Integral Christianity: The Spirit's Call to Evolve

by Paul R. Smith

We can move from the traditional level of calling on God out there to touch a person and instead know that the Spirit within and as us is where the healing energy comes from. Our ability to transmit healing energy to others as Jesus did is based on what seems to be a universal potential within each of us to develop and intensify this kind of energy.

Jesus did not teach his followers to ask God “up there” to heal.

Jesus said if you want to move mountains, don’t ask God to do it. Instead, tell the mountain to move!

However, if you understand that you, as an incarnation of divine Spirit, are doing the doing, then it is not magic. It’s spiritual action.

what may be described as “living in the flow.” It can also become a permanently accessible state of transcendence that is truly the “Spirit-filled” life.

John states, Jesus, as embodied spiritual consciousness, is truly the light of all people, but all people are not aware of this light, regardless of the name by which it is called (Buddha consciousness, Krishna consciousness, Christ consciousness, etc.). Awakening to this awareness is the continuing work of the Spirit in the world in all religious/spiritual traditions.

The Gospel of Thomas records Jesus

speaking about the Light that was in and as him also being in us. “Jesus said, ‘If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you.’”26 What is already within us that will save us? The Spirit of God!

Hear it clearly: Jesus was at home with mystical levels and transcendent states of consciousness. And he invites us to that same unfolding of experiencing and identification with divine reality.

The book of Acts recounts the details of Peter’s zone experience:

God uses whatever alphabet we have at hand to communicate with us. Peter did not discount the reality of his vision, as we are inclined to do: “Oh, I was so hungry I began hallucinating about food.”

God keeps repeating things to us until we get it.

The vagas nerve, when stimulated by feelings such as gratefulness, praise and adoration, may create a sense of upward movement in the throat.

Trances occur from right brain activity.

This is a form of prayer that uses one’s spirit and not one’s mind. (14:14)

Who said that only rational words or silence would be proper?

What is this “prophecy”?

“Prophecy” may be best understood today as channeling the Holy Spirit. It seldom has to do with predicting the future.

Paul is adamant that “prophecy” or channeling words from the Spirit is an incredibly valuable spiritual gift and we are all to strive for

it. “Strive for spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy . . . those who would prophesy

build up the ...

We must always do the work of “testing of

the spirits.”

The purpose of the church is to accelerate our growth in both stages of understanding the spiritual life and states of experiencing it.

Francis McNutt

“A mystic is not one who sees God as an object, but one who is immersed in God as an atmosphere.”8

A mystic is someone who has a direct experience of God, or with whatever we call the sacred or that which gives ultimate meaning.

giving up that terrible need we all have to some degree to control others instead of love them,

Rudolf Otto’s description of experiences of the “numinous,” the awe-inspiring and wonder-evoking “holy,” the mysterium tremendum et fascinans (the tremendous mystery that elicits trembling even as it also attracts us in a compelling way).

Pushing the mystics out of the church

The spiritual path of Jesus has been taken over by the institutional church.

Abraham Maslow

“Organized Religion, the churches, finally may become the major enemies of the religious experience and the religious experiencer.”21

Christianity, which began in an outburst of life-changing spiritual experiences, is now the primary opponent of such experiences!

learns from the mystics of traditions other than Christian, such as Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu,

and Sufi. In putting these into an integral framework, it also transcends some of the theological and cultural attachments of the traditional/mythic state that confuse the symbols of the mystical with that reality itself.

magic-oriented New Agers,

Next, I began exploring channeling the Spirit. What worked best for me in stirring that up within me was to ask the Spirit specific questions about myself,

I also see or hear things when praying for others in a time of healing prayer.

don’t know what people really need, but God does.

I wish the Christians who attack the New Age with such paranoia would first deal with these things in their own Bibles before they are spooked by it from New Agers.

the deep end may be where the good stuff is.

The goal of all spiritual

practice is to awaken to the Divine Self within and to connect with the kinds of spiritual realities that Jesus, the early church, and other saintly mystics down through the centuries have experienced.

“The Great Secret”:29 God was full of Wine last night, So full of Wine That He let a great secret slip. He said: There is no person on this earth Who needs a pardon from Me— For there is really no such thing, No such thing As Sin! The Beloved has gone completely Wild— He has poured Himself into me! I am Blissful and Drunk and Overflowing. Dear world, Draw life from my Sweet Body. Dear wayfaring souls, Come drink your fill of liquid rubies, For God has made my heart

An Eternal Fountain.30

Jesus revealed to us that the mysterious and unfathomable God of the cosmos comes to us like a close and caring parent, Abba mommy-daddy. I call this the Intimate Face of God.

Father, mother, friend, beloved God.

(Buddha did not speak of God because he believed that it was not useful.)

In pantheism, God is identical to the Universe, or Nature. God is the sum total of all that ever was, is, or will be. God is existence itself, or reality, or all that is. God is not separate in any way from God’s creation, but rather God is all of creation. Pantheism has always seemed to Christians to be a quite inadequate way to understand the God which Jesus talked about.

Panentheism