Embodying Mind
Discovering Your Mystical Body – Part 6
Sometimes we think of “embodiment” as getting out of our head. Going back into our body and living more deeply in the physical, not always stuck in our thoughts or jumping with monkey mind. Being “disembodied” is sometimes even pictured as a detached cranium, like an old sci-fi cartoon with just a head flying around in a glass container.
The shadow side of the great evolution of our mental consciousness has been to negate the body. But in returning to the body, we certainly don’t want to fall prey to the same error, which would be to negate the head.
The head is part of the body—a pretty important one! And we’re not going to get very far without it.
Many spiritual practices of embodiment and otherwise primarily cultivate a temporary escape. Maybe even a benign war with the mind during the time of practice, especially in some forms of contemplative practice. When it works—and “success” rates vary greatly—this feels good as a brief reprieve (or is maddeningly frustrating when we “fail”), but usually afterward we find ourselves returning to everyday-mind consciousness. In the healthier forms, over time we will find that our mind becomes freer, identifying with a more expansive awareness and non-attached ease.
This battle with the ego or compulsive mind too often leaves us in a state of either/or. Times of “practice” become further separated from “everyday” reality, and the integration of these different states of mind very often proves extremely difficult. Even for those living in a monastery, let alone modern society.
In the mystical mind, we awaken to our healthy participation with our mind, with our thoughts, with a liberating and loving wisdom that flows into our life like a gentle breeze. Our heads are cleared and vibrant with a lucidity that opens us to insight and awareness that emerges a little differently, like the stirring of the wind.
It is the crucial waypoint, the go-between from nonattachment and ordinary consciousness. We are able to be present with a deeply engaged and open mind, less caught up in our own worries, comparisons, schemes, and all the compulsive pathways our thoughts run down. And genuinely inhabiting the fullness of the present realities of our life with a wise, free mind.
(Terminology note: “Mind” is largely used synonymously with “brain” or head, but can sometimes also convey a broader sense of knowing. As in most common usage there is little difference, we usually follow this connotation and reserve other terms for more holistic, embodied knowing.)
Mystical States of the Head
Our entry state in our head is a little different because we are usually already there—we don’t need to enter! But in fact, we are trying to enter into a different state of mind than usual. And to get there, we need our compulsive thoughts and hyper-activity to quiet down a bit. Though if you’ve ever tried to quiet the mind with the mind, it’s sort of like trying to not think of an elephant. Good luck!
We’ve found that this is most effectively enacted by, in a sense, leaving before coming back. When we enter into the awakened energy of our body, particularly our heart center, and then return to our head, we find ourselves already in this different state. Our minds are often unusually calm, with a cleared vibrant stillness. A quiet spaciousness that is open and ready to receive.
Often, especially at first, we like to just enjoy this state. What a relief! Thoughts might arise, but as we stay connected to our heart and body energy, they will be much less frequent or arresting. It is here that we can actively and intentionally move into our awakened state, where we are less focused on “maintaining” the still mind and become welcoming.
Rather than dismiss thoughts as distractions, we are becoming aware of the arisings of our mystical mind. In our head center, these arisings can look like images of visionary knowing, a sort of “imaginative” arising that comes without our calling it forth. We can hear words from spirit guides or other forms of God-Beside-Us, not usually audibly but in our minds’ ear. We may even find smells or tastes arising, as the forms of these knowings from our head center often draw on our physical senses—our most common modes of perception.
In full, integrated participation, our head center is noticing and receiving impressions, sensations, and other forms of mystical knowing from our other centers as well. In the open, awakened mind, we don’t need to interpret, define, or systematize these arisings. We simply welcome and receive them, take a moment to discern if this is coming from awakened spirit, and then absorb or pass it along to another if it is for them.
With practice, we grow in the discernment of arisings that are coming from our awakened consciousness and those that are coming from our own compulsive thoughts, which often draw on random associations we perceive, unrelated visual cues, or are even driven by an ego need to perform, to quell anxiety, or in response to our own current feelings.
When we receive from the awakened mind, the source feels different. This discernment is best cultivated in community, where others can reflect the resonance and give feedback on the truth of what we’ve shared as coming from the awakened mind. Then we begin to get more of a sense of the feel of those sorts of arisings compared to others that tend to fall flat or dissolve away easily.
This is beginning to dwell in the divine consciousness of our awakened mind. The mind of Christ, full of incarnated wisdom and love.
Our next state can be to expand through our open mind into the unified state of transcendence into God-Beyond-Us. We often do this by visualizing our awareness expanding into the space above and beyond our own head, and then even all the way out into outer space—a wonderful metaphor for this transcendent state of being. This is a movement into Mystery, into a cosmic witness state of vastness. Participation in the infinite, beyond all.
The Mental Structure of Consciousness
“When thought began to usurp the spirit….” – Jean Gebser
Unlike the other structures we’ve explored so far, we have no need to recover the latent awareness within ourselves of the mental. We are full-on in it.
However, healthy integration in this center can be especially difficult—because we so often feel trapped in the mind, suffering from its imperialism, under the weight of thought, ego, and perspective. As Jean Gebser reflected put it,
“But it must be evident on the other hand that our present state is one of exhaustion; that is, what was at the beginning of our structure its constituting strength or energy has become exhausted in the course of the exfoliation of consciousness.”
It is the body that frees the mind. Not as an escape, but as an exfoliation of our consciousness. Opening us to knowing and awareness that is not just sealed in the mind. It is this freedom from mental exclusivity that will liberate us. And in this embodied freedom we can come into our wholeness, into a transparent lucidity that opens up a whole new dimension of being (which we’ll touch on in the coming weeks).
As such, the essential charge for our mind today is not to keep “piling on” further concepts, information, and attainments. But to really start to re-cognize, to become cognizant again of the world beyond its own confines. To make space for the other structures, to re-welcome our previous and necessary ways of being, knowing, and awareness in integrated clarity and discernment. To become whole again, and so be released to transform into something more, into a whole new structure of consciousness.
The “We” of the Mind
The collective mind space is most often encountered as the shared field of information, of knowledge, of wisdom. Like the digital internet, with information stored in distant servers, the noosphere is the global, mystical cloud that holds the immaterial data and intelligence beyond anything we could ascribe to particular individuals—even though we may often encounter this reality in personal forms, spirit guides from the cloud of witnesses.
When we say that “something is in the air,” we are intimating this reality. Like the phenomena of scientific inventions and breakthroughs happening in multiple locations at very similar times—despite no direct contact or awareness of the others’ work. We see it in the animal kingdom in what is sometimes called “hive mind” or perhaps observed in murmuration.
Humans tap into this regularly, even if we don’t always think of it this way. The occurrence of “group think” is often one of its more pernicious expressions. Or when we get into a groove of collaborative work and the ideas just start flowing.
In the mystical WeSpace of the mind, we participate in this flow of ideas and knowledge with an access to this form of visionary knowing. Where we are “seeing” into this state could be called the spirit realm, or the collective field of awareness, or maybe even heaven on earth. In this mystical mind, we are not alone with/in our thoughts.
The more we access and encounter this reality, the more will our individual minds adapt and connect the new synapsis, joining into the neural pathways of the mind of God as we cultivate our mystical neuroplasticity.
Integrating Your Mystical Mind with Awakened Wisdom
Our minds are certainly one of our greatest components to our embodied being. When we awaken to our mystical mind, we discover more and more all that our ordinary mind did not and could not know.
As we come into this visionary knowing and mystical insight, it is especially important to stay grounded and connected to our other centers. It may be our most vital integration even, to keep our minds in tune and flowing with the whole of our being and all our structures of consciousness—so as to not let our minds run us off down errant mystical pathways.
No matter the power of our mind, if we are not suffused with love in our hearts, if we do not have the vital energy from the source of our divine being in our wombs, if we are not grounded in the earth and our interconnectedness, then we will eventually find ourselves blown about, exhausted, and disembodied from our whole being. For this same reason, we also need loving community with one another and personal spirit forms of God-Beside-Us.
When our mystical mind is in harmony with our embodied wholeness, we are dwelling in the flow of spirit, the fullness of God-Being-Us coming out in our lives. Where we can be present with wisdom, knowledge, clarity, and discernment in all of our life situations. We can offer to others what we have learned and what we see in truly liberating ways—not just a passing along of information for the storehouse, but mystical intelligence for the transformation of our lives.
Another pathway of integration for our mind is with what we call “mental health” and healing. Our mental health crisis and the effects on numerous individuals and our societies connect to much more than just our head center, and integration can often be a vital aspect of healing. Some forms of mysticism and their associated states can further reinforce dissociation and avoidance of areas of our lives that need healing. In its many forms and approaches, the healing path is crucial and necessary to be whole and integrated in the fullness of our embodied being.
What other pathways of integration do you experience through the healthy outflow of your awakened, mystical mind?
Sometimes I think that the world’s problems would be solved if people just had the right information. If they knew what I knew, or what “my group” knows. And while there are plenty of helpful things to be learned, education alone is not enough. Wisdom even, is not enough. Our embodied mind is best lived in harmony with our whole body, just like all of our centers and the spaces in between—which we will explore next week.
How are you living in freedom and healthy relationship with your head?
Answer in the comments below or set the intention to have a meaningful conversation about it with someone you trust, with your WeSpace group if you’re in one, or join us for deepening engagement and co-exploration around the head center this Tuesday at 6:30pm CT.