The pilgrimage from the head to the deep heart with Dr. John Prendergast
The heart is not just a pump, it is also the tender center of our being we most often guard and long to liberate. As young children we got to experience the wonders of life through an open heart, but also the pain of separation and in some cases, betrayal. The process of adulting in a materialistic culture necessitates constructing elaborate strategies and conceptual shells to navigate the chaos of life and keep us safe. However, the more we identify with our thoughts and live life from head, the more disconnected we become from our true nature and sense of aliveness. The desire for wholeness demands an inner journey into the deep heart.
In this episode of Awake In Relationship I speak with Dr John J Prendergast, non dual spiritual teacher, psychotherapist and author of The Deep Heart: Your Portal into Presence and Your Deepest Ground about the archetypal spiritual journey of restoring connection with the subtle and profound wisdom of the heart. In this conversation we also discuss the intersection of psychotherapy and a grounded approach to spirituality in working through trauma and internal blocks to loving more fully.
Show Notes
- To learn more about Dr John J Prendergast and his teachings and books check out listeningfromsilence.com
- To get copies of The Deep Heart and Your Deepest Ground go to Sounds True
- To learn more about Vedanta non dual teachings check out Stillness Speaks
If you enjoyed this discussion on the journey into the deep heart have a listen to episode 068 Loneliness and the highest yoga of love with Susan Gillis Chapman
Episode Transcripts
Dr. John J Prendergast:
When the mind opens, there’s a sense of clarity, spaciousness, openness, freedom. When the heart opens, there’s a sense of oneness, of wholeness, of love in the deepest and fullest sense. And when the heart opens, there’s stability, a sense of profound, unfathomable, unshakable stability.
AIR music:
You’re listening to Awake in Relationship with Silas Rose.
Silas Rose:
Hello friends, my name is Silas Rose and I welcome you to Awake in Relationship, a podcast about conscious relationships in the digital age. If you tuned into the previous two episodes, you might have noticed a theme developing. I’ve been focusing more on the ‘awake’ part of a waking relationship, which is really about exploring self-awareness and an understanding of the nature of mind from various perspectives. The following interview with John Prendergast is really a continuation of that theme.
Silas Rose:
John’s perspective is unique in that he straddles two worlds one as a licensed psychotherapist of over 40 years and also a teacher in the non-dual Veda Vedanta tradition. In this conversation we talk about his book, the Deep Heart, our portal to presence, one of the great challenges of growing up in a materialistic society that places such a high value on information, as we tend to center awareness in the head and disconnect from the subtle, intuitive wisdom of the heart. This conversation is really an exploration of the path back to heart awareness. I should quickly mention that towards the end of the interview, John leads us through a short inquiry into the deep heart. I would be somewhat remiss if I didn’t say, if you’re driving a vehicle or otherwise occupied, pause that section and return to it later when you have more time and focus. So, John Prendergast, welcome to Awake In Relationship.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
Thank you, happy to be here.
Silas Rose:
Yeah Well, we first connected briefly here in Victoria I think you were through in, I think it was in May, giving a talk on your latest book. Your Deepest Ground finished a five-day Dzogchen Mahamudra retreat. You know it comes from the kind of Buddhist of Vajrayana and I was so struck by the kind of shared language and imagery and view of you know the essential mind, so that really got me curious about you. So that really got me curious about you and you’ve had this kind of rich, long, deep life so it might be helpful to kind of start there and just talk a bit about your journey into the deep heart.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
If we speak of the heart in the deepest sense as the center of knowing and being that has both localized and non-localized aspects to it, the seat of love and wisdom and wisdom, then I would say probably it wasn’t well into my 30s that I really began to hone in on it. There had been consciously, I would say unknowingly there’s been a pull really since boyhood and interest in something deeper, and I know many people are drawn to these teachings and experiences out of suffering, because they’ve been broken hearted, because they’ve hit bottom, because their life has really not worked out as they wanted to. And then a deep questioning unfolded. That was not the case with me. There was just a kind of pull, the sense that there is something more to life. Because I had a fairly I don’t know easy life I would say kind of middle class and I felt loved and secure in my family. Not that there weren’t problems there were but there was enough love and support that I felt held and safe. But there was this I would call it for a long time, an unconscious pull to greater depth, and that led me to begin to meditate when I was 20.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
I was briefly a TM meditation teacher. In my mid-20s I realized I’m very happy on retreats and on my sitting in my Zafu or chair, but actually I was socially anxious, I was insecure and the meditation really wasn’t touching that. And so there was something in my self-honesty that I need to explore more deeply my own psychology and I want to make a living and be of service. So I entered grad school psychology, got a master’s and doctorate and deep in my meditation began to turn. Grad school psychology got a master’s and doctorate and deep in my meditation began to turn more from initially the mantra meditation that I was doing to self-inquiry and more and more abiding in and as awareness and I was. You know, my basic spiritual background was Vedanta, advaita Vedanta, and then when I met, I had a very powerful experience with Nisargadatta Maharaj, the famous Indian Advaita sage, who I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t know his name or his form, but he came in a dream in my early 30s and I was in Bombay and he came. His eyes were just lucid and luminous and as I looked at him there was experience of awakening within the dream. And then, in within that same dream environment, he came up to me and said you can spend some time with me. And I woke up and I was like, who was that that? And I discovered I am that A friend of mine had visited Aharaj in Bombay the year before. That led me to a deep dive into self-inquiry.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
And then I met Jean Klein and around that time I also got married and it was like I think both were there’s an interesting confluence of events here. The marriage was really very heart-opening because Linda, who was my first wife she died in 1989, was very sensitive and very open and very loving and it opened a dimension of my heart that I did not know existed. It opened a dimension of my heart that I did not know existed. Just that intimacy, that quality of attuned, I would say, soulful love, awakened a deep aspect of the heart and it really was a very important part of my own development. And simultaneously, in terms of self-inquiry, there was a deepening intuition that and this was explicitly stated by Nisargadatta Maharaj the seeker is the sought, the one who is looking is what is being looked for, and that just rang a bell in a way. It’s like it just turned my spiritual search 180 degrees towards the one who’s looking, and of course that opens the mind, necessarily, and that will open the heart. So I started with Jean. I was deepening in relational intimacy with my wife. She passed away. Deepening in relational intimacy with my wife, she passed away.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
I studied with Jean Klein, beginning in 83 until he retired in 95. A very beautiful teacher’s presence just evoked the depths of being. He passed away in 98. I met Adyashanti first at a talk in 99.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
I went on my first retreat in 2001, and it was like the skylight was broken, the sense of opening to the infinite, just being in his presence, with a small retreat, just something cracked open and there was a recognition on a mental level of infinite awareness. And two years later, on retreat with Adya, there was another opening, but this in the level of the heart. And this was interesting because even though there was an awakening on the level of the mind, there was still a subtle seeking going on. There was a finer and finer and finer perception, almost like I was looking for the finest diamond. And then suddenly in a meditation I realized this will go on forever, the seeking is endless.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
And that was a point of real deep insight. It was sudden, it was clear, and with that was the recognition of wholeness. Here, on the level of the heart, it’s like. There was an immediate, sudden and clear recognition of wholeness on the part of the apparent perceiver. And two years later, on another retreat with Adya, that recognition generalized to life, what we call the world or objective life. It’s true not only of subjectivity, of apparent objectivity, that there is no fundamental difference, it’s all consciousness. So here’s the confluence of the non-dual teachings, particularly with a kind of Kashmiri accent to them, which is more imminence-oriented than transcendence, and the confluence with Tibetan teachings, because in the Mahamudras Ubtan teachings language is different, but really it seems to me that the recognition of what is being pointed to and the recognition of that are fundamentally the same. So this was the opening of the depths of the heart and the recognition of non-separateness with the totality.
Silas Rose:
What was the impetus for you to start as a teacher and also to bring that into your clinical work?
Dr. John J Prendergast:
Well, that was a natural transition. There was no desire to proselytize and I was at the time I was an adjunct assistant professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies, so I was training master’s level counseling students. So it just kind of naturally moved into my work with therapists who had a transpersonal orientation. It’s like presence is the most important thing, it’s the most intimate thing, it’s the least personal thing, interestingly, and most intimate. And so I began sharing it. You know, as it grew clearer and stronger, in my case it just bubbled out in terms of my work training therapists. And then there was just a kind of natural move. I started a couple of self-inquiry groups. There was just a natural response on the part of people to that. I began to co -lead retreats with a friend and colleague of mine and then at some point began to lead retreats on my own. So it just felt like a natural unfolding. I have a tendency to be an educator, I love sharing understanding, and so it just shifted from academic to more spiritual levels. So it’s continued to open and deepen since then.
Silas Rose:
One of the things that makes your work so unique is that you straddle these two worlds of Western psychological model and the spiritual model or view of the essence of mind, nature of mind, and I’m really curious how you see the two complementing each other.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
Well, this is a subtle and fascinating subject because it kind of mirrors my own development. I do see them as very complementary paths and for a while they were separate. It’s like there’s a psychological healing and spiritual awakening and they seem to have almost separate tracks, if you will, and at some point in my mid-40s and the mid-90s they just blended. My question was how do these connect? And then they just were inseparable and it’s like how can I separate them? It’s a very different question. So something in me integrated so that there was no real fundamental difference or separation. But we can speak of them as distinctive levels, as conditioning and unconditioned, for instance, conditioned awareness and unconditioned awareness. They’re both awareness, awareness with form, awareness without form, awareness with conditioned form, awareness without form or without conditioning. The way that they work together is extremely subtle. So just to give an overview, I think we can have a glimpse of true nature. And I think we can have a glimpse of true nature, essential mind, in Buddhist terms at any point in our life as a child, adolescent, adult, we can be in a stable or unstable condition, physically or mentally. Reality can show itself at any moment, it can burst forth. But if the body-mind, if the psychological system is immature or imbalanced, it will not be able to sustain that glimpse. It will come, it will go and it will be as if a memory, an object in distant memory. And of course such glimpses are beautiful and valuable, and sometimes people try to recreate them, you know, using drugs or invoking particular environments. There’ll be a kind of grasping which never works, not for long. So a certain amount of coherence and resilience is needed on the psychological level. A certain amount of coherence and resilience is needed on the psychological level, a certain amount of stability, in order to have a more sustained access and openness to the spiritual dimension. And so the more coherent, stable, resilient the psychological system is, the easier it is to sustain spiritual awakening.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
And, interestingly, the more spiritual awakening unfolds, the more you have the most profound resource, this presence in which to welcome our conditioned body-mind. And so the welcoming, that kind of opening of the heart and the mind into presence, into open awareness, is extremely facilitative of a natural unfolding of the conditioned body-mind. And so very often an opening will happen on one level conditioning more stability than a spiritual opening, and then it will close again because something in the conditioned body-mind needs attention and that will have attention and then you know, there’ll be more access, openness in meditation, on retreat, spontaneously to open, awake awareness. And so there’s this process of expansion and contraction and it’s very interesting process of expansion and contraction and it’s very interesting. You know, very often the consensual reality for most people is being a separate self, and then we have these occasional openings and maybe more frequent openings, and then the balance begins to shift between our sense of identity as a separate self and our sense of being unbounded, infinite open awareness self and our sense of being unbounded, infinite open awareness. And it’s very interesting, as there’s more and more expansive awareness, we become aware of how we unenlighten ourself, like what are the beliefs that we have, what are the feelings and emotions, what are the kind of core energetic contractions that bring awareness back into a more contracted state? And that’s a very interesting inquiry and it’s around learning really to stabilize this open awareness.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
So the body-mind acclimates to openness. It’s used to being in a more contracted state. That’s its conventional state for most people, and so the openness is something new. It’s a much more expansive and open. I could call it a state, but it’s not really a state. It’s just, I would say, knowing of oneself and it takes time. The openings can happen any moment and the understanding can cut through at any moment, but the acclimation of the body-mind takes time and if we had a lot of difficult conditioning, if we’ve had trauma, if we’ve had broken relationships or poor relationships with primary caretakers, then it’s going to take more work in the body-mind to have a more coherent, resilient system to provide that sort of stability. And you know, the fact is many of us had difficult, you know, some trauma, some thwarted or negligent or abusive relationships growing up and that material will need to be dealt with at some point.
Silas Rose:
Something I’ve really witnessed, both in my own personal journey but also for others that are on the spiritual path, is it almost seems inevitable that one will develop that kind of tendency or belief that the spirituality can solve it all.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
Exactly yeah, this was, um, I had this belief for a while myself that if I just meditated long enough, if I was a good enough meditator, if I went on enough courses, you know that it would take care of my conditioning and anxiety. And that wasn’t true. It really required a much more careful and intimate and honest and vulnerable self-examination and sharing relationally with others. And so this is why I find that honesty and vulnerability actually are the most important principles in the spiritual path, and that means honesty and vulnerability doesn’t mean primarily what it means. It doesn’t mean sharing everything that you think and feel with others, but it does mean being honest with yourself and what your actual experience is, your willingness to acknowledge it and feel it and open to it. If it’s wanting attention, you know.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
And so, yeah, this is something where I think a lot of spiritual teachers have gotten in trouble because they haven’t done their work. They’re immature. They may have, they may have awakenings, spiritual awakenings. There may be a brilliant, there may be a great capacity to teach and brilliance in doing so, but there are significant undigested aspects of their conditioning and which we would call shadow material that gets acted out in the field of power, sex and money, and it seems to be more the norm than the exception. So there’s been a sobering realization in the field of spiritual awakening that I mean. Having said that, it is true that some conditioning will resolve itself simply by meditating and being on retreat and just sticking with it. Some of it just does fall away, but some of it doesn’t, and some of the most difficult conditioning often doesn’t.
Silas Rose:
So you write in your book that the heart is a portal. What do you mean by that?
Dr. John J Prendergast:
So a portal opening a door window, it’s an opening and in my experience, working with people, I mean anything can be a portal. You know this is a, let’s say, a tantric approach, that any experience is an expression of reality and therefore can be a way in to source. But there are, in my experience, three major portals to true nature one in the mind, one in the heart and one in the lower gut, the hara, which also includes the sense of ground, which maybe we’ll be able to talk about a little bit, and the heart. There are essential qualities that are associated with the opening of each of these portals. When the mind opens, there’s a sense of clarity, spaciousness, openness, freedom. When the heart opens, there’s a sense of oneness, of wholeness, of love in the deepest and fullest sense, in the deepest and fullest sense. And when the hara opens, there’s stability, a sense of profound, unfathomable, unshakable stability, regardless of what’s going on. So, with the heart, the opening of the heart portal, my experience is the heart, and here I’m not speaking of the physical heart, of course, but of the center of the chest. So it’s coexistent with, in the Indian and Tibetan subtle tradition of the heart center, the heart chakra. There are different levels that we can sense if we’re sensitive. I wasn’t sensitive for many years. The sensitivity gradually opened in my case after attending some long meditation courses and working with people interpersonally as a psychotherapist. But very often I think because of culture, we don’t accent the sensitivity of the heart. There’s a feeling of unsafety and the heart will close like a delicate flower and guard what’s most precious. Sometimes that happens knowingly, when a child says I will never trust again, when that trust has been violated by someone who is supposed to be trustworthy. Or it may happen unconsciously, which is often the case, some mixture of culture which actually just overlooks the values of the heart and psychological conditioning which causes a contraction of the heart. Very often we don’t know much about the heart other than it’s the center of romantic love, and so you fall in love with someone, your heart opens and we have lots of songs and stories about that and also songs about breaking of the heart and disappointment and loss.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
If we sense into the heart area, center of the chest, very often we may not feel anything and it’s almost as if there’s a armoring psychological, psychic, energetic armor. That’s there, that’s been in place for these various reasons that I’ve mentioned. If we begin to pay attention, if we just start listening and feeling to the heart area and I’m putting my hand over, for your listeners who can’t see, I’m putting my hand over the heart area, which is actually a good way to start focusing attention here as the heart begins to open, often we discover why it closed in the first place. In other words, we discover a sense of know and sometimes heartache or heartbreak. And it was just too much, you know, it was too intense, we were afraid of getting lost, it was unbearable. So we may have some revisiting of why our heart began to close.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
It could be adult relationships or in adolescence. And as you go more deeply you go into more primal relationships with primary caretakers, mother and father usually, who play those roles, and as children we’re extraordinarily sensitive and open and we lack discernment and we’re like little sponges and so we absorb all sorts of conditioning and react to all sorts of conditioning and without discernment we create a self-world view and feeling state that goes with that. If we’re treated badly, we think we’re bad. If we’re neglected, we think we’re unworthy, and so on. If we’re not loved well or seen well, we think that we’re unlovable or we’re not worth seeing.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
It goes very deep and this is the realm of depth psychotherapy. This comes up again and again in my work with people who are quite mature spiritually but they discover they kind of plateau in their experience and as we explore what’s in the heart, often there’s a core limiting belief around worthiness and a related somatic contraction. That is quite an emotional distress and so that needs to be unpacked in some way. And often that’s done relationally because the initial wounding was relational. So it’s often attuned, loving being being there with you. It could be a therapist, it could be your partner, it could be a friend, it could be a coach, a counselor of any kind, spiritual teacher we feel met and attuned with. And that area starts to soften, starts to open, starts to melt, and we get to a deeper level. We’ve gone through the kind of egoic level, personal conditioning, we get to what I call the soul level. And the soul level is not egoic, it’s not about the separate self, it’s the individuated self and it’s very deep in the heart area.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
It’s kind of at the back of the heart, and this is an area it’s almost like people experience, almost like a crystalline prism, a point of light. It has a kind of signature, vibration and color and feeling that’s associated with certain gifts. We may have to share, certain archetypes that we may be manifesting. This is where Jung, for instance, really did remarkable work in uncovering a very potent, very deep level of archetype or soul-level work. We can go deeper still and this is where, in my experience working with people, it’s like we go beyond the individual now into the universal. It’s like the back of the heart area opens and we feel ourselves opening to a field of universal loving awareness, and this is something that shines through all of us, filtered or not, and the less filtered it is, the more directly it comes through as a portal. It’s almost like there’s this area in the heart area that just opens up and light and loving awareness pours through, and that’s the nature of the heart actually is for that light to shine.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
One of the interesting things I found is, you know, people feel like they have this is the spiritual heart or the universal heart. People have thought they needed to protect it, but it can’t be hurt, you know, because of its universal nature it can’t be stained, it can’t be wounded, and so to discover that there is this universal quality of the heart coexisting with the human heart that has been hurt, that has been wounded, that has been conditioned, is quite interesting. So we have this multi-dimensionality egoic, soulful, universal. No doubt we can slice and dice it, you know, in either finer than many traditions do, and there may be some value in that.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
I haven’t found it that important. But as we discover these different dimensions, we realize the great heart the universal heart can hold our conditioned human heart. And one of the other discoveries here is the nature of the universal heart is very compassionate and kind and filled with gratitude, and so that just pours out quite naturally in relationship to others. So being awake in relationship, this is really a central aspect of that, that we live from fullness rather than lack, and so we’re not looking to fix or manipulate our partners. We’re actually much more in a mode of accepting and loving them as they are, and that invites their best self forward.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
That’s the relational piece there.
Silas Rose:
As you’re speaking. Something that comes to mind for me personally is that this implies a lot of vulnerability and meeitng that wounded self. I’m wondering what creates the safety for yourself, or if you’re holding the space for someone else.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
What creates safety for it is the inner feeling that you’re not being judged. There’s an absence, like you feel if you’re working with someone else. You feel them. First of all, that they’re attuned with you. That’s important. Second of all, they’re not in judgment of you. And thirdly, that they just want to get to know you as you are Messy, incomplete, partial, immature, whatever it is. In other words, however you are, however distressed, however confused, however much suffering, it’s okay to be as you are. And that is communicated on many levels. It’s on a level of non-verbal. You just feel it. You feel when you’re with someone who has that capacity to attune and welcome you and support your unfolding.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
That’s the optimal quality of attention. You can bring that to yourself to some extent. You can bring that same non-judgmental, open, curious, affectionate attention to your own experience. The more you can do that to yourself, the more the healing process unfolds. However, that is sometimes difficult to extend to oneself, and particularly to difficult parts of oneself. Therefore, that’s the value of being with someone else who is able to offer that to you, and we learn we’re so sensitive. We learn from receiving that quality of attention. We learn how to offer it to ourselves and to others as well. So this will probably be someone who’s fairly mature in themselves and fairly attuned and fairly self-accepting. But that quality and as a contrast, when we feel like someone is trying to change us, we’ll resist and if we feel someone’s judging us, we’ll shut down. You know, we just will not let them in. Right, and we should not let them in. That’s where discernment comes in.
Silas Rose:
So much of your book is really a series of personal inquiries, and this is the first time I’ve kind of done this on the show. I’m wondering if there’s one that you might want to lead us and the listeners through.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
Yeah, I’d be happy to. So I would invite listeners to sit comfortably upright and be in an environment where you won’t be disturbed for the next few minutes and to close your eyes and take several deep breaths, allowing yourself to relax and settle down and in to the core of your body, recognizing there’s no problem to fix nothing. You need to fix nothing, you need to do nothing to attain. In other words, the mind can relax. As the mind relaxes, the tension quite naturally drops down and in, and to imagine that you can breathe directly into and out from the center of your chest. This is just a way of anchoring attention and with each inhalation and exhalation, attention settles into the heart area a little more deeply. This may be unfamiliar territory and so you may want to take more time than we have now if you’re doing this later just to tune with the heart area. It’s not effortful, it’s really a kind of listening attunement. We’re just starting to feel and listen into this area of great sensitivity. So each breath, tension dropping in and back, just willingness to open to the depths of your heart, perhaps depths that you don’t even know about, or perhaps depths that you’ve touched at some point in your life. But it’s not an analytic or mental process, much more intuitive in feeling, attunement, deepening, and then a question, and this is not a question for your mind, but a question for your deepest knowing what is the deepest nature of the heart? Don’t think about it. What is the deepest nature of the heart?
Dr. John J Prendergast:
We pose the question a few times, we let it go like dropping a pebble in a pond. There’s no right answer, but we just listen and feel, we notice. If there’s a response from our depths, it may come as just a silent knowing. It may come as an subtle combination of feeling and sensation, a felt sense, something opening, enlivening, or a simple word what is the deepest nature of the heart? And whatever comes, we let it in. Let it in as a gift from our deepest knowing, not dismissing, not judging, because we’re entering into a kind of conversation with our deepest knowing. It’s a very quiet, intuitive, attunement, listening, opening. So one can sit with this for several minutes and sit with the question a few times and noticing what comes and letting it in. Letting it in is very important. This is how the system begins to open change. So we could go on, but this is an example of a heartfelt inquiry.
Silas Rose:
Thank you, john. Yeah, so I want to conclude just touching your most recent book, Your Deepest Ground, and I think actually this is a perfect segue. What is the evolution of thought here with the new book?
Dr. John J Prendergast:
Well, this tracks the unfolding of awareness that I’ve experienced within myself and with many of people who I’ve worked with, both mentees and students and clients, which is that, generally speaking, there’s a kind of descent of awareness. As we deepen in our intimacy with our true nature, the mind becomes more open, the heart opens and it just keeps going. It goes down into the guts, like we’re going from a mental level to an emotional level, to instinctual levels, and these are the densest levels of conditioning and usually the slowest to change and often the most unconscious. And this is the area where, generally, the strongest resistance resides to the whole system opening because of the fear of annihilation, because of the fear of losing control. So, yes, fine if the mind is open. Yes, okay if the heart is open, in certain conditions, with certain people, but that’s good enough, thank you. Certain people, you know, but that’s good enough, thank you. But in fact, life is asking us to be, for the body to be open, for the lower half of the body to be included in the awakening process and the integrative process, to really live our spiritual understanding in a grounded way, in a way that affects how we live in the world in relationship, in our work, how we relate to nature and the planet and larger collective, so that we’re not just peaceful in a transcendent way but we’re actually walking our talk and feeling more and more congruent. So necessarily this involves the lower half of the body feeling more and more congruent. So necessarily this involves the lower half of the body, these instinctual, hard to illumine areas.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
So for me this has been a much slower process of awakening, kind of into the guts and into the ground and yet, uh, very liberating. In other words, there’s a sense as this opens. As I mentioned earlier, this brings a profound stability and a kind of foundational sense to oneself that supports the flowering of the heart. So that’s the connection with the heart it’s like. So rather, the heart can be a bit fragile and can kind of open and close, depending on who we’re in relationship with and what circumstances are.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
However, the deeper this process of investigation goes into the ground and what our true ground is, not our constructed ground, not our false ground, but the ground of awareness itself, deeper than our earthiness, deeper than our archetypal level, but actually the ground of being, the more that we viscerally connect with this. It is profoundly, it’s a huge relief for the system, for the body-mind system to feel this. Ah, you know this kind of settling, settling, settling, and it provides a sense of foundation that allows the heart to fully flower and blossom, which is profoundly fulfilling, you know, to be able to share our heartfelt understanding in our ordinary life. So the book your Deepest Ground really follows quite naturally from this kind of archetypal journey from head to heart. Archetypal journey from head to heart that’s like stage one, stage two, from heart to ground, and that supports a really grounded way of living our spiritual understanding.
Silas Rose:
And it sounds very relational.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
It is Interestingly, it is relational in terms of feeling what I could say, feeling our non-separateness with the totality. So it’s almost beyond relational. You know, like relational it’s fine. The language of relationship is fine, I’m not quibbling with it. But relationship often implies two object to object, separate self to separate self, and that begins to dissolve and we recognize only our profound interconnectedness with others and with the so-called world and with nature, but more and more viscerally a sense of our fundamental non-separateness. So in a way I think it’s the edge that many of us in the West are exploring. Certainly exemplars have achieved, attained, recognized a very grounded realization in various contemplative traditions and we in the West are transposing this understanding to our ordinary, non-renunciant, non-monastic lives and navigating these more earthy currents of power and safety and belonging in a way that can be transformative for us and for the collective.
Silas Rose:
Well, I hope I can get you back to have a deeper dive into that, because it sounds super juicy.
Dr. John J Prendergast:
It’s very important, very, very related, very much relevant to the heart, um, because we’re all, of course, it’s deeply connected, as we are as well, and I’d be happy to come back.
Silas Rose:
John, how can people find out more about you and your work?
Dr. John J Prendergast:
They can go to my website, which is www. listeningfromsilence. com. I also have a YouTube channel. So you know, if you Google John J Prendergast, phd, or you look it up on YouTube, you’ll get either my website or a lot of videos on YouTube.
Silas Rose:
Thanks for tuning in to this conversation with John J Prendergast. If you want to learn more about his work, head over to listeningfromsilencecom. You can also find links and transcripts at awakeinrelationshipcom. If you enjoyed this episode and the content I produce here on the pod, there’s a couple ways that you can really help me grow the show.
Silas Rose:
The first is to share some stars and hopefully a brief review about your experience in the show on Apple, spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. The second really is about word of mouth. If you know someone who would appreciate this interview with John, please consider sending it on to them or sharing on social media that can be found on Substack, linkedin and sometimes Instagram. Send me a DM, let me know what you think about the show and especially if you have ideas for future guests and topics. So if you’ve made it this far into the episode, dear listener, I really want to thank you for lending me your ears.
AIR music:
Till next time. Stay connected to this episode of Awake in Relationship. If you liked what you heard, please click subscribe to get the latest show delivered fresh to your device, or sign up for our newsletter at awakeinrelationshipcom. Sharing is caring. Bye.
