Merton’s Unity of Action and Contemplation in Transpersonal Perspective
Religions January 28, 2025 Jenny Anne Miller
This paper introduces a transpersonal psychological understanding of mystical consciousness by comparing contemplative approaches across Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, and Christianity. Drawing on Thomas Merton's interreligious thinking and Evelyn Underhill's mystical contemplation, it applies post-Jungian theories of the 'Spectrum of Human Consciousness' to the scholarly field of mysticism. The author suggests how Merton might have used transpersonal models to articulate his writings on 'pure consciousness'. The paper concludes by posing a contemplative question: whether the ancient sculpture of the Sleeping Hermaphrodite serves as an art-theological symbol for the soul's inner repose in God's Unity, where action flows as a manifestation of contemplative solitude.