Australian ABC Radio National Transcending Difference Together 12 December 2010

Khashyar Darvich explains why he made the film, Dalai Lama Renaissance, about 40 spiritual seekers and thinkers who met with the Dalai Lama to find ways to change the world. And Interfaith minister Stephanie Dowrick talks about how 'seeking the sacred,' the title of her latest book, became her preferred way of leading a spiritually meaningful life. We also hear a reading of Swami Vivekananda's famous address to the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago, 1893. Transcript 12 December 2010

Rachael Kohn: Is all of life sacred? If you believed that, then how would it change the way you behave? Hello, I'm Rachael Kohn. This is The Spirit of Things and we're transcending difference together in today's program on Radio National. If the talk of transcending difference leaves you perplexed and the idea of all life as sacred makes you want to run for cover, then you could be stuck in a rut. A new film about a meeting that took place with the Dalai Lama is just being released. Dalai Lama Renaissance is a documentary about 40 thinkers who met in a special synthesis conference held in Dharamsala in a bid to come up with ways to change the world into a more compassionate global community. Here's a taste of what happened, beginning with the Dalai Lama's explanation of synthesis. [Excerpt from documentary] Dalai Lama: Synthesis. There is sort of potential to clash; these two sort of energies or two things, two opposed things, unify and then create some new energy or a new idea. [People at the conference talk amongst themselves about an assignment on the theme of synthesis] Man: [Bell rings] Can I have your attention? Now we're ready to reconfigure again. So the triads, as we originally had those planned... We're going to take about a half an hour for this and in about a half an hour we'll ring the bell, we'll see how the discussion is going... We're now going to give you another 10-15 minute period where the four of you at each of the table[s] are going to work to come to a synthesis, an agreement. Man: What we discovered in 45 minutes, or however long this took, was that's enough time for chaos to descend, but not synthesis. Man: Well, Brother Wayne just came up and said, 'We're getting somewhere and you're annoying us!' I'm sure he's... [Laughter and cheers] Rachael Kohn: We'll hear a bit more of that documentary and also later in the hour I'll talk to Stephanie Dowrick about what it takes to live a life that is perpetually seeking the sacredwhich also happens to be the title of her new book. She's actually one of the new breed of spiritual thinkers that lives through a diversity of traditions, not just in one of them. Stephanie Dowrick: I think that what we are freeing ourselves from, when we seek in a spiritual context, is a limited view of who and what human beings are, which is why I have the subtitle on this book, 'Transforming our view of ourselves and one another.' Rachael Kohn: Stay tuned for Stephanie Dowrick, who I think would have intrigued one of the most influential eastern thinkers, Swami Vivekananda, who was a guest of the Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893. We'll hear what he had to say at that unprecedented gathering later in the program. But first, let me tell you about the filmmaker who has spent years making Dalai Lama Renaissance, which is about a conference of idealists who met up with the Dalai Lama to solve the world's problems. When I met the softly spoken Khashyar Darvich, I immediately sensed that this is a person who is enveloped in a spiritual bubble of kindness, positivity and care for the world. His film projects reflect that and Dalai Lama Renaissance, which is showing in Australia, is no different. Well, Khashyar Darvich, welcome to The Spirit of Things, it's good to be talking to you.

Khashyar Darvich: It's a pleasure. Rachael Kohn: This is a film, Dalai Lama Renaissance, that was a long time in the making, about a meeting that took place in 1999 in Dharamsala. Why did it take a decade to actually make the film? Khashyar Darvich: Hmm. Well, like the story in the film itself, the whole process was a journey of self-exploration and understanding. And so after we filmed the 140 hours in India, really it was an organic process in finding how the film could best impact audiences in a positive way, and really how to best express the inner journey of personal transformation that was captured in the film. Rachael Kohn: One hundred and forty hours is a lot for a filmmaker to pare down. What's the total duration of the film? Khashyar Darvich: Um, 82 minutes long. Rachael Kohn: There must be an awful lot of interesting stuff on the cutting room floor. Khashyar Darvich: There was. There was. And actually, during the filming, I was directing, so we had a crew of 18 and five cameras and I couldn't really enjoy the experience and listen to the Dalai Lama and the conversations about how to solve the world's problems. I had to actually travel back with the 140 hours of footage and watch every single tape to really kind of relive and experience what happened. Rachael Kohn: Well, let's talk about what actually did happen. It was one of the synthesis dialogues that was coordinated by Brother Wayne Teasdale. What was your interest in this meeting can I ask? Khashyar Darvich: Well, I'd worked with the Dalai Lama on two previous projects and so the organisers of this event, and the Dalai Lama, asked me to come and film. And so I was invited eight weeks before the event was going to begin and I had eight weeks really to find the crew of 18, five cameras and all the resources to travel to India. I involve myself in projects that have a positive message or that impact audiences in a positive way, so this was just an opportunity I couldn't pass up. Rachael Kohn: It sounds like it. Brother Wayne Teasdale has had a long association with the Dalai Lama and other figures like the late Bede Griffiths. What did he aim to accomplish by synthesis? Synthesis of what? Khashyar Darvich: Wayne mentioned that the Dalai Lama felt like this meeting would be very important and very influential. Their intentionthis group's intentionwas to create positive change in the world as a group, with a group solution. But the Dalai Lama understood it very differently. He knew that in order to truly impact the world in a positive way, each person needed to be transformed and inspired. And so both Wayne and the Dalai Lama understood that these westerners who were there had to go through sort of an ego trial by fire, so that they could be transformed, their hearts could be open, and they would go out in the world and impact others through their books, their works, their films. Rachael Kohn: Well, can I ask you what were the criteria for participation in this conference? Of course the Dalai Lama was hosting it, so you'd have to be interested and want to meet the Dalai Lama; interested in his message. But what were the other kind of criteria for who could come to this conference? Khashyar Darvich: Well the 40 were chosen by the Dalai Lama and the three organisers, which included Wayne, and they just looked for those who are really on the cutting edge of their fields, you know, who could sort of take the Dalai Lama's message of compassion into their own fields and into their own work and sort of synthesise it into something that the West could sort of receive and be impacted from. Rachael Kohn: Well, just looking at the film and seeing who was there: Michael Thoms, the compere of New Dimensions, and a lot of people who would have probably shown up on his program, like Jean Houston, or Frances Korten, the editor of Yes magazine, associated with TM. Michael Beckwith of Agape Spiritual Center. Moving in the same circles is not exactly the same thing as actually having the same point of view. Khashyar Darvich: That's very true. And such is true amongst these likeminded innovative thinkers. I think each human being has their own perspective on life and on who they are. Rachael Kohn: Speaking of who they are, a lot of them are big personalities with big egos, and that started to kind of interrupt some of the flow of the conversation, didn't it? Khashyar Darvich: Well, you know, the Dalai Lama said, he mentioned to Wayne and to me that the egos had to surface so that they could be transformed. So one thing I've heard from audiences about the film that resulted from this event was the film acts like a mirror or a reflection for everyone who sees it. And as you travel on this journey with these westerners and the Dalai Lama, you sort of experience the same ego to open-hearted transformation that these westerners experienced in the presence of the Dalai Lama. So I think we actually are all mirrors for one another and each circumstance I think is a mirror or a teaching for us all, if we pay attention.

Rachael Kohn: Indeed, paying attention was sometimes painful; to see people trying to press their point of view while others said, 'Hold on, hold on, somebody else should talk now.' And yet, there was almost this volcanic eruption in some people as they desperately wanted to share their truth with others. Khashyar Darvich: And you can see the real contrast between some of these thinkers and the Dalai Lama, because it's often true in the West, we want to be heard; you know, we want to share our point of view. And the Dalai Lama is such a great listener. He listens. He doesn't allow his ego to interfere with the greater good. But these egos, these westerners, they really had to surface so that they could be seen, they could see the light of day and be transformed. And it's really interesting, because some audiencesand this is sort of an example of how each person experiences things in their own waysome audiences when they see the humanness or the egos of a few of these westerners in the film, they see the absurdity of it and it becomes a comedy, they laugh. If you attend a screeningI've attended two, three hundred with audiences, at leastthere is a sense that what's happening is absurd, comedic, because we see ourselves in many of these characters. Rachael Kohn: Well, what was it like for some of the participants to watch themselves, because these are people who see themselves as quite spiritual, as leaders in the field. It must have been difficult in some casesI can think of one particular scientist, well, two actually... In fact it was the scientists who were often short tempered and convinced that they had the true way. It must have been difficult for them to watch themselves. Khashyar Darvich: I was a little bit worried about how the film would be taken by a few of the participants, because it does... it's a 100 per cent honest and transparent account of what happened. And I believe that to really touch audiences in the most deep and profound way, you have to be 100 per cent honest about a subject; honesty really reaches deep down into a person's soul and humanness. But the first time that I screened this film for quantum physicist Fred Alan Wolf, who was one of the physicists in the film, who went through this sort of ego to open-hearted transformation in the film, I was a little concerned about how he might respond. But as he sat in the audience and heard the audience laugh at the comedy of errors I suppose, and he saw during the Q&A that audiences sort of used his character in the film as an illustration of how to go from ego and a lack of, I guess, personal awareness to understanding that ego is not a way to solve the world's problems, and then transforming in front of the Dalai Lama. When he saw that, he was gracious and appreciative of his role in the film. Rachael Kohn: Well, one of the other points of contention was who was going to meet the Dalai Lama. Now, some people were probably going there with the intention that they would finally get to exchange a few words with him; and others, such as Michael Thoms, who probably exchanges words with many famous people all the time, didn't press the point. Now that again was a difficult moment. How was that resolved? Khashyar Darvich: Well, I think everyone's secret fantasy is to meetif you're interested in peace and spiritualityis to meet the Dalai Lama. But there were those there who said that to impact the world in a positive way, we don't have to meet the Dalai Lama, we can just sort of hold that space and share our experience with the rest of the world. Um, at the very endit's ironicat the end everyone in that group had a chance to sort of speak with the Dalai Lama, present him a gift and receive a blessing. And I think that's one of the main points of this experience for them, is that, you know, to create positive change in the world, we can't rely on the Dalai Lama, we can't rely on a group of 40 thinkers, we have to sort of take responsibility for doing what we can as individuals with our own gifts and talents to help others and make the world a little better. Rachael Kohn: Well that was the interesting, almost climax of this, the point of difference, as you say, between the Dalai Lama and those who came there full of their own ideas, full of their own aspirations, and perhaps a bit of their own naivet. Because the Dalai Lama says, 'Hold on, take a long view, it takes a long time.' Now, that was something they were perhaps not expecting to hear. I think they probably went there thinking, 'We're going to come up with something: a plan.' Khashyar Darvich: That's exactly right. They expectedand this is an interesting irony in the filmthey expected to impact the world in a positive way as a group, with a group solutionyou know, here's our plan on paper. But the ironic thing is that the way they impacted the world was through being transformed themselves. You know, change, if you really want to change the world, start with yourself, start with becoming more compassionate, start with understanding what your gifts are to share with the worldthat's something that we often forget, is that change starts with transforming ourselves within. Rachael Kohn: Change your heart and change the world, but can a film do that? Khashyar Darvich thinks it can. He's the producer and director of the film Dalai Lama Renaissance and you must be wondering, where does Khashyar's name come from? All will be clear. In the meantime, here's another clip from the film, in which the Dalai Lama outlines his hope for two kinds of faith. [Excerpt from documentary] Dalai Lama: I believe there should be two kinds of spirituality: one spirituality with religious faith, like my spirituality and my Christian brothers' spiritualitythese spiritualities are with faith. I feel there should be another kind of spiritualty that is without any religious faith, simply try to increase or preserve [the] good part of human nature, just a sense of sharing one another, a sense of caring one anotherno need any religious faith, no churchno need church, no need temple. I think each family has the potential to provide these basic human good values.

[Music] Rachael Kohn: Well, how has this film changed anything? I mean, it was 1999 when this happened and of course before 9/11, which really sent the entire world into a spin. Ten years on we seem to be in a lot worse spot that we were then; I think people are even less hopeful now than they were prior to the turn of the third millennium. Khashyar Darvich: I'm not so sure if the world is worse off. Actually, I think that the economic crisis is a gift, because it takes our focus away from money as our object of personal satisfaction and it's caused us to search for what does really bring us peace, what does have meaning for us. As far as this meeting, this meeting the Dalai Lama... the film captured, each person there has told me that this event has in a very profound way impacted them. And you can see it in their work. After this event happened, Fred Alan Wolf, for example, the quantum physicist in the film, he went on and starred in the film, The Secret, which went out and impacted millions, and also the film, What the BLEEP Do We Know!?. Rachael Kohn: So do you think this film, Dalai Lama Renaissance, is in line with those films? Do you see it as a kind of a genreWhat the BLEEP Do We Know!?, The Secret. I mean, they've been severely criticised as well. Khashyar Darvich: I don't like to put a film in a specific genre, because I think each film has a relationship with the audience that's its own. I know that What the BLEEP and the Secret... I'm not sure if they quite challenge the audience in the way that Dalai Lama Renaissance does, because when you see Dalai Lama Renaissance, it's difficult to watch it and be passive, not to be engaged, because it does reflect back so much to the audience. So I don't like to put films in a group. Rachael Kohn: The idea really is, if I can say, in all three films, that you can think and with your thoughts change reality: think a new reality. But can you do it on a broad basis, or is that ever only going to be just your own life? Khashyar Darvich: Oh, if you look at the most influential individuals, especially in the world of spirituality and social change, they were individuals who had a great impact on society. Look at Ghandi, who actually spent so many years working on himself, you know, refining himself, aligning his highest ideals into action, into his personal actionso it took that sort of period of inner transformation, inner spiritual work, so that he would be ready to go out in the world and influence a nation and a world. So that's the point, that's the point of this film. The main point of the film is that if you really want to impact the world in the most true and profound way, you have to transform yourself. Rachael Kohn: It's interesting, because a lot of westerners... well, you don't have to be western to believe that political action is the way to change the world quickly and imposing sanctions on countries that are misbehaving, who are dangerous, et cetera. Interestingly, near the end of the film the Dalai Lama actually urges that people not urge sanctions on China, that people not be punitive toward China in the usual way, i.e. via sanctions. Khashyar Darvich: And that's an incredible scene in the film, actually. It really shows who the Dalai Lama is. Here's this opportunity to support economic sanctions against China and yet it was an expression of his compassion that he thought of how that might impact the ordinary Chinese. So even though he thought it might bring some benefit politically to his cause and bring some attention to the cause of Tibet, his true nature of compassion showed itself by not wanting to hurt ordinary Chinese people. Rachael Kohn: Khashyar, can I ask you a little bit about yourself? You've established the Wakan Foundation for the Arts; what's its philosophy? Khashyar Darvich: Well, actually, the word 'wakan' is an American Indian term; it means 'in the spirit of the Great Spirit,' or 'having qualities of the Great Spirit' And I just decided that for me personally, if filmmaking was worth the time and the money, that it should serve some kind of higher good; it should impact others in a positive way. And so the mission is really to uplift humanity and serve the greatest good through the arts. I mean, I have friends who are Hollywood directors and they love their work and I respect their work and they enjoy it. But I personally just can't be satisfied unless I'm impacting audiences in the most positive way with what I'm doing. Rachael Kohn: And Khashyar, what's your spiritual background? You come from Iran, I think? Khashyar Darvich: Yeah, I'm half Iranian. I was born in the United States; I'm half Iranian, half Swedish-GermanAmerican. And so right away when I was thrown into a small Midwest town in Ohio, with a lot of farmland, I was forced to sort of adopt, to see the world in a different way. Rachael Kohn: Did you go back to Iran? Khashyar Darvich: I lived in Iran for about five years as a child and so I remember a lot of the landscapes and the Caspian Sea, where my family lived. Rachael Kohn: Beautiful. And from there you went, what, to Colorado and California?

Khashyar Darvich: Mm. To Ohio, to Washington DC, to Colorado, California. My last name is Darvich, and in Farsi, in Persian, it means dervish. Rachael Kohn: Indeed. Khashyar Darvich: So, Sufi, yeah? And my father, he tells me that there were no Sufis in our family, but there was a legend that a Sufi came into this village 400 years ago, where my family was from, and that's how we received our name. So I almost feel like a Sufi filmmaker. Rachael Kohn: That's a lovely story. Well, Khashyar Darvich, I wish you well. I think Dalai Lama Renaissance will have a very interested and long-term audience. I think the way the Dalai Lama would probably like it: long-term. Khashyar Darvich: I've really enjoyed my time with you and I'm on an Australian tour of the film. Rachael Kohn: Yes, which brings me to the question, how will Australians be able to see this film, both now and later on? Khashyar Darvich: Well during the next four weeks they can see a screening in a major city in Australia and the film is also available on DVD and there's information on the film's website, which is dalailamafilm.com. Rachael Kohn: Thank you so much for being on The Spirit of Things. Khashyar Darvich: My extreme pleasure. [Music] Rachael Kohn: That's Khashyar Darvich, who's made the documentary film now showing in Australia, Dalai Lama Renaissance. If you think the synthesis dialogue with the Dalai Lama was momentous, it was minor compared to the first such meeting on a grand scale that occurred in 1893 in Chicago, and quite probably set the western world in motion toward a kind of interfaith ideal. Back then, the man who attained world-renowned fame for his insightful, generous, and appealing demeanour came from another tradition, the Vedanta Yogic tradition, which emerged within Hinduism. Swami Vivekananda charmed the Parliament of the World's Religions with his presence and stirred them with his address. These were his words: Philip Hinton (reading the words of Swami Vivekananda): Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity. I am not going just now to venture my own theory, but if anyone here hopes that this unity will come by the triumph of any one of the religions and the destruction of the others, to him I say, 'Brother, yours is an impossible hope.' Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid! Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid! The seed is put in the ground and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth or the air or the water? No. It becomes a plant. It develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth and the water, converts them into plant substance and grows into a plant. Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian, but each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth. If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world, it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written, in spite of resistance, 'Help and not fight; assimilation and not destruction; harmony and peace and not dissension.' Closing address: Swami Vivekananda, Parliament of the World's Religions. Rachael Kohn: The twentieth century religious project of living with and amongst other religions was set right there in Chicago in 1893 and that reading was by Philip Hinton. You're listening to The Spirit of Things on Radio National, although I just heard from someone who appreciates the program but, being deaf, is reliant on the transcripts. So sorry we couldn't have one of last week's program, due to copyright restrictions. [Music] Rachael Kohn: In Australia, one of the key players in the new multi-religious environment is Stephanie Dowrick. She's an interfaith minister, but probably most widely known for her 'Inner Life' columns in the Good Weekend magazine. She's also authored many books on spirituality and her latest is Seeking the Sacred: Transforming our View of Ourselves and One Another. Stephanie Dowrick, it's great to have you on The Spirit of Things.

Stephanie Dowrick: Oh, it's lovely to be here. Thank you, Rachael. Rachael Kohn: Well, Stephanie, for the last century we've seen an unprecedented interest by scholars and writers in religions that are not Christian, that are Eastern, that come from all over the place. Do you think that people on the street, ordinary men and women, are now wanting to explore religious traditions themselves as a way of being spiritual? Stephanie Dowrick: Oh I think that's undoubtedly the case, and I think it's very exciting. Certainly I could say that over the last 25 years or so there's been a real surge of interest from all kinds of people in all kinds of situationssome of them with a home faith; some of them for whom seeking is itself a pathwho have said that, 'My knowledge of what it means to be fully human may not necessarily be met by the traditions of one faith path only,' and that in this glorious moment of global culture we can look in all those different directions that you've just named. And, you know, that's an incredible thing. Because when we look in those directions, we're not doing so in order to impose a view necessarily, but actually to learn. It's a very rich moment. Rachael Kohn: But seeking can't really take place if there isn't freedom of choice. To be able to come into a religious tradition, go out of it, come into it later, partake of several at once, is this essentially a western phenomenon? Stephanie Dowrick: Ah, look, that's such an interesting and, to an extent, an unanswerable question. I mean, I think about seeking and certainly in this book I talk about seeking in this way: I think about seeking as a kind of inherent freedom. The ways in which you look are secondary to me, but the inherent freedom that I am talking about is to discover what we could possibly call our true nature: to discover our strengths; to discover how we belong to one another; and most of all to discover what we're capable of being. I mean, I think that what we are freeing ourselves from when we seek in a spiritual context is a limited view of who and what human beings are, which is why I have the subtitle on this book, 'Transforming our View of Ourselves and One Another.' I really take this very seriously, but I also hope with a very light heartnot light in the sense of trivial, but in the sense of optimism and promise. Rachael Kohn: But your approaching it with a real appreciation for freedom, as you've said, as essential. Now I wonder whether there's a difference between the post-war generation, who really intentionally went out to seek some other kind of spirituality, and perhaps the Gen Y generation, who are avalanched with choice, who may themselves not have even been raised in a tradition, and just sort of bump into the spiritualities that are around. Is there a difference between those kinds of seeking? Stephanie Dowrick: I think it's a slightly different emphasis. For example, we might think that in the eastern traditions there's less emphasis on the individual and less emphasis on freedom, but Buddhism and Hinduism, for example, also point to the liberation of consciousness, the liberation of awareness; that we would understand truly who we are, but always in relationship to the other. So I think choice, the whole notion of choice, becomes problematic, even dismaying, for people when there is no ground on which you stand. I think when you stand on the ground of, 'I belong to an extraordinary universe. I may not have explanations for it, I may not even need or want explanations for it, but I am determined to find my place within this universe and alongside others, which may or may not be in relation to God,' then we're coming into a much steadier place. So even the notion of choice needs to be thought about somewhat variously and also with some real common sense. Rachael Kohn: Stephanie, you often write about the degree of anxiety in the west, a sense of... the fear that we're not measuring up to the unreasonable strictures that sometimes religions impose. But that's not necessarily eliminated when one goes to other groups or partakes of other religious traditions. I mean, does the spiritual supermarket actually decrease anxiety or raise it? Stephanie Dowrick: You know, I'm not really interested in the notion of 'the spiritual supermarket'; I'm really interested in the possibility of people discovering who they are; that they're not simply a personality, not simply an ego tormented by anxieties and subject to all the sort of competitive notions that we are so familiar with. I'm also wanting to support people to move away from the tremendous sense of isolation or abandonment or depression or anxiety that is so prevalent in our society that, you know, it's globally one of our biggest issues. I'm really showing, I think, in this book, in quite conscious ways, that we can take upon ourselves at least the experimentation of identifying with something that is stronger and more sustaining that either ego or personality; that is, however we define it, we can begin to identify with our spiritual nature, our spark of God, our soul, our spirit, our Buddha naturehowever we define itand that from that place of identification we literally begin to see ourselves differently, more compassionately, and we certainly begin to see other people with much greater compassion and with tolerance, so that we can also tolerate their differences from us. Rachael Kohn: And that much bigger thing is really the sacred, isn't it? Stephanie Dowrick: It is the sacred. It is in the discovering of that that we are part of this mysterious unity; that we discover the sacred. And as I say right at the beginning of the book, what we regard as sacred we will protect, what we regard as precious we will protect. So I'm really suggesting, quite strongly I think, that we need to think about these things not for our own sake only, not, in inverted commas, for our 'personal salvation,' but also because our salvation, our survival as a species and as a humanity depends upon it. And I would even go so far as to say that the survival of other species and of our planet depends upon this more sacred vision of seeing that we are part of something greater than ourselves.

Rachael Kohn: But that something greater is not necessarily very clear when you're starting out on the journey, and I want to ask you where did you, or when did you, get a strong sense of the sacred in a way that shaped you and also in a sense shaped your future seeking of more of it? Stephanie Dowrick: Look, I think there were several things and I tell quite a lot of my story in this book, my story of seeking, because I want to invite people in the reading of it to reflect on what seeking has meant for them. And there were I guess a few key things: One is that when I was a child my father converted to Catholicism after my mother died, so my older sister and I moved into a Catholic world, where I experienced for the first time how utterly central spirituality as well as religion could be. And I do make a little bit of a distinction there, because the spirituality that really moved me, or shattered my childish preconceptions, was one of relationship with God, which I could really observe even in a teacher who I found personally difficult, but I used to watch her and I could really see her relating to God in this profound way. Later on, I had given a lot of that kind of passion to social change, you know, to the peace movement, to the women's movement and so on and so on. I could also see the frustrations at coming at those very big issues from a place of anger or from a place of division. I could see that that was very, very limiting. Then I began to be taught by and to be open to eastern teachings, particularly learning meditation, but also learning the philosophies or Hinduism and Buddhismyou know, if I just think of two texts, the Dhammapada and the Bhagavad-Gita, for example. And then coming back into my knowledge of what the potential of Christianity could be through my years of being with the Quakers, that also brought me into a very big sense of the sacred. And if I can just quote one small teaching from George Fox, who was a founding Quaker, which was this: 'Walk cheerfully on this earth,' which I already love, you know, I think cheerfulness is a great, great spiritual quality, as well as a psychological one, 'Walk cheerfully on this earth answering that of God in everyone.' And I think... so by this point I was, say, in my early thirties, I think I really came to the conclusion that there was either that of God in everyone or in no one. Rachael Kohn: Can I just stop you there, because, you know, you do say that all people are spiritual beings, all people have a soul, all people have Buddha nature... Stephanie Dowrick: ...or none have. Rachael Kohn: And the question is, if that is the case, you also identify unacceptable practices, dysfunctional practices... Stephanie Dowrick: Absolutely! Rachael Kohn: So how do we discern among them? What guides you in deciding how to be with someone who is behaving appallingly? Stephanie Dowrick: Oh right, well that's a very good question, because I'm not saying that because we all have that of God within usor Buddha nature, or whatever it isthat we will all behave in ways that are acceptable. Of course we won't. And I think we need to be really, really clear about what behaviours are acceptable, whether they're behaviours of a religion or of an individual or any other institution. I think we need to be really clearand I've got a whole strong section in the book called, 'Do no harm'. You know, religions have done a great deal of harm; institutions continue to do a great deal of harm; as individuals we are all capable of doing a great deal of harm. So recognising our spiritual nature in a sense heightens our awareness of the possibilities of doing good and of the tragedy when we do harm. [Music] Rachael Kohn: Stephanie Dowrick is my guest on this Spirit of Things program on Radio National. And now back to our conversation. As an interfaith minister, which is where your spiritual journey has taken you, are you championing the vision of one of your great mentors or heroes, Joseph Campbell, who said, 'Transformation is what it means to be a cultured, worldrelated being, to leave behind provincial stories and grab the new experience as it comes along.' Is that what you're embodying? Stephanie Dowrick: I don't think so quite, although I'm a real fan of Joseph Campbell, but I don't think so quite, because he's not bringing the transcendent into it passionately enough for me. I think that it's an awareness which might be just an instinct or it might be something that you learn through poetry or it might be something that you learn through nature, or even through tragedy or through joyjust that instinct, that intuition of something that is sublime or divine. I want that also to be part of the picture, so I guess that the footsteps that I follow would be more, say, Ghandi's, and I quote this, you know, 'My wisdom comes from the highest source. I bow to that wisdom in you.' You know, acknowledging again that none of us own these wisest teachings, all that we can do, all that we can do as individuals is to try our very best to live them with good nature, even about the times that we will fail to live them, but to get up and try again, to notice constantly our connections with others, but also to notice our connection with something within and beyond ourselves that we might call the divine. Rachael Kohn: Stephanie, when you seek the sacred do you ever find it?

Stephanie Dowrick: Oh, yes, I think I live in the sacred. I live in the sacred, but if I'd called the book Living in the Sacred it might have seemed a little bit off-putting. And actually what I was really interested in was this, this diverse, the diversity of seeking that is so characteristic of our age, and also the sweetness of the affinities between our different kinds of seeking; that in the end there is so much similarity also in what we want: that we want to feel that our lives matter; that we want to leave behind us a trail of, you know, pretty good encounters; that we want to be able to meet other people in their sorrow without trivialising it or backing off from it or worsening it; you know, that we want to be able to enjoy our moments of great affection and delightI think there's a great similarity in that. And it's understanding that similarity, I think, which makes us so much less frightened of difference. Rachael Kohn: Is it the good? Is the sacred the good? When you describe what it is to live in the sacred is it actually the good, goodness, human goodness? Stephanie Dowrick: To some extent it is the human goodness and when I was doing my work on Rilke, I was very interested in a book that other people might have mentioned on The Spirit of Things, which is Rudolf Otto's book, The Idea of the Holy, which of course he took from Plato's 'The Idea of the Good'. But, again, I'm more with Rudolf Otto: there is also a quality, a dimension to human experience that we could only call 'the holy' or 'the sacred', but I'm quite sure that it is found in the everyday. So, for example, I don't think of my spiritual life as anything separate from my life. I don't think of my interfaith practice as in any way separate from anything else that I do; in fact, I really would like to leave those sorts of labels at the door. You know, we are living in a state of discovery if we are fortunate. It is such a fortunate thing to be a seeker. It's an incredibly fortunate thing. Rachael Kohn: When you say the holy is to be found in the everyday, that makes me think of religion. I mean, that has been the role of religion, to sanctify the food, the sex, the bathing, the children, the familythat's essentially what religion is. Stephanie Dowrick: I couldn't agree with you more and yet religion also has its other side, it also has its really long shadow, which is to divide the sacred from the profane, so called, and to divide those performing rituals under one umbrella from those performing perhaps quite similar rituals under another umbrella. So I'm saying that taking into account that kind of harm we have to learn to think much more inclusively, even if we have our feet securely attached to our home faith. And I think I quote some wonderful teachers from different traditions who are very much rooted within their traditions but were also unafraid to look beyond their traditions. Rachael Kohn: You write in your book, Seeking the Sacred, that it's possible to have a calling to the sacred or to an intimacy with God and not believe in anything in the formal sense. Stephanie Dowrick: But to believe that life is somehow precious. And I think I make that clear over and over again. To really value this gift of life as something which we didn't have to deserve but that we have. We're so conditioned I think, particularly in the west, to think we must make something of our life or we're virtually unworthy to live it. And I'm someone who's such a good example of this; you know, I took it so seriously that I really believed, I think really until my late forties or even into my early fifties, that if I wasn't looking after my children and if I wasn't working at top speed almost, that my life had very little value. That's been hugely transformative for me to recognise that my life has intrinsic value, and so does yours Rachael, and so does every other person's. And it's from that recognition that I can shape my choices and conduct, and even my conduct to people whose views I abhor. Rachael Kohn: Well, there's a strong message that comes through your book and you devote a chapter to it as well, and that is your ethic of love, which makes me think that in many ways you're a very Christian interfaith minister, love being the central ethic of the Gospel of John, of Christianity. It is the non-negotiable centre, as it were, for Christianity. And even though love appears in other traditions, it plays a role in Christianity that's quite unique. Stephanie Dowrick: It does, which makes the tragedies of the absence of love so profound. Imagine if Christianity had really lived Paul's teaching: 'Do everything in such a way that the divine can be revealed through it.' Imagine the world we would live in if just that idea... I think I'm very much with Jesus the Jew. I'm very much with Jesus asking questions about practice; not just what do you believe, but how are you living, how are you behaving towards that neighbour that you don't really like, or that neighbour that you really, really disagree with, or who's turning up their music at three o'clock in the morning, or whatever it is that really, you know, gets under your skin so you lose all compassion. So I'm very much with that. But in this book, interestingly, I was also so inspired by Rabbi Hilal saying, 'Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you.' And that led me into the section on 'Do no harm,' because the call to love, I think, is a little bit intimidating for some people. I think it's absolutely at the heart of everything, but I think it can also be intimidating and I think that the call to not harm, even through the ways that we speak to ourselves, for examplewe can speak to ourselves so violently and so disrespectfully and so unappreciativelyeven if we just took that as a seed for change and really watered it with our good humoured attention, we would create a little bit of a revolution in our own lives. Rachael Kohn: Well, Stephanie Dowrick, I don't think your book is intimidating, I think it's a great invitation to living a rich life. Thank you so much for being on The Spirit of Things. Stephanie Dowrick: Oh, thank you so much, Rachael, I've really appreciated it.

Rachael Kohn: Stephanie Dowrick is an interfaith minister, leading interfaith services at Pitt Street Uniting Church in Sydney. Her latest book is Seeking the Sacred: Transforming our View of Ourselves and One Another. The program today was produced by me and Geoff Wood with sound engineering by Michelle Goldsworthy.

Guests
Khashyar Darvich is an American film Producer and Director whose work includes the History Channel and PBS award-winning documentary Black Hawk Waltz: Tales of a Rocky Mountain Town and Dalai Lama Renaissance. Stephanie Dowrick is a writer, public speaker, spiritual and social commentator, retreat leader and an ordained Interfaith minister. She has been a Fairfax columnist since 2001 and is currently an Adjunct Fellow with the Writing & Society Research Group at the University of Western Sydney. Her books include Intimacy and Solitude, Forgiveness and Other Acts of Love, and The Universal Heart and Choosing Happiness: Life & Soul Essentials. Her latest book is Seeking the Sacred: Transforming Our View of Ourselves and One Another.

Further Information
Dalai Lama Renaissance Link: http://dalailamafilm.com/synopsis.html A feature length documentary, narrated by actor Harrison Ford, covering the Dalai Lama's meeting in Dharamsala in 1999 wwith the self-titled 'Synthesis' group of 40 Western thinkers who hoped to use the meeting to change the world and resolve many of the world's problems. Members of the group of 40 included physicists Fred Alan Wolf and Amit Goswami (from the documentaries What the Bleep Do We Know and The Secret), New Age advocate Jean Houston, and founder of Agape International Spiritual Center church in Los Angeles, Dr. Michael Beckwith. You can find details of cinema screenings in Australia from December 2010 here. Stephanie Dowrick's Homepage Link: http://www.stephaniedowrick.com/ Includes details about Stephanie's many books and a list of events. Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) Link: http://www.belurmath.org/home.htm Learn more about Swami Vivekananda from the official website of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, twin organizations which form the core of a worldwide spiritual movement (known as Ramakrishna Movement or Vedanta Movement). The Ramakrishna Mission was founded by Sri Ramakrishna's chief apostle, Swami Vivekananda (18631902).

Publications
Title: Seeking the Sacred: Transforming Our View of Ourselves and One Another Author: Stephanie Dowrick Publisher: Allen & Unwin, 2010

Music
CD title: Tibet2Timbuk2 Track title: Crane Song (Ngagpey Sungkey) Artist: Tenzin Choegyal, Marcello Milani & Shen Flindell Composer: T. Choegyal CD details: Independent Release CD title: Tibet: Awakened Heart Track title: Happiness is... (Dewa) Artist: Tenzin Choegyal, & Taro Terahara Composer: T. Choegyal CD details: Independent Release CD title: Zen Connection 4 Track title: Entomononi Artist: Shaman's Dream Composer: J. Hann CD details: One World Music OWM 005 CD title: John Lennon Anthology

Track title: Love Artist: John Lennon Composer: Lennon CD details: Capitol Records 7243 8 30614 2 6

Presenter
Rachael Kohn

Producer
Geoff Wood and Rachael Kohn Radio National often provides links to external websites to complement program information. While producers have taken care with all selections, we can neither endorse nor take final responsibility for the content of those sites.