Thanks for sharing the beautiful essay by Thomas Merton, I had not come across him before. Also for his account of his spiritual experience, which resonated deeply with me.. I had a similar one on a bus in elephant and castle many years ago, pretty much the very last place I expected something like that to happen! The Real shines through everywhere, and is often most available in the most ordinary... and yes is present in every single person's heart, in the most astonishing way! It was just a glimpse, such as is often given when you finally stop messing about spiritually and begin to actually journey - for me, it was much needed encouragement at the start of the Sufi path, an indication that it was the right path. Just a glimpse, or a brief ‘taste’, and not to be confused with the mature permeation that comes with completion (which I cannot pretend to have), but fortunately, a durable and un-unseeable one. As Hafiz says,
It seems to me that some other names for the rhinoceros are sinners who always create hell on earth, narcissus, the Golem, the Nafs, the plague as in Camus' novel and McGilchrist's the Emissary.
♡ I brought a biography of Thomas Merton with me to the festival!
Thanks for this. Have not been around those words for years but Merton was my spiritual guide from my 20s to my 60s
Thanks for posting that. It's one of my favourite pieces of writing by him (though it's not a "piece").
Just re-read Pieper's lovely book on festivity: In tune with the world.
Thank you for sharing
Thanks for sharing the beautiful essay by Thomas Merton, I had not come across him before. Also for his account of his spiritual experience, which resonated deeply with me.. I had a similar one on a bus in elephant and castle many years ago, pretty much the very last place I expected something like that to happen! The Real shines through everywhere, and is often most available in the most ordinary... and yes is present in every single person's heart, in the most astonishing way! It was just a glimpse, such as is often given when you finally stop messing about spiritually and begin to actually journey - for me, it was much needed encouragement at the start of the Sufi path, an indication that it was the right path. Just a glimpse, or a brief ‘taste’, and not to be confused with the mature permeation that comes with completion (which I cannot pretend to have), but fortunately, a durable and un-unseeable one. As Hafiz says,
“I wish I could show you,
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The Astonishing Light
Of your own Being!”
It seems to me that some other names for the rhinoceros are sinners who always create hell on earth, narcissus, the Golem, the Nafs, the plague as in Camus' novel and McGilchrist's the Emissary.