“Presence is an energy, a spiritual substance, a very, very precious subtle substance. But we squander it.” Becoming present as spiritual practice.

The Energetic Reality of Presence

“For me the fruit of my own struggles on this path for 40 years, is that the state of presence is a higher energetic or higher vibrational state than what we normally live in in life. In other words, it’s right here. But it takes heft to be present. It takes force. It takes inter-collected energy. The classic Christian tradition talked about that as recollection. And if your energy, if your being is present in that, if you have attention within yourself, you can stay present to this higher field.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Claymont 2016 Three-Centered Knowing, 56:00 02-Tuesday-Morning

The Embodied Quality of Gathered Presence

“It’s a whole-bodied, quiet, gathered presence. It allows us to return to the embodied core of our own strength. And that is hugely important. Second, it allows us to begin to emanate into the world calm, equanimity, and poise. And you don’t have to flavor them like sparkling water with the flavor of love, or the flavor of peace, or the flavor of joy. The water itself is fine. If you can be in the world a still, centered, unflappable presence, that emanation of presence in and of itself will change the world. So as we learn to bring our atmosphere under our own conscious stewardship, so we’re not constantly getting taken by emotions, or reactions, or associations, we draw strength in our own being.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Imaginal WS 8-2020, 09:02 Tuesday AM Teaching

The Squandering of Spiritual Substance

“Presence is an energy, a spiritual substance, a very, very precious subtle substance. But we squander it. And we squander it largely through identification. So that the energy that would be available to us to sustain selfhood at a whole richer and deeper and more vital level is squandered as we go right down our own sinkhole by playing the tapes over and over and over. This unconscious absorption in inner processes. And whenever we do that we are sucked right back into personality. Bye-bye essence. Bye-bye reality. Bye-bye presence.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Living Presence Wisdom School, 56:00 Chapter-5 https://www.contemplative.org/product/practicing-living-presence-discovering-the-mind-of-christ-within/

Presence as Ultimate Medicine

“The only permanent known antidote for addiction, which has ever been found, is presence.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Mary Magdalene & the Path of Conscious Love, 02:46 disc 5 track 4

The Unmanageable Simplicity of the Great Now

“My friend Bruno Barnhart, the great pundit, says, the problem with human beings as spiritual seekers is that we always prefer a manageable complexity to an unmanageable simplicity. Because, of course, the manageable complexity can be manipulated by the egoic mind. If I just keep all the rules, this is how it works. But to have to find yourself in the great now by simply opening to it with your heart basically fries all our obsessive compulsive systems.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Mary Magdalene & the Path of Conscious Love, 02:17 disc 3 track 4

The Doctrine of Unified Perception

Cynthia speaking of several Logia from the Gospel of Thomas: “You see we’re teaching a subtle doctrine of presence, of not being identified with that small self, of an ability to bring some things that are apart together, an ability to move beyond perceiving through opposites. And he says when you do that, you become one.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Mary Magdalene & the Path of Conscious Love, 07:20 disc 2 track 6

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Logion 59
Yeshua says...
Give attention to the Living Presence
while you are alive
so that when you die
and have the desire to do so,
you may have the power to attend.

Logion 68
Yeshua says...
Blessed are you
who in the midst of persecution,
when they hate and pursue you
even to the core of your being,
cannot find "you" anywhere.

Logion 111
Yeshua says...
Heaven and earth will completely disappear
in your presence,
and the one who lives by means of the Living One
will not see death,
because, as Yeshua says,
'The cosmos is not worthy
of the one who discovers the true Self.’

Logion 91
They said to him,
"Tell us, who you really are
so we may believe in you."
He said to them,
"You have learned to read
the face of earth and sky,
but you do not yet recognize
the one standing in your presence,
nor can you make sense of the present moment."

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Read the first Impression on Presence.

Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.

All quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)