ARTICLES

Nine Points of Agreement in the Interspiritual Declaration (From the work of the Snowmass Group)

1. The world religions bear witness to the experience of Ultimate Reality to which they give various names: Brahma, Allah, (the) Absolute, God, Great Spirit.

2. Ultimate Reality cannot be limited by any name or concept.

3. Ultimate Reality is the ground of infinite potentiality and actualization.

4. Faith is opening, accepting, and responding to Ultimate Reality. Faith in this sense precedes

   every belief system.

5. The potential for human wholeness – or in other frames of reference, enlightenment, salvation,

   transformation, blessedness, nirvana – is present in every human.

6. Ultimate Reality may be experienced not only through religious practices but also through nature,

   art, human relationships, and service to others.

7. As long as the human condition is experienced as separate from Ultimate Reality, it remains

   subject to ignorance, illusion, weakness, and suffering.

8. Disciplined practice is essential to the spiritual life; yet spiritual attainment isn’t the result of one’s

   own efforts, but the result of the experience of oneness (unity) with Ultimate Reality.

9. Prayer is communion with Ultimate Reality, whether it’s regarded as personal, impersonal

   (transpersonal), or beyond both.

Brother Wayne Teasdale’s Nine Elements of a Universal Spirituality

1. Actualizing full moral and ethical capacity

2. Living in harmony with the cosmos and all living beings

3. Cultivating a life of deep nonviolence

4. Living in humility and gratitude

5. Embracing a regular spiritual practice

6. Cultivating mature self-knowledge

7. Living a life of simplicity

8. Being of selfless service and compassionate action

9. Empowering the prophetic voice for justice, compassion, and world transformation.

Seven Elements of Interspiritual Education

1. Teaching interspirituality itself (the journey from interfaith to experiential interspirituality)

2. Teaching sacred activism (the inherent connection of being and doing)

3. Cultivating higher consciousness (unity consciousness as an actual experience)

4. Nurturing individual formation (personal maturation in authentic universal spirituality)

5. Teaching integral (the integral vision and the developmental view of history)

6. Community building (building authentic communities of all kinds)

7. Ministry development (developing interfaith and interspiritual ministry from conventional roles – in

   religious institutions, chaplaincy, hospice – to entrepreneurial initiatives, creating new roles for interfaith and interspiritual ministry).

Eight Needed World Shifts in Consciousness

1. Appreciation of the interdependence of all realms of human life and the surrounding cosmos

2. Growing ecological awareness, with recognition of the interdependence of humankind and the

   biosphere, including the rights of all biological species

3. Dedication to nonviolence, with a commitment to transcend militancy and violence tied to national

   or religious identities

4. Embracing of the shared wisdom in all the world’s religious and spiritual traditions, past and

   present

5. Growing friendship, and actual community, among the individual followers of the world’s religious

   and spiritual paths

6. Commitment to the depths of the contemplative pursuit and the mutual sharing of the fruits of this

   ongoing journey

7. Creative cultivation of transnational, transcultural, trans-traditional, and world-centric

   understanding

8. Receptivity to a kosmic vision, realizing humanity is only one life form and part of a larger

   community, the universe.

Eight Evolutionary Developmental Elements:

1. Human consciousness and heart have been evolving toward a maximum potential regarding the kind of being humans can be and what kind of an earth we can create.

2. This has been going on since the known origin of the cosmos, as material evolution and as evolution of consciousness.

3. This is recognized in a fundamental tenet of the interspiritual vision, that the evolution of world religions has been one unfolding experience reflecting the gradual growth of human maturity.

4. This trend is anchored in the universally unfolding experience of “unity consciousness” or “awakening,” the experience of profound interconnectedness, no separation, and the world of the heart.

5. This unity consciousness has been emerging through all the world’s spiritual traditions.

6. Historically we have witnessed this unfolding in myriad identifiable threads in the world’s

   philosophies and religions.

7. This unfolding has implications for how we develop our collective skills so that this consciousness

   can manifest in the world in tangible skill-sets working toward global transformation.

8. This has implications for the innumerable realms and arenas of endeavour, represented by all

   humanity.