Michael Bernard Beckwith (founder of Agape International Spiritual Center) describes a four-stage model of spiritual growth—phrased as 'To us, by us, through us, And as us'—presented in response to an apparent contradiction between 'you can have it all' and 'surrender your life' teachings. He introduces the life visioning process as a practical technology to awaken and coax out individuals' timeless potential, encourages participatory practice, and invites listeners to sign up for a class to develop coherence with their higher self and enact personal transformation.
Chapters
I was a faculty member at the School of Ministry, School of Higher Consciousness. A lady raised her hand and she said, I see a contradiction in the teaching. On one hand, the books say, you can have it all. If you can. If your mind can conceive it, you can achieve it, you can have it all. The other books say, surrender your life. Surrender your life to the presence of Jesus. Seems to be contradictory. If you can see it and achieve it and have it all, you've got to surrender. What is it? At that moment, I walked to the board and I said, our spiritual growth, development can be broken down into four stages. To us, by us, through us. And as us And I began to teach that there's no contradiction. They're just stages. I am Michael Bernard Beckwith. I'm the founder and spiritual director of the Agape International Spiritual Center. I'm a man of the spirit. I wouldn't say I'm religious. I would say that I am spiritual. I assist people not based on memory or some particular school of psychology. I assist people based on the awareness that I can see the potential in individuals. I can see the sense of perfection that's there and then coax it out. I'm like an alarm clock that wakes people up to the potential and the possibilities of their own soul. Potential that doesn't have a shelf life. It's forever. It's real. Some people are just more interested in cultivating it. So this vast presence life, whatever you want to call it, it doesn't make special people. Everyone has the capacity, according to their uniqueness, to reveal the realm of having encounters with truth. The life visioning process is a technology by which you become open and receptive to the truth, that you're surrounded by a field of love, that there's gifts within you that don't have a shelf life that doesn't matter what you've done in the past, doesn't matter the mistakes you made, that you have something about you that doesn't have a shelf life. It never expires. And that through asking the right questions and coming to a certain state, you can ask for help. You can ask for this vision to be made known to you. You can ask for the guidance to walk in the direction of your vision. You can actually open yourself up to participate in your own transformation. So the time on the planet is not a time of a wasted incarnation where you're just caught up in whatever's popular in society at that particular moment, but you're actually being an instrument to bring something to the planet that the next generation will love if you sign up for this class. One thing I know for sure, as you begin to listen to the teachings and then go to the next step of actually practicing the teachings, there will be a coherence around. Let's call it your higher self. Let's call it your potential. Let's call it limitless. Good. There'll start to be a coherence around it that will pull you for the rest of this incarnation. You will come out of conformity in the world, and you'll have the courage to. To step into a whole new you. And you know what? You know you want it. You know you want this for yourself. You know you already know that there are parts of your existence that just don't bring you joy anymore. They don't. They don't do it. So you know there's something else waiting. You might as well say yes to yourself.
