Mirabai Starr – In the Footsteps of Teresa of Avila

The gateway to the interior realms is a contemplative practice. By our willingness to shift our awareness within and rest in stillness and silence, we begin to disengage from the lure of thoughts and embrace the truth of what is. Once we open to the sacred suchness of the moment, a clearer sense of self naturally arises, and we are empowered to look upon our authentic essence with humility and appreciation.

In this module, you will:

• Establish a regular contemplative practice that fits with your unique way of being.
• Learn methods for self-inquiry that help you be present to what is.
• Come to understand what it means to be a contemplative, and apply those values to your daily life (not limited to formal meditation practice).
• Experience the infusion of the sacred into the ordinary when you commit to a contemplative path.
• Develop courage to face the obstacles that arise when you commit to the spiritual path.

Featured Practice: Make a commitment to sit in silence and stillness on a regular basis, whether half an hour every morning or 10 minutes three times a week. Recognize that meditation is not about not thinking – it’s about being present to what is, allowing a spaciousness to open around your thoughts and feelings, an ability to bear witness to your own experience, and “not believe everything you think.

As we become more intimate with our inner landscape, the clamor of the external world diminishes and the song of the soul grows clearer. We are more able to distinguish between superficial dogma and living wisdom. We begin to recognize the voice of the Beloved in the books we read, in the spiritual talks we listen to, in deep dialogue with loved ones and spontaneous conversations with strangers. Everywhere we turn we seem to receive confirmation of the exact teaching we need, and the interconnections fill us with wonder.

In this module, you will:

• Develop increased discernment for determining the validity of various teachings.
• Open to receiving the abundant messages from the Beloved you need to guide you on your path.
• Heighten your receptivity to synchronicities in your life and their gifts.
• Deepen your commitment to spiritual practice, even when it doesn’t produce the spiritual “highs” that initially motivated you on your path.

Featured Practice: Engage in deep reflection on a chosen sacred scripture, poem, piece of music, film, or audio or video teaching that moves you. Journal your response.

Sometimes we take the spiritual life too seriously. We learn some things, have a few epiphanies, sacrifice our comfort for the rigors of practice, and begin to think we know the Truth. We put the Holy One into a box and smother it. Everything that once brought inspiration then feels dry and empty. This is our opportunity to surrender our belief systems and rest in the Mystery.

In this module, you will:

• Soften around your cherished belief systems to allow for new perspectives.
• Gain a new understanding of what mysticism really is.
• Study the spiritual teachings of The Dark Night of the Soul from John of the Cross for guidance on navigating spiritual emptiness.
• Become truly comfortable with the many blessings of groundlessness.

Featured Practice: Make a list of the spiritual practices and religious concepts you feel most attached to-either through inherited conditioning or personal experience. Create a corresponding list of questions and challenges for each. Journal the fruits of this inquiry.

Once we shift from trying to figure God out with our minds to focusing on feeling God in our hearts, a spaciousness opens inside us and we enter a place of sweet stillness. This stage represents the balance point of the spiritual journey. We have three stations behind us, in which we attain spiritual development largely through our own efforts, and three stations lie ahead, in which grace takes over.

In this module, you will:

• Practice heart-centered meditation techniques to help you more fully experience the expansion of the Beloved in your heart, not your mind.
• Learn about the active and passive stages of the spiritual journey, and how you can determine which stage you may be experiencing.
• Explore St. Teresa of Avila’s “3 waters” teaching and how it applies in your life.
• Taste the freedom that comes when we drop our need to fix ourselves and allow ourselves to abide in a sacred field.

Featured Practice: Guided Metta Meditation.

This is the phase in which the silkworm of the soul spins itself a cocoon and climbs inside to dissolve. It is only when the old self is annihilated that the true self can emerge. In her suspended state, the soul rests in the Divine, and the Divine rests in her. The soul experiences this dying as a great joy.

In this module, you will:

• Study the inter-spiritual teachings of self-annihilation and how they might apply to you personally.
• Identify aspects of your false self that need to be released in order for your metamorphosis to transpire.
• Explore St. Teresa of Avila’s “butterfly” metaphor and how it is reflected in your life.
• See your personal relationships as a reflection of your growing intimacy with the Beloved.

Featured Practice: Create a work of butterfly art – a drawing, painting, poem, play, dance, song, video, sculpture, or any other creative project that reflects the transformational power of the butterfly.

In this phase, the lover (soul) experiences longing for union with the Beloved (God) as a searing pain. Often the person who has navigated the spiritual path deep into the landscape of Mystery begins to suffer from various outer afflictions that correspond to the inner fire. People at this stage may grapple with numerous illnesses and multiple losses, all of which intensify their sense of alienation from this world. And yet “an ineffable sweetness” lies just below the surface of the turmoil, and the soul knows she is growing closer to the Holy One.

In this module, you will:

• Explore the connection between personal loss and spiritual longing.
• Understand spiritual longing and the connection between personal loss and the longing for God/union with the Divine.
• Learn to approach suffering as alchemical transfiguration.
• Use your sense of separation as a portal to access union.
• Receive a more spiritual and practical understanding of how to deal with grief and loss, using them as a catalyst for your spiritual opening.

Featured Practice: Gather poems of loss and transformation and create a collection that you can add to on an ongoing basis.

When at last lover (soul) merges with Beloved, only love remains. The challenge of the spiritual journey is to get out of our own way and allow the Holy One to love through us. As distinctions between self and God begin to dissolve, we experience our essential interconnectedness with all that is. Once we have experienced this melding, our only remaining desire is to help alleviate suffering in the world. Raptures, visions and other altered states of consciousness fall away, and we find ourselves squarely in the center of the human condition, ready to step up and be useful.

In this module, you will:

• Explore inter-spiritual perspectives on compassionate action, the Bodhisattva Vow and the connection between contemplative practice and service.
• Expand your conception of what it means to be of service.
• Discern between charity dispensed to those we perceive as having (or being) less, and compassion based on the realization of our essential unity with those who suffer.
• Find a healthy balance between personal spiritual practice and loving service.

Featured Practice: Through guided meditation, develop a plan of action to engage in service Be creative. It can be a local effort or a global one. It may not look like your preconceived notion of social or environmental activism. Find your authentic prophetic response.