Everyday Consciousness Beyond the Ordinary

“Immanent Presence” – image by Paul Fryer

Part Three: Whole-Body Mystical Presencing

Our primary, core practice in ICN is Whole-Body Mystical Awakening. It is a waking up to the embodied reality of our divine participation in this life. It is a practice to transform our consciousness into a more integrated, holistic enlivenment with God.

Focusing on our four primary centers of spiritual knowing—head, heart, spiritual womb/gut, and feet—we practice our awakening to the dynamic flow of spiritual energy, the arising of holistic spiritual knowing in its various forms, and the blissful, loving embrace of our divine being coming forth within and among us. It is a meditative prayer practice that brings us into union, communion, and flow with God. If you’re not familiar with WBMA, you can read more about it here.

The fundamental way that we open to this awakening is through meditation practice. We use guided meditations to help individuals and groups come into this experience of mystical awareness and spiritual knowing in our bodies, personal and collective. We have created a variety of guided meditations for individual and group use. Over time, as we become more familiar with the dynamics of the practice, we can move into self-guided or spirit-led practice—following the flow of awareness at any pace and as we are drawn in the moment.

As reflected in part one of this series, “practice” is just a word to indicate going beyond merely thinking and learning about spiritual matters to enacting and engaging with the substance of spiritual becoming. All of life is our practice field, and every moment is our performance.

Taking time out of the normal course of our daily life, such as in mediation practice, is a primary means of spiritual practice. It is a focused time of engaging directly in the practice without too many distractions (hopefully). But then everyday life is full of distractions. The more we practice, the more we hope to see the integration of the work we do in meditation transform the way we live from moment to moment. Many have a longing for their spiritual practice to permeate in this way more fully. The movement from “times of spiritual practice” to all of life as a spiritual enactment doesn’t always come naturally.

There is often a missing piece here in the process of integration, of consciously and actively bringing what we experience in meditation and prayer into daily life. Depending on the nature and type of meditation practice, this can be more difficult—as certain states are not easily called upon in a moment. In Whole-Body Mystical Awakening, we are cultivating a subtle-body mystical awareness in an energetic and sensory way. We are opening to a mystical perception and embodied knowing that can come forth at any time, especially the more we have awakened to the energy and sensitivity of our centers of spiritual knowing.

Once we are awakened to these ways of feeling and sensing, we can move more into a practice of attuning in every moment, without the need to do a long practice to get there. This attunement is a way of more fully presencing ourselves into more of the fullness of our being. We consciously and intentionally engage our more holistic perception and energetic presence from our divine being. This moment-to-moment practice is what I’m calling “Whole-Body Mystical Presencing.” And the rest of this series will be about ways we can engage in this practice in the midst of our daily lives.

This practice will be, for most, a “next step” after a fair amount of experience with Whole-Body Mystical Awakening. The more familiar and comfortable we are with opening to our embodied being in a concentrated and focused time, the more we will be free to access this state of being more easily and naturally at any moment.

However, WBMP also creates a form of practice more accessible to those who do not have the space in their lives for one or two long meditation times a day. I am a parent of young children, and this stage of life has different energetic and practical realities to it. There is a reason why meditation is practiced most in monasteries. Many of us living “in the world” struggle to adopt practices that were primarily designed in and for a monastic context. No matter our life circumstances, we all need the integration of our spiritual practice into our every-moment lived reality.

“In Presence”
Photo by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash

Presencing the Present

We often live in a slight state of disconnection from the present moment. Our mind is often carrying us back into memories or looking ahead to the future. Most people have a predisposition to one direction or the other. Shifting from this orientation into being more fully present in the now is a major spiritual task, especially in this day and age of endless stimulation and greater complexity. Bringing our presence into the “now” has been focused on directly by Eckhart Tolle and Ram Dass, to name just a few.

In our spiritual life and practice, we sometimes have a similar problem. In the spiritual narrative of our life, we are shaped by profound moments and transformative events. Sometimes we get caught up dwelling in these singular occurrences—reminiscing on the mystical experiences of our past. And they did shape us and are worth remembering, but as Thomas Kelly reminds us, spiritual living is about “continuously renewed immediacy, not receding memory of the Divine Touch.”

In a similar vein, we can get caught up in constantly focusing on our future spiritual reality through pursuing ongoing development and further learning. In this way, our subtle orientation is on acquiring and accumulating more knowledge, more experience, more _____ (what is it for you?). This is when our focus on becoming overtakes our present reality of wholeness in our being. Those of us who are passionate about spiritual evolution are especially susceptible to this. I know I am.

When our times of spiritual practice and community are scheduled and “on the calendar,” we can orient ourselves to having times—in the past or in the future—where we are “doing the work.” This can put a subtle feeling over the rest of our life as “time off” from those efforts and intentions. We are hardwired from a young age to have times of work and times of rest. To divide effort and leisure, classroom and recess, toil and play.

We have our everyday “ordinary” consciousness, and then we have times when we move into other states of elevated or “more spiritual” consciousness.

Whole-Body Mystical Presencing is a practice to help us to shift from having these peak/peek experiences of mystical awareness we remember or look forward to, and create a new everyday/every-moment experience of enlivened consciousness. This “continuously renewed immediacy” is a regular attunement that begins to move our everyday consciousness, our “default” state of being, into a new reality. Into a new way of being.

But it doesn’t happen just by realizing this or learning this concept. We have to re-train and re-pattern our “ordinary” consciousness.

“Neuroplasticity”

Embodied Neuroplasticity

Our everyday, ordinary consciousness can be rewired. But to do so we need to shift out of the deeply embedded grooves that we have in our minds and bodies of what our default state looks and feels like.

Recent studies on the brain and mindfulness have revealed the principle of neuroplasticity, basically that our minds continuously shape and form depending on the thoughts we regularly think. The more a thought is repeated, the deeper the neural groove is etched in our brain. This has revealed to us the significant impact of repetition and the need to engage in specific practice and training. It has also shown the importance of creativity, to always keep learning, to build new neural pathways to keep the brain from calcifying into a few regular unchanging patterns.

We’ve also just begun to learn that the heart and the gut have extensive neural networks and nervous systems more powerful than previously thought. Indeed, the operating center of our being is not just found in our head, but in all “three brains,” including the heart and gut. And beyond. We can also recognize energetic patterns and somatic grooves throughout our whole body.

What would it do to our internal neuronal network if we “attuned regularly” into embodied presence in all the centers of our being? A head-re-collecting in each moment into experienced awareness. A heart gathering in each moment into love and interconnection. A gut flowing in each moment from our essential/divine identity, full of vitality and creativity. And our whole-body grounded in each moment with charged energy and incarnated aliveness.

This is not a “religious disposition” that some are known to adopt, which is a sentiment of proper kindness and nicety. This is a deep connection to the experience of divine love and mystery penetrating beyond moments of practice and into the fabric of life itself.

Over time, the more we “rewire” our default state of being and ordinary consciousness, we will notice that it starts to happen of its own accord. You realize after the fact that you have been presencing without consciously trying to. This is the groove of being deeply present in our whole being, of being experientially at one with the infinite, the intimate, and the inner divine.

It won’t be all of the time, and extensive attuning in presencing is necessary to deepen this experience of consciousness into an unceasing reality. But it will become more of a dance in mutuality. Our intentional movement into deeper presence, and Presence drawing us forth into the depth we are already moving in unaware.

Next week, we’ll explore this dance into enlivened presence through attunement and engagement with our embodied being.

A Practice of Whole-Body Mystical Presencing:

WBMP is a process that is practiced all throughout your day. It is a turning at every possible moment in which you can remember to do it—or when it comes upon you as a grace.

These practices do not work if just thought of at random. It is like opening an inner eyelid. If we have not learned to look for this inner presence, our eyes remain shut. The more we consciously open them, the more we will begin to see with the light of divine presence within and around us.

It will take specific intention and dedication to develop new neural pathways, and then over time the grooves are established so that the practice flows more naturally. But intentional, committed repetition is necessary to get to this place. 

It may be best to start with just one center to begin. We recommend presencing through heart-gathering for those who are new to this practice.

Heart Presencing in Every Moment

To take up this practice, set the intention today and every day this week to presence your heart awareness as often as you can.

You might use a word as a mantra to help you remember. Something simple like “heart” or “love.” If it’s not too disruptive, you can even set a chime on our phone to help you remember, especially at first. Maybe every hour, half hour, or even more frequently. Experiment!

In whatever way the moment arises, when it does, move into your heart. Don’t just think about your heart, but let yourself feel and be present from your heart space. Be in the energy of your heart, which may or may not have feelings connected to it. If you experience strong emotions, welcome them. If you can, be present in the deep core of your heart, always alive in divine presence full of love. Let it emanate out from you.

As you return to your day, in whatever you are doing at the moment, notice the felt energy of your heart still present, integrating into your everyday actions and state of being.

“Integrated Presence” – image by Paul Fryer