A child of mixed religious and cultural ancestry, I trained simultaneously as Benedictine monk and yogi in India under Bede Griffiths, one of the greatest cross-cultural figures of all time. This work shares my interspiritual life-journey and range of mystical experiences in view of inspiring the present day spiritual seeker to appreciate the best of both traditions through an inner and active dialog. The purpose of this work is not syncretism, the notion that all traditions are the same and that the differences do not matter. Instead, I advocate interspirituality, a vision that honors common ground while at the same time appreciating and responding to the challenges that come from the emphases and uniqueness of each tradition.  

Other prominent features: 

The book, through its cross cultural and interspiritual dialog, seeks to bring about unity between people of different faiths and cultures at a much-needed time in our history when the lack of interspiritual understanding threatens world peace and stability. Without seeking to emphasize the supremacy of any particular tradition, the book offers a platform for mutual appreciation of dialogue using my personal spiritual journey as a reference. 

Christianity is in crisis and part of that crisis is due to its exclusive mentality and the lack of a meaningful mystical life that can (and should) be propagated to the greater majority of its practitioners, many of whom are leaving or have left the tradition. This book shows how Yoga, and the wisdom tradition of the East, can offer constructive solutions to many of the imbalances within western (and particularly American) Christianity while affirming the best parts of the Christian tradition. 

Yoga is one of the fastest growing spiritual movements in the United States. However, it is, for the most part, anti-Christian in its sentiment. Yoga can benefit from relating to the deeper values of the Christian tradition and this is important when propagating the deepest values of Yoga in a largely Christian country. This process requires sensitivity on both sides. Christians need assuring that Yoga does not threaten Christian faith but can compliment it. Yogis, on the other hand, need assuring that Christian leadership respects what they stand for. This book seeks to offer some possibilities of what these exchanges might look like. America is still a largely Christian nation within which yoga practitioners live, practice and conduct their spiritual and professional lives. It will indeed serve the best interests of the American Yoga community to relate more to the depth of the Christian tradition that has strong resonances with the depths within yogic spirituality.  

What are the three most important things about this book? 

First, we live in times of great division that is in urgent need of meaningful unity. The United States, I believe, is the world’s laboratory where the prototypes of such unity are being forged today that will serve as the templates for a world civilization of the future. This book is part of the effort toward the creation of such templates.

Second, I share my inner spiritual life and the kinds of experiences that resulted from spiritual practice. This serves as an inspiration for the reader to discover his or her own mystical life and to be empowered by the possibilities that result from living two traditions both simultaneously and authentically. The combination of intellectual dialog with spiritual practice and personal journey takes the central message and embodies it in concrete examples.

Third, I draw from the life and teaching of my friend and mentor, Bede Griffiths, a renowned figure in the world of cross-cultural and Interspiritual dialog. Although now deceased, Bede Griffiths is an influential figure with a fascinating background. A student and close friend of C.S. Lewis, Griffiths grew up in England and then lived out the latter half of his life in India, expressing his spirituality in and through Indian cultural and thought forms. What is valuable is that he achieved this throughout his life, until death, without compromising his Christian or western values. I am doing the reverse.

What is the relevance of such a book to our times? 

Interspiritual dialog and interfaith understanding is a key component to the stability and harmony of our world. We see it happening now at the level of the United Nations but it has to filter down to small town America if it is to transform our world. This book seeks to achieve this by bringing together the Yoga and Christian communities of the west, particularly in the United States and Canada, in meaningful spiritual dialog, and through this dialog to bring in the broad array of spiritual traditions under a common platform. All too often in the past, traditions have compared the light in their own tradition with the shadow side of other traditions. Now is the time to do this on a level playing field in which we recognize our own shadow against the shadow of others and celebrate the light of others through the acknowledgement of our own light. We live in a time of great healing and great change, accompanied by the willingness to alter perceptions of the past, a passion for curiosity about other ways of life, other ways of seeing, and the humility to acknowledge and let go of our prejudices. This book is a bold and urgent step in this direction and it could not be timelier than in the light of our current presidential election.

What is the inspiration for this book?

About 12 years ago, shortly before Bede Griffiths died, he asked that I write a personal memoir that expressed to the world the depth and fullness of our spiritual relationship. Inspired by this request, I began this work about three years ago. However, since then, the manuscript underwent three major revisions: from personal memoir to a spiritual-practice book to the current work which is about being a “world soul” that embodies global spiritual harmony.  The present version contains elements of all three of these ideas and this I believe makes for a rather interesting read that is light and personal as well as deep and intellectual and, most importantly, spiritually transformative and empowering.

Who is the audience for this book? 

This is a book about healing the gap and the prejudices between Yoga and Christianity, particularly in America and in the western world, by encouraging a mutual appreciation of each other’s best aspects, while at the same time honoring the differences in each of their emphases that could serve to challenge the other to evolve. The following audiences that can benefit from the objectives of this book:

CHRISTIANS: The first are progressive Christians who can discover how the spiritual methodology of Yoga can be of practical use and profound spiritual significance to their inner and outer lives with benefits to their mental and physical health. This is possible because Yoga is not a religion, in the sense that it does not have a belief structure or faith principle. It is, essentially, a spiritual methodology and a method of scientific self-discovery that anyone can use. Christianity is in crises today and this book tries to show how yoga can help more Christians be more committed to their faith rather than lose it. Contrary to general opinion, Yoga does not seek to take people away from their faith! I also reach out to disaffected Christians who feel betrayed by and disillusioned with their tradition, many of whom are ignorant of Yoga. Additionally, there are also millions of satisfied Christians who are extremely prejudiced about Yoga and Hinduism, and I hope this work will help some of them cultivate an appreciation and tolerance for a great spiritual tradition and methodology. These good people, who are passionately following their faith, will find that this faith can both grow and embrace the fullness of Divine mystery by opening to the East in a manner that does not compromise the best parts of the Christian tradition.

YOGIS: The second audience is yoga practitioners and teachers. This work uses yogic language and comparisons to reveal the deep, universal and mystical dimensions of Jesus’ message and the core of the Christian mystical experience, which is “unity in and through relationship”. With great respect for the spiritual heritage of India, and without advocating any kind of conversion to Christianity, this work seeks to help practitioners of Yoga `relate to the depth of the Christian tradition, respect this depth, and, most importantly, integrate its core values into their yogic practice in a manner that enriches and compliments the yogic way. I also address Western Yoga practitioners, many of whom are ignorant of, indifferent to, or even hostile to, Christianity. Because of Christianity’s rejection of Yoga, a prejudice cultivated through fear and ignorance, many practitioners of the Yogic and Hindu traditions, in turn, harbor an understandable distrust of and prejudice against Christians and Christianity. I hope that through this work, these strong views will give way to a better appreciation of what is worthy in Christianity.

INTERSPIRITUAL PRACTITIONERS: The third audience is the unaffiliated spiritual seeker of today. Without a strong and challenging practice, such seekers are like to remain without spiritual depth or substance. This book seeks to lay out the possibility for a prototype of the future, a bringing together the best of Yoga and Christianity in manner that is authentic and inspiring. This is the way of interspirituality, a mode of being true to more than one tradition simultaneously. This prototype may also serve as a healing force in our times when religious prejudice and tension is at peak. At such a time, the witness of a “world soul” who authentically embodies the core of more than one spiritual tradition can be a beacon of hope and a living symbol of harmony across cultures.

INTERFAITH  PRACTITIONERS: Fourth, are people who are involved in interfaith dialog and the academic study of comparative religion. These are individuals are deeply committed to their own particular faith tradition yet open to exploring other traditions in a spirit of dialog. The difference between interfaith and interspiritual is that an interspiritual model that authentically embodies more than one tradition through celebrating the similarities and challenged by the differences can be a new and inspiring addition to the movement.