Spirituality in Interfaith Dialogue. Edited by Rosh Arai and Wesley Ariarajah. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990. xi + 103 pages. $8.95 (paper).

Abstract

This modest book contains nineteen papers presented at a consultation sponsored by the World Council of Churches in Japan in 1987. All the participants were Christians who have explored their spirituality by using Eastern forms of practice and prayer. Sharing how their spiritual journeys into other traditions have been both challenging and enriching, they portray their attempts to be truly mindful and to discover peace and beauty in the simple things of daily life by letting their hearts focus on the presence of the Spirit of God. Most of the practices they describe are drawn from Buddhism and Hinduism. Theravada vipassana (insight, awareness), we learn, is much more than hearing bells, making gestures, and meditating while walking, for it radically simplifies mental functions and frees us from selfish attachments and selfwill. Zen, likewise, is more than slow breathing exercises and body relaxation, for it turns us inwards to face our human nature as God's image. The Hindu practices of Sadhana, meditation on the energy centers (chakras), and mantra chanting are more than mental disciplines, for they silence our mind and emotions so that internal dialogue ceases and true prayer can begin. Studying the goals and techniques of different spiritualities is often a dubious source of confusion and distortion. There is the risk, for example, of unsatisfactory syncretism-jumping from yoga to shamanism, from Jesus prayer to Hare Krishna, from Tantric practices to Zen-in a kind of a spiritual supermarket where we can pick and choose. Methods are sometimes absolutized, instead of being used with freedom and detachment and eventually transcended as one grows in spiritual maturity. Rather than spirituality and religion mutually enriching each other, there is a danger of becoming so absorbed in the mystery and power of the spiritual dimension that institutional authority and the faith traditions are rejected entirely. These essays, however, are a positive source of enlightenment, showing how Christians can greatly benefit by being open to the spiritual experiences of other traditions. When they operate from the conviction that God is at work in the whole world, they can come to know and understand people of other religious traditions as people of prayer and spiritual practice and as partners engaged in working for peace and social justice. While sincerely and fully accepting another spiritual tradition, they can plunge into their own roots, coming to understand their own faith and the devotional practices of Christian mystics and saints in greater depth. This little book is an antidote both to public opinion polls that measure religious and spiritual experiences as behavior or belief and to pragmatic analyses that reduce these experiences to feeling and emotions. The book chronicles how narrow the Christian ways of experiencing God really are and how constricted and impoverished the language for appraising those experiences has become. The authors testify that living among people of other faiths has made long-forgotten element...