Mostly relegated to the private realm, we have largely lost any significant experience of communal prayer beyond rote liturgies and performative declarations. While valuable in their own way and often comforting, these forms of prayer alone will not transform us into living from and deeply participating in the communion consciousness of our divine nature. Prayer was always meant to be communal.

When we evolve our understanding and experience of God beyond a distant and separate entity, our way of praying changes as well. No longer do we need to pray to God out there—but we can learn to pray from our awakened, divine consciousness within. We can pray with others participating in their divine consciousness both internally and in the collective interior space we call WeSpace—the awakened energy field of loving connection and interrelationship, together with God’s presence in various forms and spiritual guides. And we can together pray into the unified reality of the divine all.

This is Integral Prayer, praying from/with/into the Three Faces of God. Praying from the consciousness of God-Being-Us, with God-Beside-Us, and into God-Beyond-Us.

How does our prayer transform when it is infused with the mystical love and spiritual energy of the embodied presence of God within us, beside us, and beyond us? Especially in community!

In WeSpace groups, we primarily practice a form we call “Resonating Prayer.”

What is a Prayer that Resonates?

To resonate by definition is “to affect or appeal in a personal or emotional way”, or “to strike a chord with”. So we might say this is prayer that comes from a deeply personal and vibrating resonance within, that seeks to strike a chord in another. We seek to come into resonance with the divine in ourselves, in one another, and in all things.

Inner Resonance

In Resonating Prayer we are first coming into resonance with our inner being, with the divine spirit consciousness that flows within and from us. In ordinary consciousness, we are not as attuned to the deeper reality of our divine being within. We may not move, act, and speak in harmony with the loving core of our being, with the flow of God being us and coming to manifest. And so we tune into our awakened consciousness to come into inner resonance.

Our WBMA meditation practices are designed to bring us into this state of inner resonance through each of our centers and our whole being. And of course there are other ways we can come into this inner resonance as well.

This is resonating from your divine being in flow.

*"Spiritual Transmission" - image by Dalmo Mendonça*

Intimate Resonance

As we come into inner resonance, we also begin to recognize that the inner face of God

is not just in us, but is in other people as well. Of course it is! And not just as a nice thought or way of looking at others. This is a level of consciousness from which we can share and pray together - this is resonating with God being all of us in communion. It is attuning to the divine sound in one another and resonating at the same frequency. Or perhaps harmonizing to elevate the shared frequency.

This intimate resonance is reciprocal. There is a giving and sending, but maybe it’s helpful to not think of it as an exchange. It is less like the common idea that we get filled up and then pour out to others. There is truth in both metaphors, but I find that the more I give and move out in resonance, the more the sound builds and reverberates in me. It is very energizing!

*"Infinite Sublime" - image by Dalmo Mendonça*

Infinite Resonance

We can also attune to infinite resonance, resonance with the cosmos and all of reality—resonating into union with all. We can feel this resonance through transcendence in all of its many forms. In infinite resonance, a deeper reality of our wholeness and ultimate being is present in a way that resounds underneath it all. Like the galactic gravitational waves permeating throughout the entire cosmos, undetectable amidst the general noise and activity within our celestial sphere of the earth. Metaphor or poetry is about as good as we can do here, for infinite resonance is beyond words.

Resonating Prayer Together in WeSpace

You most likely won’t be able to pray this way in church, which is one of the reasons why we have WeSpace groups!

In each group, after our connection time, we practice a Whole-Body Mystical Awakening meditation to help us move into an awakened state of consciousness together in the collective field. This tunes us into a greater sense of awareness and sensitivity to our embodied, spiritual knowing from each of our four centers and to the forms of divine presence among us.

Then we begin to pray for one another. But not in the traditional way we might think of when we hear those words.

We go around and focus on each person individually for a few minutes. In this time, we are first and foremost sending love from our hearts to them. We call this “engaging in the flow” silently, recognizing that what we are sharing energetically and silently is just as important as any words that might come forth. We are beholding the other in loving care, transmitting that love and energy, offering healing, comfort, and care. We are coming into resonance with them.

We are also attuning ourselves to sensing what might be emerging in us for them. As we come into inner resonance, noticing and discerning what is arising in us, we are welcome to “speak forth” what we sense coming from our various centers of spiritual knowing in our awakened state of consciousness. This practice of “speaking forth” is what the Bible called “prophecy,” which isn’t the most helpful word now with all its negative associations and misuses. But what the word actually means is to “speak forth,” to give voice to our awakened knowing from spirit.

We are speaking not what we already know, but what we are about to know.

Our Whole-Body Mystical Awakening meditative practice helps tune us into a consciousness of spiritual knowing in ways that are deeper than our normal, ordinary consciousness.

In the next chapter, we’ll look more at how we tune into this spiritual knowing and find our divine voice.

A New, Ancient Way of Praying

While all of this may sound to some as a little far out and mystical, this is not some new age mumbo jumbo. Resonating prayer is actually very similar to what the early Christian church practiced when they came together. From what the New Testament describes, what happened was often a lively, spirit-filled sharing together in what was often called “prophecy”. We do not use that word because of the authoritarian or advice-giving distortions it carries from its practice in some charismatic settings.

The actual vision and expression of church in early Christian communities was a place of deep care for one another. While amazing and non-ordinary things would happen in the spirit of awakened consciousness, at the center of their church gatherings was a collective sharing of gifts from the heart of love, intended to strengthen, encourage, and comfort one another.

Here is the Apostle Paul’s wise and practical guidelines for this “speaking forth” kind of prayer: “Pursue love and especially that you may give voice to your inner impressions for others. This builds up the Christian community in a powerful way. I want you all to do this, one by one. Those who pray for others in this way, speak to others for their comfort, encouragement, and strengthening. When this happens, let the others present discern what is said” (I Corinthians 14: 1,3,4,5,26).

Notice that Paul sees giving voice to your inner impressions here and in other places in the New Testament as a powerful way to build up the Christian community. This is because it results in, as he said, “comfort, encouragement, and strengthening” for one another. He wants everyone to practice this, not just a few.

We deeply need this loving encouragement. We may be so removed from receiving that type of intentional support that we do not even know how much its absence affects us. We don’t realize what we are missing. The focused care of interpersonal engagement from a group participating in awakened consciousness is powerful and personal.

In seeking to love one another in this way, we are practicing the way of divine love together, much like the early church practiced. When we participate with the wholeness of our embodied, divine consciousness, we can be present with one another in greater wisdom, healthier discernment, and holistic presence.

Golden Shadow Prayer

In a more modern way of understanding, we can see Resonating Prayer as "Golden Shadow" prayer. The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung first coined the term Shadow to refer to the hidden, dark side of the human psyche. He saw the Shadow as an archetypal figure that lives in the unconscious and stores the unwanted, unprocessed qualities of the Self, including the life experiences we ignore in order to survive.

But we also have our submerged creative potential, which Jung called the "Golden Shadow." We can see our golden shadow in our intense admiration of other people. The bright qualities that you admire in others often represent the disowned aspects of your unique potential.

The Golden Shadow is your hidden greatness — and Resonating Prayer calls it forth!

In community, we can consciously take up the golden shadow work of reflecting back to others the wonderful and beautiful qualities we see in them. This is mirroring the light back to one another. Many people are so busy shining their light to others that they forget what it looks like, how it feels.

We are generally conditioned to see our own faults, to focus on our flaws, to listen to the critical voice in our head. For whatever reason, most of us have a very hard time welcoming and accepting the goodness within, the beautiful aspects of our personhood, the wonderous light of our being.

When we show this to each other, we are offering a great blessing by helping see our golden allure that we often have such a hard time seeing and accepting in ourselves. If we hear it enough, we may even start believing it.

"Cloud of Witnesses" - image by Dalmo Mendonça

Clobber Prayer

However, if Resonating Prayer is not used in a loving way, it can also be a destructive way of shaming or manipulating others.

We hope that our inner impressions come from our deepest self and are full of light. However, sometimes an impression can come from our own shadow or inner wounding. Those who tend to offer negative impressions — advice-giving disguised as prayer, or trying to fix people come from their own needs, not what the other person needs. I (Paul) call this "clobber" prayer. If the other person feels clobbered, then it must be brought up. Or if others suspect it is clobber prayer, it must be discerned.

In our WeSpace Group practice, we are careful to create an environment of healthy interrelational spiritual practice.

We may have heard or been the victim of advice-giving in the form of prayer: "O Lord, help Tom to be more disciplined and start loving his wife." That's one reason there is this important guideline for Resonanting Prayer: others present who hear what is said should listen carefully and discern if this meets the guidelines of strengthening, encouraging, and comforting. If it does not, it needs to be brought up and discussed ("Let the others present discern what is said" 1 Cor 14:29). We do this to protect the person to whom the words are directed and to provide feedback for the one offering the impressions.

We can be loving in our feedback to the one who did the clobbering. We are all doing the best we can and sometimes do not recognize what we say may be shaming or giving unwanted advice in the form of "God told to tell you." Loving feedback to the one offering advice and directions can be an opportunity for the other person to grow and face their own shadow.

It's easy to spot clobber prayer. You ask, "Did this comfort, strengthen, and encourage you or the person to whom it was directed? If the answer is other than "yes," this may be a beating up, shaming kind of prayer. Anyone who senses this possibility must bring it up to talk about. Only in openly sharing our feelings and responses can we provide the safety needed for Resonating Prayer.

Beholding In Love

At the core of Resonating Prayer is the heart of beholding one another in the loving gaze of radical acceptance. There is no judgment, only openness to seeing them with the care of deep perception and gracious attention. Every one of us is capable of seeing each other in this way, sharing from the heart the light we perceive.

At the same time, in this practice, we are opening up to the deeper perception of spiritual knowing. This is not so we can know secret things or offer psychic predictions—we aren’t seeking to expose hidden areas so much as help reveal the light that is already present in the other, sometimes unaware. It is often through the realm of metaphor, symbol, and story that these shadow aspects can be allowed in, underneath the filter of our conscious mind.

So in this practice we are learning to open to our spiritual knowing and be with one another in mystical consciousness that perceives more deeply and lovingly. Over time, this transforms our way of seeing and being with ourselves, the world, and one another. We learn to dwell in the communal flow of deep spiritual intimacy that becomes a prism of light refracting all through and among us. The golden shadow is reflected back to us and to the whole of us all.

This openness to receive empowers us to actively participate in our spiritual unfolding, and it’s amazing to experience what can arise. When we open this space in a shared field, in a collective context, we can move in the cocreation of the unfolding offerings. We can discover wisdom and guidance we wouldn’t have heard otherwise, deep care and spontaneous expressions of love, and other gifts from spirit/awakened consciousness. And of course, this knowing is not just in our minds, but in all of our body centers, which we’ll explore more in the next chapter.

"Group Transmission" - image by Paul Smith

Praying Without Words – Transmission

Resonating Prayer primarily consists of three actions: (1) moving into a state of receptivity to sense from our spiritual knowing, including the presence of spiritual beings and talking with them and (2) intentionally engaging in the flow of giving and receiving loving, healing energy with others and (3) speaking forth.

However, we don’t always get to step three. Nor do we even need to.

Without words, we can transmits loving, healing energy to others. This appears to be a primary way of praying for others that Jesus demonstrated. He sometimes used words to explain what he was doing when he "resonating" with others in transmitting healing energy and spiritual awakening to them (Matt 8:13, 9:22, Mark 3:10, 14:36, Luke 4:40, 6:19. John 20:22).

Transmission is the sharing of spiritual energy in and through one another. This happens through energy fields. At a minimum this is known through measurable electromagnetic fields. Everybody has an electromagnetic field, which is created when electrical current flows. We are full of nerves sending electrical messages all over our bodies all the time. We are all charged up all the time! The human body radiates out an electromagnetic field that is generated most strongly by the heart. Recent research has further explored other associated energy fields, sometimes named as etheric, morphogenic, and/or spiritual energetic fields.

A growing body of evidence suggests that such energetic fields can form between individuals in a group. In other words, there is a literal group “field” that connects all the members. If we understand spirit as human/divine consciousness in all its forms, the entire cosmos is permeated with this field! And it is this field where we can engage in the flow of spiritual energy between one another.

We do this prayer without words in our global WeSpace groups in the form of distant transmission across the world. We resonate with a field of healing, loving energy and direct it to one another, no matter how far away we are.

Ken Wilber writes,

“This transmission process is not as far out as it sounds. Human beings in general are always transmitting their fundamental energetic state. If you are around somebody who is joyously happy, you tend to feel that happiness, too. If they are radiating a deep peace, you’ll tend to feel that. Likewise, if you are around somebody who is profoundly depressed, you will tend to feel sad as well. As you grow and develop in the path of Waking Up, and you attain higher and higher states of consciousness, you will to some degree transmit those states, and the people around you will notice them.”

Why Resonating Prayer?

As our spirituality grows and evolves, traditional prayer becomes more limited in how it resonates for connecting with God and aiding us. We need new ways of prayer that lead us into deeper connection with divine presence—within, among, and beyond us. Not reaching out to a distant figure, but present in the heartful communion and intimate immediacy.

Experiencing Resonating Prayer in WeSpace groups has a powerful effect on both the giver and receiver—which is always a fluid inter-relationship between the two! Embodying and sharing in this divine love together provides the strength, encouragement, and comfort we all need in our lives, just as it was in the early church and in the Integral Church gathering today.

Resonating Prayer is a practice of transformation of consciousness. As we learn to further awaken to and open our embodied ways of knowing, we integrate our latent structures of consciousness in the divine energy and personal incarnation. Springing forth greater wholeness and presence.

This transforms our way of being with ourselves, others, and the world. It helps us practice a way of interacting with others that are more full of love and care, beholding the divine within one another which evokes more joy, peace, goodness, and more.

The best way to really learn and discover all of this is just to move into the experience and practice of it in a WeSpace Group!

Questions for Reflection:

1. How has your experience with Prayer evolved in recent years?

2. Does Resonating Prayer “resonate” with you? Do you have any dissonance with it?

3. Do you feel drawn to prayers of transmission or golden shadow prayer? Why or why not?

All Images are open-source, used with permission, or created by ICN

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Resonating Prayer