Ken Wilber offers a special teaching to awaken Christ Consciousness within your own heart and mind, right here and right now.

Ken Wilber begins this teaching by reminding us of the five states of consciousness and the depths of wisdom and experience that each provides. While all five states of consciousness are important, in this teaching on Christ Consciousness Ken spends the majority his time exploring the qualities of the fourth state of consciousness, Turiya, and the fifth state of consciousness, Turiyatita, for it is in these states that our Christ Consciousness truly begins to emerge. Ken also leads us in two practices: a simple awareness practice to set the ground for your exploration, and Douglas Harding’s “having no head” practice that suggests a potential path into your unity experience of Christ Consciousness.

One of the main themes of the Return to the Heart inquiry is looking at and feeling into the unique contemplative contribution that Christian practice offers us. As Ken points out in this teaching, Buddhism tends to focus on emptying the mind, while Christianity tends to emphasize a particular quality of relatedness that imbues warmth and connectedness with all, even into a non-dual state of unity. Love is the all-purpose solvent that dissolves our separateness. This unique blend of emptying the mind while cultivating love in the heart is precisely what we will be exploring at the Return to the Heart conference, pointing the way to a more comprehensive and inclusive practice of Christian spirituality that brings renewed life to the commandment brought forth by Jesus Christ, “Love thy enemy as thy self.”

Image: Cosmic Christ by Alex Grey [+view gallery]

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