`THE SNOWMASS AGREEMENTS
In 1984 Thomas Keating invited a small group of contemplatives from eight different religious traditions - Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Islamic, Native American, Orthodox, Protestant and Roman Catholic – to come together at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado, to engage in what he called “a big experiment.” What would happen when meditators from different traditions meditated together and shared their spiritual insights? Within a few days it became clear to attendees that while their religious vocabularies were different, their experiences were not. During the first few years of the Snowmass Conference, a series of agreements arose among the attendees. Fr. Thomas compiled the first eight:
1. The world religions bear witness to the experience of Ultimate Reality, to which they give various names.
2. Ultimate reality cannot be limited by any name or concept.
3. Ultimate Reality is the ground of infinite potentiality and actualization.
4. Faith is opening, accepting and responding to Ultimate Reality. Faith in this sense precedes every belief system.
5. The potential for human wholeness - or, in other frames of reference, enlightenment, salvation, transcendence, transformation, blessedness - is present in every human being.
6. Ultimate Reality may be experienced not only through religious practices but also through nature, art, human relationships, and service to others.
7. As long as the human condition is experienced as separate from Ultimate Reality, it is subject to ignorance and illusion, weakness and suffering.
8. Disciplined practice is essential to spiritual life; yet spiritual attainment is not the result of one's own efforts, but the result of the experience of oneness with Ultimate Reality.
Thomas Keating observes: “Those who seek Ultimate Reality perceive themselves as citizens of the Earth. Their first loyalty is to the entire human family. They transcend the particularities of race, nationality and religion without reacting against them or trying to destroy them. They recognize the profound human values that the world religions enshrine. They work to preserve and enhance these values, but not at the cost of dividing the fundamental unity of the human family. They belong to an emerging global community.”