Thomas Merton, The Inner Experience Notes on Contemplation, Edited by William H. Shannon, HarperSanFrancisco a division of HarperCollinsPublishers, © 2003
But the exterior "I," the "I" of projects, of temporal finalities, the "I" that manipulates objets in order to take possession of them, is alien from the hidden, interior "I" who has no projects and seeks to accomplish nothing, even contemplation. He seeks only to be, and to move (for he is dynamic) according to the secret laws of Being itself and according to the promptings of a Superior Freedom (that is, of God), rather than to plan and to achieve according to his own desires.
It will be ironical, indeed, if the exterior self seizes upon something within himself and slyly manipulates it as if to take possession of some inner contemplative secret, imagining that this manipulation can somehow lead to the emergence of an inner self. The inner self is precisely that self which cannot be tricked or manipulated by anyone, even by the devil. He is like a very shy wild animal that never appears at all whenever an alien presences is at hand, and comes out only when all is perfectly peaceful, in silence, when he is untroubled and alone. He cannot be lured by anyone or anything, because he responds to no lure except that of the divine freedom.
...There is only an illusory, fictional "I" which seeks itself, struggles to create itself out of nothing, maintained in being by its own compulsion and the prisoner of his private illusion.
The call to contemplation is not, and cannot, be addressed to such an "I." Pg. 5
