SPIRITUAL PATHS FOUNDATION

At the dawn of this new millennium, the possibilities have never been better for us to broaden and deepen our spiritual knowledge and to actualize our own spiritual potential. Cultural diversity, the internet, advances in personal mobility, and the proliferation of new media have opened up seemingly infinite opportunities for us to explore, as never before possible, the world's spiritual treasures.

The Spiritual Paths Foundation provides a unique and holistic approach to the entire genre of inter-religious activity in our day. Going well beyond the spiritual rapprochement of many inter-faith events, Spiritual Paths offers a broad-based continuum of experiential, topic-oriented seminars, and a comprehensive educational follow-up for attendees with today's leading spiritual teachers. 

The Foundation promotes peace, respect, and mutual understanding between peoples of diverse religious and spiritual traditions.  We explore and celebrate the spiritual dimension in the human quest to integrate mind, body and spirit.  We support the emergence of InterSpirituality as a new paradigm for a new millennium.

The primary goal is to give both budding and experienced spiritual seekers direct access to these teachers, and an authentic taste of the world's major wisdom traditions. This is accomplished through our seminars, held around the country on thirty-six possible topics, as seen through the lenses of the major wisdom traditions and exemplars. Seminars are supported by our multi-media Spiritual Paths website, which serves as the informational hub of our educational activities. There, one may register for on-line seminars, continuing education (CEU) certificate programs,  find information on numerous spiritual paths and topics; information and guidance in finding authentic spiritual communities and teachers in your area; and books and audio-visual materials developed from the Spiritual Paths seminars, including lectures, group discussions, and interviews.  The website also contains information on the Spiritual Paths Institute Masters Degree and Certificate Program in InterSpiritual Studies.

The areas of concentration for Spiritual Paths' seminars and curricula include: The paths of the Arts, the Body, Contemplation and Meditation, Devotion, Love, Healing, Intellect and Metaphysics, the Mystic, Nature, Prayer and Ritual,  Relationships and Service, and Wisdom; the questions of Reality, Immortality, Happiness, God/Faith, Freedom, Existence, Ethics, the Universe, Truth, Transformation, the Supernatural, and Spiritual Beings; the traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Africa, America, Europe, East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Oceania.

The Spiritual Paths endeavor is an evolving experiment, and its philosophy is one of spiritual transformation. It is in no way an attempt to promote or impose any rigid dogma. Spiritual Paths only wishes to provide both highly accessible and accurate information on the world's spiritual paths, in a marriage of the best traditions of religious and academic scholarship, of spirituality and science.

Edward W. Bastian, President
Nataniel Miles-Yepez, Editor

"As inter-religious dialogue continues to deepen and spread, experienced spiritual practitioners, with some capacity for scholarship, need to suggest what works best for spiritual growth. This is the thrust of the Spiritual Paths conferences and educational activities. "
--- Father Thomas Keating, Benedictine monk and co-founder of the Centering Prayer movement. ---

"I am particularly excited by this initiative of Edward Bastian and the Spiritual Paths Foundation. It as a "sea change" in the evolution of what we used to call the ecumenical activity. I see us coming into the next phase of inter-religious dialogue, to introduce one another to the inner experience of each other's faith traditions. For when we do, we shall come to the realization that the end is One. In a sense, the previous "intellectual" phase of inter-religious dialogue was like reading cookbooks on French food, or Indian food --- what Spiritual Paths is suggesting we do now, is to taste and sample it!
--- Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf of the Masjid al-Farah mosque of New York City and founder of ASMA (American Sufi Muslim Association).