Episodes
Tuesday Sep 22, 2020
Tuesday Sep 22, 2020
This episode of Turning Points and Transformations was a discourse and a sharing of insights inspired by a Course Bryan took called "910: Living in the World While Waking Up". He covered talked about the function of time as our ego's like to use it, how the past can imprison and condition us, he suggests ways to release the past, and to become more awakened to the Presence of Love in the Now, thus writing for ourselves a better future. He drew from a variety of resources and spiritual teachers to compliment some of his insights gained through life's struggles and personal victories. Love's Presence in the Now is how to have sacred communion and union with the Divine.
Thursday May 17, 2018
TURNING POINTS AND TRANSFORMATIONS - THE EVOLUTION OF GRACE
Thursday May 17, 2018
Thursday May 17, 2018
Explore with Bryan Rice, the ideas surrounding grace and evolution of consciousness and how important it is to try and maintain grace in seemingly disastrous and unpleasant experiences. It is all a matter of perspective and about changing your perception on how you view what to one person may seem to be unfavorable and challenging, but to another with a transformed perception, one can see such circumstances as opportunities for grace to flow into one’s life and raise one’s awareness to Higher Consciousness.
Check out all Bryan's published books and music at bryanrice.org. The songs you here on this program are written and sung by Bryan.
Tuesday May 15, 2018
TURNING POINTS AND TRANSFORMATIONS - CONSCIOUS HEALING
Tuesday May 15, 2018
Tuesday May 15, 2018
In this updated, edited, and enhanced episode with new material added to it, Conscious Healing takes aim at the both the cause of and healing of sickness or illness. Drawing from A Course In Miracles in the 2018 material and then Kundalini Yoga in the 2013 latter part of this episode, Bryan presents ways one can heal the mind and body through a change in perception or way of looking at one’s life. The ugliness of guilt and sorrow create pain and the seeds for illness. Forgiveness is the means for healing what is fractured in our minds so that we may return to Wholeness and Oneness. We are not victims of the world nor outside forces, but can be empowered to heal by seeing innocence first in one’s self and then in others.
Saturday Sep 30, 2017
Saturday Sep 30, 2017
In this second discourse on brain anatomy and duality, Bryan introduces a spiritual doctor named Daniel G. Amen. A clinical and neural scientist, a child and adolescent Psychiatrist and Medical Director of the Amen Clinic for Behavioral Medicine. A recipient of many awards, he is an expert on the relationship between the brain and behavior. and he is the author of several books. In this episode Bryan will share what he has learned from Dr. Amen in his book “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsession, Anger, and Impulsiveness” about interventions to take with respect to improving and maintaining optimal brain functioning, the climate of our thoughts, the climate of our feelings, the climate of sense regulation, the supervision of all the things that happen in the brain, all those thousand barking dogs we deal with on a daily basis. The essence of the book says that we are not stuck with the brain we are born with. Bryan says this is a good thing because the brain helps to create the reality, all the situations and encounters that we draw to us, what we come to know while in a body. It is important to note that the brain can turn on us and we don’t need to be mentally disturbed or deranged to know that. There is now medical and scientific proof that under activity or over activity in certain parts of the brain can create “afflictive barking dogs” we come to wrestle with, whether harmful, fearful, avoidant, aggressive, or impulsive in nature. Dr. Amen’s research in brain imaging has led to more effective treatment of mental disorders, allowing people to become much higher functioning.
Dr. Amen is noted for showing how your brain, or the “hardware of the soul”, can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Bryan says we need to learn to shake hands with the devil and realize that the devil has the face of our own self, rather the self-projected images of the brain, not just the overall mind that contains the brain within it. Bryan compares the journey into facing our worst “enemy” as the descent into hell where we realize that what we consider to be our enemy, is really our best friend.
Monday Jun 05, 2017
Monday Jun 05, 2017
In this 2011 discourse and episode, Bryan shares from his research-driven book Silencing A Thousand Barking Dogs the topic related to optimal brain functioning or abnormal brain functioning as it relates to the developed and evolved or underdeveloped and non-evolved brain anatomy. He talks about how duality can occur in the brain and how “ghosts” or “influences” from our days spent in the womb and nursery years can impact brain development for good or for ill.
He begins by saying that the pre-frontal lobes play an enormous role in our biology of Transcendence and in the unfolding of the “blueprint” of the Spirit. Without the frontal lobes, we would not be able to control and keep in check the emotional limbic system, nor the reactive reptilian hindbrain. I an earlier discourse, Bryan mentioned the Orbital Frontal Loop are neural connections that are associated with the pre-frontal lobes and the third eye (Christ Eye) mentioning that it is this fourth brain in the five-fold brain system that is the last to develop and typically, in the context of the developmental life span, it is in late adolescence that this part of our brain system begins to form those very connections he mentions. It is worth noting that some children are born with larger pre-frontal lobes, while others have larger hindbrains. This is according to Joseph Chilton Pearce’s research.
What attributes to this? Conditions in the womb. An expected mother exposed to excessive fear, anxiety, emotional turbulence, and violence - conditions that would be detrimental to the climate of her nervous system. Such conditions could negatively impact pre-frontal lobe development and conversely might cause the hindbrain of the forming fetus to receive greater, but not better attention, and this may cause abnormalities in its frontal lobes. A negative consequence of such a happening is a child may be more prone to violent behavior. A fetus can live in a “pre-natal garden” or a “hostile jungle”. It is who the mother surrounds herself by and what environmental conditions she lives in that determines the intelligence of the future child.
Post birth experiences of either proper or a lack of bonding between the parents and children affect brain formation too and effects the overall blue print of when and if certain stages of myelination or the formation of neural connections occur on time or at all. Violent behavior and mental illness can occur because of a lack of bonding.
Bryan speaks of personal experiences which he calls “Refrigerator Love”, lack of affection in his youth, and believes his lack of bonding led to abnormal brain development and problems with attachment and in relationships with the opposite sex. He speaks of how he has overcome the deficits and mentions that many interventions to be shared in later episodes aid in the process of rewiring the brain for living a more enlightened life. By recognizing triggers and dis-identifying with oppressive thoughts and living a yogic lifestyle, Bryan has been able to transcend pain, mood instability, mental suffering, and arrested emotional development. In later discourses Bryan draws on medical research of people like Gerald May and Daniel Amen, MD to further explore brain disorders and how and why they occur.
Bryan shares how some of his spiritual emergencies and crisis experiences, which he characterizes as a descent into hell or being submerged in the subconscious led him into feelings of lack and scarcity. He makes mention of the power of words and thoughts as vibratory forces. Bryan does talk about his relationship with lack as it relates to “slowed” and “incoherent” states, negatively affected by brain imbalances. He touches on mania, depression, “affective disorder dogs”, mentions again schizophrenic disorders, anxiety disorders, the barking dogs of unwanted, persistent thoughts, his own past boughts with scrupulosity, obsessive fixations, hyper-religiosity, delusions of grandeur as he may have experienced them as the “brain anatomy of duality” in the context of Gerald May’s research. Moods are a mental nuisance. A barking dog. A thorn from a crown of thorns. Sometimes all the meditation and austerities in the world do not bring relief from affliction, Bryan says at one point. It is in those times we must weep with those who weep.
There are active ways to manage our thoughts. Whether in thoughtlessness or breathlessness, for instance. This is the goal of this series. To become free from bondage to our thoughts. Bryan doesn’t refute the value of taking medication while living a holistic, spiritual, yogic, and meditative lifestyle. He wants people to embrace a fusion of science and spirituality.
From a spiritual perspective, Bryan argues that the ego is insane, deluded, keeps us in bondage to maya (delusion), illusion, self-concepts, and negative self-concepts, all barking dogs that just won’t “shut up”. Guilt is hell, he says. Guilt is of the ego. A result of unconscious guilt we all have from the primal rejection of God.
Bryan gives credit where credit is due. He expresses gratitude for his experiences of grace.
He doesn’t want people to misunderstand the use of mantra and prayers and how they can help release negative energy such as anxiety. May says the intent behind prayer is to facilitate depth of awareness. Yoga for, Bryan releases anxiety.
In a later discourse, Bryan will talk about how meditation heals and talk more about recent brain research from Daniel Amen, MD.
Sunday Jun 04, 2017
Sunday Jun 04, 2017
In this 2011 discourse Bryan draws on research from Joseph Chilton Pearce on the five-fold brain system of evolutionary history. In sticking with the theme of this series, Bryan begins by giving an overview of the animal brains and the endless train of compulsions we are subject to. Though, we as humans are supposed to be a rational animal, making us more advanced and evolved, we get caught in the grip of strong desires and other impulses that keep up imprisoned. Again, he calls the desires we are subject to at times, “dog desires”, citing that we fall into beastial subconsciousness when we act only from our less evolved brains, contained within the five-fold system. Our minds become noisy, he says, and we all can be subject to hallucinations, not unlike those experienced by the schizophrenic (though by not by any means does he intend to downplay the struggles of schizophrenia for those who are disconnected from reality as experienced in this world).
He says, our motor behaviors and self-grasping behavior leads to a chain reaction of self-destructive habits or traps that cause us to lose precious space-time in our lives. He compares compulsion and habits to trances and hellish traps that we think ourselves into. We sink downward, matter ward, into our lower chakras, directing desire energy down and outward. As a shaman, Bryan draws a parallel between the lower triangle (muladhara, swadisthana, and manipura chakras) to the lower world that shamans travel into when they seek to tap into people’s power animals for the sake of healing and retrieval from the deep individual subconscious or into the collective unconscious consisting of “ruling idea energies” that can affect our behavior, thoughts, impulses, and attitudes. The creative and sexual energies of the lower chakras, are not in themselves “bad” but are not the entire spectrum of which make up the human condition.
Bryan cites the book “The Biology of Transcendence” by Joseph Chilton Pearce, calling it revolutionary in coming to understand the five-fold brain system and the entirety of the human condition beginning with the earliest brain, the reptilian brain, often associated with the “id” in Fruedian terminology and culminating in the fourth and fifth brains, the frontal lobes, and the heart brain respectively, with the heart brain being the most advanced and evolved. Yes, the heart is a brain and can be measured. When entrained, neurally and energetically, with the frontal lobes, earlier developed brains are incorporated and give sovereignty to the higher brains. This creates a desired state of harmony and peace, equilibrium and even-mindedness.
Beginning with the reptilian brain, Bryan proceeds to share his understanding of behaviors, thoughts, attributes, and actions often associated with each brain, continuing with the old mammalian, new mammalian, then the frontal lobes (called the “angel lobes” by some people), and finally the heart. Understanding the older brains helps us identify the art of deception, lying, dealing with threats, formulation of emotions, making decisions, learning to walk, developing language and more. For instance, the quick reflex-oriented faculties might work well in a “dog fight” as Pearce says, but doesn’t best serve us in the pursuit of higher awareness.
Bryan talks about the power of the imagination as a god-like quality but then again asks the listener why we suffer from an endless train of obsessive-compulsive thoughts that carry us away from the present moment. The trick he says, is becoming totally still. To surround yourself with silence. He wants the listener to know what he has learned about the fourth and fifth brains, that it allows us to transcend thought. Bryan further comments on the process of evolution in consciousness and how the higher brains learn to incorporate the lower ones in order to better serve the highest good. Conflict and division however can occur when we are not following “Nature” or the Cosmic Plan for the evolution of our Biology which is made to Transcend.
Bryan shares his experiences of both bliss and the absence of it with activity related to the Third Eye and the part of the brain called the Orbital Frontal Loop. In efforts to better understand what he has been through and where he is going, he shares his personal insights about the frontal “angel” lobes.
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.