We flow into God—and God into us—because it is the nature of love to flow … The whole and the part live together in mutual, loving reciprocity, each belonging to the other and dependent on the other to show forth the fullness of love.
Cynthia Bourgeault
The Whole and the Part
Topic: Immanence & Transcendence
There is no separation between humans and God because of this mutual interabiding which expresses the indivisible reality of divine love. We flow into God—and God into us—because it is the nature of love to flow … The whole and the part live together in mutual, loving reciprocity, each belonging to the other and dependent on the other to show forth the fullness of love.
Cynthia Bourgeault (born March 13, 1947, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States) is an Episcopal priest, modern-day mystic, teacher of Christian contemplation, and author. She studied medieval studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Ohio State University, focusing on early music and liturgical drama. Her early experiences of silence at a Quaker school influenced her lifelong interest in contemplative spirituality. Ordained in the Episcopal Church in 1979, she combined her Christian vocation with a deep openness to other traditions, studying Sufism, Tibetan Buddhism, and G. I. Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way.
Her contemplative path deepened in 1990 at a Centering Prayer retreat with Thomas Keating, after which she became his student, editor, and colleague for nearly thirty years. She was also shaped by the guidance of hermit monk Raphael Robin and Benedictine writer Bruno Barnhart. From these roots she helped form communities dedicated to Wisdom Christianity, co-founding The Contemplative Society in British Columbia and serving as founding director of the Aspen Wisdom School. She is also a member of the Global Peace Initiative for Women’s Contemplative Council, where she supports interspiritual dialogue and peace work.
Cynthia Bourgeault divides her time between a hermitage on a small island off the coast of Maine and her global teaching commitments. She is core faculty emerita at the Center for Action and Contemplation and continues to guide the Wisdom Waypoints network. Her books, including The Wisdom Jesus, Mystical Hope, and The Heart of Centering Prayer, explore how immanence and transcendence meet in daily life. In 2021, Watkins Review named her among the 100 most spiritually influential living people. She remains dedicated to what she calls “the path of Wisdom,” a way of living that unites contemplative practice, interspiritual learning, and embodied presence.
Bourgeault, Cynthia. “We flow into God—and Go into us…” Friends of Silence, Friends of Silence, [date not given], excerpt from “It is the nature of love to flow” segment.
Cynthia Bourgeault
Theme: Everyday Divinity
About This Cynthia Bourgeault Quotation [Commentary]
Cynthia Bourgeault presents Jesus’ teaching on Oneness as a vision of mutual indwelling. He is not claiming an “equivalency of being,” but describing a relationship in which “I am in God, God is in you, you are in God, we are in each other.” For Bourgeault, this is not an abstract mystical idea but the heart of divine love. The mutuality is made visible in Jesus’ words from John’s Gospel: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Abide in me as I in you.” What stands out is not self-divinization, but participation in an ongoing, relational reality.
This flow of life between the human and the divine is rooted in love. As Bourgeault writes, “We flow into God—and God into us—because it is the nature of love to flow.” Divine love is not static; it moves, circulates, and fills. Jesus extends this flow outward: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” In these words, Bourgeault highlights the way love unites transcendence and immanence. God is utterly beyond us, yet immediately present in the intimate act of abiding and receiving.
The metaphor of vine and branches captures this reciprocal relationship. “The vine gives life and coherence to the branch while the branch makes visible what the vine is.” The divine life is sustained through the whole, and expressed through the parts. For Bourgeault, “the whole and the part live together in mutual, loving reciprocity, each belonging to the other and dependent on the other to show forth the fullness of love.” This vision affirms the inseparability of human and divine, not as possession or privilege, but as an invitation into communion.
Cynthia Bourgeault
When Jesus talks about Oneness, he is not speaking in an Eastern sense about an equivalency of being, such that I am in and of myself divine. Rather, what he has in mind is a complete, mutual indwelling: I am in God, God is in you, you are in God, we are in each other. His most beautiful symbol for this is in John 15 where he says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Abide in me as I in you.” A few verses later he says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” While he does indeed claim that “the Father and I are one” (John 10:30)—a statement so blasphemous to Jewish ears that it nearly gets Jesus stoned—he does not see this as an exclusive privilege but as something shared by all human beings. There is no separation between humans and God because of this mutual inter-abiding which expresses the indivisible reality of divine love. We flow into God—and God into us—because it is the nature of love to flow. And as we give ourselves into one another in this fashion, the vine gives life and coherence to the branch while the branch makes visible what the vine is… The whole and the part live together in mutual, loving reciprocity, each belonging to the other and dependent on the other to show forth the fullness of love. That’s Jesus’ vision of no separation between human and Divine.
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