“When the mind comes into the heart, the new operating system of nonduality kicks in.” Cynthia Bourgeault

The Multiplicity of Ordinary Being

“Not one of you here has a real permanent, unchanging ‘I’. Not one of you here has real unity of being. All of you are nothing but a crowd of different people, some better and some worse, and each of these people—each of these ‘I’s in you—at particular moments takes charge of you and makes you do what it wants and say what it wishes and feel and think as it feels and thinks.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p20

A Path to Unity Through Special Knowledge

“All development of Being lies in the direction of increasing union and is finally attained by unity of Being in place of multiplicity of Being. … people in the Work, who begin to feel it, have already more unity of Being. Why is this? It is because they are following something that unites them. If a number of people are thinking and practicing the same thing they are more in union, and not only this, they are more in union in themselves.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p167

“Unity of Being is not attainable through the influence of life. It is only attainable through influences coming from those who have attained this supreme development of Being. That is, special Knowledge is necessary which must be applied to Being. Now if you reflect on this teaching, and see what it is about for yourselves, you will see that both on the psychological and the cosmological side, it is all about raising the level of Being to unity.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p168

Jesus as Teacher of Conscious Transformation

“What doesn’t make it across by and large into the canonical gospels are the [Gospel of Thomas] sayings and the teachings that are strictly transformational, that are strictly wisdom, that have to do with changing your state of being, with maintaining present moment mindfulness, with coming to a state called singleness, which clearly from the textual clues means something like enlightenment today.

“And it clearly establishes Jesus as teaching a path that depended on the transformation of consciousness. And teaching a way of conscious transformation. So that’s one of the reasons that the [Gospel of Thomas] is so important. Because it links our own Christian heritage to the emphasis that’s going on. Everybody knows that what is up nowadays is the whole theme of mindfulness, non-dual attainment, singleness, enlightenment. It’s out there everywhere.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Kanuga 2015, 8:09 Day 1.5c Afternoon Teaching Part 3 of 4.

An Operating System of Non-Duality

“When you’ve got that entrainment working, when all these cylinders are working, when the heart is seeing, you are in that deep state of what the East would call enlightenment. What the West refers to as singleness. As in, if thy eye be single, the whole body is full of light. The singleness is as the transference, the passing beyond duality into that unified way of seeing that collapses the subject-object dualism, the inside and outside. And allows us to become continuous with that mystical body of oneness as it’s seen in the heart. When the mind comes into the heart, the new operating system of nonduality kicks in. It’s a new way you see the universe, not from separation, but from really deep participative belonging.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Kanuga 2015, 4:23 Day 4.2b Morning Teaching Part 2 of 3.

“Non-duality singleness is a function of being able to stably put the mind in the heart and hold it there. And beyond that, the access route to that par excellence is the path of kenosis or radical non-clinging. And this is the path that Jesus came teaching over and over and over again.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Kanuga 2015, 30:56 Day 5.2a Morning Final Teaching Part 1 of 2

Kenotic Path to Singleness

“What is Jesus teaching? I would say he’s teaching a radically kenotic path, kenosis in service of singleness, singleness in service of compassion manifest, i.e., the kingdom of heaven.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Kanuga 2015, 1:08 Day 5.2b Morning Final Teaching Part 2 of 2

Undivided Heart: Living from Coherence

“The pure in heart are the undivided and the undivided is because you’ve let go of that which pulls and tears and pushes you in all directions and gives you a lower point to constellate your being around. ‘Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.’ Or in other words, Live in and among this divine immediately realized sense of intimacy and coherence, which is the cosmos perceived from the heart. When that has become stabilized in a person, so that it’s not just a place you go to, but a place you come from, and a place that you can—when you’re really mature and ready—not only come from it, but bestow it in the quality of your own aliveness—then you are considered to be a single one. A one who has made the two whole, a one who is living out the non-dual reality. Not by collapsing all the pieces of the world in some vague globby one. But by being able to hold the infinitely precious diverse parts as they must be in this world, and tie them together with light.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Kanuga 2015, Course Transcript & Companion Guide, Day 5.2 Morning: Final Teaching.

Knowing the Source and Direction

“Temperance, as a spiritual exercise, signifies the task of knowing the relationship between the image or monad, the likeness or phenomenal personality, and the guardian Angel or individual grace. This means to say that one should find the source, current and direction of inner life—in grasping its nature and role—and work and live in conformity with this knowledge.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p387.

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Logion 5
Yeshua says…
Come to know the One in the presence before you,
and everything hidden from you will be revealed.
For there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed,
and nothing buried that will not be raised.

Logion 23
Yeshua says…
I choose you,
one from a thousand,
two from ten thousand,
and you will stand to your own feet
having become single and whole.

Logion 75
Yeshua says…
Many are standing at the door,
but only the single or solitary
will enter the place of union.

Logion 106
Yeshua says…
When you are able to transform two into one,
then you will become a “Son of Humanity,”
and it will be possible for you
to say to a mountain, “Move,” and it will move.

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Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll refer to Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Eureka Editions:2020) unless stated otherwise. 

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

Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, Jeremy Tarcher, 1985

Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.

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