the inner ground







The way to find the real "world" is not merely to measure 
and observe what is outside us, but to discover our own inner ground.  
For that is where the world is, first of all: in my deepest self... 
This "ground," this "world" where I am mysteriously present 
at once to my own self and to freedoms of all other men,
 is not a visible, objective and determined structure 
with fixed laws and demands.  
It is a living and self-creating mystery 
of which I am myself a part, 
to which I am myself my own unique door.



~Thomas Merton
from Merton's Palace of Nowhere 
 by
James Finley


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