 I have wished to engage in what may be called an inter-pilgrim dialogue. In my judgment, there is something wrong with interfaith dialogues. When the East-West or interfaith dialogues are too much bound by the past, the dynamic nature of cultures and religions, and above all, of human beings, cannot be appreciated. If one has never met someone from another culture or religion, interfaith or inter-cultural conversation is obviously a good idea. But I wish to suggest as strongly as I can that interfaith dialogues are at best a preliminary stage of human-to-human dialogue and can even be an impediment to a deeper understanding.
A dialogue of cultures and worldviews, in which the parties involved declare their adherence to one or another faith or culture, can fix these faiths and cultures into the entities that they were. In fact, these cultures and religions are alive and dynamic and are undergoing large and serious transformations right now. An inter-pilgrim dialogue, which is of necessity somewhat trans-cultural, trans-religious and trans-disciplinary, is needed to move into a future of a larger comprehension. We don’t need to stunt the growth or prevent a radical reformulation of the traditions by insisting that everyone declare their adherence to one or another version of the past. Every major spiritual teacher, especially the truly revolutionary ones like the Buddha and Krishna and the Christ, points out both the great call carried in the subtle core of the traditions as well as the betrayal (a word which comes from the same root as tradition) of the real living heart of the Sacred by them. To fix the other, or myself, in some past mould and thus to deny the possibility of a wholly unexpected radical transformation is surely a sin against the Holy Spirit: treating the other as an object rather than a person, an ‘it’ and not as a ‘Thou.’
[…] The search for Love can become merely a personal wish for comfort and security, just as the search for Truth can become largely a technological manipulation of nature in the service of the military or of industry–of fear and greed. Whenever truth and love are separated from each other, the result is sentimentality or dry intellectualism in which knowledge is divorced from compassion. Partiality always carries seeds of violence and fear in it. Thus, in the name of ‘our loving God’ many people have been killed, and many destructive weapons have been developed by a commitment to ‘pure knowledge.’ But such is not the best of humanity –in science or in religion. Integrated human beings in every culture and in every age have searched for Truth and Love, insight and responsibility. Above the mind, the soul seeks the whole, and is thus able to connect with wisdom and compassion.
Let us not conclude for the Truth is in Vastness beyond all formulations and forms. In being alive in the search one is alive. Openness to the Sacred always calls for sacrifice, primarily of one’s smallness, which is buttressed by an exclusive identification with a particular religion or nation or creed. A person who occupies neither this place nor that — physically or intellectually — may be uneasy, but this is the price of being free and in movement. The only one realization which is needed is that there is a subtle world, and that I am seen from that world. My existence now, here, is in the light of the subtler world. To realize the presence of the subtle world and to live in the light of that vision requires a continual impartial re-visiting of oneself, which in its turn requires a sacrificing of self-occupation. What is needed is the bringing of the religious mind (which is quiet, compassionate, comprehensive, and innocent) to bear on all matters. Not only to science, but also to technology, arts, government, education, and other affairs.
And the religious mind–which is the mind which is suffused with a sense of the Sacred–is cultivated in an individual soul. It is not a matter of bringing knowledge systems or abstractions, such as science and religion or theology, together. What is needed is a cultivation of a religious mind. The new paradigm is always the perennial one. It is possible to have a level of consciousness-conscience that sees the uniqueness of each being as well as their oneness with the All. This is largely a matter of metaphysical and spiritual transformation which requires an on-going sacrificing of one’s smallness — even more in the heart than in the mind. The new forms will naturally be different. Truth has no history; expressions of Truth do. The new dawn, when we will no longer be there to look at it with the usual eyes, will bring a new song and a new word. But the Essential Word shall abide, often heard in the silence between words. |
Sangha of Auspicious Companions 