462. Dena Merriam

Buddha at the Gas Pump

Rick Archer

Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy, Spirituality, Society & Culture

4.7 • 695 Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2018

⏱️ 107 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dena Merriam has been working in the interfaith field for 20 years and founded the Global Peace Initiative of Women (GPIW) in 2002. Initially, the organization was designed to provide a global platform for women spiritual leaders to organize and mediate dialogues in areas of conflict and tension. This soon expanded to include an equal number of men and women spiritual teachers and to deal with a range of issues, including climate change, ecological destruction, racial inequity, etc. The premise for the gatherings organized by GPIW is that at the heart of all these issues is a spiritual crisis and the way to address them is a shift in consciousness. Dena has served on the boards of the Harvard University Center for World Religions, the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, Dharma Drum Mountain Buddhist Association, among others. In 2014 she was awarded the Niwano Peace Prize. Over the years as memories of past births have arisen, Dena has recorded them in order to better understand the karmic patterns. She has now shared her memories in My Journey Through Time: A Spiritual Memoir of Life, Death, and Rebirth, in the hope that others will gain insight into their own lives through this sharing. Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Transcript of this interview Interview recorded July 14, 2018 YouTube Video Chapters: 00:00:00 - Introduction to Buddha at the Gas Pump 00:04:15 - Overcoming the Fear of Death and Shaping our Destiny 00:08:04 - Identity and Spiritual Experiences 00:12:03 - Consciousness and Past Lives 00:16:02 - The Process of Remembering Past Lives 00:20:01 - Reincarnation and the Fear of Death 00:23:59 - Shaping Your Own Life and Awakening 00:28:11 - Shifting to a Higher Era 00:32:13 - Embracing Human and Spiritual Unity 00:35:49 - The Virtue of Patience and the Law of Cause and Effect 00:39:48 - Long-term Vision and Reflection in Life 00:44:02 - Creating a Vision for the Future 00:48:09 - The Shift in Consciousness 00:51:47 - The Cleansing Process and Mobilizing Spiritual Energies 00:55:40 - A Powerful Moment of Bonding 00:59:37 - Memories and Aspirations in Between Lives 01:03:40 - Living in the Celestial Realms 01:07:44 - The Yogis' Understanding of Consciousness 01:11:28 - Meditation and Brain Changes 01:15:12 - The Impact of Meditation in All Communities 01:19:41 - Reincarnation and Spiritual Connections 01:23:48 - The Power of Love and Consciousness 01:27:20 - The Power of Spiritual Laws and Love 01:30:37 - Broadening Perspective and Compassion for the Planet 01:33:40 - The Importance of Every Individual 01:36:50 - The Need for Proper Values in Society 01:40:05 - Debauchery and Inner Clarity 01:43:17 - The Concept of Self in Buddhism and Hinduism 01:46:31 - Finding My Voice as a Woman and Bridging Cultures 01:49:41 - Accessing Higher States in Dreams 01:52:44 - Where to find more content

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The Welcome to Buddha at the gas pump.
0:28.2	My name is Rick Archer.
0:29.6	Buddha at the gas pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually awakening people.
0:34.9	I've done hundreds of them now, and if this is new to you and you'd like to see
0:38.9	previous ones, please go to batcap.com and check the past interviews menu. This program is made
0:46.0	possible by the support of appreciative listeners and viewers. So if you appreciate it and feel like
0:51.7	supporting it in any amount, there are PayPal buttons on every
0:54.7	page of the site.
0:56.6	My guest today is Dean and Merriam.
0:59.7	And when I first started preparing for this interview a week ago, I usually like week
1:07.2	to week, I completely focus on the person that I'm about to interview and I don't even
1:12.8	think about ones in coming weeks beyond that. And so I hadn't really thought much or tuned
1:17.5	into Dina or anything. I just sort of turned my attention to her last Saturday after finishing
1:22.2	the previous interview. And I began poking around in her book, my journey through time.
1:29.5	And my first impression was, oh, this will be fun.
1:31.4	We're going to talk about reincarnation.
1:34.7	And I haven't really talked about that topic much on Bat Gap.
1:42.4	But then as I read her bio and began reading her book, I guess my first impression was, wow, this is much about much more than reincarnation.
1:46.0	I mean, she has vivid memories of a number of past lives and has kind of understood
1:51.9	the connections between them and how they all kind of led into the life she has been living
1:59.7	this time around, in which now's my chance to read her bio here,
	...

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