Inner  Frontier
Fourth Way Spiritual Practice

 

Inner Work


For the week of February 2, 2015

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Sacred Wholeness

(The Way of Wholeness: Part 9)

Behind everything there is a sacred mountain of purpose, the unfathomable will of the world. This Divine Will is the source of all and the source of the unity of all. Its inherent wholeness suffuses itself throughout the universe and all its parts. This includes us, specifically our body and our I. Wholeness, emanating from the Divine Will and passing into our body and our I, is the source of the remarkable power of spiritual inner work. In the usual way of life, we have only superficial and intermittent contact with our body or our I. When we practice whole body sensation, we touch the sacred. When we work with attention and more particularly when we become our attention, when we become the source of our attention, we come into our I, our will, which flows from the sacred wholeness of the world.

Through this I of ours, we have a direct connection to the source of all. Yet we so rarely exercise that connection. Indeed, we block the flow by standing in the middle of that channel with our back to the source, unseeing and unhearing of anything that might be behind us and deeper. We presume to be our own source. This is called egoism. But we can drop that, at least temporarily.

Sometimes though, if intentional and conscious, standing in the middle of the channel with our back to the source is not egoism, but rather one style and level of inner work. This is “I am.” We are here in our center, facing and fully embracing all our parts within the wholeness of our I. We occupy the whole of our being. This is deep and valuable practice, as through it we become fully ourselves. When we are fully ourselves, we have something of great value to bring to the sacred, namely our I.

When we open our I to the sacred, to the channel behind us, where the flow of the higher will comes down to and through us, we go beyond the practice of “I am” to the practice of “the sacred is.” No longer can we say I, as we have entered a state that transcends our personal individuality.

As with “I am” this sacred, higher will has both active and receptive modes, while its essential reality supersedes those categories. It can be the timelessness of just being, just seeing. But in that case, it is the sacred that is being and seeing in us, through us. It can also be an active, dynamic, affirming presence, sourcing action, and cascading higher energies into us. In this mode, though, it is not just our presence, but rather a pure, sacred presence that subsumes and transcends our personal presence. It has no center, for it transcends space, both inwardly and outwardly.

How to come to this, an inner action that can hardly be described in words? But words are our medium right now, so… It involves first becoming fully present, fully here, awake and centered in ourselves, at least for a moment. And then looking to see that our very occupation of our center and our outward facing orientation from our center can both give way. We inwardly turn around, facing back toward what is even more inward than we are. At the same time we open to the flow of will and energy from there, from the higher, more inward side, opposite the direction we usually face. Opening to the higher, that is the practice of “the sacred is.” And we do practice this daily, perhaps more than once a day. A propitious moment for this practice occurs at the end of our morning meditation, when we are more centered, more collected, less distracted. We give our best to the practice of “the sacred is.” It is our prayer.

For this week, please practice sacred wholeness.


     

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