Wherever we travel, we are likely to come into contact with people who have a different perspective on life. At the heart of their conduct they may be treading a spiritual path of which we know little, perhaps we never even new it existed before. What is this path like? Where does it go? Why tread this path? Lots and lots of questions, all of which we encourage and support in Inter-Faith dialogue.

Here is a little contribution, born out of a natural interest. As the subject area is vast, these pages started by concentrating on the scene in and around Birmingham, U.K., but more recently, my interest has taken me further afield and in August 2000 I was present as an observer at the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders in New York. Please feel free to browse notes from the speeches.

This is a personal selection - some particular angles, which I hope are unusual enough to prompt further reflection. Indeed, these pages will reflect a bias towards contemplation, meditation and prayer. (They should also see a steady transition from merely multi faith to multi- and inter- faith.)

I would be delighted to hear from others who have multi-faith backgrounds and could certainly do with knowing more about Faiths other than Christianity and Buddhism.

The newsgroups uk.religion.interfaith and uk.religion.misc have been set up to promote dialogue in the UK. On a worldwide scale, there is only talk.religion.misc which is variable in compassion and understanding. Many discussions are now taking place on Listservs...

Accounts from some recent events

• 3rd Friendship walk for peace, Oxford, June 8th, 2006.
• Interfaith marriages Network meeting, Birkbeck College, London, June 8th, 2006.

Contents

• Multi Faith Links
• Inter Faith Essays
• Official Resources
• Personal Investigations
• Other Spiritual Links

These are links either to my own pages or some popular index. I invite suggestions for links to Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Jainism, Sikhism, and others. I favour those with an emphasis on practice rather than theory/concepts etc.

In recent years, the amount of material that has become available has grown considerably. It can still be useful to consult some of the first printed surveys of what has been online - I used a nice guide called God on the Internet by Mark Kellner. It is not the last word, but gives an impression of the positive impact that the internet can have for spirituality.

• Reflections on Gurbani   is a web site full of devotion in its analysis and study of the Gurbani - Sri Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy scriptures (the eternal living Guru). It is also attractively presented and has links to further sites.

Local Links

• The Christian-Buddhist Encounter

External Links

In due course I hope to find a site for individual religions and also dialogue between religions. A good starting point is:

• Facets of Religion
and also just emerging is:
• Comparative-religion.com which promotes the principle of "knowledged shared is knowledge saved".

Another service is:

MultiFaithNet is the Web gateway to religion supporting the Multi-Faith Centre at the University of Derby. (I worked there for a while and was part of the campaign team).

The contemplative tradition is evident in a Meditation bibliography, part of 'Firewatch', a tribute to the efforts of Thomas Merton.

Perhaps, among all the religions of the world, those of India are ostensibly the most embracing. One organisation, which certainly supports and encourages interfaith activities is the Self-Realization Fellowship, founded in 1920 by Paramahansa Yogananda, who travelled widely to meet people.

Even in zones of bitter conflict, people are working for peace, especially through education: as at the The Hope Flowers School in Bethlehem.

• An overview of interfaith I originally wrote this a few years ago amidst the flurry of activity at the turn of the millennium. I am in the process of updating it - so far have mainly fixed the broken links.
• The Basanti Dye, courtesy of Yousuf Saeed, is an account of how North Indian Muslims came to celebrate Basant Panchmi, together with the Hindus. I found it as part of his site devoted to peace and cultural exchange in South Asia.

  The following are local:

• A light-hearted article Buddhist students in the United Kingdom indicates how circumstances have changed a lot during the past few decades.
• An essay on the Epic of Ramayana (by a Thai Buddhist).

Interfaith Bibliography

• Kenneth Kracknell, at the Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University, author of an article Theological Education and the Challenges of Interfaith Dialogue that appeared in their magazine, but which I can't find any more online, but might be archived at archive.org.  [Needs pdf viewer such as Adobe Acrobat].
• World Faiths Development Dialogue - some articles trying to apply spirituality in the affairs of a global economic system.

I'd really welcome other contributions/links.

• International Interfaith Centre at Oxford, UK

  This is associated with the International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF) and the World Congress of Faiths whose patrons are H.H. Dalai Lama and Sir Yehudi Menuhin.

  The IIC and IARF share the same address:

  2 Market Street
  Oxford OX1 3EF

  The WCF used to be there too, but now has the following address:

  125 Salusbury Road
  London NW6 6RG

  The IIC has a list of events, about which they can give you further information if required.

• The United Communities of Spirit is a global interfaith network, linking people of diverse faiths and beliefs who want to work with others to build a better world.
• A Sourcebook For Earth's Community of Religions Edited by Joel Beversluis, this is a valuable guide that covers many of the initiatives that have taken place in interfaith. It is highly regarded in interfaith circles. Hosted courtesy of the United Communities of Spirit.

In the UK, there is body that helps co-ordinate organised interfaith activity and it has a great deal of experience:

Interfaith Network for the UK

Director: Brian Pearce

Tel. 020 7931 7766

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It is interesting how themes can become common across a wide range of disciplines. In my research in computer science I have studied formal methods (logic and algebra) and concurrent systems, where more than one process have to communicate with each other. In this field, it has traditionally been the case that one talks about sequential strands that must somehow be glued together ... the result is that there are often problems at the interface - most famous of which is called deadlock!

However, a new paradigm for non-sequential systems is emerging which emphasises interaction rather than parallelism. Such a view has been expressed in computer science, e.g. Professor Robin Milner's Turing Award Lecture called 'Elements of Interaction' (but don't ask me to explain it to you!). My impression is that in the same way Inter-Faith Dialogue is working more from shared experience rather than trying to tie together individual views whose separateness is emphasised.

I've written a little book, which relates to my experience of a mixed faith background. It is now available (almost complete) and called In sight of the Beginning

There are many other places that provide for spiritual nourishment. Here are a few indices that will enable you to discover many others!

• The Templeton Foundation
• The Global Peace University
• List of Resources at the IIC.
• Lost sites: Heart of the Web (was part of Alohanet in Hawaii) and Westend Interfaith Ashram in Colorado (any updates on these would be appreciated).
  

And here are a few other interesting people and places:

• The Association of Interfaith Ministers   There are many occupations such as medical staff, counsellors, social workers et al., where people have to deal with others from many different religious backgrounds. AIM provides training for such people as one of a range of interfaith services.
• Prayers within the heart of God by Dennis Rivers. These are very natural flowing verses produced after many years of searching for a universal means of prayer.
• El Kira's Tibetan/Buddhism Page shows a deep concern for Tibet and its contribution to Buddhism. On that site there are also links to various non-Buddhist spiritualies, some of which reflect El Kira's interest in healing.
• Spirituality, Hinduism and Bhagavad Gita: Glossary and Essays by Vijay Kumar, "The man who Realized God in 1993".
• A Gnostic approach to Sikhism by Chaudhry Rajinder Nijjhar, MSc, strongly advocates the spirit in preference to the head. It is a provocative antidote to scripture addiction.

- Paul Trafford

Last modified: 8 August 2010