Ask Cynthia

Have you ever wished you could ask Cynthia for more information, or for clarification about something you read or heard? Here’s your chance.

Cynthia will periodically select from the questions submitted, and respond below.

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Some Recent and Past Questions

Concentrate Yourself

I have been working with the Gurdjieff exercises for the last year or so. Recently I’ve begun to experience a hazy sleepiness. Any ideas with what might be going on and how to work with this?

Am I Happy?

Does “Am I happy?” exist or even matter in an awakened state?

Longing for I-Thou relationship

I’m very grateful for my Buddhist and Vedic knowledge and experiences but I can’t find, and long for the I-Thou relationship with God. Any advice very gratefully received.

Seeking clarity on nondualistic monism

Feeling confused and seeking clarification on what sounds like a loss of identification between us and God once we let go of our false self, and how this relates to non-dualistic monism or modalism.

Did Teilhard miss the mark?

To what extent did Teilhard miss the mark? Ditto for Vigano. The “Truth” lies somewhere in between? Or does it?

Gurdjieff Exercises

When the Gurdjieff exercises were first introduced I tried out a few of them. How do you work with them?

Oneness

Greetings Cynthia,I just completed your online course, Introduction to Wisdom School (excellent!) and have a question about the concept of oneness. Why do you think this notion was overlooked in the Gospels and when did this occur? Was there pressure to keep a story that supported empire building and expansion of Christianity in a way…

Centering Prayer

Reverend, I’m a 60 something spiritual wanderer who is now considering becoming involved with Centering Prayer. I recently discovered a CP group that meets at an Episcopal parish near my home. However, I have a personal dilemma about this. I grew up in a Roman Catholic family and as an adult tried to deepen my…

Videos available

Hi Cynthia,Thanks for sharing your and other’s Wisdom to support us in engaging us with our own! I watched a series of videos near the end of 2019 of the Interspirituality gathering I believe in Aspen or near Snowmass. Are these videos still available? I was very moved by the series and would like to…

Vipassana

Dear Cynthia, A friend is doing a 10-day Vipassana retreat right now, and I wondered what your take is on this kind of intensive retreat – they meditate about 11 hours/day for 10 days. There is no communication between retreatants until the 10th day. I know you advise your students to do no more than…

Cosmic Campfire

Hi Cynthia, This morning I listened to your Cosmic Campfire interview, and as happens so often, I felt deeply grateful for your clarity and willingness to challenge and break new ground (here, speaking of the discomfort with panentheism and instead working with Pannikar’s cosmotheandry.) My question, though, goes back to your essay last spring titled…

Oblate path

Hello Cynthia, If you were to run through your path again would you pursue the oblate path, and where… near your home or one that is a better fit. Ideas of which ones you see as fitting best with wisdom school? And, Are the Wisdom schools intro being taught by anyone you have directed? If…

Long term monastery

Cynthia, I’m a former Buddhist & I’m a newcomer to contemplative Christianity. Came to it by way of Richard Rohr’s videos. To live in a long term monastery setting while immersing in contemplation is what my spirit & my mind needs. Please, there is too much information. What/where do you suggest? Grief. Result of being…

Satellites

Do internet EMF fields are facilitating the spread of the contagion?

Jesus resurrected?

In your view, was the historical Jesus of Nazareth physically resurrected from the dead three days after his death on the cross, as the Gospels describe? ~ Craig Wow!! That’s an even tighter noose than “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” But in my view, it is indeed physically possible for the historical…

Centering Prayer

Dear Cynthia, I have a question about Centering Prayer and attention. In your books, you make a distinction between “attention” and “intention”-based practice. Coming from Buddhist background, I am familiar with attention-based methods such as following the breath or focusing on a koan (in Zen tradition). However, my practice has always gravitated towards “open awareness”…

Development of a soul beyond this life

G’day, Having read your articles on the Developmental Soul (and related), I have struggled to understand how this flows with Richard Rohr’s (and many others) alternative orthodoxy. At the age of 13 I was placed under the teaching that told me that I was fundamentally separate to God. I believed this fully and it has…

Less drama

My journey into evolutionary Christianity and centering prayer has felt like a prolonged version of Neo’s (The Matrix, 1st movie) departure from the matrix and into the Realm of the Real. The last few months have been quite intense. Like a faulty fluorescent light, sometimes the contrasting difference between these two perceptions of reality (asleep…

Buddha by the Gas Pump

Dear Cynthia, I recently enjoyed listening to the interview with you on “Buddha by the Gas Pump,” but you said one thing that keeps coming back to me. In response to the question whether spiritual practices prepares one for receiving God into one’s heart, you said yes and no. Of course, the yes answer seems…

Ramon Jusino

Our centering prayer group has been watching your dvd on the divine feminine and the divine masculine. You mentioned someone whose first name is Raymond who has proposed the idea that the Gospel of John may have had a prototext written by Mary Magdalene. Can you give me the author’s full name and the title…

Jesus as a child

May I add my thanks to dozens of others’ for our last Wisdom School. A question which has excersized my mind for years (and which gets dismissed when I try to share it with others) is this: when Jesus was a child, many must have known that He was the unwitting “cause” of the massacre…

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