Thomas Keating Quotes

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

The root of prayer is interior silence.

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

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

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

Humility is the forgetfulness of self.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Centering prayer is a training in letting go.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.