The people that are putting together this Dawn of Interspirituality conference -- the Satyana Institute -- http://www.satyana.org/ -- have put together a very helpful eBook in .pdf, that brings together many articles by leading and innovative new thinkers.

It's available as a free download from their site, and this morning, I linked it from our Alliance site.

It goes over many of the same questions that tend to come up for us -- and while everything said in this book might not be gospel for us -- it's a starting point for conversation, and generally -- in my opinion -- very much on track.

It's entitled The Song of the Earth - A Synthesis of the Scientific & Spiritual World Views. You can download it here:

http://interspirit.net/alliance/docs/SongOfTheEartheBook.pdf

This morning, I went through the lead article on Interspirituality, by Satyana's William Keepin, and scanned it into a Word.docx file, which you can download here:

http://interspirit.net/alliance/docs/InterspiritualityByWilliamKeepin.docx

And as a PS, I also created a modest little introduction to our Alliance as a 2-page handout for this conference. They say that internet connection there is very iffy and might not work, so the best bet is probably paper, and perhaps the version of the site running on my laptop.

http://interspirit.net/alliance/docs/AllianceIndex01.docx

***

Thanks to all who have responded to the poll I sent out yesterday.

If I get a chance before I am out the door, I might send another one, based on questions and issues that come up in the brief William Keepin article.

Oh, and one other tiny PS. Starr* asked me about "traditions" -- and the role of "new paradigms". And JoyLynn says in her poll response that maybe the traditions are all we need, if we just understand them right (ie, as the path of love -- which is what William Keepin says in his article, and what I personally advocate).

Generally, my short answer to this is -- to Starr* -- I do believe that we need "new paradigms". The actual content of the traditional religions is often misunderstood and distorted. When seen clearly -- as Joylynn suggests this content can/should be -- then many of the problems go away, and I agree with her.

But I don't think they ALL go away. Even Christians who love each other might get fiercely upset over core political or ethical issues (e.g. sexual ethics). We need, imho, some new insights to help smooth and vitalize the engagement across traditions -- and a lot of that insight is going to emerge from "the new paradigms". Just a thought....

- Bruce