When the World is White and Crystal Glistening
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Interviewing The Swami
I have long been a fan of Swami Beyondananda. I love his clever wordsmithing, puns, and tongue-in-cheek approach to spirituality and the very serious message that is the foundation of his humor. “Hmmmmm,” I wondered, “would it be possible for me to interview the Swami on the Sunrise Ranch radio show, “Evolution in Consciousness” which airs on the “What We Need to Know” segment of Contact Talk Radio at www.ctrhotspot.com/profile/LarryPearlmanHOST (shameless plug!)?
A simple email inquiry to Steve Bhaerman, the Swami’s alter ego (or maybe the Swami is Steve’s altar ego) brought a positive reply and the date was set. Of course it was made easy by the fact that Steve was familiar with Sunrise Ranch and Emissaries of Divine Light and felt that our work was certainly in alignment with his.
The first question I asked was “Who am I interviewing today, Steve or the Swami?” I was delighted to find out that both were present. And just when I thought I could handle this simple split personality, Steve brought in the Swami channeling Bullwinkle the Moose channeling Elvis and Bob Dylan! My consciousness was swimming with the Swami’s suave soliloquy!!
But this interview was not ALL puns, parodies, and plays on words. We discussed some serious topics and uncovered the path that took Steve Bhaerman into the wacky, wonderful world of Swami Beyondananda. Steve was “struck by en-lightening during a brain storm” in 1980 and discovered that he could use humor to come in under the radar to approach serious topics and effect changes in people’s lives. In the 90’s, Steve further discovered the incredible healing power of humor and in 2004, he turned the Swami loose to heal the “electile dysfunction” of our political system through his book, “Swami for Precedent – a Seven Step Plan to Heal the Body Politic”. He has relaunched his “precedential” campaign for 2012 to encourage we, the people, to establish a new precedent of an “up-wising” to bring about a new paradigm where we move from being children of God to being adults of God. Working with Joseph McCormick’s “Reuniting America”, Steve shows us how we can integrate the functional values of both conservative and progressive elements to move out of our current emergency into a state of “emerge-and-see”. He told our listeners that the media today is all about the destruction of the existing caterpillar state but what is mostly unreported is the emerging butterfly aspect of humanity that is working on “mass construction”. He urges us all to work on the three most underused resources in the world: Love (with its 3 components of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness), Imagination, and Cooperation and to lighten up our hearts so that we get the “Aha!” in the midst of Ha Ha’s.
Steve has written a wonderful book, along with Bruce Lipton, called “Spontaneous Evolution – Our Positive Future (And a Way to Get There From Here)”. I have read it and recommend it highly. Though it is a serious book, the mark of the Swami is unmistakable!
I found both Steve and the Swami to be both deLIGHTful and enLIGHTening. To listen to the whole interview, go to www.ctrhotspot.com/profile/LarryPearlmanHOST and click on “More” under Evolution in Consciousness Archived Shows in the left hand column.
Larry Pearlman
Larry Pearlman is a personification of the evolution in consciousness that recognizes that spirituality and the material world are not mutually exclusive. While working 32 years in corporate America, Larry also offered spiritual perspective in study courses. In addition, he has taught courses in “The Art of Creative Living” and serves as a faculty member for “The Opening” – an 8 day experiential class in discovering your full potential. Larry hosted a radio show, “Opportunities”, in Phoenix emphasizing participation in the business world from a higher state of consciousness. He recently served in the Peace Corps in Ghana for 27 months and currently resides at Sunrise Ranch.
Amazing Photo of Sunrise Ranch
Don’t Abandon Your Art
When I was about 10 years old, I fell in love with beading. My parents had a friend, Yienan, who was a dancer in New York City, made beautiful costumes and jewelry, and had a loft in NYC that was one huge room lined floor to ceiling with mirrors. Yienan was pretty much the coolest artsy woman a young girl can have to look up to. She got me started with my first beads, and I taught myself how to design and make jewelry. In high school, I got a small business license with the name “Full of Light Creations”, since my name means “full of light”. I’ve had my pieces in the Sunrise Gift Shop for years now, mostly because if I don’t sell them I can’t afford to keep making them!
I notice that my beading creativity comes in spurts. I can go months without doing anything with it, and then sit down and create 10 pairs of earrings in a row. This is what happened to me on Monday of this week. I brought out my gear, spread it all over the dining room table and went it at for a few hours. Here is some of the magic that happens for me when I’m indulging in my artsy self:
1. Total Focus
When I’m beading, I’m not distracted by lots of thoughts of what I should have done in the past, will do in the future or wish I was doing differently now. I’m present. I’m sensing what color and shape and size goes where. I’m stringing beads on a string, a simple, repetitive motion that requires my attention. It’s a bit of a meditation.
2. Accessing My Creativity
I love trying something new, and knowing that if a part of me chose to make it that way there is a person out there who would like it that way (hopefully more than one person). I love experimenting with new designs, and seeing what comes. Like everything in the creative arts world, my creation is part “me” and part “something else,” an inspiration or muse. Even with something as simple as making a necklace, I know that I’m not just making it out of my own talent or training (both of which are limited in supply); I’m tapping into some kind of larger creative energy, which is of abundant and never-ending supply. Check out Elizabeth Gilbert’s (author of Eat, Pray, Love) TED talk on this topic.
3. Making a Finished Product
There is something satisfying and vitally important in being able to say “I made that.” So many of us have intangible jobs. I do marketing and management. I can point to increased revenue, or employee satisfaction, or event attendance. But in my “9-5” I don’t often get to take a picture of a completed project and say “That’s a piece of me right there. And it’s available to the world”. It’s a simple thing, but putting a part of our soul into tangible form, it’s…well, awesome.
So after my late night beading extravaganza Monday, I asked around to find out where I could sell some jewelry. Immediately, I heard back from a friend about the need for vendors at a dance festival (Sol Vida Dance!) her daughter was performing at this Saturday. So maybe advice for those of us who need to engage in our art more is to set it up so that you have to! Sign up for a show, or gallery opening, or performance so that you will do what it takes to make it happen. Speaking of which, I need to get beading for the show tomorrow!
Please share your thoughts on the value of creating art and how to keep it in your life.
Helena Barrera
Raised in New York and Connecticut, Helena is a graduate of the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies in Redlands, California. Her self-designed emphasis was: Facilitating Personal and Organizational Transformation. Her Masters is in Business Administration with a concentration in non-profit management. Helena lives in Denver with her husband and works for Sunrise Ranch. Her passion is to provide settings where people can know and express their creativity, power, and unique spirit—in a spiritual seminar, an office meeting, or around her dinner table. Visit her blog on practical spirituality.
Why I’m Here: A Poem
This week, a friend sent me this piece that I wrote a few years back. He had come across it and thought I might enjoy being reminded of it. I did, and it seemed the perfect message for me to hear at this time. I invite you to review something you’ve created in the past; you never know if it might have something new to say to you!
I am not here
to give people
what they think they want
when they want it.
My promise is not one of
wish-granting
personality serving
or easy satisfaction.
I don’t supply those corrupt demands
our privilege whines for
Don’t serve your notions of
happiness
comfort
success
don’t pander to or exploit
your secret insecurities
like some cartoon “devil.”
I am here
to remind people
of what they truly long for
in the sacred green landscape
of their inner world.
My promise is one:
Invitation
to
I AM
That I AM
Whole
Being
Filled.
I serve to coax
our shiny, fabulous, Heaven
selves out into the sunny
Earth truth,
I serve that ONE
who does not have to
send love from him to you
like some cartoon “God”
That one
Who is love.
I serve restoration
to the state
where our pleasure/torture notions
of being “in love”
are like faded photographs
next to
the temple-knowing
I AM love.
Helena Barrera (then Karchere)
June 28th, 2007
Raised in New York and Connecticut, Helena is a graduate of the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies in Redlands, California. Her self-designed emphasis was: Facilitating Personal and Organizational Transformation. Her Masters is in Business Administration with a concentration in non-profit management. Helena lives in Denver with her husband and works for Sunrise Ranch. Her passion is to provide settings where people can know and express their creativity, power, and unique spirit—in a spiritual seminar, an office meeting, or around her dinner table. Visit her blog on practical spirituality.
The Other Side of the World
He thought there might be adventure
on the other side of the world,
past the silly stone pillars
of the “cul-de-sac”
and out beyond the well-edged lawns
that made his mind ache
and his soul grieve
as he drove by.
He dreamed of a wild land
where his mother was once born
and beasts still roamed,
stalking their prey.
His heart could mend in such a place,
hearing the liquid call of larks at dawn,
and watching the sun as it climbed across the sky.
If he stared long enough into the evening prayer fires,
sang to the trees and mosses and ferns,
and worshiped with the herons and hawks
at the edge of the mountain pond,
the sickness of his spirit would heal,
and he would remember again
who he was,
where he came from,
and what he must do next.
Yes, there would be adventure
on the other side of the world,
and a chance to know himself again as he was
outside of this little place
where he had been living;
a chance to set himself free.
David Karchere
Bumper Sticker Wisdom
As the person responsible for receiving and distributing the mail for the spiritual community at Sunrise Ranch, I go through and usually dispose of a lot of mail that isn’t addressed to anyone in particular or to someone no longer residing on the property. One day I was about to deposit in the recycling bin a catalog that was addressed to a person who had moved away years ago. It was a catalog of bumper stickers and T-shirts from a company in Minnesota. I am open to inspiration and insight from any source, and it only took a glance at its pages for me to recognize the treasury of wisdom contained therein. So I now keep it on top of my desk, and I find these succinct gems especially useful for illustrating and driving home points I’m seeking to make in casual conversation or more public statements.
Here are some of my favorites:
“DON’T BELIEVE ANYTHING UNTIL IT HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY DENIED”
“MASQUERADING AS A NORMAL PERSON DAY AFTER DAY IS TIRING”
“SOMETHING WONDERFUL IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN”
“MEN WHO CHANGE DIAPERS CHANGE THE WORLD”
“I’M DIAGNALLY PARKED IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE”
“WHEN YOU’RE OVER THE HILL, YOUR SPEED PICKS UP”
“DON’T BLOW IT, GOOD PLANETS ARE HARD TO FIND”
And I’ve found these pithy little messages particularly suitable for challenging fundamentalist extremism and separating genuine spirituality from religious facades and pretensions:
“GOD IS TOO BIG TO FIT INTO ONE RELIGION”
“NON-JUDGMENT DAY IS NEAR”
“GOD WANTS SPIRITUAL FRUITS, NOT RELIGIOUS NUTS”
“JESUS CALLED; HE WANTS HIS RELIGION BACK”
“GOD, PROTECT ME FROM YOUR FOLLOWERS!”
“JESUS IS COMING; LOOK BUSY”
“BORN OK THE FIRST TIME!”
“KEEP YOUR THEOLOGY OFF MY BIOLOGY!”
The catalog also features a T-shirt picturing a bunch of bananas with the caption: “Over 25% of human genes are the same as those of a banana; get over yourself!” How’s that for incentive to let go of ego and any other lingering narcissistic tendencies?
Let’s face it, bumper stickers have a marvelous ability to reduce a fact or principle to essence and convey the result in a form that, though possibly provocative, is generally palatable and often delightfully amusing. So if you’re looking for a way to spice up a speech or just a dinner table conversation, pay attention to those words on the back of the car ahead of you. Or, better yet, order a catalog of the latest bumper stickers and let your eyes and your imagination run free.
Jerry Kvasnicka
How to Feel LOVED!
A one line poem: Love, so that you are not consumed by the lack of it! If we are not transmitting love (which is our real essence), we become vulnerable to the feeling of lack of love = not being loved. Like water, the less it flows, the more stagnant it becomes, and the sensation of the Presence of Love dissipates! The pain of that void is a destructive and consuming emptiness.
When we are giving love away, which IS in our control, it stimulates the flow of love from the Source of love within us. The more it flows, the more we feel it. It is ALWAYS possible to give love away. Each one of us must find a way to give Love away. Then, you will feel Loved more and more.
We think we get love from others. In a way, that is true. We feel the radiation of love from other people, babies, animals, nature or other things. And those outer sources not only radiate a vibration of love to us, they stimulate the opening of the Source of love within us, so we can feel it more! But even that feeling of love you have when others give you love will not be enough and soon fades when they are not present and giving.
Even when you do give Love away, if you expect love in return, you set yourself up for disappointment, because we are not in control of results. We are not in control of when and how much love others send our way. Then when others are not giving us as much love as we want in the way we want it, we again feel unloved.
However, when we unconditionally give love away, we feel it more and more. It seems paradoxical, yet it is true … the more you give Love and the less you expect Love, the more Loved you feel! And the more you will be loved by others as well!
The joy of fulfilling worldly desires is usually short-lived also. There may be some beauty experienced. But soon …like a flower going “from beautiful to wilted” … ‘ the thrill is gone ‘ . But when you are giving, there is always joy to be found, because the very nature of giving with love is that it perpetually sows seeds of more love and joy! Love is self-fulfilling of its own presence; and it includes joy.
Here is a clue to how I think like this. First of all, it is my personal experience. I also believe there is ‘A Power’ that creates and sustains everyone and everything. It does not matter to me what you call It or what your belief system, religion or philosophy is. That Source/Essence is Eternal and has a Pure Vibration which (to me) is best described by the word Love. It is within each one of us. It has to be, or we would not be here. In fact, that Essence is our true nature and real identity. We are, in the deepest Truth, Love Itself – a drop in an infinite ocean – one with its Source! Love is our Divine Essence. You may call it God, True Self, Soul, Energy, Consciousness etc. I won’t impose my way of looking at it on you. Whatever one calls It, It existed before the words of human language and titles tried to define It. Whatever we call It does not change what It is! It existed before words and time.
Only when you completely give all the love in your heart away are you healed of fear of completely giving all the love in your heart away and being hurt by losing what you gave away.
When you block even the smallest part of the love, fear resides in that part of your heart. Pain, sorrow and fear are fostered and magnified there. The very part you hold onto to protect yourself from hurt, is the very part that is hurting you as long as you hold onto it. As soon as you give it away without attachment or expectation, the fear is gone – just an imagination never born! Then you are refilled with the flow of new love and a fearless and brave heart! REVELATION! The first time you achieve this, you will experience hell and heaven in the same breath and then be released into the kingdom of God – FREEDOM! You have to keep giving the love away.
Will O., a participant in the Full Self Emergence Program.
Four Mothers: A Poem by David Karchere
FOUR MOTHERS
Four mothers could save the world.
Yes, four young mothers
From the four corners of the globe,
Suckling their new born babes,
Smiling that contented smile
That only nursing mothers know.
They, with slow, knowing nods
Of their shining faces,
With flesh from deepest night to brightest day,
These women could say that on this day
Their babes will be born again
To a world only angels have known,
Where the peace of loving eyes
Subdues the beasts of the forest,
And the arc of their love calms
The storms of the sevens seas.
Four mothers could save the world this day
And hold it between them
As they would hold a bouncing ball for a young boy.
I see it now in its shining blue and green,
Waiting for their children
To love and cherish as their own.
- David Karchere
David is the Spiritual Director for Sunrise Ranch and the global spiritual network, Emissaries of Divine Light. He offers seminars and coaching in spiritual awakening and transformation in many locations around the world. He is also a songwriter and poet, and a speaker on the profound change which is occurring in human consciousness today.
Why Journal?
Journal writing has kept me sane for decades. It’s always been a place for me to pour myself out. To explore and come to understand at least part of the vast world of feelings. To explore the deepest crevices of who I am. A place where there is implicit and explicit trust and safety.
Journal writing is a discovery. A cleansing. A joy burst. A vent. A place to realize and bring to light what’s going on in my emotional realm.
I never know where it’s going to go, but afterwards, I almost always have the feeling of being more whole, more connected to who I am, to life, my mission and purpose, more available to the experience of Oneness.
I’ll be teaching a Journal Writing workshop on May 29th with David Karchere. Come find out how you can integrate this practice into your daily life. And share what journaling has done for you in your life by commenting below!
Andrea Isaacs is a writer, former dancer, coach and spiritual guide. She created EnneaMotion, an experiential approach using movement, to explore personality and increase emotional intelligence as a way to find clarity and fulfillment.
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