Rev. Michael Beckwith | Living Awake: Meditation, Prayer and Purpose

In a time when distraction, division, and despair seem to dominate the collective atmosphere, what does it mean to live awake—and stay awake?

This week, I had the distinct honor of sitting down with Reverend Michael B. Beckwith, founder and CEO of the Agape International Spiritual Center and one of the most respected voices in global spiritual leadership.Reverend Beckwith and I explored the science of spiritual transformation—how meditation, affirmative prayer, and light visioning aren’t just tools for personal growth, but essential practices for cultivating a just, compassionate, and awakened world. From addressing the United Nations General Assembly to honoring Nelson Mandela with the Gandhi King Award, Michael’s life is a living testament to the power of inner alignment manifesting outer impact.

If you're craving a deeper sense of freedom, grounded purpose, and a spiritual path that translates into social action, this conversation is your invitation.

We Also Discuss:
● The foundational practice of Agape.
● How to recalibrate your nervous system through affirmative prayer.
● Why solitude doesn’t have to mean loneliness.
● The epidemic of meaninglessness—and how to move through it with purpose.
● The intersection of liberation theology and radical compassion.

We Also Discuss:
[00:00:00] Welcome to The Radical Responsibility Podcast.
[00:08:04] The foundational practice in Agape International Spiritual Center.
[00:10:34] What happens when you give yourself permission to become still?
[00:13:24] The daily practice of waking up to who we are.
[00:21:10] Building subtle bodies that can hold energy.
[00:22:34] Affirmative prayer and the life visioning process.
[00:25:39] Recalibrating your nervous system – immediate effect of affirmative prayer.
[00:28:32] When being alone no longer equates with loneliness.
[00:32:09] The epidemic of meaninglessness today and what to do about it.
[00:42:50] Liberation theology and the meaning and practice of true compassion.

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Produced by Evolved Podcasting: https://www.evolvedpodcasting.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The meditative portion of the prayer is we feel one
with life, we feel one with God, we feel one
with the essence of life. And from there we speak
the word to have a realization of what we're saying
is true. We're not trying to make anything happen. We're
trying to make something welcome. It's already happened. We're already
one with God. We're already full to overflowing with abundance
and joy and creativity and intelligent. It's already here. But

(00:22):
we're speaking the word and affirmative prayer to have a
realization of what we're saying is so it becomes an
inner feeling nature, and then we give thanks that it's
already done. And then we release the word as a law,
knowing that it can't come back void, it comes back fulfilled.
There Up.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome to the Radical Responsibility Podcast. I'm doctor Fleet Maul
and I'm excited to guide you on a journey of
authentic transformation. In each episode, I'll bring you insights from
leading experts to explore trauma recovery, mindfulness practices, positive psychology,
and innovative breakthroughs in health, wellness, and life optimization. This

(01:01):
is a space for real conversations that inspire meaningful change,
helping you find alignment with the person you are always.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Meant to be.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Let's get started. What if transformation isn't just about thinking differently,
but feeling differently. Science shows us that true change happens
when we align not just our minds, but also the
neural networks in our hearts and guts. This heart mind

(01:30):
connection is the key to deeper healing, resilience, and expanded awareness.
That's why I created the Heart Mind All Access, membership
and community, a space designed to help you rewire your
nervous system, cultivate heart intelligence, and live with greater clarity
and purpose. With over one thousand hours of transformational teachings

(01:50):
specifically curated to meet your needs. You'll learn from world
renowned meditation teachers, neuroscientists, and experts in neuroplasticity, all sharing
powerful tools to help you shift your mindset and heartset,
regulate your emotions, and unlock your full potential. You'll also
gain unlimited access to every summit and course we've ever produced,

(02:15):
a treasure Trouble Wisdom worth over ten thousand dollars in
growing plus live gatherings, and an inspiring global community to
support your journey. If you're ready to step into a
more heart centered, connected, and conscious life, I invite you
to join us. Click the link to learn more and
start your journey today.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
If you ever wondered what it truly means to wake
up and stay awake in a world full of distraction,
division and despair, Today I'm joined by my dear friend
and spiritual brother, Reverend Michael Beckwith, founder of the Agapi
International Spiritual Center and a global teacher of meditation, affirmative prayer,
and awaken living. Together, we explore how sacred disciplines of

(02:56):
meditation and visioning are not just personal tools for inner peace,
but catalysts for global transformation. Reverend Beckworth share stories from
the frontlines of his journey, from honoring Nelson Mandela with
the Gandhi King Award to speaking before the United Nations,
offering us a rare look at how spiritual practice meets
social action. We dive into the power of affirmative prayer,

(03:19):
the role of community and spiritual growth, and the call
to evolve from a paradigm of consumption to one of contribution.
If you're seeking a deeper experience of freedom, purpose, and
compassionate service. This conversation is really for you, So let's begin.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
My name is doctor Fleet. Mall you're co host for
this session, and I am thrilled to be here today
with Reverend Michael B. Beckworth. Welcome Reverend Beckworth.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Now Fleet, it's my joy to be with you, brother.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Always so great to see you again. We had the
opportunity to have a conversation like this some three or
four years ago, and I've really been looking forward to
connecting again. So Doc to beckw You know, I'm hesitant
to ask you to try to encapsule this in just
a minute or two, since we have a lot to
cover today in our conversation, but it would be great
to start with a little bit of your origin story

(04:07):
if we could. And you've been a leading voice in
spiritual transformation, guiding thousands story deeper awakening for many, many years.
I'd love if we could start with maybe a personal moment.
There was something that really shifted things for your challenge
and insight or breakthrough that propelled you toward spiritual paths
and meditation as a central practice in your life, and

(04:27):
then the teaching career that you've manifested.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Absolutely thank you when I think about origin story, I
always have to go back to when I was a
senior at USC psychobiology major my path I was go
to Mexico, actually, and I was having a series of
inter experiences that at the time I labeled pathological hearing,
inner voice, having vision, tremendous lucid dreams, astro traveling, was

(04:54):
a lot of stuff going on, and so at that
particular time in my life, I thought I was losing
my mom and it culminated with a lucid dream in
which I was killed. In this dream, it was very painful.
A man two men held me down and one stabbed
me in the heart with a knife, and the pain
physically was excruciating. Emotionally it was excruciating, and I died.

(05:18):
When I woke up, I could see that I was
surrounded by this such beauty. Everything was glowing and glimmering,
and the love that penetrated my being was beyond anything
I experienced, and I could see three sixty without my eyes.
After that, I couldn't get back in the box i'd
been living in up to that moment, and I went

(05:40):
on a research to discover what had happened to me,
and that's when I bumped into the mystical teachings of Jesus.
I bumped into Katama, the Buddha, the Panishads, Damapada, Walter Russell,
a lot of individuals fueled my zest to discover what
was going on with me. And so that's the very
short brief cliff note of an origin story. And then

(06:05):
a little while after that, I was sitting in a
living room and I said at Lata, say, Okay, what
do you want me to do? I was having these
great expanded awareness. I said, what do you want me
to do? Like that? And the phone rang and it
was a woman on the phone that I went to
high school with. And she told me that she'd been
thumbing through her high school annual and she saw my
picture with my phone number, and that the presence of

(06:28):
God within her told her to call me because she
was going through a lot of troubles in her life.
She called me, and I began to At this point,
I didn't have any degrees. I didn't it was the
spiritual therapist. I wasn't the minister. I just people just
liked hanging around me. And I began to counsel her,
and she began to tell people about me, and people
would call, listen to me, send donations. And then I

(06:52):
discovered there was something called a spiritual practitioner spiritual therapist,
and I said, oh, that's what I'm supposed to do,
and began to walk that path. So I give you
many years in a couple abbreviated stories of having insight
and then integrating insight into a level of embodiment within
my being.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Well, I know that various forms of meditation have been
part of your path as well and your teaching, and
many people tend to associate meditation primarily with Eastern traditions,
but of course it's been a central part of the
contemporary of Abrahamic traditions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. And I
know the New Thought movement that you're part of is
not particularly associated with a particular denomination of religion, but

(07:35):
it has some relationship there too, And so seems like
some kind of practice to at least initially go inward
and make a deeper relationship with ourselves in our mind
is central to spiritual journeys. So you've created an incredibly robust,
trans denominational community at the Agapi Spiritual Center. So I'm
wondering what are some of the ways that you've integrated

(07:57):
the spiritual practices and meditation methodology from the various traditions
you've explored into what you now offer at Agape.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Our foundational practice at Agape is meditation. Obviously, what arises
out of that is affirmative prayer and life visioning and
things of that particular nature. But we definitely incorporate the
deep mindfulness and the stillness that we get obviously from
the Buddhist tradition, the yoga traditions, to open ourselves up

(08:24):
to a deep sense of self awareness. They used to
call us also the sufi end of the New Thought movement.
Because of our celebration of joy and ecstasy and bliss
and music and dance and movement, we also participate with Horomeyama.
It's also a part of our spiritual practice at Agape.

(08:46):
So there's been a nice weaving of the different traditions
into the practice of meditation. I teach my own version
of the Pasula meditation, and so every single service that
we have at Agape is always preceded by silent meditation
before we go into the message and the music and

(09:07):
the celebration and the fellowship, so it's very integral. So
all of the different traditions and different cultures of the
world have their particular entry way into the sacred silence
and the sacred solitude and the sacred stillness, and I think,
based on my exploration, there's just been an amalgamation of

(09:29):
them in a way that fits our community and very powerful.
I think I still believe that meditation is primary. It's
the primary transportation to true transformation, and so that underlies
everything that we do at AGAPE International. I'm just in
my last week of teaching a five week meditation class

(09:52):
Meditation Evolution of Consciousness two point zero, So every year
I teach it for hundreds of people a couple of
times a year as well.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Well. Yeah, so I want to explore the other methodologies
you've developed, affirmative meditation and life visioning, But first I'd
like to explore our current topic a little further with you.
As you mentioned, you know, the silence that allows us
to connect deeply with sacredness, with the divine, or just
with the depth of our own being. What is it

(10:20):
about silence and entering into deep transformative silence that has
such power to get beyond the superficial level of our
experience into the depth of our experience and really connect
with something meaningful and even divine or sacred.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yes, we we give ourselves permission to become still and
quiet and go into the noble silence, we begin to
be able to tell the difference between the noise of
the world. I call it, oftentimes this sea of mental garbage.
It's the social milieu of thoughts and opinions and points
of view and agenda is that people have on us.

(10:57):
Our mind gets hijacked by I fear, worry, anxiousness, materialism.
So when we go into the silence, we're able to
eventually observe all of that noise and realize that that's
not who we are. That's a part of the content
of our awareness, but it's not who and what we are.
And when an individual is able to tell the difference

(11:21):
between the content and their real identity, I like to say,
that's the beginning of waking up. You're waking up from
the intoxicated sleep. That these thoughts, thought forms, beliefs, opinions,
points of view are our identity. They are not. They're
just things passing through our awareness. And so stillness, silence introspection, contemplation,

(11:48):
observing all of that, you know, allows us to ultimately
break free as identification, and then we're waking up and
we're actually participating in our own unfolding. And I think
that it's extremely necessary because there's so many things that
vie for our attention, and many of the things that

(12:11):
vy for our attention are not good for us. They're destructive,
they keep us away from our real self. So stillness, silence,
solitude extremely important.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
So you mentioned how we tend to identify with the
content of our experience, all the thoughts and storylines and
emotions and narratives, and so with all the things coming
and going in the space of our mind and our
sense perceptions. And that seems to be one of the
primary obstacles to waking up, is our strong identification with that.
And you know, we all start off the human condition
is such that we all start off in a very

(12:43):
bulnerable situation as infants, and we need to about some
kind of sense of self to navigate the world. And
we build out whatever's available to us, and we cling
to it pretty tenaciously because if that's not who I am,
who the heck am I? And so as in your
experience as you guys students and they begin to maybe
loosen up that a little bit. That can be kind

(13:03):
of scary, especially you know, some of us, our overall
sense of identity is a little fragileus or tenuous anyway
sometimes through the life experiences. So how do you guys
who support students to gradually sort of begin to let
go of that what they've known as who they are
for you know, decades or more, and begin to open
up to something that's a little less defined and spacious.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
And yeah, we're absolutely right. From the time we're in
uteral even before you know, we're imprinted by the ways
of the world, parental, societal, religious fantasies, and we had
to develop a way to cope with all of that,
all of these imprints and defend. So the ego obviously

(13:43):
assists in protecting that limited, temporary identity how we've humanized ourselves.
And so what I seek to have people do is
become aware that you are aware of the static or
the content through and obviously, in the scientific terms, there's

(14:03):
something called, you know, the observer effect that whatever you
become aware of you change at a sub atomic level,
just based on observation. So I invite people to have
an intention to wake up. We're sleepwalking. We're an intoxicated
sleepwalking of content. Have an intention to wake up. And
then as you begin to observe the content begins to

(14:24):
change because you're not resisting it, you're not fighting it,
you're not trying to make it go away, You're just
observing it with an intention to wake up. So in
the content, which are thoughts and thought forms, which are
units of mental energy, begin to change. They begin to disintegrate,
they begin to become transmuted through observation, and little by

(14:45):
little an individual has a tremendous insight, or it happens incrementally.
Individuals become more aware that they are awareness. They're not
their body, you know, they're not the experiences that they've had,
They're not the content. They are awareness. And that creeps
up on an individual. Sometimes it's dramatic, but oftentimes there

(15:08):
is the letting go that which isn't so, so that
which is so becomes more prevalent. And so that happens
incrementally through the practice of meditation. For some people that
are dramatic opening. And so the idea is I try
to teach people you're not trying to become a good meditator.

(15:28):
I mean becoming a good man. That's a good thing,
you know, don't learn how to meditate, but you're actually
trying to wake up. You're really not trying to just
be a good meditator. You're actually trying to wake up.
Because people don't quite understand that there's really no good
or bad in meditation. They're just different states of it.
So that's kind of how I approach it.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Well, following up on that good meditator notions just for
a moment, in terms of sort of meditation, I don't
know technology people you've been somewhat describing the path quality
as well. Then it sometimes it's incremental, and sometimes people
have major openings, and you have some fairly propound openings
at the beginning of your life that set you on
this path. I think when people hear about such experiences

(16:07):
or even have glimpses of such experiences and sometimes maybe
want to go right there or go right into sort
of the fruits of meditation without having really trained the
mind or stabilized the mind somewhat. And I'm wondering how
you see that. And in you mentioned you teach you
kind of your own version of it. Pashna. That training
of the mind, such as the mind is stable enough

(16:28):
to then go through that process. You're a discovered however
incremental or sudden at times it might be, but that
there's a structure that have that experience to hold that experience, right.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
I appreciate everything's saying. It's absolutely true, because everybody has
a tendency to want to jump to the fruits or
jump to some great awakening or something to that effect,
and most of the time it's not like that, you know.
I think in the Japanese language is the word kin show,
you know, which means it's the slow burning away, cleaning
up the filters. And you have a transformation that sometimes

(17:01):
it's like a thief in the night. You don't even
know you've changed until you start getting feedback from the
world or other people, or the fruits of love or
compassion or forgiveness or patient start to emerge in you
and you realize, oh, I'm different than I was last year.
And sometimes people do have a satory moment where it's like,
oh my God. But I train people basically to establish

(17:24):
an intention to wake up and then place your attention
on the intention until sometimes that intention actually can carry
a feeling, and then I invite them to have simultaneous awareness.
Of course, I'm taking them through this on their breath
because it's impossible to breathe in the future or the past,

(17:46):
so the breath becomes an anchor point for the present.
So an individual's embracing their intention to wake up. They're
aware of the breath, and then they step. Then we
load in. This is the first time I've ever meditated.
Whether an individual is a veteran or a newbie, it's
always the first time. Beginner's mind, childlike nature, however you

(18:09):
want to describe that. And then I invite them to
go into deep, lowly listening. But not with your ears.
Your awareness produced the ears, just like your awareness produced eyes.
So we have a spiritual faculty of hearing the an
audible and seeing the invisible. So I invite them to

(18:29):
go into a deep listening with their being so that
they're able to catch what I call the perennial broadcast
of let there be life, let there be beauty, Let
there be joy, that there be abundance, that there be
intelligence everywhere. So they're sitting with those things loaded in intention, attention, breath,

(18:51):
this is the first time and deep listening, and that
becomes a place by which they're holding a practice. And
two things occur. Obviously, there's the letting go of the
mental debris that happens, but also the subtle bodies are
becoming more stable and more strong to carry more of
the cosmic energy, more of the energy. It's becoming stronger

(19:14):
a little by little. So if someone does have some
kind of insight or an opening the temple that the
subtle bodies can hold the energy, it's not going to
fizz off. It's not going to you know, a wire
that can't carry that kind of energy, kind of phizzicism.
You know, it won't do that. You'll be able to
hold it. You know. Notice that you are becoming more you.

(19:37):
It's not that some foreign thing is coming. You're actually
peeling away the layers of content to see that who
you are, you know, even before you incarnate it on
this planet.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
I love what you said about the primorial broadcast, which
is quite different I take it than the broadcast we
offer scenari ears and the what about broadcasts? Right, And
also I really appreciate what you said there about the
development of the subtle body such that it can hold
this energy because otherwise, sometimes you know, we start to develop,

(20:13):
especially if we do any retreats or a lot of pots,
we develop, you know, we start to accumulate some spiritual
energy of us open. Then we usually we just leak
it off as fast as we can because we're not
used to holding it. We don't have a structure for it. Absolutely,
even though as you mentioned before, we're not just the body.
But it seems like an embodied approach to practice can
be helpful in that the body, mind, spirit are all

(20:34):
on a spectrum. So as we connect with the breath,
as we connect with an embodied kind of presence, that
takes us from gross body the subtle body, and we
start to kind of build that inner architecture of the
subtle body, the awakened subtle body, that can then really
be a vehicle for our continued development. I wonder if
that resonates with you.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Oh. Absolutely. Oftentimes what happens is that some people may
have like a tremendous opening, but as you said, it
disappears really fast, or it just becomes a memory of
something that happened years ago, but they haven't embodied it.
Now a structured practice, you know, allows you to slowly

(21:13):
be able to build up those subtle bodies, so you're
able to hold the energy. So if you have a moment,
it doesn't just become a memory of something you tell
your friends about. You know what three years ago, this
thing happened, you know, and I saw the light or
whatever it was. So it's actually like an it's like exercising,
you know, and you're building up something subtly, but it's

(21:35):
still being built up and you're able to hold it.
You're able to hold more of the cosmic wattage, so
to speak, because your filament, your instruments is stronger to
hold it. And so it becomes ultimately a way of living.
You know, it's not a destination to get somewhere called enlightenment.

(21:56):
It's more of a way of life that has tremendous
fruits of patience and kindness and compassion and love and
generosity and creativity. And then if a tremendous, magnificent moment happens,
it gets integrated into your practice. It's not went off,
you know, it's integrated.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
That's extremely helpful. You've really kind of laid out the
classic paths of meditation and meditative development, so beautifully and
it would resonate across traditions in many ways. Within that foundation,
then you develop what you call a permative prayer, and
then also the life visioning process. I wonder if you
could kind of walk us through both of those.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
Well, obviously, when we talk about affirmative prayer, we are
not talking about begging and reseaching some kind of reluctant
deity to give us anything. We're beginning with the awareness
through that our life, of course, is never separated from
the divine. You know, we're one. We have a real
unity with us and the presence by whatever name you

(22:57):
want to call the presence, And so in prayer, we're
opening ourselves up through gratitude, being very grateful that we
are awake and alive. Just being grateful is a prayer,
but just being grateful makes you available to the grace
and the bliss that's happening everywhere. You become available to it.

(23:19):
So we become grateful, and it helps us begin to
recognize that there is a life of beauty and a
presence everywhere. The meditative portion of the prayer is we
feel one with life, we feel one with God, we
feel one with the essence of life, and from there
we speak the word to have a realization of what

(23:42):
we're saying is true. We're not trying to make anything happen.
We're trying to make something welcome that's already happened. We're
already one with God. We're already full to overflowing with
abundance and joy and creativity and telling it's already here.
But we're speaking the word and affirmative prayer to have
a realization of what we're saying is so it becomes
an inner feeling nature. And then we give thanks that

(24:05):
it's already done. And then we release the word as
a law, knowing that it can't come back void. It
comes back fulfilled thereof, and it happens immediately, I mean immediately.
The immediate ramifications are you you start to produce tonic
chemicals of the body, Your immune system becomes stronger, there's
a greater coherence of the brain. You know, just in

(24:26):
prayer and in meditation, so affirmative prayer, we're affirming that
which is already true until we have a realization and
not just a belief, not just a philosophy or a hypothesis,
but we actually are praying to have a realization so
that we feel that connection of whatever it is we're

(24:46):
praying for.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
So in the same way you talked about before, you
talked about as we connect with the observer consciousness with awareness,
we get identify more with that. And you said that
we know that the observer, the active observer, actually changes
what being observed you mentioned before, and that gets it
kind of into quantum theory and so forth. So in
this case with the affirmative prayer, the power of affirming

(25:09):
our own divinity, our own sacredness, the reality of who
and what we really are, actually has real physiological power
to it, or subtle body as well as I mean,
it does begin to change our nervous system.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
And yes, I.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Want if you get talk about that. It really is
transforming us at the subtle level as well as sort
of the grosser level of our neurophysiology and changing who
we are through the power of that intention, the word
the affirmation of these truths. I want to because it
seems so powerful what you're describing there.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
It's absolutely true. I like to say, you're recalibrating your
nervous system. The nervous system holds thought forms of anxiety,
anxiousness and Oftentimes people they want to meditate or they
want to pray, but their body and their subtle bodies
are working against them because the nervous system is whole

(26:00):
fear and worry and anxiousness and anxiety. So when you
begin to pray affirmatively and coming into a deep resonance,
a deep feeling of your oneness with the presence, whether
that be love, beauty, intelligence, abundance, whatever the case may be,
it starts to requalify your nervous system, so that the
nervous system starts to hold the frequency of love or

(26:21):
unity or connection. And then of course that affects the
whole body temple, and then that affects all of the
subtle bodies. And so that effect and prayer is immediate. Now,
the manifestation of some other things that a person may
want to bring into their life may take a period
of time, but there's an immediate effect that's now obviously registered.

(26:45):
With bring coherence technology and the measuring of oric fields
and that you know, bile feedback and things of that
particular nature. You can see scientifically that when one goes
into prayer, you know, all all of these different things change,
you see, and if one can do that on a

(27:05):
regular basis, then the body of their affairs begin to
change as well, and how they relate to the visible
world begins to change. Prayer is very transformational. It is
not begging pleading for something to happen. It is waking
up to what's perennially happening. But we've cut ourselves off

(27:27):
of it by having a limited perception of reality, so
it's actually expanding our perception. So prayer is very powerful.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
But before we talk about life fasing, just one more
follow up question. There. You know, you're describing this coherence
that develops, and it's like a palpable resonance and coherence
heart brain coherence, heartgut coherence, whether at the more gross
level of our neurophysiology or at the soubile body level,
which is all interconnected. So this is palpable, and it
seems one of the real struggles that humanities facing now.

(27:58):
So many people feel lonely and isolated, a disconnector so
much anxiety and loneliness and even suicidality being endemic. And
so when you begin to experience that level of coherence
within your own being, it's almost like you're not alone anymore.
I mean and some people might visualize that as a
higher power or guardian angel or a deity, you know,

(28:20):
thiss might just see it as the more subtle and
true reality of themselves. But there is a quality of
having a home, yes, but finally having a home and
not being alone.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
I wonder if you'd, oh, absolutely what happens is you
discover you can be alone but you're not necessarily lonely.
You know, Oftentimes people are addicted to excitement, and whether
it's one hundred and fifty channels on your television or
being around people, even if you're not saying anything meaningful,
you know, people become addicted to excitement and external and

(28:53):
when that's gone, people feel lonely. And so if you
develop some level of practice, you end up bumping into
an awareness that you are definitely by yourself, but you're
not lonely. There's something else, another character, another frequency arises
within you.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
You know.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
I like being alone personally. I love people too, you know,
but when I am by myself, I'm not longing to
be with anybody, or to go and speak to anybody,
or stand in front of a crowd and teach or
anything like that. I love being by myself. It's so
sweet and wonderful just to be alone, to watch the

(29:33):
thoughts pass, to see what it arises in terms of creativity,
you know. And then I love people too. So it's
not that I'm reclusive. I just when I'm alone, I
love it. When I'm with people, I love that. But definitely,
there is a kind of a pandemic of loneliness in
the world where people are concerned, and a lot of that,

(29:53):
a lot of the after effects of the pandemic, the
lockdown of healthy people the first time in human history
that ever happened, and people didn't know how to handle it.
It created a kind of a scar tissue, sam scar
of a soul going through that fear, doubt, worry, projection
of worst case scenarios onto the future. And people are

(30:14):
still healing from that. And then you have the language
coming up about mental health being a very dominant language.
And then you have contagion, and people don't realize you're
not just contagent. Colds are just contagious. Thoughts are contagious,
you know. So you have a large groups of people
feeling have gone through this particular experience and then the

(30:37):
anxiety around it. Those thought forms aren't staying in a
person's house, those thought forms go everywhere. So you have
this contagion of people being anxious and worried and wondering
what's going to happen next, you see. But there's also
a contagion that happens when small groups of people are
meditating together. You have spiritual groups like yourself, you know,

(30:59):
that come together in community and meditate. That's contagious too.
That changes whole neighborhoods, states, and cities. And so I
think what we're telling people right now is they can
be alone without being lonely. But if you have some
level of spiritual practice and intentionality, you have an insight
into that an event that takes place in your awareness

(31:22):
where incrementally or suddenly, no, oh I'm not alone, Oh
my god, I'm surrounded by such love, such peace, at
a presence is here, you know.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, beautiful. As you were speaking, I was thinking of
from a New Testament, two or more gather together in
My name and then there's yes than to the Holy
Spirit in that way.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
Is absolutely so.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
Another social malady that's epidemic today, both for individuals and
society is a sense of meaninglessness and purposeless that at
least all kinds of tragedies and a lot of violence
and the things we're saying. And so your life visioning
process says, I understand, it has through with helping people
rediscover their life purpose or even their soul's purpose, if

(32:07):
you will, so, I wonder if you could talk about
that now, right. That is a transformational technology for that
exact reason, because of what you just said, there is
the appearance of so much meaninglessness in the civilizations of
the world.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
You very rarely hear a visionary be president of the
United States or run a particular country. They're basically always
focused on the bottom line of the gross national product,
some kind of level of materialism or power. And so
people grow up in their particular countries and there's no

(32:43):
grand meaning other than we got to get more stuff,
whatever that stuff is. And so after a while that
plays out in a person's heart and soul. So we
are all shocked from the eternal presence called by millions
of names of God, Love, beauty, intelligence, and we have

(33:03):
a purpose of reflecting and revealing that presence according to
our uniqueness. Everyone, I believe everyone has the same purpose
to reveal the face of Divinity, reveal the face of love, intelligence, whatever,
however people want to describe this ineffable life. But we
all have different missions, we have different ways of expressing

(33:26):
that because one of the things that this vast presence
does never repeats itself. There's nothing repetitive in the entire cosmos.
Two rocks aren't the same, two blades of grass aren't
the same. To flowers, to individuals, to animals, there is
nothing the same. So diversity and inclusivity is built into

(33:47):
the whole, the stalls of life. So so we're all unique.
So the life visioning process begins with going into meditation,
cultivating a feeling of love, total love, unconditional love. And
so I'll take people through that process in different ways,
and then we're aware that this universal presence, called by

(34:11):
whatever name you want to call it, by law, answers
every single question that you ask. If you ask a
disempowering question, what's wrong, who's to blame? Why me, You'll
get a series of answers that will take you down
the spiral of negativity, of excuses of things that have happened,

(34:33):
and the woundedness and why you are the way you are.
But if you ask a higher order of question, such
as what is it within me that is seeking to
emerge right now? What gift do I have to give
to the world before I leave it? You know, what
contribution am I to make? What is the vision for
my life as this presence sees it? If you ask

(34:56):
questions like that, you're going to begin to get answers, intuitively, subtly,
sometimes very growth for some people. That will lead you
into a path of participating in your own unfolding. So
life vision process begins with meditation in a field of love,

(35:16):
and then I invite people to ask the question. This
used the word God for a moment. What is God's
idea of itself as me? That's a vision. You know,
God doesn't make meaningless acts. This presence is full of
meaning of love and beauty and intelligence. It's no meaningless thing.
What is God's idea of itself as my life? Or

(35:37):
what is it that's within me that is seeking to
emerge now as a contribution as a gift to the world.
Because we didn't come to the planet to get anything.
There's nothing to get. We came to the planet to give,
to share, to shine, to glow, to radiate, to contribute.
We didn't come to get there's nothing, there's nothing in
the world that can make us happy, zero happiness and

(35:59):
joys in trends. We have to give it, we have
to shine it through some kind of creative act or
generosity your service. So we ask what am I to
contribute or what's trying to emerge? So we sit in
that space meditatively for a while to activate the spiritual
faculty that's been stunted because we've lived so much in

(36:21):
the five senses as and everything we can see and
taste and touch and hear and smell is real. People
have actually forgotten that most of life is invisible. We're
mostly invisible. We think everything that is real is what
you can see. So when we ask that question and
we go into deep listening, we start to activate the
faculty of real seeing and real hearing again not with

(36:42):
eyes and not with ears, but that which created the
eyes and ears, and we start to catch insight. And
then from there we ask the question, what is it
that I must become in order to manifest the vision
that's beginning to articulate itself. That's our growing edge. It's

(37:02):
not a judgment exercise, it's an awareness exercise because we
start to get guidance as to where we're called to grow.
Are we called to grow to be more forgiving, to
be more loving? Are we called to grow to develop
certain skills, some talents that we've allowed to go dormant?
You know? We start to ask the question, and from

(37:23):
within our own soul answers will come as to what
we must become in order to manifest the vision. Third
question is what do we already have that can be
in service to the vision? Why is this important? There's
a scriptural law that says to hear or she who

(37:45):
has more as given to he or she who has
not even that which they have, shall be taken away.
Now that law is not personal. It's just saying that
if you walk with the feeling of having and being,
you open up door more comes to you. But if
you're walking around feeling that you don't have, then you're
using the law reverse and then what you have is

(38:07):
taken away. So we ask what is it that we
have that can be in service to the vision, and
we start becoming aware of resources that we have that
maybe we thought were inconsequential, they weren't important. Talents that
we can develop. There may be all kinds of resources
around us that we're not even thinking about that can
be in service to this vision that we're now beginning

(38:29):
to articulate. So now we're starting to walk with this
feeling of having something. The next question is what are
we willing to let go of that no longer serves us? Conversations,
other habits. You know, we know these things, but sometimes
we hide them from ourselves and then we become willing
to let them go. I mean, there have been things
that we needed in the past. There may be in

(38:51):
a certain defense mechanism that really protected us when we
were going through some abuse as a kid. We had
to have a coping mechanism how to survive until we
can become strong enough to look at it in the face.
But what do we no longer need right now that
Where can we let go if it doesn't serve us?
We ask that question, we start to get answers, and

(39:11):
then we finally come into the feeling tone of willingness.
Where there is willingness, there is a way, when there
is will fullness, you create a vibrational wall. Willingness provides
the way. Willfulness creates a wall. So you come into
the state of willingness. You don't have to know how
to do all this stuff. Yet you just have to

(39:31):
be able to describe the vision. Notice where you have
to grow, embrace what you have, become willing to let
go of what doesn't serve you, and this prayerful feeling
tone of willingness. We become the vibrational match to the
unfolding of a vision. So it's transformational because, for instance,

(39:52):
you know, in the beginning stages of metaphysics, new thought
is visualization. Visualization says, you know, be very specif think
about seeing what you want to manifest, describe it, feel
that you have it, walk as if you have it,
and you will manifest it. Problem with that is, oftentimes
people are visualizing something that has nothing to do with

(40:13):
their soul's growth. It's something they got from society or
commercial I got to have this kind of card to
be happy or something to that effect. And plus, whatever
they're visualizing is limiting. It's from limitation anyways, it's from
the person's limited paradigm anyway, or something that's already been done.
But it's a good step. It's a very good stage
in metaphysics to learn how to visualize and to re

(40:35):
enchant the imagination. But visioning is not saying what we want.
It is asking what's within us and wants to be released.
As Robert Browning would remind us, we want to release
the inner splendor. It's a different focus. It's not I
want this and I want to manifest this. It's what
is it within me that wants to come forward. So

(40:56):
that's the short version of the vision process and somewhat
of the process of it that becomes a technology. You know,
all of our ministries here have a vision group in
which they are constantly available to what's next seeking to
emerge in their particular department or ministry. And people use
this process now it's cross lines is in Corporate America boards.

(41:19):
Trustees are using it, businesses are using it, individuals are
using it. It's become a transformational technology that's a part
of the tools of growth and unfoldment.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
Well, it's certainly a beautiful process. I wrote down the
steps incredibly powerful and I love the distinction you made
as you're describing it between willingness and wilfulness.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
Definitely, because people can be wilful. It's a lot of
the ego strength. I'm going to make this happen, you
know what I mean? And it creates a vibrational wall
because with that wilfulness, you're actually saying, I don't have
it when to make it happen, I don't have it.
So willingness it's more feminine, it's more allowing.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
Yeah, you know that your work is situated within a
broader social vision, and I think very much you're within
the sort of Godhian king Ian social vision. Miliu and
our last conversation, I think early on is growing up
as a black man in America. You touched in on,
you know, the natural angry response to the injustice that

(42:20):
was there, and you were led into a more transformative pathway.
But I know you're still very involved in yeah, wanting
to bring greater sanity and blessings and transformation to the world,
not just to any individual, but a larger social vision.
So I wonder if you could just touch in on
that could be a whole nother conversation. But I want
if you could just on that a little bit.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
But you know, we definitely influenced by and embrace liberation theology,
which is a mention of Christianity, mystical Christianity in which
we're to be earthly good as well as heavenly bound
that we're to make a difference on the planet. That
true compassion is oftentimes actions that you take around social

(43:01):
justice or you know, like for instance, who were involved
with the fires that just happened in Palisades, And we've
had different groups in our community meet to help people
move through that, but we also put them in the
direction of where they can get help. We've also donated
to places that are doing real work, you know. So
whatever something happens, we always ask as a community, what

(43:23):
is it that is ours to do to be the
service of humanity. We're not going to cloister ourselves up
and say and not see what's happening in the world.
So we're always asking that question, what is ours to
do in this particular event, tragedy, or circumstance. So we
carry on one hand where you know unity, vendota, you know,

(43:45):
absolute nondual oneness with God. At the same time, all
of that takes an action, you know, it's calm or yoga.
You know, where their true practice of unity is in
actually doing service. So we have programs in our community
like Sacred Service Saturday, where we every year have a

(44:06):
Saturday devoted to we contact many of the nonprofit organizations
that we can in Los Angeles and now in the
states and countries as well. But it started off just
in Los Angeles, and we flood these places with volunteers.
We have all of our congregation go to these places
and sign up and do real physical work or whatever

(44:27):
needs to be done in these nonprofits, not to proseetize,
not to get people to come to AGAPE, but just
as an act of service. And then what happens is
many of the people from Agape end up being permanent
volunteers in these places. And many of those people and
those places come to a gape they say, who are
these people? They're not asking for anything, they don't want anything,
They're just coming to serve. So there's definitely part of

(44:51):
our dharma is to be of service and speak and
we call, you know, in our ministry we call a
thing when something's going on in the world that's not right.
Are not in harmony with justice? We talk about it,
not with the blaming vibration, but with an articulation this
is what's going on, this is what's out of alignment,
you see, and holding a vision for something better.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
Beautiful. Reverend Michael be Beck with the founder of Agapi,
the Agapi community and the life visioning process and permittive prayer.
And thank you so much for the work you've been
doing for many, many decades now and that you continue
to do. And really wishing you in your community all
the best. I know many in your community have suffered

(45:34):
from the recent buyers and Los Angeles area, and sending
many blessings your.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
Way, Brother Flee, Thank you so much for all that
you're doing to help span people's consciousness. Thank you for
the invitation to be here with you today. It's my joy.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
Thank you for joining me on the Radical Responsibility Podcast. Remember,
real change happens when we commit to our growth, face
our challenges with compassion, and stay open to transformation. If
you found this episode helpful, I encourage you to subscribe
and help us spread the message of healing and personal empowerment.
Stay grounded, stay present, and stay true to you. Take care,