The Future of World Religion
Beyond Religious Unity and
Spiritual Individualism:
(Re-)Dreaming Chaudhuri
Contemporary Sources of Spiritual
Diversity & Innovation
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Interfaith Interaction
Inner Reconstruction of Traditions
New Problems!
New Responses: Understandings & Practices
New Religious Movements
Spiritual Individuation
1. Interfaith Interaction
• Interreligious, intermonastic, & interspiritual
• Three types of “cosmological hybridization:”
– Doctrinal (e.g., insights, views of liberation and
ultimate realities; Mohammed/Jesus as shamans)
– Practical (e.g., prayer & meditation; sacred medicine
& reiki; ecumenical services: Fox’s technomasses)
– Visionary (Christian/indigenous ayahuasca visions)
• Intensification & acceleration (global virtual
interconnectivity)
2. Inner Reconstruction of
Traditions
• Human Dimensions (embodied spirituality)
– Body, sexuality, passions, the erotic (e.g., Yoga in the
West; body theologies; Ray’s embodied Buddhism)
• Human Diversity (post-patriarchal spirituality)
– Women/Children/LGBTQ spiritualities/minority races
• Domains of Practice (engaged spirituality)
– Relational (intimate relations; e.g., sympathetic joy)
– Social/political (Gandhi, King, Tutu, Lerner’s Tikkun)
– Environmental/Plant/Animal/Gaian: “greening of
religion”
3. New Problems!
• Virtual age’s new challenges: cyber-addictions; isolation (“alone
with others”); narcissism (“ego-surfing,” self-promotion/selfabsortion—Twitter, Facebook)
• Globalization of kleshas (corporate greed; lust & porn industry)
• Ecological crisis
• Globalization & fairness in international business
• Global exploitation of women & children
• Social integration of cultural/ethnic/gender diversity
• Role of religion in the modern secular state
• Capitalism & increasing polarization of rich/poor
• New sexual ethics (challenges to religion): gay marriage;
religious homophobia; challenges to monogamy
4. New Responses I: Understandings
• Social re-interpretations of spiritual individualistic
doctrines (dukkha, moksa, salvation)
• Eco-psychospiritual views (e.g., ecofeminism)
• New frameworks (e.g., liberation theologies; Wilber’s
AQAL; engaged Buddhism; participatory spiritualities)
• Re-evaluations of role of body & sexuality (e.g.,
“Integral Boddhisattva Vow”)
• Revalorization of women experience & post-patriarchal
ways of knowing/being in men, women, and beyond
(e.g., feminist & queer models; men movement)
4. New Responses II: Practices
• Embodied spiritual practices (outside & inside
traditions, e.g., Albareda & Romero’s Interactive
Embodied Meditation; Ray’s Enlightenment through
the Body; dance & Christian prayer)
• Co-operative/peer-to-peer/relational spiritualities
• Eco-spiritual practices & rites of passage; ecotherapy
• Socially engaged spiritual activism
– Global meditations & subtle activism
– Spiritually-informed ecological activism
• Integration of Western psychology & sp. practice
– Vipassana/breathwork; sacred medicine/psychotherapy;
somatics/mindfulness, Diamond approach; ITPs; etc.
5. New Religious Movements
• 9,900 religions/2-3 new ones per day! (Barret, 2001)
• Main features: (Clarke, New Religions in Global
Perspective)
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Individualism/experiential approaches
Integration of psychology/religion
Self-actualization through work
Multiple religious membership
Network-type organization
Hybridity
Claim to newness or correct understanding
This-worldly: “Paradise on Earth” as goal
6. Spiritual Individuation
• “Subjective Turn” (Taylor, 1989)
• Pull to spiritual differentiation/personal life as
sacred craft/life-style transformations
– Intimate relationships (parenting, sacred monogamy,
polyamory, community, animals & plants, etc.)
– Postconventional gender identities
– Work/business/politics/arts/health/culture/cuisine
– Relationship with nature, matter, & objects
– Education/teaching/scholarship/writing/research
• Resacralization of all facets of life: “The Life
Divine” (Sri Aurobindo)?
Future of Religion:
Three Scenarios (I)
1. A Global Religion (or single world faith)
– Triumph of an existent tradition (e.g., Catholicism,
Dalai Lama’s Tibetan Buddhism, etc.)
– Emerging synthesis (e.g., New Age; Wilber’s
integral spirituality, etc.)
Where: interfaith dialogue, transpersonal/integral
psychology, new religious movements, New Age
movement
Three Scenarios (II)
2. Mutual Transformation/Interspiritual Wisdom
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Creative unions toward diversification (Chardin)
“Reciprocal illumination” (Sharma)
Multiple religious participation
Religious syncretism/hybridizations (“we are all
hybrids”)
– Global ethics (Küng), inter-spirituality, (Teasdale)
trans-traditionalism (Forman), CIIS world spirituality
series (Caplan), etc.
Where: Interfaith dialogue, New Age movement,
eclectic/integrative spiritualities
Three Scenarios (III)
3. Spirituality Without Religion
– Individual experience over religious authority
– Calls for a “democratization of spirit” / “spirituality
revolution”/ “direct path to the divine” / “reclaiming of
inner spiritual authority”
– “Spiritual but not religious” (Fuller), “religion of noreligion” (Spiegelberg), “religion without religion”
(Caputo/Derrida), “believing without belonging” (Taylor)
Where: Postmodern spiritualities; New Age
movement; naturalistic, scientific, & psychological
spiritualities; secular & postsecular spiritualities
Two Spiritual Impulses
• Toward Spiritual Individuation: Evolutionary &
developmental pulls toward differentiation, creative
diversity, & plurality; person as unique embodiment of
the Mystery
Pitfall: Spiritual Individualism (“Sheilaism”)
• Toward Spiritual Unity: Intuition of the spiritual unity
of humankind, deep communion, universal spiritual
ethics
Pitfall: Religious Unity (dogmatic/ideological)
• Is there a middle path capable of reconciling these
apparently conflicting impulses while avoiding their
pitfalls?
Enter Chaudhuri’s Integral View of
the Person
• Uniqueness/Individuality
• Importance of Spiritual Individuation: Grounding in Spirit
Within (“ From Ego to True Unique Self”)
• Interrelatedness
• Importance of Mutual Transformation: Communion with
Spirit In-Between (“Relationships,” “Service;” Global
Ethics)
• ANTIDOTE: To the Spiritual Narcissism underlying both
Religious Unity and Spiritual Individualism.
• Transcendence
• Importance of Spiritual Unity: Openness to Spirit Beyond
(“Union with Being”)
(Re-)Dreaming Chaudhuri I:
Universal Religion
• Chaudhuri’s “Universal Religion” as Perspectival
Perennialism: Religious ultimates as partial
perspectives of same spiritual reality or God /different
names for same ocean; different paths, same goal=core
religious experience (“integral, monistic nondualism”)
• But… Chaudhuri’s “Creative Universalism” and
“Evolutionary Participation”! “Religious aspiration
which aims at the fulfillment of man [sic] in creative
fellowship with the evolutionary world-spirit, beyond
all religious differences” (Modern Man Religion, 37)
• And… Embodied Transcendence! As rooted in
individuality & relatedness in the world
(Re-)Dreaming Chaudhuri II:
Embodied Transcendence
• Spiritual Unity: Not in the “Heavens” (common
spiritual ultimate, vision, or cosmology) but deep
down into the “Earth” (embodied connection with
shared creative source, i.e., undetermined creative
power of mystery/cosmos/life with which we
cocreate the rich diversity of spiritual worlds)
• Common Spiritual “Healthy” Family: Supports
spiritual individuation while affirming our
common roots
• Spiritual Horizon: Not identity, but alignment of
infinite diversity of unique spiritual perspectives
Conclusion
The future of world religion will be shaped by
spiritually individuated persons
(individuality) engaged in processes of
mutual transformation and hybridization
(interrelatedness) in the context of a
common spiritual family (transcendence)
that honors a global order of respect and
civility (engagement).
Coda: The Participatory Chaudhuri
“It is through participation in history that he can
evolve and manifest the unsuspected glories of
his inner being”
(Being, Evolution, & Immortality, 33)
“He considers it his fundamental spiritual task,
his God-assigned purpose of life, to participate
in the evolutionary being of the world”
(Modern Man’s Religion, 74)