Integrating Our Embodied Oneness
Can Praying Change the World?
Mystical Activism: Part Two
Interestingly, Jesus’ mystical plan for world peace does not depend on everyone in the world becoming a Christian. If you consider the history of Christians clashing with other Christians, that would not seem to bring peace anyway! And besides, getting everyone into the same religion would not be a very mystical plan — and Jesus’ plan is very, very mystical. Let’s look at Jesus’ practice of “activism” for a better world.
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Part Six: Whole-Body Mystical Presencing
"For this is the truth in nature, that this ego which thinks itself a separate independent being and claims to live for itself, is not and cannot be independent nor separate, nor can it live to itself even if it would, but rather all are linked together by a secret Oneness." – Sri Aurobindo
“May they all be one, as you, Abba God, are in me, and I am in you, may they also be in us.” – Jesus
Whether it’s Jesus, other spiritual teachers, and now many scientists as well, the world is waking up more and more to an understanding and participation in the reality of Oneness, as Paul recently detailed thoroughly in a six-part series.
In spiritual practice, we can move into deep states of experiencing our Oneness. While it is sometimes bestowed upon us as a grace, it is a consciousness we can intentionally cultivate and develop with regular practice. Whole-Body Mystical Awakening can lead us into ways of experiencing this Oneness in our hearts and minds, in our spiritual womb, feet, and whole body. In meditation, we can consciously practice moving into unified reality holistically.
In Whole-Body Mystical Presencing—which is a practice to enter the everyday reality of Christ consciousness, a moment-to-moment permeation of divine spirit—we can live from Oneness while we’re having lunch, walking the dog, working, playing, talking, and resting.
Do you believe that’s possible?
Can we engage a universal sense of presencing Oneness in our daily lives, in our embodied mystical being at any moment?
Read MorePart Six: Waking Up to Oneness
The further we travel on this integral Oneness journey, the more perspectives we have. Each of the Three Faces of God and our Four Centers of spiritual knowing provides us with a deeper and different way of seeing and knowing – ways we were never conscious of before.
At ever deepening levels we can journey into a more evolved consciousness.
Read MorePart Five: Waking Up to Oneness
In his book, Working with Oneness, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee Ph.D. and Sufi mystic, writes, "Oneness is very simple: everything is included and allowed to live according to its true nature. This is the secret that is being revealed, the opportunity that is offered. How we make use of this opportunity depends upon the degree of our participation, how much we are prepared to give ourselves to the work that needs to be done, to the freedom that needs to be lived."
This is our call at ICN – "to give ourselves to the work that needs to be done."
Read MorePart Four: Waking Up to Oneness
I consider the Gospel of Thomas to be the most significant teaching of Jesus that we have today. It's a Gospel that should have been in the Bible, but we were not ready for it seventeen centuries ago. Are we ready for it now?
Read MorePart Three: Waking Up to Oneness
Nothing in the science of quantum physics proves a spiritual worldview of Oneness. However, when outstanding physicists and other scientists make comparable statements about the unity of creation, I believe that we should at least take note of these statements and seriously consider them. Let’s look at some of them.
Read MoreWilliam James (1985 - 1910), founder of American psychology, in his classic text, The Varieties of Religious Experience, described Oneness and its relationship to mystical experiences in the following way:
“This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states, we both become one with the Absolute, and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed. In Hinduism, in Neoplatonism, in Sufism, in Christian mysticism, we find the same recurring note.”
The idea of Oneness, that the self is inextricably intertwined with the rest of the universe, can be found in many of the world's philosophical and religious traditions. Oneness provides ways to inwardly sense the self as fundamentally connected with other people, creatures, things, and spiritual realities. This is a challenge to Western hyper-individualism and its tendency toward self-centered behavior.
Read MoreMay they all be one, as you, Abba God, are in me, and I am in you, may they also be in us.
John 17: 21
Jesus said, "When you make the two one, you will become like the sons of man, and when you say, 'Mountain, move away,' it will move away."
Gospel of Thomas, Saying 106
The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me;
my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.
Meister Eckhart