1. The Future of World Religion
Beyond Religious Unity and Spiritual Individualism: (Re-)Dreaming Chaudhuri

2. Contemporary Sources of Spiritual Diversity & Innovation
Interfaith Interaction
Inner Reconstruction of Traditions
New Problems!
New Responses: Understandings & Practices
New Religious Movements
Spiritual Individuation

3. 1. Interfaith Interaction
Interreligious, intermonastic, & interspiritual
Three types of “cosmological hybridization:”
Doctrinal (e.g., insights, views of liberation and ultimate realities; Mohammed/Jesus as shamans)
Practical (e.g., prayer & meditation; sacred medicine & reiki; ecumenical services: Fox’s technomasses)
Visionary (Christian/indigenous ayahuasca visions)
Intensification & acceleration (global virtual interconnectivity)

4. 2. Inner Reconstruction of Traditions
Human Dimensions (embodied spirituality)
Body, sexuality, passions, the erotic (e.g., Yoga in the West; body theologies; Ray’s embodied Buddhism)
Human Diversity (post-patriarchal spirituality)
Women/Children/LGBTQ spiritualities/minority races
Domains of Practice (engaged spirituality)
Relational (intimate relations; e.g., sympathetic joy)
Social/political (Gandhi, King, Tutu, Lerner’s Tikkun)
Environmental/Plant/Animal/Gaian: “greening of religion”

5. 3. New Problems!
Virtual age’s new challenges: cyber-addictions; isolation (“alone with others”); narcissism (“ego-surfing,” self-promotion/self-absortion—Twitter, Facebook)
Globalization of kleshas (corporate greed; lust & porn industry)
Ecological crisis
Globalization & fairness in international business
Global exploitation of women & children
Social integration of cultural/ethnic/gender diversity
Role of religion in the modern secular state
Capitalism & increasing polarization of rich/poor
New sexual ethics (challenges to religion): gay marriage; religious homophobia; challenges to monogamy

6. 4. New Responses I: Understandings
Social re-interpretations of spiritual individualistic doctrines (dukkha, moksa, salvation)
Eco-psychospiritual views (e.g., ecofeminism)
New frameworks (e.g., liberation theologies; Wilber’s AQAL; engaged Buddhism; participatory spiritualities)
Re-evaluations of role of body & sexuality (e.g., “Integral Boddhisattva Vow”)
Revalorization of women experience & post-patriarchal ways of knowing/being in men, women, and beyond (e.g., feminist & queer models; men movement)

7. 4. New Responses II: Practices
Embodied spiritual practices (outside & inside traditions, e.g., Albareda & Romero’s Interactive Embodied Meditation; Ray’s Enlightenment through the Body; dance & Christian prayer)
Co-operative/peer-to-peer/relational spiritualities
Eco-spiritual practices & rites of passage; ecotherapy
Socially engaged spiritual activism
Global meditations & subtle activism
Spiritually-informed ecological activism
Integration of Western psychology & sp. practice
Vipassana/breathwork; sacred medicine/psychotherapy; somatics/mindfulness, Diamond approach; ITPs; etc.

8. 5. New Religious Movements
9,900 religions/2-3 new ones per day! (Barret, 2001)
Main features: (Clarke, New Religions in Global Perspective)
Individualism/experiential approaches
Integration of psychology/religion
Self-actualization through work
Multiple religious membership
Network-type organization
Hybridity
Claim to newness or correct understanding
This-worldly: “Paradise on Earth” as goal

9. 6. Spiritual Individuation
“Subjective Turn” (Taylor, 1989)
Pull to spiritual differentiation/personal life as sacred craft/life-style transformations
Intimate relationships (parenting, sacred monogamy, polyamory, community, animals & plants, etc.)
Postconventional gender identities
Work/business/politics/arts/health/culture/cuisine
Relationship with nature, matter, & objects
Education/teaching/scholarship/writing/research
Resacralization of all facets of life: “The Life Divine” (Sri Aurobindo)?

10. Future of Religion: Three Scenarios (I)
A Global Religion (or single world faith)
Triumph of an existent tradition (e.g., Catholicism, Dalai Lama’s Tibetan Buddhism, etc.)
Emerging synthesis (e.g., New Age; Wilber’s integral spirituality, etc.)
Where: interfaith dialogue, transpersonal/integral psychology, new religious movements, New Age movement

11. Three Scenarios (II) 2. Mutual Transformation/Interspiritual Wisdom
Creative unions toward diversification (Chardin)
“Reciprocal illumination” (Sharma)
Multiple religious participation
Religious syncretism/hybridizations (“we are all hybrids”)
Global ethics (Küng), inter-spirituality, (Teasdale) trans-traditionalism (Forman), CIIS world spirituality series (Caplan), etc.
Where: Interfaith dialogue, New Age movement, eclectic/integrative spiritualities

12. Three Scenarios (III) 3. Spirituality Without Religion
Individual experience over religious authority
Calls for a “democratization of spirit” / “spirituality revolution”/ “direct path to the divine” / “reclaiming of inner spiritual authority”
“Spiritual but not religious” (Fuller), “religion of no-religion” (Spiegelberg), “religion without religion” (Caputo/Derrida), “believing without belonging” (Taylor)
Where: Postmodern spiritualities; New Age movement; naturalistic, scientific, & psychological spiritualities; secular & postsecular spiritualities

13. Two Spiritual Impulses
Toward Spiritual Individuation: Evolutionary & developmental pulls toward differentiation, creative diversity, & plurality; person as unique embodiment of the Mystery
Pitfall: Spiritual Individualism (“Sheilaism”)
Toward Spiritual Unity: Intuition of the spiritual unity of humankind, deep communion, universal spiritual ethics
Pitfall: Religious Unity (dogmatic/ideological)
Is there a middle path capable of reconciling these apparently conflicting impulses while avoiding their pitfalls?

14. Enter Chaudhuri’s Integral View of the Person
Uniqueness/Individuality
Importance of Spiritual Individuation: Grounding in Spirit Within (“ From Ego to True Unique Self”)
Interrelatedness
Importance of Mutual Transformation: Communion with Spirit In-Between (“Relationships,” “Service;” Global Ethics)
ANTIDOTE: To the Spiritual Narcissism underlying both Religious Unity and Spiritual Individualism.
Transcendence
Importance of Spiritual Unity: Openness to Spirit Beyond (“Union with Being”)

15. (Re-)Dreaming Chaudhuri I: Universal Religion
Chaudhuri’s “Universal Religion” as Perspectival Perennialism: Religious ultimates as partial perspectives of same spiritual reality or God /different names for same ocean; different paths, same goal=core religious experience (“integral, monistic nondualism”)
But… Chaudhuri’s “Creative Universalism” and “Evolutionary Participation”! “Religious aspiration which aims at the fulfillment of man [sic] in creative fellowship with the evolutionary world-spirit, beyond all religious differences” (Modern Man Religion, 37)
And… Embodied Transcendence! As rooted in individuality & relatedness in the world

16. (Re-)Dreaming Chaudhuri II: Embodied Transcendence
Spiritual Unity: Not in the “Heavens” (common spiritual ultimate, vision, or cosmology) but deep down into the “Earth” (embodied connection with shared creative source, i.e., undetermined creative power of mystery/cosmos/life with which we cocreate the rich diversity of spiritual worlds)
Common Spiritual “Healthy” Family: Supports spiritual individuation while affirming our common roots
Spiritual Horizon: Not identity, but alignment of infinite diversity of unique spiritual perspectives

17. Conclusion
The future of world religion will be shaped by spiritually individuated persons (individuality) engaged in processes of mutual transformation and hybridization (interrelatedness) in the context of a common spiritual family (transcendence) that honors a global order of respect and civility (engagement).

18. Coda: The Participatory Chaudhuri
“It is through participation in history that he can evolve and manifest the unsuspected glories of his inner being” (Being, Evolution, & Immortality, 33) “He considers it his fundamental spiritual task, his God-assigned purpose of life, to participate in the evolutionary being of the world” (Modern Man’s Religion, 74)