Quotes from Thomas Keating

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

God is available through many sources besides the religious quest. I don't mean to imply that psychology replaces the work of religion, but it seems to me that it greatly supports religion and brings a certain clarity to areas of the human condition, especially the discovery of the unconscious.

The spiritual journey can be a lonely road in the beginning. Later God will give us new friends. God does not take anything away except to give us something better.

All of us have been through the process of being born and entering this world with three essential biological needs: security and survival, power and control, affection and esteem.

Contemplative prayer is a deepening of faith that moves beyond thoughts and concepts. One just listens to God, open and receptive to the divine presence in one's inmost being as its source. One listens not with a view to hearing something, but with a view to becoming aware of the obstacles to one's friendship with God.

How should we handle these afflictive emotions? By facing them, by feeling them. Feelings that have been repressed have to be allowed to pass through our awareness once again in order to be left behind for good. Most of the time, they don't need psychotherapy; they just need to be evacuated. We might say that we are suffering from acute psychic indigestion, a nausea of a psychological character that is interfering with our mental health and all our relationships.

If you want to be free, he suggests, if you want to heal your relationship with God, with others and yourself, enter your inner room—the office, where the Divine Therapy takes place. Close the door so you don't run away. Quiet your interior dialogue so that you can listen to what the Spirit is saying to you.

The Divine Therapy is designed to enable us to negotiate this healing process according to genetic and temperamental factors, our personality and the circumstances of our lives. An enormous Intelligence is guiding us through this process with a love that is unconditional and determined to bring about this healing, whatever the cost to Itself.

Contemplative prayer starts modestly, but as soon as it begins to reach a certain intensity, it opens us to the unconscious. Painful memories that we have forgotten or repressed begin to come to consciousness. Primitive emotions that we felt as children and that we have been compensating for may come to consciousness.

Gifts of the Holy Spirit grow in direct proportion to the depth and sincerity of our love.

Where are you?" God's question to us never changes. In some cases, life has been so tragic that we are not free to decide where we are. But the power of divine grace, especially as it is experienced in contemplative prayer, opens us to the unconscious and introduces us to a world of unlimited possibilities that are unknown to us now.

As soon as we notice we are annoyed or angry about something, we tend to protect ourselves by projecting the cause of our upsetting emotion onto a situation or another person: "They" did this to me. "They" are always a problem. But, in fact, the real problem is not "them" but us. All biases and prejudices are the attitudes of a child from ages four to eight. If they are present in us, we are still functioning at the level of a preadolescent.

In the Old Testament, substitutes for the divine presence were called demons or false gods. If we can grasp the fact that only the experience of God can put into perspective all other forms of pleasure or the promises of happiness that various creatures provide, then we will realize that we are looking for happiness in the grass, in the wrong places. All the help we can get from other people who experience the same psychological privation won't do a bit of good.

Let Love Alone speak

Divine love is infused in the seedbed of total submission and self-surrender and brings us through the night of spirit into the transforming union.

All human history is under the influence of the false-self system that easily moves from our hearts into our families, communities, and nations and then afflicts the whole human race. God invites us to take responsibility for being human and to open ourselves to the unconscious damage that is influencing our decisions and relationships.

We share in centering prayer when done in common a reservoir of silence that is enhanced by each one's contribution.

The false self is deeply entrenched. You can change your name and address, religion, country, and clothes. But as long as you don't ask it to change, the false self simply adjusts to the new environment.

When we decide to submit to the Divine Therapy, the first thing that God does is to reassure us that we are respected and loved by God. The idea that we are no good, unlovable or unworthy—beliefs that, as we have seen, may be firmly entrenched from early childhood—is an insult to God. God does not make junk; we make junk.