Michael Bernard Beckwith Shares the Truth about Happiness and discusses the new film LIVING LUMINARIES (On the Serious Business of Happiness)
by Arielle Ford
At the heart of the desire for money, fame, and power is a deep longing for happiness. While Amazon.com boasts more than 200,000 titles on the subject of happiness, it appears that Americans are still searching for it. In the new film LIVING LUMINARIES (On the Serious Business of Happiness), filmmakers Michael Lasky and Larry Kurnarsky illuminate the path to human happiness by presenting concepts about living in the now, as well as, providing thought provoking ideas about consciously choosing love, gratitude, honesty, forgiveness, patience, and kindness. The film follows a young seeker as he interviews an A-list of swamis, shamans, rabbis, ministers, Tibetan monks contemporary thinkers and best-selling authors such as Marianne Williamson, don Miguel Ruiz, Eckhart Tolle & Michael Bernard Beckwith, founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center in Los Angeles. Beckwith, who is also one of the stars of THE SECRET, has had a busy year with appearances on Oprah, Larry King Live and many other national TV shows. We recently caught up with him to discuss his thoughts on LIVING LUMINARIES and the subject of happiness.
AF: What is your definition of happiness?
MBB: Happiness and joy are qualities that are intrinsic to us as unique expressions of the Universe and of God. Happiness is not based upon conditions. Conditions are based upon the feeling tone of happiness that we generate from within our being. It’s a transcendent spiritual quality that becomes imminent as we progress.
AF: What is the message you hope LIVING LUMINARIES will convey to those who see it?
MBB: That we are here as powerful beings to bring joy and happiness and creativity and beauty to the world, but that we are not here to extract that from the world. That would be the tail wagging the dog which is how a lot of people live their life, hoping that the world or something outside of themselves will make them happy. Happiness is something we bring to the world as we become conscious of ourselves. That point was brought home tremendously in the film with the Geronimo Pratt interview. With him we see that during the time he was in jail, he was able to develop the capacity for awakening and harmony.
AF: If we as individuals are focused on our own happiness, does that become incongruent with wanting to live our lives like Jesus, Gandhi or Mother Teresa?
MBB: Once we understand that happiness is an inside job, that it is a spiritual quality, then focusing on (personal) happiness is not selfish, it’s not self aggrandizement. It is waking up to what’s in you and once you wake up to what’s in you, now you can be of service. You cannot give from an empty cup. If you are bitter, unhappy or depressed, then you have nothing to give to the world. But, if you have tapped into the source of that inner enthusiasm, that inner generosity, that inner light, that inner happiness….now you have something to give so that you can live the life that Jesus emulated.
AF: You are someone who is actively participating in having more peace in the world with anti-war demonstrations. How do you balance that with wanting to remain happy and peaceful within yourself?
MBB: First of all I don’t participate in anti-war demonstrations, but I do participate in pro-peace and pro-love and pro-harmony programs, conferences, etc., because I don’t believe in being anti anything. If you are “anti” something, you actually give more energy to that which you are against. So, I teach people to take a stand for something. When I think about the stands that I take, whether it’s for peace or for every boy and girl to have enough to eat on the planet or for everyone to have proper medical care or shelter or access to education, I am actually describing a vision of what I saw is a world that works for everyone. The world changes as individuals are able to describe a vision and walk in that direction.
AF: What is the single most important piece of advice you would give an aspiring spiritual seeker?
MBB: Spiritual practice leads to insight and revelation. So many spiritual seekers are constipated because they have so much information now because there are so many books out there. With a film such as LIVING LUMINARIES my advice is to take something from the movie that they can actually practice. When you watch the film, bring a notepad and when one of the teachers says something that resonates with them or something or anything hits them, write it down and then ask this question, “How can I practice this in my life?”
The law states “ask and you shall receive.” As they ask that question, the Universe will begin to tell you how you can practice. You will have a revelation inside. You will have new ideas flowing to you, inspiration, enthusiasm, high thoughts and your life will change. So, we don’t want to espouse that people look at this kind of movie and just passively absorb that information and do nothing with it. We want people to look at the movie, be inspired and then take some kind of action corresponding to the new information.
AF: What is one of your personal daily practices you’d be willing to share?
MBB: Each day I write in my “Impossibility Journal.” In Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” there is a line where the Queen says, “You have to believe at least six impossible things before breakfast.” So, I will write down six impossible things before I leave the house. I may write something such as, ‘In our lifetime we will see the end of AIDS.’ Or it might be ‘In our lifetime there will be peace on the planet and every boy and girl will have enough to eat.’ I’ll do large ideas like these and sometimes I repeat them or write things for my own life. What happens is that the mind begins to be trained to think outside of what the world calls normal and what the world calls possible. As you get used to thinking like that, now insights can come into you that will help you in your life and even help you to become an instrument in creating some impossible things for someone else. Most people only go for what they think they can achieve, which is not at all creative.
AF: Why do you think THE SECRET has become such a phenomenon?
MBB: For a couple of reasons. One reason is because of the intention of the people who actually produced the film and the intention of the people who are in it. They all really wanted to get out the word about the spiritual principles. Another is that post 9/11, people are ready to hear a message that their destiny is in their own hands. They have been flooded with terror alerts and safety issues and I think THE SECRET offers a message of empowerment.
AF: Do you think that LIVING LUMINARIES will be a natural progression for those who have seen THE SECRET?
MBB: Yes. For those who are ready to make the leap, it’s a natural segue into the idea that joy and happiness is not condition based, but is internally based. If you watch THE SECRET and then you watch LIVING LUMINARIES and some of the other films that will emerge, they all give you a bit of the missing piece. I know that everyone who watches LIVING LUMINARIES will find that their lives are going to be changed, touched and inspired. I would like to offer the readers of this interview a gift. Please visit my website www.agapelive.com and click on “free gift” and you will receive a free download of one of my talks and a free download of a musical piece that my wife Rickie has done.
“Living Luminaries” will be shown in churches and alternative venues through September 30, 2007 via the www.spiritualcinemanetwork.com. Members of The Spiritual Cinema Circle will receive “Living Luminaries” as part of the July 2007 DVD collection. For a limited time, new subscribers to The Circle can receive a free trial membership (for a nominal shipping fee) by visiting: www.spiritualcinemacircle.com or by calling: (800) 556-0129.
What alternative therapies have you found helpful for pets?
Many. Most commonly I use nutritional supplements (like fatty acids and antioxidants,) herbs, and homeopathics. Acupuncture and chiropractic also work in many pets.
What is your perspective on pharmaceutical drugs?
I try to teach owners to say NO to drugs and use natural therapies instead. Still, there are occasions when drugs might be needed. Then, I’ll use those but at lower doses and for less time than other doctors since I’m also treating my patients with natural therapies.
Many holistic professionals claim dangerous side effects in vaccinations for children. What are your viewpoints on pet vaccinations?
I prefer a blood titer test to let me know if and when vaccines are needed. This has allowed us to vaccinate much less frequently than other vets, and keeps our patients healthy.
Many pets live indoors. How can someone know if their pet is getting enough exercise?
The best way is to work with their veterinarian to determine the most appropriate exercise program.
What nutritional supplements do you recommend to help boost a pet’s immune system?
I use a lot, starting with Vim & Vigor by Pet Togethers (www.pettogethers.net/healthypet). Then, depending upon the case, I’ll add echinacea (homoepathic, herbal, or both) and products such as Immunosupport by RX Vitamins and Immune + by Evergreen Herbs.
What advice do you have for family members who are allergic to their pets?
Homeopathic acepromazine, given to the pet, resolves allergies in people in 80-90% of the cases I’ve treated.
Martha Stewart Omnimedia (MSO) has selected Plano veterinarian Dr. Shawn Messonnier as the pet care expert for her new radio network. The Natural Vet show airs live each Tuesday at 7 PM CST on Martha Stewart Radio Sirius channel 112.
Shawn Messonnier is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine whose work as a holistic pet care specialist is prominent in all media – print, television and radio. He is the author of numerous titles including The Allergy Solution for Dogs, The Natural Vet’s Guide to Preventing and Treating Cancer in Dogs, and the award-winning The Natural Health Bible for Dogs & Cats.
He has served as Editor-In-Chief of DVM Management Consultant Reports as well as The Practical Veterinarian Series. His holistic medicine columns have appeared in such journals as MSLO’s own, body+soul, as well as The Dallas Morning News, Veterinary Forum, Alternative Medicine, Animal Wellness, Pet Business Magazine, Dog Fancy, Cat Fancy, and Cats Magazine. Dr. Shawn is the former host of Fox TV’s “4 Your Pets” and the Dr. Shawn show, a Holistic Pet radio show.
You can find out more about Shawn Messonier by logging on to his website: www.petcarenaturally.com, or emailing him at, shawnvet@sbcglobal.net.
Some authors speak of the human condition so profoundly, they become iconic. Such is the case with David R. Hawkins, MD, PhD. The core premise of his groundbreaking Power vs. Force is that truth is subjective, and relative to one’s level of consciousness. He employs a protocol using kinesiology to map consciousness on a logarithmic scale that calibrates, really, the whole of the human condition over time. The Eye of the I and I: Reality and Subjectivity continue the discussion, and his eagerly awaited Truth vs. Falsehood is due for release in June 2005.
Hawkins’ own journey of transformation is astonishing. He left a successful psychiatric practice in New York at age 38 after contracting a seemingly terminal illness. "If there is a God, I ask him to help me now," he prayed. He fell unconscious; when he awoke, "the person I had been no longer existed. There was…just an Infinite Presence." Hawkins spent seven years in seclusion, meditating and studying, then reintegrated into society and began teaching others.
Hillier:You speak about the power of surrendering to God, about spiritual development being based on "allowing" not "trying." Is meditation the best tool for reaching this place of surrender?
Hawkins: Far more rewarding is "contemplation." Meditation tends to be separated from life–like going to church on Sunday, whereas contemplation is a way of being in the world that involves paying attention to the field rather than the content of the field.
So it’s about mindfulness?
Yes, it’s doing what you’re doing because that’s what you’re doing, and not for some gain. With contemplation, you turn your life into a prayer. You ask God to reveal to you what you need to understand. Contemplation brings more rapid advancement than meditation.
Being on a dedicated spiritual path is not all love and light–we hazard ourselves along the way, meeting with unpleasant obstacles and traumas.
That’s because you’re bringing up the negative karma. A spiritual life can be quite tumultuous because you’re pulling up what you were blanketing, ignoring and denying. At a certain level, it is all love and light. You only get into real trouble if you start seriously searching for enlightenment.
It’s only temporary trouble, though.
Temporary can be quite a long time! What’s practical for the average person is not to seek enlightenment, but to reach a level called "unconditional love"–to become loving and forgiving at all times, under all circumstances, towards everyone, including yourself. It’s a doable goal in this world. The world is extremely negative, and to reach unconditional love is rare: only 0.4% of the population reaches it.
Can we jump levels of consciousness within a lifetime?
The statistical average is to move five points in a lifetime. However, spiritually committed people can jump hundreds of points.
Can we make great leaps in moments of our existence?
I’ve had people jump 150 points during a lecture because they suddenly get something and, wow, it just goes. People who hit bottom do this commonly. Twelve-step groups are full of miracles, people who lived horrible lives, vicious towards everybody, selfish, and suddenly become saintly.
Do they stay there? Or do we more likely experience periods of heightened states then return to our "normal, lower" state?
It ebbs and flows. When you’re above your karma — when you bring to the surface what’s holding you back from progressing and you’re able to transcend these things — you feel beatific until the next thing comes up, then you feel like you’ve crashed. You haven’t really crashed. It’s just that you’re not above your karma anymore. You’ve brought up the next layer to be worked on. This means you’re making progress.
When a person is in denial, they may feel happy because nobody is pointing out to them how they’re ruining the lives of everyone around them [laughter]. So you come out of denial, go through the pain of facing what you’re facing, work out the guilt about it and forgive yourself–then life gets beautiful again…until the next thing comes up. This is characteristic of the whole spiritual pathway.
It’s most frequently non-linear?
This is normal, yes. It seems quite chaotic, you know. It’s more like the stock market–up and down. Yes, there are people who get into a happy state and stay there–at least for this lifetime. This is what you’d call a coasting lifetime. You’re satisfied with how you are and where you are. You might say it’s a spiritual rest period. We need periods of recuperation.
How rare is that split second before illumination, "the final moment," as you call it?
One in 10 million people hit this level. Very often at that point, you stop functioning in the world, or you leave the world altogether.
So that level is impractical?
It seems that way to be the observer. Spiritually, it’s more than practical. From the world’s viewpoint you become useless, but spiritually you are powerfully effective. The higher the level of consciousness, the more powerfully you affect the collective unconscious. An unconditionally loving individual has a profound impact overall, you see. You look at this person and he’s not doing anything, but what you don’t know is that without him, the world would probably collapse [laughter]!
We can’t "will" enlightenment to happen. If it’s not under the control of the will, is it related to personal karma?
Yes. The mental and spiritual composite, consciousness-wise, of the average human being is quite complex. It’s made of up of thousands of decisions, agreements, options that have been taken, it’s really quite complex to unravel, otherwise, enlightenment would be common.
You talk in I: Reality and Subjectivity about the importance of spiritual teachers to "catalyze the transformation of information into subjective awareness."
That’s what they do. That’s their function.
How does one find an appropriate teacher?
The classic saying is "when the student is ready, the teacher appears." People don’t need a teacher all the time. In fact, having an advanced teacher isn’t really useful early in the game. There are great periods of spiritual work that is all internal. I would advise people to read books by advanced teachers. As we evolve spiritually, various teachers appear to us at various times. You find a teacher and a teaching that you’re comfortable with. If you outgrow it, then you’ll be attracted to something else.
We run the risk of meeting someone who is not integrity-based. Any advice?
That’s why consciousness calibration is useful. There’s a huge mass of integrous teaching out there. You can calibrate this information yourself, or find someone who is skilled at kinesiology.
One advantage of working with the teacher is having help with reframing experiences–what you call "re-contextualization."
This is very often the answer to a spiritual dilemma. The minute you reframe an experience, it changes color altogether. That’s the purpose of spiritual teaching, reading and studying–you come across a different understanding of something. As we become spiritually sophisticated, we begin to differentiate real from illusion. For example, at a certain period in your life, you’re sure money will make you happy. Then you become financially successful and your wife walks out with someone else–while you were busy getting successful, she got bored, you see? And you’re miserable! Reframing enables you to have compassion for yourself and others because you see that you did what you thought was right at the time.
You mention chakra breathing as something basic we can do to increase our awareness level.
Not only the exercise, but the intention behind it, tends to precipitate advancement of spiritual consciousness. Your intent to reach a higher level of understanding is in itself powerful. When you take time to [do these exercises], you’re saying to God, "I’m trying to get to you, help me." You align with God.
You say "nothing is in the process of becoming; it already has its own identity, complete and perfect." Should we forget this notion of "becoming"?
Becoming is the process whereby potentiality becomes actuality when the conditions are appropriate. One condition that comes up is intention. Potentiality doesn’t become an actuality until you add the ingredient of intention. The minute you add intention, that potentiality blossoms forth as an actuality. All it was waiting for is your okay.
Your definition of change is refreshing: "the emergence of potentiality out of its essence into manifestation." Most people don’t want change.
It’s really the unfolding of evolution, including one’s personal evolution. People like familiarity. They’re afraid of change and that’s alright for a period of time. Once you have self-confidence, however, you realize that you can handle whatever comes up. You begin to welcome change.
Let’s talk about "witnessing"–a phenomenon that allows us to look at things from a neutral perspective and move through situations more gracefully.
Witnessing is a higher state of consciousness in which no personal self is involved–it just observes life without any comment or resistance. It’s like having a personal camera and the camera is taking a picture of everything as it happens. The camera’s not involved and doesn’t feel stressed. When you’re involved, you feel stressed. If you let go of trying to change things, you reach a state where witnessing begins to happen spontaneously. The extreme opposite would be people who, for example, want to kill themselves or leave the country because Bush got reelected. From the standpoint of witnessing, that’s comical. In other words, you’re so self-indulgent that when things don’t go your way, you take all your marbles and go home. That’s kindergarten level. Talk about egocentricity [laughter]!
Any insights about where we’re heading into the future?
We calibrated the consciousness level on the planet from the beginning of life, on through the archeological ages, the onset of civilization and evolution of humans. We clearly see that the evolution of consciousness on the planet is now speeding up. It was flat for practically billions of years then suddenly began to rise. Now it’s rising at a very rapid rate.
Because?
The collective intention of mankind. We’ve crossed over 200 collectively and now we’re really moving from force into power. You see, the new paradigm of success is not money, as in the last century. Anybody can make money. To double your income, all you have to do is get a second job. The new sign of success is integrity. That’s why Martha Stewart went to prison. She didn’t have the humility to say "I made a mistake, forgive me." When I think of her, I pray that she realizes that people of integrity are far more successful than the big, ugly boss. Now the real question is: Can you stand up under examination of your life?
So that which is not integrity-based is coming to light more quickly?
Yes, and it’s bringing up all the disturbances in the world. What we’re really feeling is the acceleration of the world consciousness level of mankind. As the level rises, it pulls up that which is not integrous and causes tumult. It’s a continuous process.
Even though things level out at times?
Only in one area. It shows up in another. For instance, Lyndon Johnson was committed to civil rights in the 60s. That brought up race riots, very tumultuous. When you move ahead in consciousness, you don’t bring about peace, necessarily. Jesus Christ said, "I did not come to bring peace, but the sword of truth." That sword can be quite challenging. It takes courage to be spiritually committed.
If we’re increasingly working on our inner divinity, and our experience of God is subjective, what is the fate of organized religion?
Aspects of religion can intensify that subjective experience–like devotion and commitment, service to others, appreciation of beauty, and remembering the words of the great masters. Also, the collective intent of being part of a congregation is high. We calibrated Europe’s great cathedrals–they’re extremely high. It’s the intention, plus the beauty, plus generations of people praying in them. They’re inspirational. Religion serves as inspiration, too. There are times for it and other times when it’s not necessary.
AUTHOR BIO: Gina Mazza Hillier is a nationally published journalist, freelance editor, and author of a book on health intuition, "The Highest and The Best." She serves as chief inspirational officer for Epiphany Works, LLC, an inspired event planning company based in Pittsburgh, PA. Contact Gina at inspire@zoominternet.net or visit www.ginawriter.com.
Dr. David R. Hawkins’ books are available at www.ShiftingFrequencies.com.
