On Non-Dualism...Unitive Being


Forgive me for falling back on a wisdom post from  “From Centering Prayer Retreat,” as part of In A Spacious Place done by Cynthia Bourgeault. I find it so beautifully true and close to the heart of our study of Saint Theresa…

Dualistic consciousness cannot experience unitive being. As long as you want to hang on to the experience/experiencer dualism and revel in all these experiences, this is where you will be stopped. No matter how good it feels, you will be stuck at the illuminative level (between purgative and unitive). The illuminative stage is characterized by a contented ego that has wonderful mysterious unitive experiences. But you are having experiences. You can go further than this dualistic consciousness which can have unitive experiences but cannot be unitive consciousness.
You don’t need to stop at the illuminative. You can move right through it to the place where you suspend the subject/object dualism, become unitive being and then flow back into the personal from the wholeness. Then you operate in the world as a true saint who wears personal consciousness as a dress, as a mantle, as a kind of ornament and knows that it is necessary as service in this life, to wear the ornament. But you are not confused for a moment that you are that.
Form comes and goes but you as consciousness is deeper than any form. And you know that so clearly that it allows you to go through life clinging to nothing. The great investments, the things you build, you can leave at a moment’s notice. There are no hooks any more. You’re not doing anything to express yourself, or assert yourself, or acquire yourself. Therefore, you’re not manipulating anything. You’re not lying. You’re not trying to make the cosmos be the way you want it to be because you know that place where you can flow with Being itself and that nothing is lost; everything is…
The universe is drenched in Divine Wisdom….The only thing that causes us to miss it is our preoccupation with our psychological self. As we clear away the veils created by clinging to our own story, we breathe deep breaths of this Wisdom.


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