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To be forgiven is not enough; we must put an end to the very need to be forgiven.

Bernadette Roberts

When one is perfectly still-mind and body, silent and alone-there is no personality to speak of, thus personality is one’s unique way of expression, it is what others see and know of us, nothing more or deeper than that.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Alone Deeper Expression Nothing Personality Unique
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
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
Since the moment of self-consciousness comes to a permanent end – and a new journey begins- is such a decisive stroke or milestone in the contemplative life.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Contemplative Journey Life Permanent Self
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

Along Moving Running Spiritual Taken
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
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
Only God is love, and for this love to be fully realized self must step aside. And not only do we not need a self to love God, but for the same reason we do not need a mind to know him, for that in us which knows God, is God.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Aside God Love Mind Realized Reason Self
Rather, it is for the hardy who have been tried by fire and have come to rest in a tough, immovable trust in “that” which lies beyond the known, beyond the self, beyond union and even beyond love and trust itself
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Beyond Come Have Immovable Love Rest Tried Union
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
This journey then, is nothing more, yet nothing less than a period of acclimating to a new way of seeing, a time of transition and revelation as it gradually comes upon “that” which remains when there is no self. this is not a journey for those who expect love and bliss.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Bliss Inspirational Life Love New Seeing
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
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
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
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
…a point is reached where the self is so completely aligned with the still-point that it can no longer be moved, even in its first movements, from this center.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Aligned Center Completely Self Trials Wind

To be forgiven is not enough; we must put an end to the very need to be forgiven.

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To be forgiven is not enough; we must put an end to the very need to be forgiven.

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