InterSpiritual Meditation

What is Interspiritual Meditation?

InterSpiritual Meditation (ISM) is a seven-step universal process drawn from the world’s spiritual traditions. It will help you to harness your own natural spiritual styles to create a personal contemplative practice that gives rise to inner peace, wisdom, and compassion by drawing on the contemplative wisdom of one or more spiritual traditions. It enables people of diverse spiritual and non-spiritual backgrounds to create engaged contemplative communities based on empathy, understanding, shared intentions and compassionate service for the common good.

What is the background of ISM?

ISM was developed by Spiritual Paths’ founder Dr. Ed Bastian in close contemplative collaboration with colleagues from Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Taoist, and Native American traditions. It can be practiced alone and in community with others. It pulls together key elements of contemplation and meditation shared by many traditions. In this process, we gather in the language of silence and experience inter-connectedness. Joining in stillness, we don’t impose on others our own personal beliefs, rituals, or the names of our absolute truths, deities, or God. We honor and celebrate the wise and compassionate practices of all traditions. We discover a profound unity within our diversity. We flourish in the love, peace, compassion, gratitude, and the strength of our shared wisdom. We are of one heart. Quietly, each in our own way, we join in the following seven stages together. The sound of a bell leads us from one stage to the next.

Seven Steps and Goals of ISM:

Seven steps of ISM: 1. May We be Healthy and Happy 2. May We be Grateful 3. May We be Transformed 4. May We be Loving and Compassionate 5. May We become Mindful through our Breathing 6. May We become Wise through our Meditation 7. May We be in Service to All Beings Goals of practicing ISM: 1) Cultivate and refine our personal contemplative practice. 2) Create a contemplative practice drawn either from a single tradition or from diverse secular and spiritual traditions. 3) Develop a practice that resonates with our personal spiritual style. 4) Build a mutually supportive learning and contemplative community. 5) Integrate our contemplative practice into our relationships, professions and service. 6) Work towards becoming certified InterSpiritual Mentor.

Who would benefit from learning ISM?

ISM is really for anyone that is interested in developing a quality meditation practice. It also provides clergy, psychologists, healthcare professionals, and spiritual directors with non-sectarian methods and resources to help those who are Spiritually Independent or Spiritual but not Religious (SBNR) to create their own spiritual and/or contemplative practice drawn from one or more wisdom traditions.

ISM Overview