Eye of the Heart

A Spiritual Journey into the Imaginal Realm

By: Cynthia Bourgeault

Narrated by: Patricia Rodriguez

This groundbreaking book shares the evolution of Cynthia Bourgeault’s spiritual journey and offers a new map to understanding energy and our collective reality.

In Eye of the Heart, Cynthia Bourgeault investigates the imaginal realm - an energetic realm well known to the mystical traditions but often forgotten in our own times. It is invisible to the physical eye, but clearly perceptible through the eye of the heart. The imaginal realm has long been associated with the personal world of dreams, prophecy, and oracles, and it also points toward a higher vision of our human purpose that is both evolutionary and collective. Bourgeault explores both aspects of imaginal reality and tells listeners how we can cooperate more fully with its guidance in our lives.

Expertly blending her own lived experiences with research on the imaginal realm, Bourgeault explores how her personal relationships have helped to bring these teachings into sharper focus and the role this realm plays in Christian and other mystical traditions. She delves into the connections between our inner consciousness and what happens in the world, exploring the transformative energy and governing conventions that make the manifestation of this realm possible. Eye of the Heart presents Bourgeault’s spiritual journey with the imaginal realm and encourages listeners to attune their hearts for the well-being of the world.

"By weaving together mystical wisdom, the Fourth Way, and the authority of her own experience, Cynthia Bourgeault masterfully charts a new path of interior transformation through the heart's ability to know and choose the way of love and service. I learned a lot from this book, and I bet you will, too." (Carl McColman, author of The Big Book of Christian Mysticism)

"Reading Eye of the Heart is a powerful and clarifying experience. The weaving of personal, metaphysical, and contemporary political insights is amazing, seamless, and intercessory in and of itself. We need this kind of weaving and interpenetrating in our culture just as we need it between the realms." (Tim Shriver, author of Fully Alive)

©2020 Cynthia Bourgeault (P)2020 Shambhala Publications

Critic reviews

"Cynthia Bourgeault invites us on a journey that is profoundly personal and opens us to a truly fresh and panoramic vision of the purpose of human existence. In bringing to our attention the importance of the imaginal realms - the levels of consciousness between our physical reality and our ultimate divine source - she fills an enormous gap in the current conversations on spirituality. Cynthia has an amazing ability to take potentially complex ideas and to explain them with clarity and kindness. Only someone who has actually traversed these realms and knows them well could accomplish such a feat, and she does so with beauty and grace. Any serious student of the Western traditions ought to partake of these teachings. You will be grateful you did!" (Russ Hudson, co-author of The Wisdom of the Enneagram)

"If ever there was a teacher who could gather the reins of the mind to gallop into the land of the heart (and take us with her), it is Cynthia Bourgeault. This exquisitely written love story distills the intricacies of the esoteric Western traditions into a transformational elixir - both rigorous and luminous - simultaneously intoxicating and sobering. This book is nothing less than a map to the meeting of the worlds at the crossroads of our own souls, one the mapmaker urges us to abandon the minute our heart sees the way." (Mirabai Starr, author of Wild Mercy)

"Eye of the Heart is an immensely original piece of thinking, feeling, writing. There is nothing like it. It opens new terrain, plants new seeds, starts them on their way toward the light." (Roger Lipsey, author of Gurdjieff Reconsidered)

Thought provoking

Much to ponder here. I will listen to this book again and continue to digest it’s wisdom.

Going deeper with Cynthia Bourgealt

Cynthia Bourgealt is a teacher, a researcher, a woman who stretches herself and her readers into territory beyond the comfortable. I find her many references to other books useful. I am grateful for her leading the way toward unfolding a true heart.

Magnificent!

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
An unforgettable book and guiding light on my path.

The Best Book Ever

Not only is Cynthia a first class writer of the greatest order she is a living Saint. I only wish I could I could sit at her feet and learn from her and absorb all that she knows. What a book. It has changed my path and my life.

A must listen... but probably more than once

Cynthia Bourgeault has changed my life with one of her other works called The Wisdom Jesus. For that reason I wanted to listen to her latest work, which at the time of this writing, is this book.

I rate it at a solid 4, especially because the book introduces me to a new way of looking at life. In fact, the new lens I have now acquired by reading this work, is worth more than 5 stars by itself. But I am bit disappointed by the writing style. It's very hard to listen to. And I don't mean the narrator. Contrary to what others seem to think, I feel that the narration is spot on!

I am referring to the vocabulary. If you're not a language professional, you'll need to get your dictionary (as in Google) out every 5 lines or so. That saddens me a bit, as the message will be lost to many. if I didn't know better, I would have concluded that the author was making every attempt to ensure this work goes down in history as an intellectual piece of art, not intended for the normal or less literate audience. I choose to conclude that the work has been delivered using such advanced vocabulary as to intentionally make you work for it, resulting in a better understanding after everything is said and done.

Yet, I can't help but hope to see this exact same message being delivered in a much easier to understand format, which admittedly is not going to be an easy thing to accomplish, as the topic at hand is rather complex. But that doesn't mean it can't be done. It would certainly result in the message reaching many more of us.

Having said all that, I do recommend this book and I am sincerely grateful to Cynthia for having devoted time and effort to write it. Thank you.

earth shattering book, annoying difficult narrator

As much as I'm blown away by the magnitude of this work, I'm also finding it very hard to listen to this narrator. I wish the author had narrated the book herself. Her transmission would flow through to the reader as well.I'm frustrated listening to this annoying narrator. I'm sure she's a wonderful person, but her reading of this book is truly painful to listen to.

A Beacon of Love & Wisdom

I found this book when I needed it, surely a gift of synchronous causality supporting my own emerging call to cosmic service. I wouldn’t have been ready to receive this until the day it arrived.

Bourgeault brings strength, intellectual rigor, humility, both knowing & unknowing, and generosity to this vulnerable offering. She exemplifies what she teaches. I can sense the energetic transmission flowing through her, the transfigured love of God, radial energy, fruits of the Spirit. She offers guidance on how to accept this invitation responsibly, how to open to the gravity of the call, aware of the risks and temptations from the start. The image I have is of landmarks lovingly sketched out on a napkin, guidance for the terrain one may encounter in walking a path that will have its own particularities. A path for which there is no formulaic route guidance, a path that will unfold only in the walking. She elucidates the gifts of the journey without sugar-coating the requirements of intentional suffering/surrender & conscious labor.

This audiobook required advanced narration skills, for which there is surely a small pool of folks equipped to undertake. Rodriguez channeled the author’s energetic imprint on the work. That is no small feat; I am grateful to her.

Difficult

I struggled following the author's story and teachings. At the end I ask myself what I gleaned from this work: it did open my curiosity about what lies beyond my death; it helped me let loose of this life more; and I find my heart is expanded to the unknown.

WTH?

I read lots of spirituality books in addition to lots of other genres. This reads like somebody trying to impress you with a lot of big words with nothing being said. Whew!