Exclusive Interview with Jack Barratt
TAT: Dear Jack, Your prolific output of book releases never ceases to impress us! In addition to your consistent contributions to The Awakening Times, your website, and your meditations, you somehow find the time to publish a new book every month or two. How do you manage to maintain such a remarkable pace of productivity?
JB: Thank you! Well, it is not quite every month or two. My rate is probably three or four per year if I am able to write every day. And, if there is any trick to this, it is just consistency. When I am working on a book, I make sure that I pen at least one thousand words every day whilst I am in the draft-writing stage. I am just lucky, I suppose, that the writing flows out. Since I had my initial awakening experience about three or four years ago, the words have just poured out like an unobstructed flow. Also, Mohanji constantly telling me to ‘Speak’ has encouraged me. I don’t make videos or do satsangs every day, but I definitely speak every day about spirituality in the form of writing or when people message me and ask me questions.
TAT: Would you kindly provide some insights into your upcoming book, ‘Avadhutam,’ scheduled for release on Guru Purnima? Could you elaborate on the book’s theme and the significance of choosing Guru Purnima as the launch date?
JB: This book is composed of my ongoing miscellaneous writings from the last six months or so. A lot of the passages from this book come from the posts that I make daily on my WhatsApp group. I would say that around fifty percent of the passages are taken from there, and the rest I either wrote down as I was writing the book itself or when I was corresponding with other people privately. In terms of what the book is about, I would say that it is just my thoughts on the Datta path, the natural path, that I myself have walked and continue to walk. This path is just life itself, but lived with a certain intensity, a certain burning or longing for absolute freedom. This intensity prevents one from stopping or plateauing anywhere for any period of time. One is constantly seeing one’s own limitations and distortions. And as soon as you see it, as soon as you start seeing the mechanism of your own self-deception, you can start refining, diluting and eventually dissolving that in the fire of awareness. I was lucky (or maybe unlucky depending on how you look at it) that I was born with this intensity.
Therefore, the path has always been natural for me. Nothing was more attractive than freedom, than total silence. Having a limited mind always felt extremely suffocating to me. In these writings, I try to communicate that tremendous intensity to people along with my thoughts on all aspects of life from the perspective of this path.
So, it is difficult to box these writings. I suppose, if someone were to ask me: ‘How can I become free?’ then this book would be my way of answering and exploring this question from many different perspectives.
TAT: Your Guru Mohanji, gave you the spiritual name Dattananda, a fact that remains unknown to many. It is evident that your work is deeply rooted in the Datta Tradition. Would you be willing to share the story of your connection to Lord Dattatreya and how you were initially drawn to him?
JB: Well, I’m not sure that you can say he gave me this is as an official spiritual name—I never wanted one. It was during the first time that I met him properly in person in Serbia. On the second day I visited him, he called me into his room and said: ‘I woke up this morning and couldn’t remember your name. Dattananda came instead.’ After that, I didn’t mention it again, and neither did he. I think I mentioned it to a few people as a funny story, and that’s how you know about it I suppose—unless I told you (laughs). I always thought he was trying to tell me something else with this. I thought he was trying to indicate my belonging to this path and my destiny to fly the flag of the Datta path in the world. And I’m not too sure about spiritual names anyway. They should have a meaning, I feel. When most people meet me, they see a man who has been given the name ‘Jack’. That is all they see. I still think it suits my appearance and my basic external personality. So let that me my name. If people see something else, then they can call me something that feels more appropriate to them—as long as it not offensive, like ‘donkey’ or something like that (laughs).
And how I was drawn to Dattatreya was first of all through the form of a few beings who were directly or loosely connecting to the Dattatreya Tradition: Rang Avadhut Maharaj, Narayan Maharaj, Bhagavan Nityananda, Upasani Maharaj. I just used to go and look at their pictures on the internet. Eventually, I felt drawn to Shirdi Sai Baba. I used to keep a picture of him in my meditation space. Then, at some point, I began to feel him talking to me telepathically. He was telling me various things about myself and my destiny in this world. Well, so far, everything that he said seems to be panning out. The connection with Datta Prabhu began when I heard Mohanji talking on a YouTube video about how Shirdi Sai Baba was a Datta Avatar. I then felt an inner ‘command’ to start writing my third book, Avadhuta Gita: The Reality-Path of Lord Dattatreya. The rest is history.
I have written on my website about some of my experiences with masters. They are just experiences though. They could also be hallucinations. I don’t care what they were. At the end of the day, this whole life is a hallucination of sorts. Those experiences had some relevance at the time. Now I don’t have these experiences anymore. Now I feel that I have gone back to being a normal, boring person somehow.
TAT: Would you like to share a specific paragraph or excerpt from the book exclusively with our readers?
JB: Yes! Here is Passage 102, which is one that I think sums up the overall message of the book quite well:
‘We do not need to renounce anything to reconnect with ourselves. In order to be natural, we don’t need to throw away all of our technological devices, sell our car, and go to live in the woods. We cannot change the times that we are living in. We all have an established backdrop and scenery to our lives. These circumstances will naturally have some challenging elements embedded within them and some gracious elements. We ourselves may have our own rougher and more polished sides. Without the interference of our own conceptualising, we have natural inclinations, preferences and things that we like and don’t like. We may like to eat a certain type of food. We may like to wear a certain type of clothes. We may like to live in a certain type of climate. We don’t need to start adjusting all of these to try and fit them into an imagined, preconceived spiritual mould. We should accept everything about ourselves. We should feel ourselves, see ourselves, and then accept what we see and feel. When we have done this, a certain amount of energy will be freed up. This is the energy that was being used to try to be something other than what we are. With this freed-up energy comes a certain amount of relaxation. When this relaxation comes, live with it. Move with it. This relaxation will upgrade you. Everything may look the same on the surface level of life-scenery, but you will be looking at everything with fresh eyes. This is the path. By accepting yourself, you relax into yourself. By relaxing into yourself, you relax into life. Eventually, you will relax out of yourself into the infinitely nurturing arms of the great mother, who is simply life itself.’
TAT: Where can ‘Avadhutam’ be purchased?
JB: Amazon.
TAT: What exciting plans or ideas do you have in store for the future?
JB: Website is done. I have already started writing ‘Avadhutam: Volume II’ as these writings continue to pour. I have chosen to keep ‘Avadhutam’ as the overarching title for my ongoing writings. I have set a cut-off point of forty thousand words (about one hundred fifty pages) for each volume. So as soon as each volume reaches that amount, I’ll publish it. Otherwise, I am restarting online satsangs soon in the form of once-a-month two hour intensives (satsang + Q&A + silent meditation). People will have to donate to attend these. I am aiming to eventually earn a living solely from writing books and doing webinars, etc. This will mean I can dedicate all of my time to writing, making more videos, courses, and also being there for anyone who needs any guidance. Online silent meditation I plan to always offer for free. Maybe, I’ll eventually do programs in person. I’m based in London now, so that is quite a convenient location to do anything really. I’m also developing a course based around ‘Shadow Work & Liberation’. Basically, approaching shadow work from the ground up and using that as foundation for the path to full dissolution.
I just keep flowing. I always tell people that I am the laziest possible person. I never feel like I do any work. All of these writings and talks are my expression, my song. None of it is work for me. Hopefully that comes across. We should inject joy into the world. It is possible for each of us to touch this life from a totally unique place. We should do that and then express it. Let it sing. For what are we living otherwise? This life must be lived as a song, a dance, a comedy. If we take all of this seriously, then we are in trouble. Sages are those who come to help us get out of that trouble. You must have a sense of humour to do that job (laughs).
TAT: Thank you so much for your time and dedication to our magazine.
JB: My pleasure always. Thank you for having me.
www.jackbarratt.org
Great Dear Jack 🙏