A little song for you to begin today. This is taken from the Brihparanyak Upanishad, this mantra. I have kind of a funny story to tell about this. I learned years ago that this was the world prayer for peace for the World Council of Religions. And so my partner and I, my collaborator and I, John Pennington, have been singing this literally all over the world, and every time I sing it I tell people this is the world peace prayer from the World Council of Religions. And I was in Copenhagen and wound up sharing an event with the head of inter-religious dialogue for the World Council of Religions. We were going to be on together. He was going to speak and I was going to sing. I forget his name now, he was a Sri Lankan doctor and also a minister. And I said to him, well, I know the world prayer for peace from the World Council of

[01:01]

Religions. And he says, what would that be? And I said, well, it's from the Brihparanyak Upanishad, they meet from death. He says, that is not the world prayer for peace from the World Council of Religions. So, I would say they're missing out on a really good prayer. Did he give you the name for it? I don't need, no, he never, we just ended it, it ended in kind of a brittle silence at that point. I've been misspeaking all over the world, you know, for the past few years. It is from the Brihparanyak Upanishad, I'll sing a little of the mantra that goes with it. But Valerie knows this, so she can lead all of you in this. What you really do is you just repeat after me every line. You come in on my last word, so I'm going to sing, lead me from death into life, lead me from death into, lead me from falsehood to truth, you're supposed to be jumping in

[02:01]

there. Lead me from death into life, lead me from falsehood to truth, lead me from falsehood to truth. You've got to come in on my last word. Lead me from death into life, lead me from falsehood to truth, lead me to hope from despair, lead me from hatred to love, lead me from war into peace, lead me from, oh, it's not there. I thought it was a hard one, but I'm doing it anyway. There we go. And this last line, as you learn it, we just sing it all together. Now I'll do just one verse of it for you, the verse from the Bhagavad Gita, actually

[03:02]

the same section we read last night. The mantra, the Sanskrit mantra goes like this. Lead me from death into life, lead me from falsehood to truth, lead me from falsehood to truth, lead me to hope from despair, lead me from hatred to love, lead me from war

[04:20]

into peace, lead me from death into life, into love, let peace fill our hearts, our world and our universe. Lead me from death into life, lead me from falsehood to truth, lead me to hope from despair, lead me from hatred to love, lead me from war into peace, lead me from death into life, into love, let peace fill our hearts, our world and our universe.

[05:21]

When your soul is in peace, you are in peace, your soul is in God. Cold or heat and pleasure or pain, you are ever in God. With your soul in peace and all fear gone, strong in your thoughts, rest with your mind in harmony. Your soul on me, your soul on me and lead me from death into life, lead me from falsehood to truth, lead me to hope from despair, lead me from hatred to love, lead me from war into peace, lead me from death into life, into love, let peace fill our hearts, our

[06:34]

world and our universe. Okay, so that's just a brief review of what we did yesterday to make sure we're still all on the same page. We talked about this idea of universal wisdom, which I'm going to bring up again in just a few moments, this idea that there's a common core, a common deposit, you might say, of wisdom that the religious traditions share that leans right into this idea of the universal call to contemplation, which is somehow assuming that there's a mystical core to all the authentic religious traditions, and also part and parcel of that is that all people, all individuals,

[07:34]

not just professional religious, are called to experience that contemplative core and that mystical union with God. As a matter of fact, for the Christian, that would be the full flowering of baptism. We also talked about the idea that not everything, though, is the same. Father Bede's notion that every religion experiences it differently and even every person experiences it differently, which is quite a beautiful, mystical sense about that, I think. I talked about part of the challenge of this day and age is this new axial consciousness, how maybe in this first axial consciousness, Father Bruno likes to talk about this ascending plane, you know, ascending towards spirit. If you read Teilhard de Chardin, we talk about this breaking into what he calls the neuosphere, breaking into consciousness. In that trajectory toward spirit, toward pure spirit, it's been very much a masculine energy.

[08:34]

It's been away from body, away from earth. And also, the positive side of it is beginning to map out this individual spiritual quest with a certain individual moral responsibility that, for example, plays out especially in the late Jewish prophets. Also, more knowledge of self. Again, back to Teilhard, who I'm just happy to be reading these days, this idea of a kind of concentrated self-consciousness really comes to the fore. Also, some people talk about a piercing of the rational mind through the mythic mind, a piercing of this sense of individual identity away, in a sense, from the tribe. But our new axial consciousness, if such a thing is actually going on, and it sort of strikes me in my bones that it is, is a recovery of where this vertical axis of the cross is, is rooted, which is in a sense of ecology, a sense of body, a sense of social justice.

[09:39]

And the horizontal axis of the cross is also calling us to a tribal consciousness again, a new, let's say, not tribal consciousness, a global consciousness. So beyond a sense of tribe and beyond a sense of individuality, but a new kind of, Teilhard's words again, a complexified consciousness. We're all heading toward, I hope we're heading toward, a new union of consciousness. So that our work here is not abstract speculation. This is really what we're doing for ourselves and for the planet. So how do we approach this? The last thing I gave you last night was this foundational little paragraph from Nostra Aetate, from the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church, that says, we reject nothing of what's true and holy in other traditions and of our own. As a matter of fact, we have a high regard for their manner of life, for their conduct, for their precepts and doctrines. All those things that, even though they're different from the way we view the world,

[10:41]

are still reflecting a ray of truth. And encouraged then by the church to enter into dialogue. Encouraged by the church to enter into discussion and collaboration with these other traditions. While witnessing, of course, to our own faith and way of life. We not only acknowledge, we not only preserve, we not only tolerate, in some way we also encourage the spiritual and moral truths of these other faiths. And I mentioned also, that's a rather groundbreaking thing, because just in 1928, ecumenical dialogue was being pretty much condemned by Pope Pius XI. So, based on Nostra Aetate then, this is kind of a framework I've gotten from a scholar named Paul Knitter, whose writings I like very much. This is mainly from a book called Introducing Theologies of Religion. His last book, which a friend of mine just recommended and said he loved it a great deal,

[11:45]

is called Without the Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian. Do you know this book? I'm really anxious to read it. He's really a wonderful scholar and very, very easy to read. So he talks about, this is where you can pick up on your list there, on the handout. He talks about theologies of inter-religious dialogue tending to fall into one or another of four groups. The first of them would be the placement theology. And this is what we find usually in most evangelical fundamentalist theologies. Let's try not to say what's good or bad, let's just say where they're at. You won't find this in mainstream Catholicism. Having just read that document to you, you couldn't possibly find this in mainstream Catholicism.

[12:47]

But you might find it somewhat on the fringes of Catholicism. A replacement theology means there's only one true religion, which is going to completely replace the erroneous one. You've just got to wipe everything out. Now there were shades of this in Catholicism and Catholic missionary activity, but certainly in this day and age it's not the teaching of the Church. Even, I'm thinking immediately, I was in Alaska a couple of years ago, and this may not seem like a big deal, but it's a big deal. They have this wonderful music among the Yupik Indians, Yupik Eskimos. This is out toward the mouth of the Yukon. It's called potlatch. They gather together, and the young men play drums. I guess that the older men play drums, and the women and the boys sing these songs and do these dances with their fingers. It's like a chanting style. It's very beautiful. In the meantime, in church, they're singing the most horrendous, horrible, saccharine,

[13:51]

unmusical, cheap liturgical music I've ever heard anywhere in my life. Just horrid stuff. And my friend who brought me up there, I said, Why? Why? Why are you singing this horrible music at Mass? And meanwhile, these people are doing this wonderful liturgy, in a sense, in their potlatch with this great music and great ritual. And the Catholic ritual is just horrid. Just horrid. He said, well, because the missionaries came in and said, you can't do anything of your native tradition at liturgy. You have to wipe it out completely and replace it with Roman Catholicism. Replace it with, you know... That's replacement theology at a very practical level. And how many times the missionaries have done this? Fr. Bede would speculate this is even why Christianity never was... the Christian missionary effort was not a great success in India. This idea that we just had to wipe everything out and completely replace it with what?

[14:54]

Really with Greek philosophy and Roman law and Roman liturgy, huh? So there's still shades of that. This is not the mainstream teaching of Catholicism, though. That there's only one true religion that's going to completely replace the erroneous one. Not the teaching of Roman Catholicism, at least in this day and age. And today, if you have conversations with my friends who are Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, and this usually comes out on a very practical level, this same argument will go on. I was having a discussion with somebody about chant. And I was saying, well, I was defending Roman Catholicism using chant. And I said, if you look at all indigenous peoples, they all have a kind of a native chant. And we could tap into that. And he says, ah, but see, that's before they're converted to Christ. And you have to come in and wipe that out completely and replace it with Christian music. But Catholicism always has taught that grace builds on nature.

[15:55]

Not that grace is just a snow over a dung heap, as it would be taught by, which is, I think it's a direct phrase of Martin Luther's, this idea that we're just totally corrupt and we have to be totally covered with grace. Nothing is good. The mainstream Catholic thought has always been that grace builds on nature. There's something good there. And of course, that's what we hear reflected in that document. So that leads to our second thing, second theology of religion, which is fulfillment theology. It still says there's only one true religion, but notice the subtle difference. But that one true religion fulfills all the other religions. Do you hear the subtle difference? It doesn't replace, it fulfills. So we have this famous phrase of Justin Martyr, Semine Verbi, seeds of the word that are scattered all over. They get gathered up and all of that is brought to its fulfillment in the person of Jesus.

[16:57]

And then, of course, Christianity becomes the unfolding of what that experience means. Now, Bidadi Shuktananda, when they go to India, for instance, they are definitely operating out of this fulfillment theology that Jesus, Christianity, and perhaps even to some extent Catholicism, fulfills all these other religions. That would be pretty much at least conservative mainstream Roman Catholic thought at this point. Fulfillment theology. Understand it? So next, a theology of mutuality. What does that mean? That there are many true religions and they're called the dialogue. Now, there are theologians within Roman Catholicism, and have been for a couple of decades now at least, who want to have this accepted as a mainstream theology. It has not been accepted by Roman Catholicism as a mainstream theology. I have this whole packet of papers together.

[18:00]

I call it the strange case of Roger Haight, who is this Jesuit theologian, I think it must be two years ago now, who was pretty much silenced by the Vatican for specifically this, him writing about trying to have the theology of mutuality be accepted as a mainstream theology in Roman Catholicism. Our other friend of Kamalgali and a friend of Bidadi Shuktananda, and one of my also favorite authors on this is named Jacques Dupuy, a Belgian Jesuit who just died maybe two years ago. Also was really edging that way. He also got not completely silenced, but was put under suspicion for a while by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But all of his writings on this are really quite wonderful and quite nuanced. So there's definitely some of that alive in the Roman Catholic tradition, this idea of mutuality, that there are many true religions that are just called into dialogue. The fourth one, a little farther away, is the theology of acceptance,

[19:04]

that there are many religions and they have different ends completely. In some way we're almost back to the theology of replacement here actually. It's interesting how this comes full circle. There's a well-known Jesuit named Francis Clooney, who was actually here for a conference we had a couple of years ago. And Paul Knitter puts him in this category, that these traditions actually do have very different things they're heading toward, and we should just accept that. He doesn't talk so much about a theology of... No, I'm going to stop there because I was about to say something I only had half-baked. At any rate, this is the farthest end. Just accept the fact that there are different traditions and they all have different ends to which they're heading. This word end is going to be important when we talk about something a little bit later in the next session on Talos and Skopos. So there's four. If you turn the page, he puts it another way too, which is somehow even a little easier to grasp. Theologies of religions are often categorized in three different models.

[20:11]

They would be exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. Exclusivism, again, very similar to our replacement theology, there's only one Savior, there's only one religion or church, and no salvation is possible outside of that. Very literally so. This phrase about no salvation outside of the church is one that's gone through quite a lot of nuancing over the generations. Paul Nutter does a brilliant job of that in his book Introducing a Theology of Religions. It's quite interesting how he says the same thing, but it keeps meaning different things along the way. What does it mean, church? What does salvation mean? So, inclusivism, another model, maintains that although there's only one Savior, one true church, salvation remains possible outside of them, though it's still always ultimately dependent on Jesus Christ and the church.

[21:17]

So you can still say there's no salvation outside the church, but suddenly the notion of what Christ is, who Christ is, expands, but even more, this notion of what church is expands, and the notion of how that grace is mediated through Christ, how that grace is mediated through church, can expand and be a little more liberal view on that. And then finally, pluralism, which holds that there are many Saviors and different paths leading to salvation, and none of them is necessarily more superior than the other. Three different models. Interesting just to think for a second, and I have to think about this all the time, where are you on this? Don't tell me. Just think about it. We don't want it on tape, especially. Just thinking, where are you on this? Just think about that. What do you believe? Inclusivism, exclusivism, pluralism, replacement, fulfillment, mutuality, acceptance. I'm not sure we have to come down really firmly in one area.

[22:20]

But there's another brilliant article called Praying to the Buddha, written by a Vietnamese priest named Peter Phan, who's also been under suspicion recently, mind you. We're definitely walking on thin theological ice here at this point. He's talking about his mother, who was a very ardent, practicing Catholic all her life, but who also prayed to the Buddha, because the Buddha was a very good man. She saw that. And in this article he says, there are respected Christian theologians that advocate all of these positions. This is really still very much in debate, that make credible appeals to both scripture and tradition to support their views. And incidentally, these positions occur among theologians of other religions as well. So there are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh theologians who would all fall into basically these same categories. This is not just about Christianity or Catholicism we're talking here.

[23:24]

But apart from that intellectual exchange, I want to move to something a little more practical. There's also, again, within Roman Catholicism, there's a broader conception of dialogue within the Church. There's a Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue that was established after Vatican II. There are two different documents I want to talk about. One of them was issued in 1984, and it's called The Attitude of the Church Toward Followers of Other Religions, Reflections and Orientations on Dialogue and Mission. You can make an acronym out of that. What's beautiful about that document is that it states that the evangelizing mission of the Church, even though it's a single reality, is still complex. It's still articulated. It indicates five different elements

[24:26]

that are all part of this mission of evangelization. I've got that listed there on number one. First of all, part of our evangelizing mission is simply presence and witness. You might call to mind, for example, a Charles de Foucault martyred in Algeria and his witness to that, or the Trappists who were killed only a few years ago in Senegal. I'm also thinking of the early Camaldolese martyrs. We get our third good of our charism from the fact that some of our monks basically just lived as contemplative monks up in the wilds of Poland and Hungary and were martyred. But their only evangelizing mission was presence. Now think of how we could be that in our towns and villages. The second element of evangelization,

[25:28]

and we're seeing here now some of this vertical and horizontal axis of community plus rootedness, commitment to human liberation as an evangelical instrument. Third, I thought this was very, very wonderful. Our liturgical life, our prayer and contemplation, as an evangelizing tool. Now what does that mean? If you note, my first discipline in theology was in liturgy. This word liturgia from the Greek really means a public work done in the service of others. A public work done for service of others. It's something that we refer to like a library or taxes

[26:30]

or something like that. So imagine our liturgy as a service we're providing for the world, as an evangelizing service to the world. This is a tool of evangelization just by doing our liturgical life and by saying our prayers. Of course that means having the door open. The fourth element of our evangelization is interreligious dialogue. And finally comes proclamation and catechesis. Now notice there's a difference there, isn't there? The fourth is dialogue. The fifth is proclamation and catechesis. Now from my own colored lenses, I'm thinking that dialogue is what we were talking about yesterday, the dialogical dialogue, not the dialectical dialogue. It's dialogue in saying, what do I have to learn from you as well as what do I have to convince you of? And then comes proclamation and catechesis. Now, why I think this is all very interesting is I was always taught when I was studying theology

[27:32]

that you should always pay attention to hierarchies embedded in Roman documents. Nothing is ever laid out in any order by accident. So I note here that presence and witness, commitment to social development and human liberation, liturgy, prayer, and contemplation, and interreligious dialogue all come before proclamation. I think that's significant. Before proclamation, you might say that all those other things somehow lay the groundwork for the proclamation. Maybe I may not even dare start speaking words of proclamation until I've first established myself as a holy and loving presence, until I've shown some commitment to social development and human liberation, until I've, I don't know,

[28:32]

maybe built up a liturgical life of prayer and contemplation that I can share with the world, and sat in dialogue with my neighbor. Maybe then I can start talking. I will have established enough of a relationship and lit enough groundwork to actually proclaim the gospel and do catechesis. Not to say that all that other stuff hasn't already been its own form of proclamation and catechesis. Whether this is an exact translation of something St. Francis said or not, I'm not exactly sure. But the Franciscans love to have this little saying posted all over the place. They say, Francis said, preach the gospel and use words if you have to. And all those other ways are preaching the gospel without having used words. So then in 1991, that same council issued another document called Dialogue and Proclamation. And in that document, there were four different kinds of dialogue that were described. So we're just in the area of dialogue, which was the fourth element of the last thing we talked about.

[29:34]

And you see them listed there under number two. And first of all, there's, I love this one, there's just the dialogue of life. Which is those, to me, it's those well-worn paths between huts, which I believe that phrase comes from from Raimundo Panicar, in which people engage others in their community in a neighborly exchange of daily joys, problems, concerns. There is, again, both somehow this horizontal axis of building community and even that vertical axis that's digging deep into the ground and the practical exigencies of life, especially of a communal life, in a city or a village, in a society. And then there's a dialogue of action. Action as dialogue, which is a call for Christians to cooperate with people of other faith in projects of mutual interest. So that could be digging a well, that could be relieving poverty,

[30:36]

that could be fighting AIDS, that could be how many things? That already is a dialogue, a dialogue of action. And then there's the dialogue of religious experience. Again, like the one about prayer and liturgy and contemplation, I love this one, in which people share spiritual practices. What an evangelizing tool that is right there. We have this wonderful friendship with the people from Esalen and Ta Sahara and the Native American center called Window to the West. And I'm especially thinking of Ta Sahara and the Native Americans, what a joy it is for us to share practice together. To be with the Esalen tribe out in their holy spot in Coachella and do the sweat lodge with them. Share their practice. To be at Ta Sahara and sit zazen with them. Or for them to come here and participate in the Eucharist.

[31:37]

I have this one story. The man who was the acting head of the Esalen tribe, his name is Little Bear. Tommy? Tommy, yes. He hasn't been too active with the tribe apparently in the past few years. And I believe I was presiding at Mass that morning and during the Eucharistic prayer tears are running down Little Bear's face. And afterwards I asked him, why were you crying during the Eucharistic prayer? And he said, when you did this over the bread and wine you were calling down Great Spirit, weren't you? Well, he got that more than most Catholics get it. And that was the dialogue of religious experience. I think he understood the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist better than many Catholics do

[32:38]

at that point. So, this is what, in which people share practices, even prayer and contemplation with others of different faiths. And quite often, what I found, sharing scripture, but also sharing practices of meditation, sharing meditation practices is another place to build wonderful friendships here. And then, finally, there's the dialogue of theological exchange, which is usually, of course, talking heads and specialists who undertake to enrich each other's conception of their respective religions and spiritual traditions. Not where most people live, though, is it? Most people don't want to talk about the fine points of the difference between Advaita, Vedanta and the mystical marriage of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. But what I want you to note here again is this hierarchy. That I was taught to find embedded in all Roman documents. First, there's a dialogue of life, then the dialogue of action,

[33:38]

then the dialogue of experience, and then comes a dialogue of theological exchange. And maybe you shouldn't even bother having that theological exchange until you build some groundwork of relationship and some experience of that in which you're engaging dialogue. So what I find in both my work and my life, what I'm mainly concerned with from that first document, is that third and fourth aspect. The idea of liturgical life, prayer and contemplation and dialogue. And from that second document, that dialogue of inter-religious experience, that dialogue of religious experience in which people share practices from other different faiths. That's where I found that I spent a lot of my time slowly and very carefully even trying to foster environments and create interfaith rituals. Which is not always the easiest thing to do

[34:39]

because we are people of the word. As soon as you start getting into proclaiming scriptures, it's very easy to leave somebody out who's not going to be able to follow along. For example, in an inter-religious gathering, I'm never going to have a text read. If it's in my power, I'm not going to have a text read about reincarnation. Somebody's going to be left out right away for that. Finding these words we actually can agree on is actually a rather difficult thing. At the same time, if I'm going to read something about the Christian scriptures, I'm not going to start out with saying you must confess Jesus to be Lord. I can't start out there. Nor am I going to read the psalm that says all their pagan idols are silver and gold. I'm not going to start there. So it's not the easiest thing to build these environments where we can actually find words to agree on. Again, why I say, I think this, when we get into the techniques of prayer and meditation, I think we're actually on safer ground.

[35:39]

Which incidentally becomes also the area where we can build on common experience and share our experiences. This is why I think some of the most fruitful dialogue that's going on between traditions is actually between monks. Because quite often we're talking about experience. We're talking about practice. We're talking about practical things in our experience. I remember our first time visiting Tassajara. We didn't talk about a lot of theology and philosophy. We were like, wow, those are cool robes. Where did you get those beads? Can I get some of that incense? It was more about this. But then really talking about, as our friend Hung Sher calls it, the mechanics of meditation and our actual practical experience leading up to and coming out from. So while I'm laying a foundation here, I also want to bring in this document that doesn't get brought up very often. I'm a hopeless optimist in these things. Father B read this same document

[36:40]

and actually took some exception with some of the things that were written in it. I was picking through it trying to find something positive to build on. It's called The Letter to Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation. It was issued by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in 1989. I think we can actually safely assume that this was very close to the pen of our present pope, Benedict XVI, who was at the time the head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. And in Chapter 5 on questions of method, and actually I quoted this extensively in the book that I wrote that was published last year in a sense as a justification for the work I was doing in that book. It says this. It says, The majority of the great religions which have sought union with God have also pointed out ways to achieve it. Listen to that sentence again since I botched it as I was reading it. The majority of the great religions

[37:41]

which have sought union with God have also pointed out ways to achieve it. That word ways is going to be important again to us later for our discussion this afternoon. Have pointed out ways to achieve that union with God. But that's assuming there's something good in these traditions. We're assuming that they're seeking union with the Divine and we're acknowledging that their ways are in some way valid ways. So then it goes on to quote Nostra Aetate which we mentioned at the end yesterday at the beginning today by saying that just as the Catholic Church rejects nothing of what's true and holy in these religions and there's the paragraph you have right there on the bottom of page 2 neither should these ways be rejected. Just as the Catholic Church rejects nothing of what's true and holy in these religions neither should we reject these ways with which other great traditions have sought

[38:41]

to achieve union with God in prayer. Simply because you're not Christian. Do you understand the importance of that? They're practical methods. This is under the section titled Questions of Method. So we don't reject somebody else's method of prayer or achieving union with God just because you're not Christian. On the contrary one can take from them what is useful. All we have to do is make sure that Christian conception of prayer isn't obscured and that Christian logic and requirements of prayer are never obscured. And within that context all of this these bits and pieces should be taken up and expressed anew. Now what I usually use that for in the work that I do is this is why we can learn things from Zen. This is why we can adapt something like yoga.

[39:43]

Because these are ways that these traditions have sought union with God and we're not forbidden from using these ways as long as we keep the Christian conception of prayer in mind. This is right from the congregation of the doctrine of the Church. You couldn't get a more conservative body than this. This is Roman Catholicism at least at its most it's about as liberal as it gets. It's about as universal as it gets in mainstream institutional church. Yes. But you know what have we not incorporated in Roman Catholicism when we got Christmas from pagan rituals? We got Easter from so many things we actually have. And ways and means these practical ways these are things we can adopt for ourselves. Filtering through our own understanding of prayer our understanding of grace

[40:44]

our own logic about prayer we hold on to those core things. Somehow we hold on to the interior but the exterior can be expressed in many different ways. I think we'll mention this again later. The same actually applies to philosophy and to language and to ritual. Those things are though they're tied to the core they can be changed. That's why we used to have Mass always in Latin and now we can have it in English. We used to face one way and now we can face another way. The exterior things can change around that as long as we hold on to whatever that core is of our Christian kerygma. So what we're aiming for is to learn from other traditions to learn what's useful from other traditions while we remain faithful to and while we explore ever more deeply the Christian conception of prayer. Which may actually

[41:45]

this is the funny part of it may actually appear clearer to us as we explore those other techniques. So I want to also add while we're on this topic that the latest official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church at least as it's articulated in the document like Dominus Iesus favors inclusivism while really putting a harsh warning out against the dangers of pluralism. Especially under the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI. It categorically affirms the fulness and definitiveness of the revelation of Jesus Christ. Categorically affirms the unicity and unity of the Church and states that it would be contrary to the faith to consider the Church as just one way of salvation alongside those constituted by other religions. Categorically states that. And goes on to say

[42:49]

even if these other traditions are said to be converging with the Church towards some kind of eschological kingdom of God still there is a uniqueness and a unicity about the Roman Catholic Church. This is of course a good deal more protective and defensive in tone than the other documents we've talked about that didn't feel the need to articulate and accentuate that unicity and uniqueness quite as much. So I just want to note the change of tone and the change of climate and keep moving on. And as I said, this is what I'm calling the strange case of Roger Haight where he was quite roundly silenced for his work in these things. So, let me repeat one more time. What I'm mainly concerned with here are prayer and contemplation and how they lead into inter-religious dialogue. What I'm mainly concerned with also is this dialogue of religious experience

[43:51]

in which people share spiritual practice with others of different faiths. And this is where I want to bring up our idea of the perennial philosophy. Again, the common core teachings about the transcendental essence of religion. I want to remind you of that one more time. I mentioned it in just a few parts. The idea that first of all that there's a spirit of God. Secondly, that that spirit of God is not just outside of us. Somehow it's inside of us too. Third of all, that most of us have no knowledge or awareness of this divine power within us because of whatever the traditions call it sin, delusion, ignorance, separation. And then next, that our religions actually teach us the way toward the realization of this divine indwelling. They lay out a path for us to experience this union with the divine. What's important about all this

[44:53]

is that this is a knowledge, this what we're calling perennial philosophy, that only comes out of and then leads to the inner journey. So this is the importance of experience and the importance of interior experience. So let's put those two together. This is the primacy somehow of interior experience because this awakening is only possible through some kind of an interior experience. So it goes hand in hand with the way of meditation, the way of contemplation. It goes hand in hand with something that's beyond our normal spiritual life of ritual and activity. So this is in Hinduism, this is the move from the Vedas to the Upanishads. What is it in Christianity? It's the move, not away from ritual, but somehow to discover the underlying depth of ritual, that core out of which ritual comes

[45:55]

and toward which ritual points, that beautiful image from Buddhism of the finger pointing at the moon. Do you know this image? That all of our religions and traditions are fingers pointing at the moon, but please don't mistake the finger for the moon. So this interior experience is the moon. And the rituals, our activities, even our dogmas and doctrines are the fingers pointing at the moon, but the moon is that awakening, that experience. Even somehow our study and teaching, those are fingers pointing at the moon. What's important about this is this journey to the depths of our own being, what Father Bee called the return to the center, to have a conscious contact with the spirit in the cave of our own hearts. This is the building block I'm talking about in these areas for dialogue. To start the dialogue there, it's for this reason that so many of us

[46:58]

have studied the great mystical texts of these other traditions, which, as the document says, which have sought union with God in prayer, so that we can find new ways of expressing this experience. Furthermore, since these traditions have also pointed out ways to achieve that union, and since the Catholic Church rejects nothing of what's true and holy in these religions, neither are those ways with which other religions have sought union with God to be rejected out of hand simply because they're not Christian. On the contrary, we take from them what's useful. We take up these bits and pieces and express them anew in the light of Christian understanding of prayer and the ultimate end. A few concrete examples. There's this beautiful practice that's common in Shantivanam, our ashram in India, and other especially Christian ashrams throughout India, where there's a reading of non-Christian sacred texts at the beginning of the liturgy, or just before the liturgy begins.

[48:01]

There was an original proposed Indian rite after the Second Vatican Council, which was never fully adopted. And in that rite, they suggested using the Indian scriptures actually within the liturgy itself, like next to the first reading or before the Gospel. It was never fully adopted, but to do it within the liturgy and not before the liturgy. And I happen to see that it's called the pro-manuscripto version of that, which is the original version that was being proposed. And in it, there was an explanation of this practice. And you remember this phrase I said a little while ago, the seeds of the Word, the Semine Verbi. It said, even if we recognize only seeds of the Word in these scriptures, the final manifestation of the Word in Jesus Christ did not render these seeds pointless or irrelevant. Even though it's come to its fulfillment in Jesus,

[49:04]

those other seeds are not irrelevant, those other seeds are not pointless, since Jesus came to fulfill, not destroy. So there's fulfillment, not replacement. You see it's playing out right there. Just as the New Testament did not abolish the Old Testament, but helped to discover a richer and deeper meaning in the Hebrew scriptures and the Jewish scriptures. So, again, the document, this pro-manuscripto version says, the non-Christian scriptures, even if they represent only a cosmic revelation, still form part of the dynamism of the Word and are better understood when placed in this context. We understand these other scriptures of the cosmic revelation when they're put in the context of the Gospel. In other words, this is Jacques Dupuy's explanation of this all.

[50:06]

We can't consider other traditions to be equal, even with the preparation of Israel that's contained in the Jewish scriptures. We don't think that they have the same identical meaning in the history of salvation as that of Judaism, or the same relationship with Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, all these other scriptures, from the seeds of the Word or the cosmic revelation, are already oriented to the same event that the Old Testament was oriented to. They're already oriented toward Jesus. So, this is the phrase of his that I love so much. They're not just pre-Christian, they're pro-Christian. They're not just pre-Christian, they're pro-Christian. They're all, he says, authentic evangelical preparations. The Bhagavad Gita is already pointing to Jesus. In other words, it's small. The Tao Te Ching is already pointing to the Gospel of John. And as such,

[51:09]

this is a rather startling phrase, destined by God, who directs all of human history to its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. We're still in this fulfillment theology. He's even bold enough to say that they represent true personal interventions of God. Now, the official teachings of the Church would never talk about them as revelations, but we're not very far from that, are we? Father Bee would talk about them as a revelation. These other scriptures, be it the Vedas or the Tao Te Ching or the Bhagavad Gita, Dhammapada, they represent interventions of God in the history of the nations and point them toward their decisive intervention of God in Jesus Christ. Not only pre-Christian, but pro-Christian. They're all pointing to Jesus somehow. So this song I sang for you at the beginning, I didn't do the second verse, which is from the Bhagavad Gita.

[52:12]

It's a beautiful, beautiful verse. I am the taste of living water. I am the light of the sun and the moon. I am Aum, the sacred word, the sound and the silence. Now, in the Bhagavad Gita, those are on the lips of Krishna, singing about himself. I easily hear those words on the lips of Jesus. I am the taste of living water. I am the light of the sun and the moon. I am the sacred word, the sound and the silence. So that Bhagavad Gita to me, Father Bee wrote a beautiful commentary on it, by the way, is not just pre-Christian, it's pro-Christian. With that in mind, this is a subtle little argument here of my own. We might also rightly question the use of the word only. As I read it there, as the document says, if there are only seeds of the word, or only a cosmic revelation, that's not an only to me.

[53:17]

That's a pretty big thing already, to be seeds of the word and to be part of the cosmic revelations, cosmic revelation. What's not mentioned here also, is that not only are those scriptures, not only is the Bhagavad Gita and the Tao Te Ching and the Vedas understood better when placed in the context of the Bible, I'm going to make the startling statement that maybe the Bible too is better understood when it's put in the context of these seeds of the word and this cosmic revelation. Maybe I understand the Bible better when I see it in the context of this greater universal wisdom, the perennial philosophy. Personally, I have found that to be the case. I love our scriptures more, having studied these scriptures of other traditions. For Fr. Bede, his approach to the Bible was Bible as literature before he converted. So, not only are those other scriptures understood better when placed in the context of the Gospel, maybe the Bible is understood better

[54:19]

when it's placed in this context of universal wisdom and these seeds of the word to help us to see our own tradition as an expression of a larger movement of the Spirit and humanity. Jacques Dupuy, Christ in the Encounter with Other Religions, I think is the name of the book. I read it in Italian, so I only have the Italian. It's like Jesus Christ in the Encounter with Religions, I think is the name of it. I went a little over my time here,

[55:20]

but we have any questions, comments, questions? You had a lot of explanation from Dupuy of the pro-Christian. Was that the same or different when we looked at the earlier model of the fulfillment theology? It's right there, it's still in fulfillment. It's still in fulfillment theology, yeah. Because it's saying that pro-Christians are all pointing to Jesus Christ. Yeah, he's very careful about that. Fragile area, what he's talking about there, is saying that they're destined by God, which puts them somehow on the footing of being authentic revelations, an authentic revelation in itself, destined by God, that God wanted this to happen. Now, not all Christian theologians are going to agree with that, that God wanted the Tao Te Ching to happen. God meant for the Bhagavad Gita to be written. Yeah, please. And is that the reason he got

[56:21]

in a little bit of heat with the Vatican authorities? You know, I don't... Explain it. I was thinking it would be much worse in terms of why he may have raised problems about the whole... He was exonerated at the end. It was a couple of little subtle points, actually. Just not making... I think it was, and I'm speaking a little bit out of context here, that he didn't make enough clarification about the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in the history of salvation. In some writing. But he was clear by the time he died of all those things. We can go back and look those things up. Please. Oh, Roger Haight? Yeah. Spelling? H-A-I-G-H-T. I was going to... Exactly, yeah. I was going to bring that along, but I thought we might get too distracted by it. Anything else? Please, Chuck. Well, I think it was a few years ago that, you know, the regular stations

[57:22]

across around the Lent season were out there hosting... I think they had an Indian theologian give the meditations, and they actually quoted the Bible people. Oh, the Gita. Oh, interesting. Wow. Do you remember that? I don't remember his name, but I have some faint recollection of it. Let's see. Yeah. It's beautiful. Yeah. I just want to agree with you. My travels through the world and being able to be in India and read the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, that I truly gained a better understanding and appreciation for our Bible and our scriptures. I don't think I've heard the seeds... The seeds of the Word. And I've listened to Fr. Bruno talk about perennial philosophy, and I never understood it, so thank you for making it really clear. Oh, good. I love him, but it's like, okay, I don't know. I've heard him talk about it twice.

[58:23]

Based on my experience at Shantivanam especially, it's become part of my regular prayer life, that it's part of my prayer. I always read from another tradition. At the beginning, I usually have a prayer format pretty similar to what's done at Shantivanam. And with all the retreats I do, we always do that as well. Please. I never said that. I'll take a stab at it. Theologos, the study of God. Theology is the study of God. Where religion, it means a relinking, it's really kind of a practical way, a means toward achieving union with God. Theology is much more a study, whereas religion is much more a practical way, a tradition.

[59:25]

No. You could be just studying Christian theology, yeah. But there's also a theology of religions, which would be the study of God in a comparative way. Anything else? So we'll do a brief meditation here again. This is a lot of stuff, and you're doing really well. I guess it's not... I don't feel like I'm leaving you behind. You're still with me on all this? Okay, good. So let's, if you can, let's get out of our heads and back down to our hearts again. If you don't mind me giving you these simple instructions again. So always starting out with this why of meditation. What can we glean from what we just talked about? Oh yeah, this is it. It seems to me that this knowledge

[60:32]

this unifying knowledge only comes out of and leads to the interior experience. This perennial knowledge only comes from this inner experience and it's always pointing to this inner experience. It goes hand in hand with this way of meditation and contemplation, which is something beyond our normal spiritual life of ritual and activity, even our study and our teaching and our breaking it all apart. It's somehow the place, the depths of our own being, to have conscious contact with the Spirit in the cave of our own hearts. So that's our why. The how, the next three steps are, first of all, I'm always urging this posture, this good upright posture. Most of us here are in a chair, so I heard the most beautiful descriptions of our upright posture

[61:36]

in yoga classes, this beautiful shape of the spine and how these vertebrae sit on top of each other like dinner plates in the kitchen cabinet. And if you could just kind of close your eyes and imagine those vertebrae sitting one on top of each other. And you know, the strange thing about this, it seems a little illogical that something as heavy as the head could sit easily on top of this very delicate little spine. And yet it does. How marvelously, wondrously we're made, that big gray brain sloshing around in there. And yet somehow it does. It sits together with this immense perfection. We feel the weight come down in our sits bones. And then if you could just for a moment take a deep, quiet breath in through your nose. And as you exhale, drop your shoulders. Do that again.

[62:37]

Take a deep, slow, quiet inhale through your nostrils. And then exhale fully and drop your shoulders. And even feel that make you align even more. So we're ready on to the breath. And you see how this breath can be such a tool and a friend for us. It has a way of calming the muscles around the core of the body. But even more subtly, it starts us on this interior journey. We follow it in. We go from the outside to the inside. Because most of the time we're living outside of ourselves. And our breath can call us to live inside. And then I invite you to add a word to that breath. Some kind of a sacred, even a pregnant word. A divine word that is a symbol in a sense

[63:38]

of your desire to be in union with God. Your desire to realize this divine in the depth of your own being. And if the mind starts wandering, just come back to that word. Even a single day, A reading from Dhammapada. A reading from Dhammapada. Even a single day of a life lived virtuously and meditatively is worth more than a hundred years lived wantonly and without discipline. A single day's life of a wise and contemplative person is worth more than a hundred years

[64:41]

lived wantonly and without discipline. A single day's life of one who puts out great effort is better than a life of a hundred years lived in idleness and sluggishness. A single day's life lived by one who grasps the impermanence of all conditioned things is worth more than a hundred years lived in blindness and ignorance. A single day's life of one who sees the deathless state is worth more than a hundred years lived without perceiving it. A single day's life of one who sees the truth is worth more than a hundred years of not seeing the truth.

[65:42]

Sound of the bell [...]

[67:42]

Sound of the bell Sound of the bell Sound of the bell Questioner 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21,

[72:41]

22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30. So the next thing on our schedule is Eucharist at 11.30, and then you take your lunch down there at the retreat house. There's really no place to sit together, you kind of have to be hermits for lunch, and

[74:08]

then we'll be back in here at 3 o'clock. And then we'll be back in here at 3 o'clock.

[74:11]

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