Yes! According to Apostle Paul, prophecy is the most important spiritual ability available to everyone. What Paul calls "speaking in tongues" is what we call "prayer languages" and he considers it the least important. What does that mean?
Read More"The future is up for grabs. It belongs to any and all who will take the risk and accept the responsibility of consciously creating the future they want.
Robert Anton Wilson, author, futurist, psychologist, and mystic
"In order to move our culture forward, revolutionaries have had to speak and plan from the unseen order inside them.”
Glennon Doyle, author and activist
One result of authentic spiritual awakening is that we can find and use our awakened spiritual abilities to change the world for the good of all. At Integral Christian Network, we take Margaret Mead, American cultural anthropologist, seriously when she said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
And these words from Buckminster Fuller, architect, systems theorist, writer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." At ICN we are building a new model of the community that Jesus started and that we have struggled with for centuries, especially the existing unhealthy model of today.
Read MoreHow to Keep Relationships Healthy
The Drama Triangle
Sometimes we shy away from relationships because they can get messy at times. Who hasn’t experienced a friendship devolving into something painful? We’d like to believe that people devoted to love and prayer don’t have this problem, but that isn’t always the case.
This messiness often comes from a drama with three different roles that we tend to play. I wrote about this four years ago near the beginning of Integral Christian Network because it is an such a helpful understanding about relationships. Called the Drama Triangle, this model reveals dysfunctional interaction originally described by Stephen Karpman. I learned this from him in a workshop forty years ago. It has served me to explain the cycles and patterns of behavior I saw unfold in so many relationships and conversations. It also indicated what we can do to get off the Drama Triangle. There are more nuanced approaches for the professional counselor, but I will give the basics here.
Read MoreMindfulness has become one of the most prevalent spiritual practices in the modern world today. It’s now being taught and applied in businesses and schools, reaching beyond the usual confines of religious and spiritual settings.
There is so much of current society that thrives on distraction, entertainment, and other forms of numbing consciousness. And we don’t want to live mindless lives. We are craving a more substantive experience of everyday life and reality. In response to pervasive anxiety, detachment, and anger, we want to be more calm, engaged, and peaceful. We want to be able to be more fully present in who we truly are throughout the moments of our days.
Mindfulness is a wonderful practice that can help us greatly in this regard. While there are many forms of the practice, most teach a process of conscious observing, noticing, and focused attention. It is a practice of self-regulation that helps us cultivate an orientation of curiosity, openness, acceptance toward life. And it is great, insofar as it goes.
Read More“Oh God, how can I help? What can we do?”
From the common prayer of “God, help me” we started with in last week’s article, we move from focus on ourselves into care and attention on the world, with our neighbors, in the moment right before us now.
From our inquiries of how we might live in resonance and wisdom from divine presence, we then respond to act with/in spirit consciousness.
For Whole-Body Mystical Presencing is not just about sensing or feeling divine spirit alive in us at any and all times. It is also about transforming how we live in each and every moment.
"My being is God, not by some simple participation but by a true transformation of my being." – Catherine of Genoa
Read More“God, help me!”
This might be the most common prayer there is and has been. I would guess most everyone reading this has prayed it at some point. Perhaps in a moment of desperation, perhaps in a time of childlike simplicity, perhaps this morning. Sometimes it’s not even said in words, but just a silent reaching out to the beyond. Even those who don’t believe in God have still been found to offer up this prayer in their darkest moments.
Asking for help is one of the most fundamentally human things we can do. And asking God for help is when we reach beyond what we are capable of, beyond what anyone else can do for us, beyond what would seem in the scope of possibility.
Some don’t believe in an interventionist God. And if we’re talking about Zeus casting lightning bolts down to smite the wicked, we have enough evidence to probably agree.
As we practice Whole-Body Mystical Presencing—which is a practice to enter the everyday reality of Christ consciousness, a moment-to-moment permeation of divine spirit—God is already here in our midst and within us at any and all times. Intervention is most often what we do as God’s presence in action, which will be the focus of next week’s article.
Read More"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." – Sri Aurobindo
“May they all be one, as you, Abba God, are in me, and I am in you, may they also be in us.” – Jesus
Whether it’s Jesus, other spiritual teachers, and now many scientists as well, the world is waking up more and more to an understanding and participation in the reality of Oneness, as Paul recently detailed thoroughly in a six-part series.
In spiritual practice, we can move into deep states of experiencing our Oneness. While it is sometimes bestowed upon us as a grace, it is a consciousness we can intentionally cultivate and develop with regular practice. Whole-Body Mystical Awakening can lead us into ways of experiencing this Oneness in our hearts and minds, in our spiritual womb, feet, and whole body. In meditation, we can consciously practice moving into unified reality holistically.
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 live from Oneness while we’re having lunch, walking the dog, working, playing, talking, and resting.
Do you believe that’s possible?
Can we engage a universal sense of presencing Oneness in our daily lives, in our embodied mystical being at any moment?
Read MoreA 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.
Read MoreIn this last part of our series on welcoming expanded consciousness, we continue to briefly explore some signs that signal that we are on the journey of waking up spiritually. Remember, a spiritual awakening is a continuing and highly individual experience; not everyone will go through all these signs. You may want to note which ones apply to your journey.
While these signs can vary from person to person, here are some more common indicators that you may be moving into a state of expanded consciousness.
Read MoreMoving into expanded consciousness is a profound and transformative experience that often comes with identifiable signs and shifts in one's perception and awareness. However, we may not always easily recognize them when we are in the midst of such significant changes.
For the last two parts of this series, we’ll look at sixteen signs you are moving into expanded consciousness.
Remember, a spiritual awakening is a highly individual experience, and not everyone will go through all of these signs. You may want to note which ones apply to your journey. While these signs can vary from person to person, here are some common indicators.
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