I have occasionally read and heard
contemplatives writing and talking about the true self and the false self but
until recently did not have a clue to what they were referring. That started to
change after I participated in a Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Spiritual
Formation Course about “Thomas Merton and the Journey to True Self.”
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| From new seeds, new life will find a way. |
I think the best book to read for
insight into Merton’s understanding of the false self and true self is his The New Man. It can be dense and a real
struggle to get through, however. It is also more theoretical, philosophical,
theological, and offers even less practical advice about contemplation than New Seeds of Contemplation.
Nevertheless, Merton does discuss the true self and the false self in this
latter work and therefore offers some insight.
Unfortunately there is no index to New Seeds of Contemplation, so I cannot
go back to read everything Merton wrote about the true and the false self. I recall him first mentioning the false self
in the chapter entitled “Everything That is, Is Holy,” in comments he made as
he discussed detachment. I first became aware of the concept of detachment
through my study and practice of mindfulness meditation, but thanks to Merton,
I have learned more about detachment as a Christian spiritual discipline that
is both essential to and flows from contemplation and leads to detachment from
the false self and the discovery of the true self.
Merton writes “We do not detach
ourselves from things in order to attach ourselves to God, but rather we become
detached from ourselves in order to
see and use all things in and for God. … There is no evil in anything created
by God, nor can anything of His become an obstacle to our union with Him. The
obstacle is in our ‘self,’ that is to say in the tenacious need to maintain our
separate, external, egotistic will.”[1]
According to Merton, “All sin starts from the assumption that my false self,
the self that exists only in my own egocentric desires, is the fundamental
reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered.” [2]
In other words, to “To say I was born in sin is to say I came into the world
with a false self.”[3]
“Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self.” [4]
“My false self and private self is the one who wants to exist outside the reach
of God’s will and God’s love — outside of reality and outside of life. And such
a self cannot help but be an illusion.”[5]
“Until we love God perfectly,”
writes Merton, “everything in the world will be able to hurt us,” everything
including our separate, external, egotistic will that manifests itself in our
false self. “Instead of worshipping God through His creation we are always
trying to worship ourselves by means of creatures. … But to worship our false
selves is to worship nothing. And the worship of nothing is hell.”[6]
The “ourselves” and “self” that contemplation
seeks to help us detach from is what Merton calls the “false self,” the illusory
person we normally and usually think we are. This “false self” can get in our
way of experiencing union with the divine. “The only true joy on earth,” writes
Merton, “is to escape from the prison of our own false self, and enter by love
into union with the Life Who dwells and sings within the essence of every
creature and in the core of our very own souls.”[7]
By detaching ourselves from the
falsity of illusion and instead choosing the truth of our identity as created
in the image of God, we “share with God the work of creating the truth of our identity.” According to Merton, “to work
out our own identity in God, which the Bible calls ‘working out our salvation,’
is a labor that requires sacrifice and anguish, risk and many tears.” [8]
If I understand Merton at all, it
seems that the false self is the fallen self, the self that is tarnished by
original sin, not the self we were created to be. The true self is the self of
original blessing, the self that was created in the image of God. In
contemplation, we open ourselves to the power of God to help us detach
ourselves from the illusion that our sinful self is who we were meant to be and
through the grace, mercy, and love of God rediscover our true self as a child
of God created in God’s image.
Here is the link to the introductory post in the series.
Here is the link to the introductory post in the series.
[1] New Seeds of Contemplation, 21.
[2] Ibid.,
34-35.
[3] Ibid.,
33.
[4] Ibid.,
34.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.,
26.
[7] Ibid.,
25.
[8] Ibid.,
32.
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