Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, and fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source.
Interpretation
Contemplation enhances our awareness and appreciation of life, revealing its spiritual essence.
This quote by Thomas Merton highlights the profound importance of contemplation as a means to fully experience and appreciate life. It suggests that when we are fully awake and aware, we tap into a deeper understanding of existence, filled with gratitude and awe for the sacredness of life. Through contemplation, we realize that our very being and awareness emerge from a greater, transcendent source, prompting a sense of spiritual wonder.
In practice
During a mindfulness workshop, I shared this quote to emphasize the importance of being present and aware in our daily lives.
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny....To work out our identity in God.
Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.
You are made in the image of what you desire.
But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
Once I lived in time as a fish in water, breathing it, drinking it, sustained by it. Now I kill time and time kills me.
We vary greatly in the natural advantages that we've been given. The world's not fair
Why did we become blind, I don't know, perhaps one day we'll find out, Do you want me to tell you what I think, Yes, do, I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.
Sexism is the foundation on which all tyranny is built. Every social form of hierarchy and abuse is modeled on male-over-female domination.
My home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world.
. . . persist in that invocation until the unity of the world is subsumed for you in a single sphere, so that with the eye of your heart you will see naught in the two worlds save the One.
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