Part Five: Whole-Body Mystical Presencing

*“The Great WE” – image by Dalmo Mendonça*

This article is part of our continuing series on Whole-Body Mystical Presencing.
If you’d like to access the earlier parts, click here.

“ A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. ”

— Albert Einstein

The mystics throughout the ages have attested to the illusion of separateness and the fundamental interconnectedness of life, that we are more than just separate individuals. Scientists are now saying the same thing, as our awareness of quantum reality has broken us out of the boxes of physical materialism and a Newtonian view of the world and universe.

More and more are waking up not only to this knowledge, but also to the experience of this freedom.

It may be just in time, too. With rampant individuality and hyper-egoic conquests threatening our planet, I have to agree with Einstein—we must be free of this delusion of separateness that drives us apart from others and binds us in fear, antagonism, and mistrust in what is a zero-sum game. Our hopes for deeper cooperation, collaboration, and united action cannot be built on a foundation of individuality and mere self-interest.

We are constantly expanding our knowledge of reality. The time has already come for our sense of self to expand as well. For our experience of who we really are to escape its isolation.

We have to know—and become—more than ourselves. I have to become more than myself. You have to become more than yourself.

Which, of course, we already are. Most simply don’t know it yet. Of if they do know it conceptually, many still haven’t really felt it in their experience—let alone learn how to live in and from it in daily life.

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 presence this reality of interconnectedness in the midst of our lives.

(WBMP is an evolution of Whole-Body Mystical Awakening, a developmental deepening we experience over time after familiarizing ourselves with WBMA practice. I encourage you to feel the freedom to engage in either or both in response to where you are in your spiritual process.)

When we presence divine spirit at any moment, we are not just engaging and attuning to the personal reality of experiencing life in this way. It is not a way of being that is possessed in individuality. Rather, when we are enlivened with divine reality in presence, we find that we are already participating in a collective and universal experience. The delusion of separateness has been dispelled, not just in thought but in lived reality. All it takes is one taste. Once we are sensitized to it, we become more and more aware of and engaged with this interwoven way of being throughout the fabric of our lives.

We become more than ourselves alone.

Presencing Beyond Me

If that sounds a little lofty or unattainable, that’s your separate self talking. Even if you feel like you’ve never had that experience, more than likely you’ve already had a taste of it—even if unrecognized. Consciously recognizing, welcoming, and engaging these experiences and reality, which are already always here, is what Whole-Body Mystical Presencing is all about.

It may be helpful to start small.

Have you ever had an experience where someone you know just pops into your awareness? It may even be someone you haven’t seen in a long time, and now suddenly they come to mind. If we don’t know any better, we may just dismiss it and go on about our day. Sometimes it takes another re-minding or two before we recognize this as more than coincidence or random occurrence.

When we choose to act on these knowings, we are presencing the reality of deeper interconnection. We call the person up and discover something has just happened in their lives, and they need support. Sometimes, they just so happened to be thinking about us as well!

Or the “reason” they came to mind might be less apparent. We may not know why; rational explanation isn’t clear. It’s good to have the mental reassurances that can come, but eventually they become less necessary. We learn to just trust the receiving of perception emerging from more than self-contained awareness.

As we’re more practiced, we’ll catch these synchronicities of spirit more readily. We’ll be attuned to the deeper field arising in the ways it does—more often than we might think.

WBMP Practice Beyond Me

You can practice this at any time. Even right now!

Open your field of awareness to the deeper reality of interconnection and loving entanglement we have with people in our lives. And then actively invite a noticing of someone. Don’t choose who. Let that arise from deeper within you. When they come to mind, hold them in loving awareness and sensitivity. You may even receive a knowing about them in the present moment or an action step of response, such as reaching out to them.

As part of your practice of WBMP, set an intention to be open to receiving this sort of awareness of others at any moment of any day.

Learning How to Be a We

Practices like this open us up to experience the world in a way that expands us beyond the confines of an individualized way of life. Back to the Einstein quote, most of us are brought up in a way that reinforces a siloed experience of internal reality. We are conditioned to believe and experience life as separate from the rest of the universe. The subject of our experience is “I,” and everything else is an object. As far as we believe in nonmaterial, interior experiences, they happen solely inside of an individual’s consciousness. And only there.

Collective spiritual experiences like the one described above help begin to dispel this delusion. We are probably more used to sensing interior connections with one other person, as we do that in our lives in various other ways. These interpersonal relations, practiced mystically, help take us beyond the limited sense of our singular self. This then can be a gateway into greater openness to the broader, deep interconnectedness and interbeing among a larger group. For this reality is not just shared with one specified person at a time.

In our WeSpace groups, we practice Resonating Prayer, an intentional form of engaging in collective, mystical interconnectedness. We focus on one other person to deeply attune and share from this space of love and spiritual intimacy. The more we practice together, the more we will discover a deep interrelatedness among us. Not just an “I” relating to another “I,” but a “We” reality of interbeing experienced in the collective field among us.

Here, we begin to come into our intraconnectedness, to use the term coined by Daniel Siegel. This is a greater experience of wholeness than two separate entities engaging together for a period of time. It is a shared inner experience within a larger “body” so to speak. It is not just Mary relating to Jane, but Mary and Jane (and others) experiencing something, being something which they are together.

We know that this happens at the quantum level. That the deepest substance of our materiality does not stay within our singular bodies but is nonlocal and constantly entangling with that which is beyond the boundaries of our skin. At the very least, this provides a plausible scientific explanation for what we experience in collective mystical consciousness.

As we experience this more, we open up to more than our “self” as only a singular form. A truly intersubjective reality that has a collective awareness and energy of which we are part. Especially at first, we experience it primarily through our unique particularity, but its reality isn’t confined to how this “we” is showing up in me. We all have a subjective experience within it.

It doesn’t give up differentiated inner experience, but it expands our sense of capacity to recognize and act from an interior consciousness experience that is bigger than my singular self alone. Siegel calls it a “MWe,” because both “me” and “we” are present. (As is a universal “All” as subject, which we’ll look at next week).

So if we are truly more than ourselves alone in our interior world, if we are really a “We” and not just a “me,” how do we more consciously engage with this interfusion of being with others?

WBMP Practice into We

Spiritual merging is a practice we can engage in to dissolve the boundaries between our singular self and become one with another. It is an interior, nonphysical experience of deeply coming together into an intrasubjective experience. Given the intensity and intimacy of this practice, finding a safe and trusted person to share in this practice may be a challenge for some.

We can practice this with nature. Go into a forest. Find a secluded beach. Go to a lake and float or stand deep in the water. Or seek out any nature reserve you feel connected to. Let your consciousness go from relating to the environment, to sinking into being nature. It may take some time. Give yourself the space to merge. Nature’s boundaries are often more open than other humans. And we are nature.

Many people also engage in this experience with a spirit guide, as is common in shamanic and many other religious traditions—and increasingly used in psychotherapy. It is also a core teaching of Jesus and the Apostle Paul: that we may be one. That Christ may dwell in us. For us to be in Christ. Merging into this union has been a powerful path for me personally.

If you have someone in your life you can practice this with, I encourage you to explore it together. Paul and I meet weekly and always finish with a shared practice, which we begin by merging in heart and whole being. We began by putting a hand on each other’s hearts. Now we meet on Zoom and flow together in our shared being naturally and mystically. It has been one of the most transformative experiences in my life.

Once you have merged with nature, a spirit guide, or another, you can presence to this unified reality at any moment. Bring forward the felt, subjective experience from when you were merged, knowing that it is not something bound in time. It is an ongoing reality that is truer to the nature of who we are in wholeness. Even when you are by yourself, you are not alone. You are more than you alone. Be, now, in this moment, or any moment, who you are with/as nature, as Christ, as WE.

Presencing with We at Any Moment

In our WeSpace groups, we move in a container of more than two persons, which helps us presence to our intraconnected reality with and beyond the personal distinctions of any one of us in our uniqueness.

We enter a larger group field with our unique particularities still present but more dispersed among a greater diversity. This larger field helps us presence to the interwoven reality of our collective being.

While we can do this to some extent with any group of people, it won’t be anywhere near the same as in an intentional and cultivated we-space. There are a number of forms and expressions of folks coming together to presence to this collective reality, though I’m a bit partial to how we practice WeSpace in ICN, with an emphasis on our mystical and embodied experiential engagement in the shared field—which also welcomes our spirit guides and more-than-human collective.

And we can presence to this reality even when we are not together face-to-face. This is a powerful way of practicing and realizing our participation in the “We” of being beyond our individuality.

WBMP Practice with We

If you are part of a WeSpace group or another deeply connected spiritual community, practice presencing to the WeSpace energy field when you are not together. At any moment in your day, you can open your field of awareness to the experiential reality of your underlying communion. It may feel something like what you experience in group times together. Or it may have a different quality or sense to it.

Some groups have used technology to aid in this process. You can set up a group chat, and when any one of you presence to the We field, send the group a message to let them know. This draws everyone into more active awareness. Often, it even helps reveal a subtle awareness for the others that has already been present. The naming calls it forth more consciously for one another.

In this form of WBMP practice as well, both conscious engagement and attuned receptivity draw us into we-presence. When we are in open attunement, sometimes we will just feel drawn into the field of collective awareness, as if pulled in by another.

Give Yourself Grace

We may each wake up to this experience of collective being differently. Hopefully at least some of the practices listed above may be helpful to you.

For many of us, this will be a foundational shift of identity and how we experience life. It is a new way of being. It does not happen overnight, even if we have a profound awakening experience.

When my sense of subjective presence began to grow and intensify, I was often overwhelmed by my newly heightened sensitivity to what was going on around me (as it was now also “in” me).

Boundaries are crucial to maintain a sense of separation when necessary. Every healthy body has boundaries between organs and various parts. It takes time to navigate and understand what we need and what is healthy in this regard. And they aren’t always permanently fixed. We learn to be adaptive and flexible, so we don’t rigidify again into our singular, set-apart self. We need to maintain a healthy “me” in the context of the larger body, of the “We” that we have been liberated into, beyond being just ourselves.

“Lovers gather and give each other shade,
relief from the direct sun.

Stay close by that community.
Be shade with them,
until you yourself are full of light
like the moon, then like the sun.”

— Rumi

Next week, we will move into Presencing our universal sense of being in Oneness.

Practicing Whole-Body Mystical Presencing Beyond Myself

WBMP is a process that is practiced all throughout your day. It is a turning at any possible moment in which you can remember to do it. These practices do not work if just thought of at random. They take specific intention and dedication to first 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.

I invite you to return to one of the practices described above. Go to whichever one you’re drawn to now.

I also encourage you to set an intention to practice the others throughout this week as well.

Becoming More Than Myself