Nick Bunick fought his way up from the poor streets of Boston to living the American Dream. After playing college football and graduating from the University of Florida, Nick became a successful businessman. Then astounding spiritual events occurred in his life that inspired him to write Time for Truth (Hay House September 2010).

Time for Truth reveals how Jesus’ messages of love have been distorted into fear and messages of compassion into messages of guilt. Time for Truth will give you a new and profound understanding of your relationship with God, the spiritual world, the purpose of life, hypnotic regression and how Angels are active in our life.

For example, in our conversation, Nick explains the phenomenon of seeing the numbers 444, what that means and shares a personal anecdote from his life about seeing 444 and its significance. Nick also talked about how he used hypnotic regression to access vivid memories and detailed information from his past.

You can listen to our 25 minute interview by clicking here and then pressing the play button.

For more information on Nick you can visit his Web site at Nickbunick.com. (His Web site has a section specifically devoted for people who have experienced the 444 phenomenon to leave comments).

Time for Truth is available to purchase on Amazon by clicking Here.

In 2006, filmmakers Steve and Whitney Boe attended the “Mythic Journeys” conference and performance festival in Atlanta and found their lives transformed when confronted with the question:

“Will you know who you are when you die or will death have to tell you?”

Mythic Journeys, the movie, is their celebration of that extraordinary experience, an exploration of what myth and story can teach us about our own lives and how mythology can be used to spark creativity and bridge communities, generations and cultures.

In between this imaginative narrative are interviews with some of the world’s leading mythologists, psychologists and spiritual leaders including Deepak Chopra, Michael Beckwith and Jerry Wennstrom.

Below is a video clip that features the artwork of Jerry Wennstrom from the movie Mythic Journeys along with commentary from Deepak Chopra talking about the role of the artist in society.

Mythic Journeys filmmakers Steve and Whitney Boe said,

“Jerry was one of the first artists who jumped on board with the movie. From the first moment we talked, even before we saw his work, we knew it was going to be something special. You can’t tell by this picture but each of the sculptures are about 7 feet tall and are designed with beautiful and whimsically moving parts. Jerry is one of the few artists who can capture the dark and the light at the same time.  We were lucky enough to reap the benefit.”

Spiritual Media Blog had the chance to interview Jerry about his spiritual journey and book The Inspired Heart: An Artist’s Journey of Transformation. You can listen to that interview below, which is set to pictures of his artwork.

In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving by Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy with Sally Jenkins (Henry Holt, July 13, 2010) takes readers on an extraordinary journey of faith and love and shares unforgettable lessons about the power of giving. The Tuohys’ deeply inspiring memoir offers readers a detailed picture of a family that makes giving a way of life, the huge blessings that decision has brought to them, and the ways we can all make a difference in our own communities.

Below is Q & A with Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy Authors of In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving

Q: Besides dominating the New York Times bestseller list, The Blind Side has also broken Hollywood records. Why do you think your family’s story has captivated so many people?

A: We think people love the story because they recognize some aspect of themselves there. We want to be the kind of people who really make a difference in the world, but so many people are convinced they don’t have the resources to be that kind of giver. We wrote In a Heartbeat to share our story in our own words precisely so that people will begin to realize that they can be the kind of people who help change someone’s life.

Q: Let’s talk about the problem of homeless and needy children in America. How do you believe this problem can be solved?

A: There are a lot of intractable problems in the U.S., from terrorism to health care. But the problem of children in need is curable; we can all do something about it today, individually, through the smallest acts. If every church in the U.S. sponsored one child, we could wipe out the problem of homeless children in this country. There are a million Michaels. Not every kid has the potential to become a star player in the NFL, but he or she may be the person who grows up to cure cancer, or becomes a great husband or wife to someone.

Q: How do you respond when people marvel at the risks you took as you brought Michael Oher into your family?

A: You know, you take a risk every day of your life. When you get in your car and drive across a bridge you take a risk. You don’t know if your tires are good, or if the pilings are going to hold, or if the bridge will fall in. But you don’t really stop and think about it, do you? You don’t get up every morning and kick all four of your tires. You don’t stare at the bridge and say, ‘Yeah, I think it’ll hold me.’ How did you know that bridge wasn’t going to fall? Yet you went right ahead and crossed it. Everybody takes risks, every day. You just don’t realize that’s what you’re doing.

Q: How do you define “cheerful giving”?

A: This is not giving to impress someone who may be watching, and it’s not giving because you feel guilty. The Bible says it best: “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”– II Corinthians 9:7

Q: In the book, you sum up your philosophy of giving in “The Popcorn Theory.” Tell us more about that.

A: The Popcorn Theory is about noticing others. It’s about seeing, not turning away from the immediacy of someone in need. It starts with recognizing a fellow soul by the roadside-even if he doesn’t seem to belong in your lovely red brick neighborhood and he is the biggest damn piece of popcorn you ever saw and his problems seem too immense to take on. It’s about assigning that person value, and potential. Like popcorn, you don’t know which kernel’s gonna pop. They just show up. It’s not hard to spot ‘em. The Popcorn Theory goes like this: “You can’t help everyone, but you can try to help the hot ones who pop right up in front of your face.”

Q: What if I don’t have many resources? How can I be a cheerful giver without a bunch of extra money?

A: Too often we think we lack the means to improve someone’s lot. We’re wrong. The Popcorn Theory doesn’t require you to write a large-scale check, or to take a hungry boy with eyes like leaping flames into your household. But it does require that you perceive the person standing right in front of you, and extend a hand in kindness. Consider this story we heard from a U.S. Senator during a trip to Washington for an Adoption Coalition convention:

There is a little-known Congressional initiative to give internships to young people who were so unwanted they have aged out of the foster care system. This Senator employs one such young man. One day the Senator passed by the mailroom, and paused and turned around. He noticed that his intern, fresh out of foster care, had reorganized all the old files. “This room has never looked so clean,” the Senator said. “You did a great job.” A few minutes later the Senator decided to get a cup of coffee. He returned to mailroom and found that his intern had tears streaming down his face. “Son, did I offend you?” he asked. “No,” the young man said. “That’s the first time anyone has ever told me that I did something good.” This gift had nothing to do with money. What this kid needed most was encouragement and self-worth, and that’s what he was given.

Q: As you share your story, one of the points you stress is that generosity is not just your personal value. It’s a core value for the entire family. What specific things have you done as parents to help your kids become cheerful givers?

A: One of our practices is something we call “Get one, give one,” which means when you receive something, give part of it away. To impress the lesson on our daughter Collins, we sent her to camp with underprivileged kids and on a searing mission trip to the Guatemala City Dumps, where she saw families living in lean-tos amid the garbage, yet with pictures of Christ hung amid the wreckage. Collins came to
understand how fortunate she was: “He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” (Acts 14:17)

She also learned how important it was to share some of what she’d been given. Long before Michael came into our lives, Collins and Sean Jr. learned to accept the presence of kids sleeping on the sofa or lounging around the house. Friends at the Briarcrest School whose parents worked two jobs. One afternoon 7-year-old Sean Jr. came home to find them playing with his X-box. He sought out Leigh Anne and said, “What gives?” She replied, “We’re just helping them out. Be generous.” Sean Jr. went back downstairs and watched the brothers play a video game. “I’ve got the winner,” he said.

Q: In the book, you point out that the most important gifts your children gave each other had nothing to do with money. Tell us about those gifts.

A: As Michael became a member of the family, he and our other kids gave each other two small but crucial mutual gifts-loyalty and protection. At Ole Miss, Collins and Michael went everywhere together, and they and their friends achieved a new level of racial integration at that old southern school. Even now, when our family attends Michael’s games, he remains extremely protective of his sister, insisting on one
occasion that his teammate walk her to the car to keep her away from unruly male fans. And for Sean Jr. having Michael in his family means they do more as a family-he gets much more of each of them.

This is one of the blessings of cheerful giving. We have always felt that Michael gave us far more than he received. All we did was put a roof over his head. He has given us back a stronger sense of home and family.

In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving by Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy with Sally Jenkins is available on Amazon if you Click Here

Upon learning that the previous owner of her home was a victim of suicidal depression, author Barbara Richardson made a silent promise: to turn that farmhouse into a house of joy. In her new book, Guest House, she fulfills that promise.

Guest House is a fictional novel that weaves together the burdens and joys of one outwardly accomplished go-getter, Melba Burns and one shy, imaginative and neglected kid, Matt Garry. After witnessing a terrible accident, Melba has retreated from the world; she’s abandoned her high-achieving life, she’s stopped driving her car, and she avoids human contact. Her sheltered world starts to crumble when Matt, a courageous and ingenious boy with troubled parents finds his way into her heart.

I recently had a chance to interview Barbara about Guest House. She also talked about how it took her 18 years to get her first book published and gave some great advice for aspiring writers.

You can read a few highlights from our interview below and listen to our entire 20 minute conversation by clicking the play button.

Matt: Your characters deal with many challenges ranging from growing up with alcoholic and troubled parents, spousal abuse, being raised in a very strict and religious household, how to comfort those grieving, loneliness, and finding love. Do you have a personal connection to the issues raised in your book?

Barbara: I do. Yes I was raised in a really strict religion and had parents who sort of ignored me…And, I think the beautiful thing about living a spiritual life is that it’s not the circumstances, but what you do with them. To me it was so important to show the humanity of all these people, even the terrible actions of parents and friends. And, in all the confusion truly there is this beautiful thread running through it that you can be free when you learn how to surrender to those who love you and to the moment which provides all the care you could possibly need.

Matt: How do you find beauty in those moments of darkness when you have such terrible circumstances?

Barbara: . . . I saw a documentary on the Holocaust a couple nights ago. And, no there wasn’t joy in the camps there. But, these people managed to locate the joy in their heart in these most difficult circumstances because they were true to themselves. If you’re true to your self, not your outer circumstances…joy is available to you every moment.

For more information on Barbara, you can visit her web site at www.BarbaraKRichardson.com or purchase Guest House on Amazon by Clicking Here.

Past Life is a TV show about an unlikely pair of past-life detectives who investigate whether what is happening today is the result of who you were before. It was inspired by M.J. Rose’s book, “The Reincarnationist” and aired on Fox last night.

I had a chance to interview M.J. Rose about the Past Life TV series and the challenges of turning her book, “The Reincarnationist,” into a TV show. You can read highlights of our interview below or listen to our 15 minute interview by clicking the play button.

Matt Welsh: So tell us a little bit about Past Life. What’s the TV show about?

M.J. Rose: Well, the novel, The Reincarnationist, has at its heart an institute called the Phoenix Foundation where a group of reincarnationists work mostly with children helping them work with their present day crises that are based on past life problems…Warner Brothers found the book and read it. They were very interested in the idea of the foundation that studied past lives and saw that as a potential jumping off point for a TV show. So, they optioned the book and they wrote a script….They took that foundation and changed it a little so it would work for TV and added some different characters for it and that’s what the show is about. So every week…the people at the foundation work on a different case with a different person who has present day issues that really have past life roots.

Matt Welsh: What were some of the challenges of turning your book into a TV show?

M.J. Rose: The executive producer and I worked for a little while on a list of all different past life stories. In all the research I did, what were some of the great stories I heard. You know, somebody who felt like they were being suffocated in their present life and did a past life regression and found out they had been buried in a tomb in Ancient Egypt. Just like a really long list of that to show the people at Warner Brothers just how rich a field it was. Basically you could find any problem in the present and come up with a past life reason for it existing. But (Warner Brothers) was interested in focusing on crimes and crisis problems. So, we did that list and (Warner Brothers) was excited by the potential.

Then (Warner Brothers) found this brilliant writer, David Hudgins, who had been a writer for Friday Night Lights and for Everwood. They gave David the book and they said we are interested in developing this. Would this be something you would be interested in?… And, David told me the story. It was very synchronistic or karmic because he really didn’t know much about reincarnation at the time, but his wife had just seen the show on Oprah and had just become really fascinated by it. So, when he showed her the book, she was like all “…I’m really into reincarnation and that’s so interesting.” So, he read the book and saw the potential and he became the writer and the executive producer. So, he and Lou Pitt went to work on creating the show.

In general, the challenge is that you can’t turn a book into a TV show. You can turn a book into a movie more likely, but a TV show has its own requirements. It’s going to be week after week…What was exciting was that David really took the issues at the heart of the book and was really inspired by it, but turned it into something that is very much his own and his own vision.

And, I love it. It’s really a great show. The pilot episode is something that television usually isn’t. It’s fast paced and a tear jerker and very emotional. There aren’t a lot of shows on TV that are very emotional that are dramas and that have action in them. So, I think that even if viewers are not interested in reincarnation, they are going to be really excited by the format and the quality of the writing and the acting and the story.

Matt Welsh: Where can we go for more information on the show?

M.J. Rose: For more information you can visit www.MJRose.com or my blog on reincarnation at www.reincarnationist.org

Jessica Maxwell’s Roll Around Heaven: An All-True Accidental Spiritual Adventure has won the Gold Award for Best Memoir in the 2010 Nautilus Book Awards!

Nautilus’ motto is “Changing the World One Book at a Time,” and fellow Gold winners include William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer’s marvelous The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind about an African boy who makes a windmill out of scraps and “brings electricity and a future” to his village, Pierre Pradervand’s beautiful The Gentle Art of Blessing, and Elizabeth Grossman’s powerful ode to green chemistry, Chasing Molecules. Previous Nautilus Gold Medal winners include the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Deepak Chopra, so Jessica is in excellent “and humbling!” company. 

Spiritual Media Blog interviewed Jessica about her memoir, Roll Around Heaven, and how anyone can have an authentic spiritual experience. You can listen to that interview by clicking the button below or purchase the book by clicking here.

I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Jane Bernhardt, author of We Are Here: Love Never Dies about her book, communicating with loved ones after they die and how her message can help people heal.

On the morning of November 5, 2006 Jane’s father Harry Lee Smith passed away. It was never his intention to abandon Angelika, his bed-bound wife of forty years. So, shortly after his death, he began an amazing series of communications through his daughter Jane, to comfort and inspire Angelika as she transitioned out of her body. What Harry and his spiritual helpers have expressed are extraordinary illuminations of the beauties of the after-life as well as precious lessons in living and letting go.

In our conversation, Jane shares with me how we can communicate with loved ones who have passed away, how she responds to people who don’t believe we can communicate with loved ones after they have died and how her message can be healing and empowering.

She made a few remarks that really helped me see a bigger picture such as,

“When I can work for the things that are eternally important, then there’s no end to the fruitfulness of my life.”

“Whenever I felt lost or discouraged, I’ve gone deep inside to ask: ‘Are you still here?’ I speak with the lover of my soul. This conversation has taken me to amazing places.”

You can listen to our entire 30 minute conversation by pressing the play button below.

For more information on Jane Bernhardt and how to purchase We Are Here: Love Never Dies, please Click Here

Yesterday, CNN did a feature story on Unbeaten, the inspirational documentary that chronicles the exploits of 31 paraplegics for six days, as they make their way in wheelchairs and hand cycles across a brutal road race, “Sadler’s Alaska Challenge.”

Last week Unbeaten screened for some of the military’s Wounded Warriors recovering from devastating injuries at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. In the CNN interview below, you can hear how the Wounded Warriors were inspired by the film’s message to NEVER QUIT.

For more information about Unbeaten, you can listen to an 8 minute interview that Spiritual Media Blog did with one of the documentary’s producers, Tamara Henry, by clicking the play button below below.

You can also find out more by visiting Unbeaten’s web site at http://www.unbeatenthemovie.com

Andrew Harvey and Karuna Erickson are the authors of Heart Yoga: The Sacred Marriage of Yoga and Mysticism. In Heart Yoga, Andrew and Karuna use practical teachings and richly layered poems to remind us that through yoga it is possible for anyone to become “embodied channels of illumined love, grace, peace . . . and instruments of divine creativity and service in the world.” 

I recently had a chance to interview them about their book, the benefits and differences of heart yoga and how yoga can connect you to the Sacred.  You can listen to our 30-minute conversation by clicking the play button and read highlights from our conversation below.  For more information, please visit Andrew’s web site at www.AndrewHarvey.net and Karuna’s web site at www.yogakaruna.com.  Heart Yoga is available on Amazon.com by Clicking Here

Andrew, you are an internationally acclaimed visionary and bestselling author and/or editor of over 30 books.  What inspired you to write about yoga?

Well my last book , which in a way is a consummation of my life work is called “The Hope; A Guide to Sacred Activism.”  In that book I lay out a vision for what I believe is a force that can save the planet, save the human race and save us from the addictions that are now destroying us.  That force I call Sacred Activism, which is the fusion of the two noblest fires in the human soul: The fire of the mystic’s passion for God and the fire for the activist’s passion for justice.

When these two fires fuse, they birth a third fire which is the nuclear fire of love in action and which connects directly to the evolutionary fire that streams from the Godhead to evolve all of the Universes ever more profoundly into the glory of the Divine.

When I wrote this book, I came to understand that four kinds of practices were profoundly needed now for us to become strong enough to deal with the enormous crisis that is manifesting everywhere:

• Cool practices that calm us and align us with Divine Being.
• Hot practices that align us with the Motherhood of God.
• Prayer practices that enable us to keep up a stream of remembrance of the beloved through everything and align us with the will of God through everything.
• And very importantly, body practices, Sacred body practices that enable us to embody the Divine energies that are streaming in at this crucial and menacing moment to help birth what I believe is the real secret meaning of our crisis and embody Divine humanity.

About eight years ago, I had the great good fortune to meet Karuna Erickson and she was a pupil of mine in a class that I was giving on Rumi.  And very sweetly and tenderly, she came up to me after one of my classes and said,

“Andrew, the passion that is devouring you and that you are emanating will deeply damage you if you don’t get more bodied.”

And because she said it so sweetly, I heard her and I embarked on a whole deep immersion in yoga under her instruction and through that immersion, I came to understand with Karuna’s help that at this moment yoga could be the most important crucible for the divinization of the body that we have available to us.

Yoga has very ancient sacred roots.  Yoga has always known at these Sacred roots that the Divine is present as Light Consciousness in every cell of the body…

Yoga can become a conscious way of uniting with the Divine within and without and even more importantly of calling down the Divine Light into the body so that the body can become more and more consciously the living temple of the Divine energies.

One of the most extraordinary things about heart yoga has been is its extremely vibrant reception from both the leading spiritual teachers Marianne Williamson, Caroline Myss and Deepak Chopra and also by the leading Yoga teachers such as Seane Corn, Rodney Yee and Shiva Rea.

How does Heart Yoga differ from other types of yoga, and what is its biggest benefit?

God is the sacred marriage of immanence and transcendence.  This is the way in which God is most holy and most vibrantly worshiped in all the great mystical traditions.  And the site of the marriage is the sacred heart center.  This isn’t the physical center of the heart.  It’s a little bit to the right of the chest and it’s called by many names…

And, when this heart center is open, it allows for the irrigation of the body by the Divine Light….And so the heart center functions in the spiritual body, psychosomatic body, mystical body in the same way that the physical heart center operates in the physical body.  For example, just how the physical body pumps blood around the body to keep the body vibrant.  So, does the heart center, when open, pumps the Divine Light around all of the different parts of the physical and spiritual body and allows them to come into a vibrant field of naked unity, which allows us to become more and more consciously Divine.

So, we called it Heart Yoga in this very profound mystical sense and we’ve put at the core of our book a vision of the heart center how to open it and how to stay in it while practicing the asanas and I think Karuna you’d like to say something about why you feel so important about heart yoga…

Karuna:

I think that Andrew is a living example of heart yoga because you can hear in his words how the inspiration flows, in a very grounded way flows through the body.  The light is manifesting in every cell of our bodies actually when we practice with conscious intention, as we do with heart yoga.  Our intention is to bring practice into a deeper and deeper level of actually invoking the light and feeling it radiating through every cell in the body.  This creates the type of inspiration in which Andrew has been speaking of….

I’d like to emphasize that this experience is available to everyone.  It’s not just some rare, strange experience that’s only available to a few enlightened beings. But, everyone has an experience of connecting with what is Sacred.  For example, when they look at a baby or look at beautiful flower.  This direct experience of connecting with the Sacred is something that through conscious practice that we can all, and we all have experienced.  You don’t have to be an accomplished Yogi.  You can just open your heart to the possibility of this experience.  And, here it is for everyone.

Andrew:

In our book, we really do make that very clear.  One of our great dreams for this book is that it would be a book for absolutely everyone, not only for yoga practitioners, but also for those who haven’t yet found yoga.  And the ways that we offer for opening the heart through the ancient, mystical systems are very simple.

Robert Scheinfeld is the author of Busting Loose From the Money Game: Mind-Blowing Strategies for Changing the Rules of a Game You Can’t Win and Busting Loose From the Business Game: Mind-Blowing Strategies for Recreating Yourself, Your Team, Your Business, and Everything in Between. For those who want to approach their business, job or career with hope, joy and excitement, Scheinfeld offers a unique model to help you achieve those goals. The heart of his message is to avoid separating who we really are (however you want to define that – whether that is Spirit or Higher Self or Expanded Self) from our business and career decisions. When we begin to see our business or career from the perspective of our Expanded Self, then he believes everything takes care of its self. His books offer a practical method to accomplish this noble goal.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Robert. In our conversation, he shares some personal experiences that prompted him to take a radically different approach to business and money and offers some useful advice for how we can develop a similar mindset and bust loose from the business and money game.

If you would like to listen to my interview with Robert, please click the play button below. For more information on Robert and his book, please visit http://www.bustingloose.com.

If you would like to purchase Busting Loose From the Money Game: Mind-Blowing Strategies for Changing the Rules of a Game You Can’t Win please Click Here