How does the Christian contemplative come to realize these virtues in this life? Contemplative experience of the transcendent becomes thematized as that experience is placed within the context of Christian belief system, personal faith experience, most fundamentally informed by the Christ event. For each religion is a community of believers who congregate around a primary center of gravity that is the a priori substance of that community's experiences across time.
The differences among religions manifest because each community thematizes its experiences in particularized ways that are subject to cultural and historical conditions. This is part of the ground upon which each religion stands. This does not mean that the religions have no common ground upon which to communicate. However, as stated above, in broad strokes, we agree upon our assessment of the human condition and upon the universaliazable fruits of a disciplined and contemplative approach. Our practices are illuminated by the wealth that the religions offer their communities. Each believer's practice, then, affects the world. The fruits are certain values and ideals that form the basis of spiritual life in the real world.
For example, Christians would (and many do) model their behavior on God's all-encompassing love as mediated through Jesus. The Christian contemplative experiences, at the most interior level, God's redemptive love and sacrifice. She seeks to allow that love to flow through her outward to the world. Then she encourages others to express themselves from their own hidden depths and shared community experiences. Imagine the vibrancy of people encountering one another in myriad expressions of ultimate values. Christians can never exhaust the wealth of wisdom, which Christianity offers. We can love and grant others the dignity to explore their own storehouses of spiritual wisdom. This is a reflection of God's love for humanity according to the Christian vision.
In every religion, the people are called to embrace a greater community beyond that particularized belief system. How to do this continues to be a subject of debate, misunderstanding and controversy. In the extreme, controversy reaches traumatic depths of religious oppression and persecution. This has been the case across history and across religious boundaries. Here we recognize the darker side of similarities among religions. The religions support believers as we strive toward an ever-expanding horizon. We are challenged in every facet of our encounters with the Absolute, the self and the world. The mystic's world reconciles the shadow land of suffering and hateful despair with the light of transcendent Reality. Bede Griffiths writes about the relationship between mystical life and religion:
[T]he mystic... enters into the pure joy of the spirit... It is the discovery of [the] infinite, eternal, unchanging being, beyond the flux of time and change, beyond birth and death, beyond thought and feeling, yet answering to the deepest need of every human being, which is the goal of all religion and of all humanity.1
Contemplative life transforms awareness of reality is neither nihilism nor relativism. Rather, the mystic enters into the realm of paradox--that point approaching the nature of truth. For in truth, the world's apparent dichotomies are not discarded, but are reconciled in ultimate Mystery.
Surrender to Divine invitation is an initiation to greater responsibility. I have reflected at length about those whose views support exclusive claims to the fullness of religious truth. It is all too easy to simply denounce these people as wrong. I think, though, that I cannot afford this dubious luxury. If I call for compassion, if I strive for love, then nobody can escape that net. When I attack a different position, I attack the person who holds that position. I am in danger of making assumptions about that person's faith--that foundation upon which their beliefs are built. This approach is not congruent with the fruits of contemplative experience. I cannot seek for communication and harmony among differing religious traditions and, hypocritically exclude anyone because their vision differs from mine. Until I am certain that I am free from the temptation to separate myself from others, I have no right to do to others that which I accuse them of doing. God's love as it is revealed to me in my depths must be universally applicable or the experience had no value. I realize that this is a difficult proposition for some to accept. Yet, without universal values, the painfully attained mystery of that which defies all constructs crumbles to ashes and all that remains is a chaos of radically opposed dualism.
Imagine the following scenario: A Buddhist and a Christian meet to encounter one another's faith tradition. Each recognizes that a religious tradition is not a spiritual cafeteria in which one can load only those items that support one's preconceived notions or agendas. Rather, Buddhism and Christianity (as well as the other great religions) are similar to full course menus that have been carefully and prayerfully designed for centuries. Each tradition's values, precepts, creeds, rituals must be taken as whole cloth. Short of converting to the other religion, one can only trust the other to offer his or her beliefs and to reciprocate in kind.
The Christian does not tell the Buddhist what his doctrines mean to the Buddhist. They ask questions. They slowly discern similarities and differences. They exchange that which enlivens their hearts in an atmosphere of mutuality and respect. Because each practices the principles upon which her respective tradition is grounded, both strive to forge a community of two. Their meeting is a channel, a vehicle for the love that inspires their very different practices. They joyously discover their similarities. Simultaneously, they are immersed in the mystery of their differences. Perhaps they take their leave with transformed perceptions, softened assumptions. Perhaps, in this deeply personal renewal, each returns to the Buddhist or Christian community to participate in further regeneration, exemplified by loving practice, example and prayer. Imagine the implications of the first, ineffable spark of the Divine that ignited the fire's of the soul.
What is the role of Christian mysticism in interreligious dialogue? Christian mysticism is one of the world's paths to wisdom, peace, wholeness and love. It is touched by the loving hand of the Creator and redemptive love of Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit who, according to the Christian experience, tirelessly and eternally invites, beckons and waits for the silent “Yes” that sighs and resonates in the hidden recesses of the human soul. With wisdom, peace, wholeness and love as shared ideals, the religions might approach one another. Only to the degree that Christians allow Love to inspire our hearts will we accept the religions' many, sometimes confounding, always intriguing differences. Finally, I close with one of Christianity's great statements about Love's nature and promise:
If I have all the eloquence of men or angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing... Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and it is never resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people's sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes. . . . In short, there are three things that last, faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love.
