Cocreating Mystical Reality
“Transpersonal cocreation refers to dynamic interaction between embodied human beings and the mystery in the bringing forth of spiritual insights, practices, states, and worlds.”
Last week, Paul wrote about partnering with God in the work of evolution through co-creation. He wrote about how that work involves doing more than Jesus did (John 14:12), participating in the birth of new creation (Rom. 8: 19-23), cutting “Kosmic grooves” into the fabric of tomorrow’s reality (Ken Wilber), and realizing “ourselves as incarnate divine creativity” (Richard Rohr). I’ve got those on my to-do list, but I’m not sure if I’ll quite finish by the end of the week!
No, of course these are life-long works of no short order. But it is also highly empowering to recognize that we have the potential and ability to engagingly participate in the evolving work of God. Not only can we, but we are highly encouraged to do so!
So how do we do this? Where do we start?
Creativity can manifest in so many ways—that’s what makes it creative! However, in the work of evolution and new creation it matters most from what consciousness the new life springs forth. Or as Einstein put it, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
We’re not just interested in only solving problems, but helping to creatively unfurl the necessary new life that has yet to emerge. This is not an isolated, individual endeavor. We also need to create the collective conditions and settings for transformative growth. To cultivate the garden of human flourishing. One of the most loving things we can do is to help liberate ourselves and others into the consciousness necessary for the emergence of today’s and tomorrow’s resolutions.
Not Alone
Now if we were just given this massive task with no help beyond some encouraging verses and aspirational ideas, good luck. Even with all the best teaching, learning, study, and practice—we, in and of ourselves alone, are not enough. This is not a discouraging fact, but actually a statement of freedom. The burden is not all on our shoulders, because co-creation is all about help from the others!
This means that we are working together with God, not in a silent partnership, but in a relational and dynamic exchange. Anyone who has participated in meaningful collaborative work knows that it must involve communication. This is one of the reasons why the 2nd-person face of God, the God-beside-us is such an important relationship to develop and nurture.
Our personal presences of divinity, in whatever form they come to us—God’s motherly/fatherly presence, Jesus, spiritual guides, the communion of saints—they are our partners in the work (or are we their partners?). They have so much wisdom to share with us; they want to give us so much.
However, for many we must first learn to become aware of the presences, messages, and wisdom that is offered to us from the mystical realm. This is not just for some special select few who seem to naturally receive visions or spiritual insight, but a developmental intelligence that we can actively discover and cultivate in ourselves.
Cultivating Mystical Consciousness
While we’ve written about the different mystical languages before, here I want to get into the specific phenomenology, or how we directly experience mystical consciousness. This will allow us to get the flavor so to speak, in our own efforts to cultivate mystical awareness.
“Mystical” can mean different things to different people, so here are our three orienting generalizations:
A mystic is someone who engages in the direct experience of the divine.
This is often in the form of felt sensations, impressions, visions, inner words, and conversation—experienced in any or all of our body centers of spiritual knowing.
Mystical experience can be transcendent, intimately relational, and/or deeply personal within.
Directly experiencing the divine in mystical awareness is a practice we cultivate. And the process of learning to sense and distinguish the subtle realm of spiritual presence and wisdom is a cocreative act. As we practice it, it looks a little something like this:
First, we attune ourselves to deeper presence through a meditative practice that focuses on being present to the centers of spiritual knowing in our bodies. We are not trying to simply move into stillness, but open ourselves to a state of receptivity often energetically and vibrantly aware. While this state can be in our head, we find it works best if we’re attuned to our deep heart, present in our deepest identity in our gut, and grounded to the earth through our feet. But there are many states of receptivity.
While we are present in this state of consciousness, we listen. Or rather, we allow ourselves to sense what is arising. A word comes to our mind, or perhaps an image or even just a color. Maybe a sensation somewhere in our body or a deep intuition. We may even think, “where did that come from?” I wouldn’t normally think, feel, or sense that. At times, it may even seem a little random.
It might feel like just our imagination, but it’s not—it’s different. It is coming from us, but from the deep us. The more we practice, the more we see the different nature and quality of these arisings. They are the windows of wisdom through which we perceive mystical reality.
If we’re with others or in a setting such as a WeSpace group, we are able to share with others what we are perceiving. This is what many find most helpful in learning this way of knowing, because they begin to see how they know things they couldn’t possibly have known. If it was just their imagination, it couldn’t be so prescient, so revelatory. It’s not always like that, but often enough to help us grow in confidence.
Here we also can become aware of spiritual guides, or personal presences of divinity. This could be in the form of Jesus, Mary, or others who we discover are present to us. We sense their presence from this state of mystical awareness, often in the form of an energy field present in a physical space close to us. We may even feel their touch somewhere on our body or hear them speak words to us, just as Jesus did with Moses and Elijah (remember we are called to do “greater things” than Jesus!).
This is being “in the spirit.” The spirit (consciousness) of God, just like in the early church. It is an awareness of the spiritual realities surrounding us, within and without. It is living in the spiritual gifts of God that we see described throughout the New Testament epistles.
What Does Jesus Look Like?
Notice that this is not the question of what Jesus did look like, but rather how you experience and “see” the Living Jesus now.
The point is not to scientifically reconstruct a digital composite from the Shroud of Turin (which may be historically suspect anyway), but rather to recognize who Jesus is for you.
If my picture of him is different from yours, does that mean only one of us has the “right” image? Of course not. There are many “faces of Jesus” and he meets us where we are at. The Living Jesus exists outside of ourselves as a true, ontological reality. And we all experience that reality a little differently. Indeed, even that reality shapes itself into a manner and form we can accept, that we are ready for. This is cocreation.
While it is helpful to recognize that Jesus was a Middle Eastern man who lived two thousand years ago, and the depictions of “White Jesus” can have damaging social and cultural affects, The Living Jesus is not defined by race, or physical appearance.
Some people need a white Jesus and some people need a black Jesus. He appears to us in the manner that we are able to relate to now. Often he just avoids that entirely by appearing less physically distinct and more energetically. Why couldn’t the disciples recognize the Living Jesus on the road to Emmaus? He must have appeared a little differently than his earthly, physical appearance. Maybe even changing when they recognized him later?
Now there is always the possibility of going too far with this and creating God in your own image. Though if we’re honest with ourselves, when we do this, we know that it is not cocreation. That is a one-sided act.
Cocreated Forms
Our personal experience of God is not limited to Jesus alone. Sometimes we need other forms, other guides. Perhaps it is Mary who sings to your soul. Or someone appears who you didn’t know before and didn’t expect.
And mystical reality is certainly not always in the form of a person. We also cocreate with the mystery and the spiritual landscapes that emerge in this visionary realm.
The forms that we perceive in mystical awareness will always be “filtered” in a way through our own cultural understanding, history, and background. Does that mean they are not real? No! It just means that our participation and perception is always part of the process. The “observer” is not separate from the “experiment.”
“To acknowledge that humans not only discover but also shape and co-create spiritual landscapes does not annul the metaphysical reality of such mystical worlds.”
This is because you matter. Mystical reality is not independent of you. It is not a separate dimension that operates independently from our reality. It is intertwined and entangled with your life, with your future and the future of this planet. This is the nature of love. God is love.
We are all participants in the divine unfolding, in the journey to the Omega Point of evolution. The more we are able to partner with the presence of God, the more we are able to cocreate from mystical consciousness, the more life we will discover. This is life abundant, blooming in the community of the divine and human embrace.
Begin as creation, become a creator.
Never wait at a barrier.
In this kitchen stocked with fresh food,
why sit content with a cup of warm water?
—Rumi