Individual

 

WHOLE-BODY MYSTICAL AWAKENING PRACTICE

 
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Whole-Body Mystical Awakening is a unique, integrated practice that is personal, communal, and cosmic — all at the same time! It integrates the three different faces of God — the Infinite Face of God-Beyond-Us, the Intimate Face of God-Beside-Us, and the Inner Face of God-Being-Us. It accesses the four embodied centers of spiritual knowing (head, heart, womb/gut, and feet). It recognizes Christ as the Christian symbol for all of reality— divine, human, and material — in seamless oneness.

Through WBMA, we find a host of ways to be present to God that are integrative and holistic.

 
 
 

 The following steps can be used as an introductory way to experience Whole-Body Mystical Awakening. While we can experience each face of God in every center of spiritual knowing, these might be the most natural places to start.

You can do this meditative prayer practice anywhere at any time. You can include one part, several, or all of it. WE often take 20-30 minutes.

Six ways to be present to God:

 

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The feeling of God-Being-Us reveals itself in our awakened heart center

In WBMA, we always start with our hearts. The Christian understanding of God is that “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them” (1 John 4: 16).  Therefore, living in love is the experience of God’s heart of love living in us. This cocreates a flow of divine-human love from within you. The love you feel in your heart space is not only your human love but also God’s divine love. This is how God feels in your heart!

To be even more pointed, this is the experience of how God-Being-You feels in your heart center of spiritual knowing! It is both your heart and God’s heart beating in your chest, radiating out both your love and God’s love – without differentiation. It is cocreated love by both us and God. We might learn to think, if not say, that it is your-God-heart center.

By heart, we mean not only our spiritual God-heart space but also our physical heart space.

To help you move into “your-God-heart,” first move your awareness from your head down into your physical heart. You can tap on your head, then tap on down your temple, jaw, neck, and chest. Continue tapping on your chest until you sense you have moved to your heart space. You can also place your hands on your-God-heart which can increase the energy there. Your-God-heart space includes your chest, back, arms, and hands. You may also think of someone you love to help activate the love flowing from your-God-heart. You may feel warmth flowing from your heart and bliss flooding your whole being.

Are you getting the idea of “your-cocreated-God-heart” now? Once “our-God-heart” understanding becomes embedded in us, we may no longer necessarily need to use those particular words. But we can know them deep within.

 

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The sensation of Christic energy pulses as our feet access the grounding energy of the earth

Move your attention to your feet, making sure your feet are planted firmly on the floor. You may want to move your feet around or wiggle your toes to help your consciousness move there. Think of roots growing from your feet deep into the earth, anchoring you in your body and your body to the earth and nature itself, even the material cosmos.

Draw up this cocreated Christ energy from the grounding and centering of these spiritual roots that connects you with the oneness of all divine material reality. Christ is the Christian symbol for all of reality – divine, human, and material reality. That reality was dramatically manifested in and as Jesus and includes all creatures, great and small, the glory of nature, and the cosmos itself. As Richard Rohr says, “God loves things by becoming them!”

 

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The intuition of God-Being-Us rises from deep within our spiritual womb

Draw that grounding energy up to your gut, your spiritual womb. We all have a spiritual womb, whether we have a physical one or not.

Neuroscience now speaks of our mind-brain, heart-brain, and gut-brain. We often call the gut a “spiritual womb.” Mindfulness, heartfulness, wombfulness, and grounding are all partners in our spiritual knowing.

Your spiritual womb is the home of your core self, your divine identity, which is God-Being-You. Let yourself sink into God’s being you in the deep presence of your spiritual womb. This is not accessed by conceptualizing or thinking but by intuition which is knowing something without conscious reasoning. Rest in your spiritual womb by simply Being.

Be aware of any impressions or sensations that emerge from this center of deep spiritual being. Intuition, creativity, and “gutsy” courage, cocreated by you and God, also arise from the generativity of wombfulness.

Jesus said that from here flow rivers of living water, the awakened consciousness of our divine identity (John 7:37-38). The spiritual knowing of the gut deepens into a unified field as we experience not only our own divine essence but that this identity is the one source, the one divine essence of everyone.

 

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The awareness of God-Being-Us is both in the stillness of our awakened mind and in the images, words, sensations, and impressions that may emerge

Move into your headspace, noticing that your mind is unusually calm as you carry the grounding energy of your feet, womb, and the radiant love of your heart with you into your headspace. Rest in the cleared stillness there are long as you wish.

The psalmist writes of God saying, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). Saint Issac, 7th century mystic and Doctor of the Church writes, “Silence, like the sunlight will illuminate you in God.”

At any time, you may intentionally open to images, words, and impressions that may emerge from the quiet of your mind. These are not your usual, ordinary thoughts, but instead, they come from your deeper, awakened mind.  

This is God-Being-You, and through divine-human cocreation, transmitting words and images of beauty, healing, guidance, and encouragement for both yourself and others.

 

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The experience of God-Beyond-Us emerges in transcendent, formless awareness beyond our mind

Whenever you are ready, you can move up beyond your headspace into the formless transcendence that is pure consciousness that emerges beyond your mind. The metaphor of infinite, cosmic space can describe this. This is the mystical experience of God-Beyond-Us.

This vast, infinite dimension is beyond words, images, or forms of any kind. It is pure I AMness, pure consciousness, sheer Being.

 

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6


 

The sense of God-Beside-Us manifests in and as the spiritual beings present with us in our God heart center.

Move back down into your God heart space, this time becoming aware of the spiritual presences that are with you. These are sourced from God and shaped and interpreted by you. First of all, this can be the motherly-fatherly presence of God, the Living Jesus, and other spiritual companions such as Mary or other saintly presences who are there to comfort, guide, and encourage you.

Let them hold you and touch you. You can sense their presence, talk with them, and receive from them. This is God-Beside-You.

You can also let your-God-heart flow out to loved ones, friends, and others who are also spiritual beings – but have been or are now in the physical realm. As they come to your mind, send the radiant energy of love out to them in connection, healing, light, and blessing. Let your heart expand as it holds all sentient beings in the blissful, loving embrace of heartfulness.

Are you new to Whole-Body Mystical Awakening?

For those new to this practice, we recommend starting with this beginning guided meditation, with prompts for learning to move your awareness through the four centers throughout the practice:

Transcript available here.


For the Experienced WBMA Practitioners…

And for ongoing practitioners, we also have a new guided meditation from Martha O’Hehir & myself for deepening guidance:

Transcript available here.

 
 
 

GROUP PRACTICE

In addition to the individual practice, you can also practice this together with others in the form of our WeSpace Whole-Body Mystical Awakening:

 
 

LEARN MORE

To learn more about the background, research, and purpose of this practice, check out this free video teaching presentation from Paul Smith: