| Author Quoted | Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev |
| Title Quoted | Solitude and Society |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1959/01/28 |
| Imprint | [S.l.] : [s.n.]. 1934I |
| Quotation | From Berdyaev's "Solitude and Society": "Man may feel himself infinitely more alone in the midst of his coreligionists than in the midst of men of totally different beliefs"¦his relation to them may be of a purely objective kind. Such a state of affairs is extremely distancing and tragic"¦An increase of spirituality may only aggravate the sense of solitude for it may be accompanied by a total rupture of man's social relationships"¦But there is no way of avoiding such ruptures once man has embarked on a spiritual plane, only in mystic experience, where all things participate in the Ego and the Ego participates in all things. This path is diametrically opposed to objectification, which effects communication only between extrinsic and abstract things." |
| Quotation Source | A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk's True Life. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 3, 1952-1960.; Edited by Lawrence S. Cunningham. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1996, p. 253-54 |
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| Link to Merton's Copy |
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