The Heart Is Where We Experience Connection

MIRABAI BUSH is the author of Working with Mindfulness, co-creator of Google’s “Search Inside Yourself” program, co-founder of the Centre for Contemplative Mind and Society and a founding board member of the Seva Foundation. Some of her other literary works include Contemplation Nation, Contemplative Practices in Higher Education and Walking Each Other Home, co-authored with Ram Dass. Here she speaks with PURNIMA RAMAKRISHNAN as part of the GLOW Webinar series, on her journey and evolution during the last 50 years, and on the role of her teacher in that transformation.

- MIRABAI BUSH

Q: Thank you so much for joining us today, Mirabai. It’s an honor and privilege to host you on the GLOW webinar.

Hello, and thank you so much Purnima for inviting me. And I’m happy to be talking about Heartfulness, especially because I see so many people learning Mindfulness and maybe overlooking the heart a little bit.

Q: These days there are more and more people who are not affiliated with a religion and are seeking something spiritual. According to you, what is spirituality? And how do you think it is different from religion?

As I understand it, spirituality is the search and discovery of truth, the nature of reality. It is the relation of you as an individual to the greater whole, the understanding of what exists in you, what its nature is, what its implications are for your life, and how you are a part of the whole. I think that you can make that journey, that discovery, within an organized religion or you can do it on your own.

It’s interesting that when we started The Centre for Contemplative Mind in Society, we were going to take practices like Mindfulness, compassion and Yoga, into secular settings in the United States in 1995, when no one was doing it yet. We interviewed 40 teachers of contemplative practice within institutions and religions and asked them what’s the danger of taking spiritual practices out of organized religion. Almost everyone, from a whole range of religious backgrounds, said in different ways that the practices themselves have their own integrity. So if you’re on your own path outside religion, or if you’re discovering new practices at work, or with a group of other people, they have integrity and they will help you on the path of transformation, but the danger is that you lose community.