Discovering Your Mystical Language
Spiritual Knowing: Part Five — Mystical Awareness from Our Whole Body
“We cannot recognize God’s hand and voice in the world without a special sensitizing of the eyes and ears and of our soul (‘grace’) – that is, without a special sort of sense or super-sense.”
Last week, we talked about how mystical intelligence is something that we can develop and cultivate. We do this by undertaking practices that awaken and engage our centers of spiritual knowing. Based on research from transpersonal psychologists, we have identified four major body centers of spiritual knowing, each with their own ways of sensing. To develop your intelligence in each of these areas, you can practice Whole-Body Mystical Awakening either by yourself or together with a group.
There are certainly other practices that engage with some of these centers, but most traditional mediation and prayer forms stay in the head, or some may also include the heart. Other body-practices that may involve scanning or movement most often stay in the physical realm, or keep the seat of awareness in the mind, perceiving the body. Very few seek to listen and know, including our body and gut as places of spiritual knowing together with the heart and the head.
Learning the Mystical Language
Everyone has a native tongue that they grew up speaking. In the same way, everyone has a center in their body that they grew up “speaking.” The enneagram has been a beneficial tool for many in recognizing this through its three main centers: head, heart, and gut. These coincide with the body centers of knowing, though we add the feet as grounding for the whole body.
While it’s always good to learn a new language, it is probably best for most to begin by identifying our most natural way of knowing. Not our most typical way, for that is almost certainly from our head due to cultural/educational emphasis. Your most natural center will be the space you’re most used to going to, often unconsciously. Especially when it comes to making an important decision or life choice.
Perhaps you already know which that is for you. If not, read through the following characteristics of spiritual knowing from each of the centers and see what language you recognize.
Whole Body Mystical Knowing
“The mystic is not a special kind of person; each person is a special kind of mystic.”
—William McNamara
The Apostle Paul insightfully emphasizes that there are a variety of spiritual gifts and nobody has them all. Just as there are individual physical and psychological differences, so there are differences in the area of spiritual knowing. While everyone can develop their ability to be in touch with their four body centers of mystical knowing, most will find some forms of mystical knowing and language will be more prominent in them than others. Keep that in mind as we explore the variety of mystical languages and what “special kind of mystic” you may be.
Heart
We start with the heart because it is usually the most accessible center and is the seat of love for humans. And after all, Jesus lived his life based on loving God and loving others and continues to do so today as he communicates to us in his spiritual form. The heart is the place of feelings, and if you are a natural heart person you probably move toward warm, positive, connecting feelings within yourself and with others. If you repress all or certain feelings, they usually show up in the gut which we explore below.
Enneagram twos, threes, and fours have an affinity for heart language. The mystical language of the heart includes feelings but with a greater vibrancy rooted in the heart’s radiant center. Tapping into this heart space is speaking the language of energy fields that influences both us and others. This is a tuning into the significant energetic reality of our hearts that is not confined to within our own body.
Energy Fields of Love
Research has shown that the electromagnetic field of the heart extends beyond the body. As yet, instruments can measure the heart’s field no more than eight to ten feet away from the body, but indications are that it’s also a nonlocal field that transcends time and space. Physicists have proposed models that connect electromagnetic theory with an inherently nonlinear, nonlocal multidimensional domain that operates under holographic principles. These models, although not yet scientifically proven, help explain how the heart’s field could extend for miles and possibly across the world. Recent research has also found that the human body can act as an aerial with the capability to send and receive energy to and from its environment. This also includes energy exchange to and from other people as well as non-physical spiritual entities.
Because the heart is relational, living in the mystical heart will often involve spiritual connections of loving energy with others and spiritual guides. We can use our senses to experience that feeling of energetically and emotionally synchronizing with others via our energy fields. This is especially palpable in a group that does some form of communal spiritual practice such as our WeSpace groups. During the meditative prayer time, the heart sourced energy of the individuals in the group begins to sense the energy field between the group members. This takes various forms such as deep, peaceful, serenity, intense feelings of love, or a sense of being held by the group’s heart energy in healing, comforting embrace. Often the group will just sit in silence while soaking this in. In reflection and sharing afterward one discovers that most if not all of the group participants were experiencing a similar flow.
Love and Bliss
When we move deeply into our heart, we find it overflows with powerful feelings of love and bliss. Love is relational —directed to the other. Bliss is an internal state beyond happiness and joy that is not dependent on outward circumstance. A full heart is one that is spiritually engaged with the energy of love and bliss. When I feel love, I want to go outside and hug everyone I see. When I feel bliss, I just want to sit there and enjoy it because I am already embracing all that is.
This heart-sourced bliss is inexhaustible and always generative. The goal for us is not to occasionally move into our heart space, but rather, to live from there as much as we can, even to most of the time.
Living from the mystical heart is dwelling in deep heart consciousness, not dependent on external impulses—but not detached from them either. It is living in the flow of love that exists between and among us all and acting out of that interconnection.
Head
The typical language of our head is thinking. The head is probably the most familiar to all of us. But in mystical inner knowing we have to reach deeper than just our normal, mental, egoic thoughts. We need to clear our mind to be open to receiving higher wisdom.
Enneagram fives, sixes, and sevens have a natural affinity for head language and often have the most difficulty in clearing their minds.
We’ve found the best way to a cleared mind is to first access the heart space. Getting in touch with the radiating heart energy of warmth and love can produce deep peace and even powerful levels of bliss. When you then move from your heart to your head, your mind is already in a cleared state because of the power of the radiating heart energy. Most, even those of us with a very busy mind, then sense a vibrant, cleared mind.
“A presence cannot be dumb…the sound of his [sic] voice being recognizable primarily by the fullness and coherence it contributes to our individual and collective being.”
When the mind is cleared, the way is opened for mystical forms to emerge from your deeper awakened mind. Since the brain is located close to eyes and ears, the mystical knowing language of the mind is often associated with images and words. This can be imagery and visionary pictures that seem to appear out of nowhere. They may range from fleeting impressions to vivid eyes open visions with objects appearing before you, real as life.
Words can emerge in the same way. These are not words that we arrive out by reason or by figuring things out. They suddenly appear in our heads. The voice speaking them usually sounds like us, not some holy, disembodied, echoing voice like we hear in the movies. That is because the words come from God-Being-Us. This means we are the physical hands and feet, heart and voice of God. So God looks like us, moves like us, and sounds like us. In time we learn to recognize the tenor of voice in the words that are originating from our divine source as opposed to our normal mental chatter or indigestion.
Next week we’ll continue with exploring the mystical languages of the gut and feet.