300. The Science of Inter-Transformation Unity: Insights from Reverend Michael Beckwith

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The Daily Helping Episode 300: Rev. Michael Beckwith

Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:00:00] I believe that I want people to know that they have an unlimited capacity for wellness, wellbeing, joy, harmonizing prosperity. And that that is not determined by their genetic code, not determined by what's going on in society. That they can have access to that with intention and a little bit of spiritual practice. Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:00:35] Hello and welcome to The Daily Helping with Dr. Richard Shuster, food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, tools to win at life. I'm your host, Dr. Richard. Whoever you are, wherever you're from, and whatever you do, this is the show that is going to help you become the best version of yourself. Each episode you will hear from some of the most amazing, talented, and successful people on the planet who followed their passions and strive to help others. Join our movement to get a million people each day to commit acts of kindness for others. Together, we're going to make the world a better place. Are you ready? Because it's time for your Daily Helping. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of The Daily Helping Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Richard. And we have an awesome guest to share with you today. His name is Rev. Michael Beckwith, and he is the Founder and CEO of Agape International Spiritual Center, a trans-denominational community in LA comprised of thousands of local members and global live streamers. Widely recognized for his teachings on the science of inner transformation and unity, Dr. Beckwith embraces a practical approach to spirituality using meditation, affirmative prayer, and life visioning. A spiritual technology he developed for conscious evolution, authentic living, and living your life purpose. These practices teach us to take the experience of inner peace and awakened awareness into our everyday lives. He's a sought after meditation teacher, conference speaker, seminar leader on the life visioning process. He's addressed the UN General Assembly during its Annual World Interfaith Harmony Week, TEDxMaui, Oprah Winfrey Network Super Soul Sessions, among others. As a Co-Founder and President of the Association for Global New Thought, he hosts conferences featuring harbingers of world peace, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and had the distinguished honor of presenting to Nelson Mandela the Gandhi King Award.

He's also appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Oprah Winfrey Network Super Soul Sunday, and Help Desk, Dr. Oz, CNN, The Oprah Show, Larry King Live, Tavis Smiley, and so many others. Rev. Michael, welcome to The Daily Helping. It is awesome to have you with us today.

Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:03:00] Dr. Richard, it is my joy, my joy to be with you and to hang out and allow the energy to flow through a great conversation.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:03:07] I know we're going to have a great conversation. And what I'm excited to do with you first - I do this with everybody - is I want to hop in the Michael Beckwith time machine, and I want to go back to kind of the match point of what puts you on the journey you're on today. Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:03:25] I'd have to go back to the 70s and I was attending USC. I was a psychobiology major, more on a path towards med school. And as I was in school there, I started having some inner experiences that I labeled pathological. I thought something was wrong with me. I'm seeing visions. I would leave my body a lot and travel and see things. And there was a lot going on. And I had no spiritual reference to these things that were happening. So, since I was in the psychology department, I just looked, "Oh, this is pathological." Anyway, to make a long journey of my life at that time short, there was a moment in which I was having these lucid dreams in which these individuals were trying to capture me. And everyday they'd get a little bit closer, but I would wake up in time for them not to get me. And then, one night, they were very close to me. I looked over to my right, there was a small tent with thousands of people waiting to get into this tent. I knew every single person in this line and I said to myself, "These men can't hurt me because my friends are here." Then, one by one they turned their back on me and two of the men held me down. One plunged a knife into my heart. The pain was excruciating, physically and emotionally, and I died in this lucid dream. When I woke up, I could see that we were surrounded by this presence of beauty and love that penetrated my being, the love that permeated me and the beauty that was everywhere. Even a piece of lint was glowing, was luminous. And I could see the total full spectrum. And that was a time in my life as an adult where I came out of the box and I never could get back in. There were times when I was younger as a kid where certain things would happen, but I'd always force myself to be normal. But after this particular experience, I was out, and my life shifted to discover what had happened to me and shifted to discover what was this. And that took me on a search to deep mysticism and the different paths to awakening that I've never gotten off of, actually. And that was the beginning of my awakening. And then, from then, there were key steps. We both talked about this earlier. And I was not a public person. I was not seeking to be in front of people speaking or anything. I was a very solitude kind of guy, very introspective. And whatever this was going on within me was happening, certain people wanted to be around me and they would be around me to get healings and things of that particular nature. And then, ultimately, I found a path in metaphysics and became a licensed spiritual practitioner. I went through the school, became a minister, and things of that particular nature. And I'm trying to give you this long journey - Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:06:48] And it's hard to condense decades into years into --

Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:06:51] [Inaudible] a couple of minutes. But I would say that that was the moment of awakening. And then, from then on, it was a research and development as to what had happened and how to stabilize that higher consciousness in myself. Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:07:03] So interesting and what a powerful experience. I'm curious, just really briefly, you were a psychobiology major at USC, what did you think before this happened your career path was? Did you have any idea? Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:07:17] I thought it was probably medicine. I thought that's where I was going. At one point I was thinking law because my dad was in law. He became a judge. But I was really interested in healing. And I'll tell you an interesting story. When I was at USC, you know, I was pretty good at chemistry and statistics and all of that. I wasn't an A student. I was more like C,B. But right before this experience, I mean, there were things happening that I didn't know what it was, but there was a moment in which something happened and I understood statistics. I could see the numbers and how they were connected to this universal flow. I have language now that I didn't have then. And all of a sudden I became like an A student in statistics because I could see something. And I remember the teacher saying, "What happened? How did you go from C, B to A?" I couldn't explain it. I said, "I could see the order of the universe." It was very a interesting time. That was on my path to med school.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:08:19] That's wild. And so, that very powerful, lucid dream shifted the direction of your life. You mentioned some key steps. I mean, certainly, we know that you went down the metaphysics rabbit hole and you've never come up. But you mentioned some key steps on this journey. What followed next over time that was most impactful?

Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:08:45] Well, the inner experience has continued. I remember sitting in my living room. I was unemployed at this time. And I just said, "What do you want me to do?" like that. And the phone rang and there was a woman on the phone. We went to high school together and she said she was thumbing through the high school annual, saw my phone number there, decided to call me because she was having issues. And she said that the spirit of God within her told her to call me. So, I began to counsel her. And she began to tell people about me. And people were calling for counseling and things of this particular nature. This is all anonymous. I never saw her. It was just all phone calls. One day, I was at a restaurant and I saw her standing in line. And I said her name and she looked at me, and she ran away because she was telling her deepest secrets to this person on the phone. But when she actually saw me, she was embarrassed by some of the things she had shared. And then, I thought about it. I didn't have this phone number when I was in high school. And I had an unlisted number. So, how did she see my number in the annual, if that was truthful? But it doesn't really matter because it opened up the possibility of the universe telling me what I was going to do with my life. I was going to be of service. And so, that was a very monumental point in my life where I realized I was going to be at some level of service. And then, after that, I got a license as a spiritual therapist. A few years later, I had a full time clientele. I mean, I saw six to eight people every single day, six days a week working with individuals. And what that did for me, it actually showed me that people could actually be healed and that healing was possible. That people could actually emotionally and mentally and physically begin to reveal a level of deep wellness and wholeness regardless of their past experiences. And that became like a foundational piece in the work that was to follow. It was like even though I've studied and went to school and all of that, most of what comes through me is by direct encounter, direct experience. If I say something, I really know it. You know what I mean? I can get validation from the books I read, but I get it inside first and then say, "Oh, so-and-so said that. He's on target."

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:11:24] Amazing. I'm curious, as you started growing this spiritual constant clientele and you always felt like you had this healer inside of you, and I think, now at this point, you're starting to express that. At any point, did you imagine you would have the impact at the scale you're having in the world today?

Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:11:45] I don't think so. I mean, I knew that something was in me was emerging that was going to impact people. But I didn't really think about the fact that right now, you know, Agape International, like, it's in 90 countries. And people tune in from all over the world and people make this a destination point. I didn't really think along those lines. My primary focus was just working on myself all the time. It was just like really going into Michael and seeing if there was any blockages, hindrances, any ways that he was preventing the light and the luminosity and the intelligence flowing through him. So, it was mainly not like what was this going to do, but it was more like who was I to become, who am I becoming.

And then, the byproduct of that is, "Oh, would you come speak over here?" I'll tell you a story. The first time I'd ever publicly spoke - I had taken some time. I would do this on a regular basis - I would go up to Big Bear and I was on a private meditation retreat just by myself. And I was sitting outside meditating, and all of a sudden this scroll rolled out of the sky right in front of me and it said Michael Beckwith to speak at this church in Tacoma, Washington. And then, it disappeared. So, I wrote about it in my journal. I thought it was sweet and wonderful, whatever. But I've never spoken publicly before. And so, when I got home, this guy named Bill was calling me and he said, "We are presently without a spiritual teacher and we would love for you to come and give the morning address at the service." And I said, "Oh. I know. I saw the scroll." And he said, "What are you talking about?" And I said, "Nothing. Nothing." And so, it was Tacoma, Washington Church of Religious Science. And so, I agreed to do it. Then, I hung up the phone and I got so nervous. You know, I was like, "What am I going to say? What am I going to do? How am I going to go tell these people?" I had no degrees at this time. This was pre-degrees. "What am I going to do?" And so, I laid on my couch and I was just laying there nervous, kind of in and out of sleep. I left my body and I took off and I could see Michael laying on the couch. And I said, "Oh, he's so nervous. Doesn't he understand yet that --," in the moment I said the word "that" I was back body consciousness nervous. Subsequently, I go to Tacoma. It's a beautiful experience. There were people crying in the audience. People were having healings. But the point being, I was so nervous, but I'd gotten this experience of the scroll telling me I was going to do this. And then, subsequently, other speaking engagements came about, would you speak at this senior citizen center, would you do this, would you do that. And a lot of this was pre, before I actually formally took classes, formally went to the school, and that type of thing. But, again, I'm still working on me, Dr. Richard. Like, I'm aware of a presence that's flowing and it's real. And I'm working on Michael to make sure Michael can hold the energy of what's trying to come through.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:15:09] It's so interesting. And as I've said many times on this show, over the 300 or so episodes that we've done, my world is neuroscience. So, when I hear this stuff or when a lot of people hear this stuff, they're kind of, "Oh, that sounds really interesting." But what I'm loving is that as we're moving forward in science, quantum physics are starting to explain these things that you're talking about in a way that before you were getting a diagnosis for and locked away in a mental hospital, which is --

Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:15:42] Absolutely. Listen, I didn't want to tell anybody because of that. I didn't want to tell my professor, you know, "Hey, I'm having visions." You know what I mean? I would leave my body and I would see my mother cooking. I would get back in my body, call her on the phone and say, "Mom, are you wearing a blue dress?" "Yes." "Are you frying chicken right now?" "Yes, I am." So, I was getting validation that the experiences were authentic but I didn't know anything about it. And it took me a while to realize that this was a spiritual awakening. And I wasn't crazy. And I'm not on drugs. It's none of that. But, yeah, I've said this recently that your epigenesis, your quantum physicist, your evolutionary biologist over the last 20 years are now validating a lot of things that have been taught for hundreds of years. And now we have the use of biofeedback and things of that particular nature to actually measure brainwaves and measure coherence of the brain and fields that are created. It's now, as you're saying, a lot of this is scientifically proven that there's something real and authentic happening. Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:17:04] It's definitely fascinating and we're learning more by the day. I want to shift gears a little bit. Personally, I first learned of you maybe circa 2005 when I watched The Secret movie. Your hair was a bit longer then. But what I was really struck by you in what you spoke about on screen was you spoke about these principles that applied kind of irrespective of one's ideological beliefs. And that's a platform that you've built your entire world on. Like it's come one, come all and everybody gets to heal. So, I just wanted to honor that because I think that's magnificent. But what I'd love to do next is, you know, we could talk all day, and I love these stories and these signposts that you received that, "Yeah. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing." But I'd love to dive into the healing. Because there are a lot of people in the world, and I imagine a lot of people listening to this, that have some pain somewhere, that want to improve their lives in a meaningful way, and wake up tomorrow feeling better than they did before. And so, hearing that, what's coming to you as a good starting point in terms of this healing journey where people can can begin?

Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:18:38] Well, I would say a couple of things. One, what I've discovered over the years that there's really nothing incurable. You know, there's no incurable disease. There may be an incurable person, either it's their time to leave or they can't quite come to a level of coherence around the fundamental wellness that's within them. What I know is that there is a perfect pattern of each being. And so, healing, as I describe healing, is actually a revealing. It's actually a revelation of the intrinsic wholeness that we are as unique expressions of the infinite. And so, I would say, one, if someone has a diagnosis, do not hold on to the prognosis with that mentally, emotionally. Get the diagnosis. But the prognosis is between you and the universe, between you and the presence. You know, I worked with a woman recently, a really close friend of the family that my daughter are more like cousins. And she's stage 4 cancer. She was, like, 78 pounds. The doctor, they'd given her about a month to live. Then, I went over and worked with her. First, got her to agree that she wanted to stay, that she wanted to live. And began to work with her, and today she's totally free of cancer, living a really beautiful life. So, if I could get an agreement with somebody and they can agree that they can be whole agreement, throw the prognosis away. The diagnosis, yes. Prognosis, no. And then, begin to uplevel that agreement with spiritual practice, with right nutrition, right hydration. And that's physical healing. But it still has an emotional component. Because in this woman's case, she had abandonment issues where her dad was concerned, abandonment issues in relationships. She had a lot of unhealed resentment around a lot of things. So, all of that had to be embraced and, ultimately, carving the lesson out of it and then transmuting it, so it wasn't just a physical healing, it's also an emotional component, a mental component. And that provides the condition for a disease.

So, back to what I was saying in the beginning, you know, there aren't incurable diseases, but the individual has to be absolutely ready to change on many levels in order for a lot of this energy to flow through. And I've been doing this for 40 years, I've seen so many people with a prognosis of lifelong whatever absolutely change their life. And they're not special people. They're just people that align themselves with spiritual principles and then did what they had to do to shift,. Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:21:43] So, science certainly tells us that when there is significant emotional distress that often manifests in the form of physical ailments. And science also tells us that spirituality and self-efficacy are largely tied to improved outcomes. But you just beautifully wove those two together, which is terrific. I'd love to revisit a term you've used two times, and that term is coherence. You've said it twice. Could you define how you view coherence? What does that word mean to you?

Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:22:27] Individuals are caught up in the vicissitudes of the world and they're living in a level of dissidence from joy, happiness, peace, and love. Those particular qualities are fleeting for many people. A particular experience has to happen and then they can be happy. This thing happened very well, therefore I can be in joy. But a large part of their life, there's a disconnect between their joy and happiness. And so, joy, intelligence, love, these are intrinsic to us as a spiritual being. And so, when there's a level of coherence, when one is in alignment with that, then your happiness, your joy, your peace is not determined by what's happening out there in the world. You may not like what's happening out there. You may not like a certain situation. But it's not strong enough to pull you into dissidence. Not strong enough to eradicate the deep inner awareness of a deep sense of joy or a deep sense of peace. I call this spiritual maturity. It can be psychological maturity. And people are looking for some type of either panacea or they're looking for some type of thing that when all my ducks are in a row, I'm going to be happy. Well, the ducks are never going to be in a row. The world's always a play of changes that are going on. And so, when I think of coherence, I'm thinking about being in alignment with the fundamental harmony of our being and stabilizing that so we can walk in the world and be able to respond appropriately to whatever shows up in our particular day.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:24:18] So, I'm curious about something, Michael. You used a couple of words. You used joy. You used happiness. Those are emotions. And I know what you're going to say, that spirituality and positive emotions are intrinsically connected. But how are they distinct? How are they different to you?

Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:24:42] In terms of joy and happiness or just --

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:24:44] Joy and happiness and spirituality.

Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:24:49] Well, I'll put these together, joy, love, intelligence.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:24:56] Intelligence?

Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:25:01] Intelligence. They're not emotions. They're actually states of being. Happiness, I think, is more of an emotion because many people's happiness is determined by experience. But joy isn't. We're going back to coherence. When you are having a level of coherence around the fundamental nature of your being, which is spiritual, which is eternal, which is forever - as I have seen and encountered - there's a joy that emanates from you. You're in tune with an intelligence and you're in tune with the deep sense of love, which is also not an emotion. I don't mean love from an emotional context. I'm talking about love as a total givingness of the spirit without any sense of withhold. That's love. So, you begin to operate or live from that level. Sometimes it's for longer periods of time. Sometimes it's pinprick. And that's spiritual. I teach that which is spiritual, spiritual, eternal, forever, it's all synonymous. So, spiritual has nothing to do with the religion. It's not religiosity. It has something that is eternal. Love is eternal. Peace is eternal. Peace is not the absence of conflict. Peace is the dynamic of harmonizing good. Peace, love, joy, these are all intrinsic part of us. Now, they may be covered up by psychological trauma and drama and particular interpretations of experiences that we've had in life that may be buried inside of us, but it's still there. And a part of the journey is to uncover that and set it free. So, joy is not an emotion to me. It's a state of being.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:26:54] I love how this is framed. This is so interesting. So, I want to then ask this question. If somebody is listening to this who generally hasn't been spiritual in their lives and they're hearing our conversation and they're like, "Yeah. Rev. Michael is on to something here," what would you say would be a couple starting points to connect with some of what you're talking about?

Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:27:23] First of all, every being, whether they think they're spiritual or not, they are spiritual. They're just not aware of their spiritual nature. And so, if a person were to sit for a few moments and just look at their thoughts passing through their awareness without engaging, without resisting, without magnifying them, be mad at them if it's a so called bad thought, if you just look at it for a while, just look at it, and then ask the question, Who's looking? You see? And then, you're starting to become aware that you're not the content that's flowing through your awareness. You are awareness. Now, that awareness is eternal. That awareness is spiritual. Now, with expanded awareness, what increases is choice. You start to have a choice. I can choose to be happy right now. I can choose to be in joy right now. When that awareness is limited, we live more as a reaction. I'm reacting to this circumstance. I'm angry about this. I'm upset about that. So, when the consciousness expands or when we become more aware that we are aware, we have choice. When it's shrunk, we have reaction. So, someone that's just starting on the path, you want to, one, engage in intention within yourself. I intend to wake up to my real nature. I intend to discover something new about myself. Now, why do I say that? Because many people live from - what I call - an intention deficit disorder. They don't have any intention. They're just moving through life, reacting to circumstances, following their parents lead about what they should be when they grow up. You know, getting caught up in this social milieu of whatever is popular on that particular day, whatever emotions, emotional contagion that's flowing through society. We're all upset about this. You know, they have no intention. So, they're just pulled by the world. When you establish an intention, you're now giving your boat a rudder. And vicissitudes are still happening but you're more intending towards your destination rather than merely reacting to circumstances. And with intention and a little bit of practice, you start to have - what I call - an insight. An insight is an event that happens in your awareness where you suddenly or incrementally know something that you formerly merely believed or didn't even know about. Something dawns on your awareness. You start to become what? I say, you become more you. You're not merely the son or daughter of your parents. You're not merely where you graduated from school. You're not merely where you grew up in the country or in the world. You're something else. You're an eternal being. And you have the ability, the capacity to let intelligence, love, beauty, and joy flow through you independent of circumstance. Going back to The Secret, now here's the rub. Circumstances will now begin to coagulate around that feeling and around that awareness.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:30:36] Fantastic. Michael, I could talk to you for five more hours, but we are absolutely short on time today. And I'm going to ask you the question I ask all of my guests who come on The Daily Helping. What is your biggest helping? That one most important piece of information you'd like somebody to walk away with after hearing our conversation today?

Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:30:57] I believe that I want people to know that they have an unlimited capacity for wellness, wellbeing, joy, harmonizing prosperity. And that that is not determined by their genetic codes, not determined by what's going on in society. That they can have access to that with intention and a little bit of spiritual practice. That they're not limited in any way. They're not limited by who their parents were. They're not limited by what's going on in the world. They are unlimited beings, but they have to have a little bit of focus, a little bit of an intention. And then, inertia becomes momentum and emergence takes place.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:31:48] I love it. Where can people learn more about you online?

Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:31:53] They can go to a couple of places. They can go to agapelive.com, A-G-A-P-E-L-I-V-E.com. That's the website to the spiritual community, which we livestream the services every Sunday and have classes and we have a university. So many people go through Agape. They can go to my personal website at michaelbeckwith.com. And there's an app there. And I just released a wonderful supergreen product that's very, very healthy. They can see about that there. And I'm also on Instagram and Facebook as well.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:32:26] Perfect. And we'll have everything for the Rev. Michael Beckwith at the show notes at thedailyhelping.com. I have enjoyed our conversations so much today, Rev. Michael. Thank you so much for coming on The Daily Helping. It's been awesome.

Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:32:40] Dr. Richard, it's been my pleasure. And that time went so fast. Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:32:45] It sure did. We'll have to do it again sometime.

Rev. Michael Beckwith: [00:32:47] Absolutely. And one other thing is - I'll just share this - in a month or so, I'll be starting my own podcast as well. It's called Take Back Your Mind.

Dr. Richard Shuster: [00:33:00] We're going to have links to that in the show notes as well. And I urge everybody to tune in to that. So, Michael, again, thanks for being here with us. To each and every one of you who took time out of your busy day to listen to our conversation, thank you as well. If you like what you heard, go give us a follow on Apple Podcasts and leave us a five star review, because that is what helps other people find the show. But most importantly, go out there today and do something nice for somebody else, even if you don't know who they are at all. And post it in your social media feeds using the hashtag #MyDailyHelping, because the happiest people are those that help others.