The Inner Experience: Thomas Merton's Unfinished Masterpiece on Contemplation, Bridging Catholic Monasticism and Eastern Meditation Traditions

by Thomas Merton

In other words, the inner self sees the other not as a limitation upon itself, but as its complement, its “other self,” and is even in a certain sense identified with that other, so that the two “are one.” This unity in love is one of the most characteristic works of the inner self, so that paradoxically the inner “I” is not only isolated but at the same time united with others on a higher plane, which is in fact the plane of spiritual solitude. Here again, the level of “affirmation and negation” is transcended by spiritual awareness which is the work of love. And this is one of the most characteristic features of Christian contemplative awareness. The Christian is not merely “alone with the Alone” in the Neoplatonic sense, but he is One with all his “brothers in Christ.” His inner self is, in fact, inseparable from Christ and hence it is in a mysterious and unique way inseparable from all the other “I’s” who live in Christ, so that they all form one “Mystical Person,” which is “Christ.”