I first heard of Fr. Thomas Keating while stumbling through TH-cam. He was being interviewed by someone about his choice to become a monastic. During this interview he spoke of his contemplative practices and said some words that sent chills through my body: "Silence is the sound of God." Though I'm a Buddhist, I immediately recognized the depth of his words. This was before I became familiar with Christian mysticism. Whereas typically Christian beliefs are not of great importance to me, I felt that this man had penetrated greatly beyond the veils of just dogma and words, something which few Buddhists, both cultural and practicing, ever manage to do themselves. If you can speak to the universality of divine and transcendent experience, religious terminology is at best convenient communication, at worst paltry and divisive limitations of what can be known directly.
I liked this particular expression of Father Thomas and cetering prayer, quite identical to our Self-enquiry and concept of the only One. I loved his kindness and humility...very Great. Thank you
Thank you for the Keating interview. He is a wonderful man of the Spirit. I consider myself blessed for having met him personally and for having learned richly from him. Foremost, he allowed me the freedom to become a true universal Catholic mystic, and to free myself from the restraints of religion -- all religions. I am grateful to him for being one of my spiritual teachers. And I love him for setting me free to love my God in oneness.
I have been fortunate to speak with Fr. Keating every time I go for a solo meditation retreat in Snowmass. He has helped me move beyond that dryness you spoke of , Rick in the spiritual community towards the warmth of divinity. Thank you for your work
Wonderful vid Fr T Keating speaks of God in a manner which warms my heart & encourages me to continue playing relating with the ultimate friend & hero ❤️👍😃🙏
Father Keating is a great knowledgable being. We need to listen to him more. His knowledge is the same as Verdanta ( Hindu Scripture) thank you Father. I loved what you have shared. Deena Naidu -author of 'We are God'
I started doing Centering Prayer in 2007 when I was in Benedictine Oblate formation. After Oblation I started attending a Zen Buddhist Sangha where I continued this practice, now with a little bench. Meditate...Walk...Meditate...Walk...Meditate...In the Sangha my Benedictine spirituality has been so profoundly deepened in community with my Buddhist sisters and brothers. And hopefully I have been a positive influence with them as all of us journey towards that intuitive space beyond space, time, and language.
Thomas Keating's Book "Intimacy With God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer" is a favorite book of mine. For those coming from Christianity carrying negative images of the Divine and all that shizzle... really liberating. Dig it.
Wonderful man..the Kadampa tradition has the universal language to develop wisdom and compassion for all sentient beings and permanent liberation from suffering.
It's funny, but as I opened up my browser to respond to you, I saw a video from Mooji entitled "The Play of Existence". "Lila" means "play", and a sense of play, or self-entertainment, is often postulated as the rationale for the manifestation of the universe. I'm not sure it can be anything more than a theory, but it's an interesting one.
Paul Tillich describes a synthesis between two apparent contradictions as a "self-affirmation".... which implies a -participation in, that (what is) apart from, or rather is transcendant from the self. For example: Guilt and Fear in the absence of forgiveness is a living death, "in the absence of meaning."
Harmony is not possible in separateness, unless the separation is acknowledged as merely being "illusory." A mirage in the desert can certainly be experienced visually as being real, yet the very experience of the mirage does not divest the mirage of its illusory nature and invest it with an actual reality.
When you use the term "evolution," are you referring to the classic Darwinian sense of he term, meaning adaptive or mutative random change by natural selection? Or, are you referring to the cosmological sense used by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in his phenomenology?
I want to argue that there is some seriously bad theology going on here. The fact that there is an evolutionary process doesn't mean that God is "becoming", for whatever "becomes" does so by actualizing potentiality; but God is by definition fully actual ("pure ACT of being", Thomas Aquinas). Process theology re-defines "God" in such a way that he ceases to be God at all.
If humans possess free will, and God experiences humans, God must necessarily "evolve". The nature of God is unchangeable, perhaps, (I cannot speak for God) but the activities of God are not unchangeable. His interactions through our scriptures indicates a capacity for change.
God does not change. Every one of God's acts in time have been willed eternally, thus his will is not in time, and therefore does not undergo change. We change or are changed by God- but we cannot literally affect God.
If your comments are correct, you make God responsible for human actions. In that case, God is responsible for all good, but also all evil. This I would have trouble with. I used the male "He" as a convention.
No. There is a proper distinction between first and second causality; and God causes causes to be causes. God is "responsible" in so far as he is sustaining everything in being moment by moment; but if he did so to bring about a greater good then he would not be responsible in the negative sense
at 50:13 he says when we are vengeful we regress to the level of animals. but really animals don't think in such ways, only humans are capable of vengeance and other such deeds, animals just do their animal things. but anyway lovely interview
I used to feed ducks in winter, one day I noticed a frozen duck w/ its head under water, its legs up. Days later I winessed a swan w/ its long neck holding ducks underwater to drown them. I've never forgotten, this goes beyond your concept of vengeance...my two cents.
Re-writing a definition of "God" won't help solve the problem. You would only end up with another definition that will continue the vicious cycle of making the Infinite finite. The thing to do is to release and empty ourselves of any and all definitions and mental concepts of "God." It is the UNconditioned mind (not a REconditioned one) which permits the direct experience of oneness in God.
I wonder what Father Keating would think about the Gnostic view that this world is not created by God but by some other entity? I believe this idea is echoed in Buddhism(according to scholar Robert Thurman) when The Buddah reaches Nirvana,enters the Kingdom of Brahma, and is told by Him that the world was already created when He got here.
Here's something to mull over: God never created a material universe. All creation is actually spiritual (after the nature of its Source), but the spiritual creation acquires a reflection in and through mind -- including a physical reflection of an otherwise non-material spiritual reality. How the individual perceives the reflection all depends on the state and stage of individual awareness looking at its mirror-mind!
Nothing is being continuously created. There is only an endless parade of images in the mind. Stop the parade totally and there is only the "emptiness" in the mind, where there is "no-thing" (nothing) which paradoxically is a pre-existent (changeless) unit or thing. The ultimate Source is the only thing there is.
So much delusion going on in Christianity nowadays, it was obvious that deception would also take the mystic branch. The "contemplation" of Keating has absolutely *NOTHING* to do with the contemplation St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila (and before them St. Bernard, St. Thomas, St. Benedict, Ruusbrok, Tauler, Suso etc. etc.) wrote about. Real Christic contemplation is a gift of the Holy Spirit, it CANNOT be achieved by technique (technique is totally irrelevant; you can only and exclusively prepare for it and desire it, nothing else; real contemplation is a love affair first and foremost), even less by removing the thought process (actually doing something like that is *TOTALLY* counterproductive in the beginning (to be explicit it completely blocks the experience even in the case you could obtain it in other circumstances) as without a proper loving practice of the presence of God built upon from meditation the Holy Spirit will never have a basis on which to work to create the infused experience that is at the root of real contemplation; you can achieve other results, as visions or locutions or the like, but they are completely futile without the experience of the experimental presence of God in your soul). Standing in silence (that anyway becomes full silence only in the very late stages while in the beginning the thought process still works in part) is only appropriate when the gift of the Holy Spirit is active in you and the experimental sense of the presence of God is found within you, so that you can then focus on it and God Himself, HE, works in you. It is NOT lack of activity, it is a passivity *FULL of activity* since there's still work going on, it's just that you, instead of giving, receive and the parts are switched. All people that really think they can achieve Christian Contemplation by just stopping the thought process (that everyone can do very easily in just about a week to a month of practice) are even more insane than someone thinking s/he can learn mathematics by forgetting what numbers are. I don't say this to disparage people practicing centering prayer; on the contrary I hope to save someone from this delusion. Is centering prayer a bad practice in itself? It depends on how it is done, frankly, but, also in case it is done correctly and you can achieve some noteworthy results (as a sense of lasting peace or, in very rare cases loss of ego) those "results" have absolutely NOTHING to do with real contemplation and the latter experience is heaps and bounds above everything any Eastern practice can even remotely achieve (and I say this from experience given that when I was young I was searching what I thought it was "god" back and forth in the wrong directions and I experienced so called Samadhi using Raja Yoga; just the fact that you can achieve something like that in about 6-12 months with strenuous practice while real Christian contemplation requires a lifelong love affair - that never ends - should tell you all you need to know on the matter). But I suppose this is another way for God to trim the branches: "They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us". A very good book on the matter is "From St. John of the Cross to Us: The Story of a 400 Year Long Misunderstanding and What it Means for the Future of Christian Mysticism": www.innerexplorations.com/catchspmys/fromst1.htm The book traces back all the misunderstanding about acquired contemplation in the 17th Century by some authors that, committing a mistake in their interpretation of the dark night of senses in the works of St. John of the Cross without malice reinterpreted his writings and what they did by and by gave rise to a full corruption of the Christian mystical tradition.
+tongmaa Pantheism is a philosophy that believes Nature-the Universe is God, which God is, but the Universe could be just a passing thought in God's perfect consciousness. Nature is just an extension, of what they call God's will, but Nature is an expression, but not a complete manifestation of God. This centering prayer is practiced to transcend duality which is the realm of the "Mind!" Pantheism underestimates the true realm of God, which is Spirit, and Spirit exists outside the manifestation many call creation/Nature/the Universe.
Godskingdomwithin I understand the philosophy but, at the same time, understand that Deity can never be "known" by finite minds who can't even know our own concepts of "nothing" and "infinity." Saying this-or-that about spirit, is just speculation because we living creatures can't even know ourselves. So, I resent the neo-pantheism which the church fought so hard against for hundreds of years and now touts as the veritable "Truth" of existence. Why? To keep the flock gathered and to encourage the pantheistic religions to join the church corporation to gain finances, control of their conduct and to gain worldly political power in their numbers. Meanwhile the leadership points fingers at targets they claim are greedy, controlling and power hungry ...
***** I have no criticism of pantheism, and agree with Keating's explanations about effort to reach out to those who have made religion a practical effort in meditation (prayer if you will) and to enliven their own practice of prayer, thereby. However, the church's motivation isn't the same as Father Keating's. I know that the Deity's presence is in creation a priori, and especially in all living creatures which is described as the "Spirit". The moment of conception is an electro-chemical reaction based on the plan of DNA, and which electricity continues until death as part of that plan. So, Deity knows even the "sparrows fall" or that of the minutest life in the universe. No doubt in my mind that we can come to the realization of Spirit through meditation and prayer for that answer and not personal desires or wishes; even unselfishly, for others. I will continue, though, to disparage religious organizations who are "praying" for control of people, their funds and power gained by numbers they can use to browbeat their way to that power ...
+tongmaa " The hairs on your head are numbered." Jesus What Father Keating is sharing, is higher meditation, and is sync with Eastern methods of meditation also. The Truth is the Truth, and where you hear literalists argue about dogma, Mystics mostly agree on their expression of their experience. Many of the early Christians, the Gnostics, who were declared heretics by the Dogmatic Church, called this experience "Gnosis." " To you my chosen disciples, I am to teach the secrets of the Kingdom of God, but to those that are without(multitude),I am to teach in parables, for seeing they shall not perceive, and hearing they shall not understand." Jesus When the Orthodox Church was created in the 4th century, the esoteric aspect of the early Church, was forced underground, and was persecuted! What Father Keating is sharing about, is that which was forced underground, and appeared again in the Scrolls that were discovered right at the end of WW-2, and at the point Israel was reborn!
Godskingdomwithin"Seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened to you." Shows that only your individual efforts can satisfy your search and which no organization of belief can provide, because "doubt" is the first step on the path. Practicing the "secrets" dispels doubt and replaces it with knowledge and not the faith needed by the poor in spirit who are told, "And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:", and taught prayer, instead of meditation. The "secrets" are too practical for the hoi poloi to understand and, or too difficult to practice as tools to seek and find ... So, one of the "faithful" (Saul) began an organization to gather and control those of faith which has supported Caesar ever since ... :)
2:57 "So, it would be nice, if we had another #word for #God ... *I AM THAT (/WHO) I AM* ... That's about the best description of God... *IS-NESS* without any limit... *I-AM-NESS* without any other pronoun..." 1:37:28 (!)
stupid interviewer gets stupid answers..Keating has something to say for sure, but he shouldn't agree to let himself down on that level to explain unexplicable processes... that only damages the message
RUth Pulver Fr. Keating didn't seem to think so. He made a transcript of this interview the 1st chapter of his newest book, Reflections on the Unknowable: www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590564375/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1590564375&linkCode=as2&tag=budatthegaspu-20&linkId=Y5QMWNPS5UHQ6F7W
Rick Archer I agree he was happy, playful and laughing. In the catholic view one must interrupt a priest, put them on a pedestal because they can spout scripture. They are god to the Catholics. I have some experience with this. Never ask questions.
+RUth Pulver I think Father Thomas got a little frustrated with some of the interviewers Questions. I don't mean to sound critical, but I think you are right.
Pure speculation on what Gods wants ,we are eternal servants of God & God has a personality.We have the same qualities of God but finite. YOU can NOT become God this is impossible .BG Ch7 Txt 3 " Out of many thousands among men,one may endeavor for perfection & of those who have acheived perfection,hardly one knows Me in truth.
God might be doing more than "playing" with Itself through Its creation. God may as well be masturbating Itself, looking for an orgasmic release at the end of every effort.
You CANNOT "become" God, because you ARE already God. How much more of God can you become? It is a self-defeating exercise for an infinite absolute Being to try to become more infinite or absolute than it already is. However, you can simply BE the God you already are, by UNbecoming the personal and human sense of self (the dismantling of the false self system). This is the secret of nondualistic oneness -- unbecoming that which you are not, in the realization of that which you are. ;-)
I always feel honored to hear Father Keating speak. What a beautiful soul! Thank you for sharing.
I first heard of Fr. Thomas Keating while stumbling through TH-cam. He was being interviewed by someone about his choice to become a monastic. During this interview he spoke of his contemplative practices and said some words that sent chills through my body: "Silence is the sound of God."
Though I'm a Buddhist, I immediately recognized the depth of his words. This was before I became familiar with Christian mysticism. Whereas typically Christian beliefs are not of great importance to me, I felt that this man had penetrated greatly beyond the veils of just dogma and words, something which few Buddhists, both cultural and practicing, ever manage to do themselves.
If you can speak to the universality of divine and transcendent experience, religious terminology is at best convenient communication, at worst paltry and divisive limitations of what can be known directly.
+teddymonster "Though I'm a Buddhist" concepts only give prejudices.
I liked this particular expression of Father Thomas and cetering prayer, quite identical to our Self-enquiry and concept of the only One. I loved his kindness and humility...very Great. Thank you
thank you. thank you. thank you. I have arrived here searching for Thomas Merton and Thomas Keating and I am so grateful to have found this treasure!
Thank you for the Keating interview. He is a wonderful man of the Spirit. I consider myself blessed for having met him personally and for having learned richly from him. Foremost, he allowed me the freedom to become a true universal Catholic mystic, and to free myself from the restraints of religion -- all religions. I am grateful to him for being one of my spiritual teachers. And I love him for setting me free to love my God in oneness.
this is a powerhouse talk. thank you for bring this amazing guy to our attention.
Father Thomas Keating is so awesome! I am so glad I re-found him! I especially love when he talks about "Centering Prayer"
I have been fortunate to speak with Fr. Keating every time I go for a solo meditation retreat in Snowmass. He has helped me move beyond that dryness you spoke of , Rick in the spiritual community towards the warmth of divinity. Thank you for your work
Wonderful vid Fr T Keating speaks of God in a manner which warms my heart & encourages me to continue playing relating with the ultimate friend & hero ❤️👍😃🙏
Awesome its got to be listened 2 more than once for me its dripping with rich fruit
Father Keating is a great knowledgable being. We need to listen to him more. His knowledge is the same as Verdanta ( Hindu Scripture) thank you Father. I loved what you have shared. Deena Naidu -author of 'We are God'
Truly a holy man. His love and compassion radiates all through his video.
Father Thomas is so full of wisdom. Gratitude!
I started doing Centering Prayer in 2007 when I was in Benedictine Oblate formation. After Oblation I started attending a Zen Buddhist Sangha where I continued this practice, now with a little bench. Meditate...Walk...Meditate...Walk...Meditate...In the Sangha my Benedictine spirituality has been so profoundly deepened in community with my Buddhist sisters and brothers. And hopefully I have been a positive influence with them as all of us journey towards that intuitive space beyond space, time, and language.
+Roberta Westerberg Beautiful!
Topnotch of spirituality.
Thank you Rick and Father Thomas Keating.
Beautifull talk, thank you so much
really brilliant talk on the nature of Christ and Christianity.
Thomas Keating's Book "Intimacy With God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer" is a favorite book of mine. For those coming from Christianity carrying negative images of the Divine and all that shizzle... really liberating. Dig it.
Wonderful man..the Kadampa tradition has the universal language to develop wisdom and compassion for all sentient beings and permanent liberation from suffering.
Thank you for this interview! Such wisdom!
KEATING is an amazing man!! GOD BLESS him!!!
I couldn't wait for this interview and it was even better than I thought it would be. Matt
Bless you Father Keating.
Thank you, very good
he's amazing!!
thank you
thx man, great video and interview.
Really enjoyed the thoughts shared about God's playfulness.
Not any more or less unique and living a saint as we all are. ;-)
We are flowers growing from the grounds of Being and sometimes fail to thank the earth in seeing the meadow.
Very poetic!
_/|\_
Without poetry, we need Brian Greene of John Hagelin to tell the tale in detail.
It's funny, but as I opened up my browser to respond to you, I saw a video from Mooji entitled "The Play of Existence". "Lila" means "play", and a sense of play, or self-entertainment, is often postulated as the rationale for the manifestation of the universe. I'm not sure it can be anything more than a theory, but it's an interesting one.
Paul Tillich describes a synthesis between two apparent contradictions as a "self-affirmation".... which implies a -participation in, that (what is) apart from, or rather is transcendant from the self. For example: Guilt and Fear in the absence of forgiveness is a living death, "in the absence of meaning."
For a couple of years I lived with a community that practiced centering prayer, it was very influenced by Fr Keating.
very cool!
Yeah, that book's a good one, a very good one.
Harmony is not possible in separateness, unless the separation is acknowledged as merely being "illusory." A mirage in the desert can certainly be experienced visually as being real, yet the very experience of the mirage does not divest the mirage of its illusory nature and invest it with an actual reality.
from a non-dual perspective,there's this, ............. and everything else is a story
"It is what you see before you, begin to reason about it and at once fall into error." - Huang Po
Now that would have been a" super pope" :-)
centering prayer seems very similar, even identical, to self enquiry, am I correct?
When you use the term "evolution," are you referring to the classic Darwinian sense of he term, meaning adaptive or mutative random change by natural selection? Or, are you referring to the cosmological sense used by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in his phenomenology?
i am god. BOW DOWN!
I want to argue that there is some seriously bad theology going on here. The fact that there is an evolutionary process doesn't mean that God is "becoming", for whatever "becomes" does so by actualizing potentiality; but God is by definition fully actual ("pure ACT of being", Thomas Aquinas). Process theology re-defines "God" in such a way that he ceases to be God at all.
If humans possess free will, and God experiences humans, God must necessarily "evolve". The nature of God is unchangeable, perhaps, (I cannot speak for God) but the activities of God are not unchangeable. His interactions through our scriptures indicates a capacity for change.
He?
God does not change. Every one of God's acts in time have been willed eternally, thus his will is not in time, and therefore does not undergo change. We change or are changed by God- but we cannot literally affect God.
If your comments are correct, you make God responsible for human actions. In that case, God is responsible for all good, but also all evil. This I would have trouble with.
I used the male "He" as a convention.
No. There is a proper distinction between first and second causality; and God causes causes to be causes. God is "responsible" in so far as he is sustaining everything in being moment by moment; but if he did so to bring about a greater good then he would not be responsible in the negative sense
at 50:13 he says when we are vengeful we regress to the level of animals.
but really animals don't think in such ways, only humans are capable of vengeance and other such deeds, animals
just do their animal things.
but anyway lovely interview
I used to feed ducks in winter, one day I noticed a frozen duck w/ its head under water, its legs up. Days later I winessed a swan w/ its long neck holding ducks underwater to drown them. I've never forgotten, this goes beyond your concept of vengeance...my two cents.
There is nothing at all that I could add to the comments made on BATGAP itself amazed that there is not universal acceptance here.
Re-writing a definition of "God" won't help solve the problem. You would only end up with another definition that will continue the vicious cycle of making the Infinite finite. The thing to do is to release and empty ourselves of any and all definitions and mental concepts of "God." It is the UNconditioned mind (not a REconditioned one) which permits the direct experience of oneness in God.
Sanatana Dharma is everywhere ;-)
I wonder what Father Keating would think about the Gnostic view that this world is not created by God but by some other entity? I believe this idea is echoed in Buddhism(according to scholar Robert Thurman) when The Buddah reaches Nirvana,enters the Kingdom of Brahma, and is told by Him that the world was already created when He got here.
Here's something to mull over: God never created a material universe. All creation is actually spiritual (after the nature of its Source), but the spiritual creation acquires a reflection in and through mind -- including a physical reflection of an otherwise non-material spiritual reality. How the individual perceives the reflection all depends on the state and stage of individual awareness looking at its mirror-mind!
Nothing is being continuously created. There is only an endless parade of images in the mind. Stop the parade totally and there is only the "emptiness" in the mind, where there is "no-thing" (nothing) which paradoxically is a pre-existent (changeless) unit or thing. The ultimate Source is the only thing there is.
129:15 I don't understand what is the point of speculating such things, but that is just my point of view.
So much delusion going on in Christianity nowadays, it was obvious that deception would also take the mystic branch. The "contemplation" of Keating has absolutely *NOTHING* to do with the contemplation St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila (and before them St. Bernard, St. Thomas, St. Benedict, Ruusbrok, Tauler, Suso etc. etc.) wrote about. Real Christic contemplation is a gift of the Holy Spirit, it CANNOT be achieved by technique (technique is totally irrelevant; you can only and exclusively prepare for it and desire it, nothing else; real contemplation is a love affair first and foremost), even less by removing the thought process (actually doing something like that is *TOTALLY* counterproductive in the beginning (to be explicit it completely blocks the experience even in the case you could obtain it in other circumstances) as without a proper loving practice of the presence of God built upon from meditation the Holy Spirit will never have a basis on which to work to create the infused experience that is at the root of real contemplation; you can achieve other results, as visions or locutions or the like, but they are completely futile without the experience of the experimental presence of God in your soul).
Standing in silence (that anyway becomes full silence only in the very late stages while in the beginning the thought process still works in part) is only appropriate when the gift of the Holy Spirit is active in you and the experimental sense of the presence of God is found within you, so that you can then focus on it and God Himself, HE, works in you. It is NOT lack of activity, it is a passivity *FULL of activity* since there's still work going on, it's just that you, instead of giving, receive and the parts are switched. All people that really think they can achieve Christian Contemplation by just stopping the thought process (that everyone can do very easily in just about a week to a month of practice) are even more insane than someone thinking s/he can learn mathematics by forgetting what numbers are.
I don't say this to disparage people practicing centering prayer; on the contrary I hope to save someone from this delusion. Is centering prayer a bad practice in itself? It depends on how it is done, frankly, but, also in case it is done correctly and you can achieve some noteworthy results (as a sense of lasting peace or, in very rare cases loss of ego) those "results" have absolutely NOTHING to do with real contemplation and the latter experience is heaps and bounds above everything any Eastern practice can even remotely achieve (and I say this from experience given that when I was young I was searching what I thought it was "god" back and forth in the wrong directions and I experienced so called Samadhi using Raja Yoga; just the fact that you can achieve something like that in about 6-12 months with strenuous practice while real Christian contemplation requires a lifelong love affair - that never ends - should tell you all you need to know on the matter).
But I suppose this is another way for God to trim the branches: "They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us".
A very good book on the matter is "From St. John of the Cross to Us: The Story of a 400 Year Long Misunderstanding and What it Means for the Future of Christian Mysticism":
www.innerexplorations.com/catchspmys/fromst1.htm
The book traces back all the misunderstanding about acquired contemplation in the 17th Century by some authors that, committing a mistake in their interpretation of the dark night of senses in the works of St. John of the Cross without malice reinterpreted his writings and what they did by and by gave rise to a full corruption of the Christian mystical tradition.
You need to study up on Apophatic Contemplation.
A new Pantheism.
+tongmaa Pantheism is a philosophy that believes Nature-the Universe is God, which God is, but the Universe could be just a passing thought in God's perfect consciousness. Nature is just an extension, of what they call God's will, but Nature is an expression, but not a complete manifestation of God. This centering prayer is practiced to transcend duality which is the realm of the "Mind!" Pantheism underestimates the true realm of God, which is Spirit, and Spirit exists outside the manifestation many call creation/Nature/the Universe.
Godskingdomwithin
I understand the philosophy but, at the same time, understand that Deity can never be "known" by finite minds who can't even know our own concepts of "nothing" and "infinity."
Saying this-or-that about spirit, is just speculation because we living creatures can't even know ourselves. So, I resent the neo-pantheism which the church fought so hard against for hundreds of years and now touts as the veritable "Truth" of existence.
Why? To keep the flock gathered and to encourage the pantheistic religions to join the church corporation to gain finances, control of their conduct and to gain worldly political power in their numbers. Meanwhile the leadership points fingers at targets they claim are greedy, controlling and power hungry ...
*****
I have no criticism of pantheism, and agree with Keating's explanations about effort to reach out to those who have made religion a practical effort in meditation (prayer if you will) and to enliven their own practice of prayer, thereby. However, the church's motivation isn't the same as Father Keating's. I know that the Deity's presence is in creation a priori, and especially in all living creatures which is described as the "Spirit". The moment of conception is an electro-chemical reaction based on the plan of DNA, and which electricity continues until death as part of that plan. So, Deity knows even the "sparrows fall" or that of the minutest life in the universe. No doubt in my mind that we can come to the realization of Spirit through meditation and prayer for that answer and not personal desires or wishes; even unselfishly, for others. I will continue, though, to disparage religious organizations who are "praying" for control of people, their funds and power gained by numbers they can use to browbeat their way to that power ...
+tongmaa " The hairs on your head are numbered." Jesus What Father Keating is sharing, is higher meditation, and is sync with Eastern methods of meditation also. The Truth is the Truth, and where you hear literalists argue about dogma, Mystics mostly agree on their expression of their experience. Many of the early Christians, the Gnostics, who were declared heretics by the Dogmatic Church, called this experience "Gnosis." " To you my chosen disciples, I am to teach the secrets of the Kingdom of God, but to those that are without(multitude),I am to teach in parables, for seeing they shall not perceive, and hearing they shall not understand." Jesus When the Orthodox Church was created in the 4th century, the esoteric aspect of the early Church, was forced underground, and was persecuted! What Father Keating is sharing about, is that which was forced underground, and appeared again in the Scrolls that were discovered right at the end of WW-2, and at the point Israel was reborn!
Godskingdomwithin"Seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened to you." Shows that only your individual efforts can satisfy your search and which no organization of belief can provide, because "doubt" is the first step on the path. Practicing the "secrets" dispels doubt and replaces it with knowledge and not the faith needed by the poor in spirit who are told, "And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:", and taught prayer, instead of meditation. The "secrets" are too practical for the hoi poloi to understand and, or too difficult to practice as tools to seek and find ... So, one of the "faithful" (Saul) began an organization to gather and control those of faith which has supported Caesar ever since ...
:)
WisdomSnobs think they have ownership of Reality.HOW PATENTLY ABSURD.(caps off).
2:57 "So, it would be nice, if we had another #word for #God ... *I AM THAT (/WHO) I AM* ... That's about the best description of God... *IS-NESS* without any limit... *I-AM-NESS* without any other pronoun..."
1:37:28 (!)
stupid interviewer gets stupid answers..Keating has something to say for sure, but he shouldn't agree to let himself down on that level to explain unexplicable processes... that only damages the message
RUth Pulver Fr. Keating didn't seem to think so. He made a transcript of this interview the 1st chapter of his newest book, Reflections on the Unknowable: www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590564375/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1590564375&linkCode=as2&tag=budatthegaspu-20&linkId=Y5QMWNPS5UHQ6F7W
RUth Pulver The interviewer interrupts Fr Keating constantly. That's not too respectful, IMO.
Rick Archer
I agree he was happy, playful and laughing. In the catholic view one must interrupt a priest, put them on a pedestal because they can spout scripture. They are god to the Catholics. I have some experience with this. Never ask questions.
+RUth Pulver I think Father Thomas got a little frustrated with some of the interviewers Questions. I don't mean to sound critical, but I think you are right.
Pure speculation on what Gods wants ,we are eternal servants of God & God has a personality.We have the same qualities of God but finite. YOU can NOT become God this is impossible .BG Ch7 Txt 3 " Out of many thousands among men,one may endeavor for perfection & of those who have acheived perfection,hardly one knows Me in truth.
snob.a wisdomsnob.
God might be doing more than "playing" with Itself through Its creation. God may as well be masturbating Itself, looking for an orgasmic release at the end of every effort.
You CANNOT "become" God, because you ARE already God. How much more of God can you become? It is a self-defeating exercise for an infinite absolute Being to try to become more infinite or absolute than it already is.
However, you can simply BE the God you already are, by UNbecoming the personal and human sense of self (the dismantling of the false self system). This is the secret of nondualistic oneness -- unbecoming that which you are not, in the realization of that which you are. ;-)
I do... to your Spirit-Self, not to your human sense of self.
You are Dog barking
Call God Butch? Hmmm...