“If you say yes, if you show up, be present, you will be cared for and you will receive assistance, and your spiritual journey will unfold.” Cynthia Bourgeault

The Fundamental Commitment

“If you show up, you have a responsibility to be present. Choose what you show up for. But if you say yes, if you say yes I’ll do the ladies tea, yes I’ll take my mother to the movies, your responsibility as a human being is to be fully there, fully awake, fully engaged. That’s what we mean by presence.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Awakened Mind Awakened Heart, 5:47 Disc 1 Track 2.

“If you don’t like the conditions, if you feel you cannot submit to them fully, change them or leave. But if you say yes, if you show up, be present. And you will be cared for and you will receive assistance and your spiritual journey will unfold.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Kanuga Nov 2015, Day 4.5c Afternoon Teaching Part 3 of 3.

One Essential Care

“That wonderful quote from Kabir Helminski—if you can free yourself from all cares except one care, the care for simply being present, you will be cared for by that presence, which is the creative love. So the only real fundamental obligation is to show up, be present in the now that you’re inhabiting, alert to the material it offers you.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Kanuga Nov 2015, 5:25 Day 5.2a Morning Final Teaching Part 1 of 2.

What We’re Responsible For and What We’re Not

“I think almost anything in life goes better if you know what you’re responsible for and what you’re not responsible for. Because there’s a certain amount that can be helped, and there’s a certain amount that you can’t directly help. And what you’re responsible for is to show up and bring the most willing and quiet attention to give your best to what’s there today.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Claymont 2014 Jacob Boehme, 52:55 5e.Satpm.TeachingGWS14.

“You have to keep remembering that what Jesus had basically was himself and 12 people. And [the Disciples] never seem to get it either. Yeah, so you just keep trying, and show up, and be present, and leave it for the divine to make of it what the divine will.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Awakened Mind Awakened Heart, 1:33 Disc 2 Track 2.

“It’s natural for us to want to hold our aim a little too tightly and then await for the results. But we simply show up, carry our little pebble of conscious striving to the edge of the cliff and toss it into the ocean, the rest in God’s hands.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Encounter With Evil Feb 2023 CA, 4:00 Gurdjieff Exercise Day 5.

Demand for Real Agency

“If you’re going to work in the world, you have to be able to work with real agency and force and still not let it distract your vision. Gurdjieff used to say that you should be able to make a living with your left toe. He would not let people off the hook, that there is a demand to show up, to produce, and to learn to develop the agency that is implicit in you. And that’s part of the learning curve that allows you to go further in your deepening spiritual capaciousness.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Claymont 2019 Dec Gurdjieff-Teilhard, 45:48 17 – Friday Morning Teaching.

Collective Impact of Individual Presence

“What each one of us does, how we show up here makes a difference in the whole. So we’re always aware of our own individual atmospheres, even those on Zoom, and the collective atmosphere that that creates. And we’re all responsible for co-creating and shepherding that.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Encounter With Evil Feb 2023 CA, 32:00 Day 0 Introductory Teaching.

Continual Inner Effort

“It’s this rigorous effort to marshal and to contain and to learn to be present, to learn to fully show up in what we’re doing. Maurice Nicoll said that conscious labor is a continual inner effort, a continual altering of the mind of the habitual ways of thought, of the habitual ways of taking everything, of habitual reactions. So, you know, habit is the dread opponent of mindfulness. We fall into habits and our state begins to go down.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Imaginal Wisdom School 8-2020, 10:32 0819 IWS WednesdayPM Q & A.

Heart’s True Desire

“We need agreements and we need structures in our relationships to conduct our human affairs, to have our families, to do our business. We need that. Problem is, that never satisfies the heart. We think we’ll bind somebody to us with more agreements and structures, and it usually kills the relationship. Because what the heart wants is relatedness. The heart wants us to both be present with each other, for each other, to show up together, and to see what beautiful mysteries emerge from that intimacy. That’s what the heart wants. The structures are fine as long as they’re not superseding relaxing into the relatedness. And smart couples, for example, have learned how to dance in both. So, it’s interesting. The holy idea here that scares the crap out of people at first, is holy freedom.” Russ Hudson, Stonington June 2021, 40:26 21 – Thursday Afternoon Teaching.

Simple Trust

“Wherever you are, show up. And trust it.” Cynthia Bourgeault, The Heart of Centering Prayer 2016, Part 4 of 4

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Logion 113
His students asked him,
“On what day will the kingdom arrive? “
“Its coming cannot be perceived from the outside,” he said.
“You cannot say, ‘Look, it’s over there,’
or, ‘No, here it is.’
The Father’s realm is spreading out
across the face of the earth,
and humanity is not able to perceive it. “

Logion 42
Yeshua said:
Be passersby.
(LeLoup)

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

Jean-Yves Leloup, The Gospel of Thomas, Inner Traditions, 2005

Kabir Helminski, Living Presence: a Sufi Way to Mindfulness and the Essential Self, (TarcherPerigree, 2017)

Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.