"The rise of community among cultures and religious traditions brings with it a deeply fruitful openness to learning from one another. It makes possible what we can call 'interspirituality': the assimilation of insights, values, and spiritual practices from the various religions and their application to one's own inner life and development. This phenomenon has truly revolutionary implications, especially for the real likelihood of a global culture and civilization forming that is unmistakably universal in more than a geographical sense."
The Community of Religions

"We have become spiritually illiterate: ignorant of the realization that life is a spiritual journey, that everything is sacred or a manifestation of the ultimate mystery. We are morally confused, precisely because of this illiteracy. And this illiteracy and confusion have led directly to psychological dysfunction: the breakdown of meaningful communication in the family, and the indifference and insensitivity with which we treat one another. We fear the intimacy inherent in the interactions of society itself. People regard one another as objects, rather than as the precious beings they are. Our addiction to violence — vicarious and otherwise — is nourished by a steady diet of irresponsible Hollywood images and stories that subtly, and not so subtly, insinuate that violence is fundamental to life. Psychological dysfunction also appears in our frenzied pace of life, with its inevitable fragmentation and tolerance of noise, and in the endless stimulation we require through news, sports, and other forms of excitement. We have become a nation of compulsive neurotics. No wonder the quiet spiritual life has difficulty in being heard."
The Mystic Heart

"The spiritual journey changes us to the core of our being. If it didn't, it wouldn't be real. This quality of inner change is what I understand by the term transformation: a radical reordering and alteration of our character, and all our old habits of thought, feeling and action.

"Spirituality is always meant to make us better by unlocking our potential for divinity, to be likeGod in some participatory way. This is what the Christian theologians of the early Orthodox church called theosis, or deification, becoming like God. It is what the Eastern traditions mean when they speak of awakening the Buddha-nature within us, or the Atman. If spirituality does not offer access to actualizing our potential for this higher form of life, which is what we are made for, then what ultimate value can it possibly have for us?"
The Mystic Heart

"Spiritual practice is the core of our transformation, and it requires what can be called the contemplative attitude, a disposition to a life of mystical depth. Spiritual practice often means meditation and other forms of inner exploration. It can also mean prayer. Silence, solitude, and mysticism — the seeking of illumination and wisdom — are further parts of the contemplative experience, a process of our ultimate evolution, our unfolding to higher states of consciousness."
A Monk in the World

"As matrix, the Church might strive to become a container for all humanity's noble aspirations. The Church could be a nurturer of interfaith encounter, interreligious dialogue, spirituality, interspirituality, work for justice, the promotion of peace, creating sacred culture, and teaching environmental responsibility and economic sustainability. . . . The Church is now required to radiate Christ's radical love and not simply insist on his unique salvific role. It will also require the reform of capitalism, the promotion of ecological justice, and a full commitment to the full development of all people, with special attention to their educational, economic, moral, and spiritual needs. It will teach the importance of nonviolence in all relationships. It will be a human order in which spirituality and interspirituality will be the highest pursuits. Economics and power will be the servants of this new civilization rather than its masters."
A Monk in the World

"Mere dialogue can be and often is a casual matter, but the deeper, more substantial type is governed by an intrinsic commitment to finding the point of unity between the two traditions, finding the common ground that permits them to be related in a direct way. Bede Griffiths describes this profounder sort of dialogue, what I call existential dialogue: 'The primary purpose of inter-religious dialogue is mutual understanding, but this means understanding the other religion from within, that is, by sharing the other person's experience of his religion. This comes about not only through shared conversation but also through sharing in religious rituals and prayer together.' Existential dialogue is this inner openness to the other in mutual trust, respect and sympathy."
Bede Griffiths