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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.