If you are interested in interspirituality, you have to ask one key question before you engage in any practice: ‘What was the original intent?’ To underline the importance of this question, I am going to share two stories. Both of them have been around for a while. Feel free to skip ahead to my conclusions if you’ve already seen them. The Cat and the Monks In a quiet monastery in the Himalayas, a group of monks gathered and meditated every... Read more
Why is that? I have an educated guess. First, some background. I consider myself a pluralist, which means, among other things, that I believe in religious coexistence. For that purpose, I attended an interfaith seminary several years ago and ran a small organization for a few years, whose primary aim was to heal divides. Noticing Lack of Tolerance Most of the interfaith events I’ve attended were about increasing tolerance and creating harmony. I felt at home with those goals in... Read more
When I am curious about something, I call people; strangers, who often end up becoming my friends. I find them through LinkedIn, organizations I am interested in, social media groups, and acquaintances. Sometimes a call last twenty minutes; other times, I’ll be on the phone for hours. When we’re done talking, I usually ask: “Is there anyone else you think I should talk to?” “You Have to Talk to This Japanese Guy” At the end of a phone call with... Read more
About five years ago, I met an Episcopalian priest for coffee. I was a newly ordained Interfaith Minister back then, curious to learn more about the world’s religions. I couldn’t think of a better way than to meet people of all faiths in person, especially because lived religion tends to be different from what I’ve read in books. She asked me to meet her at a cozy Summer Moon cafe in south Austin. We talked about ministry, the state of... Read more
In a previous article, I defined ‘interspirituality’ as the “exploration of the immaterial or sentient parts of our being using methods and ideas that are shared by and/or exist between the world’s wisdom traditions.” Spirituality is a personal exploration. Interspirituality is a multi-perspective exploration. A Buffet of Likes and Dislikes Okay. Let me start gathering ideas and methods. I’ll take Buddhist meditation, the occasional Native American sweat lodge, yogic poses and cleansing techniques, a belief in a good and loving... Read more
What is interspirituality? I’ve studied the pioneers in this field, including Brother Wayne Teasdale (a Catholic turned Swami), Aldous Huxley (author of The Perennial Philosophy), Huston Smith (religion scholar and author of The World’s Religions), and Ken Wilber (the philosopher who created the integral model) for years. While they provided tremendous insights, they failed to do one thing: Define interspirituality concisely. The Need for a Definition I believe that the better we define a term, the less room there is... Read more
One of my favorite definitions of ‘love’ comes from M. Scott Peck. He said that love is the willingness to give of your time, energy, and money to help another person grow. It has become my operating principle in life. Sometimes this definition of love requires sacrifice. What Kind of Sacrifice? Now, I am not talking about the dictionary definition that says ‘sacrifice’ is “an act of slaughtering an animal or person or surrendering a possession as an offering to... Read more
‘Spiritually independent.’ That’s what a man called himself in response to my article about dropping the ‘not religious’ label. My first reaction was to nod in agreement. Yeah, I thought, instead of being ‘spiritual but not religious,’ declaring spiritual independence makes sense. Standing outside of institutions, thinking for yourself, choosing passages to live by, rejecting outdated teachings… all of those are hallmarks of independence. Not So Fast Since I read Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, I’ve trained myself... Read more
I was proudly ‘spiritual but not religious’ for twenty years. Here’s why I stopped calling myself that. Read more
A stretched mind will not return to its original form. I learned that the hard way when I dove headfirst into Integral Theory. In 2005, I bought an audio program called Kosmic Consciousness with Ken Wilber and Tami Simon. The program was in an interview format where Tami questioned Ken about his ideas and consisted of ten seventy-minute CDs. Enlightened One Moment, A**holes the Next I had never heard of Ken Wilber before, even though he’d been writing books since... Read more
Interspirituality for the Modern Day Seeker
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