Meditation is one of the ways in which the spiritual man keeps himself awake.
Interpretation
Meditation helps individuals maintain spiritual awareness and consciousness.
In this quote, Thomas Merton emphasizes the importance of meditation as a practice that helps individuals remain spiritually alert and engaged with their inner selves. It suggests that through meditation, people can cultivate a deeper awareness of their thoughts, feelings, and spiritual existence, thereby enhancing their overall sense of being and understanding of life.
In practice
During a wellness retreat, this quote can be shared to encourage participants to embrace meditation.
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.
I used many times to touch my own chest and feel, under its asthmatic quiver, the engine of the heart and lungs and blood and feel amazed at what I sensed was the enormity of the power I possessed. Not magical power, but real power. The power simply to go on, the power to endure, that is power enough, but I felt I had also the power to create, to add, to delight, to amaze and to transform.
Before you consult your fancy, consult your purse.
The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.
He that blows the coals in quarrels that he has nothing to do with, has no right to complain if the sparks fly in his face. - Ben Franklin
Pay heed to the tales of old wives. It may well be that they alone keep in memory what it was once needful for the wise to know.
Thus, though I have heard of successful military operations that were clumsy but swift, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.
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