Interreligious dialogue & interreligious silence

Many people have by now understood that a 'religious monologue' will not advance our humanity in any way. Yet the question remains whether the well intended efforts of 'interreligious' and 'intercultural' dialogue offer a solution. Too often they stay at a theoretical level and don't lead to real rapprochement. They seem to uphold a cold distance.

Nonetheless it's exactly religion which offers the possibility of essential rapprochement. For every religious tradition knows spiritual practices which can help to transcend the distant speech and reach a deeper togetherness. Meditation, praying, fasting, waking, celebrating rituals and contemplating texts all offer a chance to connect ourselves more strongly – not by talking but by 'experiencing' spirituality together.

A great leader like Mahatma Gandhi read from Quran as well as Bhagavad-Gita during the prayer-times in his Ashram. It brought the Muslims and Hindus to greater unity.

Recently I read about Jesuit Nagy El Khoury from Libanon. Together with sheikh Mohammed Nokkari he organises a moment of prayer around the figure of Mary. This yearly prayer on the 25^th of march is attended by thousands of Muslims and Christians. The event got to the attention of Minister Saas Hariri, who was touched by the initiative and made the 25^th of march into a national holiday.

As for myself, when I lived in Turkey, I held to my fasting habits as usual. Yet normally, because of my own cultural habits, I would do so in the period leading up to Easter. In Turkey I moved my own fasting to the month of Ramadan. I guess it doesn't need to be explained how this offered me a way of connecting myself more with the fasting society around me.

Our world is full of such examples. On every level of society religious traditions offer the possibility to bring both groups and individuals to greater unity.

Let this not be misunderstood. I do not want to give the impression that we should give up on our own traditions and throw away our own spiritual practices. On the contrary. We should actually express our own tradition and practices as good as we can because when we do so, they'll allow us to connect people on that deeper level which is the focus of every tradition and all those practices.

Religious practices are meant to experience the true depth of existence. In spiritual life one seeks after the essence of the soul. Exactly because of this religion and spirituality can't be grasped in dialogue or words but should be shared through religious praxis.

That 'religious monologues' can't be maintained any longer, has luckily been understood, but perhaps it's time to see that 'religious dialogue' also doesn't offer a solution. The solution resides in 'interreligious silence'.

Whether you like it or not, 'dialogue' eventually remains dependent upon words – and that's exactly what obstructs real comprehension. Paradoxically it is talking that causes misunderstanding for often we simply speak a different language – not just of words but above all of concepts.

True interreligious reprochement thus lies not in words but in emptiness. It lies in all the practices that religion gives us to become empty and to reach the deeper silence. The only true start of dialogue therefore is to come together in emptiness and find each other in the wordless. Only from emptiness can we understand each others words and only from the imageless can we view the concepts of others without prejudice.

It's a spiritual truth that you can find in about every religion: only when we're empty, can we be filled again. Why then, I wonder, is this truth so seldom followed in our efforts of interreligious and intercultural dialogue?