Quotes from Cynthia Bourgeault

Jesus never asked anyone to form a church, ordain priests, develop elaborate rituals and institutional cultures, and splinter into denominations. His two great requests were that we "love one another as I have loved you" and that we share bread and wine together as an open channel of that interabiding love.

As we enter the path of transformation, the most valuable thing we have working in our favor is our yearning.

RESIST no thought; RETAIN no thought; REACT to no thought; RETURN to the sacred word.

Philippians 2:5: "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus." The words call us up short as to what we are actually supposed to be doing on this path: not just admiring Jesus, but acquiring his consciousness.

Kingdom of Heaven is really a metaphor for a state of consciousness.

Beginning in infancy (or even before) each of us, in response to perceived threats to our well-being, develops a false self: a set of protective behaviors driven at root by a sense of need and lack. The essence of the false self is driven, addictive energy, consisting of tremendous emotional investment in compensatory emotional programs for happiness, as Keating calls them.

It's not about right belief; it's about right practice.

It's very, very simple. You sit, either in a chair or on a prayer stool or mat, and allow your heart to open toward that invisible but always present Origin of all that exists.

To mourn is to touch directly the substance of divine compassion.

As we actually taste the flavor of what he's teaching, we begin to see that it's not proverbs for daily living, or ways of being virtuous. He's proposing a total meltdown and recasting of human consciousness, bursting through the tiny acorn-selfhood that we arrived on the planet with into the oak tree of our fully realized personhood. He pushes us toward it, teases us, taunts us, encourages us, and ultimately walks us there.

All will come of its own accord in good time and with abundant fullness, so long as one does not attempt to hoard or cling.

Somewhere in those depths of silence I came upon my first experiences of God as a loving presence that was always near, and prayer as a simple trust in that presence.

When the field of vision has been unified, the inner being comes to rest, and that inner peaceableness flows into the outer world is harmony and compassion.

What Jesus is saying here, powerfully and clearly, is that if you do the work of transforming your being, moving beyond the egoic mind, then you become a living spirit.

What the theologian shrinks from, the poet grasps intuitively.

Meditation is the tool you use to "upgrade your operating system," to move from that "either/or" thinking of the binary mind into the more spacious heart awareness that sustains the wisdom way of knowing.

Blessed are the ones who have become spiritually domesticated; the ones who have tamed the wild animal energy within them, the passions and compulsions of our lower nature.

A sophiological Christianity focuses on the path.

Somehow when the heart becomes single, the rest will follow.

I find nothing in the Gospel of Thomas that contradicts any of Jesus's teachings in the canonical gospels. Rather, it rounds them out metaphysically and creates a newfound sense of awe as we see just how original and subtle his understanding really is. He is the first truly integral teacher to appear on this planet. As we take a fresh look at these teachings at once familiar and strange, we're catapulted forward again along a path that rings with the power of truth.

Centering Prayer is not about developing concentration, attaining clear mind, conscious presence, a strong witnessing "I," some desired state. In Centering Prayer you merely practice and practice the core kenotic motion: "let go, make space, unclench"—thought by thought by thought.

We all live with this terrible, heartbreaking hypocrisy in Christianity, when the teaching finally leaves us in th dust. How do we die before we die? How do we love our neighbors as ourselves? How do we bridge the gap between what we believe and what we can actually live?

Most important of all, do everything you can to nurture your spiritual intelligence. It is your only genuine source of hope, direction, meaning, and comfort.

The Risen Lord is indeed risen. Present, intimate, creative, 'closer than your own heartbeat,' accessed through your vulnerability, your capacity for intimacy. The imaginal realm is real, and through it you will never be separated from any one or anything you have ever loved, for love is the ground in which you live and move and have your being. This is the message that Mary Magdalene has perennially to bring. This is the message we most need to hear.