591. Rabbi Rami Shapiro

A Jewish practitioner of Perennial Wisdom, Rabbi Rami Shapiro is an award–winning author of over thirty-six books on religion and spirituality. He received rabbinical ordination from the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion and holds a PH.D. in religion from Union Graduate School. A rabbinic chaplain with the USAF for 3 years, a congregational rabbi for 20, and a professor of religious studies for 10, Rabbi Rami currently co-directs the One River Foundation, is a Contributing Editor at Spirituality and Health magazine, and hosts the magazine’s bi-weekly podcast, Essential Conversations with Rabbi Rami. Website: rabbirami.com Books: Recovery―The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice (The Art of Spiritual Living) Holy Rascals: Advice for Spiritual Revolutionaries Perennial Wisdom for the Spiritually Independent: Sacred Teachings―Annotated & Explained (SkyLight Illuminations) The World Wisdom Bible: A New Testament for a Global Spirituality Surrendered―The Sacred Art: Shattering the Illusion of Control and Falling into Grace with Twelve-Step Spirituality (The Art of Spiritual Living) Some points discussed in this interview: Rabbi Rami’s spiritual journey through superficial Judaism through various traditions to a deep mystical Judaism. Humanity’s transition from matriarchy to patriarchy is the root cause of most of our problems. A collapse of norms is coming. Will it be mindful or mindless? Widespread spiritual practice will help the best outcome to manifest. Escape to another planet, to the transcendent, to heaven is not the answer. We need a balance between transcendence and immanence. The 10 ox herding pictures. Social justice work without a spiritual practice can be draining and ego-driven. Fundamentalist misinterpretations of Scripture. Perennial wisdom is a 4-fold teaching at the heart of all religions. As consciousness expands, personal shadows are illuminated and must be dealt with. Non-dual Judaism is a very rich religion. Tribal Judaism is ‘craziness’. Religions take advantage of people’s fear of death. Emo Phillips - Golden Gate Bridge skit Different perspectives on reincarnation. Out-of-body experiences suggest the existence of a subtle body. Metaphor: the brain as a radio receiver. Body, heart, mind, soul, spirit – We need to develop practices on each of those dimensions. Rami’s mystical experiences, including instruction from the Divine Mother. From a relative perspective, there are separate beings, but ultimately, it’s all God. Discussion on food addiction. Holy Rascals introduce mystical elements not necessarily welcomed by mainstream religion. Administrators are always threatened by the mystics. Perhaps in the coming years experiential, mystical religions rather than dead ones will predominate. The dead ones are rapidly losing membership. Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Transcript of this interview. Interview recorded March 14, 2021 Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast. YouTube Video Chapters: 00:00:00 - Introduction to Buddha at the Gas Pump 00:03:06 - Introductions and Background 00:05:41 - Transitioning to Buddhism and Zen Rabbi 00:08:31 - The Resurrection of the Mother and the Collapse of Civilization 00:12:30 - Three Scenarios for the Future 00:16:06 - Shifting Consciousness and the Fourth Alternative 00:19:40 - The Hugging Saint, Amma 00:22:36 - Mistaken Identity 00:26:22 - The Life-Changing Power of Meditation 00:29:55 - The Delicate Balance of Humility and Spiritual Practice 00:36:09 - The Yearning for God 00:40:13 - The Four Points of Awakening in Judaism 00:44:12 - The Fallibility of Teachers and Their Teachings 00:47:28 - Spirituality and the Behavior of Spiritual Teachers 00:51:52 - The Tribal Jingoism of Judaism 00:56:16 - Facing the Fear of Death

Om Podcasten

The implication of the title - Buddha at the Gas Pump - is that ordinary people are experiencing higher states of consciousness once thought to be rare and difficult to attain. People everywhere are undergoing a shift or awakening to their true nature. For some, this shift has been abrupt and dramatic. For others, it has been so gradual that they may not have realized it has occurred. Such shifts, or awakenings, are not new: Christ spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven within, Buddhists speak of Nirvana, Zen masters of Satori, Hindus of Moksha, but these traditions generally regard these states as rare and difficult to attain. Many people are therefore skeptical of claims of higher states of consciousness. They find it hard to believe that apparently ordinary friends and neighbors might be experiencing something extraordinary. Maybe they expect Enlightenment to look as remarkable on the outside as it is reputed to be on the inside. This show will attempt to dispel skepticism and misconceptions by week after week, allowing otherwise ordinary people to relate their experience of spiritual awakening. The terminology is tricky, because there are no universally agreed upon definitions to describe this experience. So please forgive us if we use some unfamiliar terms. We will try to clarify our definitions as we go along. Perhaps, after a while, those listening will become convinced that genuine and permanent spiritual awakenings are not just a pipe dream, but are real and are becoming relatively commonplace. These podcasts are the audio track of a weekly interview show which may be seen as videos on our YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/buddhaatthegaspump). Also see the main site: https://batgap.com. For search purposes, I will add the following to this description - batgap, Buddha at the Gaspump, Buddah at the Gas Pump.