Sufism, Kabbalah, and Jung: Interfaith Dialogue and Peace

Introduction: Interfaith Dialogue and the Search for Peace

The present political situation in the world over the last decade has underscored the importance of interfaith and inter-religious discourse and dialogue. From one point of view, "interreligious dialog is seen as an alternative to the much-discussed 'clash of civilizations'" (Jung Center — Interfaith Class Series). Those who do not subscribe to the theory that a civilizational clash is inevitable are proposing instead a dialogue of civilizations — an exchange of views aimed at mutual enrichment, a sharing of insights that can lead everyone to a deeper understanding of the mercy of God and God's will for humankind on this planet (Jung Center — Interfaith Class Series).

The questions addressed in this paper can be stated as follows: can one speak of connections and parallels in the dialogue between faiths and different religious perspectives, and if so, what can those connections and parallels teach us today in terms of interfaith dialogue and peace negotiation? The first question is relatively straightforward. There are certainly connections and parallels between different religions and faith structures, especially within the Abrahamic groupings. There are many studies and articles that discuss the similarities and areas of consensus among the dominant faiths of the world, both East and West. For example, there is intensive discourse and numerous publications exploring the intersection between Zen Buddhism and Christianity, primarily through the work of D. T. Suzuki.

However, the second question is much harder to unravel and to answer in a concise and unequivocal way. The relationship between interfaith dialogue and peace negotiation is hampered by the knowledge that many wars and conflicts in the world today result from fundamentalist differences between religious faiths and worldviews. Many scholars, such as Huntington in his work Clash of Cultures, suggest that the cultural and religious differences between Islam and Christianity are causative factors in contemporary and future world conflict. This thesis holds that violence tends to manifest itself "in areas which have been the meeting places of major cultures or races" (Huntington 1971, pp. 11–12) — in other words, the close proximity of different ethnic groups with differing ideologies and religious worldviews can propagate radical acts of violence and aggression. The Jewish–Palestinian conflict and related acts of violence are frequently cited as an example of tensions resulting from such proximity. Religious differences are further seen as a source of terrorism that operates in tandem with economic and ideological differences (Howell 2003, p. 177).

One must therefore approach this question with judicious caution, as the areas under discussion involve an extensive and complex range of experiences and competing views. While acknowledging this complexity, it may serve as a starting point to intentionally simplify the issues in the search for areas of interconnection. Instead of becoming encumbered by layers of detail and argument, a more simplified and obvious pattern may be discerned in the dialogue between differing faiths and approaches to reality.

Simplistically put, religion is the search for and manifestation of truth and reality — in other terms, of the transcendent or the numinous. Cultural differences aside, when one approaches the question of interfaith connections in this light it is preferable to strip away the more superficial differences between religions and concentrate on the areas that can be seen as similar, or at least in agreement, with regard to the larger questions of reality and truth.

Using this approach, the central theme to be discussed is that there is a substratum, a core of meaning and understanding which can be metaphorically understood as a seed or generating point for comparison, interaction, and connection — and which can also contribute to a better understanding between faiths and religious groupings, and ultimately to world peace.

The central point being made is that it is only through a deeper and more perceptive vision of the unity of all religions that any movement towards global peace can be achieved. The differences between religious faiths and denominations are often matters of formality, dogma, and superficial customs. Beneath these often contradictory and divisive differences there are many common elements. The purpose of this discussion is therefore to isolate these common aspects in order to create points of intersection — nodes of reference and relevance that can awaken humanity to the commonalities between religions.

One of the central areas of intersection is mystical and esoteric belief and knowledge, and specifically the area of transcendence and non-duality. Non-duality is best known in relation to Eastern religions, but recent explorations in psychology and transpersonal psychology, as well as in modern Western philosophy, have brought aspects such as non-duality into the mainstream of contemporary thought. Postmodern thinking, deconstruction, and other contemporary efforts to rigorously question the often restrictive thinking of the past have opened the way to a more inclusive and holistic view of religion and, in particular, of the underlying elements that unite all religions.

It should also be stressed that the advances in Western thought initiated by Jung and the innovative thinking of James Hillman, among others, have added further dimensionality to this question. Modern thinking has tended to question barriers and differences in an attempt to focus on "archetypal" core aspects that unite all human beings in the search for reality.

Religious Foundations and the Problem of Difference

There is a general consensus that interfaith dialogue is not new in the history of human religious thought and action. Among the many examples that can be cited is the fact that Catholic and Orthodox Christians, along with Muslims, Jews, and Sufis, lived in harmony in the Balkans under Ottoman Turk rule between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries (History of Interfaith Dialogue). There are also examples of dialogue taking place between Abrahamic churches in the early twentieth century, and in 2008 an interfaith debate was initiated by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to address world problems (History of Interfaith Dialogue). More recently, the Dalai Lama inaugurated an interfaith "World Religions — Dialogue and Symphony."

Despite these examples, it is equally true that in many sensitive areas of the world there has been a contemporary hardening of views between different faiths, a fact often culturally driven. Intense differences in dogma and ideology are endlessly debated and hamper genuine understanding and interconnection between religions. One example is the difference between Buddhism and Catholicism regarding certain central religious concepts — for instance, in a comparison between Theravada Buddhist and Catholic views on salvation.

Salvation is a concept central to the theological trajectories of most religions. Broadly, salvation refers to being saved from evil or illusion and finding eternal life beyond death. There are many, often radically different, views about the meaning and process of salvation in various religions, which reflects on other core differences as well.

This aspect can be seen in a basic analysis of soteriology — the study of salvation. Soteriology is derived from the Greek Soter, meaning savior, and logos, meaning word, reason, or principle. From a Catholic and Christian perspective, "soteriology discusses how Christ's death secures the salvation of those who believe. It helps us to understand the doctrines of redemption, justification, sanctification, propitiation, and the substitutionary atonement" (What is Soteriology?). The Christian doctrine of salvation can therefore be summarized as "spiritual rescue from sin and death; saving of the soul through the atonement of Jesus' redemption" (What is Salvation According to the Bible?).

From a Buddhist religious context, this definition of salvation would differ in many fundamental ways. Buddhism does not hold belief in a "savior" or in a concept of God. The more traditional mode of Buddhist thought, Theravada Buddhism, focuses on personal effort — Prajna — rather than on the grace and aid of a deity. The Catholic Church, by contrast, focuses on atonement with God and God's grace in the process of salvation.

A central difference between these two religions is therefore that Buddhism rejects the concept of God. "The concept of a supreme Creator God is rejected or at least considered irrelevant to Theravada Buddhism. Buddha, 'the Awakened One,' is revered above all — not as 'God' but as supreme sage, model of a fully enlightened person" (What Theravada Buddhists Believe). This is possibly the greatest obstacle to comparison with Christian concepts such as salvation. For a Catholic, salvation without God or Christ is unthinkable. Admittedly, this is a comparison of two outwardly very different religious structures and cultures, but it serves to illustrate that important differences do occur — and this observation can be applied to other, more homogenous religious groupings as well.

While one could add dozens of similar examples of fundamental differences between religions, at the risk of over-simplification one could also assert that all religions and faiths share one central core and similarity: the search for reality and truth. This fundamental aspect can be described in many ways — as the search for and encounter with the numinous, the transcendent, and the mystical. On the other hand, religion as a threat to world peace can be ascribed to any religious grouping claiming sole right to and knowledge of the truth.

However, with the rise of secular society and the decline of many conventional and formal religious movements in both West and East, avenues have been created for new perspectives and interpretations of reality and a general falling away from strict dogmatic assumptions about religious differences. This is particularly evident in the modern exploration of psychology and psychoanalysis initiated by Jung and James Hillman, among others — a search for meaning essentially outside the conventional theological context but nevertheless attempting to transcend specific interfaith differences.

This search for new interconnections can also be found in the works of modern and postmodern philosophers such as Martin Heidegger. Heidegger's analysis and deconstruction of the Western metaphysical tradition can be interpreted as an interrogation of the ideological master narrative underlying Western religious traditions. In doing so, Heidegger opens areas vital to the modern view of reality and suggests a new religious attitude that transcends denominational differences. In the Jungian context there is a parallel exploration of the human self as it expresses the archetypal, mythical, and core values of human being.

From one perspective, therefore, the decline of conventional religion and the development of secular society have led to a modern openness in the search for new alternatives to age-old antagonisms between religions. It can also be argued that in this process — which includes modern thinkers like Nevill Drury as well as the so-called New Age movement — there lies a hope for world peace beyond religious confrontation. The increasing modern popularity of ancient systems of thought such as the Kabbalah also supports this view.

On the other hand, one must take into account contrary views that do not see the modern world and its sense of "progress" as conducive to a new holistic religious philosophy. Traditionalists like René Guénon attack the modern era and its new gods of science and materialism as a complete deviation from traditional and valid religious knowledge. In his work The Reign of Quantity, Guénon states that all traditional views and religious knowledge have been lost in the context of the modern secular world and that "all characteristically modern conceptions are, consciously or unconsciously, a direct and unqualified denial of that knowledge" (Guénon, p. 8). In his critique of modern thought, he observes a tendency to reduce all thought and experience to an "exclusively quantitative point-of-view" (Guénon, p. 8). This view is not very conducive to interfaith connections, but it makes an important point that has been taken up by many modern thinkers, including Heidegger — namely, that the present mode of thought and perception in the contemporary world is not adequate in terms of genuine religious knowledge, and that a new and more emotionally grounded mode of thought is needed to counter the reductionist tendencies of technological materialism.

The Modern Context: Religious Myth and Secularization

In order to understand the points of correspondence and agreement between faiths at deeper levels of meaning, one must first understand the significance of the term "myth" and the advance of modern secular society. In popular consciousness, myth has come to mean fantasy, constructed imagination, and spurious fiction. However, as eminent scholars like Mircea Eliade state, myths are narratives that relate to the sacred reality of a society. It is this element of sacredness that gives myths their power and which provides a possible point of intersection between faiths.

In essence, myths are ontological in nature and provide the "truth" about the reality of the past, present, and future. In The Structure of Myths, Eliade argues that a religious myth is not a fable or a fiction. It is something that cannot be interrogated or held up for questioning, because its source is not human but transcendent. It is in essence a "primordial revelation" (Eliade, 1963, p. 1).

However, Eliade also makes the point that since the Greek era, myth has been steadily "emptied" of its sacred and primordial meaning and status. Myth has come to mean fiction and been reduced to just another discredited and primitive model in the eyes of science. This relates to the advance of secularization in the world and the loss of the meaning of many traditional religious views — an aspect that Jung and many other modern psychologists and philosophers address in their research.

The Sufi tradition also warns against this reductionism and the discrediting of myth in the secular world. Ibn Arabi stresses this point in a number of texts. The renowned interpreter of Arabi and Sufi thought, Henry Corbin, states the following in Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi. He compares the Gnostic view of the imagination as a valid conduit of eternal values and realities to the modern, "watered-down" view of imagination. In his view, modern concepts of the imagination fail when "measured against the Gnostic conception of an Imagination which posits real being" and have "come to be an agnosticism pure and simple. On this level all terminological rigor is dropped and imagination is confounded with fantasy" (Corbin, 1969, p. 181). Referring to Arabi, Corbin also states that in the secular world the "degradation of the imagination is complete" (Corbin, 1969, p. 181).

The point being made is that in the modern world, myth and the sacred understanding of the imagination have been reduced by the scientific and secular worldview, and that this in turn has led to a range of issues pertaining to interfaith communication. One of these aspects — and the focus of the present study — is the assertion that religion can only intersect constructively at the deeper and more intense mystical and esoteric level. This view will be explored in terms of modern psychology and transpersonal psychology, as well as in relation to the resurgence of more traditional esoteric traditions such as Sufism and the Kabbalah.

Myth and imagination in the mystical traditions of all religions are seen not as fantasy or cultural fable but as valid perception of religious truth and reality. This view also relates to the Jungian view of the archetypal unconscious. Myth in effect describes the breakthrough and the contact between the everyday world and the sacred world, which is the source or originator of this world (Eliade, 1963, p. 6). The hope for interfaith connections and for the long-term prospects of world peace would therefore seem to lie in the area of a regeneration of myth in a modern context — understood not as an archaic relic of the past but as a point of intersection and contact between religious faiths and perceptions.

Conclusion

The above discussion is intended only as a discursive and sketchy overview of the various possibilities suggested by the central question and thesis of this paper. To reiterate: the concern is whether connections and parallels can teach us about the viability of interfaith dialogue and peace negotiation. A very preliminary answer to this question is that connections between religions must be understood at the deepest and least formal levels — at the levels of myth, mysticism, and esoteric thought and experience. As one critic notes:

"The imaginal world is found in all religions as the basis of the symbol system that differentiates them. Ibn Arabi, who believed that this fact explained religious diversity, also knew that conscious belief will determine the nature of imaginative experience. People of different faiths experience the images of their beliefs in the imagination, and for this reason all religions should be equally respected, for all derive from the imaginative encounter with God." (Linden)

In other words, the connections or similarities between religions manifest themselves in terms of mystical knowledge and insight that are remarkably similar, as Jung discovered across many major religious systems. It is also at this level that we escape the conflict between dogma and theological rectitude, and it is only at this stage that a possibility for reconciliation and peace emerges. A second crucial factor is that modern advances in psychology and philosophy within the secular world are extremely important. As can be seen in the works of Jung and others, these theories are encouraging in that they provide contemporary terminology and concepts capable of acting as a conduit towards the integration of essential religious views and of accelerating the important process of moving towards world peace.