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Education Pages
"Teaching assistant" pages dedicated to pertinent quotations and vision from Interspirituality itself, Brother Wayne Teasdale, and other Interspiritual leaders regarding:
The Nine Elements of a Universal Spirituality (which have become the "Nine Vows" of the Community of The Mystic Heart) and The Basic Vision of InterSpirituality from The Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World's Religions, A Monk In The World, and Bede Griffiths: An Introduction to His Interspiritual Thought. Spiritual But Not Religious We've added this subpage because recent surveys indicate one fourth to one fifth of American's identify themselves this way.
Particularly these are meant to assist Community of The Mystic Heart members who are participating in courses on the Nine Elements or other aspects of Interspirituality.
Currently, members of CMH's "Leadership Circle" are assisting in the course "Cultivating a Mature, Universal Spirituality", as follows: Kurt Johnson, Loch Kelly and Diane Berke, as facilitators, with Andrew Harvey and Dena Merriam. Janet Quinn, Dorothy Cunha, Ellen Friedman and T.S. Pennington as coordinators of conference call discussions re: same for farflung members. Rory Pinto, Nita Renfrew, Joyce Liechenstein and Jean Leone re: assisting at in-person New York discussion groups. Rory McEntee re: in-person or conference call discussion groups in or around California. Ellen Friedman, Deanne Quarrie and Patricia Selmo re: in-person or conference call discussion groups in or around Texas. Tim Miner and Diane Finlayson re: activities in or around Washington and Baltimore.
Teasdale on "The Nine Elements" the order of the "Nine" is "as is" in The Mystic Heart; it may differ from the order treated in the course Current Order of Elements for the "9 Elements Course"
ELEMENT: "Actual Moral Capacity" (MH, p. 107f) The first element in a global or universal spirituality, and thus part of interspirituality itself, is a fully operative moral capacity. If we were to choose a contemplative or mystic from each spiritual tradition, and our choice was based on the maturity of these individuals in their mystical path, we would quickly discover that each one of them had a fully developed moral understanding and commitment. The moral dimension of the spiritual life is univeral and unvarying in its essential outlines. Living the spiritual life...assumes an interior nature that transforms socieety's moral code through spiritual wisdom. It becomes part of the consciousness of the individual mystic, and not something externally imposed. Ultimately, the work of the individual enlarges the entire culture's moral understanding. Actualized moral capacity is based in a transformed inner nature. ...To say that an actualized moral capacity is the basis of the spiritual life is really to suggest that selfless love and compassionate action form the foundation... We are not meant to remain just where we are. We cannot depend on our culture either to guide and support us in our quest. We must do the hard work of clarification together ourselves. We need to understand, to really grasp at an elemental level that the definitive revolution is the spiritual awakening of humankind.
ELEMENT: "Solidarity with All Living Beings" (MH, p. 114f) The second element in a universal mysticism is a deep realization of the interconnectedness of everyone and everything. Instense mystical experience confirms the unity of all aspects of reality, cosmic and earthly, life and being. The perceived interconnectedness between and among all apsects of the cosmos is an essential fact. ...a primordial vision gained from the insight of countless mystics across millennia. The sense of solidarity with all life, with the natural world, and with the cosmos, is a mystical perception of consciousness. This deep feeling of connection is often triggered by encounter with the world's suffering. ...science is catching up to mysticism in its understanding of this fundamental unity. The image is never divided or broken...the total order is present in every part. Everything reflects and implies everything else, and each thing is intimately part of everything else. This means the cosmos and reality are one vast system of order. All parts are bound up in the community of being and consciousness. All are part of the web of existence, and nothing is excluded.
ELEMENT: "Deep Nonviolence" (MH, p.116f) When the spiritual life has put down deep roots, there is a natural organic evolution into deep nonviolence: the attitude and practice of non-harming. The realization of the interconnectedness of all beings brings with it a sense of the utter preciousness of all life. Every being in every species is precious and irreplaceable. A commitment to deep nonviolence is necessary to the emerging global culture, and to interspirituality. ...this insight about nonviolence is not something that most societies understand...Hollywood gives the impression that somehow violence is innate to the human species....nothing could be farther from the truth. ...scientists unanimously conclude that not only is violence not innate to human beings, but it can be overcome through education. All the heroes of nonviolence have been either mystics or men and women of prayer. Intense spiritual practice generated this insight, and it represents a permanent acquisition in the moral resources of humanity.
ELEMENT: "Humility" (MH, p. 126f) The spiritual life is impossible without the virtue of humility. Humility of heart is a great treasure because it keeps us honest, cutting away self-deception, falsehood and inauthenticity. It forces us to be real.... Humility is a difficult virtue, but it is indispensable to progress in the interior life. For many Americans, humility is not only undesirable, it is virtually incomprehensible. Humility of heart is an ego-less understanding. Humility of heart is closely related to egolessness. Egolessness is to live out of the depths of the heart in the spirit of kindness, mercy, love and compassion...it represents good-heartedness. Selflessness is a fundmental element in the spiritual journey and, like humility, is required for the spiritual life to awaken and prosper.
ELEMENT: "Spiritual Practice" (MH, p. 128f) Spiritual practice, the work of our transformation, is the means of inner growth and change toward human maturity glimpsed in the best of religious experience. It is critically important in authentic spirituality... Without a spiritual practice of some kind, spirituality is a hollow affair...reduced to the formalism of external religiosity. Daily spiritual practice is the "technology" of inner change.... it leads to the interior breakthroughs that provide real progress in the spiritual life. This insight... marks the difference between a genuine mystical process and popular religion, or a purely devotional type of spirituality. Spiritual practice shapes our understanding, character, will, personality, attitudes and actions by enlarging their scope through the light of compassion and love. The goal of all spiritual practices is the same.... it is to the mystical life what food and water is to the body. ... it unites with the efforts of the divine... the goal is the same: integration and transformation. To achieve authentic spirituality, genuine mysticism, we must adopt some form of spiritual practice.
ELEMENT: "Mature Self-Knowledge" (MH, p. 141f) "Know thyself". ....mystics have genuine, mature, honest self-knowledge. They are radically open to acknowledging faults and limitations, and do not shy away from coming to terms with them. Self-knowledge, when it reaches its full potential, becomes the basis for very radical inner change. The more we see ourselves as we really are...the more we are on the road to the fullness of the spiritual life, and the ultimate actualization and realization of our potential for divine love and compassion. The spiritual journey changes us to the core of our being. If it didn't it wouldn't be real. This quality of inner change is what I understand by the term transformation: a radical reordering and alteration of our character, and all our old habits.... With change in consciousness, will, and the emotions gradually habituate the character to be reshaped... slowly being deified in the process... All the traditions attest to the relationship between inner transformation and outer action. All spiritual practice is about transformation. The existence of spiritual masters in each tradition is palpable evidence of the perennial, universal validity and effectively of spiritual practice as an aid to genuine self-knowledge and radical, total inner-change. The spiritual journey is not a game; it is the most ultimate and most real human adventure. We are not meant to remain just where we are. We need to understand, to really grasp at an elemental level, that the definitive revolution is the spiritual awakening of humankind.
ELEMENT: "Simplicity of Life" (MH, p. 148f) Simplicity of life concerns our relationship with the planet, the natural workd, other species, and other human beings.... how we use or abuse the earth's resources. As we grow in mystical consciousness and become inwardly integrated, our life naturally becomes simplified... Simplicity is an attribute of spirituality that has been present as long as people have walked the mystical path. Simplicity of life is one of the inner resources that advance our common responsibility. It can have a major impact on altering how we relate to the earth... We must simplify our lives in the Ecological Age is really to take root. Simplicity of heart and life require an appreciation of insecurity, vulnerability... it goes to the core of our being and strips away all the distractions that compete for our attention. Simplicity, as a virtue, knows only what is real. In terms of the inner process of the mystical life, simplicity makes us more and more attentive to what is happening within us... We are born with this kind of simplicity, and it is the inherent property of children. When we remove the clutter of our lives, we become inwardly free to give ourselves to the mystical journey, to seek union and communion with the ultimate mystery.
ELEMENT: "Selfless Service and Compassionate Action" (MH, p. 152f) Selfless service and compassionate action together constitute another universal element of interspirituality. Any truly viable spirituality for the third millennium will need to include our commitment to the social dimension. The spiritual life summons us to selfless service in particular. It is something one must learn through education and practical experience. To be selflessly available to others, to respond to them in a loving, compassionate way-- not a sentimental love, but an unconditional, self-sacrificing presence-- is a sign of great spiritual and human maturity. The capacity for largeness of heart is the inner nature of all of us when we are liberated from the false self and its hold on our motives. The mystical journey makes this shift an actuality in us... If transformation is only a matter of consciousness, then there is always the risk that the change may never touch the deeply hidden intentions of the heart. If the will is not involved in the radical change the spiritual process initiates, then the resultant “enlightenment” is only partial. Clearly, if the mystical process is to be complete, it must include a profound transformation in the will. Achieving the ultimate awareness of the way things are is simply not enough.
ELEMENT: The Prophetic Voice (MH, p. 157f) A further vital component in a universal spirituality, and so in an interspirituality, is the awakened and utterly necessary function of leadership.... The prophetic voice vigorously acknowledges the unjust events and policies that cause enormous tension, misery, and dislocation in the lives of countless numbers of people. Wars, the plight of refugees (most of whom are women and children), unjust economic, social, and political conditions that enrich a small class of rulers while oppressing the mases, threats to the environment-- all are matters that should evoke the moral voice and our willingness to respond. We no longer have the luxury of ignoring the many challenges to justice in all its forms. We have a universal responsibility to apply the moral and prophetic function whereever we see justice disregarded, threats to world peace, oppression by states against peoples or neighboring nations, or some other danger as yet unforeseen. The witness to justice all over the world-- prophecy-- has a long history. Authentic spirituality compells us to engage in moral and political struggle, to sustained action... If man and women leading rich inner lives cannot or will not respond to events and situations that require them to do so...then that negates religion's prophetic and incisive contribution...
Art above by CMH Leadership Circle member Ernest Wachter.
Interspirituality-- Elements of the Message copyright © 2010 Interspiritual Dialogue Inc. drawn from The Mystic Heart: Discovering A Universal Spirituality in the World's Religions and discussions with Bro. Wayne Teasdale
WHAT IS UNDERNEATH THE "AWAKENING THROUGH INTERSPIRITUALITY" BRO. WAYNE SPEAKS OF ABOVE-- AN EVOLUTIONARY PHENOMENON? Is the process of world awakening and world transformation an inevitable conclusion of evolution itself? Does it start with the "Big Bang" nearly 14 billion years ago, and then progress first through billions of years of the evolution of material and then the evolution of consciousness in intelligent life? Instead of just a "horizontal" phenomenon of incoherent diversity, is the evolution of spiritual experience on the planet actually a "vertical" evolution involving the gradual transformation of human experience into awakened consciousness and behavior? Is "awakening" the culmination of human history-- resulting in a transformed planet and humankind?
copyright © 2010 Interspiritual Dialogue Inc.
THE CONTEXT WE ALL LIVE IN- "I", "We", "It", and "Its" (from Ken Wilber's "Integral Spirituality")
Over 7 billion persons of the species Homo sapiens on the planet earth live in the context of (1) their personal "bubble"-- their "personal" or "I" space--, (2) their more intimate circle of partner, family, friends, close colleagues, and their regular day-to-day habits -- their "collective" or "We" space--, and, finally, (3) the more complex and impersonal world of the institutional or "It" space-- the world of institutions, governments, religions, cultures, ideas. All these "It's-added-together" give you "Its"-- quite a complex, if not incoherent, world today! The "processing" of this phenomenon by the world's peoples is really all that is going on. And, this same day to day activity went on with the billions of persons who preceded us. What is the bottom line? Take a look at your own "I", "We" and "It" spaces and get a feel for them. Obviously there is quite a "disconnect" today between what the "It" or institutional space thinks it must "return" to, of for, the I's and We's who created it. "It" is pretty out of control-- rampant greed, banking and financial scandal, global climate threat, obsession with power, militant nationalism, terrorism, poverty, war....
Diagram blending the I/We/It/Its "Integral Map" of Ken Wilber with Interspiritual Teaching, copyright © 2010 Interspiritual Dialogue Inc.
How do we get the "out of control" "It" space back in alignment with the real concerns of the heart and consciousness of humanity, as profoundly experienced in the "I" and "We" spaces, and particularly in the spiritual life and the essence of the world's Great Wisdom Traditions?
INTERSPIRITUALITY IN THE "I" SPACE
copyright © 2010 Interspiritual Dialogue Inc.
In our personal or "I"-space we live simultaneously in a number of realms of experience...from the obviously tangible through more and more ethereal realms-- from the physical body through emotions, feelings, and even more mysterious subtle energies. At a certain point these latter can become "causal", like when someone "falls in love", or when someone, or some idea or influence, intervenes and suddenly "turns a life around" in another direction. This is a multidimensional space, all held in the non-linear, nondual, encompassing reality of consciousness and manifestion. In our modern world, with its appreciation of the "quantum reality", the common core of human wisdom, as in the Great Wisdom Traditions, has even more pertinence than ever.
INTERSPIRITUALITY IN THE "WE" SPACE
Copyright © 2010 Interspiritual Dialogue Inc.
In the collective space of humankind, an important (but often overlooked) distinction is the one between "Religion" and "Spirituality". Notice that even the TV networks miss this distinction. There is a natural relationship between the two, of course, but the direction and relative virtue of the two can be quite different. Basically, "religion" is a formalization (occuring in the "It" or "institutional space") of the typically personal (or "I-space") spiritual journey of the individual (or smaller more intimate groups). In institutional or formal "religion" there is some kind of narrative or "way of doing things" that is considering normative, often enforced by a prevailing culture, and so on. Because of this, religion is about "right belief" or "right creed"-- and, when push comes to shove "creed trumps deed". Spirituality, however, follows the essence of Wisdom Teaching, the message of all the great spiritual teachers. It is about "right being" or "right action"-- and, when push comes to shove, "deed trumps creed". There has always been a historical tension between these two tendencies within humankind's spiritual experience-- no more so than today when so many persons consider themselves "spiritual but not religious". Is this part of the process toward world awakening?
INTERSPIRITUALITY IN THE "IT" SPACE
copyright © 2010 Interspiritual Dialogue Inc. Simplified View of World Religions (based only on the "Big Five" of today and some modern syntheses) moving toward "Awakening" Obviously, a diagram of all the traditions worldwide, including the "extinct" ones of history is far more complex
Is it possible, as noted in the initial paragraph above, that the history of our planet's spiritual experience is one existential and convergent phenomen-- headed toward the possibility of a worldwide awakening to our profound interconnectedness or "Oneness"? Is this the undercurrent that has been always running beneath all the world's spiritual experience? Is this why the "awakening experience" is reported, from all the world's traditions, as one in which persons no longer feel "separate" but, instead, profounded interconnected and "One" with all? If so, the coherence of the "awakening" phenomenon, as reported by so many, makes profound sense. Is this essence in spirituality destined to overtake and replace the often pathological attributes so historically tied to religion-- competition, conflict and war? Is the history of the world's religions one still holding an asset for humanity, not just a liability? This is the "big picture" essence of the interspiritual vision rooted in the "Elements" of spiritual aspiration and virtue also summarized above. They make profound sense of these words from The Mystic Heart: “We are at the dawn of a new consciousness, a radically fresh approach to our life as the human family in a fragile world”. “This journey is what spirituality is really about”. “We are not meant to remain just where we are”. “This revolution will be the task of the Interspiritual Age". "The necessary shifts in consciousness require a new approach to spirituality that transcends past religious cultures of fragmentation and isolation". “We need to understand, to really grasp at an elemental level, that the definitive revolution is the spiritual awakening of humankind”.
STEPS FROM INTERFAITH TO INTERSPIRITUALITY There is a longer commentary on this by Kurt Johnson at: http://multiplex.isdna.org/newpage28.htm it is the first article on that page-- scroll down to: The Journey from "Interfaith" to "Trans-traditional Spirituality", "Interspirituality" and "Awakening"
Here are some major points from that piece: Most people come into their interfaith experience from one or the other of the traditional world religions or denominational experiences—Christian, Jewish, Moslem, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic, atheist etc. As these people begin to taste other religious experiences (and “experience” is the key word, not just creeds or beliefs), and the rich historical backgrounds behind all these, they find themselves in an Interfaith experience. As a person’s spiritual path matures more, they begin to harvest and enjoy the riches of varied religious experiences and points of view. Valuing this richness more than just that of one tradition is “Trans- traditional Spirituality”. Trans-traditional Spirituality begins with generally the same assumptions as Interfaith, but moves toward emphasizing the value in sharing all the varied experiences of the world’s traditions. It emphasizes less the interest in deciding, ultimately, who is actually “right” or “wrong”, although this consideration still lingers in the background. That concern lingers in the background because this religious experience (actually the heart in this experience) remains shallow enough that there is still a “mental” concern about who is ultimately “right” or “wrong”, a concern linked actually to deeply hidden fears about ultimate rewards or punishments. As people develop in Trans-traditional experience, they begin to understand that there is a common and deep shared “knowing” at the deepest core of all religious experience. This experience-- of a deeper holistic spirituality, interconnectedness, unconditional love and non-separation-- becomes the basis of “Truth”, not the mental concern about which religious narrative, story, interpretation, speculation, prophecy, practice, method, leader, Messiah etc. is ultimately “right”. This is Interspirituality, a great step into the freedom that grows into Awakening. Thus, Interspirituality’s assumption about the phenomenon of religions in our world is different than either Interfaith or the Trans-traditional experience. Interspirituality steps back into a deeper, more profound, viewpoint. It sees the entire religious experience of our species as one experience which has simply been unfolding through many lines and branches. These are, together, one unfolding experience moving toward an eventual culmination-- as what the spirituality of our species will be at its highest and most complete point of evolution. There would appear to be only small steps between the description of true, mature, Interspirituality and Awakening. However, there is much subtlety, even mystery, in the difference between these two words. Perhaps the greatest distinction between
Interspirituality and Awakening is the degree to which Interspirituality (if understood
only mentally, even if profoundly) differs from what is involved in truly living it
as experience in all aspects of Being. The latter is true
“Awakening”. The distinction is real because
different kinds of phenomena occur or arise at different levels of Awareness. As a result, it is quite impossible for persons to communicate
precisely about phenomena they have not mutually experienced. This
itself is a major challenge to the collective Awakening process for our species. Fortunately, true Awakening, with embodiment of all its aspects, is a stepwise and ongoing (in fact most likely never-ending) process. Generally, the manifestations of true Awakening will be seen in (among other characteristics) extraordinary love and kindness, although at this stage of evolution there are still persons of major clarity who may not yet manifest a full complement of those fruits. In view of that, perhaps we can have some patience with the phenomenon that some will, with complete empathy, recognize a difference in depth of experience (distinguishing “Awakening”) while others will interpret that same recognition as a condescension. This impasse about “Awakening” right now seems to be part of the evolving process. We'll be able to explore this, and much more in greater depth, as we expand and continue the growth of the Community of The Mystic Heart.
Reading “The Mystic Heart: Discovering
a Universal Spirituality in the World’s Religions” ‘in sync’ with the 9 Vows of the Community of The Mystic Heart
Introduction
to Interspirituality; and the Vow of a Daily Spiritual Practice
The
vows of Mature Self-Knowledge and Actual Moral and Ethical Capacity
The
vows of Selfless Service & Compassionate Action, and Prophetic Voice
The
vows of Simplicity and Solidary with the Cosmos and All Beings
The
vows of Humilty and Deep Nonviolence
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