Spiritual Knowing & Our Divine Voice
"Integral Prayer Panoramic" - image by Dalmo Mendonça
Any reading of the Bible and the foundational writings of many spiritual traditions will find a stream of mystical experiences providing unique knowing, guidance, encouragement, and transformative transcendence. As the Apostle Paul describes in detail, these mystical experiences often happened with one another in the early gatherings of Christians. They have continued down through history in the writings of the mystics.
Windows to this field of spiritual knowing have been opened by mystics down through the ages. Inspired by Jesus’ teaching and example, men and women withdrew to the deserts of Sketes, where, either as solitary individuals or communities, they lived lives of austere simplicity oriented towards contemplative prayer together. These communities formed the basis for what later would become known as Christian monasticism, where the goal was for the monastics to be in mystical union with God.
The High Middle Ages saw a flourishing of communal mystical practice in the newer monastic orders. While the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century downplayed mysticism, the Quakers emerged in the 17th century as highly mystical communities where meetings were filled with shaking and speaking forth of words thought to be from God. A branch of the Quakers in their early days was known as the “Shaking Quakers.” They became notorious because of their trembling while engaging in inspirational speaking. They manifested trance states, visions, and prophetic utterances.
Quaker meetings today are held in a circle in silence where the participants seek a sense of connection. This might be a connection with those around them, with their deepest selves, or perhaps with God. As they feel this sense of encounter grow stronger, they may begin to see the world and their relationships in a new way. Anyone may speak as they feel led.
Pentecostals and Charismatics are open in various ways to the idea of mystical consciousness when they gather, but often get tripped up in over-emphasizing tribal markers such as needing to have spoken in a prayer language as a mark of being “baptized with the spirit,” warrior-like behavior, and end-times obsessions.
However, for the most part today, Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox, regardless of their rituals that may be held as mystical, there is little training or encouragement to open to mystical states of consciousness. Besides, the upfront professionals do all the speaking and leading, leaving the congregation to sing, read printed statements, and mostly sit in silence.
The Encyclopedia Britannia states, “Mysticism in the history of Christianity should not be understood merely in terms of special ecstatic experiences but as part of a religious process lived out within the Christian community. From this perspective, mysticism played a vital part in the early church. Early Christianity was a religion of the spirit that expressed itself in the heightening and enlargement of human consciousness.”
Practicing Spiritual Knowing Today
Letting the windows of spiritual knowing open from our awakened spirit consciousness seemed to be one of the main functions of the early church gatherings as described in Acts, I Corinthians, and New Testament letters. They can be today, too.
Spiritual knowing is what the New Testament refers to as “spiritual gifts” (1 Cor. 12-14). In today’s understanding of these gifts, it appears that we are surrounded by the energy field of the spirit or cosmic consciousness. When we wake up to those fields of spiritual knowing, we can access the encouragement, help, and guidance they contain. This can come through the specific messengers as personal presences or guides and through “gift” windows that are available to us with our unique personality and situation.
These energy fields that surround us appear to contain nearly everything we need to know spiritually in order to live our lives fully and creatively in loving ourselves and others. These “spiritual gift” fields may be related to what Rupert Sheldrake calls morphogenic fields, spheres of universal information.
Ervin László, Hungarian philosopher of science and integral theorist, may be referring to something like this field of spiritual knowing when he posits a field of information that he calls the “Akashic field.” He says that this is the fundamental information-carrying field that informs not just the current universe but all universes past and present.
In the WeSpace group we, (Luke and Paul) are a part of, one woman has a continual stream of impressions which she speaks forth. They are unusually healing and encouraging for us and the many people she connects with in daily life. I (Luke) have sensations in my body that lead to intuiting what is happening in others they may not be aware of. Another woman at times ends our meeting by singing a spontaneously created melody in her prayer language with her beautiful voice which moves us to deep reverie. I (Paul) often see colors, guides, and images when I gaze at the other members. One woman feels tingling in her body, connects with ancestral guides, and experiences powerful heart flow with the group, sometimes in pictures or sometimes energetically. Another man has encouraging messages for others and generously gives financially to many causes. We are all active in social, healing, and spiritual causes outside the group.
The result of getting in touch with our deeper spiritual knowing is that we not only see the need of the world in a new way, we see how we can specifically make a difference. That is a grand invitation to emerge to a new life of purpose and meaning.
This life is about evolution—our own and that of the entire universe. What new worlds are we going to discover within and without. Spiritual knowing is not just about what we already know but, more importantly, what we are about to know.
What are we about to discover as we emerge from the old framework into a new one?
Ask this question while in each of your four centers of spiritual knowing.
Hearing from God
The Apostle Paul believed that hearing from God was not a special gift for a few, but that everyone could hear from God and share with others. He wrote, “For you can all share what you are hearing from God, one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged” (I Cor 14:31).
In the first century church, the active and spontaneous participation of all the believers in the meeting was normal. Not only was it allowed, it was expected! “Each of you” (I Cor. 14:26) says Paul. Each of them offered whatever gift they had: a psalm, song, a teaching, an encouragement, a word from God. This is something we have lost today as we gather to hear the professionals offer their gifts while we sit in silence and listen.
Even if we were given the chance, some might feel it’s too risky to attempt to listen to God inwardly because we don’t know if we are hearing God or our own mental chatter or projections. We think the voice of God should sound like, . . . well, like God! It should be big, impressive, heavenly, and unmistakably God’s voice—and certainly not ours! However, the spiritual truth is that inside you, God always sounds just like you! If one face of God is God-Being-You, then naturally, this Face of God sounds like you—walks like you, talks like you. If we are God’s voice, feet, heart, and hands while we are on earth, then God-Being-Us looks and sounds like us!
When God speaks to us internally, it is through the thoughts, images, or intuitions that come to our mind while we are in a receptive state. In time we learn the quality of this state of consciousness. The Bible calls it the presence of the holy spirit.
To begin listening, you might find it helpful to move into your heart in a meditative or prayerful state of receptivity. Then wait quietly for the first thought, image, or sensation that arises. Don’t try to figure something out. Is it reasonable, sensible? Or is it wild and strange? The truth is, God can speak in many ways! Only experimenting and gaining experience will gradually help you be comfortable with knowing what to pay attention to. We don’t always get it right, and that’s why Paul offered the safety net of others discerning how helpful it is (1 Cor 14:29-31).
With experience, we can begin to sense the slight difference between our normal inner monologue and our deep, divine Self. Whatever comes from deep within us comes with a hint of flow and a slight boldness. It’s still us, but it’s the deep us.
Co-creation
There is another reason God sounds like us human beings. God is partnering with us. We are co-creators with God in the further evolving of creation.
You say, “Wait a minute. God is the creator, not me.” Yes, God is the creator. And we are created in God’s image — so that must include creating along with God!
Jesus said, “Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to Abba God” (John 14:12-14). Jesus was saying that we have now reached the point where, if we choose to follow the spiritual path, we can consciously evolve and create along with God!
Peter wrote, “God has given us everything we need for a God-filled life . . . so that you may participate in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:3-4 italics ours).
So whenever we are listening inwardly for what God is creating with us for others, God intends it be a divine mixture of us and God. Words, images, and intuitions from God sound like us because they partly are! God so cleverly blends God’s Divine Nature with our Divine Nature (True Self) that we can’t really tell the difference between them. That’s called Oneness — “I pray that they may be one as you Abba and I are one.” We can now participate in the divine nature of God!
The beautiful thing about this is that it also takes all the pressure off. We don’t have to speak with the voice and authority of God. Everything we offer is from God, but also us—so take it with a grain of salt and dash of humility.
This is so important because one of the reasons some don’t “speak from God” is because of the abuse and damage that has been caused when misused in a manipulative or controlling way. “Best just to leave all that alone,” many say. But then we miss out on the transformative, powerful, washing-over that comes from divine words of encouragement, comfort, and strength. There’s a good reason it was such a central practice in the New Testament and can be restored in its most evolved form today.
“Spiritual knowing is a participatory process. Participatory alludes to the fact that spiritual knowing is not objective, neutral, or merely cognitive. On the contrary, spiritual knowing engages us in a connected, often passionate, activity that can involve not only the opening of the mind but also of the body, the heart, and the soul. Although particular spiritual events may involve only certain dimensions of our nature, all of them can potentially come into play in the act of spiritual knowing, from somatic transfiguration to the awakening of the heart, from erotic communion to visionary co-creation, and from contemplative knowing to moral insight, to mention only a few.”
Praying from our Awakened Consciousness
In practicing our spiritual knowing and being with one another, we learn to find our divine voice, co-created with God. This voice is always speaking from divine love and sharing words of encouragement, comfort, and strengthenging, much like the early church practiced. When we participate in this spirit with the wholeness of our embodied consciousness, we can be present with one another with greater wisdom, healthier discernment, and holistic presence.
Here are some ways it can come forth in each of our centers:
HEAD
We are most used to communicating and sharing from our heads, from our everyday mind. These thoughts, ideas, and information are helpful in general. But in this space, in our awakened consciousness, we seek to open our mind to new arisings. Bringing forth not what we already know, but what we are about to know. This is the present emergence of visionary knowing, often in the form of images, pictures, specific words, smells, sounds, and more.
HEART
When we tune into our heart for one another, we more often experience sensations and feelings. Sometimes it is a fullness of familiar feelings like love and care. And we also might experience unusual or uncommon sensations in our heart, such as a warmth, perhaps a “pull” in a certain direction, or sometimes even a sort of strain (don’t fear—that’s not a heart attack but just your heart consciousness expanding!). We can always share what we are feeling in our heart with the person we are focusing on. You may notice subtle changes in these sensations as the focus moves around to others in the group.
SPIRITUAL WOMB
Sensing from our spiritual womb can often be more difficult, as awareness from this center does not come in thoughts or feelings. It also might be unfamiliar for many of us, so we can give ourselves a lot of grace as we are discovering our awareness and knowing from this space. One of the primary ways of knowing from our womb is through intuition. This can be confused with the head because it comes like a thought, but it arises from deep within and with a discernable force. “I’m not sure how I know this, but I just seem to know.” We can also experience subtle energies like generativity, nurturing, creativity, and more.
FEET/BODY
Our feet are the contact point for our whole body, for our somatic knowing. Firstly, our grounded rooting often intertwines and interconnects with others in the group, especially in the meditation time. As we cultivate our somatic, relational knowing, when we focus on others, we may notice an energetic sensation somewhere in our body. This can speak to physical conditions, but in the field of awakened knowing we also might sense energetic metaphors, such as a feeling of wings on someone’s back, or a crown on their head. Or maybe an intensification of energy in a particular center.
Those are just some of the ways we can experience spiritual knowing from each of our centers. Many people focus first on the visual, as it seems to be more accessible for most. But if you aren’t seeing any pictures, it may be that your primary way of spiritual knowing is from another center.
We all have different “native tongues” when it comes to our mystical languages, one center that will probably feel the most palpable. Feel free to go with that center most of the time, and then in time we can always work to develop our other centers the more we practice. In doing so, we further awaken to and integrate our inherent knowing from our whole body, from our complete self.
We can do this in the whole group field as well as for each individual, but we’ve found that starting with singular attention on someone helps us learn to better recognize what is arising and emerging with a little more clarity when it is focused in this way. Over time, groups can learn to practice this way of knowing and sensing in a more open field.
Finding our Divine Voice
“It is hard to sense the signal of inner knowing when our attention is absorbed in a reactive feeling, somatic contraction, and limiting belief . . . this [is] ‘noise’ in the system.”
Learning the mystical languages of our body is a process that we can develop with practice and guidance. It is something we must work at to learn how to attune ourselves to this deeper knowing in each center. It is a consciousness we cultivate best when we are in a state of free from reactivity, contraction, and limitations of belief. Our guided meditations are designed specifically for such a state.
As you grow in listening and understanding, the next step in learning a language is to start speaking!
You may start out a bit unsteady and halting. What if it isn’t “correct” or “right”? What if you’re wrong? Well then guess what, you’re wrong! You have to give yourself permission to make mistakes if you hope to learn to speak a new language. And if you’re speaking from love, it’s hard to go too wrong.
We hold all of this loosely, without authority and over-attachment. Beyond that, sometimes when we “filter” our spiritual knowing through the rational mind, we close ourselves off to possibilities of knowing that don’t “make sense” in the traditional way. As such, we limit our access to deeper truth and the divine wisdom of our body.
Let your divine self speak. You may even discover you knew far more than you realized, that you have a natural center of knowing that has been speaking to you your whole life. And not just for yourself, but for others too. That we might bless others with the loving gift of immanent wisdom for strengthening, encouraging, and comforting one another. If we can only find our divine voice.
The only way to get better is to practice!
Questions for Reflection:
1. What ways of spiritual knowing resonate for you? Which intrigue you?
2. What is your mystical language native tongue? What center in you is speaking the most right now?
3. What are we about to discover as we emerge from the old framework into a new one?
(Ask this question while in each of your four centers of spiritual knowing)
All Images are open-source, used with permission, or created by ICN