Marta Rubinart: Mystic Contemplation as Heart-Based Prayer, and Transformative Scholarship

Today we will be speaking to Marta Rubinart, EWP adjunct faculty and recent Phd graduate, about her spiritual experiences that lead her to pursue a phd through EWP on the role of the heart in personality integration and spiritual growth. We discuss her recent dissertation “The Heart-Soul Axis in the Jesus Prayer and the Integral Yoga Sadhana” and explore mystic contemplation, embodied prayer, as well as some of the academic challenges she encountered in her comparative and cross-cultural inquiry between Christianity and Integral Yoga. Marta shares her experiences as a Christian and how she approaches the Jesus prayer, emphasizing the importance of purification through the heart center, a practice shared by Integral Yoga. Marta also reflects on her transformative approach to teaching research methods and spiritual counsling in the East-West Psychology Department.

Dr. Marta Rubinart Rufach is a scholar, researcher, and clinician in the field of Clinical and Health Psychology and Spirituality. Her career as a therapist began in Spain when she was just 19 years old. She first worked as a licensed massage therapist and later, in her twenties, began her practice as a Marriage and Family Therapist. She has worked in private practice, hospitals, and non-profits for 25+ years.

In her mid-thirties, Marta started a long formative process involving the completion of two PhDs. In 2016, she graduated Magna Cum Laude for the Autonomous University of Barcelona with a dissertation studying Spiritual Practice and its Effects in Personality, Psychopathology and Wellbeing. In 2021, she completed her second PhD in the East West Psychology (EWP) department. Her dissertation entitled The heart-Soul Axis in the Jesus Prayer and the Integral Yoga Sadhana, elucidates the spiritual heart as the center for personality integration, purification, and divinization and the center where the human being, the divine, and the cosmos consciously interact.

Marta teaches research methods at the EWP department and works as a psychological associate for Well Stone Healing Center, a non-profit organization based in San Francisco. She enjoys supporting graduate students to refine their research topics and designs and continues developing her scholarship on the Heart-Soul Axis. Currently, she is collaborating in an art project representing the triple nature of the Divine and Creation.

Professional Webpage: https://martarubinart.com

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Hosted by Stephen Julich (EWP adjunct faculty, program manager) and Jonathan Kay (PhD student, EWP assistant)

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