Quotes by Bernadette Roberts

God not only took away what the Buddhists call the “five-skhandas” (bundle of self-experiences), but took with it their Empty (Divine) Center—both God and self, gone in one fell swoop. I have it from a renowned Zen Buddhist teacher that this is not what Buddhists mean by no-self, and that nowhere in Buddhism will anyone find a report of no-skhandas. So to say what I mean by No-Self is the same as what the Buddhists mean, is absolutely false. 

Christ is not the self, but that which remains when there is no self. He is the form (the vessel) that is identical with the substance, and he is not multiple forms, but one eternal form. Christ is the act, the manifestation and extension of God that is not separate from God. We cannot comprehend "that" which acts or "that" which smiles, but we all know the act - the smile that is Christ himself. Thus Christ turns out to be all that is knowable about God, because without his acts, God could not be known. Act itself is God's revelation and this revelation is not separate from God but is God himself. This I believe is what Christ would have us see; this is his completed message to man. But who can understand it?

It is one step, and a giant one, to see clearly and participate in the love that flows between the persons of the Trinity, but even here, God is seen as the object of his own love. It is yet another step to realize that God is beyond all subject and object and is Himself love without subject or object. 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.

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.

Whoever was responsible for the idea of dividing self into lower and higher parts committed a serious crime against humanity. This division has given rise to the notion that the lower (ego and immature) self must be overcome while the higher (unitive and whole) self must be sought as the goal of human realization. Out of ignorance, I too clung to this notion because I believed it was this higher self that would be united with God for all eternity. It took a long time before my experiences led me to doubt this conviction and, at the same time, let in the possibility that this was not the whole truth and that there was still further to go.

Once beyond the self, however, holiness is no longer possible, because now, there is nothing left to give and no-one left to do the giving.

The assumption that the egoless condition, or union of self and God, is man's final goal and ultimate destiny is a great mistake. 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.

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. 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".

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, 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.

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, 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