To Be More Of Your Self

The sharpest of natural experiences is like sleep, compared with the awakening which is contemplation. The keenest and surest natural certitude is a dream compared to those serene comprehension.

- Thomas Merton

The direct apprehension of God neither occurs by thinking nor believing in it. It is permitted by simply being absorbed into it. Before it happens it is well considered to be abnormal. Once it is experienced it then seems perfectly natural to have this certitude without discursive evidence. At that point instinct teaches that the function of this is nothing other than to draw us completely out of our selves and into joy. You have only begun to live.