Tuesday, May 02, 2006
SYNTHESIS DIALOGUES I
The first of the Synthesis Dialogues was held in September, 1999, in Norbulingka Institute in Dharamsala, India.
Participants included Jean Houston, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Joan Borysenko, Elisabet Sahtouris, Peter Russell, and Marcus Braybrooke among other New Age luminaries.
At the beginning the co-directors of this project were Barbara Fields, executive director of the Association for Global New Thought, Brian Muldoon of the Dearborn Institute, and Brother Wayne Teasdale. Forty participants and sixty observers were present for the event.
According to the website: "The primary goal of the Synthesis Dialogues was to create a living laboratory in which participants could examine for themselves the process by which human awareness is expanded."
Synthesis, according to the website, is this: "All forms of human knowledge and activity are responsive to and now are being evolved by the insights of spirituality at every level."
Synthesis is defined by Websters as: "the combining of the constituent elements of separate material or abstract entities into a single or unified entity."
Since this synthesis of spirituality seems to be the objective of the Synthesis Dialogues, and since the Dialogues consist of representatives of the Buddhist and Catholic religions, it's instructive to discover what this conference is attempting to synthesize with Catholicism.
With that objective in mind, I looked at the work of Philip Lieberman at Brown University, and specifically at his website devoted to Tibetan Buddhist Wall Paintings. Since the paintings represent spiritual themes, Liberman has included a brief overview of Tibetan Buddhism. If at all possible, read it. If you can't make the time to read it, here is some of what the overview contains:
- Tibetan Buddhism includes Tantric Buddhism, the most esoteric and mystical of the schools of Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism cannot be understood without the fundamental concept of Tantra.
- At least one expert claims that Tibetan Buddhist rituals are comparable with Catholic rituals on a superficial level, though some of its practices are devil worship or sorcery.
- It uses mantras, incantation, ritual and magic to achieve power over supramundane beings, and the objective of the relgion is to transcend the self and unite with the deity.
- It uses ritual yoga.
- Some tantric texts refer to practices involving sexual acts and even immoral acts, but this is a misinterpretation.
- It includes magical formulas, destruction of demons, divination, auguries, oracles and symbolic sacrifice. It is associated with Shamanism.
- It makes no mention of a creator. It offers a vast pantheon of divinities. It posits divinity that does not interfere with creation and does not sit in judgment.
- It encompasses various indigenous beliefs and spirits with no concept of heresy.
- It promotes a "sexual embrace between the divinity and his consort."
This is the religion that Focolare is helping to synthisize with Catholicism through the (so far three) Synthesis Dialogues, the second of which was held at their Mariapolis Center, and the third of which was held at Castel Gandolfo under the watch of John Paul II in 2004.
And we wonder why we have a sexual abuse scandal. Meanwhile how many Catholics promote interreligious dialogue with every religion under the sun, as though there were no danger to the faith in this activity.
And the fruits of this dialogue? Multiple conversions to the Catholic faith? Or have the fruits consisted of priests and nuns talking about Shamanism, yoga, Buddhism, and spiritual practices that have nothing to do with Catholicism? Are our Catholic leaders sacrificing Jesus Christ in the name of peace?
Benedict, the ball is in your court.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
