Engaging with Jesus' Mystical Plan for World Peace
Transformation happens when our learning is infused with intentional processes of becoming.
The new ICN rhythm of Saturday posts has shifted to sharing an article for learning one week, followed the next week by invitations into deeper becoming through spiritual practicing, intentional forms of engaging, and opportunities for integrating into our daily lives.
Our becoming happens personally, communally, and globally as we cultivate transformation through the I, the We, and the All.
Our intention with this new rhythm is to foster an intensification of our mystical practice, deepen our embodied engagement, and support the enactment of life integration for the transformation of ourselves, our neighbors, and the world.
If you missed it last week, we encourage you to first read the article informing these processes: “Do You Know Jesus' Mystical Plan for World Peace?”
We invite you to consciously and intentionally engage in the following processes for your personal lives, WeSpace groups or other spiritual communities, and global participation.
For our personal & communal invitations this week, we offer practices from Paul Smith’s previous series on Oneness.
“The Path to Oneness” – image by Dalmo Mendonça
Integrating Our Embodied Oneness
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Kissing God
Have you embraced your oneness with God? Do you believe it?
Try this practice of integrating your embodied oneness anytime you like:
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!
For a next step into mystical activism, is there a mystical kiss of peace you feel drawn to offer another? Can you give it in the same spirit of Oneness as you kiss yourself and God
Be embraced, all ye millions!
With a kiss for all the world!
—Friedrich Schiller “Ode to Joy”
Engaging Oneness with Nature
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A Communal Practice Hugging a Tree
The “Communal We” is not just for humans but can be experienced within our more-than-human family as well. Today, you are invited to embrace this reality—literally!
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.
We are the Oneness of the material Universe having a human experience.
From this oneness with nature and the cosmos, let yourself open to any gesture or response of mystical activism that you feel arising from the communal body of the earth we are.
Mystical Activism from All of Unified Reality
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A Meditation Practice of Embodied Oneness with All
Artwork by Chris Powers
For our global participation this week, we invite you to practice with the following guided meditation. At the end of the meditation, from the place of oneness, allow yourself to open to any gesture or response of mystical activism that you feel arising in the moment.
All Images are open-source, used with permission, or created by ICN