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InterSpiritual Unity Consciousness

  • Rick Bonetti
  • Feb 27
  • 4 min read

Updated: 5 days ago


Father Thomas Keating
Father Thomas Keating

Father Thomas Keating (1923-2018) had a prophetic vision of Oneness as both an inner state of consciousness and an outer pathway of planetary healing.


Cynthia Bourgeault's 2024 book, Thomas Keating: The Making of a Modern Christian Mystic, describes Keating as "one of the key innovators of the meditative practice of Centering Prayer - a powerful on-ramp to the Christian contemplative tradition." Here is a link to a YouTube video of a conversation between Cynthia Bourgeault and David Frenette, two long-time friends and students of Thomas Keating team about: "the difference between union and unity; nondual consciousness; the Christian experience of nonduality; Fr. Thomas’ own evolution on the spiritual journey and how that can be an inspiration for ordinary Centering Prayer practitioners; Bernadette Roberts and the no-self state; the transforming possibilities in illness; and more."


On March 7, 2025, from 6:30 a.m. PT to 3 p.m. PT the Garrison Institute is having a day-long symposium "to explore and celebrate the spiritual legacy of Father Thomas Keating: Trappist monk, enlightened spiritual master, founder of the Centering Prayer movement, and a pillar of contemplative inter-spiritual dialogue. The symposium will weave together teaching, practice, panel discussions, and provocative immersion sessions as we dive deeply into Fr. Thomas’ prophetic vision of Oneness as both an inner state of consciousness and an outer pathway of planetary healing." Register here for virtual access ($139)


Father Keating was instrumental in the interfaith movement, founding Snowmass Interreligious Conference was held from 1984 until 2015 at the St. Benedict's Monastary in Snowmass, Colorado.


The Conference invited "deep practitioners" from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Native American, and Islamic traditions to compare notes, connect, and clarify. One result has been to distill out eight profound points of agreement shared by each of the participants:


  1. The world religions bear witness to the experience of Ultimate Reality, to which they give various names.

  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, transcendence, transformation, blessedness - is present in every human being.

  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 is subject to ignorance and illusion, weakness and suffering.

  8. Discliplined practice is essential to the spiritual life; yet spiritual attainment is not the result of one's own efforts, but the result of the experience of oneness with Ultimate Reality.

Until 2006, few people even knew about these Conferences, so the publication of The Common Heart, An Experience of Interreligious Dialogue, was "a great gift to the world in providing a window into this rarefied spiritual think tank." With a forward by Ken Wilbur, the book Includes the thoughts of eight participants: Fr. Thomas Keating, Roshi Bernie Glassman, Swami Atmarupananda, Dr. Ibrahim Gamard, Imam Bilal Hyde, Pema Chödrön, Rabbi Henoch Dov Hoffman, and Grandfather Gerald Red Elk.


Initiated in 2016, with the blessing of Father Thomas Keating, the Charis Snowmass Dialogues continue the spirit of the original Snowmass Interreligious Dialogues. These week-long, invitation only dialogue-retreats are held in a relaxed contemplative atmosphere with an intimate group of twelve teachers, thinkers, and practitioners from diverse backgrounds. Each dialogue highlights an aspect of spiritual life, with topics such as The Future of Religion, Spiritual Practice, The New Monastery, Spiritual Formation and Spiritual Community.


The United Religions Initiative (URI) "promotes enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated violence, and to create cultures of peace, justice, and healing for the Earth and all living beings."


The Interfaith Observer (TIO) is now based in the Center for Ecumenical and Interreligious Engagement (CEIE) at Seattle University, alongside CEIE’s Theolab, Religica.


 

The Dawn of Interspirituality Conference in 2013 brought together a reunion of attendees from 30 years of the Snowmass Interreligious Conference.


When asked about  the difference between the interfaith movement and interspirituality, Kurt Johnson, co-author of The Coming Interspiritual Age (2013), said: “Interfaith is really a horizontal dialogue across fixed positions in the interest of understanding and tolerance and dialogue. Interspirituality is going into this deep space in the heart and consciousness that underpins everything as one thing."


David Sloan Wilson and Jeff Genung, in the 2023 book The Holmovement: Embracing Our Colletive Purpose to Unite Humanity, note that "Brother Wayne Teasdale coined the term "Interspiritual" to capture the synergy of different religious and spiritual traditions coming together.


"Teasdale spent 10 years as a Trappist monk at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Massachusetts, under the direction of Abott Thomas Keating, founder of the centering prayer movement; he then travelled to India to study at Bede Griffiths's Benedictine ashram."


Teasdale developed Nine Elements of Universal Spirituality:

  1. Actualizing full moral and ethical capacity

  2. Living in solidarity with the cosmos and all living things

  3. Cultivating a life of deep nonviolence

  4. Living in humiity 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.


Ed Bastian's Spiritual Paths Institute in Santa Barbara offers interspiritual Meditation Course - a "7-step process from the world’s great contemplative traditions."


 

Integral Christian Network is "a global community of dedicated mystical practitioners for the loving evolution of Christianity and the world" that offers "WeSpace online groups of mystical practice participating in embodied awakening, in devotion and engagement with divine presence, Jesus, spiritual guides, and one another.."



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