Bøger af Cynthia Bourgeault

The first portrait of Thomas Keating's remarkable evolution, in the last decades of his life, into a fully realized modern-day Christian mystic. In the first four decades of his life as a Trappist monk, Thomas Keating created a comprehensive, unified psychospiritual pathway leading from healing to holiness and from contemporary psychological wellness to classic mystical sanctity and beatitude. In short, he fashioned a powerful new on-ramp to the Christian contemplative tradition. Yet, as beloved author and Keating disciple Cynthia Bourgeault shows, that was not the end of Keating's story. In this unique blend of biography, personal experience, and close reading of his late works, Bourgeault illuminates Keating's remarkable spiritual development from the late 1980s until his death in 2018. She explores: Keating's increasing commitment to the nondual practice of "objectless awareness" His contributions to interspiritual dialogue The evolution of his early teaching on the movement from "false self" to "true self," to that from "true self" to "no self" His final "dark night of the spirit" and passage through death New evidence that he never left Christianity but carried it with him to new places The profound final stages of Keating's spiritual journey may inspire you toward the ineffable experience of living as a modern mystic--fundamentally at home and at peace in the universe.

This groundbreaking book shares the evolution of Cynthia Bourgeault's spiritual journey and offers a new map to understanding energy and our collective reality.In Eye of the Heart, Cynthia Bourgeault investigates the imaginal realm--an energetic realm well known to the mystical traditions but often forgotten in our own times. It is invisible to the physical eye, but clearly perceptible through the eye of the heart. The imaginal realm has long been associated with the personal world of dreams, prophecy, and oracles, and it also points toward a higher vision of our human purpose that is both evolutionary and collective. Bourgeault explores both aspects of imaginal reality and shows readers how we can cooperate more fully with its guidance in our lives.Expertly blending her own lived experiences with research on the imaginal realm, Bourgeault explores how her personal relationships have helped to bring these teachings into sharper focus and the role this realm plays in Christian and other mystical traditions. She delves into the connections between our inner consciousness and what happens in the world, exploring the transformative energy and governing conventions that make the manifestation of this realm possible. Eye of the Heart presents Bourgeault's spiritual journey with the imaginal realm and encourages readers to attune their hearts for the well-being of the world.

Mary Magdalene is one of the most influential symbols in the history of Christianity—yet, if you look in the Bible, you’ll find only a handful of verses that speak of her. How did she become such a compelling saint in the face of such paltry evidence? In her effort to answer that question, Cynthia Bourgeault examines the Bible, church tradition, art, legend, and newly discovered texts to see what’s there. She then applies her own reasoning and intuition, informed by the wisdom of the ages-old Christian contemplative tradition. What emerges is a radical view of Mary Magdalene as Jesus’s most important disciple, the one he considered to understand his teaching best. That teaching was characterized by a nondualistic approach to the world and by a deep understanding of the value of the feminine. Cynthia shows how an understanding of Mary Magdalene can revitalize contemporary Christianity, how Christians and others can, through her, find their way to Jesus’s original teachings and apply them to their modern lives.

If you put aside what you think you know about Jesus and approach the Gospels as though for the first time, something remarkable happens: Jesus emerges as a teacher of the transformation of consciousness. Cynthia Bourgeault is a masterful guide to Jesus's vision and to the traditional contemplative practices you can use to experience the heart of his teachings for yourself.

In five interwoven meditations, Mystical Hope shows how to recognize hope in our own lives, where it comes from, how to deepen it through prayer, and how to carry it into the world as a source of strength and renewal.

Perceiving nondual awareness through the Christian contemplative method called Centering Prayer--an in-depth introduction to theory and practice by the best-selling author The Wisdom Jesus and The Meaning of Mary Magdalene. Centering Prayer is the path to a wonderful and radical new way of seeing the world. It is not, as is sometimes thought, simply an act of devotional piety, nor is it simply a Christianized form of other meditation methods. Cynthia Bourgeault here cuts through the misconceptions to show that Centering Prayer is in fact a pioneering development within the Christian contemplative tradition. She provides a practical, complete course in the practice and then goes deeper to analyze what actually happens in Centering Prayer: the mind effectively switches to a new operating system that makes possible the perception of nonduality. With this understanding in place, she then takes us on a journey through one of the sources of the practice, the Christian contemplative classic The Cloud of Unknowing, revealing it to be among the earliest Christian explorations of the phenomenology of consciousness. Cynthia Bourgeault's illumination of the Centering Prayer path provides compelling evidence of how important the practice has become in the half-century since it first arose among American Trappist monks, and of its maturation and refinement over the ensuing years of sincere study and practice. It will resonate with beginners on the Centering Prayer path as well as with seasoned practitioners.

Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening is a complete guidebook for all who wish to know the practice of Centering Prayer.

Hvis vi sætter alt det, vi mener at vide om Jesus, på pause og ser på evangelierne med friske øjne, vil vi få øje på en større Jesus – en mesterlig visdomslærer, hvis ærinde først og fremmest var at bryde vores vanetænkning og føre os ind i en radikal forvandling af bevidstheden.Cynthia Bourgeault giver i denne bog en tankevækkende og velunderbygget indføring i Jesu vision: At vi bliver forvandlet fra vores selvcentrerede liv og dualistiske vi-og-dem-tænkning – til et liv i kærlighed og barmhjertighed, når vi begynder at se verden, sådan som Jesus oplevede den.Bogen er langt mere end teori: I bogens sidste del gennemgår forfatteren en række øvelser fra den kristne visdomstradition, der kan befordre processen og give os en unik erfaring af en dybere enhed med Gud og verden omkring os.Cynthia Bourgeault er mystiker, episkopal præst, forfatter og international kendt retræteleder. Hun har udformet en retræteform, som kaldes en visdomsskole, og hun har organiseret og undervist i visdomsskoler siden 1999. Hun er forfatter til en række bøger, hvoraf foreløbig to, "Det vågne hjerte" samt nærværende bog, er udgivet på dansk.Det er en stor gave, at denne bog nu udkommer på dansk! Den har været en bærende bog for mig siden 2009, for den er en mesterlig, velunderbygget og logisk udlægning af, hvad Jesus kan gøre ved os og vores måde at være i livet på.– Charlotte Rørth, journalist, forfatter til "Jeg mødte Jesus"Der findes kun ganske få åndelige lærere, som evner at give os ny og ægte indsigt – og endnu færre, som evner at give os redskaber til at kunne tilegne os denne indsigt. Cynthia Bourgeault evner begge dele på bedste vis.– Richard Rohr, præst og retræteleder, forfatter til "Den uforgængelige diamant"

Cynthia Bourgeault describes the foundations of her theology: a cosmological seeing with the eye of the heart, Benedictine daily rule informed by wisdom from the Asian traditions. She explains the influence of philosophers built on the cornerstones of the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery, tied by the Trinity as a cosmogonic principle.

My TheologyThe world's leading Christian thinkers explain some of the principal tenets of their theological beliefs.In The Corner of Fourth and Nondual, a title inspired by Thomas Merton's moment of revelation 'at the Corner of Fourth and Walnut', Cynthia Bourgeault describes the foundations of her theology: a cosmological seeing with the eye of the heart, and classic Benedictine daily rule informed and enlightened by wisdom from the Asian traditions.She explains the influence of the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, Teilhard de Chardin, Boehme, Barnhart, Keating and Gurdjieff, among others, in a philosophy built on the cornerstones of the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery, tied by the Trinity as a cosmogonic principle, the fundamental generative mechanism through which all things came into being.

Just as she''s done in her previous books, Cynthia Bourgeault asks us to take a look at an idea from traditional Christianity—this time the formula of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—as though we''re looking at it for the first time. And as usual, she reveals it to be something we hadn''t expected at all. She finds in the idea of the Holy Trinity a striking vision of the nature of reality. What she claims, in a nutshell, is that embedded within this theological formula that Christians recite mostly on autopilot lies a powerful metaphysical principle that could change our understanding of Christianity and give us the tools so long and so sorely needed to reunite our shattered cosmology, rekindle our visionary imagination, and cooperate consciously with the manifestation of Jesus''s "Kingdom of Heaven" here on earth. She looks to the history of Christian theology, to her own years of contemplative practice, and to the ideas of G. I. Gurdjieff. Her tone is, as ever, as accessible as it is compelling, and it''s a wild ride. "I will do my best to make the ride as smooth as possible," she says, "but in the end, my commitment is to getting there, because I know beyond all personal doubt that there is indeed a ham radio concealed inside this Trinitarian tea cupboard. And in the midst of this long winter of our Christian discontent, when spiritual imagination and boldness are at an all-time low and the church itself hovers at the edge of demise for lack of an animating vision, perhaps now more than ever the time is ripe to remove the packing boards from this tea cupboard and release its contents."

Chanting the psalms, or psalmody, is an ancient practice of vital importance in the Christian spiritual tradition. Today many think of it as a discipline that belongs only in monasteries—but psalmody is a spiritual treasure that is available to anyone who prays. You don't need to be musical or a monk to do it, and it can be enjoyed in church liturgical worship, in groups, or even individually as part of a personal rule of prayer. Cynthia Bourgeault brings the practice into the twenty-first century, providing a history of Christian psalmody as well as an appreciation of its place in contemplative practice today. And she teaches you how to do it as you chant along with her on the accompanying CD in which she demonstrates the basic techniques and easy melodies that anyone can learn. "Even if you can't read music,” Cynthia says, "or if somewhere along the way you've absorbed the message that your voice is no good or you can't sing on pitch, I'll still hope to show you that chanting the psalms is accessible to nearly everyone.”