Last Sunday, I was joined by the great contemporary Christian mystic and teacher, Cynthia Bourgeault for “The Eye of the Needle and the Cave of the Heart: Cultivating a Pure and Single Heart in a World Stuffed Full of Way-Too-Muchness”.
Cynthia was, as always, spiritually dynamic and soulfully riveting. She expresses such intense clarity, and so much spiritual depth and intellectual vigor that talking with her is consistently uplifting and catalytic.
Cynthia Bourgeault embraces many paradoxes. She can rightfully be called a pandit, as she is both a scholar and practitioner, integrating actual realization with deep scholarship. And although she is a serious contemplative and hermit, she can also be called an activist who makes a powerful positive difference in the lives of thousands of people all over the world. She also advocates for the riches of the Christian tradition while being a fierce constructive critic of so much that no longer works in Christian churches and communities. And she also embraces non-Christian sources of learning and contemplative practice—in this interview she referred especially to Sufi practices, and her last book, The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three is based on principles she learned studying the Gurdjieff work. And Cynthia is also, with me, a creative participant in the evolution of a truly integral spirituality, informed by Ken Wilber’s important theoretical maps.
Contemplative practice, though, is the cornerstone of Cynthia’s work, so I began by asking her to give listeners a sense of what it means to be a contemplative in today’s world, a “world stuffed full of way-too-muchness.”
Cynthia distinguished two meanings of the word “contemplative”, referring to the “outer” and the “inner” forms. Most people equate the contemplative life with a lifestyle adopted by hermits and monastics, one characterized by silence and continuous prayer, unplugged from everyday society and popular culture. But for her, the essence of contemplative practice is the internal rewiring and reconfiguration of how the brain-heart actually makes connections and sees the world.
In this “inner” contemplative practice, we learn to cultivate witness presence, which ultimately transforms consciousness, allowing us to see “from the whole to the parts” instead of being caught up in a fragmented consciousness that needs to reassemble the parts in order to intuit the prior wholeness. Once this process is really underway then internal and external silence are far less important. The value of external silence is primarily as part of the process of pulling the plug on the usual “small self” evasions.
I asked Cynthia how this description related to Ken Wilber’s distinction between higher “states” and higher “stages” of consciousness. It seemed to me that inner contemplative cultivation opens up higher states of consciousness (e.g., witness consciousness) and also a growth into higher structures or stages of consciousness (how one thinks).
Cynthia agreed, using a simple, memorable “one-liner”: a state is a place you go to, and a stage is a place you come from. She then focused on what we can actually practice and experience, which is “putting the mind in the heart”. And this is not just a metaphor! We are literally entraining the brain to the vibration of the heart, which allows for the emergence of a perceptional field that apprehends from wholeness.
For both Cynthia and me, the consideration of practice itself has recently been generating the most energy and passion. I asked her to reflect on this consideration of practice and the obstacles or the landmarks along the path that she was noticing as people find their way into this kind of contemplative life.
The people most often drawn to her teaching are either what she calls “active Christians” or “heart-broken Christians”. Typically, the active Christians lack any sense of witnessing consciousness because Christianity by and large honors the egoic self, which will eventually go to heaven and continue to live its egoic life. So the practice (and challenge) with them is to begin to work with spiritual attentiveness at a deeper place, so they can actually taste what that is.
The heart-broken Christians fled Christianity years ago because they couldn’t find the “living water”. Often they have cultivated other deep spiritual practices, but there is something in them that is longing to come home to Christianity. Their challenge is that they often don’t experientially understand devotion, or 2nd-person spirituality (an “I-thou” relationship to God) and they tend to be seekers, preoccupied with becoming “enlightened.” Without an understanding that the work is in the care of your own heart, this striving becomes spiritual materialism and the collecting of experiences and teachers. And it can even bring great suffering.
I recalled that the great Mahamudra teacher, Dan Brown, speaks about the Tibetan Dzogchen instruction to recognize the inner essence of all experience, and thus to relax “out-there-ness”. This is possible when one understands that consciousness is what gives rise to what is perceived as the outside world. It is usually assumed that a period of purification (extended meditation, retreats, contemplation) is necessary in order to begin to develop a sense of this deep interiority.
Cynthia acknowledged the necessity of purification, but emphasized that it doesn’t have to start there, or to take years. She’s often seen people have powerful breakthroughs after only a single day of practicing centering prayer. And after you’ve had even a momentary taste of God consciousness, purification naturally follows. It is simply the life path that most beautifully syncs up with what already exists within you. Cynthia beautifully said, there is no human being who doesn’t come from the inside of the heart of what it’s all about. This is our natural condition, so we can’t possibly fall out of it or start from a place of separation!
I mentioned my recent exploration of Integral Soul Work (although I use the term “soul” somewhat differently, it’s more like what she calls the “heart” and the “heart of the heart”.) I’ve been opening even more fully into my primary practice, relaxing as awareness itself. But in many moments life is arising in a way that offers me the opportunity to listen with the ear of the heart to the very specific, particular call of my soul that is drawing me toward my most important personal life choices. I mentioned that frequently high non-dual meditation instructions are interpreted rather rigidly so as to suppress our healthy intuition of our next steps in the unfolding of our soul’s life.
Cynthia responded by pointing out that she sees a gap between the spiritual and developmental maps we use to describe our experience and our actual experience of life. In her experience, consciousness is an umbilical cord between the finite and the infinite and who “I” am is a range of conditions from the most compacted neurotic, to a freer spacious healthy ego, to a higher witness presence.
Cynthia then shared a beautiful practice that she uses to tune in and make wise, non-reactive choices about her life. When she is clear about the question or choice she needs to make, she draws four columns on paper representing four conditions or “voices” of her being. She’ll then listen deeply to each voice, listening with her body as well, and write down the answers she hears from each perspective.
Cynthia listed these four aspects as:
The Nafs: this voice is distinguished by frenzied, automatic grasping. In the body, it feels like contraction with tones of anger and rage.
The Soul: by which she means “the healthy ego”. Tuning in to this aspect relaxes the body. This is your most spacious personal finite identity.
The Spirit: this state becomes accessible in such quiet and ordered states as just after meditation, when there is often a clarity of knowingness.
The Heart: you can access this voice by shifting attention to the region of the physical heart and also into the heart’s holographic mode of perceiving reality. You can learn to discern this voice by just resting attention in the heart and listening to how the heart speaks. In a way, she says, the Heart is the voice between Spirit and Soul.
Cynthia recounted consulting with all these voices, each in turn, in the process of finally deciding to give up a house she had rented for years in Colorado. For her, the process can be hilarious and wonderful!
As long as I’ve known her, Cynthia has always been on the edge of what is emerging, so I asked her about what’s emerging right now. She is working with exploring the “liminal spaces”, or the spaces in between the realms of consciousness, such as the time between crucifixion and resurrection, the traditional times of fasting and contemplation in the Christian calendar.
Nonetheless, her foundational practice continues to be Centering Prayer, as taught by Father Thomas Keating. She defines Centering Prayer simply—when you catch yourself thinking, let the thought go. And “thought” is anything that draws your attention to a single point. By letting go of the objects of attention, you naturally experience objectless awareness, even if it’s only for a nanosecond. Incrementally, this non-constricted attitude brings about a capacity to rest in the Cave of the Heart and to begin to see what the heart sees, which gets at the deeper meaning of the phrase, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.”
There was much more—including penetrating answers to some excellent questions from listeners.
I hope you will tune in to listen to this illuminating, powerful dialogue. You can download the recording here.
Terry, this dialogue has been percolating since it was first available. A great blessing that touches my heart differently every time I return to it. Your summary here is a great service to us all.
Sending gratitude. love, joy, and wonder.
Gratitude, love, joy, and wonder received Carole 🙂 All good things to you, Terry
Many,many thanks for your “Beyond Awakening” site and the free sharing-it’s much appreciated. Because I’m English I’ve had to listen many times to catch exactly what Cynthia was saying,as you politely said several times,she speaks very fast ( and with a really strong accent !!). But,well worth the time,you were both truly inspiring,and I have plenty of food for thought,to say nothing of a heart swelling with gratitude……….
Wonderful Diane, thank you!
Terry:
How deeply the conversation between you and Cynthia moves one’s being into Being!
Without question, I now “see” humanity’s evolving mind to be the Heart … and what a grace it is to consciously “feel” one’s mind actually seeking out the Heart in daily living.
A profound thank you to both of you for your self-less offerings,
Genny
Thank you for this. It is a wonderful reminder of what has meaning and a way of moving into the moment.
Thank you in gratitude for the gift receiving the possibility of being able to listen to another great dialogue…
First, thank to you Terry for putting together these wonderful talks, aptly named Beyond Awakening.
I must say I was completely captured by Cynthia, there is always a special quality with some of your speakers, you just know they are coming from a special place. Or what Cynthia might call that stable state of consciousness. I suspect I will listen to this talk a couple or more times, there was such richness I could not retain it all in one go!
I so agree, Cynthia is a Gift! —Terry
Regarding the question about the NAFS and whether to get them on your side or destroy them- I am curious about Cynthia’s answer being that her approach is to focus on a state where there is no “you” to get the demons on side with. She equates being more aware of the heart with realizing there is no selfhood. She references moving towards greater equanimity by having less and less of self to stick out there and attract the messiness.
I wonder about this as a concept vs perhaps Terry, you living your way into the realization that aligning with “your” Soul, what I understand to be the intended individual expression of “you” as what is alive for you now. And I wonder how the approaches seem to show what they create in a human, be reflected in the vibration of the person?
I found the call difficult at times when it seemed you kept inviting more in-the-moment heart presence into the immediate conversation/moment and it seemed to have kept being met with a kind of fastness as way of being vs what I feel and very much appreciate on a lot of the calls as Soul/Heart presence speaking.
Perhaps it’s just a razor’s edge as “having less and less of self to stick out there and attract the messiness” is also a strategy I have heard of as a trauma response, to make one self needless and wantless to cope with an environment. I realize for me spirituality may have initially been attractive as it was a way out of the messiness by having no self.
In time (still learning) the information about spiritual bypass came in and I realized the dangers of it on the path. I saw how I could have conceptual experiences of beautiful ideas, but when I talked to people I would be very fast talking and in my head and not able to really slow down and show up with the actual experience in the actual moment of any of the things the concepts held.
I hope to learn from you in this when I listen to the calls as on them you seem to really aim for staying a whole being speaking, engaged in conversation vs a kind of losing of that for the sake of conversation in a more disembodied mostly mind only mode.
I appreciate the opportunity to witness what I experience as you continuously choosing to work at being a whole being presence and aiming for all members of the conversation to create a field that IS in the moment what you are talking about.
The question made me wonder about the role our beliefs about being a “self” plays. If you are willing to maybe it creates the opportunity for you to be cultivating/tending this embodying space/presence self and it is felt in you. If you think no “self” is the deal, hold that belief on a subtle level even, what informs the self you actually are? In a way it seems like it leaves it to “chance” or maybe to pattern vs to a moment-by-moment tuning to bringing the Soul that you are (and all that comes from and is part of, the whole vibrational field) to whatever “you” are doing at any given moment.
Of course we all may “come from” various places at different moments, so who knows what of the 10,000 reasons may be at play. The NAFS question just brought this alive to me as I am still learning what to or how to do about having a kind of self I am responsible for while at the same time there is no self at all.
Thank you for the example/possibility your choosing demonstrates/declares.
Thank you for this thoughtful, deep reflection. I know it was different for some other listeners, who strongly preferred to hear Cynthia’s flinty clarity. But I do feel seen in my own practice, so thank you. There are many ways to embody practice, and although Cynthia’s is tremendously catalytic, I do feel moved to attempt a more embodied and vulnerable expression, receiving as well as expressing in these dialogues.
I had the thought while reading your post that you may want to listen to my introduction to Integral Soul Work. http://www.terrypatten.com/audio/terry-pattens-integral-soul-work In the audio, I speak to this paradox of resting in open, radical, non dual awareness and yet having to make very real personal and practical choices in our relationships and in life in general. Or as you put it “learning what to or how to do about having a kind of self I am responsible for while at the same time there is no self at all.” Exactly!
Warm Blessings,
Terry
I wrote a beautiful little poem yesterday, which I hope you will share with Cynthia as well, because I think she will give it a standing O! lol Plus it seems to me that, in a few words, it sums up the entire essence of your wonderful dialogue!
The truth of the matter
is that Truth HAS no matter
And all Its myriad colors
are merely different shades of illusion.
The BEST remark in the whole dialogue was when Cynthia exclaimed something to the effect that “whether it is the false self or the real self doesn’t matter, it’s the same damn (!) thing”! Eventually, we must release all attachment to the practices of awakening, if we ever want to BE awake! Each of us who has been blessed with the hand of Grace and KNOWS (not “thinks”) what it is to be Awake, if only momentarily, will also naturally become increasingly aware of what and how we allow ourselves to be distracted from our Truth, and of how to most quickly get back to that resting place of the Heart. In my opinion, 99% of the “work” that is being done for the so-called sake of our evolution, is really just a prettied up version of the same shadows that don’t feel so good when we buy into THEIR reality. Nothing that has an opposite is Real. A good dream is ultimately no better than a nightmare, IF our goal is go awaken completely. Does a tree need to take a workshop or a course in how to be a tree?
The space of the Heart is where we KNOW who we are and what we came to do. This is not something that can be taught or work-shopped into existence. It IS. And each of us will find our way to living and breathing and speaking and thinking and knowing and feeling and creating through the eye of the needle and the heart of the Heart when there is no longer anything to which we ourselves give a greater importance. In the words of the famed A Course in Miracles: “When you want only Love, you will see nothing else”.
Big hugs, and lots of respect and love!
Beth
Dear Beth,
Thank you so much for reaching out. And for your good, supportive words. Your rhetorical question, “Does a tree need to take a workshop or a course in how to be a tree?” sums it up nicely 🙂 Respect and love back to you, Terry P.S. And we will pass your wonderful “essential” poem on to Cynthia.
I found this event to be powerful and illuminating, just as you promised. This overview of the presentation is very helpful and much appreciated.
I was especially intrigued by Cynthia’s use of her process to tune in to the four voices she consults before making a wise decision. I would love to learn more about this process ~ particularly the distinctions between soul, spirit, and heart. Does anyone know any resources that would explain this in greater detail?
Gratefully ~ Anna Lin
Hi Anna Lin, Cynthia let us know that she wrote a blog further elaborating the 4 voices as a result of questions she received from callers on the Beyond Awakening show. The post will be up early next week. She posts her blogs here: http://www.contemplative.org/blog/ So check that page next week and enjoy!
Hi Anna Lin, the blog post is up now: http://www.contemplative.org/blog/my-missing-bag-as-spiritual-teacher/
Thank you for sharing the wisdom to be awake to what truly ever is. Thank you !
Thank you for hosting Cynthia Bourgeault. She is a prophet/contemplative for our time. Thanks for posting this summary as it was very difficult to hear/understand Cynthia. It seems the audio was adjusted for the moderators voice and not for Cynthia’s who has a very different register. Please consider this in the future when you are setting up your sound system. Blessings to all at Beyond Awakenings.
Thank you for pointing this out Sophia. We will let our sound engineer know this. Warm thanks!