Cynthina Bourgeault: Four Voices Method of Discernment

welcome to the four voices of contemplative discernment with Cynthia Bordeaux she'll be teaching this class with us as its maiden voyage she hasn't taught this anywhere else yet so contemporary journals very happy to have Cynthia and I just like to share with our viewers a little bit about what this class involves and and and this idea of contemplative discernment through the four voices is your original teaching we just describe it a tiny bit sure well it all began when I got outed in in an interview in the spring of 2014 I was talking with Terry Patton and his beyond Awakening wonderful series and he asked me to describe something of my own reaching discernment you know discernment is a huge issue in the spiritual paths that every tradition is well how do I make this decision how do I know what's right how is I know what's wrong so Terry and I were talking and I told him a little bit about this method that I've developed over my own on the year is called the four voices you know where I listen to different voices in my being and get their information and then get them into dialogue and get them into consensus and he said wow that's really neat and he put up his interview and then immediately people started writing in and say oh we love this method we want to know more about it can you teach a course in it and so I was absolutely thrilled katelyn contemplative journal when you came to me and said well this sounds interesting why don't we do a course on it because it its maiden work you know I worked into how to learn to do this and I knew more than I knew I knew that I knew but in putting together the the sessions that will be this course I really had to sit down and think about what it was that I knew how I knew it how the pieces worked and why they worked so you really allowed me to do some very important inner research and inner work which will be aired for the first time in this and it's I think it's a win win because it's it's new material that hasn't been brought out for audiences before and what's a better place to do that than in a in a small upcoming Journal that's really building a dedicated clientele of spiritual adventurers yet so practical and this is a great example of that how you go to the depths and bring in so many great resources that you've developed over the years but but what could be more fundamental than decision-making yeah exactly through each so so this idea of listening to the voices builds upon your work with Thomas Keating your kerchief work yeah and who is this for who in the world will benefit from taking this course well absolutely everybody you know uh yet whatever time and I've tried to write it I like what you say practical because that's the bottom line from what I've seen and I've studied over the years and worked really reasonably closely with at least four spiritual traditions I know my own Christian ground best but I've worked and you know Sufism Buddhism some Hinduism the ger g42 and it's always about decision making how do I know to go left or right go up or go down in the classic spiritual bodies of of tradition and Christianity the desert fathers and mothers probably about 60% on the material maybe even a tea is discernment of spirits how do I know whether this this information in me is coming from the devil or from God in the other major Christian method of decision making the the Ignatian method is a step by step method to lead us to - to listen to the voice of the Spirit so it's out there but you know when you decide are you gonna buy this house or not buy this house are you gonna marry this woman or marry this man or not do you send the kids to private school or public school do you what its its decision taken all the way and and I found you know the essence of the course is that most the methods of spiritual discernment that I've been familiar with up to the time of finding this method really were focused towards well finding the highest voice unmasking the ones that are false or pretentious or you know and then finding the highest and the truest and going with the highest and the truest but I I realized that that never worked for me that I'd find the highest and truest and then the lowest and untruths and all the others that hadn't been heard would sabotage what I was doing and so I wound up not only were the decision that wouldn't hold but but hating myself and saying boy I'm a failed spiritual practitioner you know I can't even make a simple decision and and it took a long time to realize that the problem was not that I was a failed decision-maker but I was really trying to solve decisions and do discernment using a an unrealistic grid and when I found the realistic grid that worked I found that I could make decisions actually pretty well and they'd stay put you know higher spirituality and then you know we look to teachers and think oh well they must know immediately what to do all the time and it's it's it's been very reassuring to me to go through this teaching with you and to see that at every phase in our spiritual development we have challenges and and and have to make these decisions I mean you look at the disciples and Jesus drawing loss yeah there's only one way to go yeah one answer you've given a more full-bodied approach to this and yet it does involve spiritual practice and surrender and faith well in order to be proactive so it's nine either/or yeah what's but tell us about the spiritual practice and how integral that is to its four voices well I would say that spiritual practice really integral because it's very very edgy in spirituality it's been edgy and spirituality for 2,500 years or more you know ever since the the you know the axial age shoved out the earth mothers and we've we've lived in a kind of grid that's right or wrong left to right and the idea that there's a ladder of spiritual ascent and that things we have to be climbing up it and that that lower is illusory and that we have to do it right all of these things kind of put us in a trash compactor so we get scared in decision-making it's got to be right it's got to be wrong it's any other and spiritual practice really allows us to relax and be spacious to restore a big mind that can hold all the pieces and can we can live our life like an explorer and an artist working in the medium of our life rather than as somebody who's marching along on this path to enlightenment and if you fall off it you're doomed it's a it's a much more gracious thing I don't know if it's like this for you Kate but I found that anything done out of fear doesn't work well and what spiritual practice does is it dissolves fear and allows you a much more spacious container in which to come to the natural sense of a situation teaching the technique and providing examples from your own life that really make it visible to us palpable we can all think of times in our life we've had to make these decisions and then you also teach the spiritual practice that helps us to embody and incorporate this this teaching in a way that I I think just watching you teach it on video I've learned but does it take time to develop this is this something it's not a quick fix but err but a process they're happy how can we look forward to learning from from you on this course in a month and then taking it beyond that well what I've done and up the course will have basically four segments to it and the first segment is a little short teaching 15-20 minutes that goes over and presents some phase of the method the the second part is the examples that come right out of my own life to kind of prime the pump and get people thinking about well that's always like that for me in my life too but they serve as teaching examples and then I give little slices of practices that come from the classic repertory of discernment practices and you'll find them in traditions around the world but things like meditation embodiment journal and journaling some of these practices that that really helped create and contain that that big mind container so the idea would be that that if you haven't experienced these practices before you be dabbling in them a little experimenting with them during the course and then when the course is over you've got the rest of your life to work to perfect your technique as it were and always that that kind of segment that online segment were though with writing in your comments and the online the more we can engage the normal benefit I think from your wisdom and and like Cynthia said she's been developing this technique in her own life over the past 20 years and has just now been prompted to share it with others and I can see great things coming and I'm very thankful to be a part of it and to have witnessed thus far the teaching that you think given I think if this is in some ways just the beginning that you you the the feedback that our students bring to this course will will will move move you forward I think so so yeah subscribe it this whole group is sort of the you know the crew on that maiden voyage where we co-create what comes next yeah we are co-creating this is a wonderful experiment and so I really invite any of you that are watching this video right now who might feel even slightly inclined to sign up and bring a friend the price is right the atmosphere is right and I think we're gonna have some fun my hope in it you know it overlaps certain kinds of spiritualities and I didn't know about the movement the teaching called voice dialogue when I did it it has some similarities with that but it's not the same it's a very different method for getting all the all the diverse opinions and contrary currents in our being running in one direction without dismantling any or disenfranchising any but trying to respect and and and listen and develop a sense of the meeting within out of which we can move out into peaceful action in the world so I'm really very interested to invite everybody to help break this a little bit more to fruition it's it's pretty close to fruition right now I as I put this together I think it's it it holds together it's it's not reading lecture notes off my churchly if I've I have a thread in it I know I'm going somewhere with it and it's a good place to go but I really look forward to joining in participation with others to make this thing a reality sermon with contemplatively coming this main thanks

Channel: Contemplative Journal

Views: 12,492

Rating: 4.888268 out of 5

Keywords: Cynthia Bourgeault, Bourgeault, Four voices, Four voices method of discernment, contemplative, contemplative journal, decision making, making the right decision, spiritual, spiritual practice, decision maker, discernment, realistic

Id: st6cDouTHz4

Length: 12min 55sec (775 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 19 2015