Interspirituality: Tools for Exploration
Brother Wayne Teasdale
We can help create, each of us and all of us together, a new universal civilization founded on a deep commitment to humanity. Mysticism, contemplation and spirituality are the tools by which we can transform the consciousness of the human family. By finding these tools in every faith and religion we can achieve a new global society that is enlightened—a civilization with a heart. Opening to that discovery is what we might call interspirituality.
A workman knows his tools; we must understand our tools of transformation. Mysticism is direct, unmediated experience of ultimate Reality. We may call this “ground of all being and existence” God, Spirit, the Tao, the Wakan Tanka, the One, the Absolute, the Divine, Infinite Consciousness. The name does not matter. The experience does. Following a disciplined spiritual life—through any of the methods taught by the great world religions—allows us access, through a fully actualized spiritual state, to the depths and heights of consciousness.
Experience and Contemplation
Mysticism does not rely on faith but on experience; it is as empirical as science. The mystical experience approaches the Divine directly. A mystic who commits to the spiritual discipline of this approach makes a pledge to a transformative process of spiritual growth.
Closely allied with mysticism is contemplation. Often, it is meditative in nature, as in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. (And we most not forget that Jews, Christians and Muslims also have a contemplative heritage. Mature contemplation is an effortless reception of the mystical gifts: direct awareness of the Divine or the Infinite, illumination, and cultivation of virtues such as love, kindness and compassion.
Spirituality is a personal commitment to embrace a mystical path, to begin individual transformation. Spirituality asks that we not lean on an institution to change us, but accept the responsibility for changing ourselves. Spirituality is more about inner action than about external tasks. Spirituality leads to integrity and the compassionate and effective action that reflects wholeness.
The inspiration and generating source of all world religions is mystical consciousness. Ancient India’s rishis experienced the Divine Reality of Brahman. Siddhartha Gautama Sakyamuni’s inner process of enlightenment gave birth to Buddhism. Israel’s patriarchs and prophets encountered the Divine without intermediary, and their accounts and revelations formed the basis of Judaism. All of Christianity takes its life from the intense and pervasive God-consciousness of Jesus. The Prophet Muhammad talked with an angel bringing messages from the Divine. In every tradition, the individual is first transformed through mystical receptivity, contemplation and spirituality. Then the more sweeping transformation begins.
Transformation of the Will, the Memory, and the Imagination
Transformation is not a temporary interruption of the ordinary but a fundamental, substantial, and permanent change; a radical alteration of everything: understanding, will, memory, imagination, character, and, finally, behavior. Transformation shifts us from self-preoccupation to other-centeredness.
When understanding is transformed, we discover the subtle connections between everything in creation and a unifying ground, the Divine itself. Of course, transformation is not an instant in time, but an ongoing process. Right view is the Buddhist term for envisioning Truth—in theistic terms, God. The Divine Intellect illuminates the individual. All things are seen as One or parts of the One.
Transforming the will involves aligning it with the greater good, with the deeper spiritual self, with the Divine Will. Egotism gives way to selflessness, assertion yields to compassionate understanding of the needs and suffering of others. The transformed will is a will that has surrendered to something larger, that loses itself in union.
The will concerns the present and the future, but transformation also heals the past. What is unwanted, negative or destructive in the memory can be released in mysticism, allowing real growth to begin. By holding us in the past, memories can stunt us, keeping us from moving forward into full maturity. Awakening to the Infinite, we can leave restrictive nightmares behind.
In an enlightened being, imagination is a holy faculty. Transformed understanding expands knowing; transformed will surrenders, transformed memory erases and sees anew. Transformed imagination is boundless vision, transcendent sight into the hidden and the possible.
Transformation of the Unconscious and of the Character
The hidden is also dominant in the transformation of the unconscious. The unconscious is powerful, creative, crafty, manipulative, secretive and insistent. Purified, the unconscious is subdued, no longer at the mercy of its desires and no longer in control of the conscious mind and individual behavior.
When so much is transformed, character itself is transformed. Sensitive to environments, intuitive about others, transformed character regards fellow beings and creation as precious and cultivates the virtues: love, compassion, kindness, and mercy.
Behavior reflects and expresses the other transformations, bringing them into action. We intend to perform good deeds, and thus guide our faculties through our intent. Our faculties, in turn, shepherd our actions, transforming our behavior in accordance with our inward transformations. Harmonious with all the elements of our own being, we are freed to act from a pure intention for good.
As we have seen, religions have their origins in mystical spirituality. That spirituality continues to nourish religions, inspire the faithful to heroic small kindnesses and heroic self-sacrifice. It also sustains the deep experience of the Absolute found between and among religions. Because we share spirituality, we have common ground that we can explore together. Spirituality, neither intentional nor systematic, is yet the universal tradition. Interspirituality fosters the growth and transformation in community that spirituality nourishes in individuals.
Interspirituality as a Path of the Heart
We know that there are issues that require our cooperation as a planetary population if they are to be solved. Environmental blight, economic injustice, catastrophic famine, genocide, war. . . this list continues, and we are only too aware of the items on it. Surely we must bring all of our knowledge and wisdom to bear upon these problems if we hope for a solution. We need more, though. We need heart. Our civilization, our global culture, must have heart. Interspirituality is a way for us to find our way to that heart.
The Dalai Lama tells us that we have a universal responsibility to change the course of history. Our duty is to allow ourselves to accept the promptings of love and compassion in every form. Can a violent and inequitable society turn to kindness and sharing? Yes. Even within our lifetimes, the ideal can become a reality.
“The Mission” by Rubinov-Jacobson
If we are willing to discipline ourselves, that is. We will have to work for it.
“The love of power,” William Gladstone once said, “must give way to the power of love!” Accepting the Golden Rule as both golden—precious—and a rule not to be infringed would be a beginning. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” means not only refraining from harm but actively doing good. “Always do for others,” we might remind ourselves, “what you want them to do for you.”
Capitalism need not be heartless. Globalization need not be a new form of imperialism. If we transform our consciousness, our behavior must, at last, be transformed. If our individual behavior is transformed, the change must, at last, be evident on a planetary level.
Interspirituality does not mean giving up our own spiritual traditions. It means opening and broadening them. Interspirituality is spacious. The roots of mysticism reach into the same rich soil regardless of the label slapped on a tradition. The fruits of the spiritual life are the same. The same Divine water sustains them all. Scripture, territory, language, and time itself have very little effect on the deeply spiritual.
Spirituality as Moral Actualization
When we become truly spiritual, we are morally actualized. We feel connected with the earth and with all beings. We are deeply nonviolent. We are humble. A disciplined spiritual practice leads us to mature self-knowledge, to simple lives, and, at last, to compassionate service. We are given the gifts of prophecy—prophetic voice and prophetic action.
Saints of all traditions are, first of all, good. Once morality has truly been internalized, laws, norms and even guides become irrelevant. Mahatma Gandhi needed no tutor. Mother Teresa required no precepts. The Dalai Lama is not a slave to commandments. By nature, by disposition—by choice most of all—such persons are good. Moral commitment is necessary; there can be no argument. The morality, however, is internally accepted, not externally imposed.
The Gifts of Awakening
Once awakened, once truly moral, we understand the intrinsic interdependence of all sentient beings. We grasp the ontological truth that all life is interconnected. We recognize our connection with the earth—our mother—and our fellow brothers and sisters. Social, economic and political interdependence exist because of the deeper interconnection of all beings. Each religion attests to this. Hindus speak of non-duality; Buddhists of codependent arising, Jews of a single father of humanity; Christians of the mystical body of Christ; Muslims of unity. All refer to a singular holding together of all the parts that compose reality. This is our vision when we are transformed.
If all beings are intrinsically related, violence to another is violence against ourselves. As we grow in holiness, integrity and wisdom, the desire to harm subsides and at last vanishes. Mystics see into the depths of Reality and become inherently nonviolent. Gandhi’s ahimsa can transform a conflict-ridden world into a social order with an open, all-embracing heart.
That heart must also be humble. Humility arises from clarity and profound other-centeredness, acknowledge that arrogance can plant the seed of violence. When we think too much or too well of ourselves, we deceive ourselves. When we deceive ourselves, we are prey to all manner of deceptions. Humility keeps us honest and on the rightly directed path.
Part of humility is recognizing the need for on-going, viable, authentic spiritual discipline. Our practice may be prayer or meditation. We may chant, sing or maintain silence. Walking mindfully in nature may be our practice, or we may dance or assume yogic postures. The form is perhaps unimportant. The commitment, however, is all-important. To be transformed, we must be faithful to the process of transformation.
The Wall of Religion, Michael Green
Fidelity to self-exploration is also imperative. Our growth is nourished by regular (as part of our discipline) and humble examination of our own consciences, our motives, our acts. The lucidity and veracity of self-knowledge, its humble admission of our faults, and its uncertainty about our virtue keep us steadily on the path of self-transcendence and transformation.
If we have pledged ourselves to spirituality, we have also accepted the need for simplicity. Focused on the one Reality, we find distractions unappealing. The Majestic needs no further adornment. Justice, too, awareness of the state of others, puts our own appetites into perspective. “The earth has enough for humankind’s needs,” Gandhi was fond of saying, “but not enough for humankind’s greed.” American counterculture echoes with “Live simply, so others may simply live!”
When love of acquisition diminishes, love in action increases. We do not enter the Divine Presence without sensitivity. We do not immerse ourselves in Infinite Consciousness without recognizing the sufferings of others. Our consciousness can transcend our human limitations, and our heart expands as a result. Selfless service emerges naturally from this transcendence, this expansion. Life is holy, and we are called to serve the holy.
One form of service is prophecy. A prophet witnesses the truth and bears witness to that truth by giving voice to it, by acting upon it. Transformed, we respond to the truths that we see with compassion and with engagement. A prophet takes risks for others, to protect, to defend, to teach. Prophetic witness is, like work, “love made visible.”
These are the elements of mature spirituality, regardless of where we may live or in what faith we may have been brought up. Accepting this common ground, this holy ground, is the beginning of Interspirituality, our hope for the future, our map toward a world guided by the heart. Interspirituality is our path toward what Pope Paul VI called “a true civilization: the civilization of love.”
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Abridged from “An Interspiritual Manifesto,” Elixir: Consciousness, Conscience and Culture, No. 1, Autumn 2005.
LINKS
http://www.interreligiousinsight.org/April2006/TeasdaleEssay.html
http://www.learnoutloud.com/Catalog/Religion-and-Spirituality/Buddhism/Brother-Wayne-Teasdale-The-Supreme-Identity/20405
http://www.innerexplorations.com/catew/the.htm
http://in.integralinstitute.org/contributor.aspx?id=55
http://www.innerexplorations.com/ewtext/wayne.htm
http://www.wie.org/misc/teasdale-memoriam.asp
http://home.comcast.net/~brotherwayne/index.htm
http://monasticdialog.com/a.php?id=338
http://monasticdialog.com/a.php?id=472
http://in.integralinstitute.org/live/view_browayne.aspx
http://www.spiritualitytoday.org/spir2day/91432teasdale.html
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