Centering Prayer & Integral Spirituality: A Christianity made in Heaven?

Centering Prayer & Integral Spirituality: A Christianity made in Heaven?

Earlier this year I presented some material from the 2015 Integral Christianity conference in Boulder to our Meetup group. Since then I joined the Centering Prayer community in North San Diego. These people are mystics and contemplatives in training.

The larger organization is called Contemplative Outreach and they sponsor weekly meetings held at local area churches. Centering Prayer is not petitionary prayer or any kind of prayer you learned at Church. There are 21 of these groups in North San Diego alone, in fact long time San Diego Integral Meetup member Mary Williams leads one of these groups.

Don’t be fooled by the term ‘Centering Prayer’, they are teaching and practicing what you and I would call meditation. Now this is in a Christian context and as Integralists we know that context is embedded in our perspectives and as such there is a lot of Christian/religious terminology included in Centering Prayer as there should be. In no way are they asking you to believe in anything, they want you to practice and see for yourself that what we call Christ Consciousness is none other than the non-dual state.

The root teacher of Centering Prayer is Trappist monk Father Thomas Keating, who happens to be a friend of Ken Wilber and a familiar face on the Integral Life website. He also participated in the conference in Boulder via a video with Cynthia Bourgeault. I have been learning a lot about the Contemplative community in the past few months and frankly I am surprised just how big it is and how many teachers in this community know about Wilber and Integral. Richard Rohr is one of these leaders and puts Spiral Dynamics and Integral at the top of his list of influences.

Actually this is not the first time Wilber and Thomas Keating have presented together on the topic of Integral Christianity. Some years ago they collaborated on a DVD called The Future of Christianity. I have that DVD and watched it again today and it occurs to me that it would make a great introduction of Integral to the Contemplative community. In fact I think it would make a fine introduction to any current / closeted :) / past Christian who has evolved past the mythical/traditional stage of the Church and/or Christianity. If you fall into any of those categories please join us to explore a possible way back to a more evolved understanding of Christ. At this Meetup we'll watch clips from the DVD and break into small groups and discuss the topics.

I anticipate a presentation of this kind to the local Contemplative groups at some point. I think the format of those weekly groups are great and can serve as a model for us if we ever want to create a local Integral Christianity community.

I put together a reference web page with material from the March 2015 Integral Christianity conference, you can access it here:

Integral Christianity Media Page for San Diego Integral (http://integralmaps.org/integral/rhcc/return_heart_christ_consciousness.htm)

I hope you can join us for a meaningful exploration into one possible future of Christianity.

Mark Steele
Integral San Diego

The Wilber Combs Matrix: The key to understanding Religion / Spirituality / Meditation / Contemplation

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DIRECTIONS: From Rancho Santa Fe Road, turn onto El Camino Del Norte. Go 6/10 of a mile, then turn Left onto Val Sereno. When Val Sereno dead ends at Via de Caballo, turn Right. At the dead end cul de sac, turn Right at a large wooden sign with house numbers and follow the narrow extension down the hill. At the bottom of the hill, turn Left. Our half of the townhouse is at the end, 3197, double green doors.

Parking is limited. One car can park in front of our end of the duplex. One car can park to the right of my duplex neighbor. Three cars can park in the guest slots before the townhouse. The rest of you will have to park at the top of the hill before the wooden sign and then walk down the hill. I suggest that you bring a flash light to return up the hill to your car. Sorry for this inconvenience.

If you get lost, call our (Anne and Paul) home phone, 858-759-9215. See you soon.

You can also call Eloy at 760 522-4679.