Cynthia Bourgeault is a theologian, Episcopal priest, and core faculty member of the Center for Action and Contemplation’s Living School. She also is the founding director of an international network of Wisdom Schools. She is the author of numerous books, including The Heart of Centering Prayer, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening and The Wisdom Jesus. Her latest book is Eye of the Heart: A Spiritual Journey into the Imaginal Realm.
This is part one of a two-part interview.
Cynthia Bourgeault previously joined us on Encountering Silence (Episodes 58 and 59). As one of the most popular contemplative authors of our time, she offers a unique and distinctive approach to contemplative silence, grounded in Christianity yet radically informed by the wisdom of other traditions.
Our own personal and collective fear of death is what’s holding us on one side of the divide, and if we could just get through that, we’d have a whole new set of tools in our grab-bag for rebuilding the planet on the other side of COVID. — Cynthia Bourgeault
Silence and contemplation is a way of learning how to, in a nanosecond, instantly surrender your being entirely into God and then walk into the noise and fray with steel nerves — or with a quaking heart, but with steel nerves. You just do it. — Cynthia Bourgeault
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
- Cynthia Bourgeault, Eye of the Heart: A Spiritual Journey into the Imaginal Realm
- Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening
- Cynthia Bourgeault, The Heart of Centering Prayer
- Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus
- Cynthia Bourgeault, Love is Stronger Than Death
- Cynthia Bourgeault, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene
- Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Way of Knowing
- Laudislas Boros, The Mystery of Death
- Thomas Keating, The Secret Embrace
- Karl Rahner, Encounters with Silence
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu
- Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
- G.I. Gurdjieff, In Search of Being: The Fourth Way to Consciousness
- Joseph Aziz, Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises
- Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa
- Plato, Complete Works
- Albert Einstein, The World As I See It
- Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing
When the unknown reaches out to us in a whole new dimension, we can trust and say yes and flow with it. — Cynthia Bourgeault
Episode 115: Silence and the Imaginal Realm: A Conversation with Cynthia Bourgeault (Part One)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Guest: The Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault, PhD
Date Recorded: September 17, 2020
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