We have the choice of two identities: the external mask which seems to be real...and the hidden, inner person who seems to us to be nothing, but who can give himself eternally to the truth in whom he subsists. (295)
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the duality of human identity, contrasting the external persona with the inner self.
Thomas Merton's quote emphasizes the idea that individuals often present a facade to the world, a mask that may seem authentic, while their true essence or inner self remains hidden. The true self, although often underestimated, has the capacity to connect with deeper truths and provide a more profound understanding of existence. Merton suggests that embracing this inner identity leads to a more authentic life and a connection to truth that transcends superficial appearances.
In practice
In a personal development seminar about self-awareness.
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.
The only thing that made me, or any of us, special was that no one in the whole of history would ever see the universe exactly the same way any other of us saw it.
Two possibilities: making oneself infinitely small or being so. The second is perfection, that is to say, inactivity, the first is beginning, that is to say, action.
Do you see the slightest evidence anywhere in the universe that creation came to an end with the birth of man? Do you see the slightest evidence anywhere out there that man was the climax toward which creation had been straining from the beginning? ...Very far from it. The universe went on as before, the planet went on as before. Man's appearance caused no more stir than the appearance of jellyfish.
That however the brains and abilities of men may differ, their stomachs are essentially the same.
Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?
I don't know Bengali perfectly. I don't know how to write it or even read it. I have an accent, I speak without authority, and so I've always perceived a disjunction between it and me. As a result, I consider my mother tongue, paradoxically, a foreign language.
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