New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton

"Nothing could be more alien to contemplation than the cogito ergo sum of Descartes. "I think, therefore I am." This is the declaration of an alienated being, in exile from his own spiritual depths, compelled to seek some comfort in a proof for his own existence(!) based on the observation that he "thinks." If his thought is necessary as a medium through which he arrives at the concept of his existence, then he is in fact only moving further away form his true being. He is reducing himself to a concept. He is making it impossible for himself to experience, directly and immediately, the mystery of his own being. At the same time, by also reducing God to a concept, he makes it impossible for himself to have any intuition of the divine reality which is inexpressible. He arrives at his own being as if it were an objective reality, that is to say he strives to become aware of himself as he would of some "thing" alien to himself: "I am, therefore some thing." And then he goes on to convince himself that God, the infinite, the transcendent, is also a "thing," and"object," like other finite and limited objects of our thought!" pg. 8

I have recently discovered the theologian Thomas Merton this winter break. The passage above comes from a book that is all about realizing who God is through contemplation. When I first read this the first thing that I thought about was the "Secret" that has been so popular this last year or so. My best friend and I have talked about this reality and whether it has the ability to apply to life or not. I first heard about it through Kelly who said that the founder of "The Secret" was on Oprah. Ronda Byrne, the recent founder of this idea "defines The Secret as the law of attraction, which is the principle that "like attracts like." Rhonda calls it "the most powerful law in the universe," and says it is working all the time. "What we do is we attract into our lives the things we want, and that is based on what we're thinking and feeling," Rhonda says. The principle explains that we create our own circumstances by the choices we make in life. And the choices we make are fueled by our thoughts—which means our thoughts are the most powerful things we have here on earth."

Basically if we think one thing and react to the natural order around us we are actually creating our own "fate/destiny/best lifestyle" While I think there is some truth to this I also realize that if this is your full and only philosophy on life you are ultimately going to be disappointed when the things that you cannot control end up causing every single reaction that you display. It's funny because while we can say, we can control our thinking and make our lives better we still are reacting, which in turn shows that we are not in control and that we are not truly thinking first and acting second.

Also this idea actually stems from the statement that Merton describes above. The idea from Descartes that we think first and so then we have a created identity. However, if we base our identity off what we think then we find ourselves to be completely based off of conceptual reality. We then create our own God and create our own savior and mask the reality and the gravity of sin in our own lives.

Because if we think one thing we are ultimately correct. And if we base our thinking off of ourselves and our success, we then destroy morality in the basis of our own society. Our social constructs become useless because our thinking is completely and utterly individual. We then find ourselves to be back in a place of illusion. Without any real grasp on reality and on community.

So the question is do we desire for the ultimate life that is masked in illusion and a preparatory death sentence? A life that is completely individualistic and has no marking of influence and impact? A life where God is defined as a crutch and is not truly needed to intervene and save us?

Do we long for a life that is conceptual and based on the illusion that we are free?

Or do we long for a life that is fully aware that we are not free by our own consolation prizes and that we long and desperately need something to create the moral and the real fiber within our own being?

The choice is yours. Masked bondage? Or a freed reality?