Why CHANGING YOUR LIFE Is Easier Than You Think | Michael Beckwith

you mentioned that your mother was a psychic or had psychic abilities or I'm not sure exactly the extent of it and your dad was this sort of stern task master uh probation officer turned uh lawyer turned judge yes so I'm I'm curious thinking back to little Michael growing up and you were observing that dynamic between those two did your dad buy into your mom's psychic work or did he did he believe in the occult and those kinds of things or was he an eye roller when whenever she started speaking about that kind of stuff he wasn't an eye roller he was just he was just he was stoic and he was like he was a man of his word and he said he was going to do something he did something and he had the ability to read people very well in an instant so he knew if a person was in Integrity with what they were saying or not that was so he just wasn't into it you know like like the way my mother was but he didn't put it down it was just something that uh it was just in the atmosphere and later on in life he would say something like you know when I was deeply into my spiritual practice and my spiritual awareness he just chalked it up all the faith he had a he had a faith but he wasn't religious and that makes sense he just felt that if you walked right things would work out for you well and that's kind of how he lived now my mom she was the one in the family that for instance if somebody we knew it from DC originally I was born in Bethesda Maryland you know living for a few years until my father moved us out to Los Angeles but to most of my relatives were in DC and we would go back for the summer to see the family so whenever somebody made their transition my mother would leave and escort them to the other side and then they would say they're Alice it's not your time you have to go back then she would wake us up and say you know on so and so just passed cousin so-and-so just passed and then the phone would ring and it'd be our relatives from Washington DC saying on so and so I just passed or a cousin so and so it just passed so we grew up kind of knowing that there was something else happening you know that there was another world Beyond this one that life didn't end at the uh the death of the body Temple so that was a part of the dynamic but interestingly enough my mother was slightly afraid of it not frightened but she was she didn't walk you know it was things that would happen but she didn't pursue it till later on in life when I had my Spiritual Awakening and and began to really go full force in this direction then she picked everything back up you know and she started going into deeper practice of meditation and prayer and study going to metaphysical churches and things like that so it was it was interesting how my Awakening then jump start her her natural ability that she had from a very young age yeah and what were some of the first breadcrumbs that you recall as a younger person um that you were gonna have an Awakening one day like did you I remember one time you know I got hit in the head with a baseball bat when I was playing catcher with my brother I was probably eight years old when he was nine and he swung the bat and he let it go and it hit me right here right my third eye wow and I have this knot still here to this day from that and I my Looking Back Now I I figured that's that was my way of you know unlocking in a very quick way something got opened up yeah something got opened up back then because I I'm different from my other brothers they're all sweet people they're wonderful but I'm definitely the one that was more Curious and the one that was just the religion thing didn't really make a lot of sense to me um so what was your what was your experience as a younger person before you you had you know the the um that you're able you're actually seeing words light up on pages and that's this kind of thing well I I there's a couple of experiences that I had when I was well now I just thought of another one just getting ready to tell you this way but both of them were around the same age I was in the um fifth or sixth grade one I can remember the teacher's name her name was Mrs Miss ax she has she used to wear a little ax to help us remember her name and um we had to do we planted Gardens at the school and then for a homework assignment we had to have a niche in our backyard we had to grow our own garden and she gave us seeds and that school taught us how to plant them and take care of them the whole deal which was trying to connect us with nature so one of the things that we grew were carrots and radishes so I always had this experience where I remember growing radishes and then one day I went in the backyard and I pulled the radish out of the ground and I looked at it and I bit into it when I bit into this radish suddenly now this is the language now it wasn't the language as a fifth year old but this is the experience I suddenly realized that biting into this radish I was connecting to the entire universe that everything was in the radish and now I ran into the house and I was trying to explain to my mother that I bit this radish and the radish was everything I didn't have the language I remember her just looking at me quizzing what are you talking about Michael is the radish good I said yeah the radish is good but but everything is in it you know I didn't I didn't have the language for the fact that all of the presence is in everything you see so I can remember that moment was very distinct in my mind and then uh the next year um I remember I was in the sixth grade I thank the teacher's name was Miss Adler that's interesting how remembering these teachers think and uh I went to the restroom I came back and my name was on the Blackboard as uh to run for the vice for the treasurer of the school and I said no no I declined I I was very shy I didn't want to be involved in anything like that and Miss Adler said no you can't decline the class nominated you you can't decline you have to run for this office and I was I was not really happy about this and we had to do two things when we had to go to different classrooms and give these little mini speeches as to why we should be elected and then it culminated with an assembly where the whole school came in the auditorium and he gave a speech in front of the whole school now I was dreading this so I did the little speeches you had little signs up bank with Beckwith you know that type of thing and I remember getting up to speak and suddenly something took over and I began to speak about excellence and being an excellent student and Rising into your field of Excellence to serve and all of this was just pouring out of me and I sat down and the the audience was stunned at what had happened they didn't know what the you know all this poured out of me and I was sitting there like I didn't know what had happened you know and then it it went into like this Applause you know and the teacher looked at me and says wow Michael you know and because I I was not really you know one-on-one I was good but in a group that wasn't really my thing all that week I remember trying to get back into the little Paradigm of Michael like that wasn't me up there I don't know what happened I don't know what that was but this is this is the real me I was trying to get get my agreement back with mediocrity you know and um so I I that ex that that was one little experience and then another time uh prior to both those experiences I was in my backyard and I was watering the lawn and I remember having this thought the long was brown you know and uh I remember having this thought that I wanted the lawn to be green I was watering it to be green so I closed my eyes when I opened my eyes the patch had turned green it shocked me it was green so I ran into the house Mom the grass was green the grass is green and she came out and looked at and she said yes I said no no it's only green right here the whole lawn is brown I was watering right here and I had this thought that I wanted the grass to be green and it became green and she kind of just said okay Michael that's beautiful that's sweet but I know for a fact as a kid that that ground that grass was Brown and then I I watered it for a long time and then had this awareness that the grass was green so there was little pinpricks of the other little paperworks of expanded awareness that I quite couldn't understand but I know they happened you know but I know they happened yeah sure so you you you brush shoulders with Martin Luther King Jr at one point as a child did that inform your decision to go to Morehouse it did it did uh you know I got accepted to Brown University they wanted me to run track there some other other places but I wanted to go to Morehouse I wanted to be around other African Americans and Dr King had gone there that was his that he was the alumni numbness of of um Morehouse and so that's where I decided to go and um I met Dr King I was 11 I think 11 to 12. and he was at the Holman's Methodist Church on a West Coast Swing to raise money for SCLC my mother took me he spoke obviously I shook his hand and his hand was really soft he said some words to me you know thank you for coming up to see me young man and you know some things and I remember saying to my mom you know his hands are really soft and she said he does a different kind of work baby like that but yeah I met him and then coincidentally or not coincidentally but his daughter Yolanda became a member of Agape she was a member uh and and I'll tell you this little story um a friend of mine wanted me to go see this psychic his name was dead Larry they they didn't call him that to his face his name was Lauren but but he channeled dead people and uh so Stephen kept saying I want you to go see dead Larry I said man I don't I don't need to go see anybody you know I have a a connection I I don't need to go see anybody plus I have friends that are very intuitive he said you need to go see him and you're gonna really like this I said I'm not going Steve he said I'll pay for it I said okay I'll go so it was 200 it was a number of years ago so I go in to see Lawrence and the first thing he says to me is my grandmother comes through and says uh where's that Ruby Wing that that my husband gave you and I said you know what happened to the ruby ring your son was jealous that his dad passed him up and gave the ring to me and took it while I was washing my hands and she says I know I just want you to know this was me like that so I rushed out of the house that day so I didn't do my morning meditation to where I normally did and she said Practice What You Preach you didn't do your full meditation today I said I know Grandma they're just trying to get here on time you know anyway long story short as we go through these readings of different relatives coming through he says I have somebody that's not a member of your your um physical family but he really wants to speak to you and I said okay his name is Martin Luther King Jr I said really so Dr King comes through and he starts to tell me that when I'm teaching these Universal principles was where he was heading but the civil and human rights movement had pulled him in that direction which was very necessary but this was the path that he was on as well plotted me for the work I had done and would do and then he said this to me thank you for changing my daughter's life and I said and he said Yolanda now at the time like I had not met her yet I said I've never met her and in his head the the Lawrence's head twisted to the right really fast and back he says oh I'm looking into the future next Sunday Yolanda comes to Agape ends up going to Egypt with me and going to Egypt the land the land of Kemet changed her whole life when she realized that that was the birthplace of all the major religions and that her father or grandfather grand grandfather were all baptist ministers but when she went to Egypt with me everything opened up for her and then she joined agape and her whole mind opened up and so that reading what that psychic said yeah thank you you know so she became a very dear friend until until she passed over um and then her mother Coretta Scott King flies in to see what her daughter's up to because you know they were Baptist family was Baptist was she joining what is this thing so uh um Rosa Parks had already come and it's shared with Coretta you know this is a really good place and uh so Coretta came and she sat in the front room looking at me listened to every word I had to say at the end of this service she says this was quite profound this is very beautiful it sounds like exactly what my husband would would appreciate and then later on she wrote me a letter stating that um what I was building was where her husband lived and ultimately gave us gave his gave his life for thank you for taking care of my daughter and um to then now you know in Martin Luther King III came he sat in the same seat his mother sat in uh coincidentally and uh now I'm really good friends with um both him his wife and and the mentor for their daughter Dr king's granddaughter so it's like this whole Dynamic of connection to the King Family yeah that's beautiful thank you for sharing that wow you know I'm from Montgomery Alabama and I grew up on Rosa Parks Avenue which is they changed the name from Cleveland Avenue to Rosa Parks Cleveland Avenue Cleveland Avenue bus was the one that she took uh it started the whole thing and Dexter Avenue Baptist Church was King's church it was my dad's church so he was my dad's preacher wow and uh and Sunday school teacher so it's just really interesting full circle moment right now that's beautiful absolutely well you don't hear a lot of people leaving Morehouse and going to USC It's usually the other way around what was for that well you know I I I had a child and my girlfriend lived in Los Angeles so after a couple of years at Morehouse you know I thought it best to go back to Los Angeles and be with my kid and and and um and then a Morehouse was also I loved Morehouse I loved it I still kind of feel like a Morehouse man you know what I mean because I go back to speak at their ground uh Crown forums and you know I'm I just had a conversation yesterday with Lawrence Carter the uh the archivists and the director of the Martin Luther King uh Chapel there so I'm still connected to Morehouse um so I came back to Los Angeles oh I was going to say that when I went to Morehouse coming from Los Angeles the teachings in La were more expansive and when I went back to the south at that time they were trying to some of the classes were trying to make me think a certain way not just teach me how to think but they wanted me to think a certain way and I'll always remember having this history class and we had to write about the Vietnam War and I remember articulating my point of view on it and the teacher disagreed with me and gave me a c and I remember saying I'm not here to agree with what you I'm here to articulate my ideas back him up back up the facts with my particular research you can't grade me down because I don't disagree the Vietnam War was an unjust War you know we were on the wrong side of History anyway I remember going to the dean to get my grade rescinded and the Deans told me memory is telling me to just just to play along now at 18 years old I didn't know how to play alone it's like no I'm not going to play along you know anyway I loved Morehouse but eventually I left and uh I went to I went to USC um and that's an interesting story if you want to hear that too because yeah and Morehouse I helped start with what was called the Harriet Tubman prison committee and we were working to make sure the prisoners were getting just pay for the work that they were doing while in prison and being treated like human beings and so we had rallies at City Hall I was a part of the blackwork uh black workers Congress it was very activist revolutionary and um so subsequently when I come back to Los Angeles I'm still a part of these these groups and I'm sitting in a meeting you know we're going to Change the World by any means necessary you know I'm in this meeting and um I hear somebody behind me say if you were to take over the world tomorrow would it you know not just me personally but the group would the world be any different so I looked around to see who was there there was nobody standing there hmm so we went on with the meeting and then it said it again but it was coming from inside of me if you were to take over the world tomorrow would the world be any different so I looked around the room and I could see the pathology of the people in the room this person was territorial this person was run by his Eagle this person always had to be right I could see all the little things and I said to myself well the world would be any different we have an ideology a revolutionary ideology to change the world but the world will be exactly the same because everyone you know this person has to be right this person's power hungry this person wants wow I mean it just hit me so I never went back to that meeting the next week in that meeting somebody shot somebody an argument somebody pulled out a gun and shot somebody I wasn't there to be a part of the whole legal thing that went down and I I didn't have anything to put in that space of activism anyway I I was I was out half a semester I decided so I enrolled at USC and then as I enrolled in USC the um spiritual experiences started to really become more intense until you know I actually thought for a period of time that I was that what was going on inside of me was pathological transpersonal psychology had not really come into full sway at that time so I thought I was going crazy you know you were a psychobiology major too so you were reading about stuff like this right yeah right and this was all pathological when I was going through hearing voices seeing things and I was doing Astro travel a lot of Astro traveling at the time but I hadn't studied any of that so I didn't know what it was but I do remember um testing it out and you know I'd get this ringing in my ear and I would leave and um go to my mom's house and see her cooking and I'd call her do you have on a Blue Dress yes are you cooking chicken right now yeah so I knew the experiences are authentic but I didn't have any context as to what was happening to me you know but I knew something was going on but I didn't have any um you know I left the church at the age of 16 because I couldn't get with the um the the Christian theology the way it was being taught and uh so anyway after a period of time it burst into an Awakening that forever changed the trajectory of my life yeah so you had a new baby um that you were helping to support how are you making money at the time at uh two things I was working in a store and I was dealing marijuana you knew where I was going had a job and I had a job I had a job were you just I mean you it seems like you know you you you've studied at the elite schools with people and obviously you knew better than selling marijuana or that could did you have like a system like as long as I don't do X Y and Z I'm gonna be fine and well you know I actually started out yeah I was I actually started out uh it was really small just a few just for a few people but he kept growing yeah oh and it grew to the point where I had people working for me in Nashville and in Atlanta and la and different places and it became like a really powerful industry yeah you became Avon Barksdale from Hawaii before it was legal you know it was in a you know I used to um but I used to uh on the back of my car I'd have my my books in my car car my my book said U.S for USC and I had on the back of my car I had this double-sided tape support your local police on my bumper it's fake sometimes these fake studious glasses so I looked way other than a lot of the people you know the rappers or whatever wearing all these chains or people advertising that they're involved in some kind of shenanigans you know I look there I look like a student you know so I was trying to be under the radar totally but I knew that wasn't my destiny you know yeah it just grew to the point where I paid USC in cash money [Laughter] were you still thinking you would be you'd be a doctor one day yeah well yeah I was still I was still on that path I was on that path all the way up until I had the The Awakening the first adult Awakening yeah that was that was the dream that the lucid dream in which I was killed um that was painful emotionally and psychologically I was stabbed in the heart and I died and when I woke up from it I could see the beauty of the presence that's Indescribable everywhere I sometimes say even in a piece of lint even in garbage even the things you would don't think the Divine is their Divine is everywhere and the love that penetrated my being it was beyond any description of love it was just a total love and I just remember being in this state and I could see you know fall dimensionally yeah because I wasn't seeing with my eyes I could just see with consciousness and so that my life changed to discover what had happened to me you know I needed to know what what was this and then that's when I began to research and bump it back into the mystical teachings of Jesus and the bhagavakida and the upanishads and Walter Russell which is a great a Mystic that came out of America and and then I was able to appreciate Dr Thurman who I had met at Morehouse no I I heard him speak at Morehouse and it did affect me and I had a chance to have conversation with him and and and other teachers George Washington Carver who was a great Mystic and I began to like just go full more into this nothing was important to me nothing else was important other than my connection with this presence that was more real to me than anything else in the world it was it was I can remember thinking people are running around here and they're trying to make money they're trying to get this they don't they don't understand this is that's Child's Play you know there's a whole reality here that people aren't even participating in you know I can remember these these thoughts in my in my awareness and you know hours and hours of meditation uh fasting uh I lost all my friends I didn't have any friends they you know people said Michael it freaked out on Jesus you know and I didn't get high anymore I didn't drink I didn't do anything like that so people just well you did have that one last delivery that you had to get rid of that one last one yeah that's the one that that really uh gave me a great miracle and that was um I can I can see it right now in my living room um my last dope deal now interestingly enough I was already moving out of it before the experience before the arrest before everything was Art this this was not my destiny so I'm having these inner experiences Etc et cetera so I'm sitting and this is the last opening and it's the only time I ever had Contraband in my house because I had a person that worked for me and they had a stash house so whenever there was a delivery would generally be delivered there and then I had a distribution Network this one time because he was out of town I had to deliver to my house and anyway long story short the police came in they actually took me from the street and brought me to the house where the marijuana was they did everything they did was illegal but it didn't doesn't matter but they brought me to the house and asked me was this mine I said no I don't live here if I had a different address on my license they subsequently took me to the police station handcuffed me went and got a search warrant then came back uncuffed me took me to the house and arrested me as if they had gotten a search warrant and came into the house they did everything wrong that this is all little little details that don't matter at this point but I uh hire Harry Wiest as my attorney and um now the inner voice told me I was walking totally free it already said you and this is not your destiny don't even worry about it that's when everybody thought I was crazy yeah you were sitting in the Court Reading spiritual books I was reading listen I was reading a pamphlet by bhagwan SRI rajneese called chaotic meditations when it was just a pamphlet he didn't have all these books right I'm reading that book and I'm reading a couple of other books I'm I'm paying attention to what's happening in the courtroom but I'm meditating and I'm reading because I've already been told I'm walking I don't know how I'm gonna walk but I've already been told I'm gonna walk so everybody's saying Michael speak down on Jesus he's crazy they're telling you should leave the country you know once the locals get to you follow that marijuana the feds want you because they found all those guns in your house you know I said no I'm not I'm not even going to have a record so now everybody just thinks I'm nuts so I'm sitting in court you know the trials going on with continuances and it's not really a trial yeah we haven't even got totally past arraignment but continuance continuance and then at one point the um prosecutor is interviewing a uh a policeman a motorcycle cop that wasn't even on the scene he wasn't even there but he said he was so interviewing him and they said why did you uh go to Mr beckwell's house he says well an informant told us that a big drug deal was going down so we went and got a search warrant and then we staked out the house and then when we saw the drugs being delivered we went in with our search warrant and we arrested Mr Beckwith blah blah blah none of this is true obviously but so the Assistant Attorney jumps up and says that's hearsay evidence we demand that the informant stand in front of the accused and identify him or we demand that the case be thrown out of court so the judge says everybody you know come come up you know defense attorneys prosecutors and says to them I need the informant here within three days or I'm gonna have to leave Mr back with God so we come back to court three days later the prosecutor says your honor the informant is afraid for his life he will not come and the judge said Mr Beckwith I have no other recourse but to set you free you may go I hope I never see you in my courtroom again I said your honor you never will and I walked out totally free no record nothing I'm free I go home and the wind is blowing my neighbor's house has a Weather Vein and this point obviously the wind is blowing it so it's point in the direction of the weatherbane uh the weather the wind and I said I was saying you know God this means what I think it means is something to do with my destiny I I I and I'm trying to get some language like I said what does this mean you know I want that weatherbane to point in my direction if this means what I think it means before I can finish the weather very turn and point right at me and I just started crying I started I just saw being like a baby and I surrendered my life to the presence of God and never look back now the funny thing about this is I was followed for a number of months by police they went to so many spiritual communities they went to so many retreats they must have grown spiritually because I went to pair of 100 Yogananda you know I went to the I went there to meditate I went to hear every Guru that came in town I you know my whole life was just totally about anything about the spirit you know and and then let me tell you with one other little miracle that happened so okay so we're back in the house now me and my my wife my kid and and um fire breaks out in the kitchen in my in our kitchen and Flames are coming out of the kitchen and so we grabbed the kid and a few things and we run out of the house fire department comes and puts the fire out so a few days later the insurance company so they had it all taped up at the time had to stay with my parents it's all taped up you can't get in because of the fire damage so the insurance company comes we have to meet the insurance company there to uh you know go over the assessment and how much we'll get to to rebuild and paint and blah blah the insurance assessor could not find where there was a fire nothing was burned nothing the only damage was the water from the fire department now we know Flames were coming out of the kitchen we know Flames were all on the wall there was there was smoke I mean there was like smoke damage but no fire damage what that did was it allowed us to have a complete re remake of the apartment we stayed in the duplex a complete remake of the duplex new rug new paint new everything was a new house while I was staying at my parents house and so when my old friends were trying to come by all they saw was a tape and thought figured I'd moved so we finally moved back into the duplex it was brand new had no old visitors coming to see me to get anything and new life started you know but I always remember that there was a the fire that didn't burn anything yeah your Moses moment yeah so take us through like a little Montage now because now you're starting to to recognize that your path is is going to be something to do with this love beauty presence that you you were identifying it as and um and this is like an inflection point I believe for a lot of people who who feel some sort of spiritual calling like do I monetize it how do I make money with this do I help people do people come to me and ask me to help them and take us through like meeting Reginald AKA Nirvana Gail and having that conversation too to do something a little bit bigger well I knew Nirvana I knew him as Reggie we grew up on the same block and that was your only friend you had left right well what yeah what happened was when I had this experience and I had certain people that I knew I went back and told them I said because we were all atheists together atheist slash agnostic revolutionaries you know we're gonna change the world you know uh religious opiate of the people you know and um so he was the last person I went to to see to say listen all this stuff we were talking before it's not real you know there's a presence it's a part there's a love that's an intelligence back of everything you know so anyway I everybody else just thought I was crazy I I'm they were through with me so I go to Reggie's house his name is Reggie at the time and he has his girlfriend is Debbie they live together and I walk in and Debbie's in the living room and I said I just came to tell you I've had these visions and um you know life is eternal and there is a presence we don't have to call it God necessarily but and I'm just speaking I said so this is where my life is heading I have to go deep into this connection and Reggie is walking down the hall of the hallway and he hears me talking to Debbie and he pipes up and says I believe you he said I believe what you're saying he's not starting to think along those lines of myself so then that's when we together went on this adventure of discovery of the metaphysical teachings and the practices of meditation and all of that you know we were Heaven bent we were just that was the most important thing and now I had somebody to travel with because before it was alone you know and um yeah that's that's a and he's gone he's made his transition now but interestingly enough his wife is uh working with my University here at a company great great being great and great practitioner as well yeah so was he going out to the beach with you when you were doing that or is this was this before that period of time when I was going out and working when I was working with the mayor no no you when you were taking your shoes off and just feeling that presence and yeah that was that was generally a solo trip okay yeah when I'd go out to the beach um at one point you were talking about making money and and that that the story behind that is I remember sitting in my living room I and and I didn't have a job now okay and and I was I'm like I'm soaring in the presence some thinking um okay God what do you want me to do the phone rang and there was a woman on the phone who I went to high school with and she says it's Michael Beckwith I said yes it is and she said I was looking at your picture in our high school annual and I saw your phone number I decided to call you because God told me that you could help me I said really now at this particular stage I don't have any licenses I had no therapy license nothing I'm just my goal I just in this expanded awareness and she said yeah so I start to counsel her over the phone and she starts to send me donations and she starts to tell other people you know you should call this guy if you're having issues so people are calling sending me donations Etc so one night I go to this restaurant and she's in line I had no I hadn't seen this lady since the 12th grade okay so it's been you know four or five six years and I see her in line and I call her name and she looks at me and she leaves because she was so embarrassed that she had given me all these deep dark secrets of her life and her regrets and mistakes she had made and the way she was judging herself she looked at me and thought I would be I was judging her for the stuff that she had done with her life I had no judgment I was in prayer for her so then I I go home and I think about what just happened she never called me again never heard from her again in all these years and then I realized something one I didn't have that phone number in high school so it could have been on my my annual because I've moved I'm an adult I don't live with my parents I have my own phone number and two the phone number is unlisted so she was either lying about seeing it under my picture in in the album or she got it some kind of way but definitely my phone number was not out there it was totally unlisted I didn't get my phone number out to anyone but it made me be on my path towards being a spiritual practitioner spiritual therapist people would come and and seek assistance from me so then what happened was my mother and a family friend by the name of list of sprinkles they were attending Founders Church a religious science and they were attending the guidance Church of religious science and they were trying to get me to go and I'll say I'm not going to anybody's church I don't need to do a church the church no it's not too much truth happening in church and they said no this is different you need to come it's it's not like the regular Christian churches where they're damning you to hell and uh saying they're the only way to get to heaven it's not any of that please come to behest of my mom and listen I go I go to the guidance Church of religious science the teacher was uh the founder was Dr Daniel L Morgan so I come in you know in my early 20s coming a little late he's already he's already speaking and I come walking in and I hear him say Heaven and Hell aren't merely places they're States Of Consciousness and I said he's right what what this is going on in church I mean I was like it was like excited what I said he's right everybody turns to look at this young boy walking down the aisle saying Dr Dan is right so I sat down I listened I couldn't find any holes in what he was saying and it was all pure metaphysical principles and uh so that was a Sunday Monday he had a 15-week class on metaphysics so I show up and it was week seven and he says what is your name sir I said Michael Beckwith he says uh Mr Beckwith uh this is a 15-week class you've arrived at week seven I I would appreciate it if you would leave and come back when we start over and I said with all due respect Dr Dad I'm gonna stay finish and when it starts over I'm going to start over and take the whole thing again and he looked at me okay you know you can stay like that but that's when I discovered that there was a license called a a practitioner a spiritual therapist I said wow that's what I'm doing you know and subsequently I I ended up going to that spiritual community and um taking all the classes and um I was still doing meditation Retreats I was still doing my own thing I was doing that and that propelled me into eventually you know becoming a licensed practitioner which I did for seven years was full time that's all I did seven years old six to eight people every single day six days a week um saw a lot of them saw a lot of Miracles through prayer with people but um prior to that I I worked for the mayor's office I worked with Tom Bradley for five years uh I worked in the in the eighth District I ran the senior citizen Affairs of that area built the Golden State senior citizen resort with a guy named James Burke and Ernie sprinkles um I got I'm the one who helped get the pavement in the ground that with a wheelchair access it's paved you know I had a big movement to get that for the seniors and for people who were in wheelchairs um and then uh then I worked for um something called prison preventers there's a guy named Lyle Thomas Kawasaki who was a part of the Japanese Mafia and when he was in prison he had a an Awakening and when he got out he started prison preventers which was to give pardons for criminals who you know needed to assimilate back into societies that was his personal assistant for a number of years and then eventually um I was taking my oral examination to be a practitioner and one of the guys on my panel said to me wow yeah I really love your Consciousness I'd like for you to come work for me and I said would you who are I didn't know who he was he said my name is Bob love I run the international Prayer Ministry I want you to come work for me and I I said oh okay let me let's just talk about this after my obviously I'm passing the interview you're trying to hire me I said when we finish this talk about it now I had at the time I just finished um operating the Census Bureau office for Compton and up until that time Compton would always come into second to the last place in doing the census in terms of accuracy proficiency Etc so when I went there I turned the office into like an ashram non-religious ashram I had people who had a place where people would go in and do affirmations we would do contemplations I couldn't call it prayer meditation because it's the federal government so I had all of this going on and we came in second in the nation in terms of accuracy completion for the for the census for Compton and changed a lot of lies people went back to school after being in the flow of what I was teaching so these individuals from the federal government flies out to see what I was doing they think I'm a little odd to have these little places where you can go close the curtain and sit in and and have moments of reflection before you go out and do the senses all kinds of things that were off the beaten path this you know this is a long time ago and so anyway they offered me a job they said you know they're going to give me a car they wanted me to go around to different federal Offices and act and you know and do some of these processes and the money was really nice and then I'm offered this job at The Prayer Ministry the money was not so nice it's not a lot of money you're praying there wasn't a lot of money at The Prayer Ministry and so but I'd already been shown by some previous miracles that my needs would be met directly from source so not telling my wife at the time I took the job with the lower amount of money because I knew my destiny was with The Prayer Ministry and then I took that job and then and then then I I was a full-time licensed therapist but my full-time licensed therapist made way more money than what I was making at my job so it was I had my needs were met and uh and and it gave me um you can stop me anytime you're making me go down memory lane here I love it you know but it made me realize thank you that that they're having to pray every single day for people something happened and the night before I would meet people in my dreams that would call the next day so before they called I was already meeting with them praying for them so when I would answer the phone the next day I knew who these people were and I already knew what they were going to pray for now that kind of facility Amplified itself because I was praying every day for so many people answering the phone so it became um so that's why today I I I just I try to implore people to meditate to pray you know this this is the quickest way to open up your channels you see yeah and for the listener can you just give a brief synopsis of what affirmative prayer is like what were you actually doing that was different from what the traditional praying would be well you know in traditional prayer they have intercessory prayer they have um a kind of a begging an external deity to give you stuff uh things of that particular nature affirmative prayer is you're putting yourself in a state ultimately to have a realization that what you're praying for you already have it's an actual it's an actual a moment where you're coming to an awareness that if it's abundance if it's health or whatever it is it's intrinsic to your nature so it moves you beyond really believing that this is so to having an inner realization that this is so so you move through a sense of gratitude he moves to a sense of recognition of the presence that's everywhere a sense of unity with the presence a sense of inner realization that what you're praying for is already happening a sense of being grateful thankful that it's happening then you you release it and go on about your business not trying to dig up the seed after you've planted it and then what happens is you're expanding your awareness and then I I what I teach is prayer does not bring you the answer but prayer is the vibrational answer prayer is the end it's the vibration of the answer and then that answer convinces itself into your life of experience yeah so you were doing good work but you had an intuitive hit that the work you wasn't good enough that there was more that you were meant to be doing and things started falling apart and next thing you know you find yourself in Mexico having some Vision you've really done your homework well yeah yeah I was working at The Prayer Ministry I was the director of training at The Prayer Ministry I was on the faculty at the University there teaching and um and I had my uh private clientele and I was doing seminars a lot of them out of my living room a lot of renting places and things like that I was doing all of this so part of me was like I'm doing I'm doing well you know I was doing seminars before they were popular you know what I mean now it's like a thing but there was I knew I was being pulled to start a community but I was resisting it I was like I I really don't want it I like my weekends I like I'm really don't you know I and I remember a couple of things happened one when I said yes well first of all I had a crook in my neck that I was go to the chiropractor on a regular basis to get fixed he put it into place I could turn my neck to the right quickly though after a while it would become sedentary again it becomes stuck and I couldn't have full rotation to the right I could go to the left I couldn't go to the right so when I finally said yes to establishing a spiritual Community my neck popped into place I never had to go back to the chiropractor that this condensation of energy was my resistance towards the destiny that was trying to come forward I do go to Mexico I think it was um it was Cancun no it was it was Puerto Vallarta I think it was and I actually saw Agape I saw I had a vision of it I remember coming back to Los Angeles and telling the director of The Prayer Ministry that I was going to be leaving I was going to start a community and she said to me where I said I've been advised to start it in Santa Monica and she says why don't you start a community for your own people and I said short people and she turned red and felt embarrassed you know because she was saying why don't you start it in the hood wanted you know why you know for black people and then she got she was so embarrassed about saying that and um eventually uh I started my Vision Group pull people together in my living rooms I had three groups of people that I pulled from there was my private clientele they were all people were always saying well if you ever start anything please let me know and I'd always say I'm not going to start anything don't worry you know and then there was um the uh I was teaching a practitioner class at the time and they were always saying to me if you ever start anything we're going to be right there with you okay and then there was people that um from the seminars I was doing so anyway I pulled curated a number of people to meet in my living room and I started this Vision Group Nevada Gail was there uh that I can I can see Deborah Johnson there I could see Joan Stedman I can see Bill Russell I can see you in a shelf on I can see all these people I can see them all on that Coco Stewart they're all ministers you know um I started this Vision Group to open up to the possibility of catching a vision for a spiritual community and then becoming the the vibration of it number of months number of months just meeting every week to become the frequency of the community we wanted to birth so it wasn't about business plans it wasn't about linear strategy it was about becoming the consciousness of Agape the consciousness of love the consciousness of connection and then letting that determine the actions and on November the 30th 1986 we had our very first service 36 years ago and um was there any politics involved when you left the guided Church of religious science to do your own thing um I think that when I when I left there was a couple of things that happened one before I left um I was you know I mentioned everything I was doing at the time one of my students in my practitioner class was a part of a church in Fullerton they didn't administer had left and they asked me would I come speak I said sure I came and spoke the congregation wanted me to be the minister and I said I don't really think this is a fit for me I said I don't mind guest speaking but I don't think I'm to be the minister of this church and they just bugged me and I said okay I'll put my hand hat in in in the ring and see what happens so I I began to speak the congregation they filled out a poll in like 99.9 people wanted me to be the minister with a small group of people that was controlling the board was called The Selection committee would not turn my name in because they were saying things like we can't have a black man as a minister in Orange County the property values are going to go down there's going to be trash on the lawn you know they had all these stereotypes about black people you know they're going to drive their lawns and put it they're going to put their cars on the front lawn and now with unbeknownst to these people is that my students two of them were on that board they thought that these people were thinking like them so they were getting these so-called private rooms and they'd just be talking about me you know we can't let this end be minister of the church how are we going to stop this so I've graduated now obviously from the school of ministry my first ministerial meeting I'm walking across the campus and a big time Minister who I had much respect for speaking I could hear them through the window he was saying there's a travesty happening we have to pray to stop it and unless I wonder what that is he says there's this black guy that's trying to become the minister at this church in Orange County we've got to stop it they're talking about me [Laughter] and I'm thinking wow this metaphysical movement we still haven't cleaned out the skeletons of racism you know I walk into the room and I sat right in front of him front row and just looked at him and he changes the subject okay long story short I I I um pull out of that I just said you know I'm not this is not for me but I never was going to allow anything outside of myself to determine my destiny which quickened me to start my own thing I wasn't going to put myself into a position where a human a human being was going to choose me you know and subsequently that church during had when we had that big earthquake back then split down the middle and was uninhabitable for a long period of time they had to meet somewhere else and the woman that they had to move one really quick so they can say that they were you know diverse and everything they hired a woman really quick and she ended up pilfering a lot of the money and leaving so all the things they were worried about happened mm-hmm it was very interesting but a few years later they came to Agape and apologized and and just they felt very cheapest and humble and just really felt bad you know I had I that particular experience took me to the depth of forgiveness because I would not allow them to birth rancor or resentment animosity of my soul I wouldn't allow it I didn't care they said all kinds of things about me I never graduated from the school I had the top I had a top um class um what is it in terms of taking the test at the top ever in history you know they I didn't graduate I did and they started all these lies about me but I wouldn't allow it to infiltrate my mind and so I taught my students because they were mad you know what they were saying about me and what they were saying about black people I said no and we're not we're not going to go down that path we're gonna bubble up love them forgive them they don't know what they're doing and we're going to move forward you know which is what we did yeah so obviously Agape grew into this you know massive movement but in the early days did you have some imposter syndrome getting up there talking or or trying to find loans to finance buildings and oh like all these kinds of things would you call it the Imposter yeah what is that well we had a couple of things that happened um um when we moved from Santa Monica to Culver City they sold a building in Santa Monica and so what was that that was that women's like building right the women Santa Monica Bay Women's Club yeah was the first place we met okay we only met there for a month because we grew so fast that they got nervous because unbeknownst to me at the time that place was used as a science of mine Church many years ago and the organ was still there from the previous church and I I remember talking about it in a sermon one day and and they got kind of nervous that maybe I was trying to take over the building or something I don't know but they they we grew so fast that they didn't want us there anymore so we moved to the Miramar Sheraton Hotel and we started to grow from the basement to the Wedgewood room to the Starlight Ballroom to the biggest room they had and we had all these extra rooms for the Youth Ministry you know it became a very it grew it grew quickly and then so we've got our own building over on Olympic and Centinela in Culver City and uh eventually took over another building that Barbara DeAngelis had uh she let that go so we had we had a nice little campus going on and then it was sold we sold very fast and we didn't know was being sold because we may have been wanting to be in the running to get it but anyway that's neither here nor there so we're meeting in hotel rooms people had to call a hotline to find out where we're going to meet week to week it's like where's it going to be and so obviously during this time so we finally um find the place in at Buckingham um and we have a conditional use permit the politics behind that was this particular area was never to be used for a non-profit particularly at church but there were some people on the city council that really loved our work and so we had enough votes to get the conditional use permit the other people put in a couple of obstacles we had to have have it rebuilt in a certain way according to certain standards and two we have it had to have it completed by a certain period of time or we would lose the conditional permit so here I have a staff I'm paying rent on a building and I'm paying construction workers to complete the sanctuary all this is going on I'm really trying not to let go of the staff as well so the money's dwindling and it doesn't look like I mean linearly logically rationally this is not going to happen you know so I call it board meeting on a Saturday and I also invite the main contractor in a couple of his guys into the board meeting and we're sitting in my office and we talk about what we have to do and how much money we have to raise by a certain period of time and people are just really kind of sad about it because it doesn't look like it's going to happen and so I said listen say is a big guy named Jerry hey Jerry sit in a chair at the door of my office I said nobody's leaving Jerry don't let anybody leave we're gonna stay so I went around in a circle I said is it possible for us to raise the money and have this Sanctuary completed we didn't have to have everything completed but we had to have the sanctuary portion completed with the choir law of everything to code so the choir could stand on it pass the code the whole thing and they said that's doubtful but it's possible I said I would say hold the possibility so he went around the whole circle until everybody I got from everybody it's possible I said all I want you to do is just hold the possibility don't get don't let your mind go into how we're going to do this just hold the field that it's possible just hold it for the next week that's all I want you to do so there we pray to let everybody go that was that was a Saturday so that Monday or Tuesday we had pl we had applied for a loan we'd have any collateral obviously we were young young Church and the owner that one of the owners of the bank was going by the guy who had our portfolio and he looked over his shoulder and says what are you doing he says oh it's Agape you know they want to borrow a few hundred thousand dollars they don't have any collateral and the owner says is that Beckwith and he says yeah Michael Batman said okay give him the money he says what he said they don't have any collateral at all they just want the money they don't have any collateral to give he says is that Beckwith yes give them the money so in a couple of days we had the money so then the contractor calls and says you know what I was so moved by that meeting on Saturday I'm going to double up my crew I'm gonna pay for it out of my own pocket because I know you guys are good for the money and we will complete this thing by this particular deadline so so within a within a few days we had the money we had the crew working day and night and it was completed and there's a photograph of me when we opened I'm jumping up and I'm higher than the podium I just jump up really high going yeah I got it so you know it was all about possibility you know uh because it linearly rationally you know it shouldn't have happened but if you hold the field of possibility with God Consciousness all things are possible and so that became kind of a a rallying point for a lot of things you know whatever things get dire and economies dipping and whatever's going on you know what's the possibility here what's the possibility here what's the possibility here yeah would you say in these 36 years what is what is what are some of the biggest challenges that would surprise people about operating something like an agape well it's always Financial not not at this moment but it's been Financial 2008 when um the the economy tank based on the nefarious uh mortgage that people were being given by the the thiefs and the banks you know the cost that whole downward turn that was that was that was pretty big it was the only time that I had to actually let go of a few staff members based on finances you know that that that's that's you know because you're in constant fundraising all the time you know you you have Ministries you have staff you have equipment you have this and that you know and and I would probably say that just the the best thing about Community are the people the worst thing about the community are people it's the same thing you know because you have every State and stage of caught just like the world you have every state and stage of Consciousness there so you know you have people there that are very unconscious saying and doing things and have people that are very conscious that are holding a space fortunately the highest vibration always wins so the people who are holding the high space always have a much more powerful vibration than people who are having issues who have not healed their trauma or dramas in their life or emotional psychological issues whatever they might be you know um and that that's a continual thing you know imagine over time like in the early days maybe you were the one dealing with a lot of these things and you had to learn to like insulate yourself a little bit more so you could be fully available and present for for you know being the leader and and being on on stage and delivering the word and things like that was that was that an easy lesson for you or did you learn the hard way you learn you know the first three four five years you learn to develop a thick skin and transcend a lot of that and you take you you really learn to take nothing personal after a while because you start to realize that people are like projecting their unhealed areas onto you they're projecting their unhealed areas and they're rejecting their own inert or undeveloped powers on you you know so they're you're the screen for oh he's magnificent because they're not only their own magnificence or he's this and he's that because they're not they're not you know so after a while you don't take any of that personal like I I said in the in the book spiritual liberation you're able to transcend the two Impostors criticism and praise you don't run from criticism and you don't run to praise you're not there for it's just a part of life you know your connection is to the presence staying true to your mission and when criticism or stuff comes up you use it to go within to see where you need to shift your own perception where you need to heal where you need to shift you don't put it back onto the onto anyone else you say let me look at that you know um so it's okay so I I think that when you are a leader like that you get the first fruits of the teaching and you also get the first fruits of the growing Edge you know so you're you're like you're like growing in the Public's eye whereas other professions and you know the plumber is not growing in the public side necessarily you know what I mean he may be growing through whatever but you're not knowing he's coming to fix your pipes you know what I'm saying other people may not have that whether in the Public's eye and growing at the same time but when you are a spiritual teacher or leader or somebody is public you're actually in the Public's eye and growing at the same time so you have to learn very quickly not to take things personally how to discern what's yours and what's not yours to deal with what yours and not and not take on what's not yours you know all of that becomes a part of your your spiritual practice yeah do you have a strangest Moment On Stage story and in these three decades of being up there three times a day on Sundays that's strange uh I have a couple of them two just the two that popped in my mind was one I was speaking on a Wednesday night service and it was a deep moment of coherence and as I was um moved into prayer it was a very Transcendent moment this is guy in the back of the sanctuary started screaming you're a black man you're a black man like that I mean I didn't know what this was but he was at the top of his lungs and then Kathy Mack was there she had red hair she said happy Mac has red hair Kathy Mac is red hair so we don't know whether this man's on drugs we don't know what's going on so he starts to run to the front of the where we are and so some of the security is a little like what what's going on what's going on so he stops he has a cane he was blind and suddenly got his psyched back and and that's when he started screaming like you're a black man Jackie Mack has red hair he had never seen us so he had never he never even thought about whether I was black white green red whatever he'd never seen Kathy Mack and I said what are you saying he said I was blind I've been blind here's my cane I've been blind for years I sit in the back and when you started praying my sight came back and I did you're a black and he said I'm not racist but I just I just I always remember that was a very that was very fun you know wow and then there was a moment um I was uh I have to go to the original story that I can go to the Wednesday night service where this happened when I was 27 I think it was about 26 27 years old I was still embracing what my destiny would be I still hadn't at that point committed to starting any kind of community you know I was I was working with people and things like that but I was driving to the valley to speak at a Senior Citizen Center someone had suggested that I could come speak to the seniors and um so I agree I said the outcome speed so it had been raining so when I'm driving to the valley and I go up it's so Crystal Clear I mean you know how La is after it rains it was just like pristine and I had this tremendous vision of my life it just caught me and I saw myself in the future and myself in the future said to me you're on the right path keep doing what you're doing keep doing what you're doing it's going to be okay I'm here I'm here something like that and and I and I got it so I went on to speak and it was a nice talk and everything I always remember that so fast forward that now I'm at Agape this is years later I'm in agape I'm speaking on a Wednesday night and I go into this beautiful very expanded state I'm driving home I'm crying because it was it was so moved by the state I'm in and I'm pulling up to my garage and suddenly I see Michael at 27. and Michael's wondering about his Destiny and I say to him don't worry I am here you did all right I'm with you now so I had the perspective of when I said it at 27 and I came and spoke to me and then I had the perspective of me speaking to my 27 year old and telling him I'm here you you keep doing what you're doing we're here and then that precise moment there was something over here to my right another aspect of myself saying there's more there's more that's that's always a very um pivotal moment in my life allows me to lean into whatever I'm going through I'm leaning into an awareness at my core that everything's all right and everything's gonna be okay even if I can't physically see it it's just it's just that kind of experience just kind of magnifies that feeling yeah I remember going to Agape and I would study you I would watch you up on stage notice your eyes were closed a lot yeah yeah and and I'm wondering if after hearing all this I'm wondering if you were doing the same thing you did in that fifth grade class were you are you are you how much is it channeled and how much is is it pre-prepared what you're going to be talking about or how you're not it's not a lot pre-prepared but in the first days my eyes were closed all the time pretty much closed and I would I would catch the message and it was different techniques that I would use and then as I matured I became more of the message so it wasn't channeling it was more like me it was more like this is me speaking but it was it was like my you could say my higher self you know could use different kind of language but it wasn't in the younger version of me it's like I'm channeling energy the Moment tour version of me it's actually more integrated into me you know because if I spoke on a Sunday back in those days then whatever I spoke about became my personal lesson of embodiment in terms of meditation in terms of Prayer in terms of just taking it on you see until that was integrated into me and so now when I get up to speak I don't oh then I had to train myself to keep my eyes open I remember somebody telling me I was being rude by speaking with high school I didn't really take it as being rude but I started to train myself to actually be able to keep my eyes open and hear the message catch the message be the message be the frequency of the message you see um now I I would yeah I'll tell you a little thing that used to happen sometimes I would be speaking and let's say I'm I'm speaking about something I don't know where I'm going when I get to the end of this sentence I just know I'm going I know when I get to the end of the sentence what I need is going to be there so I'm going going going and there used to be these like balloons like here the lack of a better word little bubbles and I could pop one and when I would pop one then whatever then this information would flow that would be right in sync with what I just said I could pop any one of them and they would flow with what I just said you know so that I used to fascinate me a lot um you know now I I just like um I throw myself open I have a theme I have a topic I don't have it like for instance this is this is whatever day it is it's not um you know I don't have a topic for for this week yet I have a theme I don't have the topic topic will come today or tomorrow and and what I do is when I go to sleep at night I'll I'll open myself up to to whatever the message is supposed to be and I might just get a sentence that's a sentence but the sentence will take me through a corridor of of attack transformational knowledge just a sentence oh so I'll speak and then I'll say here's the topic here's the sentence and then I'll roll with it and then it'll take me into where it's supposed to go based on the congregation often you know now years ago I did three services and all three were basically different what began to happen was people wouldn't leave because they knew I was going to say something different than the next service so I trained myself to um I would speak like I speak now on nine o'clock it's not like memorization but it's like um I'll speak and then when I go into 11 o'clock service I throw myself into the spiritual Abyss and it'll and I can catch the pattern of everything I already said even though it might be a little different it might be a little focused based on who's there but I eliminate people just waiting and coming for three services because I'm going to say something different you know I was just going to ask you that do you feel more connected or or um is there a pattern that you notice because you've done this again many many Sundays where one Service is like the one that that is the most I don't know original or less contrived or whatever however you define that first one the first two the first one is the way of meditation service I do I teach on meditation then we meditate and then the second one at nine o'clock that one for the most part is like I hear it the first time it's it's fine second one is good but for me that one is like oh you know I oh that was good I gotta remember that you know it used to be in the old days the second one was always better because I was like getting revved up or getting opened or something now it's it's I don't it's not it's it's like because I don't leave anything on the playing field you know right it's like when I speak I'm not holding anything back whatever needs to come out comes out so it's like I've given it boom so then I gotta do it again at 11. so it's it's still it's still very good it's wonderful but that first one has to has a little bit more sauce on it for me you have so many I don't know we call michaelisms or beckwithisms but things like don't listen to what I'm saying listen to what I'm listening to I remember you saying that in church one Sunday years and years and years ago and always remembered that yeah um do those often come through you and you're like that was great I'm gonna write that down and include it in my next book yeah they'll come through or just in the moment you know a certain way of saying something will come through and um Kathy Mack who sits next to me at service she oftentimes would like take notes and then give it to me it's like this do you realize you said this this and this I said oh let me have that because I want to say I'm going to say that again the next service you know and she and what happens is like yesterday she was here with Jason and they go through my talk and that's where they pull the affirmations from they actually take my sentences that I'm like that I'm teaching more like that from and turn them into affirmations so when we're doing those affirmations on Sunday to actually curated from a talk in that month yeah how do you feel when you see your yourself Talking do you feel like uh you just like how do you feel you know I I very rarely watch myself when I do I'm always surprised it's like I see myself do certain things and sometimes a little embarrassed but sometimes it's like what did I do did I jump up like that you know I was like what I did that you know because I'm not aware I'm doing that in the moment I'm just in the flow of energy um but now I'll look at I'll look at him and I'll say you know what if I had to go to a spiritual Community I would go listen to that guy let's talk about take back your mind because we're winding down here why why now why why'd you decide after all these years everyone has a podcast everyone their mother why'd you decide okay now it's time for me to have a podcast and what are you bringing to the podcast world I wanted to do two things I wanted to bring the message out in a different way and I'm aware that people are listening to podcasts and podcasts are one of the last territories for like free thanking we could have a conversation you're not going to be cut off by the powers that be with what you say yet you know um as I went to have the freedom to do that even more so than on the on the pulpit where I have an audience and you have to be in a certain framework of spiritual worship where the podcast we can go into deeper questions deeper dialogue and I just wanted to be a part of a growing movement of individuals who are seeking to have people take back their mind I mean you know the the reality is curated for people on the news you know it's a very curated bit of reality a lot of it's not true a lot of it's just a narrative that Society the government big Tech Farm big farmer whatever wants you to have and so I wanted to be a part of a growing voice of something outside of that curated narrative that may or may not even be true or it's a limited version of Truth and then have people come on I'm gonna have you come on I'm just people come on you know and and uh we have dialogue about spiritual growth development and unfoldment or whatever is happening in the world from a different perspective yeah I was going to say I listened to some of the episodes because I know a lot of the people on there and it seems uh very conversational it's not like question answer question answer question answers mostly like just you all just sitting like almost at a kitchen table or over a tea or something talking is that is that intentional yes absolutely just because as you say most people we know I know these people my friend these are not like Hollywood friends I know these folks you know and uh lean into their latest insights with what's what's coming up and and pepper the audience with different different ways of understanding truth whether it's Bruce Lipton with science whether it's Sean Stevenson in the research he does or or whoever whoever it is you know yeah what's the vision I know you visioned this so what's can you give us a little glimpse into where this is going for you well there's a lot happening behind the scenes but actually I mean we do want the podcast to capture a lot of people so I want to be able to eventually say some things that you're that it's not going to be allowed on the news you know I want to be able to tell people that which is eternally true that I want to tell people actually that's a lie that you just heard on channel four whatever the case may be that's not truth you know I want to wake up people you know uh it's fun to wake up people you know we've come out of a very intense period of time where uh polarization has been at an all-time high and people are disliking each other because they don't agree and I I want to be a voice of of unity and Harmony and Truth teaching you know you are by far the person that has had the most metaphysical experiences you know like the sort of esoteric experiences that I've ever met before I'm curious have you ever met anybody who's had as many as you have like obvious um I I have a couple of friends the gurus though you know what I mean yeah yeah non-guru people have been talking about uh well there's a couple of this yeah there's a couple of my friends but they're they're also like what they do for a living is they're a medium you know what I mean they have those kind of gifts uh I think people are having these experiences but because they're not um they quickly close down to them you know they're not like for me I think for me I was hard-headed because I was an atheist so I had a lot of dramatic experiences that I probably needed to have you know Howard Thurman calls certain people once born Souls whereas they came in with a certain openness and availability and a surrender to the presence you know so they may not have needed to have any dramatic experience because they came in kind of available I was I didn't come in like that I mean as a kid yes but I closed myself off to become normal um so I had a lot of dramatic experiences but those those dramatic realizations and experiences really um feed me because as I said earlier it allows me to lean into this awareness of everything is all right and everything's gonna be okay I have that built in like my dad had it from another perspective my mother had it from another perspective and I think I got the best of both of them combined with a spiritual awakening you know yeah beautiful well thank you so much for for making the time and again being so generous in your sharings and storytelling and you pulled it up man because normally we don't go again I'm honored I'm honored to be able to have this conversation I look forward to getting a chance to see you again um hopefully when I get back to LA are you guys are still doing the lives have you started back absolutely Agape is live in person at 11 A.M for the meditation and the 11 30 for the worship celebration Fellowship service but all three services are live streamed on our Facebook page on Agape live.com and on our YouTube page yeah beautiful and what day are you publishing your uh new episodes for your podcast come it drops every Wednesday okay fantastic we'll put everything in the show notes and uh and just you know sending you lots of love and light and just grateful that you're out in the world still and I get to be here on this plane of existence to experience it for the sliver of time well thank you brother light Watkins I appreciate you appreciate the work you're doing you're you're on it man you you I I watch people and this is what I see I because I can see people who know about it like people who know it you know you're one of those people who know it you have a you have a real meditation practice so you you have a thing that is very real and authentic so I've always appreciated that yeah we have the same Barber I appreciate that you're new to the barber though relatively well it's a few years yeah I went to Egypt a few years ago and had I was having a rebirth and I said I'm cut off my head I was trying I was going to cut it off in the king's chamber but there was no electricity there's no light I couldn't really so I just waited till I got back to the States and when as soon as I ride back to United States I had it shaved off and been that way ever since yeah if you like that video You're Gonna Love the next one click this thumbnail right here and I'll see you over there

Channel: Light Watkins

Views: 45,098

Keywords: personal growth, michael beckwith meditation, michael bernard beckwith, agape international spiritual center, spiritual growth, spiritual awakening, higher consciousness, law of attraction, the secret, remove negative energy, michael bernard beckwith meditation, michael b. beckwith, michael beckwith agape, michael beckwith, michael bernard beckwith oprah, michael bernard beckwith life visioning, personal growth tips for men real life lessons

Id: ULOEtFK7nmI

Length: 88min 43sec (5323 seconds)

Published: Wed May 03 2023