Continuing these reflections inspired by the publishing of the Merton conferences at the Monastery of the Redwoods in 1968….. It will be a kind of potpourri of themes and insights which the reader is invited to “put it all together”!
Coleman McCarthy, who had been a Trappist monk for a few years and who later became a noted journalist and peace activist, wrote an article in the National Catholic Reporter in Dec. of 1967 criticizing his old order. He said the Trappists’ Marine-like “hairy-chestedness” and “French Foreign Legion” heroics led them “to do hard things instead of good things.” He argued that Bonhoeffer’s “secular city” had replaced Thomas Merton’s “seven-storey mountain” as “the address of God.” Noting Bonhoeffer’s admonition — “A Christian must plunge himself into the life of a godless world” — McCarthy concluded a monastery “was where the action wasn’t.” Needless to sat Merton was a bit upset! (Later they dialogued through correspondence and began to appreciate each other….McCarthy later even defended the place of monks in the scheme of life.) At that time Merton was teaching the novices and other monks at Gethsemani about the Sufi path.
Merton at the beginning of one of these talks at Gethsemani:
“I am the biggest Sufi in Kentucky though I admit
there is not much competition.”
Then he goes on:
“Who wants mystical theology in a monastery?!”, says he mischievously. “That’s almost as bad as bootlegging or something! The last thing in the world any modern, progressive Catholic wants to hear about is mystics… I sort of throw it at you with a Moslem disguise or something like that in which it is more acceptable…. Now, we’ll talk about Sufism. Sufism is a very strange subject, and it should be kept a strange subject. Don’t ever let anybody ever get up here, or anywhere else, and give you a course on Sufism. Because anybody who is giving you a course on Sufism is giving you a false bill of goods, and anyway, what do you suppose Sufism is all about?”
This is “perfect Merton”! At times he was accused of being too whimsical/superficial in talking about other religious traditions, but that is simply misunderstanding what he is doing and his manner of pedagogy. Merton was not so much trying to “defend” monasticism—he was very critical of it in his own way—what he was most after is people understanding what the contemplative path was and its importance….wherever lived….. Recall: “Prayer is the great thing.” And the Sufi path is most helpful in getting some sense of that.
Obviously Merton was interested in many different spiritual traditions, both Christian and non-Christian, and benefited from all of them to a greater or lesser extent. Sometimes he learned something really new that enhanced and enriched his own journey; sometimes he discovered a new language and a new insight into what had gotten to be stale language and repeated without deep understanding in his own tradition. It is very clear that Zen and ancient Taoism appealed to him very deeply and helped him enormously. It is not so evident that Islamic mysticism, the Sufi path, made that kind of impact on his spiritual life, but that was precisely the case. Merton had read widely in Sufi circles, both classic and modern; but it was the personal contacts that helped him the most. He had a lengthy period of correspondence with Abdul Aziz, a Pakistani Sufi; he got to personally know Reza Arasteh, an Iranian scholar, psychoanalyst, and a Sufi, whose book, Final Integration, deeply impressed Merton; and then there was the meeting with an authentic Sufi teacher. In 1966, Sufi master Sidi Abdeslam visited the Abbey of Gethsemani to meet with Merton. Abdeslam was from the spiritual lineage of Shaikh Ahmad al-Alawi. Merton was deeply moved by the Sufi master, describing him as a “remarkable person” and comparing the
experience of meeting him to encountering one of the ancient Christian Desert Fathers.
Merton, in a letter to Abdul Aziz:
“I am tremendously impressed with the solidity and intellectual sureness of Sufism. I am stirred to the depths of my heart by the intensity of Moslem piety toward His names, and the reverence with which He is invoked as the ‘Compassionate and the Merciful.’ May He be praised and adored everywhere forever.”
From Mariam Davids, a contemporary woman Sufi teacher:
“Who Is a Real Sufi? And Who Is Just Wearing the Cloak?
In life, when you see a person dressed in white, head slightly bowed, prayer beads in hand, always talking softly about love and silence. And the heart immediately whispers, “He must be a Sufi…” Right?
But here’s the thing, my dear readers—just because someone looks like a Sufi doesn’t mean the fragrance is there too. Because in the garden of Tasawwuf (Sufism), not every flower blooms with the same fragrance.
In fact, the path of Tasawwuf is not something new or modern—it’s not a trend that started a few centuries ago. It’s ancient, timeless, and sacred. It’s the hidden spirit within the body of religion. It’s that quiet pulse running through the practices of the prophets, the truthful ones (siddiqeen), and the friends of Allah (Aulia Allah) for centuries.
And the real haqiqi Sufis? Oh SubhanAllah!, they’ve always been here. Quietly, sincerely, working on their inner world while living in ours.
There’s a beautiful teaching in the circles of the people of tariqah (the spiritual path), that speaks of three kinds of Sufis…..:
1. The Real Sufi (صُوفِيّ)
This is someone who has completely erased themselves. Their ego? Gone. Their will? Melted into Allah’s ﷻ will. They are baaqi billah—alive only through Allah ﷻ. Human desires no longer control them. And here’s the amazing part—they become masters of spiritual truths, deeply aware of the reality behind everything. They walk the earth lightly, but their hearts are in the Divine Presence.
2. The Aspiring Sufi (مُتَصَوِّف)
This is the seeker—sincere and striving. They’re not fully there yet, but they’re trying. You’ll find them in night vigils, fasting by day, doing zikr, salawat, istaghfaar, doing mujahadah (struggle against the self), walking step by step behind the real Sufis, hoping to polish their heart enough to reflect the Divine light. They haven’t arrived—but they’ve started the journey with love.
3. The Imitation Sufi (مُشْتَبِه)
Ah Allah Allah, this is the tricky one. Outwardly, everything looks perfect—tasbih in hand, soft speech, long prayer mats. But inside? Astaghfirullah! It’s not for Allah ﷻ. It’s for position, for popularity, for ego and nafs. They fast, they pray, they do zikr—but it’s all a performance. The robes of the Sufi are there, but the heart is still hungry for the dunya. The beauty is only on the outside.
This is a deep, gentle warning for us all: not to be fooled by appearances, and more importantly—not to fool ourselves. Because the path of Tasawwuf is a path of truth, and truth always begins with the self.
Because at the end of the day, only He knows what’s in the heart.
Let’s try to be from the second kind, if not the first. Let’s not fall into the third. Let’s be seekers—even if we stumble, even if we’re weak—because Allah ﷻ loves those who walk toward Him with sincerity.
And maybe, just maybe… one day He’ll pull us into that silent, fragrant circle of the true Sufis—those who forgot themselves and remembered only Him.
اللّٰهُمَّ “
Interesting how this echoes Merton’s own guidance concerning monastic/contemplative life.
Nasrudin
Nasruddin may be a historical Sufi figure from about the 13th century—nobody knows for sure. In any case, a large number of stories became associated with him over the centuries. In essence they are Sufi teaching stories, which can be read at many levels: for humor, as a joke of sorts; as a story with a moral twist; or as a kind of opening to something truly deep on the Sufi path. This last will be available only through a living Sufi teacher and applicable in a very personal way to a particular individual on their particular path. At the Redwoods gathering Merton tells two Nasrudin stories. The first one is a little bit clearer to grasp on all three levels; the second one Merton admits he has no idea what it might mean on the spiritual level. So….the first one goes like this:
On one occasion a neighbor found Nasrudin down on his knees looking for something.
‘What have you lost, Mulla?’
‘My key,’ said Nasrudin.
After a few minutes of searching, the other man said,
‘Where did you drop it?’
‘At home.’
‘Then why, for heaven’s sake, are you looking here?’
‘There is more light here.’
Just one comment: There is a tendency in us to “look” for God in the wrong places; and the “wrong places” are characterized by being on the one hand as “easy,” “obvious,” recognizable; and on the other hand the “wrong places” will always have a certain very personal and unique character for each person.
The true, essential Sufi teaching unfolds in a primarily oral culture….between a Sufi and his teacher/guide. What we “outsiders” see seems cryptic, perplexing, paradoxical…the language is always a kind of allusion, not a direct pointing to the essence of the matter.
Two words which have a great significance in Sufi discourse: hidden, secret. These have both an interior and exterior significance. As Merton points out, the real Sufi life is a hidden form which cannot be expressed anyway; the hidden life of secret friendship with God. In one of the conferences at Redwoods Merton points out some interesting parallels in the Christian Desert Father era: Paphnutius. He was a disciple of Antony and a legendary hermit. One day, as he is in prayer, he asks God, “Lord, if there is anyone around here as holy as I, show me who it is.” So the Lord immediately shows him this dancer in the town. Paphnutius goes into the town and asks him, “How come you’re so holy?” And he says, “Who me?” Now there’s different versions of this story….Paphnutius finds a married couple…or three married women…but the basic theme is always the same: the person who is living the full monastic ideal is shown a higher state of life…the state of the person who’s completely hidden. (And by the way think about this, what is more “secret” or more “hidden” than the Divine Reality on the Cross!) Merton also relates the Syrian legend of Theophilus and Mary:
“They lived together chastely, but he pretended he was a juggler and she pretended she was a very wild girl. So they were reviled by the populace. Everybody thought they were just a bunch of hippies…. Of course, they’re forerunners of the idea of the Russian ‘Fool for Christ’….So, the Sufis emphasize this very strongly…like the Rhenish mystics, the idea of being ‘secret friends of God.’ Ruysbroeck has this terrific lineup of ‘hidden children’ and ‘secret friends.’ The real top of the ladder for Ruysbroeck is being a ‘secret friend’ in which this union with God is completely hidden, even from oneself” [underlining is mine].
I think this whole thing also played out to some degree in Merton’s own life: the way he undermined the image people liked to project on him, both conservatives and liberals; the way he deconstructed his supposed “roles” that both sides wanted him to play out. At times he did it deliberately; at other times it just came “naturally.” I won’t go into the serious examples, but there are some light and charming episodes. One such took place in late 1966 when Joan Baez and Ira Sandperl visited him at Gethsemani. They had just founded an institute to train leaders in nonviolent resistance, and they were going to use materials written by Merton, among others. Ira had corresponded with Merton, but Joan had not engaged him at all—he was simply a “monk with a reputation”! She did not know what to expect…most likely a solemn serious person. They met Merton at his hermitage; she was quite surprised how he did not fit her image of a monk/hermit. Later on she described him as being “sweet and funny.” He was very open in his discussions with them, even telling them about his falling in love with a young nurse in Louisville. They were so taken by this that they volunteered to drive him there that very evening if he wanted to see her again. He gratefully turned down the offer, but then he said, lets go and get some burgers and shakes. His simplicity and humanity affected them deeply.
This reminds one of Dostoevsky’s Father Zosima who had tea and cakes with ladies in his cell—in contrast to the strict ascetic Ferapont. When Zosima dies, Alyosha, his disciple, has a faith crisis….his Elder’s body corrupts very rapidly making everybody say that this is a sign that he was obviously a corrupt monk. Sometimes it is God who conceals his holy ones!
During the conferences at Redwoods Merton mentions Freud approvingly several times. For Merton, Freud has a partial handle on a partial part of our problem. Interiorly we are a vortex of conflicting feelings and Impulses, a mishmash of fears, anxieties, desires, “mirages of need,” etc. Freud points out that within that context it is truly a struggle to garner some deep meaning for one’s life and inevitably there will be the corrosive uncertainties that plague human existence. Merton said that this is very applicable to monastic life (and we could add to anyone trying to walk a contemplative path). (The holy Athonite hermit of the 19th century, Silouan, heard the Lord’s voice in his heart as he struggled in prayer: ‘Keep your mind in hell, and despair not.’) Merton: “….the real key to renewal in our life is the acceptance of this fact, and the thing that’s blocking renewal is an unconscious resistance against this. There is a kind of conservatism, which is very well meant, but which attempts to create a life in which there are no ‘torturing’ uncertainties. It attempts to suppress the uncertainties and the risks that go with doing something different. And that is deadly. That is the real bad thing about conservatism: that it refuses to allow a struggle to take place.”
Instead, the novice monk, according to Merton, too often is unable to develop into a real person from the socially-formed ego with a “storm” within and a fragile socially-conditioned sense of identity. He/she is indoctrinated into a role and given an external identity…..with the habit on, you are somebody….habit off, who are you?….inside the enclosure you are somebody….outside, who are you? Etc. Again, recall this is Merton speaking in 1968….he points out that the nuns are especially victimized by this:
“One of the main roles is the role of ‘nun.’ That has become so much a role; that is to say, you fit into it. It’s a real easy category, and the whole thing is arranged in such a way that it’s very easy to fit into it as a category and to get lost in it as a category. Very often people are content to settle for a role and a category rather than to have to be a person; and sometimes the religious life is made easy for that kind of evasion…. What nuns have to be is persons, and that may mean going exactly the opposite of what had to be done before. It may have to be a totally different process. Everything that we have or what we wear, what we do, has to imply some kind of a reasonable choice on this whole point of, ‘Is it a symbol that I have accepted bondage as a woman? Or is it a symbol that I have accepted freedom as a bride of Christ?’ That’s what everybody has to help with, but that’s what the ‘official’ people are trying not to do.”
Modern consciousness says that you are this individual ego; this ego is to be well integrated into society, and, if this society is “sick,” you are going to be “sick”; you are given a number as it were, an identity; and it calls this “being a person.” But both for Merton and the Sufis the goal is a transformed reality, a someone who has struggled and broken through to a sense of personhood that is no longer dependent on any external, arbitrary, socially-constructed markers, a sense of identity that is no longer tossed about by the inevitable illusions and unrealities that flood our minds and emotions and interactions. Merton numerous times in the conferences refers to St. Paul’s message in his Letters about the freedom now of the person “in Christ” (and how we seem to be reading Paul’s words over and over and numb to their radical meaning). The roles and categories and markers of social life are still there but you are no longer defined by them, nor do you draw your sense of identity from them.
Who you are, your real identity, is God’s secret, and so it is truly “in God.” This secret is God’s innermost knowledge of me. And I am only real and only truly known as I am this unique “I in God.” For Sufis, the primary faculty of a human being is the “heart,” whereby a human being “knows” the Divine Reality and in turn experiences itself as “being known” uniquely by the Divine Reality. This is your real identity, who you really are, your true personhood, and it is only real as it is “in God.” You begin to experience this at the deepest core/center of your being; and Merton, borrowing language from the Sufis, calls it an “awakening from the dream of forgetfulness” which is our usual everyday social self. This awakening journey, then, is properly called “prayer.” All other uses of that word are merely derivative, fleeting shadows and signs of what it’s really all about. At the conference Merton quotes Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Sufi and scholar, “Prayer in this sense then makes and transforms man until he himself becomes prayer; he becomes identified with it. And his real nature is the prayer in which he discovers who he really is.” Merton then continues: “That’s a good expression of what the prayer life means: in prayer man finds his true identity…. Instead of being hung up on an image and a narcissistic self-awareness, in prayer, a person really finds himself….” The proper climate of this deep prayer, of this deep awakening, no matter who you are, an activist or a monk hidden in a monastery, is silence, solitude, poverty of spirit….”the desert”….in one form or another….
Now we need to step back a bit and look at the big picture. The Quran’s very first verse declares that God is All-Merciful and All-Compassionate. We Christians profess that we have that same view, but it somehow seems muted and diluted…. Another verse says, “His Mercy covers all things.” And Islam means All things (and so should we)! The key point is that our very being, our very existence is a work and a sign of His Mercy. In His Mercy He calls us out of nothingness into being every moment or else we would cease to be. Every moment, every breath is grounded in the Divine Mercy. Every twig, every leaf, every little bird, every star, each and every human being is called into being every moment by the Divine Mercy (and consequently existing within the knowledge of God). Now a human being is a very special and peculiar creature in that God chooses to manifest Himself in our human consciousness. Our “knowledge” of God, or perhaps to put it better, our deepest awareness of the Divine Reality, is simply the “flip side” of God’s secret knowledge of us, which is “in Him” and which is our true identity in Him. Or as Meister Eckhart put it succinctly: “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.”
So the Divine Mercy calls us into existence every moment, and with every breath we say that Biblical, “Here I am.” Merton: “Being itself is mercy. Existence is mercy. The mere fact that one has been called into existence is a gift of God’s mercy.” Then, our very being at its core is a Great Yes to this call. This is the givenness of our life, and every created reality participates in this Great Yes in its own way. The cat sleeping on the couch praises and thanks its Creator in its very being. It praises the Divine Reality as its life unfolds totally within what we call the “will of God,” that is, within the Divine Action, the Divine Mercy, totally. It is always doing the “will of God”—think of the “purity” of wild nature….! What makes us “special/different” is that the very meaning of our existence is to affirm that Great Yes with our own truly personal, unique, small yes….to the “will of God” as it manifests and comes to us in our unique life….this is the ground of our true personhood, our authentic uniqueness, and the real meaning of our freedom. As Merton points out, in monastic life this is the real significance of St. Benedict’s emphasis on the vow of obedience. For the rest of us (and actually for the monks also in their everyday life), it comes down to a silent, dark (in the sense that it is totally in faith) surrender to and an abiding in the Divine Mercy no matter how it unfolds in our life, a wordless awareness, an unthematic attentiveness…. This is another aspect of deep prayer. And, yes, this will inevitably plunge us into struggles, doubt, a “dark night” indeed. Until one day we awake to our own personal meaning of St. Paul’s “I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me”; and Augustine’s “God is closer to me than I am to myself.”
From Isaiah 42:16:
“And I will lead the blind
in a way that they do not know,
in paths that they have not known
I will guide them.
I will turn the darkness before them into light,
the rough places into level ground.
These are the things I do,
and I do not forsake them.”
There is no program for this, no plan, no method, no system….and Merton warns about contemplative people making a “project” of their prayer life. He makes a strong statement at the conference, and he can easily be misunderstood but the guidance is there for those who can hear it. Merton says (and remember that here Merton is speaking to people experienced in Catholic religious life, monastic and active) that in our active life…. “You have to figure things out. You have to plan action and do things, but in prayer—no. The best way to pray is just simply to stop, and let prayer pray itself in you, whether you know it or not. This is the best way to pray—and this works. Then you don’t have to know it. You don’t have to even look to see if you’re praying, and to look and see if you’re praying is a great mistake….”
“What this is, is a deep underground awareness of finality that is built right into our being, and is renewed in us by God. This finality is a kind of identity. Our deepest identity is not just that we are constituted as human individuals, but that we are constituted in a special kind of Christlike being, by God’s call to come to Him. So that what our prayer life does, is that it gets right down to this root identity of the self that is called into being by God’s direct word; ‘Come. Come follow me. Come to Me. Come to the Father.’ Prayer, and everything else in our life, has to be built around that central thing, which is inaudible. You don’t hear it, but it is the very depths of your being, and the very depths of your identity. The trouble with all that is said about the life of prayer is that it tends to obscure this, and tends to make us forget that this is the fundamental thing.”
Merton continues: “Another thing that’s forgotten about the life of prayer is we say, ‘Alright, it’s a life of faith.’ Sure, it’s a life of faith. But it’s also a life of doubt. If you never doubt, you can’t pray. You have to doubt. It’s necessary in the life of prayer to struggle with doubt. And once again, that is the trouble with all this hard and fast safe Rule thing: ‘If I get to the end of the day, and I’ve kept every little rule from morning to night, then I have no reason to doubt. I’m justified. So why should I doubt whether I’m justified or not?’ This gets back to this central thing in faith. It’s not by the work of prayer that I’m justified…. And if I’ve prayed all day, it does not make me any better than if I haven’t prayed all day. See what I mean? All of these things have to be absolutely fundamental, because otherwise, I have another kind of identity. I have an identity of somebody who has become somebody by praying. ‘I have prayed. Now I’m me. I am the man who prayed all day.’ And you come away from prayer with a placard on your chest, ‘God, you know who I am. I am the man who prayed all day.’”
And now lets conclude this posting and all our reflections on Merton at Redwoods with this most remarkable quote. In all his writings and letters and journals, Merton never really exposed his very own deep prayer life….except once….in a letter to his Sufi friend, Abdul Aziz. Aziz had asked Merton to tell him about his own prayer life. Merton wrote back:
“Strictly speaking I have a very simple way of prayer. It is centered entirely on attention to the presence of God and to His will and His love. That is to say that it is centered on faith by which alone we can know the presence of God. One might say this gives my meditation the character described by the Prophet as ‘being before God as if you saw Him.’ Yet it does not mean imagining anything or conceiving a precise image of God, for to my mind this would be a kind of idolatry. On the contrary, it is a matter of adoring Him as invisible and infinitely beyond our comprehension, and realizing Him as all. My prayer tends very much toward what you call fana [‘annihilation’]. There is in my heart this great thirst to recognize totally the nothingness of all that is not God. My prayer is then a kind of praise rising up and out of the center of Nothing and Silence. If I am still present ‘myself’ this I recognize as an obstacle about which I can do nothing unless He Himself removes the obstacle. If He wills, He can then make the Nothingness into a total clarity. If He does not will, then the Nothingness seems to itself to be an object and remains an obstacle. Such is my ordinary way of prayer, or meditation. It is not ‘thinking about’ anything, but a direct seeking of the Face of the Invisible, which cannot be found unless we become lost in Him who is Invisible.”