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Michael Bernard Beckwith Addresses the Community Plenary

Michael Bernard Beckwith addressed the Community Plenary at the 2023 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, USA.


God bless you all, and thank you for showing up. I am Michael Beckwith, the founder of Agape International Spiritual Center that emanates from the New Thought ageless wisdom, which of course embraces all paths to the transcended awareness of the great power, the great presence, the great love, that we choose to call God, calling forth within us to bring the realm of ever-expanding good, which is another name for heaven on Earth, as it is in the heart mine of the infinite. 

When we consider community, I like to say that spiritual community, authentic spiritual community, grants you immunity from the lower frequencies of life. That when in fact one is in community, and I also like to say that all of the authentic paths that are on this planet, we’re all one community in different locations. 

Under the aegis of the New Thought ageless wisdom, we operate under the law of you do not see what you describe, what you describe, you do not describe what you see, what you see, what you describe. 

And so when we think about the Global Ethic, and we think about community, we’re living in the vibrational frequency of describing what’s possible where human beings are concerned. We’re describing the world as it is, the world we want to live in, and as we have a dynamic awareness and an inner feeling tonality of that description, we would not merely describe what we see when we see the egregious acts that are happening on the planet, when we see many of the things that Steve just mentioned, we will begin to see what we are describing. 

We will see it first within our own minds and hearts, and then we will see it in our thoughts, our words, and our actions, and the world that we want to live in will begin to manifest through and as us. In other words, every religion is to bring us to that transcendent, timeless moment where the eternal breaks into time through us that we anchor the good on the planet that we are seeking through us, not coming from an external deity, but coming through. And us, as individuals, who have emerged from the eternal with everything necessary to fulfill our mission on this planet which used to birth the beloved community, the kind and just global society. With that awareness, with that awareness and that feeling tone, we will walk not merely fighting what we don’t want, not speaking truth to power, but speaking truth to pseudo-power because there’s only one power, and that’s the power of God. 

So we will stand within an awareness of this feeling, tone, carrying us so that our energy is not against. It was Ernest Holmes that said, “It would be wonderful if someone showed up on the planet that was for something and against nothing.” That means that we are being pulled by the progressive universe which is the out-picturing of the hard mind of the infinite, it is progressive, it is always reflecting and revealing more and more and more of the infinite nature, we will be pulled by this universal presence through the universe and through the law, in other words we’ll be on the right side of the law and catapult it into an awareness and an action that will make a mighty difference on this planet.

Something wonderful is happening, I dare say, in other words as Steve was reminding us about the degradation that is taking place, we also know that when there is disintegration there is integration at a higher level. As the old paradigm is dissolving and the new paradigm is being born, we are the reporters of the new paradigm.

When you turn on your news, that is the report of the old paradigm. Those are actors reporting from the lowest common denominator of the human experience. You are the reporters of the new paradigm, the invisible becoming visible, that which can’t be seen by eye yet, but will be seen by your energy, your vibration, your conversations. Coming together, we will be the magnificent butterfly effect that touches the furthest star, but embraces our beautiful planet so that we’ll be walking in the vibration of what’s emerging at the same time hospicing that which is dissolving.

You are a midwife of that which is trying to happen. In spiritual community, which grants us immunity from the lower frequencies of life, that buoys us, it embraces us, it sustains us, it is a link to the source of all creation. The beautiful thing about the Parliament of World’s Religions is that no one is pounding their chest about their religion.

They are beginning to speak about the possibility of evolutionary collaborations so that we can see the world we all want to live in, total appreciation for each other, walking hand in hand, heart in heart, anchoring, heaven on earth. This is what we are up to, and what is the universal presence up to?

What is the universal presence up to through its universal laws producing individuals that can perfectly reflect the cosmos according to our unique pattern?

That’s what the universe is up to. That’s why we love Baháʼu’lláh, that’s why we love Jesus, we love Muhammad, we love Buddha, because they perfectly reflected the cosmos according to their unique pattern at their particular time in history, according to their particular culture. What about you? What about us? We are to stand with the great awareness that the universe is up to birthing the cosmos through us so that we’re not fighting against something.

It’s dissolving because the universal presence is progressive. The energy is rising so it will not be able to be sustainable if it’s not in love and compassion. We will be birthing a kind and just global society and the caveat is we have to personally participate in our own evolution.

It’s not going to just happen. It’s going to happen just according to our consciousness. And so when we think about community, we think about all of us, not just our individual local communities, but we consider every path that is authentic to be our community regardless of what one calls themself.

Everyone in their spiritual practice is calling themselves forth, is calling the presence forth, the omnipotent, omniscient, omniactive presence forth as the activity of our awareness.

Somebody say, “Yes, I am! Yes, I can! Yes, I am willing! Yes, I am able! It is so! Now, so be it.” Amen.


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