Encounter

Ancient streams coursed through the early church, bathing souls in a non-dual awareness. The Desert mystics drank deeply, as did Celtic sages and hesychasts of the East. Monastics from Benedict to Bernard carried these living waters through centuries in a great underground aquifer of contemplation.

In cloistered stillness, they were taught to transcend the divided mind, resting in unified presence. Divine radiance revealed through the Cloud of Unknowing. John of the Cross and Teresa carved luminous aqueducts for these ever-flowing depths. But in time, rationality’s concrete dammed the mystic rivers.

Amid reformation and enlightenment, minds ossified around dogma and debates. To prove our prowess, we imbibed dualistic philosophies while garbing them in devout robes. Mired in us-versus-them thinking, we drained the unifying wellsprings that once replenished our creeds. Our sophisticated utterances rang hollow, divorcing us from the very heart that enlivened our founders’ teachings.

Yet grace could never be contained. Throughout all eras, pure souls rediscovered the way of non-dual luminosity through life’s crucible of love and anguish. Purified of self-enclosure, they emerged bearing that unsealed, all-embracing gaze that comes from beholding the One in all. No combative proofs but simple clarity, a peaceful abiding in the Real.

Now, after centuries untaught, this ancient way rushes back into consciousness, revoiced through new teachings and disciplines worldwide. We re-encounter the very mind that animated Jesus, Paul, mystics across traditions – the non-dual awareness that allows us to live undivided, draining all pockets of fear, enjoying union with God, others, ourself.

We awaken to our shared source in that eternal stream which, no matter how crystallized our traditions become, flows deathlessly beneath, whispering an ever-present invitation to drink, to merge, and to become that which we most fully are.