Equanimous: A Channeled Dialog of Why You are Here and What You Can Do About It Right Now! (Intro and C1)

8/6/2019 Equanimous: A Channeled Dialog of Why You are Here and What You Can Do About It Right Now! (Intro and C1)

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EquanimousFrom the Big Bang to Peace and Quiet in Every

Community - A Channeled Dialog of Why Youare Here and What You can Do About it Right

Now!



EquanimousFrom the Big Bang to Peace and Quiet in EveryCommunity - A Channeled Dialog of Why Youare Here and What You can Do About it Right

Now!

Written By Michael Paul StephensChanneled by Orranut Stephens



First published by Michael Paul Stephens, June 2011 as a free E-book on

www.michaelpaulstephens.com

And

www.provolutioncenter.com

If you would like to contact us with regard to this book please email

[email protected]

Text copyright: Michael Paul Stephens 2010

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of

this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from

the author.

The rights of Michael Paul Stephens as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Cover Design: Michael Paul Stephens

A GENTLE REQUEST FOR SUPPORT

This book is offered absolutely free. It is a creation of time,devotion and love for the benefit of all people. If it has helped

you to expand your awareness in any way, we invite you to makea financial contribution to the continued marketing and

promotion of Equanimous and Share Circles around the world. Tosupport us, please click this link:

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Contents

Chapter Page

Preface 1

Prologue 2

Part 1 : The History of Humanity

Chapter 1: The Universe 11

Chapter 2: Energy-beings 35

Chapter 3: Earth Birth 62

Chapter 4: Evolution of the First Civilization 88

Chapter 5: The Roots of the Modern Age 135

Chapter 6: The Ascension of Buddha 175

Chapter 7: The Life of Jesus 185

Chapter 8: The Energy Reset 213

Part 2 : The Way of the Equanimous

Introduction – The Four Lessons of History 238

Chapter 9: Share Circles 244

Chapter 10: Organizing Share Circles 253

Epilogue 315



Dedication

For Anongluk and Chaleo Porkathong and Deana and David

Stephens

Without you, we would not be.





Prologue

Ever since humanity was conscious of being conscious we have

asked where we have come from, where we are going and what the

point of life really is. And there have been a multitude of different

answers.

Some say we are a creation of God. Others say we started with a

‘Bang’ and will end with a huge ‘Crunch’. A few believe we live in

an illusion and all that we see is just a dream. And then there are

those who think the Earth was seeded by space travelers who were

seeking the universal secret of fantastic soap, they spilt a drop into

the ocean and voila…evolution.

OK, so I made that last one up but, as you will learn, from the

perspective of this work, it is no less credible than the first three

options.

You see, the answer the life’s purpose defines our humanity. It

defines our reason to get out of bed in the morning. It defines

whether we build our societies on the foundation of trust and

respect or just continue to beat the living daylights out of one

another.

Over the course of several months in late 2009 and early 2010

my wife, Orranut, and I decided to ask someone a little bit special

these very same questions. We received some very different

answers.

You see, Orranut is a channel. In fact, a very attuned and

accurate channel. She is able to connect with spirit guides and

receive advice about life, health, relationships, in fact just about

anything that can help people to live their lives with a little more

direction and clarity. If you’ve never really believed in psychic

ability or simply cannot get that ingrained image out of your head

of Gypsy Nora’s crystal ball from the traveling circus, weunderstand. It’s a lot to take in, and skepticism and doubt are

nothing new to Orranut.

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As a child growing up in a conservative Thai household in the

1970’s, hearing voices in your head wasn’t exactly embraced as the

etiquette of polite society. Not that most Western people embrace itwith much more gusto. Whether you are accused of being

possessed by demons or simply called ‘mad’, it makes little

difference. The inclination of a young psychic subjected to criticism,

ridicule and marginalization doesn’t exactly encourage exploration

of rare abilities. Even today, 30 years later, the ability of people to

channel information from invisible sources is still the stuff of

movies, psychiatric hospitals and the weird and wonderful sectionof newspapers, as far as most popular pundits are concerned.

Despite the social stigma, Orranut has slowly embraced her

incredible abilities over the course of her life. She has had to.

Denying the talents she has is like denying a limb, such are the

essential qualities of her character that these abilities augment and

reflect. She has come an extraordinary distance since those days

when other people’s criticism led to self-doubt and the denial of hergreat gifts. She too has become a believer, when years ago all she

felt was denial and shame. As a child, all she wanted was to be

perceived as being ‘normal.’ It took her 40 years to realize that she

was the most normal of them all. In a very real sense, today she

comes out of the psychic closet.

Equanimous is a product of Orranut’s abilities, channeling my

questions to my spirit guide1

, Master Jacob and then channeling hisanswers back to me. Much of what we discussed, she does not even

recall, such is the nature of channeling at times. Some of it covers

subjects that she has both zero interest in and has little or no

knowledge about. While some may claim that she is just making

this up, there is no way she could have made up some of the

conversations we had. If this comes from the mouth of Orranut,

which it does, it is the real deal.

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1 A spirit guide is what many would call a guardian angel; an energetic being who guides aperson through life so that they may achieve their purpose on earth.





Science cannot answer this essential question. There is no

empirical measurement to it. It is just a question that arises from the

inevitable dissatisfaction human beings feel from seeking genuinehappiness through transient events and objects. Having spent the

last year and a half uncovering the origins of our universe, the

causes of creation on Earth and the purpose of all civilization over

the past 150,000 years, I now feel qualified to answer the above

question with an emphatic: No, birth, suffering and death is not all

there is to life.

We are missing the point and Equanimous is all about youwaking up and understanding your purpose.

There is a greater meaning to life than owning a big car, having a

gorgeous partner and holidaying in the tropics twice a year,

although it cannot be denied these things are nice. But life is not

about just feeling ‘nice’. It is sad that ‘nice’ is so often a smidgen

better than the contentment Joe Average expects in this ever-

threatening world. It is time that we awakened from our collectivereverie and each of us started putting in the hard yards to adapt the

mindset that tells us that ‘nice’ is the best we can hope for. There is

more. There is better. And anyone can live it if we just started

believing it is possible.

It is no longer good enough to await God to heal this Earth, for

prophets to cure our ills or teachers to tell us, once again, how we

should live better lives. In this book you will learn that you areenough to do all that needs to be done and times are such that you

cannot delay your personal responsibility to evolve for even a

moment longer. Our species has come from sticks and stones to

hadron colliders and stem cells in a blur; a tiny fraction of the 4.1

billion years that we are told Earth has been in existence. And yet,

here we are, civilization marching on into a bright, interconnected

web-based, blog and Twitter-dependent future and we haven’t evenlearned to share anything more valuable between cultures than our

email addresses. If life has a point, and it does indeed, we need to

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get it here, from the message of Master Jacob, and we need to do

something about it now.

Yes, we may have the existentialists banging on about givingyour own life meaning and the metaphysicists telling us what exists

and what it feels like but none of them can tell you “Why?” or

“What is the point of it all?” Are you a bag of bones thrown

together by biology, roasted in the oceans and spat out onto the

shore? Or are you a product of God, knocked out in a single day

and cast into an Eden that you share with a mysterious woman

who is also looking for her belly button? Science has theories abouthow all this came together but it is no more fact than fossils and

theory will allow it to be. There is not a scientist in existence who

can claim with 100% certainty where this planet came from. There is

not one man, woman or child who can prove to you that it was not

mixed up from a bag of instant planet formula, microwaved and

placed in the void by a giant baker’s mitten.

That’s not what happened, by the way. Let’s just cross off thatscenario from the get-go.

Orranut and I believe the answers we have learned from Master

Jacob offer everyone a clear and concise insight into who you are,

why you are here, what your purpose is in life and how you can go

about it successfully, in peace and in joy. If you don’t believe in

spirit guides like Master Jacob, don’t let that be a barrier to your

understanding of the bigger picture. Just substitute spirit guide forteacher. If you’re Christian, substitute it with ‘God’. If you’re

agnostic, substitute it with ‘energy’. If you’re a Muppet fan,

substitute it with ‘Kermit’. It really doesn’t matter. The point is that,

whatever you call the source of the information, the reason we have

written this book is to ask you to question the perception you have

of who you are and why you are here because I guarantee that by

the end of this work you will have been challenged. Expect it anddon’t take it personally.

I consider myself a spiritual person in that I take a great interest

in seeking the truth about myself but I can state wholeheartedly

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that I had no idea what I would uncover in the process of these

conversations. I have absolutely evolved into a new being during

the course of writing this book, whether I liked it or not. It truly is aremarkable insight into life, the universe and, well, just about

everything, that even the late, great Douglas Adams couldn’t have

imagined! My hope is that Equanimous can do the same for you as

it has done for me.

It is no coincidence that this book comes at a time when

humanity faces unprecedented ecological trauma, rising political

conflict and eroding social trust and respect. The interconnectedand interdependent nature of the universe will always give us

exactly what we need whether we are looking for it or not! We have

reached the end of the road for the old ideas that created the

modern crisis in human identity and those of us who are asking the

question of whether this is all there is to life must now be prepared

to look inward and answer our own question by making something

better than what we have with what we think, say and do. Thereare no other tools, dear friends, just these. There are no short cuts

either, just the opportunity for people to wake up as individuals,

accept their part in the process of creation and make a better world.

Equanimous isn’t just a new description of reality. It offers you

real reasons to change your life and the mechanisms by which to go

about it. In Part One you will learn the shape and structures that

exist in our universe, the true nature of humanity and the truth ofwhy our collective search for equanimity; true spiritual harmony

and balance in our lives, is so vital to our future. In Part Two you

will learn about Share Circles and the way in which every reader

can build person to person, family to family and community to

community, spiritual groups that will help us all to share the load of

change and work together towards a more equanimous future.

Humanity labors under the false belief that we will just keepgoing on and on. Progress is a natural state, we have concluded; we

came from caves, we rose to skyscrapers and we will eventually

conquer the stars. But life isn’t like that. Nature isn’t like that, at

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least, not here on Earth. The current version of ‘civilization’, the

western model let us call it, is not the first to have existed. We have

all been around on this journey time and time again and we keepfailing to learn from the mistakes of ages past. Unless we wake up

and smell the coffee in this generation, the stupor of ignorance that

condemns us all to pursue pointless goals in life and to do so

without any awareness or effort to learn from them will continue to

plague our every thought, word and action and the resulting ego

that has thrived so successfully on our planet will have to face the

consequences of its own falling shadow one last time.Orranut and I are not prophets. We are not soothsayers. We are

not totally mental (you’ll have to take our word for it!). What is

contained in this book is a call for everyone who reads it to open

their mind to the prospect that beyond their superficial self, their

authentic self is awaiting inclusion and involvement in the creation

of an authentic reality that initiates humanity’s evolution from the

trance of self-absorption to the heights of self-realization. Youinnately know the paths that will help you become equanimous

because you have already agreed, before you were even born into

this life, to find a way to become more authentic and, in doing so,

thrust this entire planet in the same direction: authenticity. We

have written this book to help you do that. It is time to act.

Equanimous is more than channeled information. It is more than

a plea for greater community and more sharing. It is a book of hopein a time of great change. It is a book of love in a time of great fear.

It is a book of unity and togetherness in a time that has the potential

for such division, for both Orranut and I know what it is like to be

rudderless, lost and alone. By speaking out on these pages we do

not claim the only truth, nor do we claim that any other truth is

wrong but that, whichever truth you are buying into, unless it

creates more peace on this Earth and less conflict in our individuallives, it is not doing what it says on the tin. There are no pause

buttons on values. There are no sabbaticals on the learning of life.

We cannot await perfect conditions to be kind, loving and gentle.

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The next war is always the last, so we tell ourselves. So, let the

demons within be the final battle on this Earth. No one need die

except ego.Our planet has reached a juncture in its evolution that is not

about the politics of left and right or the definition of right vs.

wrong. It is about the nature of our souls. If we are to survive

together and work towards a greater purpose than a job, buying

stuff, learning how to rumba and just generally trying not to die too

quickly, we need a higher purpose than self-destruction. We can

live together or we can die alone but the choice of which webecome experts at is best made from a plateau of awareness that

truly comprehends that your life has purpose and that it is a

purpose that connects all of us together and all things as one.

Equanimous may answer questions about the universe. It may

answer questions about God and the Prophets. It may even give

you teasing insights into how to make a creamy cup of Joe. But it is

does not answer the question of whether you will stand up onceyou have finished reading it, put on your best walking shoes and

stride through your personal purpose like a knife through hot

butter. You are the missing ingredient in your own perfection and

all you need do is start cooking.

In a very real sense, Orranut and I have not written Equanimous

at all. It is your book. It was always here, waiting to come alive in

the lives of those who are prepared to wake up. That time is nowand that life is yours. Equanimous belongs to us all. It is a part of

everything. Take what is yours and live it as if you mean it.

No more fear.

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Part 1 : The History of Humanity

“The entire cosmos is a cooperative. The sun, the moon, and the stars live

together as a cooperative. The same is true for humans and animals, trees

and soil. Our bodily parts function as a cooperative. When we realize that

the world is a mutual, interdependent, cooperative enterprise, that human

beings are all mutual friends in the process of birth, old age, suffering and

death, then we can build a noble, even heavenly environment. If our livesare not based in this truth, then we shall all perish.”

Extract from “The quest for a just society: the legacy and challenge

of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu”, ed. by Sulak Sivaraksa

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, (Thai: พุทธทาสภกิข) Thai Buddhist Monk ุ,May 27, 1906 - May 25, 1993

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Chapter 1

The Universe

For nearly two and a half millennia, the Chinese have celebrated

the power of Feng Shui: the art of designing the exterior and

interior of buildings to sit harmoniously among the native energies

of the Earth. Feng Shui practitioners believe that this world is not

merely a floating ball of rock and soil but a living energetic entityand the design of every structure, the curves and edges of its

external features and the placement of fixtures and furniture within

it, all affect the energetic flow of a living space.

To practice Feng Shui is to practice shaping an environment to

the energy of the Earth. Should you inadvertently disturb the

energy of the Earth, you also disturb any human activity that

would occur there.Thinkers hailing from the European tradition have utilized the

last two thousand five hundred years a tad differently. We have

spent them conjuring up technical epithets for practitioners of Feng

Shui. So far, ‘cuckoo’ is the connoisseur’s choice, closely followed by

‘brainsick’. ‘A few bricks short of a hod-carrier’s load’ runs a close third.

Flippancy aside, it would be injudicious to glibly dismiss the

possibility that the natural environment interacts with buildings orobjects in subtle as well as more evident ways. Throughout the ages

human culture has often doffed its proverbial hat in the direction of

this belief through such customs as respecting the spirits of the land

or through Gods that represent natural energies such as the sun or

the wind. Likewise, artists, mathematicians and spiritualists, to

name but a few, have utilized the power of shapes, icons and

images that are said to draw upon the natural energies of theplanet. Many of these beliefs still endure today, so we should not be

so hasty as to snub them as primitive simply because they are

ancient.

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mathematician Leonardo of Pisa and the Renaissance astronomer

Johannes Kepler, to present-day scientific figures such as Oxford

physicist Roger Penrose, have spent endless hours over this simpleratio and its properties. But the fascination with the Golden Ratio is

not confined just to mathematicians. Biologists, artists, musicians,

historians, architects, psychologists, and even mystics have pondered

and debated the basis of its ubiquity and appeal. In fact, it is probably

fair to say that the Golden Ratio has inspired thinkers of all disciplines

like no other number in the history of mathematics.”

Mario Livio, The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, The World's Most Astonishing

Number (Broadway; 1st edition October 29, 2002)

The Golden Ratio, often represented by the Greek letter ‘Phi’, is

best explained as the ratio of length to width in rectangles that is

most pleasing to the eye. It was defined by mathematicians as the

number 1.61803 39887 49894 84820. However, as long as I stare atthat number, it neither sends a shiver down my spine nor moves

me in any other way than to wonder what possessed someone to

work it out to so many decimal points. It must have been a very,

very wet Sunday. The only way to really feel the Golden Ratio at

work is to view its application in art or architecture where it seems

to imbue a creation with an unusually moving sense of harmony

and balance. Such great structures as the Pyramids of Giza in Egyptand the Acropolis in Athens or art such as Phidias’ statue of Zeus in

Olympiad or Da Vinci’s painting of the ‘Last Supper’ are notable

examples of artistic and architectural applications of this

phenomenon that move the observer emotionally, in ways that

absurdly long numbers rarely can. Unless it’s your tax bill.

For an extended period of ancient history in cultures all across

the Earth from China to Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia to Indiaand Peru our ancestors invested a lot of effort in reproducing the

Golden Ratio in buildings, statues and art across a wide range of

cultures over a broad period of time. You don’t accidentally do this.

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Neither do you do this just because it is very, very wet. It is

deliberate. It has meaning . Thousands of years before the Greeks

even knew what the Golden Ratio was, ancient cultures, seeminglydisparate and unconnected, were consciously using this formula for

very specific reasons. Why?

In the twelfth century an Italian mathematician called Leonardo

Pisano, better known as Fibonacci, expanded on a sequence of

numbers first described by the Indian philosopher Pingala in the

second century before the current era. If you have read ‘The Da

Vinci Code’ or seen the movie, you will have come across theFibonacci numbers, which Pisano calculated in order to answer

how many rabbits would be created in one year assuming that each

pair bred once each month beginning in the second month after

their birth. I am not making that up, by the way. Go on. Read it

again and weep. Leaving aside the burning need to ask why

anyone with all their marbles would want to know the answer to

that question, this author is most grateful that Fibonacci did. Theresult is a sequence of numbers that is equal to the sum of the

preceding two numbers (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 ... etc.). While this

may sound exceedingly dull, even to someone who thinks knitting

is an extreme sport, Fibonacci had rediscovered Pingala’s subtle

message from over a millennium before: there is a pattern to how

everything in the universe relates to everything else.

This is how the Fibonacci pattern looks when line-drawn:

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What does this silly picture mean? It is the pictorial

representation of this rather more gorgeous natural application:

Photo by L. Shyamal Helianthus flower, Bannerghatta Bangalore, 2006Wikipedia CC License: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.5)

This picture of a Helianthus is a Fibonacci spiral in a three

dimensional natural formation. Flowers, ferns, trees, shells, snails,

even the relationship between a person and their belly-button and

the shape of entire galaxies organize themselves and relate to one

another in this pattern. And you have to admit, it is both incredibly

beautiful and familiar all at the same time. But why, when such

ancient forms as the Golden Ratio, Feng Shui or Fibonacci spirals

are applied to spaces and forms, do they spontaneously induce

such a natural feeling of aesthetic beauty, calm or peace when

viewed by a person?

The answer is because all shapes and forms in our world are

reflections of their energetic vibration and those shapes and

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patterns most entrained with nature vibrate at a wavelength that

connects with another of nature’s great marvels: human beings.

This vibration is not a local phenomenon. Nor is the shape of theFibonacci Spiral, the Golden Ratio or the basic principles of Feng

Shui coincidental. They each reflect the shape and vibration of the

universe itself, repeated again and again and again in everyone and

everything. So, as our human senses digest this sacred geometry,

the feeling that results is like a chord strummed across the very

fiber of our souls.

This, I believe, is what some of our ancient ancestors knew verywell. They were fully aware that humanity is not a species separate

or divided from our environment and they left teachings to guide

those who suspect that there is more to life than just coincidences,

luck, bricks and right vs. wrong. Our environment moves us, we

interact with it, our lives are molded by it because we are intricately

connected with its shapes and forms that affect us in quiet but

meaningful ways. We are being guided by the entire universe tobegin living our lives in ways that reflect the shapes of the universe

and everything and everyone is screaming at every human being,

albeit under their breath, the same soft message: “Wake up!” Unless

we listen to the message of nature and learn how to make sense of

these shapes and patterns in our lives, we will forever conclude that

events are random, life is just stone and pizza and we are all victims

of circumstances in a big accidental universe that doesn’t care aboutanyone or anything.

That is about as far from a useful truth as any truth can be.

The life of the average westernized person is not entrained with

these natural principles in any shape or form. When I say that our

lives don’t reflect a Fibonacci spiral at all, this does not mean that

we should all become snails or that our purposes should meander a

circuitous route but that we must expand our minds beyond theconventional interpretations of size, shape, weight and other

measurements that our scientific minds might use to define what is

practical in life and begin to create lives that feel like the Fibonacci

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spiral when you see it represented in art and architecture. The

Fibonacci spiral embodies the infinite balance, harmony and flow of

natural energies. When these properties are reflected in the patternsof our lives we feel at peace, we feel comfortable, we feel in

harmony with life. In contrast, western thinking has for millennia

sought to find stark comfort in the straight edges and sharp corners

of beginnings and endings that separate the sky from the ground,

the tree from the fish, the rock from the air, the bird from the clouds

and the atom from the molecule until nothing appears to flow into

one another and all things are individual, separate and alone. Whenwe apply ideas to our life that do not create natural synergism

(increased overall power) or natural symbiosis (a win/win

situation) we effectively conflict with the movement and shape of

our environment. From this conflict suffering, quite naturally,

arises.

A crude analogy of how we disrespect these patterns in our lives

might be trying to get water to flow upstream or the wind to blowin another direction. Although you might, for a time, be able to

create the impression of these things occurring by applying

mechanisms and technologies that force it to do so, the result is

artificial. The river is not really flowing the other way and the wind

has not really changed direction. If you do this for long enough you

will forget how the river flows and the wind blows and believe that

the artificial air and water are great accomplishments because theyare doing what you want them to do. These types of patterns occur

so frequently in our lives; using violent means to create a world we

think serves our purposes, but this ignores the fact that the wind

and water flow in the direction they flow for the same reason that

blood flows towards the human heart through veins and away from

the heart in an artery. It wouldn't be effective any other way.

The patterns of nature may sometimes fill invisible channels andhead towards intangible objectives but to place in their way human

barriers that dismiss their purpose as inconsequential because we

cannot comprehend how they connect with our own is to detach

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business out of winners and losers, structuring and shaping our

personal conduct and our relationships with one another in ways

that learn to distrust the moderation of balance that has relegatedthe search for harmony to an idealistic pipe-dream.

Over the millennia, as natural values have slowly given way to

artificial divisions, our social, political, and economic structures

have become equally exclusive and divisive. The civilization we

have created is not a natural pattern. It is waging war against

natural patterns and thus the lives of the individuals within it are

battlefields and the battles that we win are quickly destroying thetrophy: Earth. If the motivation of greed is the best shape we can

come up with to create a better world, what shapes are the minds in

which this idea appears so profound and compelling?

In this first section of Equanimous we will begin our talk with

Master Jacob by looking at the shapes that structure the universe in

which our earthly environment has developed. If we wish to create

harmonious lives, we must begin by creating awareness of howharmony manifests in the universe and how we can apply these

shapes to live together on the planet more effectively. To achieve

this, we will need to first suspend our faith in our conventional

notions of what the universe is and why it is here because these

ideas support the patterns by which we have built our lives and

they will not change by themselves. We must each consciously

recognize the part we have played in contributing towards thehabits and rituals that dictate what is normal in our personal world

and accept that the only way to create something new is to break

these ingrained habits and change the patterns that build the limits

in our own lives.

Talking of beginnings and endings, let’s start our dialog with the

mother of all beginnings: The ‘Big Bang’. It is one of the most

glaring examples of the divisiveness that we project into our reality.Can there be a bigger example of a bigger beginning than this?

Where did the idea of the ‘Big Bang’ come from? My intention here

is not to criticize Georges Lemaître, who in 1927 postulated the ‘Big

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Bang’ theory, but to examine the paradigm in which he and

millions of other people were constructing their view of the

universe and wonder whether it is still helpful to us to continuebelieving that the universe ‘started’ and therefore will one day ‘end’

or whether a different shape would help us to build lives that are

more conducive to a greater future than the inevitability of a dark,

finite death. The idea of the ‘Big Bang’ did not come from a mind

contemplating the possibility of infinity, that’s for sure. It came

from a consciousness whose limits precluded the idea. From within

this paradigm, it is natural that our own life should conform to thesame limits that reinforce our separation and independence from

other people around us. Therefore, challenging ideas that support

this paradigm is the first step to a new beginning for us all. If we

can leave behind the very first division, the very first beginning and

the very first notion that anything has begun or ended, we evolve

away from the shapes that limit who we can be and into the

interconnected patterns of nature’s infinity.

According to Wikipedia:

“As used by cosmologists, the term Big Bang generally refers to the

idea that the Universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense

initial condition at some finite time in the past (currently estimated to

have been approximately 13.7 billion years ago), and continues toexpand to this day.”

Perhaps you personally don’t give two hoots whether the

universe began with a bang, ends with a crunch, or continues with

any other onomatopoeic noun but the laws that are in effect in the

meantime are the same laws that make you and me walk, talk and

watch reality TV for hours with only salty snacks and adult diapersfor company. The inevitable conclusion in short: ignorance of the

shape, values and processes of the universe around you is akin to

ignorance of your own nature, which inevitably gives birth to

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producers who believe that reality TV adds to the quality of human

endeavor.

Now, do you realize how urgently you need to pay attention?I’m no physicist but I must say the notion of the ‘Big Bang’ has

always bothered me. I’m not saying I’d sit up late at night fretting,

but it has certainly caused me slight indigestion on occasion. I’d

wonder, for instance, if the ‘Big Bang’ started the universe, what

came before the start? How did something (the entire universe)

come from some stable or fixed state before which only that stable

and fixed state was present? Why did it cease to be stable andbecome unstable? What caused it? And if something caused it, then

it wasn't fixed or stable in the first place. So, not only can you tell

from this how full of paradoxes the whole idea is, you can also see

how anal I really am. But seriously, the current scientific view of the

‘Big Bang’ is like saying: “Before the baby was born from the sperm and

the egg there was, well, nothing really. Nothing happened. It’s a miracle.

Honest guvnor, I didn’t even touch her!” Perhaps the universe wascarried into existence in the mouth of a stork? It sounds about as

credible.

Maybe it is just my relentlessly enquiring mind but I have to ask

what came before the explosion. If we are to assume that nothing

comes from nothing and only something comes from something but

that something cannot come from nothing and nothing cannot

come from something, we must either reread that sentence to knowwhat on Earth I’m talking about or look for a simpler explanation.

The simpler explanation is that the universe cannot just spring into

existence without a cause. In other words, if the ‘Big Bang’ came

from ‘a primordial hot and dense initial condition’ what conditioned

that condition?

We are all creatures of nature and thus, the universe should

behave in natural ways but I have never experienced the ‘magic’ ofsomething being created from nothing and neither have I ever

experienced a beginning nor an end of anything. All I have seen is

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transformation, transition and transience and I am yet to find

anything that does not hold to these laws.

All life’s problems occur because we are trying to create a lifeunsuited to the environment in which we exist. It is like trying to

get from ‘A’ to ‘B’ with the wrong map. Life becomes trial and error

when we should know enough about the environment of life for it

to guide us without too much disaster along the way. What seems

to be right and what should work isn’t right and doesn’t work and

yet we keep on trying because we are unwilling or unable to let go

of the only methods of creation that we are familiar with. The rulesof life become less confusing if you understand where they came

from.

In this case, they surely didn’t come from nothing…

Michael Paul Stephens: “Master Jacob, did the ‘Big Bang’ really occur?

Was there really a massive explosion that brought the entire universe into

being?”

I asked these questions one day in November 2009, riding home

from work with Orranut. Having decided to write this book, I was

quite sure I wanted to start it off at the beginning of pretty much

everything and I couldn’t think of a bigger beginning than this.

As we started to research this book, Orranut would often take a

while to connect with Master Jacob but, as time went on, thischanged. She would soon remark that he was frequently with her

throughout the day, commenting, offering advice and generally

acting as her fourth spirit guide. Yes, she has three others.

Some people have a lot of help.

Master Jacob: “The universe has always existed. Its nature has

always been similar to what it is now.”

MPS: “Well, that’s very revealing on its own, Master Jacob but I would

like to explain to people why the shape and structure of the universe is

significant. As I understand it, current science tells us that the universe is

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expanding out like a bubble2. Could you tell me if this is the correct

observation and if there was some kind of explosion involved to create this

expansive movement?”

MJ: “An explosion implies violence, that there was something

destroyed to create the universe in its current form, but this is not

the case.”

One of the things I learned very quickly with Master Jacob was

that I needed to ask very specific questions. Little information

would be volunteered. I had to work it out myself and get him to

confirm it. It is his way of helping me to remember what I already

know.

MPS: “OK, so let me put it like this, Master Jacob. I need to understand

why science has observed the universe expanding outwards from a central

point. Physicists believe that this was caused by an enormous event over

13 billion Earth years ago, called the ‘Big Bang’ and that, one day, theuniverse may run out of the energy that currently causes it to expand and,

when it does, it will contract in a ‘Big Crunch’. What I would like to know

is whether this observation is correct and could you also shed some light

on the mechanism by which the universe expands and contracts like this?”

MJ: “The observation that the universe is expanding is correct.

However, you have almost answered the question yourself. You are

as natural as the universe round you, right?”

MPS: “Are you saying that a human being reflects the way the universe

moves?”

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2 In 1929 Edwin Hubble and Milton L. Humason formulated what has come to be known asʻHubble's lawʼ. This defined how light changed, known as ʻredshiftʼ, when an object was movingaway from the observer. Their discovery showed that other galaxies were moving away from theMilky Way. In simple terms, this was the first empirical support for the ʻBig Bangʼ theory, whichhad been proposed by Georges Lemaî tre in 1927.



MJ: “Of course. You are part of the universe. In your body, what

organ expands and contracts in the same way as you have

described the universe?”

I thought for a moment before realizing.

MPS: “Oh, the lungs?”

MJ: “Correct.”

MPS: “My goodness. The universe is breathing.”

MJ: “Indeed.”

Wow, the universe is breathing? Why not? But what an insight!

While the human mind finds such comfort in breaking things down

into mechanical processes, physics has never taken seriously the

idea that the universe may in fact be a living, biological entity or, at

the very least, behave as a living entity would. I have never seen aliving entity spontaneously explode, have you? Well, there was that

scene in the movie ‘Scanners’, but that is beside the point. The

expansion/contraction shape is consistent with all things that exist

in this world. Why should the universe as a whole be any different?

Get over it!

MPS: “OK, if the universe is breathing and we are in the inhalationbreath, that would explain the expansion, but why would it exhale and

contract? What causes the transition from expansion to contraction? Is

this what science might call the Big Crunch? Will the universe collapse

back to infinitesimal energy in an infinitesimally small space?”

MJ: “It did not come from infinitesimal energy in a n infinitesimally

small space, as you put it, so the question of going back there

should not arise, should it? Nothing is repeated and nothing goes

backwards. Let me give an example of the mechanism. When the

energy of the universe reaches critical mass, the energy of

expansion is less than that of contraction. In a linear way, you can

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view it as a seesaw with a weight that moves along its length.

Eventually the see-saw tips over simply because there is a point

where change is triggered by the energetic laws that naturallygovern such things.”

MPS: “Right, so if we compare the metaphor to breathing, would it be like

the reflex action of the lungs? One of the triggers of breathing, as I

understand it, is the build up of carbon dioxide in the body. We do not

need to be aware of it. There is nobody pulling a lever or flipping a

switch.”

MJ: “That’s right. The breathing process is not mechanical or pre-

set. It just occurs when the right conditions are attained.”

MPS: “Thank goodness for that. I was worried that the universe might

forget to breath without an email reminding someone to pull the lever.”

Orranut tells me that there is silence from Master Jacob.

MPS: “That was a joke.”

MJ: “Indeed.”

It took Master Jacob a while to get used to my humor. I hope the

reader will afford me the same patience.

MPS: “OK, moving on…so universal breathing is no different to, say, the

changing seasons on Earth? When the energetic conditions are right, the

temperature, the moisture, the wind, the air pressure etc. the process

simply changes automatically?”

MJ: “This is correct.”

MPS: “Contemporary scientific opinion says that the current universalexhalation breath, if I can call it that, has been on-going for around 13.7

billion years. Does that correspond with your historical record?”

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MJ: “Time is not something I wonder about.”

The reader will note as we progress through this work thatMaster Jacob is consistently uneasy about using time periods, not

because he does not know dates but because he feels that time

tends to reinforce the linear impression people have of their lives.

He has often tried to explain to me why the use of time paralyses

the mind in a fictional reality but it is still hard for me to grasp how

being five hundred years late for a dinner appointment would not

be considered ill-mannered in any dimension. Regardless, Master

Jacob has made it plain to us that the measurement of time is not an

important focus, although he always tries his best to give details

whenever he can.

MPS: “I understand that time is not something you are comfortable with

discussing but I think you are very familiar with the need of humans to

place events on a timeline in order to comprehend them in sequence.”

MJ: “I am constantly fascinated by how unhelpful it is.”

MPS: “Right, OK…but would you help me out by confirming whether the

13.7 billion year timeframe is reasonable?”

MJ: “I will not argue with it.”

MPS: “Do universal contractions and expansions always have equalduration?”

MJ: “No. They are different. Again, it is like human breathing.

Sometimes deep, sometimes shallow. If you listened to your own

breath you would realize that every breath is unique. If you listened

to the universal breathing it would be as enlightening as listening to

your own.”

MPS: “What does the exhalation breath do? What is its purpose?”

MJ: “It is like cooking.”

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MPS: “Do you mean it prepares conditions?”

MJ: “Something like that.”

MPS: “And the inhalation breath is…what exactly?”

MJ: “Serving the dish.”

MPS: “So the out-breath, as the universe shrinks, is the gestation phase

and the in-breath is the creative phase, as it expands?”

MJ: “You could put it in those terms, yes.”

MPS: “What created this process? Is this God?”

MJ: “No one knows. What is known is that energy is continuously

rippling out across the universe fueling the expansion. The energy

is not finite.”

MPS: “Oh, so the ‘Big Bang’ theory basically postulates that there is a

fixed sum of energy-being spread out thinner and thinner across space.

What you’re saying is that there are interim ripples, like mini-bangs,

between the expansions and contractions?”

MJ: “Correct, but without the ‘bang’ as you put it.”

MPS: “I see. And what do these ripples do, exactly?”

MJ: “They add impetus to the movement. They are like the fuel to

keep it going, if you will.”

MPS: “How long might one of these ripples last?”

MJ: “It varies but let’s say one human lifetime, for argument’s

sake.”

MPS: “And can we speculate that energy is somehow sucked back in

during contraction, like ripples going the other way?”

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MJ: “You could speculate that.”

MPS: “It sounds like the waves of the sea landing on the shore and thenwithdrawing back into the sea.”

MJ: “Another good analogy. There are many such analogies as this

pattern is repeated throughout the natural universe.”

The breathing, the tides, the ripples, the expansion and

contraction; the very motion of the universe is totally applicable to

motion right here on Earth. You’d think in a universe of this sizeand age it would have thought of some different patterns by now,

wouldn’t you? It’s just the bone idle laziness of the youth of today, I

say.

MPS: “Human science also speculates that there is a black hole at the

center of the universe. Could you confirm this?”

MJ: “How can there be a center of something infinite?”

I kicked myself.

MPS: “I mean, could you confirm that there is a massive black hole at the

point where the expansion and contraction emanates from.”

MJ: “Yes. A black hole exists at that place.”

MPS: “What is its purpose?”

MJ: “It is like the nostrils in the center of your face, breathing in

matter and spewing energy back out. This energy is the stuff of

creation.”

MPS: “Is this energy what scientists call ‘dark energy’ or ‘dark matter’?

* 3”

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3 About dark matter and dark energy the NASA website says “…roughly 70% of the Universe isdark energy. Dark matter makes up about 25%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything everobserved with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the Universe.”



MJ: “Indeed.”

MPS: “This process sounds like a tree breathing in carbon dioxide,transforming it and breathing out oxygen.”

MJ: “Once again, a very good analogy.”

MPS: “So they are not, as science speculates, so gravitationally powerful

that nothing can escape them.”

MJ: “No they are catalytic entities spewing out creative energy tonurture the universal process. They are also like universal

timekeepers constantly clicking.”

MPS: “Ah, radioactivity, like a nuclear clock.”

MJ: “Yes. They are not as frightening as humans might believe they

are. Even your sun has a black hole. Do you believe that?”

Master Jacob was describing to me the way the universe moves

in a totally natural phenomenon: breathing. There is an in-breath

and an out-breath, a expansion and a contraction. It is just yin and

yang. No Bang needed. For years I had been telling my students a

karmic lesson about the ‘Pebble in the Pond’, and how you cannot

take back a choice once it has been thrown into the waters of time.

Ripples expand out across the lake from the point where thedecision hit and rebound back to the source once the ripples have

hit the bank. Now, speaking to an energetic being from another

universe I was hearing the same story repeated back, and this time,

it was a story related to the creation of nothing less than, well…

everything .

Your life is an environment, it is an ambience, it is a recipe

brought to realization through the taste buds of your experienceand it exists in the same universe that Master Jacob describes as

expanding and contracting in a continuous fluctuation of highs and

lows, strength and weakness, creation and destruction. How you

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prepare yourself to suit that environment and the behaviors and

habits with which you create your life within it defines the quality

of your relationship with nature, and thus how authentic your life feels to you. The more authentic it becomes, the better you feel. This

feeling is all that really matters. Like a badly fitting shirt, too tight

and it feels constricting, too large and it drowns you. It doesn’t

matter a jot whether the label says its your size. Its all about how it

feels, right? Life is the same way. If life feels good, you must be

doing something right.

Changing your perception of what a good life might be madefrom is a vital step in creating one. The right house, the right job,

the right income, the right spouse, the right family, the right hair

cut, the Playstation 15 and the Gibson Les Paul may have the right

ring about it in a mind that meets all your spiritual needs through

physical solutions but the end result is attachment to the physical

world and the resulting suffering that goes with it. We reach out for

physical solutions to life's ills because…well…what other optionsseem credible? Religion has let me down. Politics is corrupt. My

marriage has failed. I hate my family. Even my dog has eaten my

slippers. What else can dull the pain of life but a good dose of shiny

stuff? Why is life so painful anyway? How on Earth did I even get

this gig? What was God thinking when he made me?

No need to answer that.

The first issue each of us has to address is how to create a lifethat actually works in the environment in which we live. You may

have gone out and got yourself a terrific Lamborghini because you

imagine the universe to be a racing track, but if the universe is

shaped more like a sky dive you’ve just invested your entire life’s

earnings in a vehicle that is going to crash and burn however much

fun it may seem on the way down. Piling on the juice just makes

the inevitable quicker. Your life may just become the biggest banggoing. Any ideas why you suffer yet?

Orranut and I spend much of our time healing and counseling

and many of our client’s lives do indeed look frighteningly similar

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to a car wreck. People take a single problem and smash it into a

million different parts and then sit paralyzed not knowing which

part to work on first. But here’s the answer: understand where youare. Understand your environment. Understand what the universe

really is. Understand what it will take to live in rhythm with it.

And, if it’s a sky dive, buy a parachute.

MPS: “What is the shape of the universe?” I asked Master Jacob, some

days later, once again driving back home from the south of Phuket after

some healing sessions on the island.”

I looked at Orranut sitting in the back seat of the car and she is

smiling. She informs me my question has been met with laughter. It

was good that Master Jacob was finding his sense of humor but it

was somewhat unsettling to have an ancient energy-being giggling

at you, whatever the cause.

MJ: “What is the shape of your mind?”

I think about it.

MPS: “Are you saying the universe and mind have the same shape?”

I realized how dumb the question must sound even as it leaves

my mouth. Silence from the back seat.

Orranut : “He’s laughing again.”

MPS: “Fair enough.”

My mind, like everyone else’s, is stuck looking for reassuring

shapes and patterns that conform to the preconceived notions of

what is real and what is not. They are wholly illusory. If we assign

our universe ‘a fixed shape’, if it is donut-shaped or orb-shaped orspiral-shaped or even shaped like a cute little teddy bear then, by

virtue of this, we must conclude that it would also have dimension

and with dimensions come walls, barriers, starts and ends etc. From

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this paradigm, the theory of the ‘Big Bang’ becomes very plausible,

and from within this mindset we extrapolate our linear tale of how

the universe must have started, grown to a certain shape and size,created the Earth, built each of us separate and independent of one

another and so on and so forth. It is the greatest linear illusion in

existence. When we set up our mental environment to entertain

such notions as a fixed shape and size, everything we think, say

and do is extrapolated from it in order to support a consistent

model.

Let’s put this as succinctly as possible: the ‘Big Bang’ Theory is afantasy based upon the initial assumption of a finite mind.

MPS: “If I were to take a physical telescope that could see forever”, I

asked, “would I ever see the end of the universe?”

I sat back in my chair, awaiting what I expected to be more

inevitable laughter. I was quietly surprised.

MJ: “It has the physical properties of shape and mass but it is also

infinite.”

MPS: “Were I to take a telescope that could see forever, would physical

planets exist at every point that I looked into the infinity?”

This was definitely a giggle-inducing type of question. Master

Jacob can some times lose patience with questions that stretch the

point of the point to the point of pointlessness. And I am an expert

at just those types of questions…

MJ: “I have never been there. I do not know.”

A reply in true character. I left it at that.

Understanding the way in which the universe moves is of nouse to us whatsoever unless we apply those shapes to our lives to

make our reality more compatible with the natural order of things.

What we have learned is that nature creates, recreates and creates

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once again the same shapes throughout the entire universe to

inspire our greater connection to the natural processes by which we

must all live and through which we must all get along with oneanother. We may sometimes feel alone and vulnerable in this world

but that is simply because we have not learned to connect to the

multitude of natural signposts revealing our purpose and how we

can get there in joy and contentment. Stacked into every gram of

soil, every cubic inch of air and every milliliter of water on this

Earth are the patterns and shapes that encourage human

entrainment with nature, but the human mind has theunprecedented capacity to relegate nature from possessing

profound meaning to meaning nothing more than commodities. We

separate and detach from our natural connection to such an extent

that we forlornly believe that human life can be acted out in a

sterile artificial environment where the nature of nature is mute and

irrelevant.

But nature has a deafening voice if we learn to turn up thevolume through our personal sensitivity. It talks to us, interacts,

communicates on so many subtle levels but we must learn to listen.

The way in which we organize our lives to entrain with natural

patterns and shapes defines, to a very great extent, the shape of

energetic feedback that can either nurture our spirit, our sense of

connectivity and our feeling of interdependence, or whittle it away

to nothing and leave us all feeling separate, alone and purposelesswithin a world closing in on us.

Neither of these choices happen without effort. It is not random

or a case of bad luck if we feel disconnected from our natural world

or if our life seems meaningless or empty. It is entirely up to you

which effort you apply to your reality just as it is entirely up to you

what you believe to be right and wrong in that reality. Bearing in

mind that our wealth and status-driven economy has encouragedhumanity to invest so much time and effort in the competitive

processes of winners and losers, clearly you must make a different

investment in your life if you are seeking inclusion and not

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exclusion, community and not self, respect and not prejudice. It is

not a cakewalk, I admit, but I guarantee it will require no more

effort than that you have so far invested to create the reality youalready have.

Life is a spiral. It is breathing. It is ebbing and flowing just as

surely as your world is changing, your lungs are inhaling and your

heart is pumping blood around your body. Learning to build the

bridges between you and your authentic self is just a single step in

the direction of creating harmony and balance, for in attaching to

the mental markers that have created the barriers of beginnings andendings in your life, you have forgotten that you are the greatest

pattern of them all, floating without attachment to the natural

patterns that created you. While the universe breathes in and out,

so do you. As is outside, so exists inside. Listen. Feel. And if one

day the talking stops, silence reigns within and life feels good all at

the same time, you will know that the shape of your reality has

aligned with the shape of the entire universe.And both you and the entire universe will laugh as one.

Equanimous

Documents

Equanimous: A Channeled Dialog of Why You are Here and What You Can Do About It Right Now! (Intro and C1)