Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening (Cynthia Bourgeault)
A Violation of the “Law of Threeâ€
[My 2-star Amazon review (NDA) of “Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening†by Cynthia Bourgeault.]
I first read “Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening†five years ago, immediately after I’d finished Thomas Keating’s “Open Mind, Open Heart.†While I thought that Keating’s text was a good basic introduction to spiritual meditation, I was unimpressed with Bourgeault’s book. My copy of her book went into storage not long after I read it, and I just received it two weeks ago. Because I recently reviewed Bourgeault’s text “The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three,†I was eager to re-read “Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening†and consider it in detail.
“Centering Prayer†is a misnomer for the meditation practice that Bourgeault teaches. The practice doesn’t involve centering or prayer. Rather, it is simply a Zen-like practice of releasing thoughts as soon as one catches oneself thinking them. One employs a “sacred word,†or phrase, such as “let go†or “trust God,†to help facilitate the release of mental content. While this type of “apophatic (or “via negativaâ€) practice is an essential component of true, or integral, contemplation, in and by itself it is non-integral, or exclusive-reductive, in nature. Bourgeault’s version of Centering Prayer differs from Keating’s, whose description of the practice is richer, fuller, and more spiritual. Keating, unlike Bourgeault, says that “Centering Prayer consists of the first two stages leading to “prayer in secret.†The latter consists of relating to God beyond thoughts, feelings and particular acts.†In Bourgeualt’s de-spiritualized version of Centering Prayer there is no relating to God and no receiving of what Keating calls the “sanctifying light†of the Spirit.
When I read Bourgeault, I sense that she is an un-baptized talking head who knows nothing about infused contemplation. Bourgeault quotes John 3:7: “You must be born from above,†but she fails to provide any information or insight about the descent of Divine Power, a sine qua non of Christian mysticism. Regarding infused contemplation, Bourgeault writes: “The ‘acquired/infused’ checkpoint is really engendered by the egoism that created the problem in the first place; it stipulates that in the final analysis power and control remain with God. This type of confusion is what ensues when one tries to describe an apophatic process using cataphatic reference points… What troubles me far more about this whole ‘acquired/infused’ dichotomy, however, is the fact that it rests on a theology of God as ‘out there,’ giving graces to some withholding them from others.â€
Unbeknownst to Bourgeault, the “acquired/infused†dichotomy is not a “problem†engendered by egoism. It is simply a description of spiritual practice before and after one is baptized by the Spirit, or reborn “from above.†God doesn’t give Grace, or Blessing Power, to some while withholding it from others. Rather, Grace is freely and Lawfully bestowed upon disciples according to their effort and ability to remain in relationship to God and let go of everything else.
Bourgeault summarizes her take on the “acquired/infused†dichotomy thus: “It is the consciousness itself that is the attained state of contemplation, and it is neither infused nor acquired, because it was never absent - only unrecognized.†Unbeknownst to Bougeault, the recognition of this “consciousness†is not possible without the infusion, or pouring down, of the Spirit; and this infusion is the natural progression following acquired contemplation. Romans 5.5 reads: "It is the Holy Spirit and it has been poured into your heart†- but Bourgeault has nothing to say about the Holy Spirit as the en-Light-ening agent that descends into one’s heart. Unbeknownst to Bourgeault, Divine Union is the union of this down-poured, or infused, Spirit Power with one’s soul (or consciousness), in one’s heart (the Sacred-Heart center). Upon the attainment of this Divine Union, one recognizes, or realizes, oneself as the Self, or Son, consubstantial with the Father, Divine Consciousness.
Bourgeault’s ignorance of mystical Christianity extends into the apophatic/cataphatic dichotomy. Simply put, she has a limited understanding of cataphatic spirituality, which she rejects in her Centering Prayer practice. She writes, “In Centering Prayer, then, we leave the cataphatic world and step completely into the apophatic ground, on its own terms.â€
According to Bougeault, cataphatic prayer is prayer that makes use of what theologians call our ‘faculties.†It engages our reason, memory, imagination, feelings and will.â€Â This is an exoteric interpretation of cataphatic spirituality. According to Wikipedia, “The word cataphatic itself is formed from two Greek words, "cata" meaning to descend and "femi" meaning to speak. Thus, to combine them translates the word roughly as "to bring God down in such a way so as to speak of him.†From an esoteric, or mystical, perspective, cataphatic spirituality is about descent of the Divine, and then “communicating†(really communing) with this descending Power, the Holy Spirit.
Bourgeault writes: “From the point of view of cataphatic prayer, silence will always tend to appear as an empty vessel into which God pours ‘content.’ The purpose of keeping silence from this perspective is to be better able to listen to whatever content God may wish to reveal.†Again, Bourgeault fails to understand that, from the radical cataphatic point of view, the “Content†one receives is not “content,†in the form of “insights†or “directivesâ€; rather, it is Divine “Context,†in the formless mode of Spirit Itself.
Interestingly enough, though the epitome of cataphatic spirituality is receiving the Benediction - Divine Grace, or Blessing Power, from above - neither Bourgeault nor the three Benedictine monks (Thomas Merton, John Main, or Thomas Keating ) who championed the restoration of the Christian contemplative tradition seem to understand this.
Before the development of Centering Prayer practice, Thomas Keating issued the following challenge to Christian monastic community: “Is it not possible to put the essence of the Christian contemplative path into a meditative method accessible to modern people living in the world?†The response, of course, was the Centering Prayer practice, but I contend that there is a quasi-Christian contemplative practice that is superior to Centering Prayer – Plugged-in Presence, which elevates the practice of mystical Eucharistic spirituality to its logical conclusion. Here is a brief description of the “dialectical†practice:
“The practices of presence and poverty constitute a dialectic, with presence (or relationship) as the thesis, absence (or inner emptiness) as the antithesis, and the descent of the Holy Spirit as the synthesis. In other words, the pressure of your conscious presence (or relational force) instigates your self-emptying (or surrendering), which “produces,†or pulls down, the Spirit, which deifies you, transforming you into a Self-realized, or Christ-like, being.
In engendering the descent of the Spirit, the two dialectical practices of presence (or relationship) and poverty (or absence) give birth to a third, synthesizing practice: the practice of power. The practice of presence is about connecting; the practice of poverty is about surrendering; and the practice of power, which integrates the practices of presence and poverty, is about receiving.
The practice of receiving the Holy Spirit synthesizes the practices of presence and poverty by, in effect, mediating them. Thus, instead of full attention being focused on either the act of being present or the act of being self-empty, the act of receiving, or conducting, the Spirit-current involves the artful integration of both these gestures. It involves the letting go of psychical content while simultaneously holding on to the context of connectedness. In order to instigate the drawing-down of Divine Power, the Holy Spirit, the disciple must sometimes emphasize the “pole of presence†(or relationship), and at other times the “pole of poverty†(or self-emptying). But when the descent of Light-energy is intense, the disciple can dispense with the dialectical spiritual practices (of presence and absence) and effortlessly rest in the Bliss (or Blessing)-current from above.â€
In her book “The Holy Spirit and the Law of Three,†Bourgeault expounds upon Gurdjieff’s “Law of Three.†Unbeknownst to Bourgeault, the real “Law of Three†pertains to the dialectical spiritual practice of mystical Holy Communion, the true Eucharist. Presence is the the thesis, absence, or poverty (self-emptying), is the antithesis, and the en-Light-ening, or divinizing,
Energy of the Holy Spirit (the same Energy as Hindu Shakti and the Buddhist Sambhigakaya) is the synthesis. From the integral perspective of Plugged-in Presence, or true Holy Communion, the practice of Centering Prayer, as described by Bourgeault, is exclusive and reductive, dropping full (apophatic-cataphatic) Context, and instead emphasizing just the “poverty pole†of letting go.
Because this is just a book review and not a book, I will cut my critique of “Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening†short, and summarize it. In short, this is a deeply flawed and disintegral contemplation text that does not make the Spiritual Reading List that I provide in the books that I write.
[My 2-star Amazon review (NDA) of “Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening†by Cynthia Bourgeault.]
I first read “Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening†five years ago, immediately after I’d finished Thomas Keating’s “Open Mind, Open Heart.†While I thought that Keating’s text was a good basic introduction to spiritual meditation, I was unimpressed with Bourgeault’s book. My copy of her book went into storage not long after I read it, and I just received it two weeks ago. Because I recently reviewed Bourgeault’s text “The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three,†I was eager to re-read “Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening†and consider it in detail.
“Centering Prayer†is a misnomer for the meditation practice that Bourgeault teaches. The practice doesn’t involve centering or prayer. Rather, it is simply a Zen-like practice of releasing thoughts as soon as one catches oneself thinking them. One employs a “sacred word,†or phrase, such as “let go†or “trust God,†to help facilitate the release of mental content. While this type of “apophatic (or “via negativaâ€) practice is an essential component of true, or integral, contemplation, in and by itself it is non-integral, or exclusive-reductive, in nature. Bourgeault’s version of Centering Prayer differs from Keating’s, whose description of the practice is richer, fuller, and more spiritual. Keating, unlike Bourgeault, says that “Centering Prayer consists of the first two stages leading to “prayer in secret.†The latter consists of relating to God beyond thoughts, feelings and particular acts.†In Bourgeualt’s de-spiritualized version of Centering Prayer there is no relating to God and no receiving of what Keating calls the “sanctifying light†of the Spirit.
When I read Bourgeault, I sense that she is an un-baptized talking head who knows nothing about infused contemplation. Bourgeault quotes John 3:7: “You must be born from above,†but she fails to provide any information or insight about the descent of Divine Power, a sine qua non of Christian mysticism. Regarding infused contemplation, Bourgeault writes: “The ‘acquired/infused’ checkpoint is really engendered by the egoism that created the problem in the first place; it stipulates that in the final analysis power and control remain with God. This type of confusion is what ensues when one tries to describe an apophatic process using cataphatic reference points… What troubles me far more about this whole ‘acquired/infused’ dichotomy, however, is the fact that it rests on a theology of God as ‘out there,’ giving graces to some withholding them from others.â€
Unbeknownst to Bourgeault, the “acquired/infused†dichotomy is not a “problem†engendered by egoism. It is simply a description of spiritual practice before and after one is baptized by the Spirit, or reborn “from above.†God doesn’t give Grace, or Blessing Power, to some while withholding it from others. Rather, Grace is freely and Lawfully bestowed upon disciples according to their effort and ability to remain in relationship to God and let go of everything else.
Bourgeault summarizes her take on the “acquired/infused†dichotomy thus: “It is the consciousness itself that is the attained state of contemplation, and it is neither infused nor acquired, because it was never absent - only unrecognized.†Unbeknownst to Bougeault, the recognition of this “consciousness†is not possible without the infusion, or pouring down, of the Spirit; and this infusion is the natural progression following acquired contemplation. Romans 5.5 reads: "It is the Holy Spirit and it has been poured into your heart†- but Bourgeault has nothing to say about the Holy Spirit as the en-Light-ening agent that descends into one’s heart. Unbeknownst to Bourgeault, Divine Union is the union of this down-poured, or infused, Spirit Power with one’s soul (or consciousness), in one’s heart (the Sacred-Heart center). Upon the attainment of this Divine Union, one recognizes, or realizes, oneself as the Self, or Son, consubstantial with the Father, Divine Consciousness.
Bourgeault’s ignorance of mystical Christianity extends into the apophatic/cataphatic dichotomy. Simply put, she has a limited understanding of cataphatic spirituality, which she rejects in her Centering Prayer practice. She writes, “In Centering Prayer, then, we leave the cataphatic world and step completely into the apophatic ground, on its own terms.â€
According to Bougeault, cataphatic prayer is prayer that makes use of what theologians call our ‘faculties.†It engages our reason, memory, imagination, feelings and will.â€Â This is an exoteric interpretation of cataphatic spirituality. According to Wikipedia, “The word cataphatic itself is formed from two Greek words, "cata" meaning to descend and "femi" meaning to speak. Thus, to combine them translates the word roughly as "to bring God down in such a way so as to speak of him.†From an esoteric, or mystical, perspective, cataphatic spirituality is about descent of the Divine, and then “communicating†(really communing) with this descending Power, the Holy Spirit.
Bourgeault writes: “From the point of view of cataphatic prayer, silence will always tend to appear as an empty vessel into which God pours ‘content.’ The purpose of keeping silence from this perspective is to be better able to listen to whatever content God may wish to reveal.†Again, Bourgeault fails to understand that, from the radical cataphatic point of view, the “Content†one receives is not “content,†in the form of “insights†or “directivesâ€; rather, it is Divine “Context,†in the formless mode of Spirit Itself.
Interestingly enough, though the epitome of cataphatic spirituality is receiving the Benediction - Divine Grace, or Blessing Power, from above - neither Bourgeault nor the three Benedictine monks (Thomas Merton, John Main, or Thomas Keating ) who championed the restoration of the Christian contemplative tradition seem to understand this.
Before the development of Centering Prayer practice, Thomas Keating issued the following challenge to Christian monastic community: “Is it not possible to put the essence of the Christian contemplative path into a meditative method accessible to modern people living in the world?†The response, of course, was the Centering Prayer practice, but I contend that there is a quasi-Christian contemplative practice that is superior to Centering Prayer – Plugged-in Presence, which elevates the practice of mystical Eucharistic spirituality to its logical conclusion. Here is a brief description of the “dialectical†practice:
“The practices of presence and poverty constitute a dialectic, with presence (or relationship) as the thesis, absence (or inner emptiness) as the antithesis, and the descent of the Holy Spirit as the synthesis. In other words, the pressure of your conscious presence (or relational force) instigates your self-emptying (or surrendering), which “produces,†or pulls down, the Spirit, which deifies you, transforming you into a Self-realized, or Christ-like, being.
In engendering the descent of the Spirit, the two dialectical practices of presence (or relationship) and poverty (or absence) give birth to a third, synthesizing practice: the practice of power. The practice of presence is about connecting; the practice of poverty is about surrendering; and the practice of power, which integrates the practices of presence and poverty, is about receiving.
The practice of receiving the Holy Spirit synthesizes the practices of presence and poverty by, in effect, mediating them. Thus, instead of full attention being focused on either the act of being present or the act of being self-empty, the act of receiving, or conducting, the Spirit-current involves the artful integration of both these gestures. It involves the letting go of psychical content while simultaneously holding on to the context of connectedness. In order to instigate the drawing-down of Divine Power, the Holy Spirit, the disciple must sometimes emphasize the “pole of presence†(or relationship), and at other times the “pole of poverty†(or self-emptying). But when the descent of Light-energy is intense, the disciple can dispense with the dialectical spiritual practices (of presence and absence) and effortlessly rest in the Bliss (or Blessing)-current from above.â€
In her book “The Holy Spirit and the Law of Three,†Bourgeault expounds upon Gurdjieff’s “Law of Three.†Unbeknownst to Bourgeault, the real “Law of Three†pertains to the dialectical spiritual practice of mystical Holy Communion, the true Eucharist. Presence is the the thesis, absence, or poverty (self-emptying), is the antithesis, and the en-Light-ening, or divinizing,
Energy of the Holy Spirit (the same Energy as Hindu Shakti and the Buddhist Sambhigakaya) is the synthesis. From the integral perspective of Plugged-in Presence, or true Holy Communion, the practice of Centering Prayer, as described by Bourgeault, is exclusive and reductive, dropping full (apophatic-cataphatic) Context, and instead emphasizing just the “poverty pole†of letting go.
Because this is just a book review and not a book, I will cut my critique of “Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening†short, and summarize it. In short, this is a deeply flawed and disintegral contemplation text that does not make the Spiritual Reading List that I provide in the books that I write.
