Super Soul Special: Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith: Manifest the Life of Your Dreams

Summary

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Oprah’s Super Soul Special: Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith – Manifest the Life of Your Dreams

Podcast: Oprah’s Super Soul
Host: Oprah Winfrey
Guest: Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith
Date: March 12, 2025

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Episode Overview

Oprah sits down with Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith, founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center, to explore how anyone can manifest a life that reflects their highest vision—regardless of current circumstances. The conversation weaves through core spiritual principles, the journey from victim consciousness to self-realization, practices like “life visioning,” understanding vibrational alignment, and the true meaning of living in communion with the divine.

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Key Discussion Points

Life Visioning—Even at Rock Bottom

• Empowerment Begins Within:

  • Beckwith stresses that periods of hardship are powerful times to envision a new life rather than focusing on circumstances.
  • Quote:

    “When circumstances and situations are pressing in upon us, the only way we can overcome them is to go within, to actually begin to ask very empowering questions…” (02:37 – Beckwith)

• Question Quality Matters:

  • The universe answers the questions we ask. Disempowering questions (“why me?”) reinforce limitation; empowering questions (“what is trying to emerge in my life?”) unlock potential.
  • Quote:

    “The sincerity of the question, and then the ability and the willingness to really listen, to really be available. That’s where the juice is.” (03:22 – Beckwith)

Communion & Oneness

• Agape Experience:

  • Oprah describes how Agape felt like a true communion, not just ritual.
  • Quote:

    “This is what communion is, this is what it means to commune and to come together of a like mind and a like spirit.” (05:30 – Oprah)

• Spiritual Oneness:

  • Beckwith defines communion as recognizing our essence as God, leading to unity and kindness in the world.
  • Quote:

    “So we can commune with God because our life is the essence of God... the essence of communion is oneness.” (06:09 – Beckwith)

The Four Stages of Spiritual Growth

(16:15 – 35:54)

1. Victim Consciousness:

   • External blame for unhappiness; “the reason I’m not happy is someone else’s fault.”
   • Quote:

     “Every victim has a victim story...they’ll give you a list of complaints about what’s wrong and who did it.” (16:29 – Beckwith)

   • A shift occurs when you’re “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” (17:05 – Oprah quoting Fannie Lou Hamer)

2. Manifester Stage / Visualization:

   • Setting intentions, visualizing, talking more about what you want than your problems.
   • Begin to shift focus by asking “what if” questions to raise energy and possibility.
   • Quote:

     “If you’re complaining more than you’re talking about your vision, then you’re in inertia.” (19:08 – Beckwith)

   • Begin to move past being pushed by pain toward being pulled by vision.
   • Quote:

     “Pain pushes until the vision pulls.” (22:00 – Beckwith)

3. Channel/Flow Stage:

   • Surrendering to become a channel for something greater; entering the flow where inspiration and creativity take over.
   • Quote:

     “You become available. You become a channel for such beauty and greatness and love and giving and creativity.” (35:05 – Beckwith)

4. Unity with the Divine:

   • Living more and more in a state of oneness with the divine; feeling connected to all.
   • Oprah and Beckwith note it’s rare to live there “all the time,” but growth is a continual process.

Unfoldment and Purpose

• Life as Progressive Unfoldment:
  • Everyone has a unique, divine mandate to discover and express themselves.
  • Purpose unfolds where you are, moment by moment.
  • Quote:

    “You grow where you’re planted… ask ‘what’s trying to emerge, what’s trying to unfold.’” (08:22 – Beckwith)

Manifestation and Alignment

• Receiving vs. Wanting:

  • True manifestation comes when there’s desire without desperate attachment (“letting go”).
  • Intense wanting signals lack; letting go allows things to manifest.
  • Quote:

    “Your message to the universe at that moment is, I want it… Which is translating into, I don’t have it, I don’t have it. So you can’t receive it.” (10:57 – Beckwith)

• Vibrational Frequency:

  • Everything is vibration; you must become vibrationally aligned with what you want—radiate, not attract.
  • Quote:

    “You cannot have what you’re not willing to become vibrationally.” (29:01 – Beckwith)

  • What you hold inside, you radiate out, and your life matches it.
  • Quote:

    “You’re not really attracting things to you. You’re really radiating.” (29:49 – Beckwith)

• Self-Love as the Core:

  • You must like yourself when you’re alone; otherwise, you will seek others to fill that gap.
  • Quote:

    “You have to like yourself when you’re by yourself.” (30:24 – Beckwith)

From Visualization to Visioning

• Visualization vs. Visioning:
  • Visualization (stage two): imagining specific outcomes based on desire (a house, a car).
  • Visioning (stage three/four): surrendering to allow your unique divine pattern & life purpose to emerge, beyond the limits of your own imagination.
  • Quote:

    “Visualization is like, I imagine myself to be in Hawaii… Visioning says, there’s something within me that I can’t see. It’s beyond my imagination. I want that to come forward.” (33:39 – Beckwith)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On asking the right questions:

  “It’s all about the question, the sincerity of the question, and then the ability and the willingness to really listen.” (03:22 – Beckwith)

• On 'letting go' in manifestation:

  “That’s it. That’s called the let go… Once you release your grasp, then you give up your resistance, and then that which is for you will come to you.” (10:32–10:51 – Beckwith)

• On prayer as openness:

  “Help is a prayer. I say, ‘Hello, eternal loving presence.’ That’s what help means to me.” (17:57 – Beckwith)

• On pain and vision:

  “Pain pushes until the vision pulls.” (22:00 – Beckwith)

• On vibrational alignment:

  “You cannot have what you’re not willing to become vibrationally. If you do get it, you’ll lose it.” (29:01 – Beckwith)

• On true success:

  “Those [material things] are wonderful signposts along the way… But at the bottom line, we’re here to unfold our soul.” (31:17 – Beckwith)

• On the stages of spiritual development:

  “Stage two, you cut our teeth on… And as you become a master at that level, then… you become available. You become a channel for such beauty and greatness…” (34:59 – Beckwith)

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Essential Timestamps

• 01:20 – 02:37: Oprah introduces Beckwith and asks about visioning while struggling.
• 02:37 – 04:46: Beckwith on asking empowering questions; universe’s response.
• 05:10 – 06:09: Communion and spiritual oneness at Agape.
• 07:27 – 09:59: The unfolding journey, purpose, and being in alignment.
• 10:32 – 11:06: The power of letting go in manifestation.
• 11:22 – 13:44: Beckwith’s spiritual awakening story.
• 16:15 – 17:36: Explanation of “victim consciousness.”
• 19:08 – 22:00: Manifestation stage and “pain pushes until vision pulls.”
• 27:30 – 30:23: Understanding vibration, radiance, and vibrational alignment.
• 33:39 – 34:13: Difference between visualization and visioning.

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Tone and Atmosphere

The conversation is warm, deeply spiritual, encouraging, and conversational—with plenty of Oprah’s signature enthusiasm (“I’m going to shout in a minute, this is good!” at 22:48). Beckwith’s teachings are practical, compassionate, and inclusive, demystifying deep spiritual concepts and making them accessible to anyone seeking a richer, more aligned life.

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Summary Takeaways

• Ask deep, empowering questions when faced with challenge; the universe answers in a way you can understand.
• Communing with others and with God is about recognizing and expressing our inherent unity and purpose.
• Spiritual growth is a four-stage journey from victimhood to realized unity with the divine, marked by shifts in perception, intention, surrender, and radiance.
• Becoming vibrationally aligned—radiating, not just attracting—is the secret to sustained manifestation and joy.
• Visioning goes beyond visualizing goals; it is the unfolding of your unique, divinely inspired pattern.
• Progress and spiritual unfoldment are continual; the journey itself is the destination.

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For listeners seeking practical spiritual guidance, Beckwith’s insights—artfully drawn out by Oprah—offer both inspiration and actionable wisdom for manifesting a life aligned with one’s highest potential.

Transcript

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[Oprah Winfrey]

I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time. Taking time to be more fully present. Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now. Michael Bernard Beckwith founded the Southern California based Agape International spiritual center in 1986. Blending both Eastern and Western spiritual principles, the 9,000 member Agape community focuses on a core message of peace, unconditional love, and our unique oneness with God. He teaches that the vision we set for our lives begins a sacred process of unfolding that unlocks everything that is unique, mighty and magnificent inside each of us. I'm excited I get an hour of you to myself, not in a pulpit on a stage just to probe your mind about how we all can create a life vision for ourselves. But I think about people who have circumstances that aren't as good as mine or yours. Is it possible to life vision when you're at the bottom?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Not only is it possible, that's probably the best time to do it. When circumstances and situations are pressing in upon us, the only way we can overcome them is to go within, to actually begin to ask very empowering questions with the awareness that this universal presence and its law will answer any question that you ask. So if you're in a situation that is pressing on you and you ask what's trying to Emerge in my life? What is my gift to share? What is my purpose? Why am I here on the planet? Not just how can I pay my rent? Not just how can I stop the pain? Which aren't bad questions.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And not just even, what should I do?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Not even what should I do?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Not what should I do?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

But the universal questions you ask, empowering questions. The universe will answer these questions in a language and in a way that you can understand. There'll be inner prompting. There'll be intuitive hits, nudges, signs, symbols, dreams. It'll come in the language of the individual soul and heart. The difficulty is that when people are in tough situations, they ask disempowering questions. They say, what's wrong? Who's to blame? Why me? Those are the disempowering questions. So the universe will answer those too. It'll pull on the database of human experience and say, you were born on the wrong side of the tracks, or you were born on the right side of the tracks, or this happened or that happened. It will give you a bevy of excuses. But if you ask an empowering question, you'll get an answer to rise above the muck. So it's all about the question, the sincerity of the question, and then the ability and the willingness to really listen, to really be available. That's where the juice is, and that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Is available to every human being.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Whether an individual is in prison, whether an individual is imprisoned by circumstance, imprisoned in their own mind about an event that happened in their past, it doesn't matter. Once you ask with sincerity, the universe will answer. That's the way it operates.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I actually had my first agape experience recently, and it was like church, but also not like church. So is that how you envisioned it?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

So when you come to agape, as you've seen, everybody's there, right? Old, young, black, white, straight, gay, Christians, Muslims, Jewish people. Everybody's there worshiping the one God and in the field of love.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And the gospel that you preach is based on the gospel of the teachings of Jesus?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Yes, absolutely. We believe in the teachings of Jesus, but we also embrace all of the other great teachers on the planet. We transcend religiosity. And when you go deep enough into those teachings, there's no contradictions.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You know, it's interesting. I was raised in a church, Baptist church, where every first Sunday, they pass around the grape juice and you take the communion. And this is my body. And I never actually felt a sense of communion when I was at agape. As I looked around, what I felt was, this is what communion is, this is what it means to commune and to come together of a like mind and a like spirit. And you know, the words people speak to each other and the way you are embraced, that is what communion feels like. And what does that impact of communion have on our souls, do you think?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

First of all, you can only be in communion with something that you're similar to. Water and gasoline can't commune because they're different substances. So we can commune with God because our life is the essence of God. So we can commune with God. So if I'm communing with God and you're communing with God, we can commune with each other. We commune with the deepest part of each other. It's a very intimate and personal relationship in prayer and in meditation. So the essence of communion is oneness. And so as we go forth from that place in a deep sense of communion, then when we go out into the world, we have the privilege and the capacity to see that same beauty in other individuals, the same love, the same potential. We greet each other differently. That is the only way that we're going to actually build a kind and just global society from that sense of communion with the presence.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Absolutely.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

That's never an absence.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So I know one of your life tenets that you speak about in life visioning is teaching people to participate in what you call the unfolding. Yes, the unfolding. And you talked a little bit about this in super soul sessions. You tell people there's something unique, mighty and magnificent within each of us, and it's our job to let that unfold from within us. How does that journey begin?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

It goes back to asking the question, but it also goes back to understanding that the presence of God has never made a mistake, doesn't do do overs, and doesn't repeat itself. Therefore, each of us are unique expressions of the infinite. Therefore, the way the infinite gets to express its infinite nature is through its uniqueness. Therefore, I have a mandate to discover myself, find out who and what I am, what my purpose is, and to express it. So. And that idea within us is infinite and is always unfolding. So it's not a one and done. It's not I've arrived, it's I'm always on a journey of unfolding.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And so doesn't that help answer that question too? Because, you know, I talk a lot about purpose and people are like, I don't know what my purpose is. And I always feel your purpose is wherever you are unfolding in the moment, is it not?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

You grow where you're planted, you grow where you plant it. And then you ask what's trying to emerge, what's trying to unfold. And you'll start to get hints. You start to take baby steps walking in that direction. And as you take baby steps, inertia becomes momentum. And then possibilities start to reveal themselves. Potential starts to be activated and you find yourself, as you look back, wow, I'm changed. I'm different. When did that happen?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, I was just saying this to a friend recently who is stuck in her life and feeling like I've done all the things to manifest properly and it isn't happening. And you know, and I said, well, you have to look at what you're pushing against. The point is that you have to be in alignment with it.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

You have to be in alignment with it. You have to have a level of practice. You have to give up your resistance to the circumstance. In other words, you're not arguing and resisting with the circumstances.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, I know. This person said, I prayed. I did that God hadn't answered me yet.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

This is the deal. God is always answering, yes, but are we receiving? Are we listening? Are we available?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

So prayer, meditation, life, life, visioning, it attunes us to become in alignment with that vibration so we actually can hear it, we can actually feel it, and then move in that direction. Many people, if their prayers would be answered, they couldn't even receive it. They're not vibrationally ready.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So how do we get. This is absolutely. This fascinates me, this conversation, because there have been times, I know in everybody else's experiences, where you think about something or you think about a person and that person, then there are other times where that doesn't happen. I remember one day I manifested tomato soup. I was on my farm and up comes my neighbor with. I couldn't even believe it. So I was like, how did I do that? How did I do that? I want to be able to do that again. But it's a space where I wanted it, but if it didn't come, I would also be okay.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

That's it. That's called the let go.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, that's what it is.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

You know how people do wishing wells? They throw a coin and they forget about it. And then the thing shows up because they had an intention, then they let it go. They didn't even think about it anymore.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Right.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

And once you release your grasp, then you give up your resistance. And then that which is for you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Will come to you moment. Yeah, yeah. Because when you want it, want it, want it, want it, want it, Want it. It doesn't show up.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Yeah. Your message to the universe at that moment is, I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it. Which is translating into, I don't have it, I don't have it, I don't have it, I don't have it. So you can't receive it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So you can't receive it. So you end up blocking your own blessing totally in that way. When did you come to know this? When did your level of connection, spirituality, and alignment reach the space that went beyond religion?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

I had left religion at a young age, and so I was pretty much agnostic going through college. I went to Morehouse College and I transferred to usc. And so at usc, I had a spiritual awakening. I woke up, I had a lucid dream in which I was killed. And when I woke up, I could see tremendous beauty everywhere and the love of God penetrating my being. And I had to go on a search to discover what had happened to me. And so that had a lucid dream. A lucid dream. I was awake. In the dream, three men came after me. And this dream had been going on a year. I'm just shortening the story here. Culminated with two of the men holding me down. One man stabbed me in the heart. The pain was physically and emotionally intense, excruciating.

[Oprah Winfrey]

This is your dream.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

This is my dream. But I could feel it in my physical body.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

I screamed out, I woke up. The beauty everywhere. I mean, animate and inanimate objects. Brilliant. Shining. The light everywhere. The love I was feeling from God just penetrating my entire being. It was like, wow. In the dream, I woke up now. Now I'm awake.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You're awake?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

I'm awake. And I knew something had happened. So I began to do my research now to discover what had happened to me. And that's when I bumped back into the teachings of Jesus and all the other great teachers who talked about this luminosity, the light that lights up every man and woman that cometh into the world, the true light that was found in us.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That was a born again experience.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Yes, it was. Totally shifted my whole perception. And I was considered weird. I was considered, you know, Michael's off his rocker. He's a Jesus freak. What happened to him? Because the guy that went to bed that night was not the same person that woke up. And my life has been on an unfolding arc of falling more and more and more in love with his presence and being more and more of service. And, you know, we don't want to hypothesize or theorize or philosophize. We want to realize this and that's what these teachings do. It helps you realize what many people are philosophizing about.

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[Oprah Winfrey]

So let's talk about that unfolding. You say that that journey comes in four stages of spiritual growth. The first stage is something you call victim consciousness. Can you explain that to me?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Yes. Victim consciousness is where many people live.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Somebody did it to me. The reason why I'm not happy is because it just makes, you know, my ex, boyfriend, my boss.

[Oprah Winfrey]

The world isn't fair.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

The world isn't fair. They're doing it to me. The reason why I'm not happy is somebody else's fault. God did it to me. The devil did it to me. My astrological sign did it to me. The numbers did it to me. My mother, my karma. Yeah, okay. That's the victim stage. Every victim has a victim story. You ask somebody, a victim, what's going on, they'll give you a list of complaints about what's wrong and who did it. Fannie Lou Hamer once said, I got sick and tired of being sick and tired.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. One of my favorite quotes.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

So when you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, something happens and you start to open up to a possibility that maybe, maybe I'm in my own way. Maybe there's something more than what meets the eye.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And would you say that if you are stuck and you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, if you're in that space where there's no movement and you've tried everything, that it means you need spiritual momentum or you need an awakening?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Yes. You're going to need something that is not within your little mind and your little perception. And that's where prayer comes in. That's where meditation comes in. That's where life visioning comes in. So if you just said help, I'm open. I'm available to something new now you're on your way.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. Help is a prayer.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Help is a prayer. I say. When I use the word help, I say, hello, eternal loving presence. That's what help means to me. Hello, eternal loving presence.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow, that's a good one.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Recently I had to say that out, tweet, tweet. And. And then things start to come to you. I can remember walking into back in the day when the Bodhi tree existed and a book fell off the shelf. I walked in and the book just slammed on the floor off the shelf. And it was exactly what I needed to read at that time. And so I learned about manifestation. I learned about the second stage, which is how to manifest, which is establishing intention. Beginning to see visually the kind of life you want to live. Beginning to have conversation about that kind of life. I tell people you have to talk about it more than you talk about your problems. Because at the end of the day, if you're complaining more than you're talking about your vision, then you're in inertia. So there's a shift that takes place where you're actually talking about the possibilities more than you're talking about your issues.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

You don't deny the issues. Bad things have happened to people. You're not denying that those things have happened.

[Oprah Winfrey]

But it's the energy that you give to it that is a definite, true fact. If you start talking about somebody or you're engaged in a conversation where you're gossiping, before long you're just. You're spiraling down.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Energy goes into those lower frequencies.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Doubt, worry, fear, all now you're in. You're in that sediment. You're in that dynamic. But if you start talking about possibility, even if you don't know how to get there, then your energy starts to go up. You know, what if you ask a what if question? What if all my needs were met? What would I be doing in my life? What if everything is really working together for my good? What if all the bad things that have happened in my life are leading me to activating some great potential in my experience? What if God really is on my side?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

You know, you ask a what if question and you start to notice little tiny miracles happening in your life. Things start to manifest. You don't know how they got there.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. What about this dark night of the.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Soul you speak about?

[Oprah Winfrey]

You know, everybody's heard that phrase, the dark night of the soul. There are people who have that dark night and kind of abide in that space. So they never really get. But the dark night of the soul is there for what?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

The dark night of the soul is a couple of stages to it. The primary dark night of the soul is when you're losing your identification with your previous identity, but you don't yet have an identification with what's new emerging. You're in the dark. You don't know. You knew. This is who you used to be. But you're not that anymore. But who you're becoming, you're not that either. So it's dark. It's really. And sometimes it's excruciating. Sometimes it's a lot of fear, a lot of disconnect. And I tell people that, when you're going through that, tell them to ask this question. If this experience were to last forever, what quality would have to emerge for me to have peace of mind? So if you ask that question and you say, oh, if I. If I. Is this. If this particular experience was going to last forever, I would need. I would need some strength, I would need some. Some peace. I would need a little bit more, you know, name whatever quality. And what happens is when your attention starts focusing on that quality rather than resisting the dark night, then the process is speeded up and your identification, you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Move through it faster. You move through it faster because you're not like, hunkering in. In the suffering of it, right? But you also say, pain pushes us until a larger vision pulls.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Pulls us, right? That's one of my favorite statements, is pain pushes until the vision pulls. So life is progressive.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You're good.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

You're good.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You are a tweet a minute.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

The universe is progressive, and it's pushing you until you get pulled by a larger vision. So once you have a vision that you can articulate, okay, so pain pushes you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So it's hard, it's harder, it's harder, it's harder. And it's trying to force you into having vision that's bigger than the pain.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

And that's a principle. Potential is always bigger than the problem. Potential is always bigger than the problem. Your potential is infinite and is always bigger than whatever problem you're going through. So when you begin to have a vision, oh, this is good.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I'm going to shout in a minute, this is good. This is really good.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Amen.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Good.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

You begin to have a vision about the possibility. You start to be pulled by it. And then once you really sincerely embrace it and your life begins to be okay. When I wake up this morning, I'm going to walk in the direction of my purpose. I'm going to walk in the direction of my vision.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I'm going to walk in the direction of that possibility and the potential, instead of allowing myself to go, oh, woe is me, or I can't believe I'm going to walk in the right. This is a good talk.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Then you're not pushed it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You can preach it. You can preach this. This will preach.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Oprah told me to Preach this.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You should preach this. So you walk in the direction of the potential and the possibility. Instead of being stuck, then you're not.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

As pushed as much. The Cosmic 2 by 4 doesn't need to hit you as much. Wow, you're pulled. You're being pulled more by joy. And it's like I'm being pulled by something now. It doesn't mean you're not going to have challenges.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Of course. Of course.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

We're not praying to live a challenge free life. We're praying that the challenges that come activate latent potential.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So this is how you learn to manifest, which is the stage two is by understanding that principle of the push and the pull.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Understanding that pain pushes until vision pulls. Ask what if Questions.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Begin to see. Visualize the kind of life you want to live. Begin to talk about it. Begin to write it down. Begin to dream about it. And then what I teach is you talk about it. Doesn't mean you talk to everybody because everyone is not trustworthy.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's right.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

You talk to selected friends about it. About it. You talk to it. You actually talk to the vision. Talk to the possibility, talk to love. You talk to peace. You talk to prosperity. I see you everywhere. I see you. Prosperity in the lawn. I see you. Abundance in the grain of the sand. I see you everywhere. You talk to it. And then after a while you're talking from it.

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[Zepbound Medication Safety Announcer]

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[Zepbound Medication Advertiser]

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[Commercial Announcer]

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[Oprah Winfrey]

You use it a lot in your teaching and I noticed like everybody at Agape is on the same vibrational frequency and using that language and I don't know when it was I first got it that there is an energy and a frequency to everything.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And that your whole role and goal in life is to line up with whatever is the frequency that is going to allow you to move in the flow of your own life. How did you discover this?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

It's back in the 80s. I started using that terminology because I became aware that we are vibrational beings. You know we're not Just flesh and blood. You know, if you put anything under a microscope, an intense microscope, you're going to ultimately see that everything is vibration. And as the scientists are now telling us, there's information there, but it's not solid. It's always moving. So we're vibrational beings. So as you were just saying, when we lift our vibration to what we want to experience, it happens first on a vibratory level and then it shows up and manifests in our life. So people who are holding on to rancor, animosity, they're slowing down. Their vibration just had an aha there.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You're actually, when you recognize your vibrational frequency, you're drawing into yourself all the time, literally the vibration that is most like what you're putting out. Right? Correct.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Right. You cannot. Another way of saying is you cannot have what you're not willing to become vibrationally. If you do get it, you'll lose it. This is why people, they'll win the lottery, they lose everything, or they'll finally get the person they think they want to be with. Can't keep the relationship, or they'll get a modicum of success, but can't hold onto it because inside they weren't vibrationally aligned. They really hadn't become it. So you can temporarily manipulate and get things, but to have it completely, you have to lift your vibration and become that in vibration.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Oh, that's so good. You need to repeat it. That is so good. Isn't that look. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. That is so good.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

You're not really attracting things to you. You're really radiating. Ah, it's really a radiation.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I could cry right now. I felt that so strongly. That's going to resonate with a lot of people.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Yeah, you're radiating it from within, out. It's like if I become the vibrational frequency of love, harmony, peace, and I'm radiating that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's the key.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

It's going to show up in my life.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's the key. That's the word. You're not attracting it. You have to be it and radiate it. And then it is drawn to you and you to it. So then the work then becomes about you working on yourself.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

You have to like yourself when you're by yourself. Yeah, you have to like yourself. I mean, when you're by yourself, you have to look at those thoughts, the beautiful thoughts, the crazy thoughts. You have to embrace yourself, you have to forgive yourself. You have to love yourself. And when you can fall in love with yourself and like yourself, when you're by yourself now, you can be with others. But if you don't like yourself when you're by yourself, then you're pulling on others to make you happy.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Correct. You see, you also talk about wealth in the way that, you know, the idea of manifestation can be confusing to people because a lot of people think, you know, I manifested my wealth or I manifested my husband, my possessions. But you say that you limit your true spiritual potential if you get attached to those things.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Right. Those are wonderful signposts along the way. They're wonderful blessings. But at the bottom line, we're here to unfold our soul.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Bottom line?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Bottom line, we're here to. There's so much good within us.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Is that the purpose of human experience?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

You think the purpose of human experience is that we're at a stage of our evolution where we can think about what we think about. We can actually think independent of a circumstance and choose. We can choose and let our soul unfold. And this is very important because either people are in reaction or they're in choice. Choice comes when you expand your awareness. Reaction is if you have limited awareness. So in other words, we both know this. You take of somebody like His Holiness, the dalai Lama, or Dr. King, who chose to love in the face of hate, where many people would react in the face of hate through prayer and meditation, expanded their awareness and they could choose. So here in this human dimension, we learn to choose regardless of conditions. Now we're participating in our own unfoldment. I can actually choose.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So you teach the power of life visioning. What is the difference between visioning and visualization?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

This is a great question. This is good visualization. That's stage two. That's manifester level. That means I actually see the life that I want to live. I see it visually, I feel it. I have an emotional bond with it. Until it manifests is different. Visioning says, there's something within me that I can't see. It's beyond my imagination. I want that to come forward.

[Oprah Winfrey]

It's the life force.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Yes, it's the life force. It's my unique pattern. It's beyond societal fantasy. It's beyond parental fantasy. In other words, your mother may have had a dream about you and wanted you to be a doctor. This society wants you to act a certain way, but there's something that's been placed there by God. And when you go into the visioning process, you're actually opening yourself up to that which is unique to you to express.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So it's not a physical vision or Visualization, like. Visualization is like, I imagine myself to be in Hawaii.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Or you imagine yourself to have this house or this car. No, it can include that, but it transcends that. You actually. You're actually becoming in tune with your purpose.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Got it. It's a higher level.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

It's a higher level.

[Oprah Winfrey]

It's the next level of unfolding.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

It's the next level unfolding.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's what it is. It is the next level. So it's like channeling, which is the next level of unfolding.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Yeah, being a channel, as the third stage is, I realize that I am a place through which the infinite expresses.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Oh, this is good.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

You see, I'm available. So we use words like surrender, yielding, allowing, letting, opening, opening. I'm available. I'm surrendered. Now what happens? We come into frequent encounters with the zone or the flow. You know, when you get in the flow and you didn't plan something and it's not a part of what you tried to do, but if something takes you over, that's stage three. You're in a flow now it's like, what happened? What did I say? How did that turn out so well? Because beyond your imagination, something took you over and something is God. Something taught me something.

[Oprah Winfrey]

When you allow yourself to be the channel through which the infinite flows through.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

So stage two, you cut our teeth on stage two. You visualize. You say what you want, you do your affirmations, you set your intentions. You have to do that. And as you become a master at that level, then you start to find yourself in a moment. You think not. Something happens in a moment. You think not. You become available. You become a channel for such beauty and greatness and love and giving and creativity.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And then by stage four, you are like.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

All the time. I don't know if it's all the time.

[Oprah Winfrey]

It's like agape on a Sunday morning all the time. That's stage four.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Yeah. You feel you're one with God, you know, and it doesn't take away from God. As a matter of fact, to limit the presence of God is to blaspheme the presence. You see? So you just feel connected. It's a connection.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

And that's stage four is my life is the life of God. Because there's no other life outside of God. God is infinite.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Who can live in that all the time? I love it. I have.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

You've had moments.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Moments. I've had glimpses. I've had moments. I've had, you know, like little. Yeah, you can feel it. But just to be there all the time. I don't know if being there all the time is a part of this plane. Is it?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

I think that you just get to higher and higher levels of it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I would agree with that. Yes. Yeah.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

And you find yourself today at a higher frequency than you were 10 years ago.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Absolutely. And if you're not, then you're not evolving on the plane.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

And 10 years from now, you want to be at a higher frequency than you are now.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Thank you. Thanks for blessing us with your words and your presence.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

My job.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Thank you. I'm Oprah Winfrey and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. You can follow Super Soul on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. If you haven't yet, go to Apple Podcasts and subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Join me next week for another Super Soul Conversation. Thank you for listening.

[Walmart Wellness Event Promoter]

Honey. Do not make plans. Saturday, September 13th.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Okay.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Why?

[Zepbound Medication Safety Announcer]

What's happening?

[Walmart Wellness Event Promoter]

The Walmart wellness event. Flu shots, health screenings, free samples from those brands you like.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

All that at Walmart.

[Walmart Wellness Event Promoter]

We can just walk right in, no appointment needed. Who knew we could cover our health and wellness needs at Walmart?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Check the calendar.

[Zepbound Medication Safety Announcer]

Saturday, September 13th.

[Walmart Wellness Event Promoter]

Walmart wellness event. You knew?

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

I knew.

[Commercial Announcer]

Check in on your health at the same place you already shop. Visit Walmart, Saturday, September 13th for our semi annual wellness event, Flu shot. Subject to availability and applicable state law. Age restrictions apply. Free samples while supplying.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

What does possibility mean to you? That's a hard question. Something that you can strive for.

[Zepbound Medication Safety Announcer]

I'm able to do anything I set my mind to. You're confident in yourself and you believe in yourself.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Stuff that you could achieve.

[Commercial Announcer]

I feel it's Sarah.

[Michael Bernard Beckwith]

Anything is possible when you're more confident. Shoes are a huge part of that. They are the most important part of my style. You can, like, express yourself in the right shoes.

[Commercial Announcer]

Anything is possible. Dsw. Countless shoes at bragworthy prices. Imagine the possibilities.