SPI 506 Interspirituality: A Growing Movement in Today’s Spiritual Landscape
Faculty: Dr. Janice Lynne Lundy (Profile)
ABOUT THE COURSE
Br. Wayne Teasdale (1945-2004), on whose groundbreaking work this course is based, is considered by many to be the founding father and voice of the modern interspirituality movement. Schooled in Eastern and Western philosophy as well as its practices, he invited modern seekers to explore their inner lives in a similar fashion. He wrote, “The real religion of humankind can be said to be spirituality itself, because mystical spirituality is the origin of all the world religions. If this is so, and I believe it is, we might also say that interspirituality—the sharing of ultimate experience across traditions—is the religion of the third millennium”
(Teasdale, Wayne. The Mystic Heart, 26).
In this course, we will explore what it means for today’s seeker to have an interspiritual approach to life. With the help of Rabbi Rami Shapiro, another contemporary interspiritual thinker, we will look at five of the most significant questions a spiritual seeker may ask while discerning a personal theology. To do so, he invites us to “live into” select sacred scriptures of the world’s major religions, those that affirm the unitive nature of religious experience. As a requirement of this course, you will be asked to intimately explore interspirituality for yourself by adding selections from these sacred texts into your own prayer or meditation practice, and reflect on what you notice as a result. Doing so, helps us align with “the mystic heart,” as Teasdale calls it, guiding us toward one of the foundational precepts of interspirituality itself: solidarity with and compassion for all beings.