472. Steve Briggs

Buddha at the Gas Pump

Rick Archer

Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy, Spirituality, Society & Culture

4.7 • 695 Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2018

⏱️ 124 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As a teenager, Steve Briggs met his guru at a meditation retreat in the Swiss Alps. After studying English Literature at the University of Arizona on a tennis scholarship, the author received an MBA and a Ph.D. in Vedic Studies and traveled internationally instructing thousands in the art of meditation. Steve is a devotee of Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma), whom he met in India in 1996. He has been practicing Transcendental Meditation (TM) for the past 46 years and credits his guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, with showing him the path to enlightenment. Steve currently coaches the Maharishi School boys' tennis team. His players have won four state high school championships, including the 2014 triple crown. Steve has trained two national champions and a top 50 ATP professional tour player. In 1994, Steve Briggs was sent to India to teach TM to corporate executives. During his seven years in India, Steve traveled repeatedly to the high Himalaya where he encountered many yogis and sadhus. The author’s first book, India Mirror of Truth, was a popular memoir about his time in India. Steve's second book, The Tale of the Himalayan Yogis: The Nirvana Chronicles, is a novel set in India and Tibet. Website: stevebriggsauthor.com Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Transcript of this interview. Interview recorded September 24, 2018. YouTube Video Chapters: 00:00:00 - Introduction with Rick Archer 00:04:56 - Tennis and the Zone 00:08:54 - The Search for an Advantage in Tennis 00:13:10 - The Role of Myelin in Performance 00:17:38 - The Beginning of Tennis 00:21:39 - Witnessing Consciousness & Athletes' Experiences 00:25:35 - Immersed in the World of Kali 00:29:51 - The Power of a Higher Vibration 00:33:41 - Perception Without the Senses 00:38:14 - Exploring Consciousness and Awakening 00:42:39 - The Meaning of the Mantra 00:47:19 - Devotion towards Higher Beings 00:51:49 - The Erosion of Fear and Emotional Discipline 00:56:10 - Shifting from Head to Heart 01:00:40 - Breathing Your Way to Enlightenment 01:04:55 - The Importance of Variety in Daily Life 01:09:02 - The Connection Between Emotions and Health 01:13:04 - The Importance of Checks and Balances 01:17:12 - The Dangers of Intense Spiritual Practices 01:21:21 - Meeting Babaji in Different Forms 01:25:27 - A Mysterious Encounter in Varanasi 01:29:26 - Encounters in the Himalayas 01:33:45 - Levitation and the Human Relationship to Laws of Nature 01:38:01 - Proper use of extraordinary abilities 01:41:57 - The Reality of Gurus and Ethics 01:46:25 - The correlation between higher states of consciousness and ethical behavior 01:50:21 - Trusting Your Inner Wisdom 01:54:34 - Feeding the Dogs and Learning Humility 01:58:38 - The Restless Devotee 02:02:53 - The Buddha Tradition and Feeding Tigers 02:07:09 - A Fellow Traveler on the Spiritual Path

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump.
0:27.6	My name is Rick Archer.
0:29.6	Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually awakening people.
0:34.6	I've done hundreds of them now, and if you find this interesting and
0:39.6	would like to check out previous ones, please go to batgap.com and look under the past
0:45.0	interviews menu. This program is made possible by the support of appreciative listeners and viewers.
0:51.9	I say listeners and viewers because it's in both podcast form and video form.
0:56.6	And so if you appreciate it and feel like supporting it,
1:00.2	even a modest monthly donation makes a significant difference if enough people do it.
1:04.9	Then there's a PayPal button on every page of the site.
1:08.5	And there's also a page about donations,
1:10.2	which explains a little bit why we ask for them and
1:12.6	gives the alternative ways of making them.
1:15.6	My guest today is an old friend of mine, Steve Briggs, who is sitting here.
1:20.6	Steve and I have known each other for decades because of our background in the TM movement,
1:25.6	Transcendental Meditation. We had adventures together in France and Switzerland and India and now Iowa,
1:34.0	where I see Steve several times a week because I go up to the gym and he teaches tennis up there.
1:41.1	Steve was a sort of a tennis prodigy in his youth, as he'll probably be talking about here,
1:48.6	and went to the University of Arizona on a tennis scholarship.
1:54.5	I would say his main love, though, is spirituality, which is probably some overlap.
2:04.6	Tennis can have a spiritual dimension, as I think we'll actually be discussing. And so consequently, he met Marishi Mahesh Yogi at a meditation retreat in the Swiss Alps in probably the 70s.
	...

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