Thomas Keating Quotes & Sayings

Lent is a time to renew wherever we are in that process that I call the divine therapy. It's a time to look what our instinctual needs are, look at what the dynamics of our unconscious are. — Thomas Keating

Science and technology have been embarrassed by two world wars, many smaller ones, and the spread of weapons that could destroy humanity. As a result, there is some loss of confidence in the great achievements of technology. — Thomas Keating

The spiritual traditions of all the religions have certain similarities that are unmistakable. They share many of the same basic practices like sacred reading, spiritual guidance, moderation in eating, drinking and sexual expression, and above all, trying to be aware of the presence of God in other people and in everyday life. — Thomas Keating

The divine therapy helps us integrate our animal nature with the new possibilities of rational consciousness. — Thomas Keating

If one completes the journey to one's own heart, one will find oneself in the heart of everyone else. — Thomas Keating

Becoming fully rational is not enough anymore; evidently it can lead to distortions of all the great human possibilities. — Thomas Keating

God seems willing to act as the most sublime psychologist, psychotherapist, or even psychiatrist if we are willing. — Thomas Keating

Divine life is basically the inner freedom to choose the right and the good spontaneously. — Thomas Keating

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. — Thomas Keating

I venture to say that it's not enough to respect and tolerate religions other than our own. — Thomas Keating

Redemption basically is about holistic health, if you want to translate it into modern parlance. What I suggest - based on the Christian tradition but not often preached - is that you can't enter into the fullness of the Pascal mystery of the redemption unless there is a radical transformation of motivation within you. — Thomas Keating

In centering prayer, the sacred word is not the object of the attention but rather the expression of the intention of the will. — Thomas Keating

As the years go by, I find myself experiencing God's extraordinary concern, consideration, healing, and what I call in my books, the divine therapy. — Thomas Keating

The capacity for emotional sobriety belongs to everybody in the human family and leads to a fully human response to the adventure and goodness of the gift of human life. — Thomas Keating

The chief thing that separates us from God is the thought that we are separated from God. — Thomas Keating

All religions proclaim the advantages of peace, loving one another, and "doing to others what we would like them to do to us." — Thomas Keating

The wisdom of all religions has to be respected. The discoveries of science are also essential for our time and the future. — Thomas Keating

It is essential for world peace that the world religions make peace with each other. If they don't, we can hardly expect the nations of the world to lay down their arms. — Thomas Keating

By deepening the spiritual dialogue between the spiritual traditions of the various religions in a spirit of friendship, one begins to understand just what the classical terms of the various spiritual traditions really mean. — Thomas Keating

We need to develop the intuitive capacities of the brain that some geniuses have manifested over humanity's lengthy history. — Thomas Keating

For human beings, the most daunting challenge is to become fully human. For to become fully human is to become fully divine. — Thomas Keating

Silence is God's language, and it's a very difficult language to learn. — Thomas Keating

Only when we can accept God as he is can we give up the desire for spiritual experiences that we can feel. — Thomas Keating

The acceptance of all that God has given us and the willingness to let it go - to give it back to him at a moment's notice - that's true human freedom. — Thomas Keating

Silence is God's first language; everything else is a poor translation. — Thomas Keating

The whole immigration issue suggests the inevitability of people in our time seeking economic security that they can't find at home, which usually involves bringing their religion with them. One's children are going to be married to people outside their religious traditions as well as inside. — Thomas Keating

Every time you have a major breakthrough in self-knowledge, and see the way the divine works within your own psyche, external events, and interior experiences of the divine, you are transformed in some degree. — Thomas Keating

In human relationships, as mutual love deepens, there comes a time when two friends convey their exchanges without words. They can sit in silence sharing an experience or simply enjoying each other's presence without saying anything. — Thomas Keating

In the Christian perspective, the love of God and of all other human beings invites us to share and enjoy not just the best of the human potential as it evolves, but participation in the divine life itself. — Thomas Keating

Science and technology has tried to offer an alternative to religion by making a god out of human reason, but that didn't work out too well. — Thomas Keating

For us to remain in this world, our animal brain has to be there to support us. — Thomas Keating

Perhaps the shortest and most powerful prayer in human language is help. — Thomas Keating

Union with God is really possible. Unity with God I presume, is what is meant by Heaven, but that too is available in this life for the humble of heart. — Thomas Keating

The best way to understand another person's religion is to listen to the story of what particular practices helped them to deepen and to embody their religion, especially its spirituality. — Thomas Keating

To see everything in God and to see God in everything normally takes a lifetime of practice. — Thomas Keating

Centering prayer is a training in letting go. — Thomas Keating

Just by the very nature of our birth, we are on the spiritual journey. — Thomas Keating

Nothing is more helpful to reduce pride than the actual experience of self-knowledge. If we are discouraged by it, we have misunderstood its meaning. — Thomas Keating

Finding out what particular insights mean to people in other traditions enables us not only to respect but to love the wisdom of other religions. — Thomas Keating

God's first language is Silence. Everything else is a translation. — Thomas Keating

Your relationship with God, others, yourself, and all creation keeps changing for the better. Most of the world's religions have developed maps to describe this process. — Thomas Keating

Difficulties arise whenever a committed relationship is succeeding. Love makes you vulnerable ... Your defenses relax and the dark side of your personality arises ... — Thomas Keating

We rarely think of the air we breathe, yet it is in us and around us all the time. In similar fashion, the presence of God penetrates us, is all around us, is always embracing us. — Thomas Keating

The root of prayer is interior silence. — Thomas Keating

We may experience moments of profound inner peace, a sense of oneness with nature, or a sense of something that is more important that we're not reaching by the usual goals of human society. Perhaps we could say there's a common heart to all the religions. — Thomas Keating

It's obvious that humanity continues to be torn by religious violence. — Thomas Keating

God is a tremendous supporter of creation, especially of all living beings. — Thomas Keating

Technology isn't fulfilling its promise of unlimited progress and solving every problem through technology. With the Enlightenment and its aftermath, there already was a general loss of confidence in the Western religions. — Thomas Keating

Humility is the forgetfulness of self. — Thomas Keating

Religions have a special responsibility to encourage and inspire people to love planet earth, which as far as we know, is the only place in the cosmos that works in such a harmonious way that it can support intelligent life. — Thomas Keating

We're obviously at the edge of something quite new in humanity's experience. That is this globalization process which isn't just economic or social, but involves the interpenetration of cultures, people moving to different places several times in their lifetime, traveling for business or pleasure, and marrying people of very different cultural backgrounds, all of which was almost impossible a hundred years ago. — Thomas Keating

The modern world lies under a pervasive sense of anguish, of being abandoned, or at least experiencing God as absent. Yet events that seem to turn our lives upside down and inside out are part of God's redemptive plan, not only for us, but for the world in which we live. God may be preparing a great awakening for the world, if God can find enough people to cooperate in this mysterious plan. — Thomas Keating

The complementary movement towards divine love is growth in humility which is the acceptence of the reality about ourselves, our own weakness and limitations. — Thomas Keating

Psychotherapy is what God has been secretly doing for centuries by other names; that is, he searches through our personal history and heals what needs to be healed - the wounds of childhood or our own self-inflicted wounds. — Thomas Keating

One of the great purposes of religion itself is being hindered by an exclusive-ism that doesn't take into account the common elements and values that we actually share. — Thomas Keating

The word "emptiness" for example, is a very important word both in Christianity and in Buddhism. It has shades of meaning however, that are different in the respective traditions. — Thomas Keating

You should not take prayer too seriously. There is something playful about God. You only have to look at a penguin ... to realize that He likes to play little jokes on creatures. — Thomas Keating

What I really wanted was to fall in love with God. It's amazing what obstacles there are within us, or at least in me, that seem to slow this process. — Thomas Keating

One of the values of centering prayer is that you are not thinking about God during the time of centering prayer so you are giving God a chance to manifest. In centering prayer there are moments of peace that give the psyche a chance to realize that God may not be so bad after all. God has a chance to be himself for a change. — Thomas Keating

We are kept from the experience of Spirit because our inner world is cluttered with past traumas ... As we begin to clear away this clutter, the energy of divine light and love begins to flow through our being. — Thomas Keating

Over time we are able to undermine habitual modes of thinking formed by our self-made self in early childhood, which tries to squeeze happiness from the gratification of our desires for the symbols in our culture of survival and security, power and control, and affection and esteem. — Thomas Keating

God will bring people and events into our lives, and whatever we may think about them, they are designed for the evolution of His life in us. — Thomas Keating

If you accept the belief that baptism incorporates us in the mystical body of Christ, into the divine DNA, then you might say that the Holy Spirit is present in each of us, and thus we have the capacity for the fullness of redemption, of transformation. — Thomas Keating

St. Teresa of Avila wrote: 'All difficulties in prayer can be traced to one cause: praying as if God were absent.' This is the conviction that we bring with us from early childhood and apply to everyday life and to our lives in general. It gets stronger as we grow up, unless we are touched by the Gospel and begin the spiritual journey. This journey is a process of dismantling the monumental illusion that God is distant or absent. — Thomas Keating

While doing centering prayer, the practice is to let go of any thought or perception. The priority is to be as silent as possible and when that is not possible to let the noise of the thoughts be the sacred symbol for a while, without analyzing them. — Thomas Keating