C.Bourgeault's take on Nondual Spirituality with Centering Prayer.

The book we will be reading for meeting on January 22, 2020 is " The Heart of Centering Prayer: Nondual Christianity in theory and Practice" ,2016, by Cynthia Bourgeault.
See:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29901609-the-heart-of-centering-prayer

Cynthia Bourgeault writes out of her own experience and community about the interfaith practice of Centering Prayer, as a pathway to heart centred attentiveness, "objectless awareness", and ultimately moving more to perceiving the present moment from a place of oneness from within. She ties in her insights with the great mystical classic of the fourteenth century " The Cloud of Unknowing". She even touches on wholistic knowing that some are exploring in neuroscience.

For the first session please read the four chapters of Part two.(Pages 43-94).(Part One looks at the Centering Prayer technique).

These four chapters explore in some depth the themes of non-duality, heart centredness, heart attention/perception, and heart presence. In our culture of head centred intellectualizing, I personally found Bourgeault open exploration on heart cognition very accessible and interesting.

The suggested format is go round the circle where each person is encouraged to share their own thoughts on this material and others can support and engage on that person’s perspective.

I anticipate at least one more additional session looking at "objectless awareness", which has some similarities to the Buddhist notion of emptiness, and "the cloud of unknowing " in the mystic classic "The Cloud of Unknowing" which Bourgeault explores in Part three.