Real freedom Thomas Merton writes... As long as we experience ourselves in prayer as an “I” standing on the threshold of the abyss of purity and emptiness that is God, waiting to “receive something” from Him, we are still far from the most intimate and secret unitive knowledge that is pure contemplation. From our side of the threshold this darkness, this emptiness, looks deep and vast – and exciting. There is nothing we can do about entering in. We cannot force our way over the edge, although there is no barrier. But the reason is perhaps that there is also no abyss. There you remain, somehow feeling that the next step will be a plunge and you will find yourself flying in interstellar space. When the next step comes, you do not take the step, you do not know the transition, you do not fall into anything. You do not go anywhere, and so you do not know the way by which you got there or the way by which you come back afterward. You are certainly not lost. You do not fly. There is not space, or there is all space: it makes no difference. The next step is not a step. You are not transported from one degree to another. What happens is that the separate entity that is you apparently disappears and nothing seems to be left but a pure freedom indistinguishable from infinite Freedom, love identified with Love. Not two loves, one waiting for the other, striving for the other, seeking for the other, but Love Loving in Freedom. New Seeds of Contemplation, pg 282
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 16:52:57 +0000
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