The Great Circle-Dance of the Religions by Bro. David Steindl-Rast O.S.B.

An exploration of the relationship between the great religious traditions of the world, using personal experience as a launching pad.

The very fact that the World's religions gathered together for a Parliament must make us wonder. Their variety is bewildering. Do all these religions have anything in common? And, if so, what is it? Can one hope ever to understand a religious tradition that seems so vastly different from one's own? What can be expected from a gathering of this kind? We know of religious wars throughout history. Can we envisage a relationship between the world's religions that may serve as a basis for peace?

In an effort to tackle these questions, I must appeal to your personal experience. The subject matter demands this. One cannot talk about spiritual matters from an outsider's point of view and hope to say anything worthwhile. In what follows here I shall speak from my own experience; please check it against yours. If it doesn't correspond to what you know from experience, it won't be of use to you, no matter how true it may be objectively. Try to let what I am saying speak to your heart, not only to your head. It is my conviction that at the core of every religious tradition lies an experience that is accessible to all of us, if we open our hearts to it. The heart of every religion is the religion of the heart.

At this point it will help us to distinguish between Religion and the religions. Religions are the different sociological entities we find, for instance, represented at this Parliament. They are shaped by history, by economics, by politics, even by geography, and they define themselves largely by what makes them different from one another. Religion, in contrast, unites. I spell it with a capital "R" and we'll use the term in the sense of "spirituality." Religion unites, because it is the homing instinct of the human heart.

"Heart" stands here for that core of our being where we are one with ourselves, one with all, one even with the divine ground of our being. "Belonging" is therefore a key word for understanding the heart—the oneness of limitless belonging. A second key word is "meaning," for the heart is the organ for meaning. As the eye perceives light and the ear sound, the heart perceives meaning. Not in the sense of the “meaning” of a word that we might look up in a dictionary. Rather, “meaning” as that which we have in mind when we call an experience deeply meaningful. Meaning in this sense is that within which we find rest.

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