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 KeatingRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Centering prayer encourages letting go of distractions and embracing silence as a form of sacred experience.
The quote by Thomas Keating emphasizes the importance of silence and the release of thoughts during the practice of centering prayer. It suggests that rather than suppressing intrusive thoughts, one should accept them as part of the experience, allowing silence to become a sacred space for contemplation and reflection.
Themes
Centering PrayerSilenceThoughtsSacredReflection
In practice
Example use cases
In a meditation workshop, I shared a quote by Thomas Keating about the importance of silence in centering prayer.
More from Thomas Keating
All quotes →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.
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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 KeatingRead
Only when we can accept God as he is can we give up the desire for spiritual experiences that we can feel.
Thomas KeatingRead
For human beings, the most daunting challenge is to become fully human. For to become fully human is to become fully divine.
Thomas KeatingRead
To become who we are as creatures made in the image and likeness of God, we have to be nothing and everything at once, since this is what God is. ... If we accept who we are, we are manifesting God and radiating Christ. The latter unfolding of the divine life within us does not need to go anywhere _x000D_ or do anything special.
Thomas KeatingRead
Similar quotes
A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask, ‘Where have they taken Him?’
Pope Pius XiiRead
Christian community is like the Christian's sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature.
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Needing to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted. Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution.
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We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.
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Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.
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Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is the madness with which you should be cleansed? Behold, I show you the Superman. He is this lightning, he is this madness.
Friedrich NietzscheRead