Who Are You?

In a book called For Lovers of God Everywhere (Poems of the Christian Mystics, by Roger Housden; Hay House, 2009) I came across an excerpt of a poem by the modern mystic Thomas Merton.

The poem moved me because I had recently read in several different contexts about the importance of uncovering every aspect of oneself: confronting the "shadow self," or "smiling at fear" (the latter from Buddhist Pema Chodron). This "work on oneself" in meditation or reflection is valuable in unmasking hidden aspects of the ego and in developing compassion.

Nonetheless, it was refreshing to read Merton's spare words exhorting movement beyond all thought to a different level of self-revelation and acceptance.

Here's the poem, entitled "In Silence" (excerpt):

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
To speak your

Name.
Listen
To the living walls.
Who are you?
Who
Are you? Whose
Silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
Are you (as these stones
Are quiet). Do not
Think of what you are
Still less of
What you may one day be.
Rather
Be what you are (but who?) be
The unthinkable one
You do not know.