Manifesting God

Book excerpt: Manifesting God is about the principles of contemplative prayer--the retreat into the "inner room" mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 6:6, where the individual is able to meet God. In the inner room, the silent space in which God unloads the burdens and false selves that govern our individuality and our daily lives, God acts as a divine therapist, healing us and forcing us to recognize how many barriers we put up between ourselves and an authentic relationship with God. The process whereby this happens is the foundation of centering prayer--a technique of prayer that Keating and other contemporary mystics have revived out of the ancient mystical traditions of the Desert Fathers and the medieval mystics. Abbot Keating explores in this book what it means to enter the inner room and the transformation that takes place there. It explains the guidelines of centering prayer and offers advice on how to develop the relationship more deeply.