Fr. Thomas Keating reflects on how Centering Prayer fulfills Jesus’s direction to go to your “inner room” to pray:
Following the formula that Jesus offers us in Matthew 6:6, the Centering Prayer practice is a specific way of following those instructions that is as simple as possible, and yet it contains not only a universe of meaning, but all creation, and, indeed, all uncreated reality. It’s a question of allowing ourselves the time faithfully to practice it, and to be led by the Spirit ever-so-gently, and, once in a while, rather firmly into deeper levels of understanding who we are as a beloved creature of God, and what our true identity actually is. So this particular kind of approach to contemplative payer – that is rather direct – is an education in self and an education in the mystery of ultimate reality that we call God in the Judeo-Christian tradition... [Centering Prayer is} a way of letting go of our environment, of our plans, and concerns, and worries, and the worries that you have about the world or the country – in other words, all external concerns for the moment we entrust to God by sitting down with the intention of just being with God during this time.