On the Path to Oneness
Part Six: Waking Up to Oneness
Humanity's Task
The crucial task of humankind now is to reach a critical mass of unity. This is the only way through the vital issues today, such as ecology and world peace.
What is this critical mass? Ken Wilber is a preeminent scholar of the Integral stage of human development. He is an internationally acknowledged leader and the originator of arguably the first truly comprehensive or integrative world philosophy, aptly named "Integral Theory."
He points out that as 10% of a given population reaches a given level of development (such as postmodern), the ideas and values of that level (such as environmental sustainability) start to trickle down and permeate the prior levels of development still present in a given culture. Profound changes can occur when a newly-evolved set of visions, views, and values reaches a cultural tipping point and begin to saturate the rest of society.
In 2000, Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, provided a ray of hope for the estimated 50 million individuals involved in the world enlightenment movement by introducing the concept of critical mass. Scientists that tested the phenomenon at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York discovered, "Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame."
One researcher predicted that only 1 percent of humanity is needed to create enough cultural changes to usher in world peace. While the figures required to reach this critical mass can be debated, it's certain that the old ways no longer work, and we are quickly running out of time to adopt viable solutions to mounting global crises.
Erica Chenoweth of Harvard studied 325 protests from 1900-2006 and found that once 3.5% of a given population actively participated in a social movement, success appears to be inevitable. A global shift is more dramatic than a local social movement, but we are also interconnected in a way we have never been before. This presents the potential for dramatically increased revolutions.
What is a "given" population? It can be a country, city, collective, or group. Whatever it is, get into the most advanced one you can find! ICN is one such population that is joining with others to saturate the rest of global society with integral meta-spirituality.
The deeper you go, the more you see
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.
When I saw this picture below, I said, "I never saw it like that before." Now my ecological perspective is enlarged!
At ever-deepening levels we can journey into a more evolved consciousness.
SENSEING, FEELING, INTUITING, and EMBRACING ONENESS.
In my last article, I pointed out two kinds of knowing. One is conceptual knowing. The other is sensing-feeling-intuitive knowing that is embodied. Whole-Body-Mystical Awakening, ICN's form of mystical prayer, is all about feeling-sensing-intuitive embodied knowing, not conceptual knowing. This is the doorway to Oneness and is crucial to waking up.
Richard Rohr says, "For me, the word [mystical] means experiential knowledge of spiritual things, as opposed to book knowledge, secondhand knowledge, or even church knowledge. "
Oneness is not only experienced in a variety of ways in different people, but it is also experienced differently in each of our four centers of spiritual knowing. The more centers we awaken to Oneness, the more we enter it. We can learn:
To SENSE
Oneness in several forms with our head center
To FEEL
Oneness in humankind in love flowing from our heart center
To INTUIT
our Oneness with God in our spiritual womb center
To EMBRACE
the Oneness of embodied nature and cosmic material reality in our grounded feet center
In the previous article, we looked at the head and heart. We continue now with the spiritual womb center and grounded feet center.
INTUITING the Oneness of Who We Are in our Spiritual Womb
In our spiritual womb, we discover that God is being us as we let our divine I AM identity emerge. This is not a concept, a thought, or a belief. It is an interior gut sensing of our own I AMness. From this emerges the courage and creativity of our divine-human Oneness. This is, in Rumi's words, "a voice that doesn't use words."
Let your attention sink down into your spiritual womb space. In Western culture, most people's sense of self is associated with their upper body alone. Other cultures, such as the Japanese, recognize the gut or hara as both the human's physical and spiritual center of gravity.
When you are practicing Whole-Body Mystical Awakening, notice any sensations or impressions that come up in your spiritual womb space. The first time I did this, I clumsily imagined having a physical womb. At that stage, I was missing the point all together! As I continued to do WBMA, I began to notice something like energy moving around in my abdomen. Recently, that energy has become a dark red ball of vital energy. I understand this as what Jesus saw as "living liquid energy flowing from your wombfull innermost being (womb in Greek)" (John 7:38, my translation). It is the healing womb energy of divine I AMness.
We are the divine Oneness of the Universe having a human experience. We can access this sacred unity by focusing our wombfulness on it and allowing it to emerge from our inherent divinity.
As the above image portrays, we can also transmit this Oneness-with-God healing womb energy to others, as well as ourselves.
The more we sink into the depths of our spiritual womb and rest there, the more we will experience our divine identity as God being us. We are gods!
We EMBRACE the Oneness of Material Reality in our Grounded Feet Center
Our feet center connects us with our own embodiment, the natural world that surrounds us, and the infinite cosmos. Bringing all of these together in the experience of our material body and the material earth grounds us into a Oneness that is present in the here and now. In the space where we live, breathe, and eat.
Sri Aurobindo (1872 – 1950) was an Indian philosopher and spiritual reformer who introduced his vision of spiritual evolution and the spiritual practice he called Integral Yoga. He said, "Evolution is not merely a return to the One, but the gradual emergence of higher powers of consciousness in the material universe leading to an even greater manifestation of the divine Consciousness Force within its creation."
"How sweet in the ONENESS —unearth the treasure of Unity." - Rumi
In the Oneness of our feet center, we awaken to the hum of aliveness, the treasure of unity in the earth and in all material reality. We are surrounded in it. In Oneness, we open up to physically embrace and be embraced by the sweetness of the cosmos.
Practices to Increase Your Divine Embodiment
Hug a tree and be that tree and the nature that surrounds you!
Abby Wynne in Energy Healing Made Easy offers a powerful tree-hugging practice:
"Go to your tree – either in real life or in your mind. The tree is bigger than you; walk right up to the trunk of the tree and connect with it – touch it, [hug it], say hello with your energy to its energy. Notice how tall the tree is, how the trunk rises high above you, how the branches and leaves reach right up to the sky. Ask the tree if you can work with it. (It's always polite to ask!) Imagine your energy is now merging with the tree, stretching up high with the branches, but also moving down, down deep to the root system.
In your mind, imagine yourself travelling down through the ground, the mud, the stone, with the tree, to the deepest, longest, strongest roots. How does this feel? Now you can imagine your energy wrapping itself around the root of the tree, so it can hold you deep down below the earth. Bring your focus of awareness back up to your body, leaving your energy down there, breathing out any fear, anxiety or heaviness you may be carrying. Feel your feet on the ground, feel yourself in your body fully, feel strong and tall and long like the tree. Say thank you to the tree! Then you can either let the image dissolve away, or you can walk away, and you are grounded."
Astronaut Ron Garan says, "One of the things that I realized during my time in space is that we're not from Earth, we're of Earth. And to take that one step further is that we're not in the universe, we are the universe. We are the universe becoming conscious of itself."
Sri Aurobindo, in The Synthesis of Yoga, writes, "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."
We can let our Oneness of nature and the cosmos emerge in us by practicing any mystical, meditative prayer that fosters it. ICN's Whole-Body Mystical Awakening is a powerful form of this.
We are the Oneness of the material Universe having a human experience.
We can access this unitive experience by allowing it to emerge from our inherent divinity. We, along with Jesus and all humankind, are made in the image of God,
Laozi, a semi-legendary figure usually portrayed as a 6th-century BCE contemporary of Confucius, said, "The Integral Way is beyond words and beyond mind. Simply be aware of the Oneness of things."
Kissing God
Hafez is a 14th-century Persian poet, Sufi master, and mystic. He is the most popular poet in Iran, and his works can be found in almost every Iranian home Here is a practice from our friend Hafez. Try it and notice how you feel doing it — embarrassed, uncomfortable, natural, blown away?
When no one is looking
and I want to kiss God,
I just lift my own hand to my mouth.
Did you try it yet? How did you feel doing it?
Do you believe it? While your mind may struggle with the concept, let yourself just rest in your body with your divine reality.
Read the full Hafez poem below, which embraces the transcendence of both nature and our embodiment.
Now try it again. Kiss God!