Touching the Face of Tomorrow

Michael Beckwith

Dr. Beckwith is the founder and spiritual director of the Agape International Spiritual Center—one of the most rapidly expanding transdenominational spiritual communities with a membership 9,000 strong and 35,000 friends worldwide-his goal remains the same: to build community, locally and globally.

Marc Gafni

Dr. Marc Gafni is a cutting edge evolutionary visionary, a provocative spiritual artist and teacher, academic, public intellectual, author, social activist, and lover of people. He holds a doctorate, written on Nondual Humanism in Kabbalah taken at Oxford University under the co-supervision of Prof. Moshe Idel. He serves as the founding co-director and teacher in residence of iEvolve Global Practice Community. He is also the founding co-publisher of Incorrect Inc, scholar in residence at Pacific Coast Church, and lead teacher at Shalom Mountain Retreat Center Wisdom School.

Written by Colin Bigelow

In this concluding chapter of their trialogue together, Marc Gafni, Rev. Michael, and Ken share their experience of the three faces of God. As Ken explains, there are three major orientations to Spirit found in the contemplative traditions East and West (though individual traditions don’t necessarily emphasize, or recognize, all three dimensions in an explicit way): Spirit in 1st-person, Spirit in 2nd-person, and Spirit in 3rd-person. Spirit in 1st-person is the great I, the I-I, the Mahatma, the Overmind—Spirit as that great Witness in you, the I-I of this and every moment. Spirit in 2nd-person is the great You, the great Thou, the radiant, living, all-giving God before whom I must surrender in love and devotion and sacrifice and release. Spirit in 3rd-person is the Great It, or Great System, or Great Web of Life, the Great Perfection of existence itself, the Is-Ness, the Thus-ness, the very Such-ness of this and every moment.

As they discuss, one of the great tragedies of modern spirituality is that Spirit in 2nd-person has been “dropped” by an alarming number of people. In many circles, it almost goes without saying that sophisticated spiritual practitioners don’t relate to a great Thou. “I’ve had enough of god. There is no way a mythic daddy-figure and a list of rules is going to help me answer my deepest questions about life. I don’t want to be a believer. I want to know for myself.” Often, emphasis is then put on realizing Spirit in 1st-person, the great I, the Witness, and perhaps even its nondual union with the Great Perfection of Spirit in 3rd-person. With practice, these types of paths can lead to the stunning realization that “I Am That One Without a Second”—and that is absolutely true. But, as That One, who do you bow to? To whom do you surrender every last thought of self-importance? From whom have you received the blessed gift of life?

An Integral Approach would suggest that co-arising with the manifest domain are the three faces of God, the three dimensions of Spirit, and that each one goes “all the way down,” and “all the way up.” No matter how deep one’s realization, there will always be a Great Thou to whom surrender, and gratitude, and ecstatic release is the only appropriate response. Yes, that Great Thou is ultimately an aspect of who You Are, but you have to let that Great Other enter you, unravel you, redeem you. How much of Yourself will you let touch You? You Are That One Without a Second, but you have to give up being That One to truly know it... or so we might suggest.

Strictly speaking, nothing can be said about the true essence of Reality (including that), but in the finite, manifest domain the three faces of God appear to be intrinsic to Spirit’s radiant display. And Spirit’s display as 2nd-person Thou has largely gotten stuck at the mythic-membership, fundamentalist level. The modern world not only rejected the marginalization and cruelty associated with the mythic god, it threw out God in 2nd-person. A huge baby got thrown out with that bathwater: namely, one-third of God. One of the key discussions at Integral Spiritual Center is how to help the great spiritual and religious traditions grow into their modern, postmodern, and integral forms of being-in-the-world, with all three faces of God shining brightly.

We are very pleased to have Marc Gafni and Reverend Beckwith as a part of this extraordinarily important conversion. We invite you to join in on this ongoing dialogue exploring a more Integral Spirituality, and this is a great place to start....

Image: Prayer by Mark Henson