black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Spiritual life is like a moving sidewalk. Whether you go with it or spend your whole life running against it, you’re still going to be taken along.

Bernadette Roberts

When there is no longer a cyclone, there is no longer an eye. So the storms, crises and sufferings of life are a way of finding the eye.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Cyclone Eye Life Longer Storm Suffering
It can no longer be tested by any force or trial, nor moved by the winds of change, and at this point the self has obviously outworn its function; it is no longer needed or useful, and life can go on without it.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Function Longer Moved Needed Point Tested
In some ways, all our experiences of God are beyond belief, because all conceptual beliefs pale when compared to the experiential reality.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Experience God Reality Way
I can only speculate why so little has been said of this breakthrough; in fact , I may never get over the silence on the part of writers who say nothing about this second movement.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Breakthrough Movement Nothing Second Speculate
But coming home that day, walking downhill with a panorama of valley and hills before me, I turned my gaze inward, and what I saw, stopped me in my tracks.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Before Hills Home Self Shop Track Tracks Turn
To be forgiven is not enough; we must put an end to the very need to be forgiven.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Enough Forgiveness Needs
The truest communication with God is absolute, total silence; there is not a single word in existence that can convey this communication.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Communication Existence God Silence Total
This is the step beyond our highest experiences of love and union, a step in which self is not around to divide, separate, objectify or claim anything for itself. Self does not know God; it cannot love him, and from the beginning has never done so.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Beyond Claim Experience God Objectivity Union
Instead of the usual unlocalized centre of myself, there was nothing there, it was empty, and at the moment of seeing this there was a flood of quiet joy and I knew, finally I knew what was missing-it was my “self”.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Empty Flood Instead Missing Moment Nothing Seeing
I went on to discover that in its deepest sense, the will is not primarily the faculty of desire for anything known, but rather, the desire for something unknown, animate desire for something that lies beyond ourselves, a longing for something we know is missing in us.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Desire Lying Missing Ourselves Something
But this going-out is an upheaval, a complete turnabout of such proportions it cannot possibly be missed, under-emphasized, or sufficiently stressed as a major landmark in the contemplative life.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Emphasized Landmark Major Possible Proportion Sufficient Under
My purpose here is to affirm that the unitive state is a hidden path in itself, a movement in its own right that ultimately leads to no-self (no true-self and no-union). In short, the unitive state is the hidden path to no-self.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Affirm Path Purpose State True Union
The onset of this second movement is characterized by the falling away of self and coming upon “that” which remains when it is gone.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Contemplative Fall Gone Life Remain Self
This search for perfection – which is a search for divinity – is nothing more than the failure to accept our existence the way it is.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Divinity Existence Perfection Way
The assumption that the egoless condition, or union of self and God, is man’s final goal and ultimate destiny is a great mistake.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Assumption Destiny Final Men Mistake Union
To go beyond the self, beyond even its most intimate union with God, and this is where we enter yet another new life- a life best categorized, perhaps, as a life without a self.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Another Categorized God Perhaps Union

Spiritual life is like a moving sidewalk. Whether you go with it or spend your whole life running against it, you’re still going to be taken along.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Spiritual life is like a moving sidewalk. Whether you go with it or spend your whole life running against it, you’re still going to be taken along.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Bernadette Roberts Quotes