I don’t believe I’m overstating it when I say that only the contemplative mind can help bring forward the new consciousness needed…
Dear Friend,
A phrase I used a lot back when I first started teaching contemplation was the idea associated with Albert Einstein that no problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it.
I don’t believe I’m overstating it when I say that only the contemplative mind can help bring forward the new consciousness needed to awaken a more loving, just, and sustainable world. We need a practice that touches our unconscious conditioning where all our wounds and defense mechanisms lie. That’s the only way we can be changed at any significant or lasting level.
Because we’ve got to be honest — the dualistic, calculating, and judging mind is almost exclusively the way most of us Western people think. This gives us false superiority, false security, and false righteousness. Is it any wonder why our culture, politics, and religion are in the state that they are in?
Nevertheless, I still have hope. I always will. More and more people are discovering contemplation as a way of being, reconciling, and bridge-building guided by their inner experience of God. We’re not throwing out our rational mind, but rather we’re adding nondual, contemplative consciousness. When we have both, we’re able to see more deeply, wisely, and justly. This creates humble people, loving people, and patient people.
Thank you for being one of these people and for caring deeply about this work. The Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) is not funded by any large institution or foundation but by people like you who give freely and joyfully to support it. Through your support, we can help more people become contemplative instruments of love and transformation in this suffering world.
Please read the letter below from CAC’s Executive Director, Michael Poffenberger, about the important opportunities ahead. Tomorrow, the Daily Meditations return to explore the spiritual journey of homecoming.
Peace and Every Good,
Dear Friend,
When you look at the state of the world, it is clear that business as usual will not cut it. As a global community, we are facing a complex set of interrelated challenges. We need to approach these challenges from a different mind (contemplation) to find a way forward that recognizes all life as sacred, precious, and connected.
At the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC), we aim to serve as a catalyzing force for change of consciousness inside Christianity and each of our communities. By working towards our vision of transformed people helping to transform our world, we are part of a movement that seeks to recover Jesus’ focus on nondual thinking, simplicity of lifestyle, nonviolence, love of creation and the healing of our beautiful and suffering world. Over the next few years, our work at CAC will focus on sustaining and growing this impact for future generations. Excitingly, this is already in motion, thanks to the support and generosity of people like you.
We specifically appreciate those of you who have chosen to give to CAC every month to support this work. Your consistent support provides the confidence, resources, and stability needed to invest significantly in expanding our team, technology, faculty, and ability to offer more programs “in the gift” so that money is never the barrier to access for any sincere student.
If you are able, I would like to invite you to consider joining the Bonaventure Circle of Support, CAC’s growing community of monthly givers, making Christian contemplative wisdom more accessible to a new generation of spiritual seekers. With your ongoing support, more people will experience the transformative power of the contemplative path and discover their belovedness in God—many for the very first time.
As we navigate the incredible challenges and opportunities of the next few years, our highest aim is to honor and share the best parts of the Christian tradition and the traditions of others so that this contemplative wisdom might serve the flourishing of humanity, all beings, and all of creation.
We thank you for your partnership and support in this mission and journey.
In loving gratitude,
Michael Poffenberger
Executive Director
Center for Action and Contemplation
P.S. You can donate securely online at cac.org/dm-appeal or send a check (USD only) to CAC, P.O. Box 12464, Albuquerque, NM 87195. Donations are tax-deductible in the United States. EIN # 85-0354965. We invite donations of any size. Learn more about other ways to give, including gifts of stock, qualified distributions from your IRA, or a gift in your will at cac.org/support. Please contact us here if you have any questions or want to discuss making a transformational gift. Thank you for your ongoing support!
