Wayne Teasdale - The Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the Worlds Religions

More praise for The Mystic Heart

My good friend Brother Wayne Teasdale has long been actively involved in the effort to bring our religious traditions together. In this book Brother Wayne explores what he calls interspirituality. He shares his deep respect for and knowledge of the worlds religions, relates examples from the lives of many great spiritual practitioners, and illuminates the traditions wonderful commonalities. The Mystic Heart is a work of great inspiration.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

With loving clarity and understanding of all genuine mystical experience from the great traditions, Brother Wayne Teasdale illuminates the ecology of souls so that each of us, no matter what our path, can be attuned and enriched by the others. A fine masterwork by a living embodiment of the mystic heart.

Barbara Marx Hubbard, author of Conscious Evolution

Those who share Teasdales optimistic vision of the coming age as fostering spiritual unity among diverse peoples will consider the book an inspirational guide.

Publishers Weekly

This well-written and informative book will appeal both to scholars and informed lay readers. For academic libraries and public libraries with a strong religion collection.

Library Journal

This is a landmark book in the field of interreligious dialogue, written with sensitivity and deep respect for all the great traditions.

The Hartford Courant

The Mystic Heart is a visionary work that presents a bold and imaginative glimpse of the fruits of multifaith sharing and collaboration. Teasdales yearning for a universal communal spirituality that cuts across all traditions is one that we can celebrate. On these pages, he has presented stirring blueprints of global mysticism.

Spirituality & Health

Teasdale's inter-spiritulity is more than just developing tolerance: it opens the door to even greater truths.

Personal Transformation

Teasdale combines a Christian faith with an understanding of the world's religions, resulting in an excellent explanation of the principles and elements of universal spirituality.

The Bookwatch

The Mystic Heart is an excellent survey and overview of the present state of interfaith or multifaith spirituality at the end of the 20th century. Wayne Teasdale... has put together a truly thought-provoking book one that should prosper as a useful primer in the field of interreligious dialogue.

America magazine

With a vast range of knowledge, Teasdale draws on the teachings, practices, and experiences of shamans, saints, and theologians of all ages and traditions, on his own experience, and on contemporary science, art, and poetry to provide an understanding of the goal of realizing ultimate reality as it appears under many namesHans Kng has said there will be no peace until there is understanding among world religions. This book is an informed and practical contribution to that understanding.

CHOICE, Current Reviews for Academic Libraries

The Mystic Heart reminds us that the fruits of our personal spiritual journey also have their own reward in giving to ourselves a greater capacity for openness and awareness, for spontaneity and joy, to be really present for others, in compassion and without expectation.

Conscious Choice

This book will appeal to a wide variety of readers, and especially those interested in mysticism, spirituality, and religionthose who read The Mystic Heart will be inspired toward deep spiritual discovery.

New Age Retailer

For [those] just beginning to wonder what we all have in common, where to look for the one God underneath all the rich religious diversity of the human family, this may be just the right guide.

National Catholic Reporter

Teasdale has done us a service in synthesizing an enormous amount of material, and of presenting it to us in an eminently readable and digestible format. This book will create a great deal of soul-searching

Sisters Today

The Mystic Heart is a beautiful and profound meditation on the commonalities at the core of the world's great religions. In this age of extreme pluralism, which encourages us to all be different (and fragmented), Brother Teasdale reminds us that Spirit is common in and to us all, and thus in addition to cherishing differences we can embrace unity. A wise and wonderful wake-up call to a world in shattered pieces.

Ken Wilber, author of The Marriage of Sense and Soul

This rare and wonderful book awakens its readers to their own mystic nature. We discover here how previously divided and distinguished spiritual traditions are converging into a new river of holiness, an interspirituality. What is unique in this work is the luminous guidance the author gives us for deepening ones personal faith while exploring the mystical genius of other traditions. It may well be, as Brother Teasdale so eloquently shows, that the mystical experience is perhaps the greatest accelerator of evolutionary enhancement. Through it, we tap into wider physical, mental, emotional and social systems and thus gain entrance into the next stage of our unfolding, both individually and collectively. Once the province of the few, the mystic path may now be the requirement of the many a unique developmental path for self and world. The Mystic Heart goes to the heart of this matter.

Jean Houston, author of A Mythic Life

THE

MYSTIC
HEART

ALSO BY WAYNE TEASDALE

The Community of Religions
Edited by Wayne Teasdale and George Cairns

THE

MYSTIC
HEART

DISCOVERING A UNIVERSAL
SPIRITUALITY IN THE WORLDS RELIGIONS

WAYNE TEASDALE

FOREWORD BY
HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA

PREFACE BY
BEATRICE BRUTEAU

NEW WORLD LIBRARY
NOVATO, CALIFORNIA

Copyright 1999, 2001 by Wayne Teasdale
Cover design: Big Fish
Cover photograph: Photonica
Text design: Mary Ann Casler

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, or transmitted in any form, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Teasdale, Wayne.

The mystic heart : discovering a universal spirituality in the worlds religions / Wayne Teasedale ; foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama ; preface by Beatrice Bruteau.

p. cm.

includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-57731-102-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 1-57731-140-x (paperback : alk. paper)
1. Mysticism. 2. Religions. I. Title.

BL625.T43 1999
291.422 dc21

99-41879

CIP

First paperback printing, April 2001
ISBN 1-57731-140-x
Printed in Canada on acid-free, recycled paper
Distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my Uncle John Cosgrove
and my other teachers, spiritual and otherwise