Dragonnet - Words of the Wise

THE FALSE SELF

"The false self, encased in the hard shell of egocentric awareness, rejects all such interpenetration with God (with whom our true self is bound in a union which is our own ultimate reality) and with others (with whom our true self is bound in a union of perfect charity). Thus, the false self is found in a fragmented state which it seeks to overcome by adherence to the chimera of social myths. By way of social myths the false self is projected into the communal lie of the world, understood in the negative sense as that place which fosters our won deepest lie about ourselves:

The mother of all lies is sthe lie we persist in telling ourselves about ourselves. And since we are not brazen enough liars to make ourselves believe our own lie individually, we pool all our lies together and believe them because they have become the big lie uttered by the vox populi, and this kind of lie we accept as ultimate truth. (Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, 1966)

"By way of social myths the false self is allowed to surface in concrete expressions of diversion and exploitation. This dark camaraderie coalesces and hardens in a wall that separates oursleves from ourselves, from God and others.

"This occurs whenever society makes a cult of some relative interpretation of life or sets some relative good up as the end of life itself. Success, progress, and all similar goals are examples of the world's expression of the false self. These social imperatives hold themselves up as absolutes to the extent that we are led to believe that life is nothing but these things. And in this exclusiveness is sthe falsity. We are led to believe that only the world can save us. We are told that irrelevance according to the criterion of the world is tantamount to nonexistence. We are what we are to the world and all else is nonbeing. . .

"For Merton, the all-embracing tentacles of social myths must be transcended if we are ever to be free, and therefore able to love and be with our brothers and sisters in Spirit and in truth. For Merton, this is one of the important principles of Christian solitude by which we maintain our integrity and wholeness as a created person."

James Finley, Merton's Palace of Nowhere: A Search for God through Awareness of the True Self, 1978

Read more from James Finley in The Contemplative Heart


		"Words of the Wise"
		THE FALSE SELF "The false self, encased in the hard shell of egocentric awareness, rejects all such interpenetration with God (with whom our true self is bound in a union which is our own ultimate reality) and with others (with whom our true self is bound in a union of perfect charity). Thus, the false self is found in a fragmented state which it seeks to overcome by adherence to the chimera of social myths. By way of social myths the false self is projected into the communal lie of the world, understood in the negative sense as that place which fosters our won deepest lie about ourselves: The mother of all lies is sthe lie we persist in telling ourselves about ourselves. And since we are not brazen enough liars to make ourselves believe our own lie individually, we pool all our lies together and believe them because they have become the big lie uttered by the vox populi, and this kind of lie we accept as ultimate truth. (Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, 1966) "By way of social myths the false self is allowed to surface in concrete expressions of diversion and exploitation. This dark camaraderie coalesces and hardens in a wall that separates oursleves from ourselves, from God and others. "This occurs whenever society makes a cult of some relative interpretation of life or sets some relative good up as the end of life itself. Success, progress, and all similar goals are examples of the world's expression of the false self. These social imperatives hold themselves up as absolutes to the extent that we are led to believe that life is nothing but these things. And in this exclusiveness is sthe falsity. We are led to believe that only the world can save us. We are told that irrelevance according to the criterion of the world is tantamount to nonexistence. We are what we are to the world and all else is nonbeing. . . "For Merton, the all-embracing tentacles of social myths must be transcended if we are ever to be free, and therefore able to love and be with our brothers and sisters in Spirit and in truth. For Merton, this is one of the important principles of Christian solitude by which we maintain our integrity and wholeness as a created person." James Finley, Merton's Palace of Nowhere: A Search for God through Awareness of the True Self, 1978 Read more from James Finley in The Contemplative Heart
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