#159 My amazing guest this week is Reverend Michael Beckwith. Michael is a New Thought Minister, author, awakener, and founder of the Agape International Spiritual Centre. By founding Agape in 1986, Michael was answering a call to start a spiritual community and to be a teacher of meditation and life visioning. His mission can be described as leaving breadcrumbs for people to start becoming interested in seeing that there is something beyond what their eyes can tell them.

During our conversation today, we discuss Michael’s journey and spiritual awakening and the courage it took to be able to pursue his calling. I believe we all have a calling and a mission in life. But sometimes it can be hard to pursue it. If you’ve been looking for the courage to do that, then this is the episode for you.

If you enjoyed this podcast, you may also like: Becoming A Spiritual Warrior | Rev. Bill McDonald

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About Michael:  Michael Beckwith is a New Thought minister, author, and founder of the Agape International Spiritual Centre in Beverly Hills, California. Beckwith was ordained in Religious Science in 1985. Since Agape’s doors opened in 1986, Agape’s active teaching and practice of the New Thought-Ancient Wisdom tradition of spirituality has expanded into a trans-denominational movement and community of 9,000 local members and 1,000,000 friends worldwide. Through Michael’s weekly services, Agape’s University of Transformational Studies and Leadership classes, ministries and other outreach programs, the heart of Agape reaches deep into local and global communities teaching individuals about the transforming, healing power of prayer, meditation, and selfless service.

Michael teaches meditation, affirmative prayer, and speaks at conferences and seminars. He is the originator of the Life Visioning Process, a technique purporting to offer its practitioners a method for putting a stop to being a passive tourist in one’s life. He is author of Spiritual Liberation, which won the Gold Medal Nautilus Book Award, Inspirations of the Heart, which was a Nautilus Book Award finalist; Forty Day Mind Fast Soul Feast; A Manifesto of Peace; and Living from the Overflow.

►Audio Version:

Key points with time stamp:

• Michael’s work in his own words (0:13)
• The public reaction to Michael’s work (1:19)
• How did Michael find the courage to pursue his calling? (3:12)
• Why do we have to struggle in order to know the greater aspect of ourselves? (14:29)
• The overarching message of Michael (16:49)
• The practice of bringing your visions into reality (23:04)
• The fear that comes with journeying into the unknown and how to beat it (27:26)
• Are the majority of people ready to face their fears? (30:07)
• Michael’s vision for Agape (37:03)
• The Agape app (42:08)
• The Corona Bonus (44:11)
• Michael’s morning routine (44:43)
• Michel’s choice of a dinner guest, from any time frame (47:36)
• What Michael leaves us with (52:41)

Mentioned in this episode:

• Agape International Spiritual Centre
• University of Southern California
• Jesus
• Gautama Buddha
• Walter Russell
• Howard Thurman
• Emanuel Swedenborg
• The Old Testament
• The Holy Spirit
• Jared Powell
• Nelson Mandela
• The Dalai Lama
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• Kuan Yin
• Harriet Tubman
• Spiritual Liberation: Fulfilling Your Soul’s Potential, 2008. Michael’s book.
• The Life Visioning Process, 2008. Michael’s book.

Michael’s Website:
michaelbeckwith.com

Michael’s Instagram:
www.instagram.com/michaelbbeckwith/?hl=en

The Agape Website:
agapelive.com

Michael’s Books:
agapelive.com/collections/michael-bernard-beckwith

 

About me:

My Instagram:
www.instagram.com/guyhlawrence/?hl=en

My website:
www.guylawrence.com.au
www.liveinflow.co

 

TRANSCRIPT

Guy 00:00
Welcome to the podcast. Yeah,

Michael 00:09
my joy guy, my joy, thank you for the invitation.

Guy 00:13
I started the podcast every time. And I always think about the listeners. And I always love the intimacy of podcasts conversations, especially if you’re driving in your car, or you got headphones in and, and if people are even meeting the guests or myself for the first time, so I always think about that. And I found myself asking this question for every guest coming on the show, Michael, and that is, if we were at an intimate dinner party right now, and you sat next to a complete stranger. And they asked you what you did for a living? What would you say?

Michael 00:45
I’d probably look at it individually and say, you know, I, to the best of my ability, I am an instrument for the presence that is never an absence. And that has led me to answer a call to start a spiritual community to be a teacher of meditation and life visioning. And to be of service in any way possible to alleviate suffering and to bring awakening to people. That might be a long answer might be a short answer, depending on the context of the dinner party.

Guy 01:19
Yeah, for sure. And what kind of response Do you normally get that, especially with? When you talk about the presence? That’s something that’s always there within us? and eternal? to people get it, too? They don’t get it? Or do you find this mix?

Michael 01:35
I would say that now, you know, I’ve been teaching at a Agape, you know, that I found it. In our 30, we’re in our 35th. Year, wow, I would say at this point, the, the response, people have a tendency to know me, so they have it, they know what I’m about. And now prior to that, I would say that in many, many cases, I would probably be deemed as a little weird. You know, I’m kind of a trailblazer, where a lot of these teachings are concerned, but you go prior to 35 years, I’ve been teaching for probably 40 years. So you go. So when you go back to my first awakening, in the set in the 70s. And then there was a period of time there where what I was talking about, and what I was teaching, what I was saying was not the way it is now it was looked upon as a Hocus Pocus, weird stuff, you know, and, and then it became more popular. And now you’re looking at an industry of individuals who teach and bring about metaphysical principles in a very big and powerful way. So when you look at the two different times in my life, there was a big period of time where I was, I was a weird guy. And then you look back now and I was actually a trailblazer. So it’s been an interesting dynamic to live so many incarnations in one life, and to see how I’ve been viewed from different perspectives, depending on what year it was, you know?

Guy 03:12
Yeah. And it’s an incredible journey, you know, like, because when I was speaking to offer just now about me, selling out of my company, to to really step into something, I believe so passionately in my heart, where before it like, for me, it felt where the rubber met the road. And it took a huge amount of courage and faith and to step into that and go, Okay, I’m fully surrendering and going with this. But that’s now not back in the 70s, when, like you said, People just thought you’re absolutely crazy. I got support, you know, when I was doing it. I mean, how was you at the time? Did you? How did you find that courage to go and do something like that? Because I think we all we all have dreams, we all have desires, we all want to follow our innate calling more, or become more aware of it, but thinking about it and actually doing it are two very different things.

Michael 04:07
Two very different things well, so in 1974 75, years ago, I was a senior at USC was in college. I was I was a psycho biology major. I was on track to go to med school. And I had a series of inner experiences that culminated in a tremendous awakening. So when the experiences were first happening, I labeled them as pathology, I thought, I thought something was wrong with me. And I mean, I mean, subclasses and seeing visions and hearing voices and leaving your body and all this stuff. This was all looked upon as pathological. And so I did my best to hide it and pretend that it wasn’t happening. And but then after a while, after a while, it culminated in a lucid dream in which I was killed in this dream. And when I woke up from It was very excruciating, I was stabbed in the heart. And when I woke up from that, I could see that we were surrounded by this presence of love beauty. That’s what I called it, it was the love that penetrated my being was beyond anything I’ve ever experienced in the beauty was was unimaginable in everything was glowing and glistening with the light and luminosity, animate, and inanimate objects. So I had to go on a hunt, to discover what had happened to me. So in that process, you know, I lost most of my friends, because people thought I just freaked out. And I didn’t have any, any guidance at that time as to what it occurred. So most of the people that I studied with dead, my I would say, my best friends were dead at the time, you know, you know, I was studying the mystical teachings of Jesus and Gautama Buddha, and Walter Russell and Howard Thurman, and Emanuel swedenborg. And a number of individuals that I could piece together through different time, different historical times, had woke up. And I understood, I began to understand what was going on with me. But at that time, this was weird stuff, you know, people would go to bookstores, and they would hide, they were reading an occult book or a metaphysical book or a spiritual book, they would put it in, you know, a grocery store wrapper, so you couldn’t see the title. You know what I mean, people would rather think you were reading porn, and then some kind of metaphysical book back in those days. And so I had to integrate the these experiences I was having and stabilize at a higher frequency. So it was, I did start in a community at that particular time, I just had a private love affair with the presence, it was more real to me than anything else. And, you know, people would gather around me people that I knew, and they would come and get counseling, and healings and things like that, but I wasn’t thinking I was going to start a big community or anything like that I was just having this private connection that was very, very real. And subsequently, as time went on, I discovered a metaphysical spiritual community, I discovered, they had a training in being a spiritual therapist, classes that were being taken. And when I went into these classes, they were articulating the experiences I was having. And so it took a number of years for me to first of all, integrate, because you have to realize at that time, I was I’d reach these very lofty states of awareness. And everything that was going on in the world had little meaning to me, people were trying to make money and and there was all kinds of things going on in the world, that human beings were involved in, but it had no meaning to me, I just thought was a waste of time, that once you see behind the curtain, you know, all this other stuff is nonsensical. And so, so took time to integrate the higher states and actually synthesize them so that I could embrace my human incarnation, and not trying to run away from my human incarnation into these high states, but to bring the states into my human incarnation. So I started basically saying that we’re not Ascended Masters. We are descended masters. We’re not trying to escape the incarnation. We’re trying to bring the higher vibration into the incarnation. So I learned how to stabilize it’s like, I just look normal, you know, and, and so subsequently, is after a period of time, being a spiritual therapist, I was a therapist for seven years, I saw six to eight people, sometimes more every single day, six days a week. counseling people working with people, bringing people on the verge of healings, and things this particular nature. And if I start doing workshops, I start doing seminars, this is pre all the stuff that’s going on now. We see a lot of workshops and seminars and people online doing a lot of things, you know, this pre all of that, you know, we didn’t have Facebook time. And I remember having a cell phone and 70s, obviously, and early, early 80s. And so it came upon me I was being called to start a community. And I resisted it with all the might that I had. I this was not what I thought I wanted to do. I didn’t see myself as a public person. I was very reclusive, somewhat shy, the one on one thing and the small group thing was good for me. But I was I kept getting this call. And one day, I got a message that said that if you do not start a community, then we have no more worth, for you to be on the planet nor recipe to be on the planet, it was like a threat, almost. And, you know, I’m pulling some timelines together here. And ultimately, I went to college, I went to a metaphysical school, graduated with a degree as a minister, and ultimately accepted the calling to start a community. And in 1986, so we’re talking from 1975 to 86, sets a 10 year gap of integrating synthesizing counseling, that I actually started a community had my first service, November, the 30th 1986. And a lot of experience that happened in those 10 years in terms of integration, in terms of the validity of what I was teaching, I had said to this inner spirit, that I’m willing to do this, but I had three conditions. I said, when I have to know what I’m talking about, I can’t just quote people, I have to have my direct encounter, to, I want to be surrounded by individuals who are sincere about their spiritual growth, development and fall, but I don’t want to be surrounded by groupies I don’t want. I want people who are really sincere about their own growth. And then there was a third condition, but I can’t remember what that condition was, I’m sure it was met. But right now, I don’t have I don’t remember what I said, what, you know what my bargaining chip was no. And so I started a GAAP a November 30 1986. And we’ve been unfolding and evolving ever since. To seek to represent the next stage of human evolution, and to be a birthplace of the Beloved Community, a kind of just global society, based upon individuals actually embracing their potential and activating it. So I’m giving you a very, it’s a thumbnail sketch of what happened. But in all of that, I’ve had like, major openings, and revelations and experiences. And, you know, I probably, I started writing a book listing. So many of the things that occurred to me, that happened to me, just so that I could go back and write about it, and then teach the underlying spiritual principle behind it. And then a way to practice having that kind of opening. But I think a lot of that happened for me, because I was hard headed. You know, many people don’t need that kind of stuff. But I was I had come from a kind of agnostic, atheistic point of view. So I needed that kind of drama of awakening, to let me see that. This is real. It’s not the figment of people’s imagination. It’s not just some Hocus Pocus, woowoo stuff. This is reality. And most people are dimensionally challenged only live in three dimensions. And they’re challenged, because we’re multi dimensional beings, and there’s so much that people can’t even see they only are living in a sliver of reality. And so it I have tremendous compassion for people who live only in a material reality because they’re missing out on most of life. Hope I’m answering your question.

Guy 13:59
That was incredible. Absolutely. I mean, when I was that guy in the material, that was all I everything else was cut off. I did not know that there was a greater part of us that existed until I had an embodied experience. And then went Holy shit. I know. I can’t hit Finally, you know, every book, every podcast, everything I read, did kind of met the intellectual mind, but I still didn’t get it until I got it. Yeah, you know,

Michael 14:26
you can’t unsee what you saw. Exactly, yeah, there’s

Guy 14:29
no it’s life changing how I sold my company to move on, you know, like, once these things happen, you know, there’s a couple of things that really occurred to me as you were sharing your your journey then was why do you think that we have to, why don’t we come here knowing that greater aspect of ourselves,

Michael 14:50
well, you know, we have emerged from from the eternal. And I say emerge and oftentimes people will say we were created in the image and likeness of God and One aspect of it, but we’ve emerged from the eternal and our place in the universe is to represent the entire cosmos. In biology, okay? So the eternal cannot create robots, or automatons. It has to set us free, so that we can absolutely represent the presence of God, the cosmos or whatever word you want to use there, consciously, according to our unique pattern. So if you just arrived someplace as a robot that’s totally awake. We don’t have any. There’s no say so in that there’s no choice in that. We’re not really, as Jesus would say, quoting the Old Testament, he said, is it not written your gods were not without free choice to actually come into it, we would not be able to represent the cosmos, we would just be a robot. And the universal presence doesn’t make robots, the universal presence allows for us to emerge out of itself and to discover for ourselves who we are. And once we discovered that, we said free to represent the presence, the love, the peace, the joy, the harmony, the generosity, the creativity, resourcefulness, all of those powers, according to our uniqueness, but if we were just robots, you know, I mean, what can a robot do? A robot can’t thank you, no robot just follows the instructions that the engineer creates within it, the programming, you see. And so we had to come fully available, to be able to garner our own awareness and program ourselves, so to speak, you know, with our connection with the presence?

Guy 16:49
Yeah, no, I got it. Well, what do you what do you think then, like, with all your wisdom and all your these experiences, and you know, you’re very, it’s like, you’ve gone through witnessed everything, and you hear it, now you present and we have people hungry for this work, searching for this work, even avoiding the problems are in their life looking for the answers within that, even though it’s eternally within us? Like, what do you think is the overarching message you would give from being able to encapsulate all that into, you know, a conversation that we’re having?

Michael 17:29
Well, well, first of all, you can’t avoid the problem. But you do have to be aware that possibility is bigger than any problem you have, your potential is bigger than any problem. So you have to activate your potential. And, and what that means is, the issues that we have, in our incarnation, we can’t avoid those issues. But as we, as we dive into them, and look at the issues, we will see a fundamental lie. That is that we’re telling ourselves to live separation, ultimately, within there are tributaries of that lie, you know, lack limitation, scarcity, lack of self worth, self loathing, you know, this, this, this tributaries of the life situate separation, we have to untangle those lies, so we can become free. Now what happens as we become free, we noticed that the world is largely made up of distractions, that are a condensation of previously held thoughts and opinions and points of view, the world that we see is an artifact of a point of view that has been collectively agreed upon. So what happens is, once you see it, and you see the real, and then you see the world, you’re able to be in this world, which you’re of the higher frequencies that you’re bringing answers and solutions in higher frequencies to this world that helps break up the condensed thought, you say you become an Awakener, you become a clearing house. So as we were saying earlier, most people, they live in a slither of reality, like if, if someone, for instance, is addicted to the news cycle, you know, the news cycle is like a very narrow band of reality has has nothing to do with 99.9% of reality. It’s just a narrow frequency. But there are people that look at it, and they actually think that that’s real, they actually think that that’s reality, and they become addicted to it. They become addicted to the fear and the worry and the anxiousness that it brings to them. They become addicted to the toxic chemicals that flow through their body when they watch it. They’re addicts. And what we’re seeking to do is awakening is awaken people to, to the awareness that there’s something that is not touched by time or experience, it’s real. Just like you had an awakening, you saw something, you know, you can’t unsee that, you know. And so the idea is to slowly leave breadcrumbs for people to finally see, or be interested in seeing that there’s something beyond what their eyes can tell them. Now, enlightenment is not hard, it’s easy, only if you’re interested. But most people aren’t interested. They’re only interested in the experiences that they can have in this world. And so they’re running towards pleasure, and they’re running from pain, but they’re on the surface waves of an ocean of bliss, that they don’t even know is there. I laugh a lot these days, you know, like in bliss is the function of the activation of our potential, you see. So what I would what I would say to individuals, is that one, they are unique expressions of infinite potential. They have formed an opinion of themselves, based upon the world and the culture and the country they’re living in, they have created a limited identity. And they can’t see anything outside of that box of that identity in that paradigm. But there’s something knocking upon them to be set free. And when you become interested in it, then you become interested in meditation, become interested in affirmative prayer, you become interested in associating with high minded people, you become interested in anything that will awaken you to this something that is trying to escape through you. And once you become sincerely interested, everything moves for you. It’s like, we’ve all heard the statement when this when the student is ready, the teacher appears. But that teacher doesn’t necessarily have to be a person, once you sincerely interested, everything begins towards your interest, a book may fall off the shelf, you may have a chance conversation that is more than chance with somebody, you’ll hear something that you’ve heard 100 times, but it never made sense to you. But suddenly, it makes sense. You know, once you become interested, now the people become interested two ways. Suffering or insight, those are the two ways that we grow. We either suffer and we become sick and tired of being sick and tired. And we start to ask them higher questions. Or we have an insight. I don’t know what happened with you. But some people have an insight like an opening a Satori moment. And once that moment happens, they can’t deny it. And then they’re on the path to discovery, how to how to get more of it, how to sustain it, how to stabilize it, you know, and this is this is the path of humans suffering or insight, you know, and then as you become interested, you suffer less. And you have more insights, you know, yeah.

Guy 23:04
Beautiful. I when was sparking here is that when you have these realizations, and you have an insight, or you have the suffering, and I know you speak about your process with meditation, affirmation, prayer and life visioning. And for me, when I read that it feels like articulate the intention of what I want to do with my life and then having a process and practice to help bring that into reality. Could you speak to that a little bit because I know it’s been a big part of your work. And, and I think it would be very beneficial for everyone here listening.

Michael 23:43
Well, the the, the, the big, you know, people sometimes will say, you know, what is was what are the advanced teachings, you know, and I always say, you know, beginning teaching is theory, advanced teaching is practice. So, once you have some level of practice, and you’re earnest in it, you have sincerity and you have earnestness. Sincerity means your motivation is pure. earnestness means you practice whether you feel like it or not. So once you have some level of practice, you’re providing the con text for an insight. Now, what is an insight? and insight is an event that takes place in your consciousness, where you suddenly know, or incrementally know something you formerly believed it. it shatters the paradigm in which you’re living in. And so meditation, I define meditation as paying undistracted attention to reality. When you have a meditative moment, you have you have a you’re no longer distracted by the world you see something. And there are many techniques in that kind of practice. But true meditation is that moment of seeing is that it’s that is that undestructible awareness that it happens. They may happen for a second, the nanosecond, an hour a day, whatever. And prayer is working to have a realization that what you’re praying for you already have it. That’s what prayer is, is not supplicating or begging or beseeching a reluctant deity is actually going within yourself and coming into an awareness that what you’re praying for you already have it. That’s real prayer. And then life visioning is a technology that’s a meditative technology that is transformational in that we ask certain questions that then activate our spiritual faculties so that we can catch the vision for our life. Now, this is very important because this is different from visualization. visualization. visualisation is a cornerstone of metaphysical principles. When you visualize something, you have an emotional adherence to it. You feel it and you bring something into manifestation. That’s the beginning stages of metaphysics, but visioning is different vision, life visioning is there’s something about us, that’s already planted within us that we’re seeking to set free, for instance, you take an avocado seed, within that seed is already a design for an avocado tree. If the avocado tree seed with a vision, it would see an avocado tree, you see it, they would see that design, it’s there. When we vision, we begin to catch up the design that’s been planted within us before time began, we begin to yield to it. So we’re not just visualizing something we want. We’re actually opening ourselves up to becoming something that’s already there. You see. And so when you take meditation, you take affirmative prayer, you take life visioning, these are fundamental practices that keep you on track. And I like to say, sometimes keeps the ego busy, until the Holy Spirit can do the work to keep you busy, until a real insight can occur. You know, once you have an insight it’s a whole different ballgame. You know? Yeah. You know?

Guy 27:26
Yeah, well, I often think about the fact that we get caught up in our head so much. And, and, and I found even for my own path that I got crippled with fear before having these insights, because there was part of me that was one in the birth through, but because of my, I guess, cultural upbringing, beliefs, and conditioning and perceptions, and everything, there was this huge amount of fear that was, was around that. And it wasn’t until I really understood that I had to step through and overcome that fear as well. It really evaporated and I was able to look back and go, Oh, my god, that was never really there all along. But that was me. And I was terrified from it from the whole time.

Michael 28:07
That’s right. What happens is the egoic structure that is here to protect you protect this body doesn’t know the difference between enlightenment or revelation and annihilation does, it doesn’t know the difference, because the ego doesn’t, doesn’t have any comprehension of the unknown. And so when you begin to grow, you know, most of the goodies that you want, is unknown to you right now. It’s outside of your present paradigm. So when you start to journey into the unknown, the ego sends a signal called fear to keep you small, because it doesn’t know what’s in the unknown. If you remember that, did you ever see that movie called The Truman Show? Yeah, with Jim Carrey, okay with that, that was symbolic. He’s in this show, as you remember, people are watching him and he’s in this small town that he thinks is his reality with actually these are actors coming to pretend they’re his parents and friends and associates. And whenever he gets close to discovering that this is make believe, then they send a tidal wave, they sin, you know, floods and rain and, you know, so that that was symbolic of the ego. So whenever you’re about to broach something new, the ego will come and cast fear and doubt and worry and boredom, sleepiness, all of the hindrances to keep you in your same paradigm. So when you finally as you did realize his feet is just beer. And I’m going to go through it anyway, then you come out into a different world. He said, Whoa, I didn’t even know this existed, you know. And, and then the ego is sly, it’s clever. You know, it creates all kinds of patterning to keep you the same, but after a while, you’re able to just Not tattoo ego on the back and say thank you, but I’m going anyway.

Guy 30:05
Yeah,

Michael 30:05
I’m going deeper Anyway, you see?

Guy 30:07
Yeah, absolutely. I think about as well the amount of fear that if you do plug into mainstream media and everything that the way the world is right now. And I often wonder, especially from your your experiences of seeing so many people and being in doing this for so long, do you think that we are all ready and searching to overcome the fears are in our life and and are open more to this work? Or do you still think that that we’re still the majority of people are not looking at it, then?

Michael 30:45
Well, I’ll answer it two ways. One, I am optimistic and an optimist is not a person that doesn’t believe there aren’t issues or problems, the optimist is just a person that knows it’s a solution to everything. That’s what an optimist is. So I’m very optimistic. And I can say at this stage of our development, after looking at the arc of the last 4045 years, that we are further along than we were 30 years ago, you know, this, this kind of conversation, this is much more prevalent and popular throughout the world than it was 30 years ago, there are more people meditating more people studying more people reading these kind of books, then, percentage wise, not just numbers wise, but percentage wise, than any time in human history. So So as a species, yes, we can we can overcome the fear. And the second part of your question, still, the majority of people are, are not there yet, primarily, you have a group of people who are still living under the aegis of survival. People are living in war torn countries, people are living in inclement weather, you know, floods, fires, you know, droughts. You know. And so there are people that wake up every day, and they’re not thinking about enlightenment. They’re thinking about how am I going to get food to feed my child? You know, so that’s what’s on their mind. So I like to I teach that we have to meditate and proxy for these people. Because they can’t, we must. And because we can, we must, because there are millions of people who just can’t do it. They’re just on the edge of survival. And then there are people who are caught up in the world, and they’re materialistic. And this is, this kind of conversation would be foolish to them. You know what I mean? This is foolishness. What are you talking about? meditation and, you know, but as it states in one of the Scriptures, that the spiritual can only be discerned by that which is spiritual, that a natural man and woman can’t, can’t discern anything spiritual, they think it’s foolish. So when you start to have a spiritual opening, then it’s no longer fool. It’s just like, Oh, I see. So yeah, the majority of people are still, you know, languishing and trying to find happiness and temporary things, trying to find eternal happiness in something that’s temporary, which will never happen. However, percentage wise, you only need a small group of people to make a big difference on the planet. For two reasons. One, every thought is not created equal. Now, mystics have been saying this for hundreds of years. But now we have the science that shows that when you do biofeedback, and polygraph machines, you can actually see that a thought that emerges from a sense of unity, a sense of love, and peace, has a higher amplitude that a thought that’s emerging from a sense of separation or fear, the thoughts are equal. The thoughts that come from a sense of unity, way more powerful than a thought that’s emerging from a sense of separation. So you have groups of people coming together to meditate, worldwide healing meditations. And so and even though like we did one number of months ago, we had 8 million people that came, you know, we’ve done a couple that’s still a small drop in the bucket between for billions of people on the planet, but percentage wise, it making a difference on the planet. People are having insights, they don’t know why, you know, because we’re flooding the the atmosphere, with the consciousness of peace and of love and of harmony and of unity, you see. So I’m optimistic. I believe that that that changes are happening. And how do I know that? Because you see the last gasp of certain paradigms that are dying. You know, you see the news media, you see the fear around viruses. You see the polarization in politics, you see things that are untenable, they will not last they cannot stand because they are just Destroying Themselves. You know, you go back, again, 30 years ago, you never saw the kind of polarization between a democrat and a republican that you see now. They do 111 or two foster business one, one or two Foster, you know, make sure everybody was taken care of, and they always met, they always compromise they moved on, you know, but the underpinnings of things that need to be healed, have risen up, you have the race issue, issue, you have the justice issue, you have the homeless issue, you have all these issues, you know, hate everything coming to the surface that used to be hidden. People say, Oh, it’s a bad time. No, it’s a great time the fever is breaking, you know, I mean, that which was hidden, can’t be hidden anymore. It’s coming to be healed, you see. And so we’re in a very powerful time in which an old paradigm is dying. And a new paradigm is emerging. But when it old paradigm is dying, it’s very loud and very dangerous. You see a wild out among the jungle, it’s most dangerous, right? When it’s about to die. It does. It’s lunch is the and, and so yeah, I’m very, I’m optimistic. I carry a vision within me that I’ve seen, you see that that pulls me to get up every morning to do the work that I do. So even though with my eyes, I can see all manner of things going on on the planet. with fear mongering and control. It can’t win. Life always wins, the vibration is too high. Love always wins, the vibration is too high. So dictatorship and hate and things like that can be on the throne for a moment when you look at time. But it can’t last because it’s not in integrity, with the fundamental harmony of the universe, which is progressive. You see? Yeah, I know that for sure.

Guy 37:03
Amazing. Yeah, I want to I want to take a little bit out and make sure everybody listens to it, you know, is incredible. I am the couple of things that jumped for me as well. What are your vision for Agape moving forward? Because one thing that’s very prevalent and listening to what you said, then is the true strength of community like minded people, and bringing people together to hold a vibration to then be able to move forward? How do you see what you’re doing moving forward?

Michael 37:34
Well, I’ve said I created a phrase A number of years ago, that spiritual community grants you immunity from the lower frequencies of life. So when you when you find a community, that’s really vibrating at the level of unity and truth, there’s an immunity that comes with that when you participate in in that community, in the in the in the rituals and the prayers, meditations to study etc, you know, your frequency is lifted. And when you fall, you have a community that supports you, non judgmentally, into bringing you back to a level of harmony within your own being. So community is very important. Also, studies show that individuals that are in spiritual community, have less disease and have greater longevity on the planet, you see. And so Agape is a powerful community. It’s very diverse. It’s one of the most diverse communities in the United States, and probably on the planet in terms of the demographics of of, you know, ethnicities, and nationalities and ages and sexual orientation. And, you know, it’s all here. And the university provides many, many classes. And there’s many ways to plug into it every single day, you can, you can go to the Facebook and sit with somebody and be a part of a prayer session. You can in the afternoon, you can be a part of a meditation session on Friday nights at 530, you can be a part of a community gathering and listen to whoever we’re hosting that night for a great dialogue on Sunday services. So it has all of this stuff going on, that anybody can plug in whenever they want, however long they want, how many times they want a week. And so I think any is a lot of valid spiritual communities on the planet. A lot of them so and so I I’d like to think of what I call evolutionary collaboration, where we’re all supporting each other and collaborating with each other whenever we can to actually create that big field of possibility for humanity to take the next leap in evolution. So community is very powerful, and a gopa has grown tremendously and it’s grown tremendously during the arrested, what is it call it safer at home house arrest, it’s called. Sometimes it’s called quarantine. But this is the first time in history, they quarantine healthy people. So it’s more of a it’s not really a quarantine is more of a house arrest, you know, don’t go out, you know, you know, be back in the day, they would quarantine people who are sick, your quarantine, get that, but the quarantine with the house, they’re arresting people house arrest for people who aren’t sick. It’s interesting time in our human history that we’ll look back. And we’ll laugh about it, you know, but so a copy has grown during this time, even more, I mean, a million more people started viewing our website. And because people were looking for a voice of sanity in a community that was bringing real teaching and inspiration and not just doing the party line about whatever was being said on the news, you know, and so we’re not we don’t stand against anything, you know what I mean? It’s like, we’re for something, but we’re not against anything, if you understand that vibration, you know. So I think that, so right now, obviously, most of our happenings are online, eventually, the Sunday services, everything is online. So I would see that when we’re able to meet again, then, you know, we’ll do both, we’ll be out, we’ll still be online. Because we were online, most of the congregation was online, even before the house arrest. Even before that we were most of the people were around the world. So that just increased. So when we go back to the live audience, we’ll still have been ministering to the people around the world. And then we will probably look to find a nice retreat ground. And a nice place for our headquarters.

Guy 41:57
Incredible

Michael 41:59
for the teach our youth and our nice restaurant and you know, things of that particular nature.

Guy 42:06
Yeah, I

Michael 42:07
see that occurring.

Guy 42:08
Amazing. Amazing. Your your assitant Lee was saying that. You’ve also developed an app, which is incredible. I that’s no, that’s no easy task.

Michael 42:19
Yeah, I have one app, they can they can go to Michaelbeckwith.com. Yeah, my website and they can just look at how to get the app. And this things on there that are for free. There are things on there that are premium and and you know, it’s it’s a lot of people are subscribing to the app. A lot of people come to my Instagram page and come to my I do a I an interview every Wednesday. I did one today every Wednesday at 1pm pacific time with someone on my i g live. And I probably have another app that that bring some other things that I’m doing to the people as well.

Guy 43:03
Yeah. Before I actually before jumping on today, I dropped into one of your Instagram Live interviews. Yeah, with Jared Powell. Oh, yes. Last week from last week. Yeah. Cuz I had brandy on the podcast last year. And I didn’t know his story and the conversation he had was brilliant. So I definitely recommend people to go and check that out. Whatever.

Michael 43:24
Yeah, yeah. Jerry grew up right here to copy, as did Randy to, right. They didn’t even know each other when they were coming here. Wow. Well, Randy would fly in from Oakland, to come to service. And it’s interesting. Now we’re all interconnected. Brandi is one of my best friends and partners. And Jerry, you know, and partner and

Guy 43:48
it’s really beautiful. It is and it’s amazing. Technology allows us to be able to do this and have these conversations and bring people together, you know, and I feel blessed every time I sit you to speak to people like yourself, Michael and just have a conversation and then share it. It’s just incredible. And it’s the world we live in, which is such a bonus for the online under the current circumstances.

Michael 44:11
I call it the corona bonus. Yeah. The Corona bonus is giving people time to reflect, to contemplate, to ask the question, Who do they want to be when this is over? You know, we talk about binge watching your thoughts. If you’re going to binge watch Netflix, you might as well binge watch your own thinking so that you can actually change so that when you go back out, you’re not the same person. You’re actually a better version of yourself. When you’re when you’re when you’re free from house arrest, you know?

Guy 44:43
Yeah, totally, totally. I am I asked a couple of questions on the show to everyone before we wrap up. And the first one is what does your morning routine look like? These days, a

Michael 44:55
lot of things are very integrated within me. But when I’m on it You know, I wake up, and I put my feet on the ground. I just, you know, if I’m kind of sleepy, I go into a gratitude feeling, I’m just grateful. And I will lift my hands up, and I’m thankful for life. I’m thankful that I exist. Then I surrender to life. I say I surrender, and say in substance, you know, use me surrender. And then I say, what is my assignment, and whatever my assignment is, give me the strength to handle my assignment today with ease grace and dignity. So it’s gratitude, surrender, and what’s my assignment, that’s just just getting out of bed. And then I’ll have a period of meditation. And then I go work out the physical temple, can I come back home and make my smoothie my my green shake that I make. And then I’ll have a greater sitting meditation, and then shower and everything and then come to the office and see what whatever’s on my schedule for that day to accomplish. And then in the evening, I may have another moment of meditation, well always, you know, have moments throughout the day of introspection, stopping. And depending on the, the intensity of the schedule, sometimes I could have longer periods than others. But never do I go a day without stopping and, and meditating. You know, some people ask me, you know, over the years, you know, you meditate every day you like, like a Superman or something. I said, No, no, I was Superman. I wouldn’t have to meditate every day. You know, that the meditation grants you. First of all, it’s anti aging, because you go and at some point, you go into the timeless so your body recalibrates every calibrates, a new out of time. Your, your, your brain develops level of coherence. I mean, there’s so many things that happen. But beyond the physicality, you start to see the world that most people can’t see. And now you’re approaching spiritual liberation.

Guy 47:36
Yeah, beautiful. Thank you for sharing. If you can I arrange a dinner party with a few people from the past, to present the future, whoever it might be. And you can have a conversation with them. Is there anyone you would like to have on there and have a conversation if you some of them?

Michael 47:56
as I’m speaking to you right now, I just realized that the first three people I was gonna mention, I’ve actually met you know, Nelson Mandela. You know, I had the privilege of giving him a season for non violence award at the Parliament of world religions in South Africa. And I met him and he was so present. So available. His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, who I had the opportunity to work with, facilitate four meetings, three synthesis dialogues with him. And that was very powerful experience meeting with him. And I met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. When I was a little boy at a homeless Methodist Church, and I shook his hand. My mother took me to see him speak. I was a young teenager. And I remember shaking his hand and I said, Mom, His hands are so small. And she said, baby, he does a different kind of work. And I think about some of the people I was going to say it I realized I’ve met amazing, you know, I’ve met and Gregory was a friend of mine. You know, Dr. Howard Washington Thurman, who was a great mystic theologian, who was the one who met with Gandhi, and brought the seeds of non violence back to King. I met him I stayed in Thurman Hall when I attended Morehouse College and I met him on campus and he’s brilliant. I was just listening to him two days ago. His words are timeless, you know, mystics words are timeless. It doesn’t matter what year they said it. It’s timeless. So a lot of the people, you know, I would probably like to meet Shri or a Bindu. Who, great mystic out of India who went to cosmic consciousness in jail, he was demonstrating with Gandhi for India’s liberation from Great Britain and he was arrested, along with so many other people who were arrested, and while he was in prison, he went into cosmic consciousness and when he came out of jail, He started Oroville, which was a spiritual community at that time. And he wrote the book, The life divine, which is something that’s close to my heart. I would love to, I would have him at my dinner party, I’d have Walter Russell. Walter Russell was the greatest mystic, one of the top greatest mystics that ever came out of America. He and, and George Washington Carver, I would sit with both of them. Walter Russell, a great Mr. He went into cosmic consciousness and wrote these volumes, a book called The Divine Iliad, with one sitting with no edit. He just wrote it from consciousness. And he was one of the people that when I was having these experiences, I thought I was going crazy. I studied him and realized I wasn’t going crazy. I was going into expanded awareness. And and it helped stabilize me. George Washington Carver was it was him in Walter Russell, probably the two greatest mistakes to come out of America. Most people think, well, George Washington Carver was like us, a scientist that go into the laboratory and discover stuff, things for peanuts and stuff like that. They don’t understand that he woke up every single day at 4am went outside and commune with nature. And the nature would reveal to him what they were, what it was good for. Then he went into the laboratory and proved it. So he didn’t do a trial and error experiment kind of thing. He was taught directly by God through nature. And then he went into the laboratory and proved it. And one of the things he said was, if you fall in love with anything deep enough, it will reveal its secrets to you. So he would go outside, just fall in love with Mother Nature. And then all the secrets will be revealed. And he would go prove it in the laboratory. And he was the greatest teacher of his time. He taught all of the great ministers at that time. But no one could share where they were learning all this good stuff from because he was a black man. And it was illegal for him to teach white men. So they had to sneak to his house at night. And he would anoint them into the higher states of consciousness. They’d have to sneak out. And then they would go start these beautiful ministries, but they could never say that it was George that was teaching them, you know. So we’ve come a long way. Some of the people I would meet, I would love to sit with Kuan Yin, I would love to sit with Harriet Tubman. You know, a lot of people that I would love to have a dinner and chit chat with.

Guy 52:41
It would be incredible. You know, you just helped me reflect of that. So many amazing people around and so much amazing information that’s out there if we if we choose to go seek it out, you know, and for everyone listening, we do show notes. So if you want to see who Michael just mentioned, with all the names that will be there underneath in the show notes. Last question. Everything we’ve covered today, is there anything you’d like to leave the listeners to ponder on?

Michael 53:17
About two months ago, I was sitting on that couch right behind me. I was about to do a zoom class. And as I did right before I talked with you, I said I’m gonna lay on the couch a little bit and just meditate. And you know, and I did, and when I got up, I was blind. I couldn’t see. I was the light had engulfed me and I couldn’t see anything. But like, I called Leanne, I called Reverend Kathleen, and I said I’m blind. And so we postponed the zoom class for a while. And little by little by little I could see in both dimensions, I could see the light that I’m surrounded by, and I could see form. And then thanks never became quite normal, but I could see clearly. And when I looked at Lee, and when I looked at Kathleen, I saw a fountain of light inside of there being with very luminous and I realized that that’s who they were, that they as who you are. Your light is written that you are the light that lights up every man and every woman that comes into the world. And I want people to know that they are luminous. They’re brilliant. They are unfolding genius. They are the light of the world. And they’re not just a body or a mind or a set of experiences. They’re not what they own. They are really light they’re really light brilliance. Limitless love intelligence. And one day, and it’s inevitable. One day, you’re going to discover that it’s kind of it’s kind of dawn on your awareness how brilliant you are. And fear will dissolve. And all the things you’ve been worried about, you realize, you did a lot of worrying for nothing. Because there’s no such thing as death. Those are just doorways to greater expanse, expression of life. And, and if I were to leave them with anything today, I would just say, you are light. And take that in, develop some kind of practice, some kind of practice, I teach, practice does not make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. Many people are practicing worry. They’re practicing doubt that they’re practicing fear. So that’s what they’re practicing. But you must practice perfection. You must practice an expanded awareness that you are light, you are luminous, you are connected. You’re one with the presence, this limitless potential within you, you have to practice that. And then things unfold bigger and better and more magnificent than your wildest imaginings. Now, I know that for sure, I know for sure.

Guy 56:24
What a way to end the podcast. Thank you so much for sharing my call. Where can I send everyone if they want to find out more about your work your Instagram account your lives your website?

Michael 56:34
Yeah, they can go they want to know about the community, they they go to Agapelive.com a gap Li d.com my Instagram, you know, as Michael Beckwith and I have Facebook. And then my own personal website is Michaelbeckwith.com. And that’s where they can get the app

Guy 56:56
Beautiful and all the links from

Michael 56:58
art with I have I wrote a book called spiritual liberation to paperback or hardback, they can get that. We’re also have a book called The life visioning process. Very powerful. And a number of other books as well. They go down, they go down that tributary, they’ll find other books that I’ve written, but those two books are like, kind of like must reads.

Guy 57:21
Yeah, beautiful. I’ll make sure everything’s linked below. And my God, thank you so much for giving me your time today and coming on here. You’ve certainly made a huge impact in my life over the years and helped me on my journey. And it’s amazing just to be able to hopefully contribute back a little bit for all the work that you’ve done and pass on your message here in Australia is deeply appreciated. So thank you.

Michael 57:45
Thank you so much. And I hope to get back to Australia. I’ve been there a couple of times. And I’ve been invited. So I’ll let you know when I’m coming back.

Guy 57:54
Please do. Please do. Thank you.