The Naked Now Quotes

“The most amazing fact about Jesus, unlike almost any other religious founder, is that he found God in disorder and imperfection—and told us that we must do the same or we would never be content on this earth. ”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“We moved from wondering to answering, which has not served us well at all.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“It is hardly an exaggeration to say that “us-and-them” seeing, and the dualistic thinking that results, is the foundation of almost all discontent and violence in the world.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“When you are concerned with either attacking or defending, manipulating or resisting...you cannot be contemplative. When you are preoccupied with enemies, you are always dualistic.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“Suffering, of course, can lead you in either of two directions: It can make you very bitter and close you down, or it can make you wise, compassionate, and utterly open, either because your heart has been softened, or perhaps because suffering makes you feel like you have nothing more to lose. It often takes you to the edge of your inner resources where you “fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31), even against your will. We must all pray for the grace of this second path of softening and opening. My personal opinion is that this is the very meaning of the phrase “deliver us from evil” in the Our Father (Lord’s Prayer). We aren’t asking to avoid suffering. It is as if we were praying, “When the big trials come, God, hold on to me, and don’t let me turn bitter or blaming,” an evil that leads to so many other evils.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“You normally have to let go of the old and go through a stage of unknowing or confusion, before you can move to another level of awareness or new capacity.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“This ability to stand back and calmly observe my inner dramas, without rushing to judgment, is foundational for spiritual seeing. It is the primary form of “dying to the self” that Jesus lived personally and the Buddha taught experientially. The growing consensus is that, whatever you call it, such calm, egoless seeing is invariably characteristic of people at the highest levels of doing and loving in all cultures and religions. They are the ones we call sages or wise women or holy men. They see like the mystics see.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“Governments encourage this pacification by various distractions, what used to be called “bread and circuses.” They know it will keep us small, content, and uninterested in those “weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and good faith” (Matthew 23:23) that have attracted all great souls. A”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“We mend and renew the world by strengthening inside ourselves what we seek outside ourselves, and not by demanding it of others or trying to force it on others.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“To have a spiritual life is to recognize early on that there is always a similarity and coherence between the seer and the seen, the seekers and what they are capable of finding. You will seek only what you have partially already discovered and seen within yourself as desirable. Spiritual cognition is invariably re-cognition.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“But in this book, I use “prayer” as the umbrella word for any interior journeys or practices that allow you to experience faith, hope, and love within yourself.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“When you are concerned with either attacking or defending, manipulating or resisting, pushing or pulling, you cannot be contemplative. When you are preoccupied with enemies, you are always dualistic. You can take that as axiomatic: in most cases, you become a mirror image of both what you oppose and what you love (see Ephesians 5:14).”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“You will know salvation through the mystery of forgiveness” (Luke 2:77).”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“All creation is groaning in one great act of giving birth. — ROMANS 8:22 I still have many things to say to you, but they would be too much for you now. — JOHN 16:12”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“In response to their question “When will the Kingdom come?” he tells them that Ultimate Reality is “not here and not there,” taking us away from our typical attachment to time. “For the Ultimate Reality is ‘within you’!” (Luke 17:21).”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“In short, good leaders must have a certain capacity for non-polarity thinking and full-access knowing (prayer), a tolerance for ambiguity ( faith), an ability to hold creative tensions (hope), and an ability to care (love) beyond their own personal advantage.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“Surely God does not exist so that we can think correctly about Him — or Her. Amazingly and wonderfully, like all good parents, God desires instead the flourishing of what God created and what God loves — us ourselves. Ironically, we flourish more by learning from our mistakes and changing than by a straight course that teaches us nothing.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“We see what we are ready to see, expect to see, and even desire to see.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“The fact that the two great wars emerged in a Christian Europe filled with churches and theology schools needs to be examined. The fact that racism, profound social inequity, and anti-Semitism were not broadly recognized as a serious problem until almost two thousand years after Jesus is forever a judgment on the immaturity of Western Christianity, whether Catholic or Protestant. Communism often emerged in formerly Christian cultures where social injustice had not been addressed in any serious way (China being the major exception). The former colonies of Latin America have never been known for even minimal social justice since their inception, despite their Catholic identity. The genocide of American Indians and the enslavement of black Africans seems not to have been a problem for North American Protestants. Sexism did not begin to be seriously faced until after the 1950s, and its remedies are still ignored and even resisted by most patriarchal churches.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have not been known for creating “harmonizing” people. In general, peacemaking, non-violence, love for the outsider or the poor, humility, and dialogue have never been the strength of these religions.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“The true mystic is always both humble and compassionate, for she knows that she does not know.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“When we do get there, we almost wonder how we got there. We know we did not do anything nearly as much as we know we were done unto. We are being utterly and warmly held and falling helplessly into a scary mystery at the very same time — caught between profound desire and the question, “Where is this going to take me?” It has been said many times that, after transformation, you seldom have the feeling you have found anything. It feels much more like Someone found you!”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“True spirituality is not a search for perfection or control or the door to the next world; it is a search for divine union now.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“ALL SAYING MUST BE BALANCED BY UNSAYING, and knowing must be humbled by unknowing. Without this balance, religion invariably becomes arrogant, exclusionary, and even violent”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have not been known for creating “harmonizing” people. In general, peacemaking, non-violence, love for the outsider or the poor, humility, and dialogue have never been the strength of these religions. Even though many people in each group attained higher levels of transformation, our concern was usually group order, consistency, organization, and clarifying and enforcing of membership requirements: not all bad, but not all good either, because we lost some essential values that the harmony-based religions preserved. (Members of those religions could probably identify values they lost as well.) The fact that the two great wars emerged in a Christian Europe filled with churches and theology schools needs to be examined. The fact that racism, profound social inequity, and anti-Semitism were not broadly recognized as a serious problem until almost two thousand years after Jesus is forever a judgment on the immaturity of Western Christianity, whether Catholic or Protestant.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“AND HELL:”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“God as a Trinity of persons, available at cacradicalgrace.org.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“but we are the Body of Christ. “Christ” is not Jesus”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“Without an inner life, our outer prayer will soon become superficial, ego-centered, and even counterproductive on the spiritual path.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

“All great spirituality is somehow about letting go.”
― Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See