Ep. 65 | Rev. Dr. Michael Clarke, principal of the Anglican seminary Codrington College in Barbados, beautifully articulates how embodied spirituality can change us and the importance of personal encounters with living Spirit to further us along our evolutionary path. He enlightens us as to the shortcomings of the Church and religion as it is largely practiced in the West in a way many of us may not have heard before, pointing out that the Church fails to take into account that the magnitude of our understanding of divine experience is ever expanding, in parallel with Ken Wilber’s Integral teaching on the ever expanding nature of consciousness, and mentioning that Jesus’ experience as divine man was not intended to be the end all religious experience for all time. As Michael says, “We need to understand the Oneness—we’ve done religion from the duality perspective, from a separatist perspective…missing the whole point!”Michael is passionate about creating opportunities for people to have personal encounters with living Spirit since having his own earth-shattering experience with the divine. He tells us that when spirituality comes into play, it offers a step upward, a higher place to stand to view the world that allows for Oneness, and describes the separation inherent in our world of duality today as a “wonderful avenue towards unification, appreciation, and understanding.” So, “How do you lift up this thing called spirituality and cause it to be a central part of religious response? Can the Church grow with what needs to happen?” Michael imbues this conversation with a bright, shining light of deep spiritual understanding and invites us all to be open to the “call to be more.” Recorded September 6, 2021.“This human experience causes us to fall asleep… thus the journey of awakening.”(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)Topics & Time StampsHow John met Michael Clarke at an Integral Christianity conference (01:25)Michael’s journey from cradle Anglican to hearing the call to ministry and becoming an ordained priest in 1984 (04:33)Speaking from the perspective of a Black priest rather than an Anglican priest for the first time (05:55)Michael’s spiritual turning point experience and consciousness shift (08:19)Climbing up the Jesus experience as a platform to go higher didn’t end up happening; the Jesus experience was made out to be the highest possible experience (09:16)Michael’s spiritual experience in more detail: finding himself on the floor of the Church and recognizing that there is another dimension of religious experience outside of dogma (10:40)Discovering a path parallel to the theoretical and philosophical with access to divine authority and power—direct experience of the living spirit—has been pushed aside, especially in the West, to focus on the objective (14:51)Our world (and the Church) tends to seek control, but no one can control the direct divine experience of an individual (18:00)How do you lift up this thing called spirituality and cause it to be the core of religious response? (19:38)Looking for a system that would transcend and include Michael’s experience—practices to induce religious response (21:12)Opening to the “more,” the luminous, capturing a sense that everything is expanding (27:13) Understanding that divine experience is an evolutionary process, forever...