AC: And what would you call that tool?

MJ: I would call it the great awareness of the moment. It's a great awareness. Why is it great? Because not only is everything in front of you being taken care of, no matter how overwhelming—because you start very small—but guess what? You're returning to the core. You're returning to, as Swami Nityananda taught me, whence you have come.

AC: What is the relationship between awareness and compassion?

MJ: With awareness, you grow detached, and all of a sudden, it's not about you. Then a huge well, a huge well of compassion flows through you. When you are aware, you realize that attachment has no place in your life.

AC: Because?

MJ: When you are aware, you know that everything that we have is impermanent. Swami Nityananda taught me about chidakash, the heart space over the head. And I go to this space. In this space, I disappear. It's not about me. And therefore, compassion, which I've always prided myself with having, begins to flow even more, and I realize, "My God! I could have had a billion times more." Awareness leads to detachment, which leads to the utmost compassion. And when I say "detachment," it doesn't mean not caring. In fact, on the contrary, it means caring in a bigger, more beautiful, more profound way.

AC: Awareness leads to detachment, but what's the relationship, then, between detachment and compassion?

MJ: Because it's not about me. I must have compassion for other human beings in this place of detachment. I only know how to speak of my own experience. I get a call that there's a young girl with full-blown AIDS on the street who just gave birth. She's in the street. She's calling for Ma. I go to the street. I had a personal tragedy that day. Okay? What am I giving? What's left for me to give? How can I look at this child? Her pain adheres to my pain. Therefore, I go to the place of detachment. It is not about me. And I am there for a young girl, without judgment. Compassion can only be given without judgment—without judgment, because it's not about me. And I hold her close to my breast until the ambulance comes and takes her. In that moment, I have disappeared because I'm not in my own pain. And if I don't have pain, I am so wide open to hers that the compassion flows.

AC: The reason I'm asking you this question is that some people are afraid of detachment, because they're afraid that if they allow themselves to experience detachment, then they're not going to care.

MJ: I know that. Most people are afraid of detachment. But I'm living it. Not only am I living it, thousands of my students are living it. I have a small ashram in California, and they have a program called "Under the Bridges and on the Streets," and they feed thousands of people each month. Because they are detached, what they see fuels them to go on and serve even more.

Okay, I have another story. It's not going to be pretty. So just hear what I have to say.

AC: I'm listening.

MJ: I have a young child. I've had her about six years. This child was a beautiful young girl. And her father forced her to drink Drano.

AC: Oh my God.

MJ: I warned you. If I did not go to the place of detachment, do you think I could have walked into that room a few days after that happened? I needed to go to where I was not attached. And the compassion flowed. I've had her for about six years, and now she goes to school. She has no face. A beautiful child, and now she's dying. From attachment comes what? Anger. So how would I be able to help this child?

AC: How old is she now?

MJ: Thirteen. This is detachment. Does it mean I don't love them? I could tell you stories to make your hair curl. All because of what? People's attachment. "I am attached to my space. I have my white picket fence. I have my husband, my children. I see it on TV, but I don't want to go look at it." And I'm saying, "Be detached, and take care of girls like Melissa whose father poured Drano down her throat." If I was attached, I could never in a million years do what I'm doing. I would collapse if I was attached. I would fall into my own pool of self-pity.

AC: There's a mystery in this because—as you've been saying, and many great masters have spoken about this—it's through letting go that we find love and care.

MJ: Exactly. And boy, is it scary. It's frightening. When you let go, the true compassion of love emerges because you are living exactly in the moment. All of a sudden, your children are close to you, your lovers are close to you, because you do not have your claws in their necks. I do not own you. I enjoy you. And I do not look back to see who is taking my love. That is the greatest mystery. I think that's by far a greater mystery than the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Because you actually have to do something with your own being.

AC: What do you mean?

MJ: You actually have to do something with your own being in order to do something for somebody else's being. You can't just run in and rage, "That son of a bitch gave that child Drano!" and leave the kid there without any hope. So you have to say, "I can get past this. I can be detached enough to look at this." First of all, you have to look at it, and then, you have to take care of the situation. It's not shirking any kind of responsibility, and that's the mystery. And somebody's going to come back next lifetime full of love because they weren't left to die alone in agony and pain. The mystery is that every one of us, I don't care who you are, every one of us has the ability to be detached and take care of what has to be taken care of.

AC: What is the source of your passion and compassion?

MJ: Well, my mother, who died in Coney Island Hospital in a charity ward, really showed me how to take care of people. One day I said to her, "Mama, why are you suffering so much?" One breast removed, the other breast removed, the kidney removed, the lung removed—this was in the late '40s. She turned to me and slapped me, and she said, "Don't you ever ask why!" And so I looked right at her, and I said, "Why?" So she laughed and slapped me again. She said, "Because nobody's going to answer you. Who's going to give you an answer?" And I remembered that all my life. And I teach that. Instead of asking why, just do. We all are capable of doing. I'm not on a soapbox. If I was on a soapbox, I wouldn't have time to accomplish everything I've accomplished in my life. You see, I want change. I want to see a change in a child's eyes that are misted over with pain. I know that if we help one human being, it's going to touch the world. It has to. I may not know how, but I know it will. I'm doing, and everybody with me is also doing. It's been incredible to see how many children are growing, not because just one person cares, but because I've taught many to care. And if I died this second, this day, I have coming after me many, many children, students, and chelas who care. I'm not going to hide. I'm not going to just bear witness. I'm from Brooklyn. I'll go down fighting.