Thomas Keating Quotes
Three Quotes by: Fr. Thomas Keating of Contemplative Outreach Ltd Died 25th October 2018. The beginning of the spiritual journey is the realisation, not just the information but the real interior conviction that there is a higher power or God. I would make it as easy as possible for everyone that the is an other capital "O". Second step, to try to become the other capital "O" and finally the realisation that there is no other. You and the other are one. Always have been and always will be. You just think that you aren't and then as the spiritual journey unfolds one lets go of these false beliefs that there is separation from God. It begins to perceive in events in all other people the same presence of God more and more aware of it once found at the deepest level, and thus the words of Paul become something which make sense: that God is all in all, in other words in a sense we not only become God but are God.
Source here on the Internet. Dated: 7th October 2011.
See also Is this scriptural?
The contemplative practices of themselves, I think, make one vulnerable to the unconscious. So the undigested emotional material of a lifetime is the traumas that we could not face as children and repressed into the unconscious and is then stored apparently in the body and in the nervous system are still lingering there with their energy are influencing our decisions and attitudes towards life but chiefly reinforcing the separate self and the ego and its projects which are opposed to contemplation. And so the problem is that contemplation by itself is not enough. It opens the unconscious in a way that is a contribution to the process but we also have to embrace a new life and to bring to it this sense of responsibility to the transformative process in which we are prepared to see our next motivation in which we are seek self even in good deeds rather than the pure love of God. And this is what retards the process instead of being able to complete it in four years it might take twenty or thirty or forty years or never. So you can see that self knowledge then has always been in the Christian scheme of things at least. The essential issue and almost the complementary movement towards this body of love is grown in humility which is the acceptance of the reality about ourselves, our own weakness, limitations or AA {?} has put it our unmanageable lives. Contemplative prayer will bring you to the same state of feeling that your life as you are living it is unnatural. So that's a triumph not a disaster.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04gdsFt_zDY. Dated: 13th September 2007
{Contemplative, centering prayer} is a process of inner transformation, a conversation initiated by God and leading, if we consent, to divine union. One’s way of seeing reality changes in the process. A restructuring of consciousness takes place which empowers one to perceive, relate and respond with increasing sensitivity to the divine presence in, through, and beyond everything that exists.
Book: by Thomas Keating entitled: Open Mind, Open Heart [New York: Continuum, 2006] p4 Published: 2006.
See also Is this scriptural?
Please note: Quotes are displayed in reverse date order. Undated quotes are listed last.