Welcome to the Spiritual Paths Virtual Campus!

Courses for 2011

This site will contain materials for the upcoming courses for Fall, 2011. If you are interested in learning about the other classes and retreats offered by the Spiritual Paths Institute please click here.

We are preparing fall e-courses for our Certificate Program in InterSpiritual Wisdom. These will include classes by Shaikh Kabir and Shaikha Camille Helminski, Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Swami Atmarupananda, and Dr. Ed Bastian. Please stay tuned for more information on these courses and classes.

InterSpiritual Meditation classes and retreats on will be offered this year at La Casa de Maria in Santa Barbara, the Esalen Institute, the IONs Conference in San Francisco, Spirituality and Practice, and other locations. Click here for more information on these.

Below is a general description of our e-course on InterSpiritual Wisdom that will also be available on this site later this year.

InterSpiritual Meditation

Course Overview

The practice of contemplation and meditation create tranquility, focus, wisdom, compassion, happiness, health, and effective service in the world. Over the millennia the world's spiritual traditions have created and preserved an amazing variety of practices that are our contemplative heritage. Properly practiced in concert with each other, they can become the eternal 'renewable resources' for global peace, equality, and prosperity.

Countless numbers of people, just like you and me, have attempted to develop and sustain a meditation practice. Our individual practices reflect the gamut of the world’s spiritual heritage. Often, our personal meditation practices come from a different religion than the one we chose or were born into and we must proceed alone without the support of our given communities. Yet to maintain our practice, we need mutually supportive contemplative communities to help nourish, support, and strengthen us - - communities that also reflect the vibrant spiritual diversity of our times.

InterSpiritual Meditation is a universal process drawn from the world’s spiritual traditions. It helps individuals to cultivate inner peace, wisdom, and compassion. Its seven-step process enables people of different spiritual practices to create engaged contemplative communities based on empathy, understanding, shared contemplative intentions, and compassionate service for the common good. InterSpiritual Meditation is the next step in the evolution of InterSpiritual Wisdom and a foundation stone for peace among peoples of all religions.

Amidst the world’s variety of religious and scientific beliefs, contemplatives often share a common intention: to be engaged in the world based on an inner foundation of equanimity, wisdom, and compassion. From the 'inside-out,' we are trying to become the peaceful and positive change that we would like to see manifest in the world around us. This is the calling of our times.

The Purposes of InterSpiritual Meditation

1. to help each of us to develop and sustain a comprehensive, satisfying, and sustainable process of meditation.

2. to help us co-create contemplative communities for people of diverse faiths and meditative practices. InterSpiritual Meditation is designed to provide a process around which meditators of diverse practices can build community.

3. to model a profound process for people of various religious traditions, and those without a tradition, to join together to create peace and to solve the critical challenges of our times.

Course Elements:

• Weekly sessions to explore each of the seven steps and to support our individual contemplative practices and spiritual aspirations.

• Online materials and discussions to expand our understanding and deepen our practices.

• Individual journaling to discern, refine, and sustain our respective practices.

• Deep dialog between teachers and participants