starts to happen. And that’s what his third book is about, is that there is this third position. And it’s kind of it’s the understanding of myself, as both. And yet, I am, I am neither in a sense, I am beyond, beyond both. But I’m at that third place. And when I discovered that I said, Wait, this is this is what they’re talking about when they talk about the Holy Trinity. There’s three going on here. And with this discovery of what he calls the child, which is the original self, which is who you truly are. You get to see all of it at the same time. There’s no more. It’s this, it’s that and it’s this three become one, you can, and yet you can so what are the three, you’re referring Well, for me, it’s like he, he describes it in a way, it’s a little hard for me to, to put into words, but just on my own wording. For me, it’s like there’s this the third, the third point, it’s like a triangle. And so at the very peak of the triangle is the true identity, who you really are. And that encompasses the bottom of the triangle, which is I am Sandy in a body, who seems to have been born into this world and has a birthday and will go li be leaving this world someday. I am also along this linear line at the other end. The infinite all that is, but I’m more than that I am those two things combined, which also makes like an alchemy. Of those two things become a third which is greater than both?
Rick Archer: Absolutely. This is the way that Vedanta describes Brahma. And actually, there’s a beautiful verse in one of the apana shots, which goes like, two birds sit on the self, same tree, one eats of the fruit and the other does not. And it sort of describes the situation of our being an individual functioning in the world. And yet being something which does not partake of experience, which is beyond the realm of experience, which is silent, absolutely nothing going on there. And yet the two together, they become a wholeness, that’s great, that’s greater than the sum of their parts. And that’s what Brahman is supposed to be when they speak of Brahman consciousness. It’s the knower creates Brahman, the Absolute alone would be nothing bit flat, no experience, no or Yeah, the knower creates Brahman creates the wholeness, that’s more than the sum of absolute and relative put together.
Sandy Jones: That’s it. That’s it, then you become the Knower. And that’s like, I can be confident, I can be whole. I don’t have to take any of this baloney. I can see it all. I got it. And you know, when somebody’s you know, way over here on this other extreme of there’s nothing, you just go, oh, boy, you haven’t seen houses one of the barriers. That’s just one bird, and then you get to have the two birds together. Exactly. That’s beautiful. Thank you. But that’s exactly what it is. And that’s what he’s writing about in this child book. And I know a lot of people don’t kind of don’t get attracted to this book, because they go the child, what a strange thing to be caught. You know, nobody wants to go under the child within his lives. It’s like, you know, and there was a point where I’d say and wonder if I should change the title to his book. And I felt him saying, no, no, he says, I want it that blatant that out there. Just let the people find it that are meant to find it, and they will find it. And
Rick Archer: they’re not going to change it to get rich and lose weight. Rachael Ray or something. And then they buy the book. Oh, what’s this?
Sandy Jones: I thought about it. But that’s it. And that’s what this child likeness is. It encompasses both of both ends and everything in between. And then you get to live the whole joy of living again. And that’s why for me When I finally discovered this, I went, Oh, this is being born again. I’m just going, I’ve been born again, I have come back to really who I was as a little girl. But this time I know what I have. And I know who I am. And there’s a difference because once you know, come full circle, yes. And then you get the joy of knowing. And it reminded me of like a little kid, mom’s watching her little kid tie, learn to tie her shoes, and Mom’s gone. Now let her do it herself. She’s got to do it as she’s gonna get it, she’s gonna get it. And then one day, the little girl, I learned to tie my shoe, look, Mommy, look mommy and learn to tie my shoe. It’s the knowing that you know, and then you’ve got it. And you can always forever tie your shoes. And I’m just like, Oh, yes, this is what he was talking about. And why it’s so childlike is because it’s just so, so spirited, and so alive. And so. And it is moment to moment, and it is living in the presence, but you don’t have to remember all that stuff. You don’t have to meditate, you don’t have to stand on your head, you are completely free. Being yourself. And in this inner self, that you are fully familiar with this, this self for me and yourself for you, is a self that you’re you go, Oh, I remember being that little boy. I can’t remember who he is. I love that kid. And so it’s like, it becomes this beautiful. Again, it is a combination. But it’s an all knowing combination. And in the sweetness of finding yourself and saying, Oh, I love that little girl. I remember her she was so fearless. And so spunky. And I, you come back to that. It’s there’s an original self, and each one of us has our very own. And I’m just going wow, God is good. I mean, this is great. This is like, I get to live my life in this joy of being full again, nice. Let’s take that
Rick Archer: seems to be this kind of a pendulum thing that happens in life, where, you know, we’re, we’re a baby, and we’re all being but we can’t function in the world. And then we get more and more and more into the world and learn how to function at it. But we get totally lost in it. And then we maybe get on the spiritual path. And we think, oh boy, the transcendent, we kind of go for that and wake up wake up to that. And many people kind of hide out there for a while and the sort of unmanifest and the world is an illusion, and I’m not a person and it’s all unreal, and to hell with the environment and whatever, you know, and but then the pendulum eventually needs to swing again and say Oh, this too, you know, like we’ve been saying that the to wholeness is the to fullness is you know that. There’s I won’t I won’t quote no do go oh, well, there’s this beautiful Upanishad ik first I hope I can do justice to it. It goes purnamadah purnamidam purnaat purnamudachyate De Pere purnaam adaya purnam eva avishshyate. And it it means what? What did that mean? It means this is full that is full taking fullness from fullness, fullness, remains and yes. So it’s like there’s a pendulum thing. And so so it kind of can go easy on the, you know, the world is an illusion crowd because their pendulum just hasn’t swung back yet to incorporate this as well.
Sandy Jones: Yes, that’s very true. And, and well, what Bill says in the child, which was really intriguing to me, and I had to finally fully understand it, but he would keep saying, once you discover this, you’ll be back in the world doing what you have to do. And I go, Ah, this is now I get it. And in many ways, that’s why I’m doing now what I have to do. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m writing my own book. That’s why I’m I mean, even for me to to attempt to getting on Facebook, I mean, I was not one of the first people out there, believe me, this was I haven’t been able to figure out all this stuff. But I’ve been doing bills books for about 15 years now. I
Rick Archer: have grandchildren, you need to get your grandchildren and
Sandy Jones: I have I just have grown up children but they’re good with computers and they’ve been they’ve been good to me. And at this point, they’re just laughing laughing at me going What the hell happened? It’s just like, God, just, I’m just going you know, take me I’m here for you. For the rest of my little bit of the journey I’ve got left I just want to give what I’ve got to give him and, and take what I got, I’m here for you. And that’s that’s the doing for me and everybody’s doing is going to be different once you figure this out once you discover your, your wholeness, you’re so able to just keep giving because it’s the source is endless and you have no fear. It’s like, Whoa, this is cool. So you could just start sharing this, this love this bounty of love, and in all kinds of ways in all beautiful ways.
Rick Archer: And the doing evolves, you know, we have different it does different dharmas at different stages of life, what I was doing 25 years ago, I thought I’d be doing for the rest of my life. Now I’m doing something quite different, although in some ways similar, and who knows what it’ll be 10 years from now. So, but there is a beautiful principle here, which is that, you know, a lot of people are struggling for what they should do in life, and what what what can I do that will be meaningful, and so on. But you know, it’s like that biblical verse, Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all else shall be added unto thee. If you if you kind of like get yourself established there, in that, then the all else will be added, in ways you might not have envisioned, you know, but that will be just perfect.
Sandy Jones: I never anticipated because I am if you can believe it, rather shy and private. And then to have this light go on that just says, Well, you gotta go out there, honey. And I just heard, okay. And it is, and it keeps evolving. That’s what’s so beautiful. It’s not like, I mean, don’t look at me and say, Oh, I’ve got it, I got something, I don’t have something in that sense that it’s the end of the road. It’s that I have discovered something that is like, the door opened. And now there’s this field of possibilities that I’m just like, wow, this is beautiful. Let me just go see where it goes. And I will, I’ll just watch and see it’s like, I feel like I’m riding a wave. It feels like I’m, I grew up at the beach. And some of my book has a little stories about that. But a lot of the analogy is about riding waves, is to love to body surf, and riding those beautiful waves and catching a wave and I just go wow, life is so and getting pummeled by the waves. And it’s like life is really we’re writing these wonderful ways. It’s always about writing to me, or it’s about riding on a back of a motorcycle and speeding through the hills or
Rick Archer: ski gear for 30 years and ask him we like
Sandy Jones: skiing, strong and agile and free and balanced, go for an unbalanced everything is in and out and analogy for this, this living it. And it doesn’t end. It’s just it keeps going and I keep learning. I keep seeing new insights and glimmers of the truth. But now it’s in a way that I’m rejoicing in every new thing that happens and comes to me and I I know that whatever is going to happen is is good. It that I know. And that’s it’s a beautiful, it’s a beautiful way to be able to live in this world. The child does that. I don’t know how but it does.
Rick Archer: You know, one cool skiing analogy that I just thought of is that when you’re skiing and you’re turning, and you kind of dive down the foul line, and Oh, definitely and, and that takes a certain kind of trust. But your skis come around, you know. And so there’s an allergy for living here where you, you know, you just sort of do it and all else follows.
Sandy Jones: Exactly. It’s exactly like the skiing straight down. And I remember, you know, when I was first learning to ski, and I finally had to let go and do that, and really just go right down the fall,
Rick Archer: because there’s a tendency to sit back and try to hold back. Yeah, you end up on your bike go
Sandy Jones: and you go forward into it. And you’re right, those skis just turn and you can just carve and then you got it, but it is you got to fall into it and let go and not be afraid. So all of that is yeah, all that is part of it. And our journeys are so a part of it. I mean, even speaking of how am I, I think part of writing this book that I wrote. I never thought that I would be writing like kind of my personal little story, because it just didn’t see my nature to do that. But at once I got the realization of what it was that I had to write. I started writing and I was just going to kind of write The song in my heart, let’s say, but the song kept going, taking me back to descriptions of my life. And I went, Wow, this is really interesting. I’ll just, I’ll just trust it, I’ll just do this. But then you realize that everything in everybody’s life has been. That’s what’s been teaching them. That’s what’s been their journey and their own way, and what a gift to share. What I’m sharing is that it’s our journey through life, that is the teacher. If you listen to it, if you watch everything about your life, it’s teaching you all the time and, and I ended up in some of the most remarkably beautiful places to live with a wonderful story. But it’s all of it was teaching me it wasn’t like, it was like my story is any different or special, I guess, is what I’m trying to say. It’s just that it’s my story.
Rick Archer: Sure. And there’s a fundamental kind of understanding here, which is, if we if we say that everything is teaching us, then the Dogon there’s a fundamental understanding that nature is intelligent that that things don’t happen just mechanically or arbitrarily. But you know, some people say the world The world is your guru that every little bug that flies across your path or leaf that falls or anything else is just a display of intelligence, and that the people circumstances experiences we encounter are not just happening capriciously, they’re happening to facilitate our growth and evolution.
Sandy Jones: And as I started writing my book that became so clear to me, I mean, if there’s anybody I wrote the book for it was me, because I went, well, that’s really interesting. Everything, the whole journey of my life was designed perfectly for me. I mean, anybody else’s will be designed perfectly for them, and you just go well, and even if it’s not in this lifetime, that they may be get it or you know, I mean, there’s a lot of people out there struggling with their life. If they don’t get it this lifetime, they’ll get it another lifetime. It’s it’s on its way. And this is just, you know, wherever they’re at is part of their journey, part of their unfolding. And it is, it’s, it’s, and it’s coming back to. It’s coming back to that we already it’s like, we already know what we know. But we just get to rediscover what we No, we didn’t even realize that we’d covered it up, I guess. And that journey through adulthood is very necessary. That journey of covering up that child like you were describing, you know, the baby doesn’t know who it is, or what’s going on the journey through growing up and losing that childlikeness that innocence, that pure state of awareness, let’s say is a part of a necessary part of it, because you have to like go through losing it. Because by the time you come back to realizing you are that pure awareness. Now you know what it is. So now you have understood it as something very important and essential, that’s different from the baby that started with that pure awareness. Now, it’s the knowing of that pure awareness. And that’s important, you have to know, if you if you don’t know what you know, it doesn’t reach that fullness.
Rick Archer: And you know, this whole Hide and Seek point that you just brought out, kind of reminds me of something, which is that, you know, they say man is made in the image of God. And if you think about it, the whole universe goes through a similar cycle. And we’re just kind of microcosmic examples of that. But there’s this whole, you know, explosion and proliferation of the universe, in formation of stars and creation of heavier elements and eventual formation of sentient beings and so on who and those sentient beings eventually come to, you know, the, through the instrument through those instruments of sentient beings. God sort of recognizes itself in a living sense, as a living in a living reality kind of way. Yeah. And so there’s this whole kind of hide and seek thing that seems to take place on a cosmic scale. Because in dumb matter, you know, just a rock, there isn’t. There isn’t the structure, the capacity to have that self recognition, the the instrument has to become much more sophisticated. And so in the course of our individual evolution, it almost seems like a similar pattern where we get totally lost. And then we come back to becoming found or be finding, in a way that is much more than where we started out.
Sandy Jones: Exactly. That’s exactly right. Yeah, it’s more than what we started with. And yet it is back to the beginning. It’s It’s an extraordinary journey. And
Rick Archer: I was that poet, Cummings, somebody else, but he said that the end of our seeking shall be to arrive at the place from whence we started and to know it, but know the place for the first time.
Sandy Jones: Oh, exactly. And it’s just like that. It’s like, you just go, wow. It’s like a whole new dimension. It’s like a whole new world. And yet, I know, I know myself, I’m back. That’s something that I know that it’s real. And it is a confusing, it isn’t an unreality. It isn’t an illusion. It isn’t. That’s the other thing is I would love to be able to share is that trying to call this world illusion is as if it as if we’re dreaming, or No, I don’t think that’s what all those teachers really meant. What I think they were trying to do is to describe the subject to view. It is all within awareness. It’s all light. It’s all like stuff of dream. They’re not saying it’s a dream. They’re saying it’s, it’s like in a dream where everything is yourself. But this is like, this is like a really hard thing to describe with words, because people cling to the word dream, and then they cling to the word illusion and ugly. And it’s, it’s, it’s like no, it’s real. It like like a prism on the wall is real, I can see it. It just doesn’t have any solidity to it. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s made of light, it’s made of something, it’s subjective. And, and yet, it’s objective to I mean, I’ll walk in here and this if you know anything, a you know, I can spill this and turn over the end, I can get hurt. And it’s objective to. So again, it’s back to that nothing is eliminated. Right? That’s what’s really beautiful, but it is understood.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And then the My Ma said, everyone is right from their own perspective. And, and Bob Dylan said, I’m right from my side, and you’re right from yours, or something like that. But it’s like, we’re all filters, you know. And there actually is no read out there or are hard or anything else. Those are just sort of ways that our, the apparatus of our nervous system interprets lightwaves and, and other things in order to make it a kind of an intelligible world that we can live in. So maybe in that sense, we can say the world is an illusion, because it’s not actually utterly what it appears to be to ordinary sensibly. But that’s not to say that it should be brushed off or dismissed or exactly valued or anything like that.
Sandy Jones: Exactly. And for me, that it is, let’s say, let’s use that word and illusion was so beautiful or light or something in in material. It’s like, wow, that’s where the magic is, to see that I can make something feel like it’s real, and that this world around me feels so, so solid. And what a profound beauty. God is, I mean, to to give us this to be able to enjoy and feel. And that was another thing. That was another thing that happened when I discovered this child. And as I say, it began to grow, it began to get more confident, I guess, is a way to describe. I began to realize that I was feeling way more like my senses have come alive. I have I have completely I mean, everything feels alive and and real now, which is interesting, because to call it an illusion is sort of like to think it isn’t there. And it did just the opposite. For me. It’s now like everything is so beautiful. You know, it’s like everything’s rich and the feelings and the taste and the sounds and the music and the and the people and the and the variety and individuality and the expressions and I just people come in my store and I just love every single one of them. I just like, wow, this is so much fun, and people will walk in. And it’s always like such a nice surprise to see who’s coming into my life today, you know, or who isn’t. And I’m just like, wow,
Rick Archer: that’s cool about your senses coming alive, you know, because that to mind, a way of understanding is a kind of a kind of a second stage, if you will, in the in the growth of consciousness, where initially, one might realize the Self is unmanifest pure consciousness or something, but without much impact, sensory experience, but then kind of living as that for a while this the senses do begin to appreciate more, because you know, you know who you are? How can you appreciate what anything else is, if you don’t know who you are? Who’s going to appreciate the rose, if I don’t even know who I am? What’s the what’s this thing, but once you know who you are, then then this, then you can begin to appreciate what everything else is. And that begins to grow by degrees and greater and greater, deeper, deeper, more and more refined. Until eventually, you know, you really kind of want to meet the artists that painted this beautiful picture. Yeah, so beyond that desire becomes significant.
Sandy Jones: And everything about what I sort of thought I was supposed to get rid of, is I’m gonna wait a minute, Howard didn’t have to get rid of my even my desire. Now I’m going like you just said the desire to see and to touch and to know, I’m like, wow, there is a desire that is so beautiful, and to create and to love and to, I’m going, I’m alive. Again, this really is being born again. I’m glad this is this is extraordinary. Except this time, I’m not afraid. It’s like it again. It’s like when I was a little kid, I wasn’t afraid of anything. I just really wasn’t. And I look back and I go, wow, this is really fun to be able to be living in this world and not be afraid of it and to feel it. I mean, now it’s like, now it’s so close. To me. It’s like the living presence as they talk about the living presence, I just go well, the living presence is just thundering through me now all the time, I feel this living presence. And, and it’s almost, it’s almost breathtaking. I’m just like, wow. And and that other thing that get we get stuck in. And I would just like to sort of put this in there is when you’re studying this sort of non duality thing. And they do the non, you know, don’t don’t label, I understand all that I went through it not to label things not to, you know, to try to see things as just one and a tree. If you tried it, if you don’t describe it, it’ll just be keep trying to make a tree just be without describing it. Trying to make now it’s true. Yeah, it cannot be just tree it is tree and you’re going and each tree and each leaf and each little bit of bark and the little bugs climbing up. And it’s just like, everything comes alive again. So that that thing about labels is it doesn’t matter what you call it, just label it, label it, that’s fine. I know what that’s a rose. And that’s a that’s a tree. And that’s, that’s Rick and that Sandy and that I know of this, it’s not a problem. It’s not a problem. Exactly. It’s a joy. It’s a real joy,
Rick Archer: I thought of a metaphor as you’re speaking, you know, it’s the kind of the overarching principle would be that individual love is concentrated universal love. And I thought of the metaphor of magnifying glass, you know how and when you’re a kid, you take a magnifying glass and you can light a fire with it by holding it a certain way and letting the sun shine through it. So this the sunlight gets kind of focused or concentrated by the magnifying glass and you can light a fire. So like that it’s like we’re like a focal point. So lenses are magnifying magnifying glasses through which individual, a universal love Universal Consciousness can focus and become even more concentrated and more appreciative than if it were to just remain in an abstract on manifests.
Sandy Jones: Exactly, exactly. And then you get the joy of actually falling in love again, you know, it’s like and finding somebody that you love and it’s a really fun thing and you get to enjoy your life without like you say making a problem. And then the joy of even personal love with another person is like wow, what a great fun and experience it’s like, this is what love is supposed to be, you know, instead of complications and, you know, it’s like you’ve just gone off the freedom and me gets to be expressed in a love for another what a what a gift, you know?
Rick Archer: Are you still married to the same person you’ve been married to for so many decades.
Sandy Jones: My husband, I was married to him for 30 years. He was a handsome, beautiful, I adored him. He adored me. We had these three kids together. We lived in Aspen, he owned a restaurant he was he was cool. He was I was in love with him all those years. And he when we moved to Ohio, he got himself. He used to be a racecar driver. He used to race with Charlie Hayes. So they knew each other. Oh, Charlie Hayes was when it was a is a non duality teacher. Okay. Anyway, who used to be a racecar driver anyway, I thought maybe you’d know him because of that. But anyway. Yeah. Anyway, when we moved to Ohio, he got himself three or four beautiful motorcycles because he loved race. He always loves speed and racing, and he got killed on a motorcycle wreck. Yeah, about it’s been 12 years. And I, it’s gonna be in my book about it. And I mean, I write about it. That was hard to do. But I love him, I love him, I will always love him. He’s, he’s in my heart forever. And, and he’s with me. And he’s watching all this and he just going, Hey, girl, there’s the girl, I’m married, you know, and I just go this is really sweet. But it was, you know, it took me a long time to recover. But also that was the point where I found this child and understood what Bill was talking about. I had to, I had no choice at that point, I had to live it or not. I mean, that I knew that was that I had to live what I had been studying all those years, I had to walk it. And I did. And that’s where the child was discovered that the true, the true wholeness of myself, and how it brought me to be where I am now. And yeah, you
Rick Archer: still wear a wedding ring. Did you remarry? Or is that just,
Sandy Jones: I just keep I just like all my diamonds.
Rick Archer: Okay, well, I just mentioned because you were talking about falling in love, like a new fresh thing or something?
Sandy Jones: I have I have a sweet guy just got somebody sweet in my life. But that was very recent. And I don’t know where it’s going. It isn’t any it isn’t. It isn’t anything, but I mean, it is. But I’m just saying, I’m just writing this whole thing like a joyful wave and just going wow, love is really fun at this, you know, getting to come back and do this again. And as I say, being born again is like it really is. I’m just going and and this, this child likeness really transformed me. Yeah. I mean, I, I even just my whole life, it’s like I can I know that something happened because I’m a different person. Even though it’s a familiar person to me, it’s, it’s what people would have known. Me and see me now they’d be going Wait, who are you? Anyway,
Rick Archer: so is there anything? What else is in your book that you want to give us a sneak preview of that? Because yes, you’re still writing it? Right. So any other tidbits in there, it’s actually
Sandy Jones: done and it’s in the editor more when I’m so I, I’m gonna do it. I’m just gonna put it out there. And you know, I don’t have any idea if anybody’s gonna, what they’re gonna think. But it’s just putting my heart out there. And it seems like it’s it’s been it’s, I’ve been called to do it, you know?
Rick Archer: Do you have some kind of an email list on your website that people can sign up for? So that if your book isn’t ready now, which it isn’t, but they could sign up, and you’ll notify them when it becomes ready?
Sandy Jones: I don’t. But that’s a good idea.
Rick Archer: Yeah you should try to set that up in the next few days. Because I’ll be putting this to do. But at least you have an email address that people can send can contact you through right or no,
Sandy Jones: he Yes. On my website. I have a contact, right. Yeah. All right.
Rick Archer: So when I put this interview up, I’ll Oh, you link your website and people can go to that contact page and say, Please notify me when your book comes out or something.
Sandy Jones: Right. Exactly. Yes. And it shouldn’t be. I think it’s going to be out in March so it shouldn’t be too long. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Rick Archer: But usually with these interview was the big flood of views comes in the beginning and then it kind of
Sandy Jones: bad my book wasn’t ready but it wasn’t but hey, maybe I get to combat
Rick Archer: a lot of demand for that. Oh, sales girl so what else you want to tell us more or less in conclusion you know about yourself about Samuel anything about William rather, anything we kind of haven’t covered? That’s kind of a sweet thing that you want people to know you want to leave them with?
Sandy Jones: Boy, I don’t know. Do you want me to read some? Oh, I
Rick Archer: was gonna read some little passage. Yeah, that you want to
Sandy Jones: read you something from Bill. Okay, this was very good. Was this not too long? I don’t think it’ll be too long. Let’s try this. If I can read, let’s see. The Oh, here it is. The receptive heart intuits a divine supersensible inversion of things. That’s that I guess I just wanted to mention that I won’t read the whole thing. Nevermind.
Rick Archer: That so far was good. To hear it. So far. So good. It was nice. Okay. sensitive heart and two, it’s a divine version of things
Sandy Jones: version of things. Plotinus and Eckhart called it. Meister Eckhart called it called it just that the divine inversion. It is the preface to the tangible world. And it is very difficult to either write or speak of because it has no recognizable frame of reference. Whatever has been said, of it sounds mystical and arcane until we listen to our own heart in this matter, then it is for each of us sublimely simple, a strange excitement and a deep joy. It is the goal of all honest disciplines. But the most distant and undeliverable dream of a charlatan, which I love that because he’s saying, you know, you can’t really find it until you really are honest and pure. And I just think, isn’t that beautiful? That people who would want to use it won’t be able to, because it can’t be used. You can’t get there. You can’t know it until there’s this purity and honest honesty in your own heart, and that you’ll know yourself that’s only between you and God.
Rick Archer: Except the little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. You know? Yeah. To me, that passage meant that especially the word inversion, that there’s an inner treasure, you know, and because inversion means, you know, to turn inward. You know, that and that inner treasure, that treasure lies within us. But there has to be a certain innocence, certain purity, you know, certain sincerity certain bravery, as you were saying earlier, to, you know, really take that journey.
Sandy Jones: Yeah, yeah, does, but it happens. And it will, you know, you just got to keep trusting your own heart and trusting yourself and trusting those glimmers of insight that you get. And it’s, it’s really a matter of listening to yourself rather than it is to anybody else. And if you can, if you hear what they’re saying, Keep reinterpreting it for you. You know, don’t just accept those words and think you know, what they’re saying, but keep, keep working with it. And, and every new level, you come up the mountain, you’ll see the same view, but you’ll see it in a new light every time and we’ve all had those experiences. We all know this film. And one thing
Rick Archer: leads to the next doesn’t it? Exactly. It really doesn’t milestone to the single stuff. Bakley
Sandy Jones: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I think that’s an important principle to remind people of every now and then that, you know, this is not an overnight process, necessarily. It’s a lifelong process. You know, there are people who say, Well, you know, reality is here now, why, why chase the dangling carrot for years and years when you can just be that now. And that’s true. Because, you know, now is now but there’s also that as we’ve been discussing this ongoing unfoldment No, so it’s kind of one of these paradoxical, both end kind of things.
Sandy Jones: Yeah. And that’s been the other beauty about this is that now I realize the ability to see it all at once, all at the same time to understand that yes, there is this journey. Yes, there is time. Yes, it does. Go Row, yes, it needs to be unwound and untangled every single truth that you’ve ever heard is true. And yet, there is this wholeness, that includes it all. And that goes back to this child likeness that can, that can see and be and live all of it at the same time. And that is what I am just so astounded by is that I don’t have to take either side, I don’t have to say it’s no, it’s no longer a paradox. It’s like it completely in includes the whole thing. And I can see, I can see it all. And, and, and love it all. And that’s, that’s been divine.
Rick Archer: And Nisargadatta said that something like the symptoms or indications of spiritual maturity, or the ability to embrace paradox and ambiguity. And so paradox doesn’t necessarily mean either or it means that it means the embracing of things, which others might see as having to be one or the other. But you’re right, but you know, spirit, spiritually mature person can wrap her arms around both of them. And they get along,
Sandy Jones: they get along beautifully. And it’s like, wow, this is, this is really amazing, you know, and, and for me, all I want to do is just, I keep thinking, I just want to share my joy. I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know how I don’t want to teach. I know that Bill has written everything that you could possibly need, because I got here, and I’m still going and I don’t mean to imply there’s an end of this, but I but I don’t Okay, this opened the door. And, and so it’s like I, I want to just I want to just share that. There, there really is, there really is a joy, there really is a freedom. I mean, it’s real. And you just go okay, I, what else can I do? I just got to just give my heart to my world. And that’s what I’m here for.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I was listening to a talk yesterday by my friend Gary Weber, whom I interviewed a couple years ago, and someone asked him, you know, about the value of this, and he said, you know, said, whatever it takes go for it. He said, I wouldn’t trade this for the world. You know, and if I had to somehow snap back to where I was before this dawn, it was kind of unbearably agonizing. So whatever it takes, it’s truly
Sandy Jones: truly Yeah, yeah. Fortunately, I don’t think we can snap back. Like, there’s another dimension. I just went, Whoa, I just, it’s slight, it’s the slightest I keep going. This was just a nanosecond of another dimension. But I’m in another dimension. I’m just going whoa, this is cool. But it isn’t like weird. It’s like, beautiful. You’re just going it’s the whole dimension. It’s like now it doesn’t have just a part of this or that. It’s it’s like this is this is all this and heaven too. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Rick Archer: And one thing I want to say about Williams books, I have a couple of them here Oh, is that they’re they’re like, this does enemy sound crew, but they’re like, you could take them as good toilet reading, because they’re all these little nuggets, you know, like a paragraph here and a paragraph there. And there’s hardly anything that’s more than a page long that doesn’t stand on its own as a nice little self contained passage. So if you know, people, it’s good to know because some people don’t like to read big long Tomes, you know, and these are all kind of laid out in little bite sized pieces.
Sandy Jones: Right he and and the way he writes in those first two books will trigger I mean, they will pour over you so that while you’re sitting there, you will go, Oh my gosh, I feel it. I can feel this, what he’s talking about. I can feel what all these other guys are describing as awareness. He kind of has a way of actually bringing you there. And I don’t know how he does that. But he he’s done it with a lot of people. So I know it wasn’t just me. And it’s such a gift to China to kind of get to realize what they’re talking about when they talk about awareness because I see so much confusion about what awareness means, you know, and he has a way of bringing it so that just going oh, it’s just this we are awareness. I am alive. I know. I know. Am I this is awareness. It’s nothing out there. It’s nothing distant. It is what I am. And somehow you just feel it’s it’s sort of grace here. And it’s really a nice, nice thing. Cool.
Rick Archer: Well, some people love the fact that these interviews are really long and other people don’t like it. They just do it in an hour. But I like to go on with people for some time, and then really kind of cover it thoroughly. But we probably wrapped we probably done justice to him.
Sandy Jones: Alright? I think so. Yes. Thank you.
Rick Archer: Yeah. But so let’s have like a few concluding remarks. I’ve been speaking with Sandy Jones, who is the literary executor for Williams, Samuel. And he’s, I’ll have a page up on bat batgap.com Bat gap, as I always do, for this particular interview, and it will have little bios of Sandy and William, and also links to Williams books. And also when Sandy’s book gets published, I’ll link to that. And incidentally, you know, you mentioned that you have like a whole box full of his writings that haven’t Yeah. Are they just handwritten? Are they typed? Or what?
Sandy Jones: Most of them typed, some of them handwritten.
Rick Archer: Get them scanned? I mean, what if there were a fire or something? backed up and
Sandy Jones: I have to do that. You’re absolutely right. Yeah. I don’t want to lose those treasures. But I will do I’ll do that. Thank you. They’re,
Rick Archer: they’re kind of you can buy a scanner and do it yourself. Are there scanning services that will do it for you?
Sandy Jones: Yeah, sounds good. I’ll do that. I did want to someday maybe make a book out of them. I’m not sure. But anyway, I just haven’t ever gotten to it. But I’ll do I’ll be sure to do that. Okay, good.
Rick Archer: So back to my conclusion. So this is a an ongoing series. And if you’ve enjoyed this interview, and you want to check out others, go to bat gap.com. Explore the menus. There you’ll see the past interviews, categorized in various ways. You’ll see upcoming interviews listed. There’s a Donate button, as I mentioned in the beginning, which we depend upon people clicking. There is a place to sign up to be notified by email each time a new interview is posted, which means you’ll get about one email a week. And a bunch of other things just explore the menus and you’ll see what’s there. So those Thanks, Sandy.
Sandy Jones: Hey, thank you, Rick. I’m so it was just beautiful that I got to do this. I appreciate it very much. Yeah. Thank you.
Rick Archer: Yeah, thanks to those who have been listening or watching and we will see you next week.