Summer Shares – Serge’s June 2024 Newsletter

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Dear Friend,

As we head into summer, I’d like to share a talk I recently recorded about spirituality; about why, if we all have divinity or soul inside us, it needs to be hidden, why the search to discover even a tiny bit of it is such a struggle, and why many of us never succeed!

I call this talk ‘The Great Conundrum: The Peek-a-boo God.’

I would also like to share an essay, which I wrote in May, where I relate the nature of the Hamas / Israeli war to the larger context of understanding what is going on in the world. It is not long and I hope you may find it interesting!

Here is the first paragraph of the essay, please click on the link to continue reading. If you wish, you may download the pdf to read at your convenience.

A Perspective on the Israel / Hamas Conflict
Serge Beddington-Behrens Ph.D – May 21, 2024
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“Many very tragic things are happening in the world today. In this essay, I will focus on the very active and very violent war between Israel and Hamas, both of whom, in my opinion, have behaved atrociously. I was therefore glad to read in today’s paper that just as with Putin a year ago, arrest warrants have now also gone out from the International Criminal Court both to the Israeli and to the Hamas leadership to prosecute them for a grave abuse of human rights. They could all be arrested should any of them set foot in those countries which uphold these court’s jurisdiction.”
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read more….

Can Spirituality Save the World?
A Webinar with Serge & Steve Taylor
Tuesday, 2 July, 2024
20:30 CEST (please check the event for your time zone)

Serge & Steve Together Again!

On the evening of July 2, Steve Taylor and I will once again be joining forces to co-host a Webinar: “Can Spirituality Save the World?”

We will be talking about how spiritual awakening can enable us to transcend the conflict and suffering going on in the world today.

If you’d like to join us, you can sign up to attend on Eventbrite!

Psychotherapy Sessions

For anyone who may be interested, 2 new spaces have become available in my psychotherapy practice. In case you didn’t know, I work full time as a psychotherapist, mainly online, as I see people from all over the world. I have just finished with two clients who have been with me for many years and am looking forward to making new connections. If you’d like to try it out, the first session is always free, so that we can see if we are a good fit!

I will leave you with this short video about how I work. You can also visit my website for more information, or contact me via email.

Thank you, and I wish you a very delicious summer, wherever you are going to be.

With Love,

Serge

 

 

 

The Great Conundrum: The Peek-a-boo God

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Dear Friends,
I have just uploaded a new video to my YouTube channel “The Great Conundrum: The Peek-a-boo God”. I hope this talk will bring us closer to the answers to the following questions:

Why does the Divinity appear to play hide and seek with us?

If Divinity lies inside us – if who we all are is a soul, or if soul-hood is the true us – why do we forget this when we are born and as we grow up and get older, why is it so hard for us to retrieve that memory?

Why do many of us go through our entire lives believing who we are is our ideas about ourselves and never retrieve that memory?

I look forward to discussing this with you all.
Enjoy!
Love, Serge

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Creating a World Without War

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My Dear Friends,
This is a new and very much improved version of two talks on the Psychology of War and How to End War that I had recently published.

This video is long and you can either immerse yourself in it it or watch it in segments.

In view of the tragic assassination of the wonderfully heroic Alexei Navalny (I confess, it broke my heart) and the fact that the great Buddhist peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh told us that ´´we all have war inside us, not just the soldiers,´´ I feel it so important that we all play our small parts in being a space to end the brutal violence and totaliterianism that men like Putin stand for.

Hopefully this video may be of some small assistance.
Love, Serge

 

Beyond War – A Webinar with Serge & Steve Taylor

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This coming Tuesday, December the 19th, I will be co-hosting a webinar with my dear friend Steve Taylor, called Beyond War.

At this time of continuing global conflict, we will be discussing warfare from a psychological and spiritual perspective, looking at its causes and how we can transcend it. As usual, we will include a meditation and poem or two.

Serge & Steve Together Again!

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We will be calling on all webinar participants webinar to share, hopefully something very interesting will emerge!

Beyond War
A Webinar with Serge & Steve Taylor

Tuesday, 19 December, 2023
19:00 GMT / 20:00 CET

You can sign up to attend on Eventbrite

Amazing Grace is Now on Bookshelves Everywhere!

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My Dear Friends,

I am delighted to announce that my memoirs are now published and you can order them easily on line. If you live in London, John Sandoe books have plenty of copies.

Amazing Grace: Memoirs of a Transformational JourneyI hope you will enjoy the funny stories – especially going back to my early childhood and my Oxford, Bullingdon Club and ski racing days – and also may be interested in my adventures of the time I spent in California and was privileged to meet and study with, some of the wisest people on the planet.

I hope too, that certain areas of this book may inspire you to try as I have tried, to let go the life that your conditioning told you, you ought to lead, and discover the story that your heart informed you, you need to lead.

Whilst there are, of course, episodes of suffering – who of us has had a life totally without pain in some form or another – overall I think my story is a happy, positive and inspiring story and it ends very happily, me living in Mallorca, married to a woman whom I love very much, and continuing to work as much as ever because I get so much happiness out of what I do. I think that if we love our work, that it reciprocates and loves us in return!

Please read my long epilogue at the end as it contains my vision for the future and what I think will happen on our planet by the end of this century. And fearest not, my vision is overall a positive one, even if we may first have to trudge through a few dark forests to get there.

With much love and excitement,
Serge

 

 


Read more about Amazing Grace right here on Serge’s Website!
Enjoy videos of snippets of the book read by Serge, watch and listen to interviews with Serge, read the book’s endorsements and visit the O-Books Website where you can read more reviews and order your copy today!
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Amazing Grace is available on Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon ES, Barnes & Nobel, Hive, and many other online bookstores.
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Friendliness

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I hope I am not being a self-righteousness old so n’ so when I say that I try to be friendly with everyone I meet and to do my best to hold people positively in my heart.

OK, not everyone will be our friend. The friends we have are our choice. But we can be friendly to everyone, especially to those people who feel outcasts in our society, as it does so much to help them feel more included. And one of the sad things about the world we live in is that many of us learn to be exclusive, to separate ourselves, to only share ourselves with those whom we feel ‘deserve it’ or whom we know well. That was me in the old days and it played a big role in why I often felt unhappy. I lived disconnected from the world.

I remember so well being in my early twenties, living in London and feeling very lonely, and I was in the Kings Road, Chelsea, when an old lady saw me sitting on a bench looking miserable and she came up to me and said ‘You look so sad but you seem a nice young man!’ She spent fifteen minutes cheering me up , just being kind and funny, and I began to feel so much better.

Wow!!

She’d taken the trouble to go up to a stranger and talk to him. Again, in our ‘British society’ we learn not to do this ‘unless we’ve been formally introduced!’

Before she left, she said these wise words to me:

‘Don’t get lost in your misery.’ (I was.) ‘But go out and be kind to people. Connect with them. That will heal you. Be open. Just be your simple self with those around you and they will feel better and you will feel better’.

Easier said than done. I saw how hard this was for me, how closed I was and how closed so many people were. At school, our minds get trained, not our hearts. And that is a huge misfortune. It certainly was for me!

Well, her words stayed with me. It took me some years to learn to open up even just a little. I needed to work hard at it. But as I gradually did, all areas of my life also began to open up, and I discovered that it enabled me spontaneously to give of myself to other people, to hold them kindly in my heart and that when I could do this, I would also feel more connected not only to myself, but also to my world. I was also able to be kinder and less judgemental of myself.

I like what the Dalai Lama said about this:

‘Be kind and merciful Let no one ever come to you without feeling better and happier…..’

I think it is the way for us to feel better and happier as well!

The Spiritual Power of Friendship and Community A Webinar with Serge Beddington-Behrens and Steve Taylor

On the evening of Monday, July 31st, I am doing a webinar with my dear, lovely friend Steve Taylor on the theme of friendliness, friendship and community. If you are not busy that evening, please join us. We feel these themes are so important in today’s society.

You can sign up for “The Spiritual Power of Friendship & Community” on Eventbrite.

Love,

Serge

 

 

 

Introducing Amazing Grace: Memoirs of a Transformational Journey

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My memoirs, “Amazing Grace: Memoirs of a Transformational Journey” are being published later this summer. I think this is the most fun and interesting book I’ve written so far.

On the one hand, it’s an amusing story about the privileged world I was born into, and I gabble on a lot about the Swinging 60’s and what public schools and Oxford were like in those days, and myself as an entitled, eccentric, dandy man about town, an ardent ski racer and girl chaser.

On the other hand, it’s a serious account of what I learned from my close encounters with the paranormal, altered states of consciousness, Spiritual Masters in India, Shamans in South America, and a myriad of different sages, healers, mystics, wizards, analysts and philosophers.

All these things were a part of my journey to becoming a soul-centred psychotherapist, a teacher of spiritual retreats and an activist for a healthier and transformed society.

Visit the page on my website about Amazing Grace…

Visit O-Books to Pre-order Your E-book or Printed Copy!

 

From Disconnection to Oneness

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A Webinar with Steve Taylor and Serge Beddington-Behrens
4 April, 2023

From Disconnection to Oneness - a Webinar by Steve Taylor & Serge Beddington Behrens

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Why do so many people feel disconnected from each other,
from themselves and from nature?

Why does disconnection create cruelty and fear?

How can we become more connected. and move towards oneness?

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Join Steve Taylor and myself as we explore how connection produces compassion and goodness and is the basis of a harmonious self, society and world.
Continue reading →

Exploring Sacred Activism – Newsletter & Course Intro

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Dear Friend,
Here is what António Guterres, the Secretary General of the U.N., said at a meeting last September:


Our world is blighted by war,
Battered by climate change,
Scarred by hate,
And shamed by poverty, hunger and inequality.
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My last newsletter came out just as the war with Ukraine was starting, and now it is nearly a year later and the atrocities continue to reign down on that country. What is it with the evil of this man Putin? What can we do…?

Soulful Activism

Today I am going to talk to you about Activism, about Sacred Activism, about Actively making the world a better place while maintaining Respect for all Life on Earth.

In the light of this great evil in the north and other very unpleasant things going on in our world today, I think that being an Activist for a more just world or for a transformed world is among the most important things that any of us can be doing with our lives at this moment. Continue reading →

Understanding the Crises of the Heart, Climate Change, Crisis and Transformation

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Today I would like to share with you a few excerpts from “Understanding the Crises of the Heart”, chapter 19 of my first book, “Awakening the Universal Heart”, as I find them particularly relevant to our world situation today and in tune with the recommendations that follow.

The Signicance of Crisis

“A time of crisis is also a time of opening up, when thinking that was consigned to the fringes moves to centre stage. When things fall apart, the appetite for new ways of seeing is palpable.”
~ Paul Kingsnorth ~

What many of our crises today are also helping bring home to us is how inextricably interconnected our planet has become…

Continue reading →