Integral Prayer – Part 8: Whole-Body Transcendence into God-Beyond-Us

In the third movement of Integral Prayer, we are addressing the 3rd person, infinite face of God-Beyond-Us. This is not the remote “God in the sky” who is unreachable and inaccessible, but rather the great Mystery who is always beckoning us onward, who is inviting us into the participation beyond the usual boundaries that we experience within the confines of our small self.

We don’t pray at this distant God, but rather we move into the Mystery in all its facets of reality. This is not an act of moving out of ourselves, because we are a part of that reality. Rather, it is to expand beyond while still being rooted to our own fullness. It is not separate from our being.

Praying into unified reality is a movement of holistic transcendence. We can experience it in each of the four centers, each in its own unique form—and each providing a crucial element to the fullness of an embodied expansion into the all.

Sometimes transcendence gets a bad rap because it is seen as an act of escapism and disassociation. While this can be true of less healthy forms, holistic transcendence into all reality will actually be a movement of much greater connection, much greater presence, and much deeper being. It is, in many ways, an immanent transcendence.

As much or more than ever, today we are so often experiencing constriction and enclosure in our lives. You may even feel this contraction in your body, perhaps in your chest or gut.

Praying into unified reality opens us from our constricted self-sense and into the freedom and joy of the expanse of the mystery beyond ourselves. The mystery of embracing all, embodying all, being all, and going beyond all.

So let’s go on that journey, let’s explore a movement together into all of unified reality.