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.

*“Clearing the Temple”* – image by Dalmo Mendonça

Jesus was a social activist

In the Judaism of Jesus’ time, the Messiah was about a political leader who would bring the Jews out of the shadow of oppression. Because of this, we often miss seeing the mystical Jesus. However, I don’t doubt that it was the political Jesus who was crucified for challenging and being troublesome to the political and religious authorities. People are not usually killed for praying.

Jesus was an influential social activist who openly gathered followers, trained them, taught large crowds publicly in ways that subverted those in power, and created a sensation by healing the sick and crossing the boundaries between classes, races, and genders. He publicly initiated what today would be considered a violent protest when he overturned the money changer’s tables and chased the animals and money changers out of the Temple. This was not a religious demonstration. This was a demonstration against the practice of racism in his religion. The only place where Gentiles were welcome in the Jewish Temple was the very place the money changers were allowed to set up shop. Citing Isaiah 56:7 that his house should be a place of prayer for all nations, he made a dramatic and violent public protest. Pretty strong stuff for a supposed meek and mild guy who never got upset!

As a final public testament to the strength of his openly proclaimed love for us, he refused to play it safe and stop his dangerous activism against the religious and political authorities. For that, he was put to death.

Direct social activism will always be needed and is a sacred calling.

*“Activist Rabbi”* – image by Dalmo Mendonça

Jesus was a mystical activist

However, Jesus also practiced mystical activism, praying extensively and often. He experienced being one with God, practiced deep prayer, had personal conversions with his Abba Daddy and spiritual presences such as Moses and Elijah, as well as numerous spiritual guides referred to in the New Testament as messengers in Greek and angels in English. He gained from their wisdom in direct conversations with these spiritual beings about his activities and receiving emotional and physical comfort. His willingness to die was also an inner mystical act of self-surrender to God, dramatically portraying the inner call we all have in dying to our egoic identification so that we might rise up to our divine identity.

Jesus’ plan to change the world

Because of their personalities and gifts, many people are most effective in activism practiced in prayer and oneness with God. However, Jesus set forth a clear, concise, mystical activist plan for the healing of the world that goes beyond personality differences and gifts. It was not for a few of his followers who had a special calling to intercession and the inner life. Nor was it about changing what people believed or their morality. Jesus’ plan was for all of his followers. Here it is:

The way for the world to come into unity is for Christians to become One in loving unity in the same kind of oneness that Jesus had with God. When Jesus’ followers do that, the world will know divine love and come into unity.

Jesus made this startling claim, recorded in John 17 when he specifically prayed for you and me.

“I pray for those whom you gave me out of the world. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Abba, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me, so that they may be brought to unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved the world even as you have loved me.”

Jesus was talking about you and me today when he said, “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.” And what did he pray for? That we would be prosperous? That we would be successful? That we would not have any problems? No! He prayed that we “all may be one, Abba, just as you are in me, and I am in you.”

Why did he pray for that? What’s the big deal with the “be one” and “in-ness” of “you in me and I in you, may they also be in us”? He said it was “so that the world may believe that you have sent me. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me so that they may be one (17: 21-23). Four times in this passage, we see the Greek word ἐν translated as “in.” The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says that throughout John and in this passage, this is the “in of fellowship” where the “reciprocity of the relationship is emphasized.” It also says that this “might be called mystical” (TDNT, vol. II, p 543). Jesus wanted his followers to live in the mystical awakened field of fellowship and shared relationship with him and God so the world would be unified!

*“Love for the Nations”* – image by Dalmo Mendonça

What is this oneness?

What is this oneness that lets the world know God loves them and brings them to unity? Is it having the same politics? No. Is it having the same beliefs? No. Is it being at the same developmental stage? No. Is it even liking each other? No, although that tends to happen.

Jesus defined oneness for his followers as having the same experience of God that Jesus had. He framed it as “God being in him and him being in God.” Then he further framed it as “may they also be in us,” that is, that we would be in both him and God. This was not a belief, although it can begin as a belief and as a hope. This is not an ecumenical organization such as the World Council of Churches because this is not “organized unity.”

It is an experienced reality that can become a global reality. If it remains less than the mystical oneness Jesus was talking about that he had with God, it is only nice words and sincere hope.

Jesus marked what he meant by oneness and being “in” one another by saying that his Abba had “loved the world even as you have loved me.” There it is. We can recognize this oneness because it is LOVE!

WeSpace Oneness

Oneness is what we more and more experience in our WeSpace groups as we move into Whole-Body Mystical Awakening and Resonating Prayer. We feel the love. We feel we are not alone. We tangibly sense the connection between us the others in the group. We feel God is loving us from being beyond us, being with us, and being in us. We are encouraged by this love. We may sense our living helpers in the nonphysical world also loving us. We feel alive from our feet, to our tummy, to our heart, to our head! We feel the energy field of love enveloping us. We tangibly sense the information field of spiritual knowing, giving us encouraging, healing images, words, and transmissions for one another. That’s what oneness feels like! Besides being comforted, strengthened, and encouraged (1 Cor 14:3), is there anything else that “being one” does?

Yes! Big time! Jesus says, “Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved the world even as you have loved me. So that they may be brought to unity.” That’s bible-speak for this incredible truth about how the world can be transformed and healed.

To the degree that Christians live in the global field of love and healing that comes from mystical prayer, to that degree, the whole world will be affected and will know and feel God’s love, too! The same love God has for us, God has for the world! And when the world experiences God’s love, the world will be “brought in unity”!

Can there possibly be a more explicit statement from Jesus about global transformation than this? This statement from Jesus, like much of the Gospel of John, was most likely communicated to John while he was in a mystical trance after the resurrection and ascension. This accounts for the substantial difference between the accounts of the historical Jesus we have in the first three Gospels, and the more mystical, deeper teaching from the Risen Jesus in the Gospel of John.

Jesus states that it is Christians living in the mystical unified field of transcendent divine oneness that allows the world to know they are loved by God and to come into unity. Let me repeat the essential core of this passage in John 17: 22-23 again: “I pray, Abba, that all of my followers may be one, so that the world may know that you love them, and be brought into unity.

*“Light in the Darkness”* – image by Dalmo Mendonça

Desperate times

These are anxious times. Political tensions in many countries, including the United States, along with escalating global warming, severe weather, year-round fire seasons, catastrophic flooding, and global famine, threaten to undo the thin veneer we call civilization. Unprecedented crises bring shock, grief, tears, fear, insomnia, and fragmented psyches around the world.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. We have tried politics, peace, and even religion. How about mystical activism!

*“Mystical Devotion”* – image by Dalmo Mendonça

Of course, at its best, mystical activism will also help us not to feel desperate because our mystical foundation itself and our community fill us with inner peace, joy, and love. However, to those unfamiliar with this path, it may look like an unlikely, desperate, even foolish way to go. Sit around staring at a computer screen with a few others talking with one another and God? You’ve got to be kidding! So be it.

In the meantime, the mystical activists see a great opportunity in the dark night of civilization, just as we do in the dark night of the individual soul. The darkness calls to let go of our normal way of living and become mystics who deepen the global field and channel of love into all of humankind itself. Our task of taking up the call from Jesus to work toward global unity is more important than ever.

Transforming Oneness

For followers of Jesus, this mystical oneness is, most simply, the direct experience of God and divine love. A real and direct experience of the eternal by those of us who are embodied in the very same divine flesh that was part of the incarnation that we call Jesus. And not just in one dimension of God. But rather, as Jesus did, in experiencing God’s love in all three faces of God - God-Beyond-Us, God-Beside-Us, and God-Being-Us. You can have a mystical experience walking in the woods, doing the dishes, or in the middle of great suffering. However, it is when we bring that individual experience to our own community of spiritual practice that it blossoms into the global channel of transforming oneness that Jesus prayed for.

Have you found a place in the companionship of empowerment to come into this kind of harmonic, loving oneness with a few others? If not, we invite you to explore our Integral Christian Network WeSpace groups, which exist to move us into this very experience.

That they may be one, as we are one.

Do You Know Jesus' Mystical Plan for World Peace?

Can Praying Change the World? Mystical Activism: Part Two