"There is in every intellect a natural exigency for a true concept of God: we are born with the thirst to know and see Him, and therefore it cannot be otherwise."
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Thomas Merton
Within the last 2 weeks, I have had a yearning to discover more about God. I thought I had given that up. Buddhist psychology seemed to have given me a new spiritual foundation that I have been definitely finding refuge in. Last night I started part II of Thomas Merton's, The Seven Storey Mountain and it was unbelievable. Here is a quote that got me totally excited:
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Auspicious Coincidence: I had to look up exigency on the night (3/9) that I read that quote by Merton. The next day in our meeting at work (3/10 at about 4:45 in the afternoon), the word appeared in the Agenda under the new FMLA extensions granted by Obama. Exigency Leave. The next day it appeared! Did I make it appear? Building that precise moment of the present to manifest in a new present moment? This is something and am starting to explore and monitor.
Just noting: Upon reading that quote from Merton, it definitely was a charged moment. It moved me enough to go get the dictionary down off the shelf and look up "exigency" just to make sure I fully understood the meaning of his words. Creating things in the future, perhaps, must have to do with that "charged moment" because in recognizing the coincidence there, to this point, has not been any ability to predict the future. From here on out, when I recognized the coincidence, I will note the past moments' level of "chargedness" to see if there is a correlation. For me these auspicious coincidences are like intuitive affirmational stepping stones leading me forward on the path; a way of letting me know "yes" this is The Way.
Quote of the Week
Merton Institute
March 17, 2009
How many people are there in the world of today who have "lost their faith" along with the vain hopes and illusions of their childhood? What they called "faith" was just one among all the other illusions. They placed all their hope in a certain sense of spiritual peace, of comfort, of interior equilibrium, of self-respect. Then when they began to struggle with the real difficulties and burdens of mature life, when they became aware of their own weakness, they lost their peace, they let go of their precious self-respect, and it became impossible for them to "believe." That is to say it became impossible for them to comfort themselves, to reassure themselves, with the images and concepts they found reassuring in childhood.
Place no hope in the feeling of assurance, of spiritual comfort. You may well have to get along without this. Place no hope in the inspirational preachers of Christian sunshine, who are able to pick you up and set you back on your feet and make you feel good for three or four days-until you fold up and collapse into despair.
Thomas Merton. New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions Press, 1961): 187.
Thought for the Day
There is no hope more cruel than the vain hope for a supreme fulfillment that is so misunderstood as to be utterly impossible. There is no defeat more terrible than the defeat of the human heart driven wild by its desire of a mystical mirage.
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