Marc Leavitt - Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Batgap/posts/3787117104847395/

Also see https://batgap.com/marc-leavitt/

Chapters:
00:00:00 - Introduction to Buddha at the Gas Pump conversation
00:04:32 - The Ordinariness of Experience
00:09:07 - Awareness and Encompassing
00:13:13 - The Balance of Lucidity and Dreaming
00:17:10 - The Illusory Nature of the Waking State
00:21:07 - Questioning the Nature of Existence
00:24:50 - Exploring the Mind and Tools: Monroe Institute, Hemi-sync, OBEs, Salvia, Lucid Dreaming
00:28:48 - Tibetan Buddhism and the Monroe Institute
00:32:36 - Experiencing the True Self
00:36:44 - The Nature of Oneness and Individuation
00:40:16 - Understanding Transactional Reality
00:44:01 - The Inseparability of Awareness and Space
00:48:17 - The Triune of Awareness: The Emergence of a Third Thing
00:52:43 - The Rainbow and the Oneness
00:56:38 - Longing for God and the Void Behind
01:00:51 - The Void and the Stickman
01:04:51 - Recognizing the Mind in Death and the Bardos
01:08:45 - The Concept of Awakening
01:12:27 - The Bodhisattva Vow and Sharing Enlightenment
01:15:59 - The Cycle of Desires and Fulfillment
01:19:49 - The Power of Desire
01:23:42 - Ruling the World or Training Our Minds
01:27:14 - The Ripple Effect of Desires
01:31:11 - Experiencing Everything at Once
01:35:11 - The Void and Potential Energy
01:39:27 - The Realness of Dzogchen and Buddhism
01:43:26 - The Essence and Awakening
01:47:19 - The Turmoil of Enlightenment and the Process of Purification
01:51:29 - The Liberation of Recognition
01:55:50 - The Importance of Seeing the Truth
01:59:33 - Appreciation for Rick

I was born 11-11-69 into a nonpracticing Jewish family where the subject of spirituality never came up. So when I discovered an intense spiritual yearning within myself at the age of nineteen, I was completely on my own. After graduating from Towson University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and Philosophy in 1994, I had become an avid practitioner of meditation and contemplation of the nature of Reality. As a solitary practitioner, I found my path to be an oscillation of understanding the Nondual view of Dzogchen and experiencing nonordinary events that expanded my understanding of the classic out-of-body experience, astral realm, and the Bardos.

The first book of the Trilogy titled "Reality Explained" centers on the peak period of my spiritual journey just after returning home from a weeklong meditation retreat at the world-renowned ‘Monroe Institute’. I had been home less than a week after attending one of their advanced programs when without warning I began to have profound Visions while living out my day-to-day life. I could be taking a walk with my wife and daughter or going about my daily routine at work when I would find myself spontaneously thrust into a vastly more expansive perspective that placed my entire world in a wholly new context. These Visions were progressive in nature as they clearly and pointedly demonstrated the Grand Design of Reality.

Some of these Visions were existentially devastating and some were downright terrifying, as they exposed the true nature of the ‘self’. Others were so blissful that they could only be tolerated for brief moments. Ultimately, they coalesced to reveal a model of Reality that is as elegant in its simplicity as it is mind-blowing in its implications. In the first book, I outline a play-by-play account of how four of these Visions shaped a new understanding regarding the true architecture of Reality and how this understanding resolves one of our greatest philosophical paradoxes, the relationship between mind and matter or God and the world. Given the universal nature of these experiences, you will be able to verify each truth for yourself.

I wrote this book to demystify the subject of Spiritual Awakening. There are already many excellent books on this subject otherwise known as ‘Nondual Wisdom’ however, what I found to be missing was a book that chronicles the day to day, month to month, and year to year unfolding of the Self in detail. This book is a very personal account of an incredibly impersonal process broken down step by step and presented almost in slow motion. The reader is invited on a journey that chronicles each step along the path to Spiritual Awakening. The details of the climactic experience itself and the final understanding that results from undergoing such a radical and permanent shift in perspective is where I intend to lead you.

It is also my hope that this book will serve to demonstrate how the experience of Spiritual Awakening is not something mythical or a fable belonging to some other time or place but an actual shift in perspective that is available right here and now to anyone that is curious enough to explore the true nature of ‘being’.

Видео Marc Leavitt - Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview канала BuddhaAtTheGasPump