Episodes
Tuesday Dec 13, 2016
Tuesday Dec 13, 2016
In this episode from 2011, from a mindset of one who has battled, wrestled, and sought to integrate the entire range of experiences from Deep God Communion to mental agony, Bryan draws from strong imagery and metaphor to describe not only what he went through, but he also tries to universalize brokenness, fragmentation, and what Toltec Master Don Miguel Ruiz calls “the mental disease of fear”, by putting it into a context of what a hurricane is like and how a “flood” of imagery erupting from the collective unconscious can create massive chaos, hallucinations, and other mental disturbances (“The Thousand Barking Dogs”). He reiterates, that psychological “noise” and disturbances of the psyche can be combated by identifying with the I Am Presence, that of which we are, within. Silence and stillness can be attained. Drawing on teachings of Ruiz and A Course in Miracles, he points out that only Love is real, and it is the wounds of fear, an “emotional poison” that influences other “venomous emotions”, all stemming from the imperial ego, that lead to mental unrest. Bryan shares personal stories and challenges with the various phenomenon mentioned above. He talks at length about how he integrated his shadow to gain new found awareness and to “exorcise” emotional demons through his art work. Bryan wants people to know that you can survive Dark Night of the Soul experiences that may take the form of mental illnesses and that you can recover from them with proper guidance and discernment. He shares poems that were later released as songs on the album “Fractured & Delivered”, where he had the chance to tell his story of recovery, discovery, and transcendence. More information on how to listen to or buy that album can be found at bryanrice.org.
Sunday Dec 11, 2016
Sunday Dec 11, 2016
Bryan continues in what was the prologue of the book “Silencing a Thousand Barking Dogs”, which inspired this series at the start of this episode. He talks some more about the focalized experiences that seemed to happen outside of him, but the shift in awareness was really taking place inside him. He references Eucharistic Adoration that was dear to him at the time, the experiencing of Pure Presence (Real Presence) in the Blessed Sacrament held in a monstrance on an altar. Bryan spent many hours and months in Adoration, and later came to realize that the Christ Presence on the altar that he seemed to “feel” was really an activation and a recognition of the inward Christ Presence within him. So, the outward Presence led him to a greater interior reality, and to experiences of “Light Transmissions” (later he wrote a book and set of audio recordings published and released by this very title - for more information go to bryanrice.org) and continuous “Holy Tears”. These tears or the primal joy was experienced through a yielding into the Divine Presence by bringing himself into intimate union through the celebrating of Mass (not the traditional understanding of Mass as a sacrifice, but nonetheless, the “Holy Meal”). He says that everyone can experience the type of joy he refers to in their own way through other means such as devotional forms like Bhakti Yoga, to name one.
Bryan then shifts to what it was like after his glimpse of Eternal Bliss, when he had to go back down into the world, so to speak, and ground himself. He mentions having withdrawn from the world before returning to it, spending a great deal of time sifting through all the emotions and information attained in a recluse-like manner, avoiding engaging in outward relationships for quite awhile. Bryan spent a lot of time in silence, expressing himself in bursts of what he later came to know as mania, as understood by worldly psychological systems that resulted in an outpouring of massive life-size puppetry, art work, the writing of poetry, books, screenplays, and music. But he later had to come to grips with the reality that his recluse state could not last. He admits to having had trouble finding the Divine Presence in ordinary life experiences involved with other human beings. He attributed his creativity to the awakening of Kundalini Desire Energy at the base of the astral spine in the “Inner Edenic-state of Fruitfulness”, which he will get more into in a later discourse. Bryan refers to teachings of one of his gurus Paramahansa Yogananda, a Christ-like Hindu who came to the west, when he said there was a purpose to Moses raising up the golden serpent in the wilderness to heal the Hebrew people who had been bitten by snakes. This biblical imagery is rich, Bryan says with esoteric symbolism and related to Kundalini Desire Energy in an outward symbol, a way the people could understand in their consciousness at that time in the evolution of awareness. Again, in a later discourse he will explain the meaning of the saying “The Son of Man must be raised up like Moses did the golden serpent in the wilderness” (ordinary human consciousness must be transcended into divine knowing or “Gnosis”).
Bryan tries to make listeners understand how someone who experiences a “Radiant” “Divine Experience” can come to be identified as neurotic, psychotic, even obsessive, and having mood swings and disturbances in personality, to further seem to manifest Schizoid-like/Schizophrenic-like and Bipolar like symptoms. Using references to activity in the chakras, imbalances in Kundalini energy, and citing what is commonly understood by mystics as “The Dark Night of the Soul”, Bryan attributes his “post-realization” experiences to this period of necessary humbling and even integrating and balancing within the astral and physical anatomy, the influx of spiritual energy he received.
Bryan said back in 2011 when this was originally recorded, that he is going to dedicate his life to teaching others to become enlightened. But he makes the point that attaining enlightenment is not “a quick fix bliss experience”, that there is more to it, that it is a process of “finding” and “losing” the treasure we try to protect (that of Divine Realization). Bryan says the purpose of his being swept away in the “Red Sea” like experience was one of death to his ego and learning to come to terms with all the negative, spiritual “life” threatening capabilities that stem from identifying with the ego.
Friday Dec 09, 2016
Friday Dec 09, 2016
EPISODE 7
This episode starts with the notion that Intentions behind rituals as well as the “Presence” brought to them, helps to create an interior experience free of ruminating thoughts. This is a continuation from the discourse in episode 6.
Bryan talks more about his “God Shock” experience and how it influenced him to answer callings to many spiritual roles. But he is able to admit that the callings he received are not to be defined by the various roles he plays. He talks about not taking self-definitions seriously and renounces the idea of specialness. He shares his perspective on how, he, like Jeshua (Jesus) had to face mirages in the desert wilderness of his mind and had to wrestle with his ego. Bryan says he was called to a path called “The Way”, not to an institution or a role.
He briefly mentions all the ways we crucify ourselves and divide our psyche. The shattered psyche, expressed many times through mental illness, is the experience of the crown of thorns. Then he says that a sick mind creates a sick body. The body has experiences, but is not the “experiencer”. He points to the “Witnessing Consciousness”. He believes like other spiritual teachers that everything is evolving back towards God. The way of suffering that Bryan has traveled has allowed him to become a healer. He says that religion is a means not an end and that he is on a path of inclusivity after his awakening to Love.
The “Way”, the path, is what original followers of Christ followed before the institution of state religion. This “Way” includes “Life” or “Abundance”, “Death” (to the false self), “Resurrection” of the True Self, or what Hindus call the “Atman”, then it culminates in “Ascension” or “Transcendence”, and then later into “Assumption” or what he calls “The Cosmic-Bliss- Principle”, known more traditionally as the many mansions of God. We are all called to this path in our lives. Jeshua (Jesus) as an enlightened, self-realized being, demonstrated that we can all walk this path and should. Many saints and mystics from all religions and spiritualities have went through all these stages in their lives.
The process of Ascension he says, is rising above thought (the barking dogs), rising above body consciousness (dog-like desires), rising above impulses (dog-like instincts), rising above chemical messages in the brain, and rising above all the physical manifestations that keep us matterward or in our egoic script and screenplay (maya and delusion). Heaven he says is experienced in the upper chakras of our astral anatomy. Our bodies experience internally, the Cosmic Bliss Principle. But we can experience a descent “hell” by solely identifying with the body.
Bryan wants people to recognize the darkness as well as the light. Not to be defined by our darkness, but to name it. He references the biblical image of the “Wheat and the Weeds” (Yang-Yin) and says they are within us. We are made of dark, light, and admixed energy and these all influence our perceptions of self, God, and creation and what we project and manifest.
Bryan ultimately admits that he had to stop priding himself on being “religious” and learn to just “Be”, meaning, “Be present as presence”. After his transfiguration-like experience he owned up to the fact that he will have to pay that forward and go back down the “mountain” back into the “valleys”, back into the world to serve, like the disciples of Jeshua (Jesus) were told to do after witnessing their master’s Transfiguration.
Bryan cautions people about the temptation to get stuck in the specialness (or inflation) felt after having a mystical experiences. He, though he resisted, had to go back into the world to “serve”. Bryan furthermore, is thankful for the gift of “Holy Tears” that he was given - the joy, that motivates him to help pull others out of fear into love, and ultimately out of afflictive emotions into uplifting emotions and states of being.
Ultimately, he sums up our purpose. It is to be aware, to be present, to know who we are, to know who we are in God, to allow God to live through us, and to see God in everyone else.
Monday Dec 05, 2016
Monday Dec 05, 2016
In part one of the talk “God Shock”, before talking about abnormal ritualistic behavior, habits, obsessions, and fixations that are a continuation of his analogies of the “Thousand Barking Dogs” we need to silence to have lasting peace and deep joy, Bryan takes some time to talk about his understanding of enlightenment and what is expected of us after having had peak experiences or gradations in Higher Awareness/Consciousness. He shares what was the most powerful experience and time in his life where he truly felt Transfigured in the light of the Divine Allness. The All-Encompassing Love, beauty, the wonder, and the awe he experienced through what A Course in Miracles would call “Revelation”, Gnostics would call “Gnosis” or Divine Realization, even God-Contact, the Buddhists would call “Satori” (flashes of Insight), what Christian Mystics would call Communion with God, and what great Yogis and many Hindus would call Samadhi (Bryan called his experience “Spontaneous Samadhi and the “Divine Portal” This experience “happened” to Bryan. He didn’t do anything to earn it through meritocracy. True Grace was freely given by the Divine and That Source blessed him with the experience of Love he had been searching for his entire life. He has spent almost fifteen years trying to contemplate and understand this “Influx” of Love and Light, but he humbly admits, that mystical experiences don’t last forever and that true Enlightenment is found by being truly present in the “Now”, without any fear. Mystical experiences are often times followed by a period known as “The Dark Night of the Soul”, which Bryan spends more time exploring how this personally affected his spiritual journey and shift in awareness.
Sunday Dec 04, 2016
Sunday Dec 04, 2016
Desire is a gift from the Divine, but when we think and act from our “dog-like” desires they try to and can exert a great deal of control over and destruction in our lives. He says that desire and passion can spread like wildfire when unharnessed or directed in a healthy, life-giving way. Bryan further talks about the relationship between love and desire. He highlights that we give away our life power when we direct all our energy toward outward things and people to fulfill our innermost desires.
Using the analogy of the behavior of dogs to talk about love, our heart’s desires, and emotionality and how there can be a see saw battle between how human love versus love for the Divine Presence is expressed Bryan taps into a topic that is relevant to all of humanity.
This episode presents the idea that desire can and should be seen in terms of gradations and dealing with desire is a balancing act. Desire-Energy (Fiery Intelligent Desire) or Kundalini (coiled) is housed in the base of the astral-metaphysical spine, and can lay dormant until activated. This energy is the evolutionary force in humanity that can he used for amazing things or could end, in what Bryan calls, “hellish macabre”. The activation of desire-energy, the kundalini, puts in motion our enormous potential and provides the "fruit" of our awakening.
Bryan argues that the primal separation from the Divine that occurred, that came from the desire known as the "Tiny Mad Idea", (as taught in A Course in Miracles) to be the "only God", to usurp the power and potential of God, driven by a hunger for "more", was a process of desire energy being projected and hurled outward. The split ego mind came about, he says through the force of duality (a desire to experience something other than the Edenic State of Oneness) that caused the Big Bang creating the world and manifest reality filled with myriad forms and mirages “appearing” to be real. This discourse elucidates the idea that all the forms that make up this world are a projection from our minds. The brilliant gift of desire driven intelligence planted in our hearts by the Divine Presence is the very force that causes us to be creators and want to express our God-Like potential. Our attempt to be “All that Is” fueled the dream we have come to know as the physical universe, world, and the life stories we script and play out through desires that come from the split ego-mind.
Join Bryan in exploring this daring discourse on the power and “psychological noise” of desire and how this creates enormous appetites to find satisfaction through the senses.
Sunday Dec 04, 2016
Sunday Dec 04, 2016
In this discourse (Episode 4), Bryan shares some of his music, the songs “Red Agony”, and “Fuel”, and “Desire Dipped in Kerosene” to illustrate the power of desire in our lives. Desire is a gift from the Divine, but when we think and act from our “dog-like” desires they try to and can exert a great deal of control over and destruction in our lives. He says that desire and passion can spread like wildfire when unharnessed or directed in a healthy, life-giving way. Bryan further talks about the relationship between love and desire. He highlights that we give away our life power when we direct all our energy toward outward things and people to fulfill our innermost desires.
Using the analogy of the behavior of dogs to talk about love, our heart’s desires, and emotionality and how there can be a see saw battle between how human love versus love for the Divine Presence is expressed Bryan taps into a topic that is relevant to all of humanity.
This episode presents the idea that desire can and should be seen in terms of gradations and dealing with desire is a balancing act. Desire-Energy (Fiery Intelligent Desire) or Kundalini (coiled) is housed in the base of the astral-metaphysical spine, and can lay dormant until activated. This energy is the evolutionary force in humanity that can he used for amazing things or could end, in what Bryan calls, “hellish macabre” if mishandled and abused.
Bryan argues that the primal separation that occurred from the Divine, was a process of desire energy being projected and hurled outward. The split ego mind came about, he says through the force of duality (a desire to experience something other than the Edenic State of Oneness) that caused the Big Bang creating the world and manifest reality filled with myriad forms and mirages “appearing” to be real. This discourse elucidates the idea that all the forms that make up this world are a projection from our minds. The brilliant gift of desire driven intelligence planted in our hearts by the Divine Presence is the very force that causes us to be creators and want to express our God-Like potential. Our attempt to be “All that Is” fueled the dream we have come to know as the physical universe, world, and the life stories we script and play out through desires that come from the split ego-mind.
Join Bryan in exploring this daring discourse on the power and “psychological noise” of desire.