10 Aspectos Distintivos de la Transformación de la Sabiduría (o Cambios Transformadores)

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1. En general vivir más profundamente. Aprender a vivir cada momento con mayor intencionalidad.

2. Vivir más plenamente el momento presente. Vivir más conectado al momento presente.

3. Acepta la vida tal como es. Mayor capacidad y mayor conciencia de lo que tenemos enfrente para responder en el momento presente.

4. Vivir para el todo y no solo para uno mismo. Nuestro enfoque de identidad se expande. Esto puede ser del yo individual a la tribu de uno, a un grupo, a toda la humanidad a la madre tierra y la madre naturaleza, y finalmente al universo como un todo.

5. Ayudar a otros en su propio pasaje de sabiduría.

6. Desarrollar la intuición, el movimiento y la visión desde la cabeza y la mente intelectual hasta el corazón y el cuerpo. Comenzamos a estar más sintonizados con las complejidades y frecuencias de la vida que nos rodea. Empezamos a apreciar la vida que se desarrolla bajo la superficie de las cosas. En vez que esto beneficie  nuestro desarrollo y crecimiento espiritual, esta capacidad desea servir a  un mayor propósito.

7. Más allá de ver más profundamente los misterios de la vida en este reino, la transformación de la sabiduría también nos abre al funcionamiento de otros reinos y otras dimensiones. Desarrollamos gradualmente la capacidad de ver y apreciar. Cómo y dónde otros reinos se cruzan con el nuestro. Es más probable que sea una capacidad con la que nacemos. El pasaje de sabiduría al que nos lleva está en forma activa.

8.Vivir más plenamente en la naturaleza. La naturaleza está viva y, de alguna manera, consciente. La materialidad, más que estar en el extremo del ser y separada de lo espiritual, está viva con el espíritu. El crecimiento en sabiduría incluye la recuperación de esta comprensión indígena de nuestro lugar íntimo.

9. La importancia de la pena y el duelo y la muerte y el morir para una vida significativa. La muerte y el morir son parte de la vida. En la transformación de la sabiduría aprendemos a morir de muchas maneras a lo largo de nuestra vida. Es este morir lo que implica es la entrega. Todos los miedos en la vida, en última instancia, se pueden rastrear al  miedo a la muerte. Solo cuando estemos dispuestos a enfrentar nuestra propia muerte, seremos realmente capaces de vivir. La pena y el duelo son partes esenciales de la vida y del amor. En esta transformación, la vida significativa se abre más plenamente cuando estamos dispuestos a enfrentar nuestro dolor.

10. Amar profundamente. Todos estos otros cambios y la vida en sí misma tienen, en última instancia, el propósito de amar más plenamente, amar más profundamente y amar más abiertamente. No podemos controlar las circunstancias que nos rodean; nuestro trabajo es mantener nuestro corazón abierto, sin importar las circunstancias, sin importar el contenedor en el que nos encontremos, nuestro llamado humano más profundo es amar abierta y profundamente donde sea que nos encontremos.

Notas del programa de William Redfield: From Self to Other, 18 de septiembre de 2022

https://www.williamredfield.com

10 Distinctive Aspects of Wisdom Transformation (or Transformative Changes)

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1. Generally Living more deeply. Learn to live each moment with greater intentionality.

2. Living more fully on the present moment. Live more groundling on the present moment.

3. Accept life as it is. Greater capacity and greater awareness of what is in front on us to respond in the present moment.

4. Living for the whole and not only for the self. Our focus of identity is expanded from the singular individual self. This may be from the individual self to one’s tribe, to a group, to all humanity to mother earth and mother nature, and ultimately to the universe as a whole. 

5. Assisting others in their own wisdom passage.

6.Developing intuition, moving, and seeing from the head and intellectual mind to down into the heart and the body. We begin to be more fully tune into the intricacies and frequencies of the surrounding life. We begin to appreciate life unfolding beneath the surface of things. Rather for this to benefits of our spiritual development and growth, this capacity desires to serve a greater purpose.

 7. Beyond the deeper seeing life mysteries in this realm, the wisdom transformation also open us to the workings of other realms and other dimensions. We gradually develop the capacity to see and appreciate. How and where other realms intersect our own. This is more likely to be a capacity that we are born with. The wisdom passage deliver us to is active form.

8. Living more fully in nature. Nature is alive and, in some way, conscious. Materiality, rather of being at the far end of being and separated of the spiritual, is alive with spirit. Growth in wisdom include the recovery of this indigenous understanding of our intimate place.

9. Importance of grief and grieving and death and dying for a meaningful life. Death and dying are part of life. In wisdom transformation we learn to die in many ways over the course of our lifetime.  It is this dying that surrender is involved. All fears in life ultimately can be traced to underline fear to death. It is only when we are willing to face our own death that we will truly be able to live. Grief and grieving are essential parts of life and loving. In this transformation, meaningful life is open more fully when we are willing to face our grief.

10. Loving more deeply. All these other changes and life by itself are ultimately for the purpose of for loving more fully, loving more deeply, and loving more openly. We cannot control the circumstances that surround us; our work is to keep our heart open, no matter the circumstances, no matter the container we found ourselves in; our deepest human calling is to love openly and deeply wherever we find ourselves.

Notes from the program of William Redfield: From Self to Other, September 18, 2022 

https://www.williamredfield.com

Concept of Wisdom

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Cynthia Bourgeault says that: “Wisdom is not knowing more but knowing more about oneself”. This opens a fundamental redirection of our efforts to know and understand the meaning and purpose of life. Before, we’ve relied on our rational-thinking brains to tackle life’s big questions. But with the work of Wisdom comes the use of our hearts and our bodies as well.

Wisdom is deeper than any religious expression in a real sense. It is rather the deep undercurrent that connects all the religions of the world and from which flows from the subterranean spring of unitive reality.

Perhaps we can say that Wisdom does not represent the what in terms of the content of a particular belief system, but rather the how in terms of the way things are expressed when they descend to the level of the unitive. However, instead of being linked exclusively to any religious system, the Wisdom is explicitly interfaith. But the depth that marks this Wisdom is qualitatively different from what is found near and above the surface. There, on the surface, the various spiritual traditions are distinguished by significant differences in beliefs, rituals, and theologies. But in the depths of Wisdom all come together through the unitive understanding that unites all life into one profound whole.

As Christians, we could affirm that our religion provides that place where Wisdom comes from. We can have a deep sense that Jesus himself embodied this, Wisdom. In fact, the main title given to Jesus was that of moshelim, that is, a teacher of Wisdom, and he taught in mashal, that is, parables and sayings of Wisdom. He himself seemed the embodiment of Wisdom, moving through life with a heart full of compassion, generosity, and love. However, not everyone caught on to his actions or his teachings. Some of his listeners got it, but the vast majority didn’t. Even the people, who sometimes seemed to get the message he was conveying, were not always able to maintain this understanding.

Jesus, the teacher of Wisdom, does not implore his listeners to be better and more upright citizens; if not, he tries to convince them and begs them to wake up. He never preached a morally upright life to be lived in this life to gain entrance to heaven in the next life. On the contrary, he invited his listeners to realize that the kingdom of heaven is right here, in the present moment.

The friends and followers who seemed to pick up on the Wisdom of the master seemed to have done so because their level of being was raised, at least temporarily, to a point where they could resonate with the frequency of the Wisdom he was teaching and passing on and his truth touched the depths of their hearts. In addition, their presence provided them with a kind of divine alchemy that led to a generalized sense of togetherness. Through this experience they were transformed from the inside out.

Opening to the full depth of Gospel Wisdom requires the receptivity of a certain state of mind or a certain state of being. Without that, the Wisdom of Jesus cannot be received. When you pass into the deep truths of the Wisdom of Jesus only through the small mind, all you get is a deeper consolidation in what you already believed without the accompanying transformation occurring.

This understanding has been tragically overlooked in the West. Beginning with the doctrinal controversies of the third and fourth centuries, the Church has made our faith a matter of mental belief, and our tradition has become overly influenced by creeds and doctrinal statements of belief and not guided by the actual spiritual truth that is born of the experience.

Therefore, the work of Wisdom is an effort to return to the essential foundations of our Christian faith experience.This does not mean that we ignore, deny or underestimate grace, but rather that we must be instruments of reception and transmission of God’s love.

The kingdom that Jesus speaks of requires that we employ a new operating system that can perform operations of an entirely different order. When this system is in operation a whole new way of seeing is possible and where our being can be accessed at a much higher level. We can call this new system the operating system of the heart.

The work of Wisdom involves growing beyond our small minds into our larger minds, or our hearts. Therefore, the work of Wisdom is not to cancel the egoic operating system of the smaller mind, it is rather to help us develop the operating system of the heart of the larger mind, which we already have but which is in a dormant form, and to achieve the integration of these two systems in our being.

[1] Cynthia Bourgeault, An Introductory Wisdom School: Course Transcript and Companion Guide (Wisdom Way of Knowing: 2017), 2.

[2]William Redfield. Notes from the program From Self to Other. September 18, 2022 

https://www.williamredfield.com

Concepto de Sabiduría

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Cynthia Bourgeault dice que: “La sabiduría no es saber más sino saber más de uno mismo”. Esto nos abre una redirección fundamental de nuestros esfuerzos por conocer y comprender el significado y el propósito de la vida. Con anterioridad, hemos confiado en nuestro cerebro de pensamiento racional para abordar las grandes preguntas de la vida. Pero con el trabajo de Sabiduría se añade el uso de nuestros corazones y nuestros cuerpos también.

La Sabiduría es más profunda que cualquier expresión religiosa en un sentido real. Es más bien la corriente subterránea profunda que conecta todas las religiones del mundo y de la cual fluye desde el manantial subterráneo de la realidad unitiva.

Tal vez podamos decir que la Sabiduría no representa el qué en términos del contenido de un sistema de creencias en particular, sino más bien el cómo en términos de la forma en que las cosas se expresan cuando descienden al nivel de lo unitivo. De todos modos, en lugar de vincularse exclusivamente con cualquier sistema religioso, la Sabiduría es explícitamente interreligiosa. Pero la profundidad que marca esta Sabiduría es cualitativamente diferente de lo que se encuentra cerca y por encima de la superficie. Allí, sobre la superficie, las diversas tradiciones espirituales se distinguen por diferencias significativas en creencias, rituales y teologías. Pero en las profundidades de la Sabiduría todos se unen a través de la comprensión unitiva que une toda la vida en una totalidad profunda.

Como cristianos, podríamos afirmar que nuestra religión proporciona ese lugar de dónde viene la Sabiduría. Podemos tener la profunda sensación de que Jesús mismo encarnó esta Sabiduría. De hecho, el título principal que se le dio a Jesús fue el de moshelim, es decir, un maestro de Sabiduría, y enseñó en mashal, es decir, parábolas y dichos de Sabiduría. El mismo parecía la personificación de la Sabiduría, moviéndose por la vida con un corazón lleno de compasión, generosidad y amor. Sin embargo, no todos captaron sus acciones o sus enseñanzas. Algunos de sus oyentes lo entendieron, pero la gran mayoría no. Incluso la gente, que a veces parecía captar el mensaje que estaba transmitiendo, no siempre fue capaz de mantener este entendimiento.

Jesús, el maestro de la Sabiduría, no implora a sus oyentes que sean mejores y más rectos ciudadanos; sino, les trata de convencer y les suplica que despierten. Nunca predicó una vida moral recta para ser vivida en esta vida a fin de ganar la entrada al cielo en la próxima vida. Por el contrario, invitaba a sus oyentes para que se dieran cuenta que el reino de los cielos está aquí mismo, en el momento presente.

Los amigos y seguidores que parecían captar la Sabiduría del maestro parecían haberlo hecho porque su nivel de ser se elevó, al menos temporalmente, a un punto en el que podían resonar con la frecuencia de la Sabiduría que él estaba enseñando y transmitiendo y su verdad tocó lo más profundo de sus corazones. Además, su presencia les proporcionó una especie de alquimia divina que los llevó a un sentido de unión generalizado. A través de esta experiencia fueron transformados de adentro hacia afuera.

La apertura a toda la profundidad de la Sabiduría del Evangelio requiere la receptividad de un cierto estado mental o un cierto estado de ser. Sin eso, la Sabiduría de Jesús no puede ser recibida. Cuando pasas a las profundas verdades de la Sabiduría de Jesús solo a través de la mente pequeña, todo lo que obtienes es una consolidación más profunda en lo que ya creías sin ocurrir la transformación que le acompaña.

Este entendimiento ha sido trágicamente pasado por alto en Occidente. Comenzando con las controversias doctrinales de los siglos tercero y cuarto, la Iglesia ha hecho de nuestra fe una cuestión de creencia mental, y nuestra tradición se ha vuelto excesivamente influenciada por credos y declaraciones doctrinales de creencia y no guiada por la verdad espiritual real que nace de la experiencia.

Por lo tanto, el trabajo de Sabiduría es un esfuerzo para regresar a los fundamentos esenciales de la experiencia de nuestra fe cristiana. Esto no quiere decir que ignoremos, neguemos o subestimamos la gracia, sino que debemos de ser instrumentos de recepción y transmisión del amor de Dios.

El reino del que habla Jesús requiere que empleemos un nuevo sistema operativo que pueda realizar operaciones de un orden completamente diferente. Cuando este sistema está en funcionamiento es posible una forma completamente nueva de ver y donde se puede acceder al ser de uno a nivel mucho más alto. Este nuevo sistema lo podemos llamar el sistema operativo del corazón.

 El trabajo de Sabiduría implica crecer más allá de nuestras mentes pequeñas para entrar en nuestras mentes más grandes o sea nuestros corazones. Por lo tanto, el trabajo de la Sabiduría no es cancelar el sistema operativo egoico de la mente más pequeña, es más bien ayudarnos a desarrollar el sistema operativo del corazón de la mente más grande, que ya tenemos pero que se encuentra en forma adormecida, y de lograr la integración de estos dos sistemas en nuestro ser.

[1] Cynthia Bourgeault, An Introductory Wisdom School: Course Transcript and Companion Guide (Wisdom Way of Knowing: 2017), 2.

[2] William Redfield. Notes from the program From Self to Other. September 18, 2022 

https://www.williamredfield.com

Two Kinds of Level of Knowing

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During the study of the Gospel of Thomas we are exposed to 2 levels of knowing:

  1. The visible level of words and concepts. This is the consciousness formed by reading, encounters, and thoughts of others.
  2. A deeper level of knowing is revealed by the inner work of meditation. Consciousness that arises directly from self-knowledge, of the “Living One” within us.

This is the consciousness that Jesus invites us in the Gospel of Thomas; not to become better Christians but to become Christs – awakened human beings. This deeper knowing is called pure consciousness. To be more precisely, the pure energy of consciousness. This energy exists in many levels, and it can be allowed to descend into our body, heart, and mind. Through its own active force make us awakened and fully human being.

Reading the Gospel of Thomas in a way to allow the words into the mind and heart of our humanity, will lead us into a voyage of transformation toward a full realization of our being. It is the mentally clear and emotionally calm state that is achieved in our “Silence”. From this ground rather than from mental agitation that the words of the Gospel of Thomas can bear the fruit of light.

From the Gospel of Thomas by Jean-Yves Leloup (2005)

Material used during our first meeting to study the Gospel of Thomas,

The Mind of Christ

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This week I have being presented with the concept of the apostle Paul as one of the most misunderstood teacher, and mystic. Having the sample of Paul, I encounter a direct message that talked to my heart at this moment in which I am interested in the process of how the non-dual mind mind is formed by prayer and embodiment practices. A beautiful summary has been presented during this week and I would like to have it near to remind me that all human being have access to the Divine Flow , that is always happening and everyone can plug in.

The Mind of Christ – Practice

We encourage you to create some space this week for intentional silence and stillness, using Father Richard’s description of contemplation and “the mind of Christ” as an entry into prayer:

In contemplative practice, we refuse to identify with any one side, while still maintaining our intelligence. We hold the creative tension of every seeming conflict and go beyond words to pure, open-ended experience, which has the potential to unify many seeming contradictions. We cannot know God the way we know anything else; we only know God subject to subject, by a process of mirroring. This is the “mind of Christ” (see 1 Corinthians 2:16). It really is a different way of knowing, and you can tell it by its gratuity, its open-endedness, its compassion, and by the way it is so creative and energizing in those who allow it.

Truly great thinkers and cultural creatives take for granted that they have access to a different and larger mind. They recognize that a Divine Flow is already happening and that everyone can plug into it. In all cases, it is a participative kind of knowing, a being known through and not an autonomous knowing. The most common and traditional word for this change of consciousness was historically “prayer,” but we trivialized that precious word by making it functional, transactional, and supposedly about problem solving. The only problem that prayer solves is us!

Material from Daily Meditations_Center of Action and Contemplation Week Mark 20 – March 25 2022

Co-Create the Cosmos together with God

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“[T]he peacemaker is one who has established peace within oneself. Peace is not a naïve simplicity, but the perfect harmony of immense complexity. It is the delicate balance of all the faculties of human nature totally subject to God’s will and transformed by Divine Love into a finely tuned instrument.

“Peacemaking is the normal overflow of rootedness in Christ. Peacemakers are those who have the assurance of being the children of God. They are ones who in a sense are God acting in the world. They pour into the world the being they have received from God, which is a share in God’s divine nature.

“Today, God seems to be urging us to take more initiative in dealing with global problems and to take part in the transformation of society, beginning of course, with what is closest to us. … The power of the stars is nothing compared to the energy of a person whose will has been freed from the false-self system and who is thus enabled to co-create the cosmos together with God. … The commitment to the spiritual journey is not a commitment to pure joy, but to taking responsibility for the whole human family, its needs and destiny. We are not our own; we belong to everyone else.”
– Thomas Keating, The Mystery of Christ

Page 104

About this edition

ISBN: 9781441114907, 1441114904

Page count: 142

Published: July 15, 2010

Format: Ebook

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Language: English

Author: Thomas Keating

Learning to Letting Go with Centering Prayer

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Learning to Let Go

Centering Prayer is a devotional practice, placing ourselves in God’s presence and quieting our minds and hearts, but as Cynthia Bourgeault explains, it doesn’t only work on that level. What the desert abbas and ammas, the author of the Cloud of Unknowing, and even Thomas Keating could not have known when he formally started teaching the practice five decades ago, was that it works on a physiological level as well, strengthening neural pathways, and making “letting go” that much easier. When it comes to releasing our strong preferences, especially our desire for power and control, it seems safe to say that some practice of kenosis is necessary for any movement forward. 

The theological basis for Centering Prayer lies in the principle of kenosis, Jesus’s self-emptying love that forms the core of his own self-understanding and life practice. . . .

The gospels themselves make clear that [Jesus] is specifically inviting us to this journey and modeling how to do it. Once you see this, it’s the touchstone throughout all his teaching: Let go! Don’t cling! Don’t hoard! Don’t assert your importance! Don’t fret. “Do not be afraid, little flock, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom!” (Luke 12:32). And it’s this same core gesture we practice in Centering Prayer: thought by thought by thought. You could really summarize Centering Prayer as kenosis in meditation form. . . .

Fascinating confirmation that kenosis is indeed an evolutionary human pathway is emerging from—of all places—recent discoveries in neuroscience. From fMRI data collected primarily by the California-based HeartMath Institute, you can now verify chapter and verse that how you respond to a stimulus in the outer world determines which neural pathways will be activated in your brain, and between your brain and your heart. If you respond with any form of initial negativity (which translates physiologically as constriction)—freezing, bracing, clinging, clenching, and so on—the pathway illumined leads to your amygdala (or “reptilian brain,” as it’s familiarly known) . . . which controls a repertory of highly energized fight-or-flight responses. If you can relax into a stimulus—opening, softening, yielding, releasing—the neural pathway leads through the more evolutionarily advanced parts of your forebrain and, surprisingly, brings brain and heart rhythms into entrainment. . . .

Every time we manage to let go of a thought in Centering Prayer, “consenting to the presence and action of God within,” the gesture is actually physically embodied. It’s not just an attitude; something actually “drops and releases” in the solar plexus region of your body, a subtle but distinct form of interior relaxation. . . . And in time, this gentle and persistent “inner aerobics,” undertaken under the specific banner of Centering Prayer and in solidarity with Jesus’s own kenotic path, will gradually establish that “mind of Christ” within you as your own authentic self.

We invite you to spend some time today practicing “letting go” through Centering Prayer or another practice of kenosis.

Cynthia Bourgeault, The Heart of Centering Prayer: Nondual Christianity in Theory and Practice (Shambhala: 2016), 33, 34, 35–36.

Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation.

Good and Bad Power

August 8 – August 13, 2021

Differences Between Contemplation and Meditation

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Differences between Contemplation and Meditation.

Contemplation in it, has a wonderful dimension, a prayer meaning, that you are called from the other side. You are not the active agent. You are dancing with an invisible partner, but you are not dancing solo and you are not doing it.

Contemplation on the traditional way in the orthodox branch of Christianity it is being absorbed more and more deeply.  An sample or an image, when you worship with an icon and you are looking at the eye balls of Jesus and all of the sudden you have the feeling distinct that Jesus is looking at you, and then you and the icon disappears, and then you drop at some kind of portal at the cave of your heart.

Contemplation is a relational event that drops you finally into that deeper level of being absorbed in something that your mind cannot comprehend and get in top by itself.

Your practice cannot get on top, but you are met and that is the shade of difference.

Oneness, Session 3: The Secret Embrace – Thomas Keating’s Poetry, with Cynthia Bourgeault

1:08:34. To 1:10:30

Conscious or Intentional Suffering

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“Conscious or Intentional Suffering is a conscious and intentional willingness to not only face into one’s own specific pain and suffering, but also the willingness to help shoulder the burden of other people’s pain and suffering. This has nothing to do with martyrdom or victimhood. Its capacity is borne out of a felt sense of connection with the whole—with all human beings, all sentient beings, and the very planet herself. Intentional Suffering finds expression as an energetic reality much more than just an idea or belief or sentiment.”

Willian Redfield , 2020. Lent Retreat 2020, Wednesday April 22.

Intentional suffering is the act of struggling against automatism such as daydreaming, pleasure, food (eating for reasons other than real hunger), etc. In Gurdjieff’s book Beelzebub’s Tales he states that “the greatest ‘intentional suffering’ can be obtained in our presences by compelling ourselves to endure the displeasing manifestations of others toward ourselves”[23]

23  G.I. Gurdjieff (1950). Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, pg 242