Awakening Universe Emerging Personhood

The Power of Contemplation In An Evolving Universe

By: Mary Conrow Coelho

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

Science has developed an astounding account of our vast emerging cosmos, from its initial great flaring forth some 13 billion years ago to the present diversity and beauty of our garden planet, the Earth, and its magnificent surroundings. The new story carries within itself profound implications for human self-understanding, which are gradually being explored and appreciated. In this book the new story is integrated with the insights and deeply personal discoveries of the Western contemplative traditions and the depth psychologies, resulting in a powerful new vision. Humanity's most profound spiritual hopes and hungers are addressed within the context of an embrace of our ancient embeddedness in the earth. It is urgent that this vision be grasped in order that people may face the great personal and ecological demands of the new millennium with wisdom, energy and creativity. Much is at stake, for the price of the separation from the natural order and from awareness of the sacred depth of things has been immense. The book has five sections. The first is an exploration of the universe story and its cosmic yet intimate implications. We are invited in the second section, through the work of Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, and others as examples, to appreciate the discoveries of the contemplative tradition and its assertion that we only find the fullness of our creativity and productive power by entering into the contemplative life. To develop a foundation for the integration of this tradition with the new story, there follows a section on contemporary understandings of matter, the plenum or generative "emptiness" (also designated Abyss/God or Al1-Nourishing Abyss) and the generation of form through self-organizing processes. The latter is key to an understanding of soul in the contemporary context. Some reflections on unity and diversity and the Trinitarian insight are included. But why is it often so elusive to realize the fullness of human identity? Through a consideration of psychological woundedness and splitting, we examine our profound loss of primary connection and awareness of belonging to the human community, and to the natural world and its sacred depths. The final section explores a pathway to personal healing and full expression of personhood, a process that involves an evolutionary change in consciousness. Out of this, a person may enter the depth of human subjectivity as a knowing participant in the emerging whole, and become capable of making an conscious, creative contribution to the direction of the future unfolding of the universe.