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[Montana Keith]

Mitch,
I just finished watching and listening to that video of Eckhart Tolle that you recommended on this thread. Thank you for suggesting it. In listening to Eckhart speak of our oneness with God, I was reminded of the following words of Thomas Merton:

In Finding God, I Find My True Self
The secret of my identity is hidden in the love and mercy of God. But whatever is in God is really identical with Him, for His infinite simplicity admits no division and not distinction. Therefore I cannot hope to find myself anywhere except in Him.
Ultimately the only way that I can be myself is to become identified with Him in Whom is hidden the reason and fulfillment of my existence. Therefore there is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find Him I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him.
But although this looks simple, it is in reality immensely difficult. In fact, if I am left to myself it will be utterly impossible. For although I can know something of God’s existence and nature by my own reason, there is no human and rational way in which I can arrive at that contact, that possession of Him, which will be the discovery of Who He really is and of Who I am in Him.
That is something that no man can ever do alone.
Nor can all the men and all the created things in the universe help him in this work.
The only One Who can teach me to find God is God, Himself, Alone. (New Seeds of Contemplation, pp. 35-36)


For those readers here who may be unfamiliar with Thomas Merton and his writings, I include the following information. I wrote the following several years ago.

At this time, I am reading a couple of books by the Trappist monk Thomas Merton. He lived from 1915 to 1968. The books I am reading are: The Seven Storey Mountain and New Seeds of Contemplation. Shortly before his accidental death in 1968, Thomas Merton met with his Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama said later that he never realized Christians were spiritual until he met Merton. Here was a Christian monk completely unlike any Christian the Dalai Lama had ever met before. He found openness in Merton rarely seen in other Christians.

Following are some quotes, poetry, and other writings by Thomas Merton:

“The deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion . . . It is beyond words . . .
We are already one.”
Thomas Merton

Prayer of Thomas Merton
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think that I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this
you will lead me by the right road
though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always
though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

(from “Thoughts in Solitude” ©Abbey of Gethsemani.)