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Thomas Keating Quotes about Prayer

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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

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
Spiritual, Prayer, Growing Up
Thomas Keating (2014). “Fruits and Gifts of the Spirit”, p.5, Lantern Books

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

Thomas Keating
Prayer, Powerful, Helping

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
Prayer, Play, Looks
Thomas Keating (2002). “Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel”, p.61, A&C Black

The root of prayer is interior silence.

Thomas Keating
Prayer, Roots, Silence

Centering prayer is a training in letting go.

Thomas Keating
Letting Go, Prayer, Training

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
Letting Go, Prayer, Practice

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
Prayer, Expression, Attention

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
Prayer, Thinking, Giving

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