Ted Zeff (Dayalu) on Amma Interview

Summary

Ted Zeff describes Amma as a spiritual teacher whose hugs, presence, and service are intended to awaken the Divine within people. The discussion explores the Divine Mother, ego-transcendence, selfless service, ashram life, devotion, and the role of a genuine guru.

Questions This Interview Explores

• What is the purpose of receiving darshan from a spiritual teacher?
• What does the Divine Mother or Divine Feminine mean in spiritual practice?
• How can selfless service and devotion help dissolve the ego?
• Is it necessary to have a spiritual teacher to reach enlightenment?
• How can seekers recognize a trustworthy guru?

Key takeaways

• Darshan is understood as a way of awakening the Divine within each person.
• Amma accepts people of all faiths and encourages them to deepen their own spiritual path.
• Selfless service helps loosen attachment to the ego and personal desires.
• Devotion and heartfelt longing can be more accessible than purely intellectual spiritual practice.
• Living in an ashram can gradually smooth personal tensions and attachments.
• A genuine teacher guides people toward spiritual growth rather than personal power or gain.
• Amma's adaptability reflects an ability to meet each person according to their immediate needs.

Transcript

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually awakening people. I’ve done over 365 of them now, and if this is new to you, then go to batgap.com—B-A-T-G-A-P—and look under the Past Interviews menu, where you’ll find them all organized and categorized in various ways. If this is not new to you, you’re probably tired of hearing me say that. I say it every week.

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❤️ Meeting Amma

You may have noticed in my interviews that there’s a little picture of a woman with a garland around her neck sitting over my right shoulder, and that’s Amma. Today’s guest is going to talk about Amma with me, and I’ll have him explain who she is. But I just want to say that my wife, Irene, and I have been seeing Amma since 1999 and have benefited tremendously from our association with her. She really has had a profound effect on our lives.

So I don’t think I’ve mentioned her in various interviews, but we’ve never really done an interview about her. That’s what today’s interview is going to be about. Today’s guest, Ted Zeff, is highly qualified to tell us about Amma because he’s written three books about her. I was just reading the third, entitled Amma: Inspiring Experiences with the Divine Mother. Ted lived in Amma’s ashram in San Ramon, California, for about 25 years and has traveled all over the world with her. I think it was like—what?

Ted: 1988.

Rick: 1988. How did you meet her, and who is she?

Ted: Well, a friend of mine said, “Oh, there’s a spiritual teacher coming from India,” and at that time in my life I was trying to meet all sorts of spiritual teachers. I just thought this was another teacher from India. I didn’t realize she’s really the incarnation of the Divine Mother.

I remember I wanted to ask her a question because I was asking questions to all these spiritual teachers. This was in San Francisco. There were very small programs in those days. The program had maybe 75 people there; nobody knew about Amma.

I went because I wanted to ask a question. They said, “Well, you can only ask her a question in the mornings.” I said, “Well, never mind. I won’t come back. I won’t see her in the morning.”

So I went up to get darshan, which is the hug—the famous hug that Amma has given to over 30 million people. I got the hug, and then I was getting up to leave when the Swami sitting next to her—this is called Big Swamiji—said, “Oh, wait a minute, come back.” Amma said, “You have a question?”

So I sat down and started asking her some spiritual questions about how to concentrate when I meditate. I thought, “Wow, she could read my mind,” and she gave these amazing, eloquent answers. So I came back the next day, and I’ve stayed with her since 1988.

A lot of people go see Amma and don’t have a clue who she is. They think, “Oh, she seems like a nice lady dressed in white who’s hugging some people.” But no one in a human body—the natural human body—could do what she does. Try having, even for two hours, one person after another falling on you, crying on you, and holding them one after another. A human couldn’t do that.

On Devi Bhava, which she does all night long, it starts with a puja or ceremony around seven o’clock at night. Then she starts the darshan, which is hugging people, at around 8:30, and she’ll go on. I just noticed today that she’s in Paris, and Paris has huge programs. It ended at—I imagine she comes out at 7 and goes on until 7, without drinking anything, going to the bathroom, or eating anything.

She said once that if her body were made out of steel, it would have broken a long time ago.

So that alone is a miracle: that she can sit there for so many hours, not only hugging one person after another, but while she’s doing that, she’s running a hundred different, or more than a hundred different, charities. They’ll put a cell phone next to her ear, and she’ll direct people about how to help the poor in India, including through the hospital she’s created and the orphanages.

It’s just absolutely mind-boggling. In the meantime, there’s also a question line where people are going up trying to ask her questions. So she’s the ultimate multitasker.

Rick: Yeah, she really is. Incidentally, I forgot to mention at the beginning that your spiritual name, which Amma gave you, is Dayalu, so some of your friends might know you as Dayalu. Maybe I’ll call you Ted for the sake of convenience during the interview, or Dayalu. I’ll go back and forth.

You mentioned several things during that. I just want to second the sentiment that you expressed, which is that the longer you watch Amma, even in a single session, the more your jaw drops because you begin to realize that you’re seeing something quite extraordinary—something you couldn’t imagine yourself being able to do—and then she goes on hour after hour.

I also just want to add that when I first heard about Amma and the hug thing, I thought, “Oh, that’s cute, kind of touchy-feely or something.” There was that guy Leo Buscaglia who was really into hugging people, and I thought it was really sweet. I didn’t have a sense of the depth of it until I went and saw Amma and had that experience.

Actually, her putting her arms around you and whispering something in your ear is more like an external vehicle for something that’s happening very profoundly on a deep level. You feel like she’s really connecting with you at the core of your being and pushing some buttons there, which are going to change the course of your life in some ways. I don’t know exactly what she’s doing, but maybe you can elaborate.

There’s a sense of a deep communion or connection or merging of souls or something, and you feel—at least I always feel—highly uplifted by the experience, profoundly so. I really feel like it’s had a cumulative effect over the years that has accelerated and safeguarded the course of my spiritual evolution. Maybe you could elaborate on some of that.

Ted: Well, my feeling is that when she touches people, she’s awakening the Divine within them. Whether you go back to see her another time, become a devotee and see her regularly, do the meditation and the archana—which is the repetition of the names of Amma and the Divine Mother—or don’t do anything, she’s put a little spark of the Divine in your soul that will manifest, if not in this lifetime, in a future incarnation, if you have the belief that many people do, especially in the Hindu and Buddhist religions, that there’s more than one incarnation.

My feeling also is that a lot of times when you’re with her, there’s a lot of chaos around and so many thousands of people coming there. In Europe, instead of just a few thousand, like in America, she’ll have 10,000 or 15,000 people. In India, she’ll have up to 75,000 or 100,000. It’s just mind-boggling.

But what she’s doing—her whole purpose—is awakening that Divinity within you, so that you will get to a place where you realize the temporariness of this incarnation and try to focus on developing your oneness with God, in whatever form that is.

She doesn’t try to change anyone. She has Buddhist monks, Catholic nuns, and people from every religion come to see her, and yet she’s accepting everyone where they’re at. She’s trying to help them go deeper into their own religion, their own sense of the Divine within them.

One of the techniques is kind of called “rocks in a tumbler.” If you shake the rocks up enough, eventually the sharp edges will smooth out and become smooth. I can absolutely say, after living 20 years in her ashram, that it works.

I just think of how I was when I first met her. Not that I’m mature by any means, but the level of immaturity and the attachments I had to things on a worldly level—whether they were physical objects or connections with people—were profound. “Mine, mine. I wanted this; I wanted that.”

I’m just noticing in my old age now, after living there for 20 years, that I’m very, very detached from the earthly plane in terms of wanting anything. Not that I don’t get upset over things sometimes, but there’s been a profound effect not only on me, but on every person I’ve seen who has lived in her ashram.

The big one, of course, is Amritapuri in India, in the state of Kerala in South India, where there are thousands and thousands of permanent residents, or people who live in her ashram. She has ashrams in Europe—in Paris and Barcelona—and there’s a new one in Holland. In the United States, there are more and more ashrams.

I lived last year at the Chicago ashram, which is huge. It’s going to be really big. But by living in her ashram, some profound change happens for people in terms of letting go of the ego and opening to God. It’s just amazing.

Rick: Yeah, it is. I haven’t lived in her ashram, although I’ve lived in other ashrams, but there’s definitely that. Even seeing her regularly—since many people listening aren’t about to move to one of her ashrams just like that—coming and seeing her once or twice a year, if you can, can have a profound influence.

If you are interested in the idea of ashram life, Amma’s ashrams, wherever they exist, might be a good thing to consider. The rocks-in-the-tumbler principle means that you have a situation like that, where you have all these people living under rather intense conditions and having to work and do this and that. Personalities can rub up against each other, and yet there’s this higher principle at work where you’re all striving for God and so on.

You have to work things out and smooth things out and keep your eyes on that goal. You just can’t exist in an atmosphere like that indefinitely and still hang on to all your individual idiosyncrasies. They have to kind of smooth out over time.

Ted: By the way, I want to mention that for those who haven’t seen her, or those who have seen her, very shortly she’ll be in the United States. She comes twice a year to the U.S. She does a tour of about, I think, seven or eight cities in the United States and one in Canada in the summertime. Then, in November, she comes after her Europe tour, and she’ll be in the San Francisco Bay Area from November 25th to the 30th. She’ll be in Detroit, Michigan, I believe, from the 20th to the—find out more details about that.

Rick: So you mentioned earlier that Amma is the Divine Mother. We’ve heard—many people have heard—the term “the Divine Feminine,” but we can’t just presume that we all have the same understanding of what that means, the Divine Mother. What does it mean to you? What do you think?

Ted: Well, in most traditional Christianity or Judaism, it’s always, “O Father, Thou art Father,” you know, in the masculine. And I remember I had another spiritual teacher before Amma who talked about saying that the mother is closer than the father, and you can worship God as the mother. That’s what she said is needed now. So she came—you know, these great beings, like Krishna or Christ, come to the earth when it’s really needed—and they really need the feminine, the feminine form of God, now.

That’s what she’s here for, and that’s part of why she insists on hugging everyone, because we’re all longing for that connection with the mother, and in this case, the Divine Mother—the form of God that’s feminine. Yeah, I remember there’s some quote from Amma—you can probably do it better; I think I even saw it in your book—but I’ve heard it over the years, that everyone is craving love and never gets enough of it, or something like that, and that she just really wants to fulfill that need in people.

Ted: Yeah, not only fulfill that need in people, but, as I said earlier, spark that longing for more than just the earth plane—a connection with your biological relatives, your spouse, your children—but going to the highest level.

See, one of the reasons, when they ask Amma how she can do what she does, she says it’s like a river flowing. Her love is natural, a spontaneous outpouring of love. Where there’s love, there’s no effort, and that’s why she’s able to do what she’s doing for hour after hour. She sees everyone who comes up to her as her own self, because there’s no difference for her between anybody. There’s no ego there; there’s no separation.

Where there’s love, there’s no effort.

What causes all the pain is the ego—the sense that it’s “I,” “mine,” “this is mine,” and “I’m separate.” But Amma is egoless and sees herself in all beings. She always says we can’t get to the feeling of that divine connection, that bliss of God, if we think we’re separate and we think we have an ego.

So that’s why breaking down the ego, helping us let go of it, and becoming more detached are so important. One of the main ways in Amma’s teachings is through selfless service, or seva—serving suffering humanity in whatever way possible. She also emphasizes that it’s easier in this day and age to have bhakti yoga, which is opening your heart. So many of the songs, the bhajans, the singing, are about just opening your heart to God, to the Divine Mother, and saying, “Where are you?”—that longing.

That’s rather than jnana, which is more about wisdom. Jnana is important, but a lot of people can get stuck in thinking. So that’s why a lot of the emphasis is on selfless service, or seva, and bhakti yoga.

Rick: It’s interesting to note that when Amma comes into the hall every time, the first thing she does is bow to the audience, with her head to the floor. So there’s this mutual sort of respect that she illustrates by doing that. It’s not like she’s placing herself above everyone. There’s a sort of recognition of them. To me, that symbolizes a recognition of our mutual unity and respect for one another.

She’ll also say, when they ask her, “People say you’re God in the body,” and she’ll just start laughing. Whenever she does anything, she’s a hundred percent laughing, saying, “I’m a crazy girl.”

And another thing, if you haven’t met Amma yet, you’re probably wondering: There are so many of these gurus who will charge, like, $10,000, and in two weekends you’ll be enlightened, and they charge for every program. Another thing that shows you why she’s the real McCoy, so to speak, is that she doesn’t charge a cent for the public programs. She only charges a little bit for the retreats—a very reasonable fee to cover the cost of the food or paying for the hotel.

So, when they say, “Well, how much is it to see her?” it’s absolutely free. Even the people in India who are so poor, who are living on, I don’t know, like 500 rupees a day, will still give 20 or 30 rupees to Amma’s charities. Every single penny or rupee in India goes one hundred percent to help the poor. There’s no administration because it’s all volunteers.

That’s why I basically donate money—the only charity right now is to Amma’s organization, the M.A. Math—because every cent that you give is going to help feed the poor, provide hospitals and health care, support orphanages, and fund all of her multitude of charities.

Rick: Yeah, there is a tremendous amount accomplished. If you look on her website, there’s a whole section itemizing all the things that are done. For instance, after the big tsunami that happened there about ten years ago or so, there was this huge drive to build homes for the people whose homes had been destroyed. I don’t know how many tens of thousands of homes were built, and that’s just one example. There are a whole lot of other things.

You know, this point about Amma not getting tired because she’s kind of one with everyone, or something— I was standing near her couch one time, and a reporter was interviewing her and asking her how she managed to do this without getting tired. She said, “Well, you know, if you work in a factory, you get tired and you want to punch the clock and go home. But if you own the factory, you just have a lot of energy; you can just keep going.” She said, “This is my factory.”

I’m just kind of like—I don’t even have to elaborate. You can get the feeling of what she was doing there with all these people. She felt like it was—yeah, I won’t even elaborate. Go ahead. Let’s get into some inspiring stories. There are a lot of interesting stories in your book, and if you want, we could use your table of contents as a guide for those stories, or else you can just come out with anything that occurs to you as we go along.

For instance, the first chapter is entitled “The Omniscient Guru,” and maybe it would be useful to address, just for a second, the whole notion of gurus, because there have been some gurus who have kind of given the word a bad name, and a lot of people are leery of the whole notion of associating with a guru. What would you say to dispel those doubts? Then maybe we can get into some interesting little anecdotes that you write about.

Ted: Well, as I said earlier, if you’ve never met Amma or any spiritual teacher, you should be skeptical at first. But once you spend time with one and realize that this is an honest path—that the spiritual teacher is here to help suffering humanity, the way Christ was or the Buddha was—then my opinion is that, to see other spiritual teachers, is like digging holes in different places. You’ll never get to the water if you’re digging for water.

But, yeah, it isn’t good that there have been a lot of spiritual teachers, especially male spiritual teachers, who have had scandals, sex scandals, and so forth. But just because you go to one doctor who’s bad doesn’t mean you don’t go see another doctor who’s good. Likewise, you need to use your discrimination. But once you feel there’s a legitimate spiritual teacher who can help you on every level, especially with your spiritual growth, then it’s important to stick with that teacher and follow the teachings.

Rick: Yeah, and what do you feel about the idea of seeing a guru or teacher at all, as opposed to somehow doing it on your own? What does Amma have to say about that?

Ted: You know, I actually asked Amma a question once about all the sincere people who are trying to do good in the world who don’t have a spiritual teacher. She said, “Well, yes, they’re growing spiritually, but it’s like a thousand or ten thousand times harder to reach the goal without a teacher.”

It’s like, you know, if you’re going to go to medical school, you need to learn from a doctor how to do surgery. Likewise, trying to do it on your own is virtually impossible. You need someone to show you the way—someone who’s already at that state of knowledge.

Rick: And when we say “the goal,” I presume we mean the goal of enlightenment, God-realization, or something along those lines. I once asked Swamini Krishnamrita, Amma’s personal assistant and attendant, about that—about whether there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of talk about enlightenment or awakening or whatnot in Amma’s circles.

Back in those days, I wasn’t interviewing people, but now I have been, and many people report having had profound spiritual awakenings, some very abiding. It’s not just a flash, but something that shifts and lasts.

Krishnamrita said to me that she thought enlightenment was very rare, and that you could count the people in the world who are really enlightened, deserving of that term, on the fingers of your hands. But many people might attain it as they die, and on their deathbed there would somehow be this great liberation.

A lot of listeners to this show are interested in awakening, enlightenment, or spiritual realization. How would you address that point vis-à-vis Amma?

Ted: Well, I think Amma meets everyone where they’re at. I’d say way over 90 percent of the people who just stop by to see her are curious and don’t really sincerely want enlightenment as their whole goal in life.

But there is a lot of talk of enlightenment and reaching the goal of self-realization amongst the devotees—the sincere devotees, like yourself, who come back year after year, and people who live in the ashrams.

Initially, though, it wouldn’t work if Amma started talking about enlightenment to an audience of several thousand people who aren’t even really aware of it. So she conveys a lot of her teachings through stories about doing good, helping suffering people, and ways to let go of the ego. She meets everyone where they’re at.

Rick: Yeah, that’s a good point. Christ kind of tried to do that too. There was the famous “pearls before swine” comment, and then he also talked about the parable of the sower throwing seeds on various kinds of soil. It’s not too common for the seeds to fall on the kind of soil where they’re really going to sprout and flourish.

You do get that sense with Amma, that she’s trying to straddle a wide range of spiritual maturity in her presentation. And one cool thing about Amma—you could elaborate on this—is that she’s so adaptable.

You watch her hugging, blessing, and giving darshan to thousands of people throughout a day, and it’s not like by the end of the day she’s all tired out and getting bored with it. She could be hugging person number 2,000, and she seems just as enthusiastic and into it as she did with the first few.

There’s also this adaptability where she instantly conforms to each person’s situation. I don’t want to make it sound like she’s unstable, because she’s not. There’s this rock-solid presence. But she really tunes into each person. She may be shedding tears with one person and then, a minute later, laughing with another person. Maybe you could elaborate on that.

Ted: Exactly. I’ve seen it time and time again, and it’s almost shocking. I remember just about a year ago in Seattle, there was a little boy whose grandmother came up for darshan with him. The little boy’s mother had died, and he was just devastated.

Amma was just crying—tears, holding them, totally distraught. Don’t forget, she’s seen herself in everyone, and she’ll manifest what’s called bhava, whatever form is needed at the time.

In this particular case, she was just crying and holding that little boy. It was so heart-wrenching. Literally, the next person coming up had some kind of funny balloon to give her, and she went from crying these tears to just laughing heartily, jumping up and down in her seat.

Only a great Mahatma, a self-realized being, could go from one to the other, because there’s no ego with her, holding on to it.

She sees herself in all beings.

Rick: There’s no rigidity. There’s a metaphor that’s sometimes used in spiritual circles where someone who’s very ego-bound is like stone. You make a mark in the stone, and it’s hard to make—you can’t make a very deep one—and yet it stays a long, long time.

Then someone a little bit less ego-bound is more like sand. You can more easily make a deeper mark, but the wind or the waves will wash that away pretty quickly. Then, even less ego-bound, it’s more like water. You could pass your arm through it, and yet it goes away right away. Or even more so, like air or space, where there’s no limit to its depth and yet no impression, or vasana, we might say, is left.

So Amma seems like that. She seems like kind of a cosmic space that can contain everything, which fully commiserates with everyone, and yet is not trapped or bound or restricted by any experience that she has.

Stories of extraordinary knowledge

Ted: Well, in terms of stories, that’s what my book is about. Basically, since I met her in 1988, I’ve just been writing down different stories and things I’ve witnessed. But I actually don’t think I’m a very good writer; I’m good at recording things.

There’s a funny story in my book about how many times Amma had me write and rewrite the book. I think it was for eight or nine years. Then Brahmachari Satish, a renunciant living in India, took it on. He’s a brilliant editor and very knowledgeable about all the scriptures, and he’s the one who really turned it into a good book.

At any rate, in that first chapter, I talk about going back to Amma, the omnipresent guru. She not only knows every thought when you go up for darshan—what’s going on in your mind—but she knows your past lives and your future lives.

Rick: How do you know that?

Ted: Yeah, so people sometimes get a little afraid: “Oh, she can read my mind.” And she can, because she’s one with everyone; she’s one with you.

That’s a good thing if you know that she has your best interest in mind. I’ve had that experience myself, where she really knows, and she gives you some little hint or something that sets you straight.

She’s basically one whose body and senses are constantly for the good of the world. Every thought she has is about how she can help uplift suffering humanity.

Some of the first stories I talk about—and people are just blown away by them—are about how she can speak any language when she wants to. They have an interpreter, and she speaks Malayalam, but there have been case after case where she’ll speak the language of the person who’s up there.

One of the first stories is about a woman who came from Croatia, one of the parts of the former Yugoslavia, to see Amma. Before she went to get darshan, she was devastated because, I believe, her husband and her parents had been killed in the war. She went up and said to the Swami, “Well, I don’t think Amma could understand the pain I’m going through.”

She went to get darshan and came back crying. She said, “Amma sang to me in Croatian a lullaby that my mother used to sing to me as a little girl: ‘Don’t be sad. Life is nothing but a dream.’”

I mean, it’s just shocking.

Then there’s another story about a woman from Brazil who only speaks Portuguese. The first time she met Amma, she was terrified because she had a congenital eye disease that usually causes you to go blind by the time you’re in your twenties. She had a cousin who had it and went blind.

She went up for darshan. Amma had never seen her before, but Amma looked at her and said to her in Portuguese, “Don’t worry about your eyes. You’ll be fine.”

The same person was actually the first person to go to the medical school that Amma created in India, the AIMS Medical School in Kerala, in Cochin. She’s now a medical doctor practicing in the United States. I mean, there are case after case of how—I’ll tell you another little one about her—

Rick: Well, we’re still on languages. Let me just ask you a language question, and then we can go on to the answer.

Ted: Sure.

Rick: I believe these things. I’ve seen enough amazing stuff with Amma to believe them, but a skeptical person who’s never met her might say, “All right, if that’s true, why does she bother with a translator as she goes from country to country? Why doesn’t she just give her talks in English, German, French, Spanish, or whatever?”

Do you feel like this is something she can do in short spurts and really needs a translator for a big, long talk? How do you explain that?

Ted: It’s all called a leela, or divine play, and that’s part of it. In India, where they speak her native tongue of Malayalam in Amritapuri, it’s unbelievable because most of the people going up there will speak to her in their native language. She also speaks Tamil to people who talk to her in Tamil, and it’s just overwhelming.

Not only do you have an interpreter, a question line, and people to filter things out, but every single person is crying out to her in their native language. So I think part of it is that it would just be too much, and it’s kind of like—

Rick: What do you mean it would be too much?

Ted: It would be like everybody would be crying out to her in English all the time, or, if she’s in France, in French. She could do it, but it’s part of this whole divine play, as I call it.

It’s kind of like having a computer. You can open a program when you want to, but you don’t always open a certain program. When it’s really needed—her whole quest is to help bring people to God—she does it.

So, when it’s really needed, like with the woman from Yugoslavia or the woman from Brazil, it becomes a real special moment. But those special moments wouldn’t be so special if she could do that all the time.

Plus, I think if she started speaking every language in every country she went to, it would be like people would see it almost as some kind of show. It would take away from it.

It’s like when she first started manifesting Krishna Bhava. She became one with Krishna, and people said, “If you’re really something special, like the skeptics were saying, then show us a miracle.”

She said, “If I showed you a miracle, you’d want another one, and then another one, and another one. I’m here to take away the illusion, not to give you more stuff to feed your mind.”

She said, “This one time I will do a miracle,” and that’s when she had a bowl of water, put her finger in it, and it turned into payasam, which is a pudding from the local area. There was enough to feed the entire village.

Or take the example of Dattan, the leper, which you can see in the movie Darshan. If you’re skeptical, you can actually download it from Netflix. It’s spelled D-A-R-S-H-A-N, and it’s a documentary about Amma.

There are scenes in the beginning of it about a leper named Dattan, who came to see her back in the mid-1980s. He smelled terrible, and pus was coming out. Everybody kind of ran away.

Dayamrita Swami said that what really convinced him was witnessing her licking Dattan’s wounds and healing the wounds on his body through her holy saliva.

I mean, come on, folks.

Rick: Kind of a wild story.

Ted: Yeah. We shouldn’t get caught up on, “Well, if she could speak a language, why isn’t she always speaking these languages?” Just look at the video of Dattan, the leper, and her licking his wounds. People were freaked out by it. Some people actually got sick and passed out because it was unbelievable.

Rick: Don’t try this at home.

Ted: She’s only going to do it—but again, she doesn’t do it all the time.

Rick: I was reading an article on the airplane coming back from California the other day about this guy who hit his head on the bottom of a swimming pool and got a severe concussion. Shortly thereafter, he began to be able to play beautiful classical music that he was composing on the fly. He could sit there for hours composing this stuff, and he didn’t really have any musical training whatsoever.

The article also mentioned other instances, like a kid who got hit in the head with a baseball and all of a sudden could solve complicated mathematical equations in his head.

The article was saying that we’ve all heard of savants—you know, these are sort of accidental savants. We all saw Rain Man. We have tremendous capabilities, and yet they’re usually locked up.

So it might be that someone like Amma has access to much vaster potentials of the mind and of creativity, as well as other fields of life, and can actually access them at will, as you say, when it really serves a purpose, when there’s really a necessity.

Ted: Exactly.

Rick: Yeah.

Ted: I’ll give you another example. A friend of mine had cancer, and he was in the hospital getting chemotherapy when Amma was at the ashram in San Ramon. I was with him; it was just the two of us in the room.

He said to me, “Gosh, Amma doesn’t even know how much I’m suffering here.” He actually got sick to his stomach and went to the bathroom and threw up. He came back into the room and said, “Oh, I feel a little bit better now,” because he was getting really nauseous from the chemotherapy. But then he felt better when I left.

The next day, I went to the program. Amma never—maybe once or twice—has ever called me up, but she called me up and said to me—my friend’s name was Shakti—“Oh, Shakti was sick to his stomach yesterday, but then felt better when you left.”

Her whole quest is to help bring people to God.

It was to let him know that she was right in the room, aware of all his suffering. There are case after case after case of stories like that, where Amma is omnipresent and knows everything that’s happening everywhere.

But she’ll say it, as you said, when it’s useful. In this case, it was used to uplift my friend who was in the hospital, or the Yugoslavian woman, the Croatian woman, or the Brazilian woman. She’s not going to go around doing it twenty-four hours a day, but only when it’s really needed to give that spiritual boost and faith.

Rick: Yeah. Irene once asked Amma a question at the Boston program about omniscience. Irene, you can correct me if I don’t get this right, but basically Amma said that she has that sort of omniscient quality with regard to people who are open to her, who are connected with her.

I would gather from that that she couldn’t necessarily tell you how many birds are in flight in the world right now, or how many craters there are on the dark side of the moon. It wouldn’t be relevant or useful to do so.

But if she tunes in on someone, or if someone is tuned in to her and connected with her, then that channel is open and useful information can come through that is going to be helpful to that person.

I think she said something like, “The door has to be open for Amma to pass through.”

Rick: The door has to be open.

Ted: Yeah, somewhat. There has to be some receptivity, or need, as Dayal was saying.

Rick: Yeah, like she doesn’t—

Ted: It’s grace. It just happens at times.

Yeah, you just gave me another thought. I coordinate the Prasad, and Prasad is when, after you get the hug, there’s a line of people who take turns giving her a chocolate kiss candy and a flower petal. The Indian people get a little packet of vibhoothi, or holy ash. I was a Prasad coordinator in Devi Bhava. It was around 4:30 in the morning, and we were running out of people to—oh, no, she called me, and I said we were running out of people to give Prasad. I asked her, “Well, should people who weren’t on the list give Prasad?”

She said, “Well, according to my calculations, at 4:07 a.m., all 937 people should have given Prasad.” I mean, it’s like this Divine Computer. It was needed. At the beginning of a program, in each sitting, you say how many people are eligible to give Prasad, and she does the calculation that says how much time they should spend giving Prasad to Amma. It’s just amazing.

Rick: It is. Yeah, I’ve seen that. What were you going to say, Irene?

Irene: Oh, just that people wouldn’t understand what the Prasad means.

Rick: Oh, he kind of explained it.

Irene: I mean, people come up for darshan—

Rick: Oh, let me explain it because you’re not on the mic. You explain it, Ted, because you’re on the mic and you can explain it. You’re the Prasad coordinator. I mean, they get a little kiss and a thing.

Ted: A little chocolate kiss or a hard candy and a flower petal. The Indian folks in America or in Europe will also get a little packet of holy ash.

Rick: Right, after your darshan. The reason there’s somebody who needs to give her that is that she’s busy giving darshan to all the people. There are some people sitting on the side with a tray of these things, and they put the right thing in her hand. She just stretches her hand out, you put what she needs in her hand, and then she can give it to the person. It just makes the whole thing roll along more efficiently.

Ted: And it gives people who are very close to her, doing a lot of seva, or selfless service, a chance to get near Amma.

Rick: Yeah, it’s a very nice experience. I’ve done it many times.

Okay, so maybe we’ve covered the topic of omniscience, which was your first chapter title. I mean, there’s more we can say about all these things, but we’ve covered some nice points. If people have questions, we’ve got about 120 people on the livestream. It looks like you’re free to send them in. There’s a form at the bottom of the Upcoming Interviews page on batgap.com through which you can submit your questions.

Let’s just go down the chapter titles and let you riff a little bit on each thing. The second chapter is “The Divine Qualities of a Mahatma.” What are those? And what is a Mahatma? Everybody knows what a Mahatma is, but you might as well elaborate.

Ted: Oh, I don’t know if many people know, unless you’re on a spiritual path. A Mahatma is a self-realized master. But first of all, I just want to say that I am definitely no authority on Amma or Amma’s spiritual path. I’m just someone who lived in her ashram and wrote down stories.

For any questions you really have about the spiritual questions concerning Amma or your own spirituality, you need to contact one of the brahmacharis, which is a renunciate, or one of the swamis. I’m not that knowledgeable, so I just want to say right off the bat, don’t quote me on anything. I’m just someone who’s like a secretary who wrote down some stories.

Rick: Yeah, well, but you’ve been around, so you’ve been there and done that. You know a lot about this stuff. We’ve got you right now, so maybe some other time I’ll interview one of those swamis.

Ātman is the Self, and maha means great, so it means a great soul, a great sage. We refer to Mahatma Gandhi, for instance. In Amma’s case, we’ve been talking a lot about her already, and we’ve enumerated some of her qualities. Are there any other qualities you’d like to touch upon?

Ted: I’d rather do it by sharing stories of qualities. For example, as I mentioned, she could sit for 12 or 14 hours without eating anything. She frequently doesn’t have time to eat. She’s busy traveling, going here and there, and the close devotees are always nudging her to eat something, but she doesn’t have time.

One time, there was a Western swami named Swami Paramatmananda, who’s actually from Chicago. His name was Neil Rosner, and that’s a whole other story. He’s written several amazing books about Amma. At the age of 18, he first went to Japan, then went to India and lived in Tiruvannamalai, at Ramana Maharshi’s ashram, and then he came to Amma.

He tells a story about how he was in Amritapuri in the early days. I think it was even before she started coming on the U.S. tour in 1988; maybe it was around 1986. She hadn’t eaten for days, and he kept saying, “Please eat something,” but she refused.

Then she said, “Okay, give me a plate of food,” and he brought her a plate of food. She ate that and said, “Give me another plate.” He gave her another plate. He brought her about ten plates of food, and she ate them. Then he had to go across a river called the Backwaters to the village of Vallikavu to get more food.

He was getting exhausted giving her one plate after another, which she kept eating. Finally, he realized that, for a Mahatma like Amma, it doesn’t matter at all if she eats nothing or if she eats nonstop, because she’s not like a normal human being.

One of the names of Amma is “the one whose stomach is full when her children have their meals,” because she considers everyone to be her children. So that’s just one little story about the quality of a Mahatma.

Rick: Yeah, there are stories about Anandamayi Ma like that too, where she just ate a grain or two of rice a day for long periods. People would beg her to eat, and then she’d eat piles and piles, and it really didn’t make any difference one way or the other for her.

Ted: Another quality that I see over and over again—you hear stories about it—is that Amma travels under very stressful circumstances. I’ve heard so many stories about going through customs, where they’ll stop her and stop the swamis. She’ll just stand there totally detached, totally accepting it, while the other people are getting upset, saying, “Let us through, let us through.”

I remember one instance. It was in Iowa. You probably heard of the program because you’re from Iowa. There was this really obnoxious lady who—

Rick: We’ve got a lot of those out here.

Ted: I don’t know about that, but this lady wasn’t an Amma devotee. It was her first time coming there. She went and got darshan, then grabbed a camera and gave it to one of the swamis, saying, “Take a picture of me with Amma.”

She stuck her head in while Amma was giving darshan and asked them to take the picture. Everyone was getting so upset, and Amma just said, “No, let her do it. It’s okay, it’s okay.” Then the woman wanted her camera back and left.

Everybody was outraged that she had the audacity to go up there, tell a swami, “Take my picture with Amma and me,” and Amma just went along with it. Everyone else got upset except Amma. She’s centered no matter what situation happens.

Rick: Yeah, she does. It’s a good story.

That was from Iowa. Here’s another chapter. This is a useful point, actually, for spiritual seekers in general, whether or not they’re associated with Amma: obstacles help devotees grow spiritually. We can talk about that for a bit.

Ted: In the traditional teachings, I think both in Buddhism and Hinduism, they talk about how the guru tells the disciple to build the hut and then tear it down, build the hut and then tear it down, build the hut and then tear it down, always creating obstacles. That’s how you can grow: by learning detachment and just surrendering.

There are many stories. I alluded to it in terms of even writing this book. The first two books I wrote about Amma—the first one, I think, was in 1993, and the second one was in 2002—were written before many people came to see her.

I remember I wrote the book and Amma said, “Have Swami Amrit Swaroopananda read it.” He read it, and within a week or so he said, “Yeah, go ahead, have it printed.” With the second one, I remember he apologized and said, “Oh, I’m sorry, it took a month to get back to you.”

I thought, “Okay, this is my third book; it will be the same.” Amma said, “Talk to Swami.” To make a very long story of eight or nine years short, I kept showing the book to different people and sending it to different people whom Swami recommended read it.

They would say, “Well, it’s not like the first one,” or suggest changes. Then there was a swami who was in the Himalayas trying to start a new ashram in North India. It just kept going on and on like that, to the point where I didn’t want anything to do with the book.

I asked one of the swamis who had written a book, “I’ve got some really good stories. Do you want them for your book?” He said, “Oh yeah, I can maybe use them.”

So I went to Amma and said, “Amma, I don’t have to deal with the book anymore because one of the swamis wants to use the stories.” She said, “No, Mother wants you to rewrite it, and you’ll see it from a new perspective.”

She had me rewrite it and rewrite it and rewrite it. At first it was, “Oh, I wrote a book,” and eventually I didn’t want anything to do with it anymore. I just said, “Well, whatever Amma wants.”

Finally, this one brahmachari in India, Brahmachari Satish, did a magnificent job. Then, after another year, the book was finally supposed to get printed. With Amma, of course, it was too late.

I emailed the person at the printing press in India, and he said, “Well, I need it right now.” I said, “Oh, I thought you didn’t need it for another month because I wanted one more person in America to edit it.” So then I just said, “Never mind. It’s already been eight years; let’s wait another nine years.”

Finally, the book came out very anticlimactically last June. It’s kind of like Amma is always working on the devotees, the people who are devotees of Amma, to help them learn surrender.

Rick: I suppose that’s the ultimate value of obstacles: they teach us not to insist that things happen according to our own narrow timeline. By surrender, I would interpret that to mean that there is a Divine will flowing, if we can attune ourselves to it. It’s sort of, “Thy will be done, not mine.”

Ted: Exactly, and it helps you break down the ego too, so you become more detached. Detachment and surrender—this is what she works on with people. That’s one of the qualities of a Mahatma: someone who’s not just giving devotees things that will feed the ego, but things that will feed them God, the Divine.

Rick: And you know, the word “Mahatma” just jumped out at me again as you said it. You meet Amma and really tune in and watch what she’s doing, and you’re just struck by the thought, “Wow, this is what a human being could become.” This phenomenon that I’m observing really gives me a different conception of what is possible, or how remarkable an embodied being can be.

I don’t want to seem too—I don’t know, I’m not sure what the word is—but it puts the bar very high in terms of what spiritual evolution can be. I mean, I meet people sometimes who actually proclaim that they’re done with their spiritual evolution, that they’ve arrived, and I think, “Really?” I mean, you don’t realize how profound it can become, what the possibilities are.

Ted: Exactly.

Rick: And I know Amma herself often says that it’s always good to have the attitude of a beginner, and in Zen there’s this saying, “Beginner’s mind.” I think that’s valuable. No matter how spiritually advanced one may actually be, it’s a safeguard, and perhaps even a characteristic of spiritual advancement, to acknowledge that relative to what might be possible, one is a beginner.

Ted: Yes. Also, I just want to mention, before I forget, that the book Amma, Inspired Experiences of the Divine Mother by Ted Zeff Dayalu is available on Amazon or through the Amma.org bookstore for people who are interested.

Rick: Yeah, I’ll be linking to that from your page on Batgap. All righty.

Protection, prayer, and grace

Ted: You want to hear a really interesting story?

Rick: Sure.

Ted: This is one of my favorite ones. There’s a method of healing called the Rosen Method, and it was founded by Marian Rosen. It’s hands-on, and it changes the energy level so that you become more of a channel for divine energy. I was blessed to have had sessions using the Rosen Method.

As I said, it was founded by a woman named Marian Rosen, who passed away a few years ago at the age of 97. She was from Germany, and she was Jewish. It was Kristallnacht, the night when, I think, the Nazis broke all the glass in the Jewish stores and synagogues. She was a little afraid, and she looked up in the sky and had a vision of a woman saying to her, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid.” She said, “After that experience, I had no fear.” And she bought a ticket …

Rick: This was in the 1930s or something?

Ted: This was 1938.

Rick: Right.

Ted: Then, in early 1939, before Hitler closed the borders, she bought a ticket to leave Germany and flee because things had become untenable there. She was actually trained as a physical therapist in Germany.

She bought a ticket and went to the ship, but they said the ticket was invalid. She didn’t know what she was going to do, and she met someone else. They were able to get on a motorbike and go through Europe. They made it, I think, to Poland, and then got on a train, the Trans-Siberian Railway. They made it to Japan, and in Japan she got on a ship to the United States.

Again, she said she never felt any fear. The Trans-Siberian Railway was full of Russian soldiers at the time, and it was really dangerous for a woman to be traveling. Nothing ever happened to her. She felt she was always protected.

Flash forward from 1938 to 1987, the first time Amma came to America. Marian had a daughter whose spiritual name is Hari Sudha, who was helping arrange Amma’s visit, and Amma actually stayed at her house. When Marian saw Amma for the first time, she looked at her and said, “Oh my God, that was the woman who came to me in 1938 in Germany and said, ‘Don’t be afraid.’”

Then Amma talked to her not only in German, but in her native German dialect. What’s so unbelievable about this story is that Amma manifested her body to protect Marian Rosen decades before Amma even manifested in a body.

Rick: Yeah, the implication of that to me is that Amma has an ongoing relationship with certain people that is timeless and that precedes her physical birth, which was what, 1955 or something?

Ted: 1953.

Rick: 1953. And it’s kind of inspiring. In fact, you might comment on this. I think Amma has made comments about how her relationship with her devotees is ongoing and, regardless of the birth or death of the body, she’s going to be there for you. I think she has said that people who were there in this life have been with her in previous births.

Ted: She said that to me once. It was very touching. My birth mother was still alive and going through Alzheimer’s, which was very difficult, and I was telling Amma how difficult it was. She basically said, “Don’t worry about her. I’m your mother for eternity.”

That was like, “Wow, she’s my mother for eternity,” not just for this temporary life of a few years.

Rick: Yeah, and I’m sure she didn’t mean, “Don’t worry about your mother,” or “Don’t take care of your mother,” or anything like that. It’s more like, “I’m here for the long haul.”

Ted: That was the point she was making.

Rick: Yeah. A question came in from a listener. He asked, or she asked, “If he asks Amma for clarity of mind, would Amma answer him?” It’s not clear in the question whether he or she means in person or as some kind of prayer. Perhaps this could lead into a little bit of a discussion about how people pray to Amma and get results.

Ted: Yes. This is only my opinion, and as I said before, I’m not a Swami or a Brahmachari. I don’t know very much, but my experience has been that I’ve had people pray to Amma and have amazing results. I’m the kind of person who’s very—maybe right-brained or left-brained—when I want the details.

Rick: Left-brained.

Ted: Left-brain oriented. Some people who have been with Amma for 25 or 30 years have never asked her a question, and they feel like they’re getting the answer. But I’m always the one who needs to go up for a big baby. That’s me: “Amma, I have a pain right here. Help me. What do I do about this?”

If it’s a very important question, such as, “Should I relocate? Do you want me to get married to this person? Do you want me to take this job?”—if it’s very, very important, although nowadays it seems like Amma is letting people decide more and more, she’ll say, “Whatever you feel to do.”

Another story popped into my mind about praying to Amma. There was someone who had lived at the ashram in San Ramon. She went to India, married someone there, and then they moved to Germany. She and her husband split up, and she was wondering whether she should go back to the United States or stay in Germany. She prayed to Amma.

One day she was walking down the street in the German city where she lived, and everything just stopped and went into slow motion. She heard a voice saying, “Go back to America.” This was after praying to Amma.

Then she said, “I don’t know. Maybe it was just my mind thinking that was happening.” A few weeks later, Amma was in the United States, and she emailed a friend, saying, “Can you ask Amma for me if I should go back to America?” Amma’s response was, “I already told you the answer.”

I hear many stories of people praying. Someone had severe back pain and prayed to Amma, and she felt that right after she prayed deeply to Amma, the pain just went away.

But it doesn’t always happen that way. The other thing about health issues is that Amma only intervenes if it’s God’s will. So frequently, people come in saying, “Oh, my relative has this catastrophic disease,” or, “I have this problem.” She has healed people. I know several people who had catastrophic diseases, but it’s rare. It’s only if it’s God’s will.

Even if she doesn’t heal you, when she can’t because it’s God’s will, she will give you the strength to deal with it. I had a companion who passed away from cancer, Nandita, two years ago at Christmas. I remember she said, “I don’t want to lie here for a year dying.” She prayed to Amma that she wouldn’t have to lie there for a year dying.

It was amazing because Thanksgiving was her birthday exactly two years ago, in November. Even though the cancer had spread all over her body and they had given her a year to live, she was actually fine. It was bizarre. It was only a couple of weeks before she passed away on Christmas Day that the symptoms started getting worse and worse.

Literally the week before she went to a potluck dinner and made a nut loaf. It was amazing. Then, a few days before she passed, the symptoms got worse. Even on the day she passed away, she got up on Christmas morning and wanted to go to some kind of Christmas event. Then she got worse, and she passed away later.

This is how Amma works. I think it was grace from Amma that allowed her not to have to lie around suffering for a year. She had prayed to Amma that she didn’t want that—to be a burden on people.

🩺 Healing emotions and living in the present

Rick: That’s nice. Some people might say, “Well, that’s anecdotal, and it could have happened that way anyway,” or whatever. But I think there’s really something healing and uplifting about having a devotional relationship with someone who’s worthy of that relationship, worthy of devotion. It nourishes the heart, gives one faith, and smooths the path of life. Anyway, that’s my feeling.

Okay, so we have a bunch of other chapters in your book, and we don’t really have to go through them one by one and try to bring up stories. But I’ll just read them to you quickly, and why don’t you interrupt me if you feel like there’s a particular story that you’d like to tell around this or that chapter? We’ll go on a little bit longer, and then we’ll wrap it up.

One is—well, here’s a chapter about Amma helping to heal emotions. Anything you’d like to say about that?

Ted: It’s all, again, related to the stories about it. She talks a lot about dealing with anger, and she really stresses how anger hurts you as well as the other person.

Rick: Yeah, she says it’s like holding a knife that doesn’t have a handle and is sharp on both ends. You can hurt them, but you’re hurting yourself in the process.

Ted: A lot of what she talks about is in terms of healing disputes. I’ll tell you one little story. When I was living in this little cottage in the ashram, there was someone who never did their dishes. They would leave dirty dishes in the sink, and I told the person about it.

Everyone comes from a different background with different habits, and I remember thinking, “Oh, I know what I’ll do. I’ll take those dirty dishes and put them in front of the person’s door.” Then I went in and meditated, and I actually prayed to Amma about it. I did the archana, which is repeating the names of the Divine Mother, and I heard a really clear voice that my ego did not want to hear, saying, “The highest thing to do is to do the dishes for the person.”

I really felt it was directly from Amma, helping me let go of the anger, and I did the dishes for the person. What could have become a dispute, with me putting dirty dishes by someone’s door, became Amma coming through to me and saying, “Just do the dishes.”

She’s always stressing to devotees that they should go out of their way to be loving and kind instead of getting back at people and expressing anger. It’s pretty amazing.

The highest thing to do is to do the dishes for the person.

Rick: Yeah, and there was a cool story in your book about her getting angry at some guy and criticizing him for something that perhaps he didn’t even legitimately deserve to be criticized for, and him reacting, you know, and so on. Later, she did the same thing, and he had matured spiritually to the point where he was just in equanimity about it. Then she commented, “Whoa, now see how much he’s grown.”

Ted: Also, that story, let me tell you, is that as soon as the person left, when she went, “Why did you put this over here?” and all that, she turned to the other person and said, “I just didn’t see how he would react.”

Rick: Yeah.

Ted: So, she’s testing us all the time, and she’s doing things that can push our buttons, to teach us how to control that anger that’s within us.

Rick: Yeah. My former teacher once said, “Sometimes I’ll blow cold winds your way, sometimes I’ll blow warm winds, and in the end you’ll be weatherproof.”

Ted: Perfect.

Rick: Yeah. So, here’s a chapter on “Surrender the Present Moment.” You know what comes to mind when I read that chapter title? When I see pictures of Amma, particularly in India, sitting on a stage, and there’s this sea of humanity out in front of her, I think she’s going to have to hug every single one of those persons before the night is over, before the event is over. And before that, there’s going to be a talk and some bhajans and everything else.

I think of myself in that position, if I were in it, feeling like I’m facing my crucifixion or something. I think, “My God, this is what I’m looking forward to for the next 18 hours or something.” But I get the feeling that one way Amma deals with it, aside from her vast capacity and her being kind of solid as a rock, established in divine consciousness and love, is that she is very much in the present moment. She’s not thinking, “Oh, how am I going to feel 12 hours from now?” It’s more like this moment, this moment, constantly in the present moment.

Ted: Exactly. People ask her sometimes—they want to find out about their past lives or something like that—and she discourages it because she says, “What if you find out your current spouse in your life had killed you in a past life?” or something like that. And she goes, “The past is a canceled check. We can’t do anything about it. The future, we don’t know what’s going to happen. The only thing we can change is the present moment.” So, she’s always telling little stories to help us be right here and now.

Rick: Yeah.

Ted: Be here now.

Rick: Good. Okay, so your next chapter is “Chipping Away at the Ego,” and we’ve already told some stories about how Amma does that. Anything else you care to add to that?

Ted: I don’t know if I should tell you this one. It’s a funny one, though.

Rick: Sure, people like funny ones.

Ted: So, as I said, I coordinate the prasad, and there’s a line of people going to Amma. So, I had a position as the coordinator, and I thought, “Oh, I’m something special coordinating this prasad.” I also used to give announcements at the programs a long time ago, before I got kicked out of that job, probably.

Anyway, what happened was, there was someone giving prasad to Amma. They were handing her the chocolate kiss and the flower petal. This person was a friend of mine. She had long hair, and somehow her hair got stuck in the fanny pack that I used to wear, in the zipper.

Swamiji saw me, and he wanted me to make announcements, so he called me to come on the stage. I started to run onto the stage, and I heard this scream. What happened was, every time I moved, the hair pulled her away from Amma, pulling her hair. I turned around, and when I turned around, everybody was just laughing. It was hysterical because I kept turning to see what was going on.

Something was caught, and every time I did it, it was hurting this poor person, until I finally was able to extricate her hair from my fanny pack. So, that was a great way for my ego to get chipped away. I thought I was doing something important, going to give an announcement or coordinate this job. Things like this happen around Amma.

Being present with Amma

Rick: Yeah, they do. Okay, so there are a few more chapters in your book, but we should probably wrap it up. I just want to give you the opportunity to say anything else you feel you’d like to say to people, either a story or just anything you’d like to say in general, that might inspire people to go and see Amma when they get the chance.

Ted: Well, I really believe that everybody comes to see Amma at the exact right time. Many devotees, including myself, for years have been pushing their relatives to see Amma, and they don’t want to come. Amma says, “Leave them alone. They’re getting the benefit anyway.”

I don’t think I’ll tell the story because it’s a little too long, but it has to do with a relative of mine who was definitely helped. So, Amma is helping your relatives through you, and that’s really important.

But if you feel spiritually uplifted by some of the things we’ve talked about and you feel guided to see her, then by all means, come see her. If you don’t, that’s totally great, because I really believe that everyone comes at the right time.

I must have done something good in a past life that gave me the good karma of meeting her back in ’88, when the crowds were still small. At any rate, I just really feel that you come when it’s the right time, and everyone’s coming at the right time.

And don’t worry about bringing all your friends and bringing carloads of people to see her. Just focus on yourself, and if people want to come, great. If they don’t, they’re getting that divine energy of Amma through you.

Rick: Yeah, there’s a Bengali saying, “If no one comes on your call, then go ahead alone.” I would recommend that if a person does go to see Amma, they really focus in on it.

I’ve heard people talk about working it out very efficiently so they can calculate when their darshan is going to be, get their darshan, and then go shopping or go to a movie or something. That’s not the idea. The idea is to just settle into the atmosphere, because something really profound happens. It’s not just the minute or two when you’re actually getting your darshan.

The whole thing is a kind of a yajna, if you know that word. It’s a spiritual event. The atmosphere permeates into you the longer you sit in it.

Ted: And it is. Just to add, it’s easy to get caught up in all the external stuff there because there’s a lot of talking, families, and kids running around. Everything’s going on.

So, try to take advantage of it. Just sit quietly with your eyes closed and tune in. After darshan, try to sit quietly for as long as you can and feel that divine energy after Amma touches you and hugs you.

I was lucky enough to have an experience in London a couple of weeks ago, when she was there, of being able to sit near her after darshan. A lot of times I’m busy doing other things, so I can’t sit for very long, and I had a profound experience just feeling that energy coming in.

Rick: And if you get bored sitting with your eyes closed, sit and watch Amma with your eyes open, because it’s kind of fascinating to watch her do this.

Ted: It’s hard, actually. It’s hard to keep your eyes closed in her presence.

Rick: Yeah, it’s quite fascinating, the whole thing. So, yeah, good. It’s like watching divinity in motion.

And you don’t have to—I mean, we’ve been talking as fellow devotees here—but you don’t have to be a devotee or have any particular belief in Amma or anything else. Curiosity is a good enough reason to go. Just go and check it out, see if it resonates with you. I think maybe you’ll find that it does.

All right, well, thanks, Dayalu. This has been enjoyable. So, let me just make some concluding remarks.

This has been another in an ongoing series of interviews with and about spiritually awakening people. There are many, many of them, and if you go to www.batgap.com, look under “Past Interviews,” and you’ll see them all organized.

Check out the other menus. You can sign up for an audio podcast. You can see who’s scheduled under “Upcoming Interviews.” There’s a “Donate” button, as I mentioned, and some resources that you might find useful under the “Resources” menu.

Just explore the menus. There aren’t too many of them. It’ll only take you a few minutes to see what we’ve got, but there’s some useful stuff there. Oh, you can also sign up to be notified by email each time a new interview is posted, so you might want to do that.

So, thanks for listening or watching, and we will see you for the next one. And you’ll be very familiar with the guy who’s going to be in the next one. See you then.