We encourage the journey of awakening to universal spirituality, discovering a deeper meaning in the Christian message and the love connecting us all.
A Way of Wisdom
Universal spirituality is a Way of Wisdom. All spiritual teachings have an underlying wisdom, which becomes expressed in different terminology at different times. A Way of Wisdom seeks to re-language the traditional religious teachings into terminology more suited to the 21st century, drawing on more scientific and psychological understandings. The underlying wisdom hopefully remains the same. In our busy daily lives, we tend to forget there is an unseen dimension of Spirit emanating from the Source of all Life. It is the main teaching of most religions. This Life undergirds all that exists, holds it in being – it could even be called ‘Being-ness’. Many call this Beingness or Source by the term ‘God’.
Science now tells us that all is energy and everything is deeply interconnected. There are patterns to existence that run through the whole universe at all levels. Insights from quantum science tell us that foundational to it all is consciousness. Our individual consciousness is part of a greater whole, like drops of water are to the ocean. This greater universal consciousness is called the ground of being by some, which links to spiritual understandings of the Source. Raising our awareness of this One Life Source is the main thrust of all spiritual paths, and our potential for creativity and collaboration are far greater than we often realise. We live within an intelligent universe of consciousness and we can align ourselves with a collective movement within humanity, trusting that a new era is possible and working with others to bring this into being.
We are all expressions of that One Life, and so there is a unity linking us all. Knowing this, we can look at the human being to see the essence of that One Life expressed in humanity. We see that essential to our humanity is to love and be loved. This love is something deeper that gives us value and brings us alive. We need first to love ourselves in order to enter the fullness of who we can be, and then we can love others more fully. This is not a narcissistic act, it means have a healthy respect for our own life, without which we cannot fully enter into loving others. This love manifests in acting with kindness, compassion and goodwill, which is the golden rule, enshrined in every faith tradition- ‘Do unto others as you would have them do to you’.
Our awakening to that One Life, that Source, that many of us call God, is a major step for any human being. It opens the path to transformation, to changing the way we think, to healing past traumas and emotional wounds, and to a freedom that can bring joy and peace. The Spirit or energy of the One life within us moves our consciousness to a higher vibration, and more compassion, understanding and kindness begin to flow. We discover new potentials within us. Each of us as individuals then helps to raise the consciousness of the whole of humanity, little by little.
We may make mistakes, we may mess up, but knowing forgiveness can help us to move on and persevere. Slowly, we learn to listen to our inner awareness and intuition, and we begin to see that the way forward is through living with good-will towards all, wanting the best outcome in any situation. We build hopefulness and optimism for the future.
We, as humanity, are all on a journey over aeons, gradually evolving into a higher way of being. This journey is guided by the evolutionary force of Love, drawing and attracting, bringing higher and deeper connections. We are all part of an immense cosmic dance in time, ebbing and flowing, but gradually nurturing us onward. Awakening to this universal process, guided by Love and Good-will, is the Way of Wisdom ingrained in this One Life in which we live, move and have our being.
CANA Core Group, 2026
Further resources on this topic are available
by clicking on Starting on a Universal Path
See also Living Christ Consciousness
What is Universal Spirituality?
There is an emerging view in these global days that says that no single religion has got the whole truth, but all of them have parts of the truth. Underlying all faiths is an underground stream of spiritual wisdom amassed over the ages by humanity, which has crystallised in certain cultures and context into specific religions, yet has also lost something in the solidifying process. The more we try to define doctrine and dogma, the more we exclude and enter into dualistic ways of thinking, creating divisions and barriers – those who are in and those who are out, those who have it right and those who have got it wrong. Yet this underlying stream is still there, which we could call universal spirituality.
Christianity has always had an exclusivity to it which says that belief in Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. But once we start picking that apart, we see that it does not stand up. Who was Jesus and was he different from the Christ? What is heaven if Jesus said it is within us? Where, what and who is God? The more we look at the teachings of Jesus and the other spiritual greats, the more we see this universal underlying wisdom coming through. There are recurring themes in all of the world’s religions and philosophies that continue to say:
- There is a Divine Reality underneath and inherent in the world of things which holds everything in being,
- There is in the human soul a natural capacity for, similarity to, and longing for this Divine Reality, and
- The final goal of existence is awakening to union with this Divine Reality.
The path towards this union is described in various ways in the bible. Human nature is a complex thing, but it is often talked of in two ways – the lower self and the higher self, or the self-centred desire nature and the selfless, more compassionate nature. Or the ego-mind and the Christ-mind. St Paul talks of moving from flesh to Spirit, or being clothed in Christ, or transforming the mind, making the same distinction. It is all about transformation from a poorer state to a better state, which is the essential meaning of salvation. If we look at the bible, we find the message of transformation expressed in many different ways. It is about:
- Moving from darkness to light
- Receiving true sight
- Being born again
- Liberation for captives
- Freedom from bondage
- Healing from our infirmities
- Moving from death to life
- Moving from emptiness to fullness
- Transforming the mind
- Being remade in the image of Christ, putting on the mind of Christ
So we are to be transformed, saved, rescued, by the renewing of our minds, when we move up to a different level of consciousness, from flesh to Spirit, from self-centredness to God-centredness, from ego to soul. The movement is into love, into more compassion, goodwill and loving understanding, vital qualities for our world today. This is a universal teaching, not just confined to Christianity.
“Christianity can only become the living truth for successive generations if thinkers constantly arise within it who, in the spirit of Jesus, make belief in him capable of intellectual apprehension in the thought-forms of the world-view proper to their time.” Albert Schweitzer
Extract from Richard Rohr’s
daily email meditations
Richard Rohr is a Franciscan Roman Catholic priest and a prolific author. He has written many books on new ways of understanding Christianity and his team send out daily meditations based on his writings. Website: https://cac.org/
The Wisdom Tradition
Sunday, January 28, 2018
My friend and Center for Action and Contemplation
faculty member Cynthia Bourgeault writes about the power and depth of Jesus’
teaching:
[Jesus was] a wisdom teacher,
a person who clearly emerges out of and works within an ancient tradition
called “wisdom,” sometimes known as sophia perennis, which is in fact at the headwaters of all the great
religious traditions of the world today. It’s concerned with the transformation
of the whole human being. Transformation from what to what? Well, for a
starter, from our animal instincts and egocentricity into love and compassion;
from a judgmental and dualistic worldview into a nondual acceptingness. This
was the message that Jesus, apparently out of nowhere, came preaching and
teaching, a message that was radical in its own time and remains equally radical
today.
I’m mindful here of
one of my favorite quotes, attributed to the British writer G.K. Chesterton,
who reportedly said, “Christianity isn’t a failure; it just hasn’t been tried
yet.” [1] In this great cultural monolith that we call Christianity, which has
guided the course of western history for more than two thousand years, have we
really yet unlocked the power to deeply understand and follow this Jesus along
the radical path he is calling us to? . . . .
From [my] wider immersion [in the worldwide wisdom
tradition] I’ve been reaffirmed in my sense that Jesus came first and foremost
as a teacher of the path of inner transformation. That doesn’t take away the
Jesus you may be more familiar with—the Son of God, the second person of the
Trinity—but it does add a renewed emphasis on paying attention to what he
actually taught and seeing how we can begin to walk it authentically from the
inside. It also suggests that he did not really come out of nowhere, but rather
that he belongs to a stream of living wisdom that has been flowing through the
human condition for at least five thousand years.
[1] G. K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World (1910). See The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, vol. IV (Ignatius Press: 1987),
61.
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind—a New Perspective
on Christ and His Message (Shambhala: 2008), 4-5.
Extract from ‘Blue Sky God’ by
Don MacGregor
All things evolve in this world. It is a principle of life.
Cultures and societies evolve as well, and the expressions of all religions
change as societies change. There are many questions in today’s society that
are not addressed within traditional Christianity, and many issues that need to
be looked at again in the light of discoveries and realisations within the last
150 years. In the Western world, huge numbers of people have walked away from
the traditional, doctrinal, overarching story offered by the institutional
Christian church – and that is very sad as it actually has so much to offer if
only it can escape from its straightjacket of doctrine and liturgy. A
straightjacket holds a person rigidly, so that they cannot move, cannot harm
themselves and can do no damage to others. That is exactly the rationale behind
the institutional churches in their use of language, hymns and doctrine to
define, limit and keep in order the belief of the people.
But much of that doctrine and liturgy has come from a world
view that has been superseded. We now know far more about the universe and its
workings than we did when the New Testament was put together, or when the
doctrine of the church was worked out. Scientists have seen how the universe is
still evolving, and has been for nearly 14 billion years, at the current
estimate. Our understanding of the faith surely has to evolve as well, or we
risk becoming another version of the Flat Earth Society, who state “Why do we say the Earth is flat, when the
vast majority says otherwise? Because we know the truth.” The Church sometimes
defends itself like the Flat Earth Society, to the ridicule of those outside
it.
Science and Christianity
Christianity has been shaken up and moved on many times by
the revelations of scientific enquiry and discovery. The spherical nature of
the earth was one of the first problems for Christian theology. The idea that
there might be other human beings on a landmass, the antipodes, on the other
side of the sphere upset the Pope. It was ‘obvious’ that there could not have
been any form of transport from Europe to those regions, and therefore any
people in the supposed ‘antipodes’ did not descend from Adam, and such belief
denied the ‘truth’ of the story of creation. This revelation caused some consternation
and threats of excommunication within the church at the time – Bishop Vergilius
of Salzburg (c. 700-784) was threatened in such a way by Pope Zachary at one
stage. Vergilius was accused of teaching a doctrine of the ‘rotundity of the
earth’, which was ‘contrary to the Scriptures’. But soon exploration of the
earth overcame that and a new understanding of the continents moved theology
on, with little difficulty in adapting to the new world view.
Another major challenge came with the scientific insights of
Nicolas Copernicus. In 1530 CE, he completed his treatise De Revolutionibus, which claimed that the sun was the centre of the
universe, and that the earth revolved around the sun. Fortunately for him, it
was published shortly before his death in 1543, or his demise might have been
altogether of a more painful form. The Roman Catholic Church placed it on their
list of proscribed books, and he would probably have been tried for heresy and
burnt had he still been alive. Giordano Bruno, an Italian Dominican friar, was
not so fortunate. He was burnt at the stake in 1600 CE for similar beliefs,
after a trial lasting seven years. Soon, Galileo Galilei made his claim that
the recent scientific invention, the telescope, proved that Copernicus’s theory
was correct. He was tried by the Inquisition, forced to recant his belief and
put under house arrest for years until his death in 1642. The Church does not
have a very good track record of coping with new scientific insights.
Later came the insights of Darwin and his theory of
evolution, and there is a struggle that still continues for much Christian
theology and liturgy to catch up with that, let alone the discoveries and
theories of relativity, quantum mechanics, and fields of energy. As our
understanding of creation grows and evolves, so our understanding of theology
and the nature of God has to change. Christianity has to evolve to be credible
for every new generation as the world view evolves.
[Don MacGregor, ‘Blue Sky God – the Evolution of Science and Christianity’ pp7-9]
