God as Us: Week 2 - Conscious Love

[hutchis01]

God as Us: Week 2 - Conscious Love


Cynthia Bourgeault, one of CAC’s core faculty members, names Jesus’ teaching and way of life “the path of conscious love.”

[This phrase] emphasizes the life-affirming and implicitly relational nature of the path, and the word “conscious” makes clear that the touchstone here is transformation, not simply romance. Conscious love is “love in the service of inner transformation”—or if you prefer, “inner transformation in the service of love.” Either way, this is exactly what Jesus was about. [1]

Cynthia’s words “conscious love” ring true for me as a definition for our life’s purpose and the goal of all spirituality. When we’re conscious, we will always do the loving thing, the connecting thing, the intimate thing, the communion thing, the aware thing. We will be our True Selves.

Cynthia describes what this means: “The first requirement of conscious love is, of course that it has to be conscious—or in other words, anchored in a quality of our presence deeper than simply egoic selfhood. [It is] unitive, or nondual, awareness.” [2]

As I’ve said several times this year, the source of violence and so many of our world’s hurts is the illusion of separation. Our culture of romance suggests that sex and marriage solve the problem of loneliness and longing. But from many people I’ve talked with, it seems there is a great deal of unhealthy sexuality, trauma, and wounding in our sexually preoccupied world. Almost half the marriages in the United States end in divorce. Perhaps the Church intuited that the issue is deeper when it mandated celibacy for priesthood and religious life, but their proposed solution can also be a clever avoidance of intimacy too. I believe sex, marriage, and celibacy are not given to us to solve the problem, but to actually reveal the problem. All of these life stances show us that we still don’t know how to love. At the same time, if we are conscious and aware, they give us the daily practice and opportunity to try one more time! I find every healthy marriage comes to this conclusion sooner or later.

Cynthia writes: “For Jesus as for all teachers of conscious transformation . . . the work with a partner is in service of this goal. It is not intended simply to fulfill physical or emotional needs, but to accelerate the process of awakening.” [3]

She quotes psychologist John Welwood:

A conscious relationship is one that calls forth who you really are. . . . [Instead of looking to a relationship for shelter] we could welcome its power to wake us up in areas of life where we are asleep and where we avoid naked, direct contact with life. This approach puts us on a path. It commits us to movement and change, providing forward direction by showing us where we most need to grow. Embracing relationship as a path also gives us practice: learning to use each difficulty along the way as an opportunity to go further, to connect more deeply, not just with a partner, but with our own aliveness as well. [4]


Gateway to Silence:
We are temples of God.

References:

[1] Cynthia Bourgeault, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity(Shambhala: 2010), 112.
[2] Ibid., 118.
[3] Ibid., 118.
[4] John Welwood, Journey of the Heart: The Path of Conscious Love (Shambhala: 1990), 13.

A difficult one!

Originally Posted by hutchis01

God as Us: Week 2 - Conscious Love

Cynthia Bourgeault, one of CAC’s core faculty members, names Jesus’ teaching and way of life “the path of conscious love.”

To little of His teachings have been preserved. The source I look to is the Gospel of Thomas, more of a report than anecdote. It convinced me that Jesus was an exceptionally wise person - and Gnostic. I could be wrong about Gnostic because the text alludes often. Taken literally He may indeed be speaking of an external God "up there in the sky" somewhere.

[This phrase] emphasizes the life-affirming and implicitly relational nature of the path, and the word “conscious” makes clear that the touchstone here is transformation, not simply romance. Conscious love is “love in the service of inner transformation”—or if you prefer, “inner transformation in the service of love.” Either way, this is exactly what Jesus was about. [1]

Not so distant from Crowley's "Love under Will."

Cynthia’s words “conscious love” ring true for me as a definition for our life’s purpose and the goal of all spirituality. When we’re conscious, we will always do the loving thing, the connecting thing, the intimate thing, the communion thing, the aware thing. We will be our True Selves.

It seems to hang on "true self" which is conceptually elusive. True Self or just The Self to me is beyond the realm of the mundane self acting on anything. They connect, obviously, but through a lot of processing and sifting through the pragmatics of one's experiences. It may be Love, it may not but at that level one is, yes, part of the whole but still distinguished from others - unique until the Self itself is abandoned for rarer climes. I often read on this forum that "we're all one" or "all part of the one/whole" which has to be as it is, as we all spring from the original emanation but through further emanations become individual.

Cynthia describes what this means: “The first requirement of conscious love is, of course that it has to be conscious—or in other words, anchored in a quality of our presence deeper than simply egoic selfhood. [It is] unitive, or nondual, awareness.” [2]

As I’ve said several times this year, the source of violence and so many of our world’s hurts is the illusion of separation. Our culture of romance suggests that sex and marriage solve the problem of loneliness and longing. But from many people I’ve talked with, it seems there is a great deal of unhealthy sexuality, trauma, and wounding in our sexually preoccupied world. Almost half the marriages in the United States end in divorce. Perhaps the Church intuited that the issue is deeper when it mandated celibacy for priesthood and religious life, but their proposed solution can also be a clever avoidance of intimacy too. I believe sex, marriage, and celibacy are not given to us to solve the problem, but to actually reveal the problem. All of these life stances show us that we still don’t know how to love. At the same time, if we are conscious and aware, they give us the daily practice and opportunity to try one more time! I find every healthy marriage comes to this conclusion sooner or later.

I personally find that a simplistic analysis:
the source of violence and so many of our world’s hurts is the illusion of separation..
I'm unsure about that. There must be many reasons for violence, at least one of which is the opposite from separation: belonging, loyalty to a cause, collective action in the face of adversity. As for sex / marriage. God/Nature (whatever She/He/It may be) put two genders on the planet for good reasons. Humans have swathed that thick in taboos. My personal view is it was a mean trick played by the orthodox religions.

Cynthia writes: “For Jesus as for all teachers of conscious transformation . . . the work with a partner is in service of this goal. It is not intended simply to fulfill physical or emotional needs, but to accelerate the process of awakening.” [3]

She quotes psychologist John Welwood:

A conscious relationship is one that calls forth who you really are. . . . [Instead of looking to a relationship for shelter] we could welcome its power to wake us up in areas of life where we are asleep and where we avoid naked, direct contact with life. This approach puts us on a path. It commits us to movement and change, providing forward direction by showing us where we most need to grow. Embracing relationship as a path also gives us practice: learning to use each difficulty along the way as an opportunity to go further, to connect more deeply, not just with a partner, but with our own aliveness as well. [4]


Gateway to Silence:
We are temples of God.

References:

[1] Cynthia Bourgeault, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity(Shambhala: 2010), 112.
[2] Ibid., 118.
[3] Ibid., 118.
[4] John Welwood, Journey of the Heart: The Path of Conscious Love (Shambhala: 1990), 13.

I'll leave it at that if I may. I read the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. Certainly she was at the heart of Jesus running into one aspect of his trouble with the Rabbinical priesthood. If there's one thing of which her report convinced me it was Jesus being a great systems-thinker - "everything works together," an insight in his day.

Interesting. Thank you.

[prasannatrust]

God – the ultimate mystery

Q. Where and how do we search for God?

A. Remember that God hides within you, but you don’t see Him because the one place you will never look is inside yourself. You will search everywhere, but never within yourself. Therefore, paradoxical as it sounds, it is nevertheless true that you lose sight of God because He is hiding within you.

Learn from the dog. As a puppy, it starts loving its master, and 13 long years later, even during its dying moments, it has the same degree of devotion and love towards its master for feeding it with whatever he could, may be as little as two slices of bread a day. A dog is ever prepared to place itself in difficulty to protect its master.

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by prasannatrust

God – the ultimate mystery

Q. Where and how do we search for God?

A. Remember that God hides within you, but you don’t see Him because the one place you will never look is inside yourself. You will search everywhere, but never within yourself. Therefore, paradoxical as it sounds, it is nevertheless true that you lose sight of God because He is hiding within you.

And yet, that is only half the story.

It has been quite a challenge for me to understand others when they approach God from an egocentric viewpoint, seeing as how I saw God without me first, before realising He was also within.

Many people, in fact most people, do it the other way around, but not all lose their ego-identification with the Source, still saying "I AM" in total juxtaposition to "everything IS". When I look up at the night sky and the vast number of stars and galaxies...I see God. When I look at the vast expanse of ocean, God is there...in the innocent eyes of a baby...in the loving devotion of a puppy til his dying breath...giving one final tail wag before passing on...and if I say anymore, I'll remember when mine did just that and start to cry.

After all that, I found God within my own heart...found Him there and He wasn't hiding, it's just that I wasn't looking where He was...until the day came when He was everywhere I looked...within me and without me...and in a George Harrison song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2dMSfmUJec

Go, Allah Rakha on the Tabla!!!

[7luminaries]

Cynthia’s words “conscious love” ring true for me as a definition for our life’s purpose and the goal of all spirituality. When we’re conscious, we will always do the loving thing, the connecting thing, the intimate thing, the communion thing, the aware thing. We will be our True Selves.

I think many could agree or resonate to some extent with this general statement, which is a good one.

I have an inkling of what seems to be intended here. First, good on Ms Bourgeault for making the attempt. However, I think the framework is already skewed when we try to mix concepts of agape with anything else which degrades, muddies, or contradicts that selfsame agape.

Unless we first clearly start from agape and then premise everything else on that. Including any sort of relationship, whether fam, friend, stranger, OR partner.

Within any type of relationship, which do vary in broad type of course, if we start from agape and make that start point very explicit, THEN we can see more clearly just how far the current construct of society and relationship types -- particularly "partner" types of relationships -- are from our start point of agape.

When taking on something that is wholly foreign to the normative mainstream ethos and only known to many in very specific relationship type contexts (i.e., most or many know or experience an agape love for their children) -- then it's best to stick to the purest distillate and begin there as one's foundation for discussion and understanding, IMO.

If we simply start with agape as the foundational love of all connection, all relationship, and simply of all being...then we can very easily see just how far we can go. And we can begin to see -- both generally in each relationship type and individually in each personal experience of relationship -- just how far we've still to go.

Peace & blessings
7L

[7luminaries]

Cynthia’s words “conscious love” ring true for me as a definition for our life’s purpose and the goal of all spirituality. When we’re conscious, we will always do the loving thing, the connecting thing, the intimate thing, the communion thing, the aware thing. We will be our True Selves.

I think many could agree or resonate to some extent with this general statement, which is a good one.

I have an inkling of what seems to be intended here. First, good on Ms Bourgeault for making the attempt. However, I think the framework is already skewed when we try to mix concepts of agape with anything else.

Unless we clearly start from agape and premise everything else on that. Including any sort of relationship, whether fam, friend, stranger, OR partner.

Within any type of relationship, which do vary in broad type of course, if we start from agape and make that start point very explicit, THEN we can see more clearly just how far the current construct of society and relationship types are from our start point of agape, particularly "partner" types of relationships founded on limited, conditional affection, power-over dynamics, and other extreme structural imbalances.

When taking on something that is wholly foreign to the normative mainstream ethos and only known to many in very specific relationship type contexts (i.e., most or many know or experience an agape love for their children but perhaps for no one else) -- then it's best to stick to the purest distillate and begin there as one's foundation for discussion and understanding, IMO.

If we simply start with agape as the foundational love of all connection, all relationship, and simply of all being...then we can very easily see just how far we can go. And we can begin to see -- both generally in each relationship type and individually in each personal experience of relationship -- just how far we've still to go.

Peace & blessings
7L