The WeSpace of Oneness in the Mystical Body of Christ
Jesus said, "When you make the two one, you will become like the sons of man, and when you say, 'Mountain, move away,' it will move away."
Gospel of Thomas, Saying 106
In the experience of our individuality, we often unconsciously adopt living from the story of separation. We separate the external world into subject and object, that which is “in here” and that which is “over there.”
As we begin to awaken to the experience of our shared interiors, of the we-space that constitutes communal energy, mutual knowing, and interbeing on a mystical and very real level—that which is “in here” together—we expand beyond this limited story of individualism. We come into the experience of our intersubjective reality. This is where the subject of the sentence becomes plural: from I to We. Not just as a collection of separate parts, but a real and dynamic collective. How do we experience this?
Often, we awaken first to participating in the reality beyond the boundaries of our own skin through experiences of transcendence. We are lifted beyond ourselves. Carried away by beauty or some grand invitation. We have an “out of body” experience. In these types of experiences, we are drawn outside of our interior confines. Yet, they are happening in our “interior” reality, not in the external physical sense, but in a way that shows us that we are not limited to the individual, internal space within. We are opened to a broader and deeper participation with reality.
These transcendent experiences most often speak to us of the connection we have with nature, with humanity, or with the whole cosmos. This is coming into our participation with the “Cosmic We,” the universal belonging and connection to all things.
As liberating and necessary as this expansion is, it is incomplete if we only come back to continue living our lives as individuals. It will remain amorphous until it can take shape in the form of a collective. Until we particularize into a communal body that substantiates in the here and now.
That’s what mystical community is all about.
Jesus Prayed for Our Oneness
Jesus prayed for you and me, saying, "May they all be one, as you, Abba God, are in me, and I am in you, may they also be in us."
That’s a lovely prayer, but what does it mean? How are we to "be in" one another just as Jesus and God are and be present "in" them?
Jesus' beautiful imagery for this Oneness was, "I am the vine; you are the branches. Abide in me as I in you" (John 15:4-5). The vine and branches are attached to one another without separation. The branches are literally in the vine, growing outward. To "abide" in Jesus means to rest and be at home in him.
Next, speaking of "abide" again, he says, "As Abba God has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love" (15:9). Jesus connects Oneness with resting in his love. It is like being "in" love. That's Jesus' vision of Oneness.
When Jesus said he and his Abba God were one, he meant they deeply loved each other. In more expansive terms, the essential reality of his own True Self was the ultimate reality of Oneness of the Universe – a single indivisible, infinite reality.
Everyone lives, and moves, and has their being in God (Acts 17:28). Therefore, when any of the eight billion of us on earth experience Oneness and live out of it in love, we are experiencing this luminous reality as seen through the eyes of Jesus.
Coming to Oneness in WeSpace
In our WeSpace, we seek to be together in this luminous reality. The more we practice this together, the more we will come to experience a deep interrelatedness among us. Not just an “I” relating to another “I,” but a “We” reality of interbeing experienced in the collective field among us.
Here, we begin to come into our intraconnectedness, to use the term coined by Daniel Siegel. This is a greater experience of wholeness than two separate entities engaging together for a period of time. It is a shared inner experience within a larger “body” so to speak. It is not just Mary relating to Jane, but Mary and Jane (and others) experiencing something, being something which they are together.
We know that this happens at the quantum level. That the deepest substance of our materiality does not stay within our singular bodies but is nonlocal and constantly entangling with that which is beyond the boundaries of our skin. At the very least, this provides a plausible scientific explanation for what we experience in collective mystical consciousness.
As we experience this more, we open up to more than our “self” as only a singular form. A truly intersubjective reality that has a collective awareness and energy of which we are part. Especially at first, we experience it primarily through our unique particularity, but its reality isn’t confined to how this “we” is showing up in me. We all have a subjective experience within it. A collective localization of Oneness among us.
It doesn’t give up differentiated inner experience, but it expands our sense of capacity to recognize and act from an interior consciousness experience that is bigger than my singular self alone. Siegel calls it a “MWe,” because both “me” and “we” are present.
So if we are truly more than ourselves alone in our interior world, if we are really a “We” and not just a “me,” how do we more consciously engage with this interfusion of being with others?
The Body of Christ Becoming
One of the oldest Christian metaphors speaks to this reality—the body of Christ. By metaphor, I (Luke) do not mean something that is only real in a symbolic sense, but something that is also real in participation with our magic and mythic structures of consciousness, with mystical reality.
We can actually experience our participation in the body of Christ in a mystical sense. Though it may help us come into that more if we distinguish it from some common misperceptions of this metaphor.
First of all, the body of Christ is not the church. Or, at least, not the institution of “church” or what we often think of when we hear that word. Too often, the conception of church and the body of Christ is associated with a separation from the rest of the world. A church body apart from “secular” or nonreligious people.
This connects to the second misperception that can come around the idea of “Christ,” which is the limiting particularizing onto Jesus. Jesus embodied the Christ reality, but it was never limited to only him. His message was that this divine realm (traditionally rendered as “kingdom”) was “at hand.” That is, it was present here and now in us. Not as something we have to join or receive from the outside, but as the fabric of reality in our midst.
God is interfused throughout all things. Christ is the divine manifesting forth in anything that is becoming what it already always is.
To dwell in our Christ consciousness is to inhabit, to embody literally/mystically in our bodies—personal and collective—the divine reality in the world. In our lives. In the body of Christ becoming through us.
We come into the mystical body of Christ when we start belonging to this reality within. In the interior of ourselves together.
Belonging to Ourselves Collectively
We already are participating in the mystical body of Christ and in the inter-related reality of which we are a part—it is not dependent on our awareness. But how can we become more consciously aware and intentional engage in this larger reality?
So often our general operating procedure is functioning solely from the mindset of the individual. What do I need or want in this moment? What is it that I have to do today? What am I feeling in this moment?
And while this is somewhat natural, there is also a deeper undercurrent of possibility. A deeper will that moves in subtle and intuitive ways. A deeper perception that senses beyond the immediate and personal. A deeper mystical reality that permeates and interflows among and throughout us.
These senses and movements are not coming from a separate being (though they can come through another) like a God in the sky, so much as they are like the firing synapses of spirit that we learn to recognize more and more as we come into our mystical body. Like a child learning to walk, we must learn how to operate in this body and reality that is ours.
It belongs to us. We are the subject of these movements, of these senses, of this will. God-Being-Us moving in embodied, incarnated reality. That is our larger identity.
Let’s consider how we might experience this consciousness in our centers of spiritual knowing, as we come into greater awareness of our participation in this communal body.
Body
Sri Aurobindo (1872 – 1950) was an Indian philosopher and spiritual reformer who introduced his vision of spiritual evolution and the spiritual practice he called Integral Yoga. He said, "Evolution is not merely a return to the One, but the gradual emergence of higher powers of consciousness in the material universe leading to an even greater manifestation of the divine Consciousness Force within its creation."
While it may be hard to wrap our minds around these ideas of intersubjectivity and communal reality, we may find it much easier to experience through our bodies. For we already constantly operate in this interbeing and our bodies know it. Since we are our bodies, it’s just a matter of bringing it into consciousness, of becoming aware.
This may seem more difficult on the physical level because as humans we walk around and are not permanently attached to anything constantly. Touch is within our control and can be removed when we want to be “by ourselves” (though we are always touching something).
In ICN, we talk about our feet center as our natural connection to material reality. We feel our roots grounding and connecting us to the earth. But the feet center is also the place of our somatic participation in this material reality—not as something separate from the rest of our body. Our whole-body moves in this dynamic web of life and energy.
While things may appear separate, quantum physics is revealing how things are constantly entangled and interrelated in ways that we do not perceive with our eyes. Yet with increasing sensitivity and practice, we can begin to sense this through our “quantum roots.” We can, in the marrow of our bones, begin to feel the pulsing energy of interconnection and nonlocality. We can physically tap into the body of God in nature, in one another, in all things.
In practice, this can look like sensing things in our personal bodies that are coming from another. This is more than just somatic empathy, but a tuning into the underlying energy and physical sensing of our interconnection. We are not separate!
Cultivating this consciousness is one way that we develop in our “feet center” of Whole-Body Mystical Awakening, in our somatic knowing and participation with the communal body.
Heart
Henri Nouwen (1932-1996), Dutch Catholic priest, professor, author, and theologian, says, "Living a spiritual life requires a change of heart, a conversion. Such a conversion may be marked by a sudden inner change, or it can take place through a long, quiet process of transformation. But it always involves an inner experience of Oneness."
Our hearts also know that we are not separate. When we enter into the space of deep love, we feel as if our heart is outside our body and walking around with that other person. Our heart-senses constantly respond to things that are happening outside of our bodies, yet we feel them within as if we had been physically affected.
Again, this grows to be more than just empathy, but a perception of the heart that connects to so much more.
In the expanded heart space of universal love, we feel the all-encompassing embrace. In the immediate connection of love or heartache, we experience how connected we truly are.
Personally, this comes to form when we turn with others from shoulder-to-should to heart-to-heart. When we open our hearts to the flow of love between us, we are carried beyond our individual heart and into the larger heart in our midst. It can really feel like we are inside of one larger heart.
In our WeSpace groups, we actively cultivate this shared heart field of love that can be felt acutely, even through a screen when we are geographically far apart. This is one of the most accessible ways of tapping into our collective reality. Coming into this heart consciousness is a regular experience in our ICN gatherings.
Womb
Ramana Maharshi (1879 - 1950) was an influential Indian Hindu sage. He was once asked, "How should we treat others?" He replied, "There are no others."
In the depths of our womb space we find our deepest identity as the inner face of God-Being-Us. This is not just personal, but is the divine source that is the Origin of all. As we sink deep enough, through our ground of being, we may come into an experience of this unified divine identity—the “pre-conceived” being of life before time. The primordial unity of our common heritage from which all life flows. We are all born of God, from God into being.
As we flow forth in our uniqueness, we are not alone. The womb space also helps us sense, through a sort of umbilical knowing, our soul kinship with others. This is the shared womb of familial relationality—our soul family.
While this does particularize with a select few in our lives, we can also find this experience of our “extended family” together in the womb of God. We are all enfolded and nurtured in this same creative enclosure, gestating and growing together in the creative generativity of life coming to emergence through our relationships and communities.
In our wombs, we may experience this as a warm embrace. As being held in a safe and nurturing vessel. Like a collective soak in a hot spring pool!
This deep belonging with one another takes time, and is a fruit of intentional and regular wombfulness practice with others in intimate community. The soul nourishment of resting in the divine womb with others is rejuvenating and inspiring. And it is a representation of the space of our ultimate receiving, our being continuously created within the larger collective body.
Head
“A ‘We” is ultimately how spirit experiences itself.” – Ken Wilber
Our head space may often be the most difficult to experience our communal body, as it is primarily the space of our ego and individuality. The mental structure of consciousness is in many ways defined by its separateness, but dividing subject and object.
But we can also experience collective consciousness in the shared mind of higher wisdom. We access this when our mind is open and in tune with others in a space of discovery.
This is often experienced as a mind receptive to thoughts coming forth that seem from a different source. They are not the same as our own, normal thoughts. But have a different flavor or tenor that we learn to sense with time. As we share in this sort of emergent space with others, we can begin to recognize the voice of each other, of our spirit guides speaking to us in this way.
This is participating in the mind of Christ, cultivating the neural pathways that connect into the higher, shared mind of collective consciousness.
“The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the Oneness of the human family known and celebrated.”
We all experience Oneness in different ways
Today, a sudden awakening can be like being blown away at Pentecost. An amazing number of spiritual seekers in all traditions down through history and today have a sudden, exhilarating awakening. However, more commonly, it occurs gradually and can range from gentle breezes to gusts of awakening. We will each experience it somewhat differently. We’ll keep giving pointers, but one must let this experience emerge in you to feel, sense, and know it in a mystical way.
Oneness takes shape through the consciousness of the one having the experience.
There are many different degrees of intensity, concentration, and conviction in the Oneness experiences of different individuals. Like all of divine-human creation, it emerges as a co-creation molded by both God and our consciousness. Don't expect or try for your experience to be just like another's.
The most striking effect of the experience of Oneness is not new fact-knowledge or concepts. Instead, it is a new-found spiritual energy, a greater spiritual vision. We are raised to a whole new level of life.
Questions for Reflection:
1. Have you had experiences of Oneness? How would you describe them?
2. Have you had experiences of We-Oneness? How would you describe them?
3. Do you resonate with a particular embodied experience of Oneness? Which one?
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