Thomas Keating
The first portrait of spiritual luminary Thomas Keating’s remarkable evolution, in the last decades of his life, into a fully realized modern-day Christian mystic.
In the first four decades of his life as a Trappist monk, Thomas Keating created a comprehensive, unified psychospiritual pathway leading from healing to holiness and from contemporary psychological wellness to classic mystical sanctity and beatitude. As one of the key innovators of the meditative practice of Centering Prayer, he fashioned a powerful on-ramp to the Christian contemplative tradition. Yet, as beloved author and Keating disciple Cynthia Bourgeault shows, that was not the end of Keating’s story—his evolution as a spiritual thinker and mystic continued in ways few have explored in depth. In this unique blend of biography, personal experience, and close reading of his late works, Bourgeault illuminates Keating’s remarkable spiritual development from the late 1980s until his death in 2018. She explores:
- Keating’s increasing engagement with nondual spiritual practice
- His contributions to interspiritual dialogue
- The evolution of his early teaching on the movement from “false self” to “true self,” to that from “true self” to “no self”
- His final “dark night of the spirit” and passage through death
- New evidence that he never left Christianity but carried it with him to new places
These profound final stages of Keating’s spiritual journey demonstrate how readers might find their own way as modern mystics, fundamentally at home and at peace in the universe.
"Thomas Keating was one of the contemplative giants of our time, and Cynthia Bourgeault is surely his most brilliant and insightful interpreter." —Richard Rohr, author of Falling Upward and The Universal Christ
"Father Thomas Keating was a Christian monk for whom I had great respect and admiration. We shared a belief in the oneness of humanity and the need to deepen understanding and respect among the world’s religious traditions. This book also reveals him as a contemplative, showing that it is possible to transform the mind and cultivate a genuinely warm heart." —His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
"As a close student and friend of Thomas Keating’s for thirty-five years, I was exhilarated reading this lively and profound exploration of his journey into unity consciousness, and grateful the world has the opportunity to glimpse the inner life, struggles, and spiritual evolution of this extraordinary soul. A must-read for Centering Prayer practitioners in navigating the farther, subtler terrain of their path and for anyone seeking a model of embodied Christian nonduality. Cynthia has given Thomas, and the world, a tremendous gift with this masterpiece of modern mysticism." —David Frenette, author of The Path of Centering Prayer: Deepening Your Experience of God
"A tour de force graced by a rare blend of intellectual heft and devotional depth." —Ted Jones, insight meditation teacher and nephew of Fr. Thomas Keating
"In this multilayered analysis of Father Thomas Keating, we have an inestimable treasure that makes a valuable contribution to contemporary mysticism studies. Cynthia Bourgeault, one of the world’s leading mystical writers, offers a penetrating depth of insight into Keating’s journey from cloistered monk to world-renowned spiritual leader and founder of Contemplative Outreach. Cynthia worked closely with Thomas Keating for nearly thirty years, and her book is both a spiritual cartography as well as a testimony of entangled souls in search of divine reality. The result is a ground-breaking work that will establish Father Thomas Keating among the great mystics of our time." —Ilia Delio, OSF, Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology, Villanova University
"Read Meister Eckhart if you want to know what Christian mysticism was like 700 years ago. But if you want to get a sense of the poetry, the beauty, and the promise of the mystical life for today (and tomorrow) then read Cynthia Bourgeault’s luminous study on the mature wisdom of Thomas Keating. Not only does this book chart the course for the spirituality of the future; it’s like learning from two masters simultaneously." —Carl McColman, author of The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism and Eternal Heart: The Mystical Path to a Joyful Life
"For over three decades, Father Thomas Keating was my holy-rascal uncle whose self-realization of the God beyond adjectives fed me a Eucharist of pure spirit. For almost as long, my holy-rascal sister Cynthia Bourgeault saw something in him that I could not—until now. Thomas Keating: The Making of a Modern Christian Mystic is a clear, compelling, and joyously dangerous revelation of Truth. It is the unlocked door that awaits your knock. So, knock!" —Rabbi Rami Shapiro, author of Holy Rascals: Advice for Spiritual Revolutionaries
"Father Thomas Keating’s final statement to the world began ‘Dear friends, in the universe an extraordinary moment of civilization seems to be overtaking us. Through the great discoveries of science and spirituality, we find ourselves in essentially a new and different place than ever before in history.’ In Thomas Keating: The Making of a Modern Christian Mystic, Cynthia Bourgeault, one of Father Keating’s great spiritual heirs, takes us on a beautifully told, wise, and inspiring journey into the expansiveness of his thoughts, leading us to an integrative vision of nonduality—the different, placeless place Father Keating was pointing to." —Jonathan F. P. Rose, author of The Well-Tempered City
"Thomas Keating was a spiritual giant of our time. Though deeply rooted in Christianity, his contemplative life and work transcended boundaries, attracting seekers and sages alike. Though he lived a cloistered life, he belonged to the world. His ability to weave various knowledge domains with experiential learning was remarkable. Even when sitting in silence, he echoed. All who wish to explore the contemplative world should get to know Thomas Keating." —Tenzin Priyadarshi Rinpoche, President & CEO, The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT
"Cynthia Bourgeault was a long-time friend of Trappist Christian mystic Thomas Keating, who taught the meditative method of the Centering Prayer, which might be described as a form of Christian selflessness or emptying of self in order to be filled with God’s holy presence. In this probing work, Bourgeault focuses on the last five years of Keating’s inner spiritual journey and his ‘haiku-like poems’ to deftly relate the full significance of his life and teachings." —Jan Willis, PhD, author of Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist and Dharma Masters: Women, Race, and Tantra
"One of the most influential Christian spiritual teachers of his era, Thomas Keating had a long life with many phases and contradictions. Cynthia Bourgeault, a powerful influence on her own and close fellow traveler with him, is uniquely suited to be his chronicler. Her overview of his development focuses intently on his last five years when he was passing into what she sees as the unitive state expressed in his late teaching. As she engages vigorously with the challenges this teaching presents, she writes an energetic and provocative book clearly meant for our time." —Laurence Freeman, OSB, author of Jesus: The Teacher Within