Description
Teaching by Cynthia Bourgeault
Available as MP3 download, USB flash drive, PDF transcript, 8-disc CD
PRACTICING LIVING PRESENCE: Discovering the Mind of Christ Within
What is the single most significant piece that has fallen out of Jesus’ teachings?
Cynthia says: “What Jesus did originally and what his real impact on the world was, and with which we still resonate today, was that he called people to Being in a very deep way.” How can we retrieve this sense of Being, of Presence in our time?
She says that she “feels really strongly” that the book “Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self” by Kabir Helminski is “the best key around to unlock the missing piece of our own Christian tradition”. She states clearly: “There is a consistency right from the heart of Jesus through this material and back into our own piece today. Jesus called people into an encounter with the divinity within them and the divinity staring them in the face, and he pulled them to a fundamental level that changed their lives from inside out.”
Accompanied by a group of fellow Christian contemplatives, Cynthia works her way through Helminski’s practical, ground-truthed Sufi text while drawing upon exercises from Lynn C. Bauman’s “Living the Presence: A Manual for Contemplative Christian Practice” to bring us into a personal encounter with Being, with Presence.
Cynthia says: “At the heart of the Gospels is the memory written in blood and fire of one person’s encounter through Jesus with their own True Self, with their own possibility, with their Alpha and Omega. That is the unifying thread in what we are going to be exploring and why [the Being/Presence energy expressed in Helmnski’s book] is, in its heart, absolutely mega-Christian.”
Cynthia Bourgeault, PhD, is a modern-day mystic, Episcopal priest, writer, and internationally known retreat leader. She divides her time between solitude at her seaside hermitage in Maine and tending to a global network of students and practitioners. Cynthia is a founding director and teacher for The Contemplative Society. Find all her offerings at CynthiaBourgeault.org
