Heartfullness: The Way of Contemplation

In a time of metacrisis, disruption and collapse, many of us yearn for deeper spiritual meaning but aren’t attracted to institutional religion. We also sense that growing recognition of humanity’s predicament could prompt a spiritual awakening, at least for some. This means many of us aren’t sure where to turn to find either advice or community, or to invite others together for that. That has been my situation. Personally, I have benefitted from Buddhist and Daoist philosophy and practice, nature-based Indigenous wisdom, and mystic strands of Christianity, as I shared in a ‘Buddha At The Gas Pump’ interview and now integrate into my music. I now want to go deeper and further with others. In the New Year, we launch the Metacrisis Mentors programme, where we will draw upon a variety of wisdom traditions to explore, in challenging times: what is mine to do and how am I to be? 

In January, we will announce more about the programme, which will be open to all members of the Metacrisis Meetings initiative. One of the key texts will be Heartfullness: The Way of Contemplation by Reverend Stephen G. Wright. A former palliative nurse, academic, and ordained inter-faith minister, Dr. Wright has cultivated decades of wisdom at the intersection of caregiving, contemplation, and mystical inquiry. His voice is deeply rooted in the lived experience of guiding seekers and spiritual nomads — those who feel estranged from dogma but still feel the call of the sacred.

Wright’s own journey, which has included working with Ram Dass (whom he names his “soul guide”) and years of offering spiritual direction through the Sacred Space Foundation and the St. Kentigern School for Contemplatives, gives him both spiritual gravitas and practical credibility. He writes not just as a theorist but as a fellow traveler: a “wounded healer” who helps others make sense of their yearning for something transcendent, or as he prefers to say, the Beloved.

It has been a joy to get to know Stephen over the last few years. We first connected when he became interested in Deep Adaptation to societal disruption and collapse. I was drawn to the deeper spiritual analysis and advice he was offering. That’s why, in 2021, I invited him to provide support to the newly formed Scientists’ Rebellion, during the first period of non-violent direct action and solidarity fasting. We met online once a day, helping to cultivate a feeling of calm, service and gratitude — something which influenced the poem I wrote that week (“Thank God It’s Too Late”). Later that year, Stephen sent me his new book, Heartfullness. Only this year I found time to return to the text — and it found me in a more contemplative mood. That’s why I want to tell you what you could gain from studying some of it together in a group with myself and fellow travellers, as part of the forthcoming Metacrisis Mentors programme. 

A map for mystical journeys

Described as a 12-step course for seekers, Heartfullness is not a self-help book in the conventional sense. Rather, it is a spiritual curriculum designed to guide readers through what Wright calls a “detox from ego addiction.” Each chapter was originally a letter to students. Each of them gently dismantles illusions of the separate self and invites the reader into an intimate encounter with the sacred through practices, reflection, and a subtle reorientation of consciousness. The letters cover twelve spiritual virtues, and offer questions and activities for readers to potentially experience, rather than intellectualize, those virtues. Aside from that, there are some key ideas in the book which I think are helpful for a basic orientation for those of us becoming curious about the way of a contemplative and engaged mystic at this time of societal disruption, metacrisis and collapse. 

What is a contemplative?

Wright defines a contemplative not simply as someone who meditates or prays deeply but as one who lives in sustained “loving awareness” of the sacred presence in all things. He explains that contemplation is not a practice, but a condition — a transformed state of being in which the ego’s grip has loosened and one’s consciousness becomes spacious, intimate, and attuned to the Divine. Unlike meditation, which often employs techniques or seeks specific outcomes (such as calm or focus), contemplation is an open-ended, receptive state, involving surrender and a quality of ‘unknowing.’ As he quotes from T.S. Eliot, it is a “condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything.” Meditation can be an important practice for the contemplative, along with other tools such as nature immersion, prayer, mantras, circle dance, rituals of reverence, reflections on wisdom teachings, fasting, and so on. But people can live as contemplatives without such tools. 

The mystic and the beloved

Wright views the contemplative and the mystic as essentially the same. The mystic is one who “has encountered the Real” and become transformed by it. He identifies that the mystic path, across religious traditions, involves moments of unitive or cosmic consciousness. That is a direct, felt experience of unity with all that is, which is understood as transcending our explanations, while providing a deep and life-changing knowing. He cautions that the explanation of such experiences becomes problematic. The encounter with the divine itself may be universal, but its interpretation is always filtered through cultural, theological, and even political lenses. Wright references the tension between the esoteric (inward, experiential faith) and the exoteric (external, prescriptive religion). The former, he suggests, is the true heart of spiritual traditions, yet often misunderstood or even suppressed by the latter.

A universal core of religions

Drawing from ‘perennial philosophy’ and authors such as Huxley and Schuon, Wright affirms that while religions differ in outer forms, their mystical cores share profound similarities. These include helping adherents move from separation to unity, from ego to soul, from fear to love. All authentic traditions, he says, “at their core, aim at awakening the soul’s awareness of its union with the Divine.”

However, this inner core is often overshadowed by the institutional need for control, leading to rigidity and exclusion. As Wright puts it, “Healthy religions embrace both [the esoteric and exoteric]…but when fear and defensiveness arise, ‘otherness’ has to be rooted out.” 

Love, the heart, and “Heartfullness”

Central to Wright’s vision is love. The word love is used for many different things, and Stephen is clear to describe what he means by it. He explains that universal love, or spiritual love, is a deep current of personal union with the Divine — the animating force of the universe. He often invokes the language of “the Beloved,” a term borrowed from Sufi mysticism and Christian mystics alike, to describe this sacred presence that is both beyond and within all things.

“Heartfullness” — also written as heartfulness in some countries — Dr. Wright’s term for the spiritual orientation that makes us receptive to sacred presence. I didn’t find in the book a rigid definition of the word, but it is inferred throughout the text as a state of ‘awakened being’ that involves openness to loving kindness, deep listening, and seeking alignment with the Divine will. Wright is referring to both the physical heart, as a centre of emotion, and the symbolic heart, representing an aspect of our way of being in the world. “More than all else, keep watch over your heart,” he reminds us, quoting Proverbs.

The science of the heart

Wright doesn’t shy away from some of the scientific support for his spiritual focus. He references emerging research on the heart’s magnetic field, memory capacity, and neurocardiology, suggesting that the heart has its own intelligence, which interfaces with the field of consciousness in ways still not fully understood. He sees this as further validation that ancient spiritual insights are being rediscovered through modern science.

These findings bolster the core claim of Heartfullness: that awakening the heart is not just a poetic metaphor, but a literal and transformative reality. The hypothesis here is that the “heart brain” may hold keys to healing and spiritual integration that our intellectual mind cannot access.

Ram Dass and the teacher’s role

Wright pays tribute to Ram Dass, one of the most influential spiritual teachers of the late 20th century, as his primary teacher and soul guide. Since I began listening to the lectures of Ram Dass, I was surprised to discover he explained many decades ago that the ecological crisis arises from a spiritual malaise, and that the project of global capitalism would most likely end in catastrophe (e.g. here). Reverend Wright is also attentive to the predicament we face today. And also like Ram Dass, he blends gentle humour, honesty, humility and story-telling in his writing. He doesn’t position himself as a guru, but as our companion. There’s no attempt to “fix” the reader or offer salvation, only an invitation to take the next step on our Way to greater aliveness and awakening.

He stresses that the teacher’s role is not to give answers but to midwife the seeker’s own awakening. “What I can do through these Letters… is help you know [the door to the Real] is there and navigate your way to it,” he writes.

A transformative invitation

Heartfullness: The Way of Contemplation is a substantial and nourishing guide for anyone drawn to the contemplative path. It speaks especially to those who feel disillusioned by institutional religion yet hunger for the sacred. With warmth, clarity, and quiet authority, Stephen G. Wright offers a map to the inner life – one shaped not by doctrines or dogmas, but by the felt truth of the heart.

By containing exercises and reflections, the book can be seen as a detox programme from “ego addiction” that enables us to return to our deeper Selfhood – the permeable soul or the “I Am” which lives more consciously of its union with the Divine. Because the book is written as such a programme, I have decided to co-host people to work with the book together over one year in the Metacrisis Mentors programme, which we will launch in January. I am particularly inspired to do so because Stephen has been drawn towards the Deep Adaptation movement, seeing a key role for his ideas amongst those of us who recognise the predicament we face today. I previously published his writing on societal collapse, and I also recommend a new film, called Fugue for a Spiritual Life, about his life and perspectives. 

If you are interested in joining us, starting January 2026, please subscribe to the Metacrisis Meetings Initiative beforehand. You can also purchase a copy of Stephen’s book here. 

In the meantime, the monthly Monday Metacrisis Meetings are proving to be popular and enlivening. Our next gathering will discuss experiences with, and futures of collapse-aware networks and communities, with Kat Soares, and then in December, we will discuss consciousness, freewill and AI with Matt Colborn. If you are a member, then the link for registering for the November meeting follows below, along with information on the telegram group for related discussions. 

Warmly, Jem