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Cynthia Bourgeault
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The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind--A New Perspective on Christ and His Message Kindle Edition

by Cynthia Bourgeault (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 906 ratings
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A new view of Jesus as a Buddha-like wisdom teacher who taught the transformation of consciousness—with traditional contemplative practices you can do yourself
 
If you put aside what you think you know about Jesus and approach the Gospels as though for the first time, something remarkable happens: Jesus emerges as a teacher of the transformation of consciousness.
 
The Wisdom Jesus provides a new perspective on Christ and an expansive interpretation of His message. Cynthia Bourgeault creates a masterful guide to Jesus's vision and the traditional contemplative practices you can use to experience the heart of his teachings for yourself.
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  1. Print length
    239 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Shambhala
  5. Publication date
    August 12, 2008
  6. File size
    468 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"There are few spiritual teachers who give us genuinely fresh insight, but even fewer who give us the tools so we can come to those insights for ourselves. Cynthia Bourgeault does both, and does them very well!"—Richard Rohr, OFM, author of  Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer

"A masterful work. Cynthia Bourgeault invites us to follow Jesus's path of self-emptying love, and she describes wisdom practices that we Christians can use every day to transform our own minds so that we too can see with the eyes of Christ."—Jim Marion, author of Putting on the Mind of Christ 

"Bourgeault centers her expansive house of wisdom in the sayings and extraordinary death of the gospel Jesus as she turns light and darkness into a living poetry of self-emptying vision."—Willis Barnstone, author of  The Other Bible, coauthor of The Gnostic Bible

About the Author

CYNTHIA BOURGEAULT is a modern-day mystic, Episcopal priest, and theologian. She divides her time between solitude at her seaside hermitage in Maine and traveling globally to promote the rediscovery of the Christian contemplative path. She is a core faculty member at the Center for Action and Contemplation and founding director of an international network of Wisdom Schools. Cynthia's articles and essays have appeared in many journals and publications, and she is the author of numerous books, including The Wisdom Jesus, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three, and The Heart of Centering Prayer.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B005DXOM62
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Shambhala (August 12, 2008)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 12, 2008
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 468 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 239 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 906 ratings

About the author

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Cynthia Bourgeault

Cynthia Bourgeault

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Cynthia Bourgeault has studied and taught in a number of Benedictine monasteries in the United States and Canada. An Episcopal priest, she is well known as a retreat and conference leader, teacher of prayer, and writer on the spiritual life. She is the author of a number of books, including Mystical Hope.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
906 global ratings
No page numbers in Kindle version--only location numbers.
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No page numbers in Kindle version--only location numbers.
Annoyed that page numbers don't exist in Kindle version. This makes it difficult to follow along with a book study guide that calls out page numbers. All my other Kindle books show both page numbers and location numbers.
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Top reviews from the United States

Elizabeth A. Skeen
5.0 out of 5 stars This book has been a life-changer for me
Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2018
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I am not religious. I am not academic and this is certainly not a book I would have searched out or read on my own were it not brought directly to me by unexplained events. My husband and I were actually attending a meditation retreat when I randomly picked this book up in their library while waiting for dinner one evening. It was hidden among my more familiar authors of Marianne WIlliamson and Eckart Tolle. I am not sure WHY I picked it up other than it being Divinely led TO me. I am confident ANY other time that I'd scan the back of the book to have read Cynthia Bourgeault was a Episcopal priest I would have immediately placed it back on the shelf. (organized religion is not my cup of tea) I know for sure any other time I'd have flipped through the book to see the highly intelligent "academic" type writing style, I also would have put it down...but something made me carry this book over to the nearest chair to start reading...and I couldn't put it down. Clear, deep and profound insights into new ways of inviting thought provoking new ways of looking at Jesus and the messages he's left for us. It's been a new "wow" for me and opened up a whole new world of thought. This book, and the wisdom of Cynthia's teachings, have been like hiring my own personal coach & spiritual leader, urging me on to walk the walk of Godliness as Jesus really taught. I have since been into several of her books and have loved them all.
120 people found this helpful
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L. Booth
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Interesting, but not traditional, view of Jesus' teaching.
Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2015
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With modern historical research, much of the Bible is found to be altered or written specifically to make certain items work the way canon is desired. (See historical research of Bible elsewhere.) Here, the author is proposing that Jesus did NOT want a separate religion from Judaism, but rather wanted others to enter the "Kingdom of Heaven" while in this world. Reading His statements in this light does put His words into a different context. The author uses her interpretation to give new meaning to the "Kingdom of Heaven" and how to access it in this world. This book would be heretical to those who believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, yet it makes sense of much of Jesus' words related to the "Kingdom." If you hold to the Pauline interpretation of Gospel [that the only way to heaven is through the cross, and risen Christ], then you will NOT be happy with this book. HOWEVER, if you are looking for a way to make your life more meaningful, then this book may be what you are looking for. Her thesis is that Jesus was calling for a direct experience of union with GOD, and not a belief system. She uses the later chapters to assist one in achieving this union. I found it to be very insightful and useful for me.
60 people found this helpful
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M. Baker
5.0 out of 5 stars Helps One Connect with a Living Christ that is here now.
Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2009
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Cynthia's new book is a means to letting go of the dogma and encountering the presence of the risen Christ now, and now, and now again. She also helps explain why this is so, at least as best as a human intellect can explain it. She invites you to move beyond what you know. Would you have followed him if you met him before he had risen? Would you have understood him even? Do you even understand what he is saying now?

She takes what he said and reveals the non-dual core to his insight and teachings. That insight that forms the spine to all his moral imperatives to love. She reveals how in fact he was and is One with the Father, and what does that mean? And how are we one with the father?

It has to do with what you realize, or make real, and recognize, as she says, about yourself, God and the world.

Other than the book, Putting on the Mind of Christ, I have seen no work that actually allows a Christian entry into the deep process of awakening the mind and heart to the spirit within.

Good luck and enjoy it.
14 people found this helpful
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JC
4.0 out of 5 stars Pearls of insight
Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2013
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Bourgeault has written pearl of a book here. I highly recommend this book for those who are seeking to explore and live the Gospel's deep and eternal wisdom. Indeed, for those who wish to embrace and walk the path of Kenosis - this book is for you. There are points within the work of absolute and stunning revelation. One of the highlights was on the topic of the Passion and here below you can get a really good sense of her style and approach.

".......he sat there with the ugliness and the pain, the fear, the egos Jesus was surrounded by, the darkness, the deepest most alienated and most constricted states of pained consciousness.....Jesus was sitting there with the faces of the collective false self.....The anguish of Judas, the indecision of Pilate, the cowardice of Peter, the sanctimony of the Pharisees....Jesus was sitting there in the midst of all the blackness, in all the shallow manipulative egocentrism the world could throw at him, not judging, not fixing, just sitting there, letting it be in love........and in so doing - he Jesus, was allowing love to go deeper, pressing all the way to the innermost ground out of which the opposites arise and holding that to the light (p 123)."

I found her book provided positive hope and a practical path of living and embracing the Gospel truth - it's a bingo for me!
12 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Seriously thought provoking
Reviewed in Canada on March 6, 2023
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Mind altering and intelligent. I have had serious challenges to the works and life of the teacher, Jesus, as written in the Bible. This book gives me a whole new perspective on the Wisdom of his life and message. 5 stars.
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Volpeblu
5.0 out of 5 stars Geniale
Reviewed in Italy on February 4, 2024
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Da pratiche per arrivare alla coscienza di ciò che parla. Una guida e mistica straordinaria.
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Eleanor Stoneham
5.0 out of 5 stars Are we ignoring the real message of Jesus?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 13, 2012
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What is wrong with modern Christianity? Did Christianity get off on the wrong foot almost from its inception? That is the thesis of this thought provoking and challenging book, a fascinating new take on the Jesus Christ we thought we were familiar with.

The starting point of the book is the Gospel of Thomas, restored to us when it was found among the Nag Hammadi scrolls in the Egyptian desert in 1945. These scrolls date back to early Christianity, being at least as old as the four canonical gospels, now widely regarded as the authentic teachings of Jesus, and give us a radical new take on Jesus and the metaphysics of his teaching.
Referring also to the 1960s Syriac studies, the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls, Celtic poetry, Chinese Jesus Sutras, the African desert fathers, and so on, the author convincingly argues that the familiar Christian creeds and doctrines put together in the fourth century get in the way of understanding Jesus as a master in ancient spiritual wisdom, who was teaching the meltdown and recasting, the transformation, of human consciousness. This is the Eastern-like wisdom path of Jesus the life giver, a Jesus who is like us, calling us to put on the mind of Christ, telling us that the Kingdom of Heaven is a metaphor for a state of consciousness, a transformed awareness, a nondual or unitive consciousness, of divine abundance. There is then no separation between God and human, between human and human, all dwelling together in mutual loving reciprocity. The Kingdom of Heaven is within us and at hand, here and now, something we awaken into, not die into. This contrasts with the Pauline image of Jesus as Savior, who died for our sins, who is different from us, and has come to atone for mankind's depravity.

Today in Western Christian tradition we rely too much on logic, and doctrine and dogma. The author challenges these Western assumptions about Christianity and Christ, as she reminds us that whilst Christians take the events surrounding the resurrection as basic to their faith, the apostles who chose to follow Jesus knew nothing of what the future held. They had to see something else in this man, and we are long overdue, she writes, for a re-evaluation of how we understand the Jesus events and our religion based thereon, and of us understanding Christianity as a spiritual contemplative tradition. Indeed we see the first hopeful signs of this transformation.

The author examines our familiar Christian stories in this new light, as radical calls for the transformation of our consciousness; indeed shows how some of them become more readily understood within this new context. Jesus came to transform our brain led egoic operating system into a non-dual unitive system that is led by the heart, an organ of spiritual perception. In this light "repent" means to "go beyond the mind", or "into the larger mind", which is somewhat different from our classic understanding of repentance.

The book's thesis is lucidly explained step by step through Parts 1 and 2, respectively the Teachings of Jesus, and the Mysteries (Incarnation, Passion, Crucifixion, and the Great Easter Fast (not a spelling error!). It concludes in Part Three with core Christian wisdom practices available to us all; Centering Prayer Meditation, Lectio Divina, Chanting and Psalmody, and the Welcoming Prayer, the last being a pathway of vibrant spiritual strength and creativity connecting us to our energetic fields. The author takes us through these practices in detail, step by step. If we are diligent with these practices she tells us that we will find, as Jesus promised for ears who could hear, that the spirit lies within each one if us, connecting with reality and with each other.

The core Christian practice of the Eucharist can then be seen as more than a cultic ritual, experienced within the lower mythic or rational ranges of consciousness (as per Ken Wilber). It can instead be recognized as being at heart a wisdom practice originating from a non dual level of consciousness, when the celebration comes into its own.

I loved this book. I have already read it twice! As a Christian who has thought much and written something myself about the possible interface between new ideas on consciousness and the spirituality within religion, especially Christianity, this book is a breath of fresh air. Mainstream Christianity is losing ground, losing sight of the real gospel message of Jesus, the Jesus who came first and foremost as a teacher of the path of inner transformation, the deep level of consciousness he was trying to tell us about, a spiritual path that is found through self-emptying kenosis.
Christianity is either destined to change and grow into a proper form to match the consciousness of the twenty first century: or it will disappear as an institution and we shall then be left face to face with the naked presence of Christ.
56 people found this helpful
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Tom Stuart
5.0 out of 5 stars An invitation into transformation.
Reviewed in Australia on November 9, 2015
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This is my all time favourite book.Cynthia opens doorways that lets back in the mutli-dimensional experience of Jesus. At a time that science speculates the possibility of many more than 3 dimensions of our universe the confines of western thought are being open again to the greater reach of the experience of Jesus. Bourgeault's intellectual dedication and spiritual sensitivities satiate both mind and heart in the reading of this book. Being exposed to a larger universe of Christ experience this book invites transformation.
2 people found this helpful
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DanMark
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
Reviewed in Canada on October 20, 2017
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Cynthia Bourgeault is a master teacher and manages to shed light on an enigma so well shrouded in misunderstandings. Such a thought provoking book with healing effect.
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