Breathing

"Unlike the positioning of meditation in Eastern spiritual traditions, as a spiritual practice in and of itself, in Christianity, Word and silence form a sort of "breathing," which is at the heart of the Christian path to inner awakening. It is not an isolated activity, to be undertaken too far removed from the Word. ..."


"It is not 'unitive' simply in the sense of dissolving the multiplicity back into a One, but in the sense of seeing the One beautifully and radiantly illuminating the multiplicity, like light pouring through a stained-glass window, present in both the unity and the diversity. This is the particular genius of the Christian path: the ability to see--really see--the particularly and apparent duality of this world not as an illusion, but rather, as a crucible in which the most tender and intimate particularity of the divine heart becomes fully manifest."

"When word and silence are separated, the driveshaft grinds to a halt, and this deepening process is suspended. Severed from its nurturing ground in contemplative silence, word tends to become unduly analytical, linear, and dialectical. A vicious circle is set in motion. The farther one strays from the wellspring of spiritual awareness and the seeing that flows from them, the more one is dependent on the only other processing mode: ordinary awareness and the egoic identity that emerges from it."

Cynthia Bourgeault [67, 72-73]

Impossible to sustain.

"If we do not grow beyond the attitude of spiritual materialism, it leaves us with some very difficult habits to unlearn. And if we really can't or won't leave the cataphatic safety zone, it will eventually limit the level of selfhood we are able to realize to the egoic self and make the unitive consciousness that we taste and yearn for impossible to sustain."


cynthia bourgeault

Cynthia Bourgeault on the Ego

""The ego abhors a vacuum." From the point of view of ordinary (or cataphatic) awareness, the apophatic will always appear to be a vacuum, and your ego will incessantly try to fill up this vacuum with content. If you grab onto an insight or illumination, or succumb to the temptation to pray for everyone then and there, what you have actually done is to allow yourself to be dragged out of the apophatic back into the cataphatic. Contemplative teaching--at least the most authentic and powerful of contemplative teach--emphasizes that this is never worth the price.

"Why? What lessons are the be learned by staying with the apophatic? ... By your willingness to stay with the apophatic at all costs during the time of this prayer, you are strengthening and deepening an attitude of soul that will protect you and carry you all the way: the attitude of spiritual non-possessiveness."

[45]
[Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening]