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MARCH, 2009 TELECONFERENCE - LET'S BE LENSCRAFTERS!

~ lovingly presented by Bill Bauman ~

Remember the eyewear store called LensCrafters? It’s where we go to get just the right lens for our vision. Well, using this label as a metaphor for living, each of us has the privilege of crafting the exact right lens for ourselves—that is, creating and living the precise picture of life that reflects our soul’s wisdom.

Philosophically, psychologically and scientifically, we all know that we create our own reality—through our attitudes, mindsets, beliefs, etc. Soulfully, we know a lot more—that we all have a “calling” to find the exact picture or lens of life that reflects the world we came to interact with.

There are countless lenses through which we can see the world within and around us—for example, the lens of gratitude, the lens of beauty, the lens of love, the lens of duality, the lens of oneness, the lens of divinity, and many others. Each lens guarantees us a certain kind and quality of experience.

The best news, though, is that all of us have the privilege of choosing our own lens, not simply inheriting the lens of our parents or culture. Better yet, we’ve come to earth to do exactly that—find the lens that most reflects our soulful truth, then craft that lens (Get it? LensCrafter!) to its fine-tuned perfection. Are you ready to take that step into full responsibility for finding and crafting your unique, sacred lens?

Some years ago, as I was exploring the most perfect lens for myself, the one that jumped out at me from my soul’s reservoir of knowing was the lens of “perfection.” That is, the perception of the utter and absolute perfection of everything, every person, every moment and every circumstance in life. I decided to see life as God does: as perfect, wondrous and sublime, just as it is.

I’ve discovered the following ten qualities of this “perfection lens”:

1.     Nothing is wrong with anyone … or anything … or any circumstance.

2.     Nothing is as it seems on the surface. Everyone and everything has a deeper truth … and that truth is that perfection, beauty and magnificence are at their core.

3.    You and I are capable of the same divine perception as God’s—that is, we can see the beauty and awe of every moment.

4.     If we begin to find fault, we can easily shift our lens slightly, and invite ourselves to assume the innocence of the seeming offender.

5.    When someone wrongs us—or should I say, seems to wrong us?—we can behave externally toward the person in whatever way seems appropriate for the moment … and at the same time maintain our internal sense of total, deep respect for the person … even honoring that person and thanking him or her for playing that role in our lives.

6.    We can love ourselves thoroughly and unconditionally, just as God does. Specifically, we can give ourselves permission to find no fault, bear no ill will, and (above all) harbor no judgments in relation to the precious, adorable self that we are.

7.    As a next step, we can refuse to interpret any habit, behavior, trait, emotion or thought on our part as “wrong,” needing healing or needing to be changed.

8.    Rather, we can embrace that habit or trait as perfect … and simply assume that our cognitive grasp of its perfection simply hasn’t caught up yet with the bigger truth of its function in our being.

9.    Eventually, we begin to not only feel more divine—that is, like God—but our identity actually merges with that infinite source … and, as a result, we find ourselves caring for this precious human family just like God does.

10.    And ultimately, all we see anywhere is perfection, wonder, beauty and magnificence—as it’s manifest in all of life’s displays of creations: in every human being, in the wonder of nature, in the spinning of the planet, in the breathing of its air, in the cry of a child’s pain, or in the unknowable mystery of life.

I offer you this description for your consideration, just in case this lens—or one similar to it—might have your name on it. May you be blessed with the vision and lens that perfectly and beautifully reflects your wondrous self!

Thank you for being such a beautiful manifestation of life’s perfection. I love you!

Blessings to you!

FEBRUARY, 2009 TELECONFERENCE - MAKING LOVE WITH LIFE!

~ lovingly presented by Bill Bauman ~

The Greek playwright Sophocles once wrote: “One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” Yes, love has been the single, central phenomenon that has infused, given life to and sustained our human life from its creative inception. In short, we’re all ere on earth to love and be loved, from start to finish. We’re lovers—that’s the alpha and omega of life on earth.

If we look around us, we find love anywhere and everywhere we peer—it’s in the heavens, the earth, nature, human beings, the air, the unknown, everywhere. What’s more, it’s a love that’s active, alive, engaged. It’s loving and making love all the time—with us, with every creation we know, with everything imaginable. And, since we’ an intimate part of this amazing love, we’re also active, alive, engaged lovers, making love with life itself.

This teleconference is experiential, so please go on a journey with me to three special places where love is “happening” in and around you—so that, through this threefold journey, you can participate even more consciously in love’s act of ongoing love-making:

1. Our creative source. The divine is love and has created us in love, as love, as perfection, as beauty, as wonder. So, love is our nature, our inspiration, our very raison d’etre. If we listen closely, we can hear God Within whispering love messages into our inner ear—telling us how beautiful, loveable and magnificent we are. We can sense the invitation to participate more fullyh in that love, even to the point of loving back—making love to the divine and allowing the divine to make love to us.

2.   The air—or prana or chi, that we breathe. This precious atmospheric vibrational construct of love—which we call air—is importing love into us and exporting love out from us all the time. It’s helping love itself to enrich our lungs, giving new life to our waiting cells, and bathing our bodies in life’s precious embrace. Air is a lover, and we are the ones being loved … and we can return the act of loving at any moment.

3.   Our very own bodies. Our physical bodies love and adore us; they give their lives to support, honor and bring unending life to our lives. In short, they’re making delicious love to us endlessly, telling us how much they love us in so many tangible ways. They even invite us to love our bodies in return, magnifying their love even more and bringing our whole bodily experience into its fullest celebration of loving life.

The well-known Japanese researcher, Dr. Masaru Emoto, tells us that “To love yourself, to thank yourself and to respect yourself is to love and thank all of existence. When you do so, each of these vibrations will be sent out into the cosmos, and the great symphony of that harmonic vibration will enfold our planet with waves, such as those that cherish your heaven-granted life.”

In conclusion, allow yourself to experience love’s embrace—not necessarily in the air or in your body, but in whatever way Love Itself wants to show itself to you, or make love to you, right now. While you attune to love and experience its workings within you, these follow words—like affirmations—may remind you of some of love’s pure truth:

•    Love is all there is … there is truly nothing but love in this world

•    Love wants nothing, needs nothing, expects nothing, demands nothing—except itself, love itself

•    You and I embody love, breathe love, live love, and are love. We are love itself, pure and simple.

•    Love’s only role in life is to love … and, specifically, to love you

•    Love dances daily on your skin … echoes your deepest truth … encourages your forgetful mind … gives life to your tired body … and lives in perpetual adoration of your beauty

In conclusion, please enjoy this remarkable poem entitled Love Song, written recently by me:

Imagine love as music

And yourself as its favorite instrument

Picture love as an intimate tune a sweetheart song

Singing its devoted melody of love into your depths

Envision love playing its heart song soul song spirit song

On that perfect instrument of love

Called you

Love sings hums chants plays

On an elegant instrument of sheer delight

That fine-tuned perfectly polished instrument called you

Can you hear love’s elegance

Playing its tune and singing its song

In your cells your heart your mind

Through your nerve endings your blood stream

Your feelings your thoughts your self

Love is a song that must be sung

Must be heard must be sensed must be felt

It’s the irresistible song that sings in our heart

The compelling song of love of light

The magical song of joy of glee

The endless, soaring circling song of life

On an instrument that is one of elegant delight

If I were love playing my music singing my song

If I were love strumming the strings of your willing heart

I would sing my devotion into your veins

Play my zeal into your thoughts

Hum my adoration into your body

Intone my reverence into your emotion

Chant my joy into your feelings

And as I found you listening to my delicate tune

I would croon to you in my soulful melodious tone

About how beautiful you are

How divine you look

How perfect, wondrous magnificent loveable delightful you are

Yes I would love you love you love you without end

In a song of everlasting affection and adoration

You are the cherished instrument of love

And the irresistible song of life

That intones itself daily from your core

Yes, you are love itself

Infinite endless enlivening gracious luscious love

You are the sacred music of life

Sing then your soul’s song

Sing it into our waiting hearts

Into our pores through our bodies into our depths

Be the song the song of life

The song of love

Thank you for being such a beautiful manifestation of life’s love. I love you!

Blessings to you!

JANUARY, 2009 TELECONFERENCE - LET'S TAKE A FRESH LOOK AT LIFE!

~ lovingly presented by Bill Bauman ~

The French novelist Marcel Proust once wrote, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in discovering new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.” Please let your own eyes be refreshed and renewed as you read through the following vision of life.

We as human beings are not only present to life and self in the traditionally defined, limited and narrow ways we’ve come to believe. We live as a dynamic part of an interconnected, interwoven multiple universe; we are multi-dimensional beings. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

Every minute of our lives we are an active, intimate part of the universe’s vastness and can find our full identity in the beauty and wonder of the infinite. With our every breath we inhale the life-filled richness of the whole universe

I’d like to invite us a three-step journey into our all-ness, our vastness, our infinity:

1. See yourself as divine. Recall that everything that is God lives in and as us. Now, experience yourself as the divine—see the divinity and perfection of your body, your cells, your skin, your breath, your person, life itself. As the Buddha said, “When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.”

2.   Step now into the radiance of Light. Picture your perfect, divine self as filled with divine light—perennially present, ever ebullient, all radiant. Recall that, as a light being, your light is continually reaching out to touch and bless every person and circumstance within your awareness.

3.   Look now all around you—into the world in which children see seemingly imaginary friends … into the pure angelic realms … into the heart of the planet and universe, where we’re all one … into infinity itself where we share life’s pure essence. In the words of the Holographic Paradigm, “Everything interpenetrates everything, and although human nature may seek to categorize the universe, all of nature is ultimately a seamless web.”

At every moment we’re sparkling with the universe’s glorious light … we’re pulsing with the divine’s splendor … we’re celebrating life’s multitudinous creation … we’re experiencing life’s love pulsing in our heart … and we’re being absorbed into the delicious celebration of life that is happening all around us, deeply within us, and exuberantly through us.

Now for the best part: We can access and have the full experience of this expansive life and vast self simply by sitting in the midst of our personal or collective soul. The 19th century philosopher Novalis, wrote, “The seat of the soul is there, where the inner world and the outer world touch. Where they overlap, the soul is in every point of the overlap.”

So, if you’re feeling alone, down, small or afraid, please invite yourself into the amazing soul that lives everywhere in you … and just sit there for awhile:

•   long enough to hear its sweet tones, and the song of life itself

•   long enough to feel the touch of the divine tickling your insides

•   long enough to recognize the vast, expansive life that is dancing, singing and partying all around your inner pain

•   long enough to sense the love that is massaging your inner torture

•   long enough to feel connected with the God, the Light, the Grace and the Magnificence of life itself

•   long enough to find yourself … and in finding yourself, to find the all-ness of life that you are.

•   indeed, long enough to find comforting refuge and empowering strength in that ultimate life … long enough to be and feel filled with that life’s thrilling wonder … and long enough to be transformed into Life itself.

In conclusion, please enjoy this remarkable poem by the 14th century Muslim mystic Hafiz:

The sky is a suspended blue ocean.

The stars are the fish that swim.

The planets are the whales I sometimes hitch a ride on.

The sun and all light have forever fused themselves

Into my heart and upon my skin.

There is only one rule on this Wild Playground,

Every sign Hafiz has ever seen reads the same.

They all say:

“Have fun, my dear;

My dear, have fun

In the Beloved’s divine game.

O, in the Beloved’s divine game.

Thank you for being such a beautiful manifestation of infinity. I love you!

Blessings to you!

NOVEMBER, 2008 TELECONFERENCE - COMING HOME TO YOUR PERSONAL BEAUTY

Coming Home to Your Personal Beauty

You’re the Beholder … Here’s Your Eye!

~ lovingly presented by Bill Bauman ~

Martin Buxbaum once wrote that “Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty. They merely move it from their faces into their hearts.” This humorous commentary introduces us to a remarkably central truth of life: you are amazingly, wondrously, incredibly, endlessly, magnificently beautiful!

Do you really notice the beauty of life and of the divine that is in your face, your body, your mind, your emotion, your personality? How much does beauty itself occupy a central space in your daily awareness? In a poem I recently wrote entitled “Beauty,” I wrote these words about us humans:

Beauty showed me the human like I’d never seen it before

The joy the bliss the charm the grace

Of this awesome creation

Awoke the excited life waiting in every pore of my face

I saw at once the divine charm of this form

Its wonder its splendor in such glory adorned

To be human and think to be human and know

Is a joy and treasure that holds its own glow

To be human and love to be human and feel

Holds a blessing and power that still makes me reel

Beauty is everywhere, in and around us. You and I are beauty—in our bones, our organs, our bodies, our everything! Despite our judgments about our inadequacies and shortcomings, when we see them through the eyes of beauty, they are perfect. What an amazing opportunity we have: to be able to claim and own our beauty, to celebrate and enjoy our beauty, and to have beauty fill us daily with its gifts!

I’d like to offer us a four-step approach to becoming one with our beauty, to living fully in and as the beauty of life that is us:

1. Every time we notice ourselves evaluating some aspect of ourselves negatively—like, we are not good enough or beautiful enough—simply say the word BEAUTY. This one word will bring all of life to us in the form of exquisite beauty.

2.   Let this one word—BEAUTY!—fill your mind, your thoughts, your focus, your orientations, your perceptions, your experience, your emotions, your body. Simply be with the word—not necessarily repeating it over and over (unless that is naturally helpful to you), but just letting the word BEAUTY lead you, guide you and nurture you.

3.    Become even more involved and proactive in fostering your personal experience and celebration of beauty. For example, decide to give as much time seeing beauty as you do to healing your pain-related issues. So, if you spend one hour a week in psychotherapy, spend another hour in the week consciously seeing and experiencing your beauty.

4. Call yourself to beauty! Call yourself to see its presence … to notice its qualities … to perceive its loveliness… to connect with its engagingness … to experience its magnificence, align with its seductiveness … to feel its glory … to touch its divinity and be touched by its wonder … to have a deep, intimate experience of its soothing warmth … to bond with beauty’s all-present invitations … to become beauty itself!

In conclusion, I’d like to share my perception of you. Please feel free to let this description move gently through your awareness and inspire you to embrace the truth of your unending beauty:

1.   I see you as the most beautiful person you’ll ever meet … because the very life that you came here to experience and celebrate is fully present within the sacred person you are. You are the beauty of life.

2.   I see you as God … absolutely divine, sacred, infinite and wonder-filled—just like the very God or divinity that we have come to revere. Everything that is divine lives in you, loves in you, thrives in you—and that’s beautiful.

3.   I see you as the absolute embodiment of beauty itself. Whatever is beautiful outside of you is simply a reflection of the beauty of life that is you. What you marvel at on the outside is actually thriving and dynamically performing on the inner stage of the sacred person called you.

4.   I see you as life itself—filled with countless blessings, gifts and beauty … so fully filled with it that you have no choice but to celebrate ornate beauty.

5.   I see you as the most beautiful, radiant, alive, precious, wonder-filled and glorious creation! Beauty herself is so proud to call you her home … to bless you daily with her gifts … to live in your every cell, to radiate her bliss throughout your body … to express her vibrational joy through your emotions … to shine her electrical juices through every thought in your mind … to be the very you that is nothing short of beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Thank you for being such a beautiful manifestation of beauty. I love you!

Blessings to you!

OCTOBER, 2008 TELECONFERENCE - ... IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

We all know that beauty … and everything … is in the eye of the beholder. In its extreme, this phenomenon implies strongly that there is no “external reality” and that each one of us is the sole creator of what we call reality. We each create our own world, with our own inspired design—and it doesn’t look like anyone else’s world.

Each of us is in this world not to accept and live by the collective “reality” or world as we have been trained to see it, but literally to create our very own world … to fulfill our divine nature as creator, and to complete the plan of creation by continuing it in our own inspired way.

After all, as the Upanishads say it, “within each one of us lies a small shrine, in which can be found the heavens and the earth, the sun and stars—the whole universe dwells within our hearts.”

If I would picture you as you simply stopped believing what you perceived outside yourself, I would visualize you as truly free—free:

•    from feeling the burden and responsibility of the perceived world

•    from having to believe anything … anything at all

•    to simply be … in relation to nothing at all

•    to be a whole new style of presence here on earth

•    to create a world specifically attuned to and expressive of you

Could it be that the main reason you showed up here in this 3-dimensional plane is to bring your unlimited creative gifts … and create the world anew with those gifts … in your own image and likeness … and in this way keep God-ness alive?

To support you in this creation, I suggest six permissions that you can give yourself:

1.   First, give yourself permission to say “no” to the world that you see around you; take the bold step of refusing to believe what you see. (“Just say ‘no’!)

2.   Second, give yourself permission to say “yes” to your personal right to create your own world—completely. Own that you have a divine birthright and heritage that gives you the authority to create life as your soul-driven truth moves you.

3.   Third, give yourself permission to investigate your soulful depths, examine your heartful center, and search your innermost truth … and uncover anew the design for your new and exciting world that already lives deep within your core.

4.   Fourth, give yourself permission to launch your world—even if you don’t have the full picture of its design. That’s right, launch your world … put it into gear … activate its possibilities ... experiment with it … play with it … give it every possibility to take root and come into its fullness.

5.   Fifth, give yourself permission to enjoy your new creation. After all, you’re the creative God or Goddess of life … and one of the main purposes in creating anything is to love, enjoy and find delight in it. Take delight in the lusciousness, the boldness, the creativity, the wonder, the beauty, the perfection, the humor, the silliness and the potential of your world. It’s yours … it’s great!

6.   Finally, give yourself permission to love yourself. Remind yourself that you have an enormous privilege—the privilege to create the whole world according to your own divine design. And you wouldn’t have that wondrous privilege unless you deserved it and had already placed within you the capacity to pull it off perfectly. You deserve love, just as the divine deserves love.

Thank you for being such a beautiful manifestation of life … and divine creator of life. I love you!

Blessings to you!

SEPTEMBER, 2008 TELECONFERENCE - THE HUMAN MIRACLE

Breaking through the Conundrum of Being Human

~ lovingly presented by Bill Bauman ~

What is the “miracle” of being human? Briefly stated, it’s the fact that, simply by showing up and being present to any facet of life, we become it. Today’s talk invites us to show up to three aspects of the human condition in ways that invite us to experience this human miracle. Those three facets of our humanness are:

•    The four elements—earth, air, fire and water

•    Our energetic chakras—from the root chakra to the crown chakra

•    Our light field—the invisible, potential-filled space that we float in

When we show up to, let ourselves experience, and be fully present to any one (or all) of the above qualities of life, an amazing “something” happens: we experience them more fully and deeply … and then we ultimately become them.

For example, when we allow ourselves to focus deeply on the water element in our bodies, that water element shows up more in our awareness and become a more intimate partner in our lives. And, ultimately, we recognize that we actually are the water of life. Likewise, with fire energy—we eventually notice that we are the fire, the Sun, the passion of life.

Ultimately, we become not only one with all of life, we literally become life itself. At that point we have completed the traditional human path and take our place as life itself.

This approach is a mystical, deeply personal embrace of life’s possibilities. It’s a radical leap into the underlying treasure of being human … a privileged doorway through any one of life’s qualities to becoming every aspect of life itself.

Thank you for being such a beautiful manifestation of life. I love you!

Blessings to you!

AUGUST, 2008 TELECONFERENCE - WHAT LENSES ARE YOU LOOKING THROUGH?

Subtitle: Your Vision Can Make All the Difference

~ lovingly presented by Bill Bauman ~

The eyes, lenses or perspective through which we’re viewing life can make all the difference in what we see. We know, for example, that many people viewing the same event see entirely different things—because of the unique filters through which each one see the event.

What kinds of lenses are available to us? While there may be countless visions of life, I’d like to describe four important sets of eyes through which we see and explore our world:

• The lens of collective humanity: When seen through the eyes of our collective humanity, life looks quite real, very important, often serious, and very purposeful. While a beautiful picture and experience, we’re primed to see it through the eyes of a presumed problem or judgment.

• The lens of energy: These eyes show us a world of flow—as if on a giant dance floor where life is all about experiencing numerous dance steps … or as if life is music, with us having the privilege of learning to sing many songs.

• The lens of the right brain: This vision opens us to the poetic world of meaningful symbolism, where symbols express the powerful meaning of each of life’s creative moments. It can e fun playing in these symbols.

• The lens of the soul: Through the eyes of the soul we see the perfection, splendor and beauty of everything and everyone. Inner peace and celebration of every aspect of life characterize this experience.

What’s powerful about these four lenses is that, together, they form a unified, blended view and experience of the world that is complementary, mutually enhancing, and absolutely perfect. Not only are all four lenses available to us individually, but their blended vision is equally embedded in our human nature. We’ve got it all.

Invitation: So please feel invited to give yourself permission, every day, to apply each of these visions to your life … then let them merge together, and see what the look, feel and experience of life is for you.

May you find, own and live the lenses and vision that are natural to you! More importantly, may you find the fun, fulfillment and joy that such expansive living brings!

Blessings to you!

JULY, 2008 TELECONFERENCE - EUREKA! I'VE FOUND MYSELF!

Eureka! I've found Myself! - Complete Immersion in Your Real Self

~ lovingly presented by Bill Bauman ~

When we search for our “real self,” we’d do well to start with the biggest picture available. This morning I awoke with these three words calling for my attention: is-ness … all-ness … and oneness.

The core identity of some of us resides in the very is-ness, or essence of life—that quiet, peaceful center of non-active being, that infinite power behind the throne of all creation. If that’s our personal “home,” then we’d serve ourselves well by being loyal to its inspiration and wisdom.

The “real self” of others may be rooted in life’s all-ness—where we feel spacious, vast, free and expansive. If life’s bigger realms claim our fancy, we serve ourselves well by hanging out in its expansive, light-filled styles of expression.

Still others of you may find your realness in oneness—that unified space beyond individuality where we’re one with each other and life itself. In this set-up we honor our unified nature by being loyal to its perceptual and experiential invitations.

Still others find their realness in the three-dimensional phenomenon of love or creativity.

Whichever is your most real-feeling self, the important question is: Are you willing to say yes to its invitation … to own it as your nature … and to live in its gifts? Now could be a wonderful starting point for that adventure, if you want.

I suggest that you look at yourself through the all-knowing eyes of your soul. When I look at you through those eyes, I see:

•    God—the divine dressed in the Halloween costume of a human being

•    Everything—is-ness, all-ness, oneness, love … everything

•    Everyone—every human being, animal and planet, every expression of life

•    Love—the giant heart of life replicated in your personal heart

•    Wonder—splendor, beauty and magnificence itself

May you find, own and live life as the real, radiant, beautiful self that you are! More importantly, may you find the fun, fulfillment and joy that such living brings!

Blessings to you!

JUNE, 2008 TELECONFERENCE - BUDDHA, CHRIST, MAHATMA, AND YOU!

~ lovingly presented by Bill Bauman ~

Siddhartha Gautama, Jesus of Nazareth and Mohandas Gandhi share a common trait: all three have been given respectful nicknames. “The Buddha” means Awakened (or Enlightened) One, “Christ” means Anointed One, and “Mahatma” means Great Soul. Yet, you also share the same qualities that these great beings possessed.

While you may or may not want a label such as these spiritual leaders have, you deserve one. Why? Because, in short, you are divine. You’re created in God’s image and likeness … you posses the vastness of life within you … all creation lives in your being … life’s ultimate gift, love, is present throughout your person … and infinite essence is at your core and center.

Yet, the important question is not, “What is your sacred name?” Rather, the question for each of us is, “How much or deeply are we celebrating the sacredness of life, the divinity of self and the wonder of existence that lives within and as us?” You in fact embody life’s wonder, elegance, beauty, grandeur and magnificence. My invitation to you is that you let yourself know it more deeply, embrace it more fully, and surrender into it more totally.

Let us gather together now in a sacred space, where all life lives as one and where our divine nature simply takes over. In this space of being and blessing, the miracle of life can enter fully into us, breathe us, live us and embody us.

I offer you a final blessing, prayer and song:

May the Buddha of life awaken within you the awareness of your own luminous light!

May the Christ within you anoint you to fully participate in your divine heritage!

May the Mahatma of your core lead you to the greatness that lives within you!

May the Confucius of your mind initiate you into the full master-hood of your life!

May the Krishna of your soul remind you always of your immanent divine nature!

May the Abraham of your being bring alive within you the power of life that you share!

May the Lao-tzu of your inner knowing help you find the Way, the Truth and the Life!

May the Mohammad of your heart move you to a deep and soulful surrender into all life!

May the Yogananda of your nature inspire you to the purity and perfection of your person!

May the Babaji of life’s simplicity stir within you the simple presence of the divine!

May the Maharishi of your self spread the truth of you throughout your consciousness!

May the Moses of your depths lead you to the Promised Land of your awesome Self!

May the Ramana Maharshi of your essence inspire within you the fullest peace possible!

May the Pakal Votan of the Mayan tradition and of your ancient self rekindle within you your timelessness and wonder!

May the god or gods of all traditions, the essence of whom lives in you, create you anew on this sacred day and lead you to your created beauty!

May the sacred that is alive everywhere and in your core fill your body, awaken your energy, and inspire your spirit like never before!

May the divine, in its essence and in all its forms, find no distinction between itself and you! … and

May the you, who are equally divine and sacred as all those above, bless you, sing to you, and celebrate yourself anew, on this and every sacred day!

MAY, 2008 TELECONFERENCE - YOUR VAST SELF

When we ask ourselves how big or vast we feel, we often find that we are hosting a small self-concept, that we feel set adrift, cut off from our source and power. In truth, it’s the subtle ways that we feel small that often contribute to the problems we may have here on earth.

I’d like to share with you my vision of you—I mean, the real truth of who you are. I see you, first and foremost, as a vast spirit—a sacred person and unique being created in the divine image, carrying divine essence in your core, and radiating infinite light in and through you.

That essence allows you to find the central truth of every situation, see its perfection, and feel total peace. That light opens you to a multi-dimensional life that includes the following worlds and styles of creation:

•    The conscious dimension: where the focus is on how each of us individually creates our lives, through conscious decision-making, purposeful actions and focused awareness.

•    The subconscious dimension: where the world is experienced as a dream-like fantasy and fun myth, and where creation happens with the tools of symbols and meaningful rituals; here we play with life as a make-believe world of “what-if’s.”

•    The unconscious dimension: where our individuality gives way to our collectivity; here, humanity steers its course as a unified entity, and all life moves and breathes us in a mystery-clad creative adventure.

•    The superconscious dimension: where we sit above the forest of life, seeing the bigger picture, “getting” the real truth, and being at peace with whatever is. Here, we’re in the eye of every storm and celebrate the perfection of every circumstance.

The really good news is that you and I are created as vast, multidimensional beings who can navigate our way in and through all these worlds of creation, live in the gifts and unique blessings of each of them, and find our fulfillment in this expansive identity.

The invitation in this talk, then, is to say yes to your interdimensional, unlimited self ... to let go into the mysteries and magic of the many worlds of aliveness and creation that surround you ... and to lie more and more in the vastness of your created nature.

I close with the following prayer/blessing:

   May the many riches of life invite you into their treasure chest of possibilities!

   May your vast self find its sacred wings and soar into all of life’s exciting dimensions!

   May your limitless nature guide you strongly to sample life’s unending bounty!

   May you find yourself, not only in life’s small spaces, but equally in its expansive moments and vast worlds!

   May life, in all its beauty and splendor, make itself known to your heart and make itself alive within your soul!

   May you ever walk this earth with solid feet, uplifted heart, expansive mind, and soaring soul! ... and

   May you enjoy the beautiful life that lives in this moment beneath your radar, and discover the realms of yet un-tasted gifts that call you ... call you .. call you ... endlessly!

APRIL, 2008 TELECONFERENCE - WHAT'S THE INVITATION?

So often we face situations that are baffling, confusing or unwanted. Yet, in every one of them, there’s a special, perhaps unique invitation. Our focus today is the important question: What’s the invitation in these situations, events and circumstances that enter our lives?

In fact, every moment in life is an invitation! Our soulful self is always inviting us to fuller life, richer growth, dynamic expansion and further awakening. We’re programmed to look at these circumstances through the eyes of our judgments (“This isn’t good.”) and desires (“I don’t like this.”), but we can also view them through the eyes of our wise and knowing soul. Here, we discover that every circumstance carries a special plan, divine design and sacred invitation.

I’d like to invite us to two approaches that can help us enormously in grasping the invitation of any circumstance: openness and ownership.

To help ourselves be open to the invitation, we might try simply sitting in the middle of our soulful center and uttering the words: “I am open and receptive to the truth and wisdom of this moment.” Also, it can be most helpful to own that I am an intimate part of the creation of every circumstance in my life. So, to assert that “Nothing is ever done to me” and “I co-create every element of my life, even if it doesn’t feel at all good” can prepare me to meet and grasp the deeper invitations with clarity.

I now invite you to two profound invitations—present in every situation in which you find yourself. Side by side with the obvious invitations, your soul is always inviting you to:

• become the very creative power that brought forth each circumstance; in short, you are the very power of all creation.

• love every part of the circumstance; feel the love in the mystery; find the love that carries the gift.

I close with the following prayer and blessing for you:

May you always be blessed with events whose beauty you can see!

May the circumstances of your life bring you the power and love you deserve!

May your life know firsthand the gift that each moment offers you!

May you always treasure each creation as a loving kiss of nature!

May each moment invite you into yourself more fully and wondrously!

May every condition of life bring you the peace that already lives in your core!

May the divine source ever support your receptivity to its sublime invitations!

May all the invitations of your life add up to one grand explosion of love—forever!

MARCH, 2008 TELECONFERENCE - BEING IN RELATIONSHIP - "...IS A PUZZLEMENT!'

lovingly presented by Bill Bauman ~

Just as the King of Siam (in The King and I) expressed a bewildered “Is a puzzlement!” in relation to feelings of love, so do many of us about this thing called relationships.

The truth is that we are in relationship with something, every moment of every day—our alarm clock, clothes, schedule, projects, thoughts, friends, etc. Everything here on earth is about intimate, bonded relationships. Everywhere we turn, we’re connected intimately to something or someone.

The underlying reason for this phenomenon is, of course, because at the core we are all one … and human relatedness reminds us of our shared unity.

So, if you feel inclined, ask yourself questions such as: What is my relationship with the air that I’m breathing right now … or with money … or with my morning’s alarm clock … or your body … or this very moment?

An important question is this: What is your natural style for being in relationship. For me (Bill), for example, while I started my life being in a fearful relationship with almost every aspect of life, I evolved to discover that my natural style is to be in a loving, peaceful, oneness-based and fun relationship with everything around me. What kind of relationships does your nature call you to?

In this talk I invited each person to a relationship experience. Feel free to join that experience while reading this, if you wish. The experience is this:

•    Call to your inner self a person or aspect of life that you want to experience a private and personal “moment” with;

•    Instead of trying to take charge, just let whatever happens happen;

•    Observe and notice how the person or aspect takes charge; let that develop or evolve as it will;

•    Allow yourself to merge and unify with that person or aspect, then ask yourself: How does that feel to me?

Today’s talk concluded with a statement of fact and an invitation:

•    You and I are in relationship with everything—one that is interactive and interdependent;

•    In each relationship you play a special role; you come alive and bring others alive; you complete and are completed by those around you;

•    You and I are one; you are me and I am you; this allows the magic of life to happen naturally and organically;

•    Embrace your relationship with everything … embrace the strong role that you play in each moment … embrace the wonder of creation that happens simply because you are consciously, willingly, creativlely and powerfully in relationship.

FEBRUARY, 2008 TELECONFERENCE: SOUL- YOUR PERSONAL PORTAL TO THE SOURCE!

lovingly presented by Bill Bauman

In our CSL handout entitled “The Soul Is …” I’ve described soul as “our endless source of nurturing,” “a wellspring of inner peace,” and as where “we feel the divine living, resting and loving within us.” The German word, Quelle, translated in English as Source, describes beautifully the “Elohim” or sourceful quality of the divine. Our further human evolution of consciousness has brought us even more to the experience of that Source not just as alive “out there,” but in the inner fabric of our human selves.

Soul—your soul and mine—is our personal portal to this amazing infinite source. Soul—or anima in Latin and Italian—is our precious human word that describes the Spirit-filled wonder of Life—a presence that can lead us personally to our Source.

This month’s talk takes us on a journey—through soul into Source. As guiding words to this journey, the following words were spoken:

•    Your soul is where this awesome Source lies and rests, waiting for you to reach out and find it, touch it, embrace it, and taste it

•    Your soul is the birth canal or black hole through which all Life is accessible … the womb or nest in which Source is waiting for you, now

•    Source is where we find inner peace … where there’s no drama, no right and wrong, no fault-finding … where there’s nothing to do except to be

•    Source is our home, our roots, our alpha and omega

•    Source is where we awaken to our total oneness with all Life

•    Finally, Source is you, and you are Source. It’s who we are!

Once we accept our complete unity with and identity in Source, our lives change dramatically:

•    Our perception starts noticing things we’ve never seen before

•    We notice perfection where we thought there was problem

•    We start seeing everything through the eyes of the divine

•    We uncover and discover God everywhere, in every circumstance

Today’s talk concluded with a personal story—about you (and us, and me):

•    At your human birth, you forgot your Source. You felt separate and alone, so you tried to be a good human being

•    After awhile you started searching for your Source. First, you found it “out there,” then later discovered it more intimately within yourself

•    Yet you kept searching. Finally—right about now—you discovered that Source was not only within you, it was and is you. You owned it fully, became and lived it fully, and (of course!) “lived happily ever after.”

Finally, I ask that allow yourself to receive the double gift of permission and authority—to own your nature as Source, to live as Source, to be Source in every action and interaction, to be you—powerfully, unabashedly and fully.

JANUARY, 2008 TELECONFERENCE: MIRACLES! HOW THEY HAPPEN AND WHAT THEY MEAN!

Miracles are an amazing, welcome breath of fresh air in our human world. The words of this talk are background music to a deeper invitation to invite a miracle. So, even if you’re just reading this summary, please let yourself be swept up into that giant invitation.

Through a personal story about Donna and me, I invite you into two sides of how miracles happen:

•    On the human side, we (a) open ourselves to receive … then (b) we let go and let God … (c) simply trusting that perfection will happen at the right moment. Also, we invite ourselves to know that a seeming non-response may be an invitation to regroup and look at our situation from a different angle.

•    On the infinite side, Life creates miracles simply by being itself … not by trying, thought, decision-making or effort, but rather by unlimited divine grace, love and inspiration.

We find three powerful implications in this two-sided phenomenon of miracles:

•    We are Life itself, not just its creation;

•    Miracles happen not primarily through our human minds, but through uniting ourselves with the Mystery, Majesty and Miraculous-ness of Life;

•    The more we let go into this miracle-creating Mystery, the more we notice three phenomena: (a) that many miraculous creations magically appear; (b) that each and every creation is perfect (Really!); and (c) how each miracle creates us anew and forms us into the person of our destiny.

So, let’s invite a miracle right now. To do so, please take the following journey with me:

•    Invite the miracle, even if you don’t know what you need;

•    Let go of all desire for and attachment to the outcome;

•    Open yourself to be totally one with All Life; let go into its unfathomable Mystery;

•    From that central womb of Life, watch yourself become the “Eternal Now” … and watch how you magically become the miracle itself;

•    Celebrate all life everywhere. And, without your even noticing it, the miracle is here!

Thank you for being such a miraculous expression of Life! You are beautiful, precious and wondrous!

NOVEMBER, 2007 TELECONFERENCE: THE VIEW FROM ABOVE THE FOREST

I’d like to share with you my own view of what life looks like from my cute little perch over life’s forest. To make this description meaningful, though, I first will share with you two events from my life:

➢    About 20 years ago, I had a mystical experience that resulted in my human identity leaving me, and “Life,” in both its all-ness and its oneness, entering into and becoming me;

➢    About ten years ago, I was taken over by Life’s Essence, resulting in my being able to perceive everything in its essential and pure truth.

So, from that time on, my view of life has taken on a fourfold look:

➢    Everything around us is a giant unified, whole, integrated phenomenon. In contrast to our dualistic focus on separateness and differences, life sees itself as a synchronous, blended chorus of creative expression.

        •    Expressing from this oneness is the wonder of creation: Life everywhere is one huge creative act; everything is a creative moment; and creativity lives in every fiber of existence.

➢    Life looks more and more like an illusion, a make-believe scenario, a dream world. This view allows us to feel free to play in the dream, have fun, and take nothing seriously.

➢    The view from the perch above the forest allows us to see that “There’s nothing to do” … simply because there’s nothing wrong, missing or lacking in the first place.

➢    We now can see that God sees only our beauty, celebrates only our perfection, and delights only in our magnificence.

In conclusion, Life is truly us, and we are truly Life—it’s that simple. Our invitation in this talk is simple: to let go into Life, allowing it to subsume us into its wonder, mystery and magnificence … and bringing us into our fullness.

OCTOBER, 2007 TELECONFERENCE: LIFE! ... AS SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF THE SOUL

The question, “What is Life?” has puzzled us for millennia and has produced thousands of answers and interpretations.

Aboriginal peoples, for example, have seen life as a complex, interactive series of relationships—between God and man, nature and animals, etc. Modern science, in turn, views life as an unending display of universes and dimensions, all influenced by a grand intelligence called the zero point field. Religions and philosophers offer us even different cosmologies and worldviews in response to the nature of life.

In this talk I’m offering you a more mystical view of life, one viewed through the lenses of the soul. From this viewpoint, two truths about life leap out for our consideration and jump into the field of our awareness:

1.    Life is a mystery … a wondrous, inexplicable, amazing mystery.

As mystery, life is filled with unpredictable surprises, unexpected treasures, and endless creations. Everything is possible.

What a privilege it is to live in this unknowable Mystery. It invites us to let go into its loving embrace, to say yes to its invitation to invite it fully into our conscious awareness and experience.

2. You are not separate from life itself … in fact, you area life itself!

Rather than being “just” a human being—implying a sense of separation from life and God—we live in the bigger dimensions of life. Despite all appearances of separation and duality, we are life itself.

As Ervin Lazlo, the famous scientist, has written, “Our separateness is an illusion; we are interconnected parts of the whole ….”

Similarly, John Hagelin, the well known scientist and presidential hopeful, has written, “I discovered for myself that human intelligence, at its core foundation, is universal intelligence, and at that level, you and I and everything in the universe are one.”

Rumi wrote, "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense."

Fra Angelica, a sixteenth century mystic, wrote this in the year 1513:

“Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven in love by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brought it to you.”

My invitation to each of us this month is:

➢    To let go into the mystery of life, releasing any need for safety or fear of leaping … and simply invite life, in the magical creative potential of its mystery, to take over your life

➢    To open yourself to identify with life, to become life, to view everything through the eyes of life … and, especially, to see yourself as life sees you: beautiful, precious, deserving and wondrous!

SEPTEMBER, 2007 TELECONFERENCE: WHAT'S IN YOUR PERCEPTION?

In contrast to the Capital One Credit Card’s question, “What’s in your wallet?” we face each day with myriad possibilities for experiencing life. The way we experience it depends a lot on how we perceive ourselves and what’s around us. Thus, we might well ask ourselves, not “What’s in my wallet?” but: “What’s in my perception?”

What we perceive is often based not on an external or objective reality, but on our sense of the meaning and purpose of life. For example, if I believe that love is what makes the world go round, then I’m going to perceive most things and people through the lenses of love.

What is “out there” waiting to be noticed by you? Without a doubt, a gazillion possible possibilities are within and around us awaiting our perception and engagement. Yet, most of us will perceive only what we’re pre-designed to notice, and in the way we’re specially engineered to notice them. For example:

➢    If we’re created as loving, with a natural penchant to see love in everything, then love is exactly what we’ll notice, no matter what the external circumstances are.

➢    If we’re created by God to notice and perceive wonder, then we’ll witness the magic of life and feel a sense of awe in relation to everything we see.

➢    If our created style is one of inner peace, we’ll naturally find the deepest spiritual meaning of an event and uncover each person’s inner beauty in our perception.

So, the burning and most important question is this: What is your natural, created, God-given style of perceiving, viewing, noticing and relating to life?

Since there’s no external reality other than what our perception creates, our primary responsibility is to “know thyself,” discover our created style of perceiving, then dedicate ourselves to implementing that unique style. Thereby do we create our own happiness and contribute our gifts to the world.

In closing, Bill offers you the following blessing:

➢    May your God-given perceptions of life always enhance you!

➢    May your innate ways of viewing of your circumstances ever fulfill you!

➢    May your natural style of noticing what’s around and within you complete you!

➢    May your inherent manner of seeing yourself and the world empower you!

➢    May your authentic way of being offer you the very gifts that life wants to give you!

➢    May God bless you fully and perfectly through your inherently created nature!

➢    May the divine perception become your perception in exactly the ways God intended!

➢    May the utter beauty of life be fully seen by you, in just the way that it is your destiny!

➢    May your perfection be reflected back to you in everything you see and experience!

➢    May your owning of your divine nature move others to see and claim their perfection!

August, 2007 Teleconference: Judging and Judgments

Judging and Judgments: It’s an Amazing World!

Judging is such a big part of our human experience. By making judgments - even ones as simple as “Isn’t this weather terrible?” - we have a style of communicating, even bonding, meaningfully with others. Also, in judging ourselves and others, we can feel like “regular folk,” “one of the crowd” of the human family. In short, we belong.

Yet, the great Sufi mystic Rumi gave us these words: “There’s a field beyond right and wrong. I’ll meet you there.” This wise insight shows us that judging can easily lock us into small perceptions, limitation, conflict and pain.

So, let’s look at life’s learned tendency to judge through the wise eyes of the soul. The soul gives us three wise insights about this phenomenon called judgment:

➢    There is no implicit judgment in our dualistic human experience

➢    It’s only our value judgments about this dualistic experience that make it look good or bad, right or wrong

➢    We have, built into our human nature, a remarkable capacity to remember how to be in our world without this learned value judgment.

These insights invite us to live soulfully, simply and peacefully, without judgment’s learned trappings and beyond our treasured values’ limitations. To help us, these thoughts are worth sitting with:

➢    A great place to start is at home—to stop judging ourselves

➢    Ask yourself how ready you are to take the leap beyond your own values and value system

➢    For ultimate freedom, you might want to consider letting go of positive judgments as well as negative ones.

We ended the talk with a fourfold personal experience:

➢    Open yourself, right now, to just being

➢    Watch … simply watch your old judgments fall away and dissolve

➢    Allow yourself simply to dissolve … to merge with bigger Life

➢    Turn everything over to Life … and just rest in the simplicity of being.

July, 2007 Teleconference: Finding Our Power

In our July 2007 teleconference, the theme was “Finding Our Power.”

Bill Bauman, our talk-meister, made the point that:

•    Power is everywhere—in our bodies, minds and souls … in the air we breathe … and in all of life

•    Power is inseparable from life

•    Power is indeed life itself; life is power

To discover how to find and access life’s amazing power, it’s helpful if we:

-    Move beyond any limited linear thinking

- Stop trying, efforting, asking, intending, believing or wanting

-    Open ourselves to the mystery and empty spaces of life—it’s here where power is waiting for us

-    Let power find us (rather than the reverse) … fill us … become us

- Expand our sense of self … and experience ourselves as power, as life

In conclusion, we all were invited to:

•    Say to ourselves: “I am life … I am its power … I am power!”

•    Whisper to ourselves: “Power is my body … my emotions … my thoughts … my energy … my soul … my everything. I am power!”

•    Listen quietly for the voice of power as it whispers its truth and deposits its gifts in our presence

Bill closed with a “Power Prayer and Blessing” that he composed for us:

-    May the power of life always be on the front burner of your consciousness!

-    May its charm and allure always magnetize your energy!

-    May its mystery and awe always speak to your sense of wonder!

-    May its power to create always be felt in your heart!

-    May its capacity to transform always be available to your depths!

-    May its gift of inviting us all into its magical realms always live in your knowing!

- May its simple truth always find a warm place in your soul!

-    May your body always enjoy its life-creating gifts!

-    May you, in the utter bigness of the Self that you are, always taste power’s sweet nourishment!

-    May power—in all its splendor and magnitude—find its home always in you!

-    May you always find power under your nose, before your eyes, and in your heart!

June, 2007 Teleconference: Finding Your Personal Fit

We all need to know where we fit into the grand scheme of life. For most of us, the answer to where we fit best comes to life from the answer to a more fundamental question: Who am I?

You are one of a kind, created unique, with your own design. Thus, you don’t necessarily fit where anyone else fits.

For me, Bill, I struggled for decades with this question. I discovered, in bits and pieces that I definitely didn’t fit in any external system -- philosophically, religiously, culturally, or even spiritually. However, I discovered that I did fit somewhere -- I gradually found my roots in the cosmos, with the divine, as an intimate part of life, in oneness with the interdimensional all-ness, in essence.

Where do you fit? What are you plugged into? Where do you find your source? What special place do you occupy in the universe? Where do you feel most real, most authentic?

You do fit, and in the most perfect way possible. What’s more, you fit in a way that completes and perfects the rest of us. Finally, you deserve to live each day in your perfect fit.