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Welcome to OneLife Ministries. This site is designed to lead you prayerfully into a heart experience of Divine Presence, Who is Love. While it focuses on Christian teaching, I hope persons of varied faiths will find inspiration here. Indeed, "God" can be whatever image helps us trust in the Sacred, by whatever means Grace touches us each. Please share this ministry with others, and please return soon. There is a new offering daily. And to be placed on the daily OneLife email list, to request notifications of new writings or submit prayer requests, write to briankwilcox@yahoo.com .
Blessings,
Brian Kenneth Wilcox MDiv, MFT, PhD
Interspiritual Pastor-Teacher, Author, Workshop Leader, Spiritual Counselor, and Chaplain.
You are invited to join Brian at his fellowship group on Facebook. The group is called OneLife Ministries – An Interspiritual Contemplative Fellowship. Hope to see you there. Blessings.
Spiritual Teaching
Today, I give you a spiritual exercise on auditory prayer, or meditation with sound. What is the purpose of using sound as prayer-meditation? What are principles underlying such a practice of sound arising and dissolving?
Prelude: An Erotic Union with All
Before giving the Purpose and Principles of the practice, I offer words from transpersonal thinker Ken Wilber, on One Taste, a spiritually integral view seeing all reality as a manifestation of the Divine, and which we are one, or integral, with and in.... Erotic, in this Reality, and practice, means we "go out of" our sense of separation into a penetration of - or, intercourse with - Nature, all things. Then, we are free of separation, though we retain our individuality in the unioning as process. There is no where to go, nothing to do, for this; thus, we are free from the great race toward Enlightenment or God Consciousness. To realize this - truly -, is to "see" what already is, for This is not reliant on our seeing, or realizing.
*For those not interested in or feeling prepared to grasp the matter of nondual Union, you may want to skip this quote and proceed afterward.
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Once you find your formless identity as pure Spirit ..., you will take that constant, non-dual, ever present consciousness and re-enter the lesser states, subtle mind and gross body, and re-animate them with radiance. You will not remain merely Formless and Empty. You will empty yourself of Emptiness: you will pour yourself out into the mind and world ... and enter them all equally, but especially and particularly that specific mind and body that is called you ... : this lesser self will become the vehicle of the Spirit that you are.
And then all things, including your own little mind and body and feelings and thoughts, will arise in the vast Emptiness that you are, and they will self-liberate into their own true nature just as they arise, precisely because you no longer identify with any of them, but rather let them play, let them all arise, in the Emptiness and Openness that you now are. You then will awaken as radical Freedom, and sing those songs of radiant release, beam an infinity too obvious to see, and drink an ocean of delight. You will look at the moon as part of your body and bow to the sun as part of your heart, and all of it is just so. For eternally and always, eternally and always, there is only this.
You, as formless Witness ... are one with the entire World of Form ..., and it is forever an erotic union. You are literally making love to the entire world as it arises. The brutal, torturous gap between subject and object has collapsed, and you and the world have entered an intimate, sexual, ecstatic union, edged with bliss, radiant in release, the thunder and lightning of only One Taste.
It has always been so.
*One Taste.
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A. The Purpose of such practice is ...
1)to open to Pure Spirit by not “going inward into the self,” but “opening outward from the self”
2)to experience the Already-Always-Presence
3)to teach us that the Great Search for God, or Enlightenment, is itself built on the illusion that you and I are not already fully present to the Divine and the Divine to us, not already fully with and in Enlightenment
4)to habituate us to opening to recognition of the Already-Always-Presence during the varied circumstances of our lives
B. The Principles of such practice is ...
1)Spirit is equally present in all things, or Spirit is not present at all
2) as above, so below: action in the microcosm creates a like response in the macrocosm, and vice versa
3) God-Consciousness, or Enlightenment, when realized - not gained, attained, or earned - , is nothing more than Consciousness - or Awareness ...-, for God-Consciousness is the natural state of already being in-goded, in in-lightened, and God being in-youed, or Spirit being in-light-ing you
The Practice
1) Begin by closing the eyes, placing the tongue to the palate, and relaxing
2) Smile! Speak, inwardly: “I AM glad to be here.” Hear this as your greeting Spirit; then, hear it as Spirit greeting you
3) Breathe naturally, observing, appreciating sounds that form and dissolve. Do not name sounds, receive them. Recognize the sounds as a manifesting Silence, the play of Spirit-ing. Notice how you may resists the practice, thinking, “This is not spiritual.” Or, “This is not prayer.” Return, receive, be grateful, recognizing the sounds as One Taste, the Symphony of the Creator, of Nature, of Life
4) When ready, say “Thank You,” open your eyes, sit for about two minutes, and slowly get up
Responding
1) How might the above practice be adapted to your spirtual path?
2) Share with someone your experience of the above exercise practice.
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*OneLife Ministries is a ministry of Brian Kenneth Wilcox, SW Florida. Brian lives a vowed life and with his two dogs, Bandit Ty and St. Francis, with friends and under a vow of simplicity. Brian is an ecumenical-interspiritual leader, who chooses not to identify with any group, and renounces all titles of sacredness that some would apply to him, but seeks to be open to how Christ manifests in the diversity of Christian denominations and varied religious-spiritual traditions. He affirms that all spiritual paths lead ultimately back to Jesus Christ. He is Senior Chaplain for the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office, Punta Gorda, FL.
*Brian welcomes responses to his writings or submission of prayer requests at briankwilcox@yahoo.com . Also, Brian is on Facebook: search Brian Kenneth Wilcox.
*Contact the above email to book Brian for preaching, Spiritual Direction, retreats, workshops, animal blessing services, house blessings, or other spiritual requests. You can order his book An Ache for Union from major booksellers.
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