Major points of agreement developed by 15 spiritual leaders from nine different religious traditions, including:
Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, Native American, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Russian Orthodox, and Tibetan Buddhist traditions.
These guidelines are not presented as definitive, but they offer a useful starting point for interfaith religious dialogue. They were written by the SnowMass Ecumenical Conference, convened by Fr. Thomas Keating, 1984 -89.1. The world religions bear witness to the experience of Ultimate Reality, to which they give various names: Brahman, Allah, (the) Absolute, God, Great Spirit.
2. Ultimate Reality cannot be limited by any name or concept.
3. Ultimate Reality is the ground of infinite potentiality and actualization.
4. Faith is opening, accepting, and responding to Ultimate Reality. Faith in this sense precedes every belief system.
5. The potential for human wholeness—or in other frames of reference, enlightenment, salvation, transformation, blessedness, nirvana—is present in every human person.
6. Ultimate Reality may be experienced not only through religious practices but also through nature, art, human relationships, and service of others.
7. As long as the human condition is experienced as separate from Ultimate Reality, it is subject to ignorance, illusion, weakness and suffering.
8. Disciplined practice is essential to the spiritual life; yet spiritual attainment is not the result of one’s own efforts, but the result of the experience of oneness (unity) with Ultimate Reality.
9. Prayer is communion with Ultimate Reality, whether it is regarded as personal, impersonal (transpersonal), or beyond them both.
The participants in the Snowmass Conference who discovered these areas of agreement were all long-term practitioners of their respective spiritual paths, to the point of embodying their respective traditions in a remarkable way. Although these guidelines point to certain truths that appear to be common to all religions, they do not imply that all religions are the same. The guidelines in no way contradict the spiritual uniqueness and richness of any one tradition.
During the Snowmass Conference, which met in annual week-long retreats for several years, various areas of disagreement were also discovered and explored. The participants became very honest with each other in stating exactly what they believed, but they did not try to convince the others of their respective positions. To their delight, they found that discussing their points of disagreement actually increased the bonding of the group even more than discovering their points of agreement.
Interfaith spirituality is a growing movement toward a universal spirituality world wide, as practitioners from different faiths discover how their own spiritual lives are enriched by learning from other traditions. Interfaith spirituality has a profound role to play in healing the religious divisions and conflicts in the world.
For an excellent introduction to interfaith spirituality, see “The Mystic Heart” by Wayne Teasdale (New World, 2001).
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Alternative version
The Snowmass Conference's Guidelines for Interreligious Understanding
- The world religions bear witness to the experience of the Ultimate Reality to which they give various names: Brahman, the Absolute, God, Allah, (the) Great Spirit, the Transcendent.
- The Ultimate Reality surpasses any name or concept that can be given to It.
- The Ultimate Reality is the source (ground of being) of all existence.
- Faith is opening, surrendering, and responding to the Ultimate Reality. This relationship precedes every belief system.
- The potential for human wholeness -- or in other frames of reference, liberation, self-transcendence, enlightenment, salvation, transforming union, moksha, nirvana, fana -- is present in every human person.
- The Ultimate Reality may be experienced not only through religious practices but also through nature, art, human relationships and service to others.
- The differences among belief systems should be presented as facts that distinguish them, not as points of superiority.
- In the light of the globalization of life and culture now in process, the personal and social ethical principles proposed by the world religions in the past need to be re-thought and re-expressed.
from Speaking of Silence: Christian and Buddhists on the Contemplative Way by Thomas Keating
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If you are interested in some new ideas on religious pluralism and the Trinity, please check out my website at www.religiouspluralism.ca. It previews my book, which has not been published yet and is still a “work-in-progress.” Your constructive criticism would be very much appreciated.
My thesis is that an abstract version of the Trinity could be Christianity’s answer to the world need for a framework of pluralistic theology.
In a constructive worldview: east, west, and far-east religions present a threefold understanding of One God manifest primarily in Muslim and Hebrew intuition of the Deity Absolute, Christian and Krishnan Hindu conception of the Universe Absolute Supreme Being; and Shaivite Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist apprehension of the Destroyer (meaning also Consummator), Unconditioned Absolute, or Spirit of All That Is and is not. Together with their variations and combinations in other major religions, these religious ideas reflect and express our collective understanding of God, in an expanded concept of the Holy Trinity.
The Trinity Absolute is portrayed in the logic of world religions, as follows:
1. Muslims and Jews may be said to worship only the first person of the Trinity, i.e. the existential Deity Absolute Creator, known as Allah or Yhwh, Abba or Father (as Jesus called him), Brahma, and other names; represented by Gabriel (Executive Archangel), Muhammad and Moses (mighty messenger prophets), and others.
2. Christians and Krishnan Hindus may be said to worship the first person through a second person, i.e. the experiential Universe or "Universal” Absolute Supreme Being (Allsoul or Supersoul), called Son/Christ or Vishnu/Krishna; represented by Michael (Supreme Archangel), Jesus (teacher and savior of souls), and others. The Allsoul is that gestalt of personal human consciousness, which we expect will be the "body of Christ" (Mahdi, Messiah, Kalki or Maitreya) in the second coming – personified in history by Muhammad, Jesus Christ, Buddha (9th incarnation of Vishnu), and others.
3. Shaivite Hindus, Buddhists, and Confucian-Taoists seem to venerate the synthesis of the first and second persons in a third person or appearance, ie. the Destiny Consummator of ultimate reality – unqualified Nirvana consciousness – associative Tao of All That Is – the absonite* Unconditioned Absolute Spirit “Synthesis of Source and Synthesis,”** who/which is logically expected to be Allah/Abba/Brahma glorified in and by union with the Supreme Being – represented in religions by Gabriel, Michael, and other Archangels, Mahadevas, Spiritpersons, etc., who may be included within the mysterious Holy Ghost.
Other strains of religion seem to be psychological variations on the third person, or possibly combinations and permutations of the members of the Trinity – all just different personality perspectives on the Same God. Taken together, the world’s major religions give us at least two insights into the first person of this thrice-personal One God, two perceptions of the second person, and at least three glimpses of the third.
* The ever-mysterious Holy Ghost or Unconditioned Spirit is neither absolutely infinite, nor absolutely finite, but absonite; meaning neither existential nor experiential, but their ultimate consummation; neither fully ideal nor totally real, but a middle path and grand synthesis of the superconscious and the conscious, in consciousness of the unconscious.
** This conception is so strong because somewhat as the Absonite Spirit is a synthesis of the spirit of the Absolute and the spirit of the Supreme, so it would seem that the evolving Supreme Being may himself also be a synthesis or “gestalt” of humanity with itself, in an Almighty Universe Allperson or Supersoul. Thus ultimately, the Absonite is their Unconditioned Absolute Coordinate Identity – the Spirit Synthesis of Source and Synthesis – the metaphysical Destiny Consummator of All That Is.
For more details, please see: www.religiouspluralism.ca
Samuel Stuart Maynes
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