Michaelbernardbeckwithtranscript.Pdf

Healing With the Masters Teleseminar Volume VI – November 2, 2010: Michael Bernard Beckwith

Jennifer: This is Tuesday, November the 2nd, 2010 and we're here with Healing with the Masters with our special guest tonight—Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith. And Rev. Beckwith’s life is a living testament to building spiritual community. In the 1970’s, he began on an inward journey into the teachings of East and West. And today, teaches universal truth principles found in new thought, ancient wisdom, and tradition of spirituality.

Gifted with a vision of trance, the non-denominational spiritual community, in 1986, he founded the Agape International Spiritual Center upon his faith of that original vision. Recently described in What is Enlightenment Magazine as a non- aligned, trans-religious progressive—wow, that's a mouthful. That's sounds kind of cool too. Dr. Beckwith shares his powerful conviction of creating the beloved community whose participation on international panels with other peacemakers and spiritual leaders in Sri Lanka and with the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and I think he’s also been on panels with the Dalai Lama.

He's co-founder of the Association for Global Thought, an organization dedicated to planetary healing and transformation. Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith is the originator of the Life Visioning Process which he teaches throughout the country along with meditation, scientific prayer and the spiritual benefits of selfless service. He facilitates retreats, workshops and seminars. His books include Inspiration of the Heart; 40-day Mind Fast, Soul Feast; A Manifesto of Peace.

And tonight, we're going to talk a little bit about his book, Spiritual Liberation. Welcome Rev. Michael to the show.

Michael: Oh, it is absolutely my joy to be here with you today as I to proclaim the beauty and the love and the joy of life itself.

Jennifer: Oh, indeed, you've already started. It's so wonderful. Thank you so much. Well, I really enjoyed book Spiritual Liberation, Fulfilling your Soul’s Potential. And I think that's probably what you've been dedicated most of your life to. But, I'd love to hear a little bit of the story behind Spiritual Liberation. And then, maybe dive into some of the pretty big concepts that you go through in that book. So, what is the story behind it?

Michael: Are you speaking the story behind the book or the story behind the life?

Jennifer: Yes. Well, I guess it's your life really, isn't it? Because the book is about your life. So, yes, what is your story?

Michael: What's my story? What is his story and then there's God’s story.

Jennifer: Ah, yes.

Michael: Well, we've been celebrating the life divine here in Agape for 24 years now here in November; it would be 24 years. Before that, I was a spiritual therapist for seven workshop seminars. And before that, I had a spiritual opening in my 20s that totally moved me out of the paradigm which I was living at that particular time. And I could never get back in that box. For those who have read through the books, Spiritual Liberation, or seen the movie, Spiritual Liberation, know that I was in a lucid dream that in which I stabbed in the heart. And the pain was excruciating and I died.

And when I woke up I could see that were surrounded this universal presence of such love and such beauty and such intensity that it changed my life forever. And I went on a spiritual inquiry to discover what had happened to me. And an inquiry into and just exactly what happened. And so, doing bumped into the mystics of the ages and the teachings of East and West. And realized that what had occurred was an awakening to that which is real, that which is eternal, that which is forever.

And that particular search, that particular inquiry continues to this day. Always seeking to wake up—when am I going to discover today about the presence, the activity of the presence and the law of power. When am I going to discover about myself and you know, it's not always roses but it's always an emergence of something good that’s within everyone that's trying to express itself.

Before that awakening, you know I had wonderful intentions of helping to change the world; growing up in an activist family. And as a matter of fact, before that awakening occurred, one of the precursors to that was I was a part of a group to change the world. And I looked around the room, a voice asked me, “You know, if we were to take over the world tomorrow, would the world be any different?” When I looked around the room, I noticed that there was tremendous—people having territorial disputes and ego problems and all manner of things.

And I realized that if we were to take over the world tomorrow, we would not be any different. So, I stopped going to those kinds of meetings and realized that there something else that was trying to occur but I didn't know what it was. And it was only after that particular experience which of course preceded itself with months of dreams and inner visions and all manner of consternation and stuff that was going on with me. It was after that particular experience I realized that it was really the shift of consciousness that must propel our actions in order to make a real change and a lasting change in our world and our society.

And I've been at it ever since with a tremendous amount of joy and gratitude and thanksgiving for being alive. That’s in a nutshell but you can ask any questions around that and I'd be happy to answer. Copyright 2010, all rights reserved Jennifer McLean – Healing With the Masters, www.McLeanMasterWorks.com Healing With the Masters Teleseminar Volume VI – November 2, 2010: Michael Bernard Beckwith

Jennifer: Yes. In your book where early on you talk about what it means to become enlightened. So, I'd love for you to share with us your perspective on enlightenment.

Michael: Well, I think that, you know, wherever you are in your spiritual growth, you're probably more enlightened today than you were yesterday, depending on your practice and your intentionality. But when we talk about being enlightened, we're talking about being able to pay undistractable to reality that which is real, that which is eternal, that which is forever. And if one has a state of enlightenment, it means you're able to hold that state for a longer period of time. It’s not just a flash in the pan. It has a shift, there's a shift in your perspective; there's spiritual signs that follow this in terms of the emergence of greater sense of compassion and love and forgiveness and patience. So, enlightenment is not like a blissed out state. Actually bliss is the activation of our potential. And so, everyone is a candidate for enlightenment; everyone is a candidate for this physics shift and expansion of one’s perception to vision state.

There's something knocking on the door, if everyone talk right now. And I think, when we either get sick and tired of being sick and tired or if there's an insight— in my case, it was a combination of both, we become ripe and right for that moment.

Jennifer: I love that—the bliss is the activation of our potential. So, it's not a state of being that many of us in three dimensions will actually achieve 24/7. It is the potential of what we are. And that leads me to a question about the nature of this great something we call God. That's a quote from your book. So, what is our relationship to God? And from your perspective, what is God?

Michael: You know, now you're getting into the unanswerable questions of which I would use words.

Jennifer: Thank you.

Michael: I would use words but we all know when you deal with what is God, you know, you're actually—this thing, this presence can only be known through insight. I mentioned to the Agape Congregation a couple of weeks ago what I'm saying, I can't teach you. This can't be taught, it can only be caught. It's already caught in consciousness through your attention. So, knowing that, then I can say that our relationship to this presence is that we're emanations of it. We’re—just like that sunbeam, it's never separated from sun. It carries the full light and luminosity of the sun.

And just as the waves are an extension or an emanation of the ocean and they carry all the qualities of the ocean. We're an extension or an emanation or the Copyright 2010, all rights reserved Jennifer McLean – Healing With the Masters, www.McLeanMasterWorks.com Healing With the Masters Teleseminar Volume VI – November 2, 2010: Michael Bernard Beckwith

life of God. And God is not a person, he's not an anthropomorphic being. God is a presence not an absence but a presence of love and of beauty and of intelligence. And this presence is everywhere, that's why we call it omnipresent. It's all knowing, that's why we call it omniscient. It's all-powerful which is why we call it omnipotent. And it's the only thing going on as the evolutionary impulse that governs the universe which is why I call it Omni-active. And these are words describing the indescribable that when in a moment of real meditation, real visioning, we capture or we catch this ineffable presence in which we see it cannot divide itself into parts. It is fully present everywhere.

Now, our perception can make it look like there's more God over there than over here; or more love over there than over here; or more beauty over there than over here. But in reality, this presence is everywhere. It's a presence not an absence. And our life is it's emanation and through our spiritual practice we wake up to this. We become aware and awake to this truth. It becomes the activity of our awareness and then it becomes the very condition of our unfolding experience. God is good.

Jennifer: Indeed. So, you mentioned perfection and so, we capture or catch in consciousness through our attention. And our attention then becomes perception. But our perception can sometimes get warped and how can we change that perception when we are— So many people on this call and I get hundreds of emails daily of people who are sharing with me and I'm sure you do as well, that the extreme challenging situations are in right now—health and financial and otherwise, so, how can we in that moment change our perception to catch this consciousness, this consciousness of the divine?

Michael: Right. The $64,000 question.

Michael: Yes. Just deal with the perception and then deal with that, is still both parts of your question. First of all perception is different from vision. Everyone has a perception of something that is their point of view about something. If everyone is looking at an accident, if everyone is looking at a picture in a museum or listening to even a choice piece of music, everyone will hear it or see it differently based on their perception, based on their filters, their opinions, what they've heard about it. Right now, if someone would see me walking down the street, people would all perceive me differently based on what they've heard about me, what they think about me, what they know about me.

But then, there's vision. Vision is when we rise up beyond our limited perception and we're able to see something as it is. So. someone were to see you as you really were, not blinded by their opinion, not even blinded by your opinion of yourself then they would see a luminous being that has never born and has Copyright 2010, all rights reserved Jennifer McLean – Healing With the Masters, www.McLeanMasterWorks.com Healing With the Masters Teleseminar Volume VI – November 2, 2010: Michael Bernard Beckwith

never died; full of the potential of the Presence; ready to express itself. And so, there's a different between perception and vision.

And so, when one is locked in a perception of lack, limitation, scarcity, fear, doubt, worry—which is not a difficult thing to do because we're bombarded every single day with bad news, things to be worried about, and things to be afraid of. We're bombarded everyday of the fact that we're mortal beings who are subject to die, to get hurt, to catch diseases. People would do things, bad things to us; we'll loose things; people will leave us. You know all these dramas are about scarcity, lack and limitations. So, it's not difficult to get locked into a perception of limitation.

But, spiritual practice is what we do to not only provide ourselves with the condition to have an insight that's beyond our present perception but is also what we do to sustain a greater perception. In other words, if you go to a spiritual community, are you listening to this call, right now? Or, you listen to a CD or something that you're doing—chant, pray, meditate, do yoga. You're doing something to extend your perception and you have an “aha” moment.

And you suddenly realize, oh my God, I'm not my body; oh my God, I'm not the experience that happened to me; oh my God, I'm not what they said about me. I am something else. Spiritual practice is what you do to sustain the “aha'” moment so that you're not going to a spiritual community and to get high, as I state in Spiritual Liberation, you're going to get free—free from your limited perception. So, in the middle of seeming negativity, this is where you get down and you do your inner work. This is where you practice your affirmative prayer; this is where you practice meditation; you practice a life visioning process. You begin to augment that with your life sustaining affirmations, your study of spiritual principles, your fellowship—hanging out with individuals that are vibrating at a higher level, that have a higher conversation, instead of having complaining coming out of their mouths, they have vision and possibility coming out of their mouths—that’s fellowship with high-minded people. Entering to active service, where you're coming out of selfishness and being self-conscious into serving something or someone seemingly outside of yourself, so again, you're expanding your perception.

Now, as one enters into dedicated spiritual practice, practicing anything of those things that I've just mentioned, they may discover that they're able to maintain an expanded perception for a long period of time. Then, they'll experience changes. Perception brings about experience. Spiritual practice shifts perception; experience changes. And it's lawful; it's meaningful and it's real. And so, it's not magical thinking. It's not waving your magic your hand and changing something.

Your perception actually shifts when you have an intention for it to do so. And then, you provide the right condition for that to occur.

I know I said a lot there but sometimes I do get going.

Jennifer: Yes. Wow! I mean, that's a whole hour call. That was awesome, my goodness, gracious. And I know you that taught time warp in your conversation. You get so much content out there so we really appreciate this.

Michael: Well, it's an energy. A couple of things are going on—one, I'm listening to something. And two, as it is being said at a certain speed sometimes, it will bypass an individual’s filter that leads to judge it and “is this true” and “do I need to believe this.” It bypasses that and it activates a person where they remember that it's so. And what happens to individuals and this happens very frequently when someone sitting in there listening to me speak at a cafe or somewhere else. It will come through them and they'll think and they'll nod their head. And it seems regular knowledge that they know it already—I agree with this; I know this.

And what's happening is it's just being activated on a soul memory level. And so, whenever something is activated on a soul memory level, it always seems like you're at home, like, "Oh, yes. I already know this.” But it's bypassed the filter that would say, "Hmm, I don't really believe this. I don't know if this so. No, no, no it's not getting in here.” Oops, too late.

Jennifer: Too late, it's already in. So, you know one of the things that many of the speakers on Healing with the Masters talk about is practice. And it's something that you're clearly emphasizing here which is embodying a spiritual practice. For when those “aha” moments come, that we can elongate them. Now, a lot of people—there's someone asking right now. You know, I had this wonderful high; I had this really great blissful experience and then it went away. And so, I mean, you've kind of answered it a little bit but is there something that we can address with these kind of ups and downs of life.

Michael: Yes. Well, to address first of all the high. First of all, that moment that a person has that high, it means that the lower frequencies—the doubts, the worries and the fears—were temporarily abated. And a person was actually touching their real identity. It wasn't really a high as much as it was an embracing of what is real about us. And then, what happens is, as life goes on, those other doubts, worries, fears and minor perceptions come back again and become like a filter.

But once you've been touched like that and you felt your real identity, it nags you and it haunts you all the time because you want to come back. It's like a person that becomes addicted. When a person does a drug and they have that high, all Copyright 2010, all rights reserved Jennifer McLean – Healing With the Masters, www.McLeanMasterWorks.com Healing With the Masters Teleseminar Volume VI – November 2, 2010: Michael Bernard Beckwith

they've done is abate the lower frequencies. And then, they think that drug is going to bring that back again but they always have to take more and more and more and more of the drug in order for that to occur because the drug is doing it unnaturally and debilitates the person.

But, if a person enters into a spiritual practice of centering their life around moments of prayer and meditation which is difficult because people already have their habits built in, even if that habit is laziness; even if that habit is lethargy and apathy and doing nothing. It's still an energy. And so, what we're inviting ourselves to do is to stop on a regular basis and develop another habit—that is to stop and to contemplate that which is real; to be grateful for that which is true and until that becomes a habit.

Now, as that becomes a habit, what begins to happen at some point is in the beginning, you're forcing—it feels like you're forcing something new in an already fulfilled life. But after it gets in there, then after a while, your life is built around it. In the beginning, you're trying to put it into your life and then what happens is your life starts to be revolving around those moments of stopping, having a moment of prayer, moment of meditation, moment of study, moment of fellowship until your life is totally built around that. Now, you have a whole new habit of awakening. And now, you enter into the law of grace where even before you ask for something, that habit which has built a new law of your being, begins to bring things into your life—circumstances and situations, people, places that are vibrating with that new habit. And your life begins to change.

So, that feeling and tone of connectiveness is so very important.

Jennifer: Yes. The connective piece—that feeling sense of connected. To me—I have the same words. To me that feels like it's when we know that we know.

Michael: Yes.

Jennifer: And so, that to me is also part of being in the flow of the divine.

Michael: Right. A person knows that they okay, right.

Jennifer: That's right. But it's not necessarily something that's really easy to teach someone to do. Because you're basically teaching someone to do being.

Michael: Right. So, that's why what I teach is that when the condition is right then the potential emerges—that which is potential already within them. When the condition is right, the potential emerges. When a seed is planted in the ground and that condition becomes right, then the potential of that seed erupts as a rosebush or if it's an acorn, as an oak tree. So, within us is tremendous

potentiality, infinite. And so, what we're doing is consciously creating the condition. Now, my book, I remind us that we are endogenous beings as opposed to being merely indigenous or merely exogenous. Exogenous being that the externals determine your destiny. Indigenous meaning, like an indigenous plant, you only flourish into one kind of environment. Endogenous means that you create your own environment and you can take that environment everywhere you go—whatever city, wherever country. And so, through, as we just talked, developing spiritual practice—gratitude, affirmative prayer, visioning —all of these wonderful tools, you carry the environment everywhere you go. so, it doesn’t matter about the trends of the world, the economic cycles, whether you're abused as a kid, whether you're divorced, fired, whatever the society says your IQ is.

All those things don't matter when the condition is right, emergence takes place—the emergence of prosperity, the emergence of health, the emergence of love. All of those are within everyone. And what we're doing is creating the right condition through our intention and our practice to let that which is within us to come forward. This is why sometimes you notice that people who appear to be much more simple than other people, demonstrate a lot faster because their mind is not clouded with a lot of “how do you do it.” They’re just are able to just stop and do it and just be it, you know. They say, "Honey, how did he do that. You know, he didn't seem to be that bright.” Well, he's connected.

Jennifer: He wasn't that bright, but he was connected. He knew that he knew.

Michael: Right.

Jennifer: I love this concept that of endogenous; that we can—wherever we are and in turn whatever happens to us, that's a perception too, is happening to us.

Michael: Right. That’s a stage.

Jennifer: We can manage to do it. Yes. So, it's not really happening to us, is it? And I'd love to talk a little bit about, yes, what's going on there. Are we really the creators of our life?

Michael: No. We are a participant in life. We are a joint participant in a field of good that is everywhere of which our life is an emanation of what we're participating in. And so, is the wave creating the ocean? Well, the wave is a dimension of the ocean; it's what the ocean does. And we are what life does. Life has evolved to the point where it has reflective consciousness. It can think about what it thinks about; it can be conscious that it's conscious; it can be aware that it's aware. And it can participate in this sea of awareness of infinite potentiality. And it can participate in the expression of such art and such beauty and such good of which Copyright 2010, all rights reserved Jennifer McLean – Healing With the Masters, www.McLeanMasterWorks.com Healing With the Masters Teleseminar Volume VI – November 2, 2010: Michael Bernard Beckwith

there is the scope of infinitude. So, we get to participate in all of that with no ceiling, no lack, and no limitations. And then, watch as our individual life— individual by the way means undivided; that's what individual means. It comes from the root word “undivided.” So, we get to participate in our individual life revealing that we are undivided from wholeness and get to express it.

So, people say, you know, we create our own reality. We create our own perception of reality but reality with a capital “R” is life, plentitude, abundance, beauty. These are everywhere. We don't create them, we participate in them and give them a radical, unique twist. This says, an artist can take the keyboard of a piano and take those same keys that are there and reveal a level of infinity in terms of the scope and the alacrity of playing and listening to the tunes and melodies and compositions. They're participating in this tremendous field of potential, of music, you see, according to their unique pattern. It's a sweet adventure we're on.

Jennifer: It is indeed and it feels like in this moment we are on a little walking meditation with you through your wonderful insights and beautiful words and cadence.

Michael: Hmm, thank you.

Jennifer: Thank you. One of the things you talk about too in the book is the importance of laughter.

Michael: Oh, yes. That’s funny, I went on a hike this past Saturday with the youth and family ministry at Agape with Rev. Leon Campbell and the young men and the mentors. And what he had us do is was each had to pull a card and contemplate it and then we walked up to Eagle Rock, had a meditation and then we all shared what that was. And my grandson who's six had pulled the card “laugher”. And so, now he had to share what that meant to him. He had to do the reading on laughter. And interesting, and so, we said, "Well, his name is King Chay Sayla Beckwith.” That's his real name.

Jennifer: Wow! That's a cute name.

Michael: It's is. He started talking about the beauty of laughter and how laughter can heal your body, that when you laughed, your body can actually heal itself. He's six years old, he's talking about this. And we all laughed and then he started laughing. But that's what it is, I just brought that to mind. But laughter is very powerful. Laughter is a beginning of wisdom. You know this tremendous paradox and when there's a joke told or when we're able to see life paradoxically, we're able to see the eternal in time. And we were to laugh primarily what's good is to laugh at ourselves when we notice our foibles; we notice where we fall down; we notice where we don't quite live up to our intentionality. Copyright 2010, all rights reserved Jennifer McLean – Healing With the Masters, www.McLeanMasterWorks.com Healing With the Masters Teleseminar Volume VI – November 2, 2010: Michael Bernard Beckwith

You know, when we laugh at ourselves, suddenly we are making ourselves available to the eternal that which is forever, that which is never hurt, hungered and endangered, that which is never born, that which never dies. It comes into play through us through our laughter. And as a matter of fact, a matter of truth I should say, joy, as one great mystic said, is the evidence of God. And so, when there's laughter, when there's joy, when there's taking ourselves lightly, it's an evidence that we're evolving. When we take on ourselves too seriously, an individual as I wrote there, if an individual takes himself to seriously is an individual that believes everything that they think, you know. And woe, be the individual that believes everything that passes through their minds. You know, they're taking themselves a bit too seriously.

You know, you find these intellectual types that really believe their own opinions. Even though, if they would've looked at themselves, they would see if they shifted their opinions more than they change their underwear of course throughout their life. And so, we don’t want to take ourselves too seriously. What I say, don't be serious, be reverential. There's a big difference between being serious and being reverential. Being serious is believing everything you think even your opinions but being wrapped up in yourself and if you're wrapped up in yourself, that makes for a very small package.

But if you're reverential, you're opening yourself up to the awe and the wonder of the universe. And you're not pious, you're not holier than thou but there's a reverential attention that you have because you know right around the corner there's more good and there's more love and there's more opportunities that you could possibly imagine. So, reverential and seriousness are not the same thing. And laughter is a stepping-stone to that.

Jennifer: I love the reverential allows you that place of attention to that, you just said. So, reverence brings you to attention and attention brings you a perception that there's good around the corner. And that, that perception can actually really shift many aspects of your life, can it?

Michael: Oh my God, yes. My God, yes. You know, a lot of times I work with individuals and I will have them—you know, they're working through some dilemma and I will move them to a state where they become absolutely grateful for something and then become aware that they're grateful that the outcome has already occurred. The story is in that book, Spiritual Liberation. One of the stories about a woman named Donna who was dealing with her kidneys.

Jennifer: Yes and peeing prayer.

Michael: Yes and the pee-pee—the prayer while peeing prayer. Oh, one of the things that I had her do is to be grateful for the organs in her body that did work. And her kidneys weren’t working. She was on dialysis but her heart worked, she could walk. She could breathe, her lungs worked. She could see, her eyes were working. And so, I said, take your attention off of the kidneys; put your attention on what works and begin to celebrate that and be grateful for that. And then, in the height of the gratitude and celebration transfer that energy to the kidneys, you see.

And while she was doing that, I had her read some material on healing so her mind will be prepared for it. And then, I had the class. I told the class, in the Enlightened, going back to that word enlightenment again, The Enlightened, give thanks for what most people take for granted. What I want you to do is be grateful that your kidneys work and every time you use the restroom you celebrate and then you pray for Donna. So, that's why we call it the pee-pee prayer. So, while the class using the restroom, they would pray for Donna while they were in a moment of celebration. And then, Donna was celebrating that fact that her heart was working and preparing her mind for the wholeness. So, within a month, her kidneys spontaneously started working.

And she didn't need to have a kidney transplant. And that was over three years ago. And she's still walking her at Agape, she's a teacher in the school district; bringing a lot of joy to the children. And the doctors wanted to do some surgery just to see what had happened. But she didn't let them do it. She said, "No, you're not going to discover what happened because it happened through the power of my intention and my gratitude and my laughter and my love, you know. But, for gratitude—

Jennifer: Yes, gratitude and gratitude for what works. I love that. What's working right now. I mean, everyone on this call could carefully right now just look at their life and say, "What's working right now in my life or in my body.”

Michael: Absolutely.

Jennifer: And the other thing I really appreciate is this notion of praying while you pee. I'd love you talk a little bit about what why perception of prayer is. And I don't know if you'd be open to even walking us through a prayer.

Michael: You know prayer, I'll describe prayer as touching reality without trying to get anything from it. So, it's actually it's you're doing what you're doing to have a realization of what's occurring. That's what prayer is. And so, in primary stages when we're first learning to pray, there's more of a begging or beseeching a deity outside of yourself. You know, God give me a car; God, heal my back something

like that. But prayer is defined by our concept of the presence of God. So, we think God is somewhere in the distance, that's reluctant then we're going to beg or beseech. But when we begin to be aware that this presence is closer than our breathing and nearer than our hands and feet.

And this presence is closer to us than we are to our self. If this presence is everywhere in its fullness, then our concept of our prayer changes. Now, instead of praying to God, we’re communing with God. And you can only commune with something if you have the same frequency. For instance, water and oil can’t commune. If you put water and oil together and shake up the bottle, it will look like it’s communing for a seconds. And then pretty soon, the water and the oil will separate because they’re of different viscosity, different vibration. You can commune with the presence because you’re of the same frequency and potential.

So prayer is touching reality without trying to get anything from it. So in terms of prayer, we would teach people at Agape, we begin with gratitude, we begin to be very grateful for what is, grateful for something that’s working in our lives. As you were just asking your listeners to do so, be very grateful for the beauty that is around you, very grateful at your hardest work, very grateful for whatever good is happening in your life and then from that sense of gratitude, your perception already begins to change. It begins to expand. So now, from gratitude we begin to recognize, we begin to see that all around us is a great presence, a great love, a great joy. And then from seeing, right seeing, we go to right being. We begin to feel that we’re at one with this life. Our life is the life of the presence. Our life is the life of love. Our life is the life of peace. Our life is the life of plentitude. Now I can begin to proclaim, declare, decree, realize that my needs are met. If in fact I'm dealing with prosperity, I can begin to accept that all my needs are met right now. If I'm dealing with health, I can begin to accept that wholeness is the order of the day right now. If I'm dealing with relationships, I can begin to declare and decree and feel that my relations are shot through with eternity, which is love and kindness. And now as I begin to feel them, the prayer was incomplete until I actually feel that. I have to feel that. I have to have a recognizing, a realization of that. This is work. And then at work play, as I call it—I call it work play. It’s work play. And then, when I feel that, then I’d release and let it go. I let it go. I don’t hold on to it. I let it go. I relax into the fact, the truth that it’s happening. It’s happening now. In the New Thought Ancient Wisdom community, we say, “And so it is.” It’s happening now. And so it is. And so it is happening now. And I walk in that awareness.

For those individuals who tuned in to either through live streaming or through coming to Agape who heard the dialog I had with Christina Applegate on Friday

night at the Beckwith Speaker Series, she spoke about how she broke her foot two weeks before she closed on Broadway. It was supposed to take months to heal and when she called, she said is it possible to heal the foot in a week or two. I said it’s possible but she’s not going to have the luxury of not one negative thought during this two-week period. So for the next weeks, for hours on end, she would go in and she would contemplate gratitude and thanksgiving and appreciation that she was whole and perfect and complete and that everything was working together for her good. And she would imagine the doctor telling her, wow, this is a miracle. And every time a negative thought tried to creep in, she would go back to work play. She did this for two weeks straight. So when she went to the doctor, the doctor looked at her and said, “This is a miracle! The foot has healed!”

So please understand she put herself in that vibration. She prayed. She put herself in that frequency and she stuck to it until she believed it. And then she believed it until she felt it. And she felt it until she embodied it. She embodied it until it showed up, you see?

Jennifer: Oh, right. Feeling and bodying showing up.

Michael: Right. And so some people will wake up and do a little prayer and then go out into the day and get caught up with all of the machinations of human experience and gossip and bad news and just put themselves in a position to be around all kinds of negativity. And so they’re spending 90% of the time complaining about something and less than 10% of the time actually feeling that good is occurring. And so we have to change that dynamic and what Christina Applegate did, she just took two weeks and that’s all she did. The body had to respond. This woman with the kidney situation, she just spent every waking moment reading, studying, affirming, accepting the prayers of her classmates. Those kidneys had to respond. So prayer is touching reality without trying to get anything from it. That’s the short version. In New Thought under the aegis of, for instance, Dr. Ernest Holmes with The Science of Mind, they call it the spiritual mind treatment where you’re treating your mind to accept the good that is all around you.

Jennifer: Yes. The feeling and bodying and then it shows up. And so anyone on this call who is going through something extreme right now, if they focus the majority of their attention on what is good in their life and follow this prayer, this gratitude prayer process and feel it until they can embody it, then it will show up.

Michael: Yes, that’s law.

Jennifer: That’s law.

Michael: There’s a law of the power and there’s the activity of the presence. And you articulated a law. It’s lawful if you have a rock in your hand and let it go, it’s going to fall to the earth. Making the happen, that falling to the earth is revealing an underlying field of gravity. And so there is a law that we don’t make it happen. But we reveal the law that our thoughts which are units of mental energy transmute themselves into speech, behavior, action, perception and experience. If we don’t make it happen, that’s the law of transmutation. And so as one begins to have dominion over their thought, their intentionality, then their life experience begins to shift because their perception begins to change. That’s law.

Jennifer: I’d like to kind of take this to another kind of layer of the same idea and talk about when change occurs within someone. You talk about when something shifts in our consciousness, then our behaviors change as well. Could you take us down that path of behavior changes? It’s kind of chicken and egg. Is it consciousness that changes or it behavior that changes?

Michael: Interesting about the chicken and egg because people will say, what came first, the chicken or the egg? What came first is consciousness. There’s the consciousness of the chicken and then therefore there’s the enfoldment of that idea. So it’s both. It’s a thought that emerges, it’s an intention, it’s your consciousness breaking free. So for instance someone decided that they wanted to be on this teleseminar of Healing with the Masters. They heard about it so then they dialed in and now they’re here with us. Now what dialed in? It was the part of them that was already awake trying to express itself. And so then the individual said yes to it so they dialed in and so they put themselves in the position to have an insight that is a homecoming to something that they already know on an enlightened level and then what happens? The behaviors start to change so that person finds himself with a greater intention to be around this kind of conversation, this kind of community, this kind of people. It provides more insight, more revelation, which changes the behavior and so it just keeps revving up into action, the actions that we take. After a while we don’t take any action that’s going to mitigate the life force trying to express through us. And so we end up being like a laser where in the beginning we may be light, we may be porous, we may not have that much luminosity, we may not have that much intensity, but after a while with every expanded awareness, every insight, every revelation, every change of action, and we become like laser beams.

And so now our life is about the enfoldment of our soul. Not just about, well, I need a new car, so let me go in and meditate on a new car. I need a healing on my back. No. After a while you up level and you become a permanent student of truth. And so your actions are different. It doesn’t mean you don’t slip and fall.

It doesn’t mean you don’t make mistakes. But you get up quickly because this is what you’re life is about.

So you grow in two ways, going to your main question. You grow through either pain or you grow through insight. You have so much pain that you get sick and tired of being sick and tired and you say I got to change and you go on discovery. Or you have an insight that shatters your perception and then you get high and you say, “Oh my God, what happened? I want to have more of this.” So through pain or insight. I teach that the pain pushes you until vision pulls you. Pain pushes until vision pulls. And so after a while, when you’re like a laser and you’re in a spiritual community and you’re taking classes and you’re studying and you’re in teleseminars like this, you have a special spiritual practice, special in terms of unique according to your particular template, pain pushes you less and less and vision pulls you more and more.

Jennifer: That is such a perfect description of what I’ve seen so many people go through including myself where I was two weeks away from living in my car. And within two years I had this—that pain pushed me until my vision took over. And then from that vision, from what you’ve been talking about earlier, becomes that place of flow, of that place of knowing, that place of trust almost and faith. Is that where faith comes from?

Michael: Yes. You’ve used the word flow. Faith, when you look at it scripturely it’s the substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen. So faith is being described as a living substance of what you’re hoping for and it’s the evidence of what you can’t see. Everything you want to hope for and desire is invisible and then it shows up in the manifest realm. So if an individual has faith, we’re saying that they’re able to abide in the invisible realm. Even though it’s invisible or inaudible, it’s still real to them.

A great inventor will see something, even though it hasn’t manifested yet, they will work on it until it show up. A great composer will hear a level of music that no one else can hear, but they will flesh it out, so to speak. A great architect will see an architectural design in his or her mind, it’s invisible for most but they have faith, they have that living substance and the living evidence already within them. And then what happens is faith then becomes conviction. From the beginning you have faith. In the beginning you have hope. Then hope turns to faith and then faith becomes conviction. Unshakable. You know that you know that you know, which is slowly becoming a theme of this particular call and also a name of a song that Rickie and I wrote, I Know. It’s called simply, I Know.

Jennifer: I would love to hear a little bit more about you and Rickie and the music, and you talk about your relationship with Johann Sebastian Bach. Copyright 2010, all rights reserved Jennifer McLean – Healing With the Masters, www.McLeanMasterWorks.com Healing With the Masters Teleseminar Volume VI – November 2, 2010: Michael Bernard Beckwith

Michael: Oh, Lord have mercy. You read the book, didn’t you?

Jennifer: I did.

Michael: I forget what I put in books. Years ago, I used to have dreams of being Johann Sebastian Bach. We would be exchanging music with each other.

Jennifer: Cool.

Michael: I can’t remember whether I did this or he did this, I have to look on my journal or read my own book, but I remember we did a piece that dealt with giving and tithing and it helps people understand the nature of circulation in terms of how gift giving in itself helps someone become prosperous. It was an amazing period of time in my life of hanging out with him. Sometimes I still hear that tremendous symphonies and this tremendous music. Rickie and I have been writing together now 22 years, maybe as song partners for 22 years.

Jennifer: So just to tell people who don’t know, Rickie is your wife and she’s also your beautiful musical director at Agape and a marvelous human being.

Michael: Right. A heart of gold. Musical arts director of Agape, my wife, songwriting partner and we would get together and write. I can remember at one time I had all this—just symphonies and stuff coming through and I would try to explain to her. She’s, “Oh no, no, no, you have to get somebody else for that. That’s not my gifted area.”

Jennifer: I don’t do symphonies.

Michael: How am I going to get this music out of me! But I haven’t got any of those out yet. Every now and then I’ll hum—one day maybe I’ll take the time and actually learn how to play an instrument good enough to flesh out that music.

Jennifer: Remember, Michael, there is so much technology now on the Internet and on the computer. So I'm sure there’s something out there that you could use. I will do a little research on that.

Michael: Okay, great. That would be great.

Jennifer: We have about 10 minutes left and I think you’ve addressed some of this already. But I would like to talk a little bit about drama and how people sometimes drama as a distraction and use their story as a distraction and I’d love to get your insight on what’s going on there and how people can maybe overcome their story.

Michael: Absolutely. We talked about addiction a little bit. People are addicted to drama because there are certain chemicals that are released. And even though those chemicals are debilitating the body, they’re toxic of chemicals when certain emotions are present, yet that toxicity at times makes people feel that they’re alive. They’ll become addicted to their anger or depression or some events, how they perceive certain events that are going on. And they’re saying in substance, “I have drama, therefore I'm alive.”

Jennifer: Do you remember those days?

Michael: Yes. There are people you can see who get caught up in that. They just have to have drama. And what happens is as we start to expand our perception to be able to hold vision, we’re alive because we’re feeling more zest and more joy. There’s a vividness to life. The colors change because the chemicals that are coming through are now iconic chemicals rather toxic chemicals that are coming about because of an increasing amount of joy that we are experiencing, amount of love, amount of connectedness and creativity and we become less and less prone to drama. As a matter of fact, we don’t like drama. It becomes aberrate to us. Our system becomes too sensitive to too much drama. And the fight-and- flight response is only reserved for something really to be afraid of. Your house is on fire. You need to react very quickly if you're about to be in a car accident or to save a child or something to that effect. It’s reserved for something real rather than the made-up stuff that people go through every single day. “I’m going to be late, I’m going to be late. I'm going to be late to work. I'm going to get fired. I'm going to die, oh my God! He doesn’t love me, he’s going to leave me, then he likes somebody else. Oh, he likes them more than me. Oh my God, I want to die!” We make all kinds of stuff around jealousy and envy and this type of thing.

So, what happens is as we continue to grow, we find ourselves moving from drama to drama-dies where we’d laugh at ourselves. We still have a little bit of with this drama but we’re able to catch ourselves in it and kind laugh. And then after a while, we don’t play anymore. We don’t enticed by the ego’s pull to have us be dramatic unless we’re playing in a play or a movie, unless drama is called for.

And it doesn’t mean life is boring. It’s the exact opposite. When you’re living on the edge of creativity and love and joy, life is never boring. As a matter of fact, as you expand your awareness, you’re called into higher states of activity. And then, as the saying goes, he or she who is given much, much is required. As you expand your awareness, life demands more from you. So now you have to give of yourself more. You have to be more present, more available for the world. So you end up doing more. Even though you’re in a higher state of being, you have to do more. Copyright 2010, all rights reserved Jennifer McLean – Healing With the Masters, www.McLeanMasterWorks.com Healing With the Masters Teleseminar Volume VI – November 2, 2010: Michael Bernard Beckwith

I mean my schedule is intense. Even though I’m a contemplative, my schedule is intense for me to be public. And much is required of me to teach and to speak and to travel and to be in meetings, to facilitate vision readings and to be a part of panels and to be a part of things that are going to bring about sustainable peace and things of this particular nature, to be a point of inspiration. It’s not like you become lethargic and go in a cave and contemplate your navel. No. You have an insight and then the universe demands that that insight be lived and shared.

Jennifer: I remember a couple of years back when I was really starting to change and things were shifting and I was no longer two weeks away from living in my car. I was successful and I had a moment of, “What will happen when I don’t have to work on myself? Who am I going to be? What will I be spending my time on?”

Michael: Right. Who would you be without your drama is the question. And people need to think about that. Without this drama, who would we be? And now they can start getting glimpses of their real nature.

Jennifer: Yes. And I think sometimes it’s hard to know what you’ll be when you’ve never experienced it before. You’ve never had a template before. A question that just occurred to me is, okay, I’m awake. Now what?

Michael: And that’s a beautiful question because this is what I invite entrepreneurs to ask: “Now that I’m rich, now what?” Now that I’ve proven these principles in my individual life, now play a larger game. Help the world become sustainable with prosperity. And so the “Now what?” is to play a larger game on the planet so that we all become prone to a realization that we are planetary citizens and if one person is suffering, at some level we’re all suffering. If one person is locked in slavery, we’re all enslaved. If one person doesn’t have the condition to activate the potential, then we’re all blocking our own potential. So we add another dimension of our game. It’s like the individual that goes to the mountain top and has the sudden burst of realization about their oneness with God. Now, they’ve got to come to the valley and work. They’ve got to come back and do the work.

There’s a story that I tell about an individual—I know we have limited time so it’s not going to be long story.

Jennifer: No, please. We can go over. No problem.

Michael: About an individual who was the town’s laundryman. That was their perception of him that he was the guy who did their laundry. And he would come pick up their laundry and wash it, then bring it back to the house nice and folded and very neat and pristine. But what they didn’t know about this man was that he was a practitioner of meditation, Zen meditation. They couldn’t see that. All they saw Copyright 2010, all rights reserved Jennifer McLean – Healing With the Masters, www.McLeanMasterWorks.com Healing With the Masters Teleseminar Volume VI – November 2, 2010: Michael Bernard Beckwith

was the fact that he did their laundry. And so one day he had a moment, a story. He went into a state of bliss and had an expanded awareness of his oneness with life. And he went to his master and said “Master, I think I’ve become enlightened.” And the master said, “Well, hold on, let me check.” And the master said, “What is Zen?” At that moment he dropped the laundry bags to the ground, his back straightened up, his face became very luminous, you could see in his eye that he was locked in eternity. There was a slight smile on his face that carried the imprimatur of the eternal presence. He was glowing. You could tell that the man had been touched by something ineffable and real. And the master looked at him and said, “Very well. Now, what’s enlightenment?” And at that moment, he picked up the laundry bags and went back to work.

And so, what’s next? We go back into our daily round of activities, turning every chore into an act of worship.

Jennifer: Oh my God, that’s beautiful. You make me cry every time you talk.

Michael: Oh wow. Cheers to God.

Jennifer: Indeed, indeed. Beautiful, beautiful. We’re about at the top of the hour and I want to make sure that—

Michael: That was a fast hour! Where did the time go?

Jennifer: That was outrageous. But we covered a tremendous amount of ground. You are good!

Michael: There was so much material that flowed through there. Give me a copy of this.

Jennifer: You bet! So I want to share with everyone, I’ll give you a chance to do a final kind of, anything that you’re learning of late. I want to finish the call with that. But I want to mention the special offer that you have. So we’re getting some wonderful feedback already here. We’ve got dozens of people saying what an amazing shift they've just experienced. So if you guys are ready for more, we have this amazing special offer that Agape and Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith have put together for us tonight. It is Living the Awakened Life. You can check it out at healingwiththemasters.com/agapespecial. I’ll just make sure that I’ve got that right. Yes, healingwiththemasters.com/agapespecial. It’s really a beautiful set of products. You’re going to get the Life Visioning Kit. We didn’t get a chance to go through that tonight but this is a wonderful thing. It’s two CDs and a 45-page workbook plus 30 cards and it’s guided meditation, creative visualization, affirmation and prayer and a lot of stuff we talked tonight in an actual practice. That’s the Life Visioning Kit. That’s just one.

Michael: The Life Visioning Kit is very, very potent. For those who don’t have it, very potent, very powerful, and takes you through it step-by-step on how to accept and receive and articulate a vision for your life that would then pull you into a greater expression of your possibilities.

Jennifer: And I understand that this is the process that you used to start the Agape community and every other important choice you’ve made in your life.

Michael: Absolutely. We use the Life Visioning process for all of our particular programs and projects—catching the vision, articulating the vision, embodying the vision, and becoming the individual that becomes the right condition for the expression of the vision. Absolutely. Life is a process. Spiritual liberation and life visioning process are essential I believe.

Jennifer: Great. And that’s just one of nine. You’ve got The Rhythm of the Descended Masters, a 4-CD set which is a treasure chest of inspirational wisdom and stories recorded live and featuring music from Ricky and the house band, beautiful, inspirational content. You’ve got the 40-day Mind Fast Soul Feast and I know that this is a hard cover book that’s quite powerful I understand and it’s changing your life in 40 days, one day at a time. One of the things that Rev. Michael talked about on this call for the last hour is the practice. He’s giving you several different products that are going to help you with a practice. One of them also being the Agape Online Community. You get to connect with likeminded people around the world in a beautiful community. I have been to the Agape Community. It’s beautiful. You are going to get a 90-day subscription to that.

So if you are looking for a community, you are looking to hang out with high vibrating, like-minded individuals, you will get to participate in that for the next 90 days. Living in the Revelation is a DVD. And it’s another beautiful—oh my God, I’m just feeling into this really carefully right now and, holy crap, this is high vibrating.

Michael: Right.

Jennifer: Living in the revelation. Wow! That is a powerful product. Supreme Inspiration is a music CD. I’ve had several of your CDs and I play them all the time and they are vibrationally high and incredibly present. And this is Rickie’s recent collection of songs with an overlay of groove, soundscape and poetry. You’re going to absolutely love that one. Agape Inner Visions Online, it’s a one year free subscription. This is written by the practitioners and ministers at Agape.

Michael: Including me.

Jennifer: Including you, yes. And there’s also a 20-minute session with an Agape practitioner. This is the coolest thing. The sessions with the practitioners are very life-changing and they will take you through this prayer process I believe as part of that 20-minute session. Is that correct?

Michael: Yes.

Jennifer: And then there’s also Music from the Path of Peace by Ben Dowling. It’s a beautiful inspiring mediation CD from the pianist at Agape and it’s an award winning musical journey for meditation that is very powerful, high vibrating. Plus, you get a bunch of bonus gifts including Spiritual Liberation, a 50-minute audio lesson. Living Food, a program for conscious health. Spiritual Liberation movie, there’s a movie. You get that too. And the Agape Chant and Anthology, one of my favorite things. I play this all the time. It’s really, really powerful.

Anyway, that is nine products plus bonus gifts and there is other content. We’ve got quotes here from Deepak Chopra and the head coach of USC. It’s a beautiful offering. Thank you so much for pulling this together. And it is a whopping 80% off, folks. So, again, healingwiththemasters.com/agapespecial will get you there. And if you’re on the webcast right now, you can click on the link. If you’re listening to the broadcast later, just scroll down and click on that big purple button and you will be able to take advantage of this wonderful offer and really establish an even deeper practice which Reverend Michael Beckwith.

Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Are there any final thoughts or sayings that you’re just dying to let us know about that you’ve been hanging out with lately?

Michael: I just always remind people that they are so much more bigger than they think they are, that people have a tendency to just think about themselves as the son or daughter of their parents. And, in fact, they are the burst of life itself. Without any encumbrance or obstructions or sealing, and the spiritual practices allow you to tap into that and actually live from that particular space. That Living as a Descended Master, one product that is there deals with the fact that we’re not trying to be ascended masters. We’re trying to be descended masters.

Jennifer: Oh, I didn’t notice that—descended.

Michael: Yes, descended. In other words, we’re here to anchor on earth in density, this realm of ever-expanding good. So we’re not like being a fufu and fluffy and airy- fairy, and I’m going to hang out in the upper atmospheres. No. We’re going to hang in those atmospheres and then bring them into time. And that’s what an artist does. In my book I talk about artist perceptivity. An artist will go into the realm, perceive the beauty, but then bring it and put it on a canvas. Or an artist Copyright 2010, all rights reserved Jennifer McLean – Healing With the Masters, www.McLeanMasterWorks.com Healing With the Masters Teleseminar Volume VI – November 2, 2010: Michael Bernard Beckwith

will bring it and put it to an instrument. And so we’re descended masters. We go into the realms like urban shaman and then bring it into time. And I think that people need to be reminded of this so they’re not running away from their problems or running away from life. They’re going into a meditation to higher states of being to bring eternity into time as they are way bigger than they think they are. And when you get a glimpse of your real identity, it changes your life forever and you’ll never be able to get in that box again. It’s a beautiful thing.

Jennifer: I love that and the artistry part. I mean, really what we are also doing in that description is we are bringing the artistry of our vision into our own lives and to the lives of others.

Michael: Absolutely.

Jennifer: Wow. Okay. Thank you so much. I wish we had another hour.

Michael: Well, we just have to do this another time. So call me again and we’ll have another chat and let people know that they can live stream the services at agapelive.com

Jennifer: Yes, agapelive.com is a wonderful place. You guys can watch Reverend Michael doing his weekly services on Sundays and—

Michael: Wednesday nights. Sundays, Wednesdays and even classes.

Jennifer: And for those of you who are regional in the Los Angeles area, the Agape Spiritual Community is right there, ready and waiting for you. And those who are traveling to the Los Angeles area, go check it out. It’s incredible. You will leave a different person. That has been my experience. Thank you so much.

Michael: And anybody who wants to register for our annual revelation conference which happens in April, April the 14th to the 17th here in Los Angeles, if they mention your show, your program, then we will knock off another $25 of that conference.

Jennifer: Wow!

Michael: So if they’ve been on this line or they tell their friends to listen to this and you know, any product they get, whatever the case they be, they mention this, we’ll knock another $25 off that major conference.

Jennifer: Oh fantastic.

Michael: So, I could see them in person.

Jennifer: Excellent! Yey! Fantastic. Thank you for that. And thank you for the many opportunities to experience you further through this special. Again, it’s healingwiththemasters.com/agapespecial. What a joy to have you on the show tonight. Thank you so much for joining us and many blessings to you, Reverend Michael.

Michael: Many blessings to you.

Jennifer: And this is also a very powerful week, folks, at Healing with the Masters. We are going to be joined on Thursday by Dan Millman, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, one of those books that really transformed my life. I'm really looking forward to introducing you to his material. Thank you again, Reverend Michael. I love you also very much. Thanks for joining this beautiful call and this wonderful community and we will see you next time. Bye now.