At the invitation of DIM, may a Christian who is not a monk be allowed to put forward some thoughts based on a double experience of meeting other religious and spiritual traditions? Taking place particularly in the field of Hinduism and Buddhism, this meeting developed, in the course of years, along two lines: on the one hand, study and teaching, according to the methods of what is called “history of religions” or “comparative study of religions” on the other hand, the area of dialogue, as much within as between religions. Thus it is concerned with a twofold relationship—or with two sides of the same relationship—where greater attention is given sometimes to traditions (without ignoring the people who live them), sometimes to people (encountered in their tradition).

Study, which one hopes to make as scientific and “objective” as possible, is really a kind of ascesis whose components are modesty, patience and restraint. A kind of suspension or emptying, some say. A first way of “letting go” and detachment. Certainly, the initiative and the personality of the historian of religions will—in fact, should—have some bearing on the collection, organisation and interpretation of the available “facts”. But, to some extent, at least, he has no control over them. The historian of religions keeps to “facts” he cannot go beyond or tamper with the data he has collected. He cannot express himself in the first person, as can a believer or a theologian. On the contrary the latter are not “simple” observers but active witnesses; they are interested parties. They speak, interpret, are personally engaged, and, to a certain degree, engage their own tradition … even if they see themselves criticized or disowned by other believers, members of their own community.

Beyond objective study or comparison, there will be true dialogue and authentic meeting when two or more believers focus their attention on each other’s traditions, but in an attitude of mutual hospitality, availability and “docility”: each is ready to be instructed, to let himself be affected by what the other lets him discover. Then the partners embark upon a complex process whose outcome is all the more difficult to foresee because the interaction does not remain purely individual. To some degree these interactions affect, in the short term or the long, the communities and the traditions themselves. The participants, in fact, are involved at one and the same time as “I” and “we”. This “we” first of all means the tradition and the community of each participant. This does not exclude another “we”, a broader one, from gradually appearing, uniting the different dialogue partners and, through them, their respective communities, to the extent that they are led to recognize the common values or purposes that they feel in a position to share or at least to bring closer together.

In this meeting and interaction, it is essential that each should desire not only to respect the other, but also truly to understand that person. This is not always to assume learned, profound studies. The place of study varies in function according to the identity of the participants and the group’s objectives. However, certain kinds of meetings and exchanges make it possible—perhaps because of an overbearing need—to deepen knowledge of the traditions involved. Here the participants have recourse to the resources proper to scientific study and comparative religion: documentation, method, working hypotheses, provisional conclusions.

These resources bring with them greater fullness of documentation, greater analytical rigour, a certain capacity for detachment or objectivity. Such methods and resources can be put to use in the service of a project that is purely spiritual and theological, “theological” in the sense that each partner undertakes to cross over into the other’s territory—or rather is willing to be led to it through the words and viewpoint of the other—without ceasing, for all that, to be guided by the light cast by his or her own tradition.

From one kind of meeting to the other, in the to and fro of study and dialogue, dialogue and study, we enter into a complex game in which both players will experience moments of tension and moments of pulling back. This kind of relationship has its own autonomy, logic and coherence. Each too shows itself in practise incomplete, unable to be self-sufficient, unable to satisfy spirits and hearts. Whatever the diversity of professional situations and personal involvement, this tension—which one hopes will prove fruitful—inspires all those taking part in a true encounter. Indeed, the duty to be reserved demanded by study certainly does not make indifference or disengagement acceptable: it is, rather, a matter of becoming less involved with one’s self and thus more open to others. As to the urgency of an engagement in dialogue, with all its evolutions and changes, it never justifies any kind of desire for control over the other party: rather, it is concerned with entering into exchange with all that I am, allowing my partner to join in in the fullest manner possible.

This crossing, this “going forth into the depths”, leads both sides of the dialogue on journeys for which there are no maps, but with the conviction or confidence that the territories they will travel through will not be wholly strange to them. On the journey, each acquires—or realizes the gradual development of—a spiritual and theological reality that is new and yet familiar; each experiences both newness and continuity. Whatever may be our individual charismas, we must never separate the theological path and the spiritual journey. In this regard we need only follow the example given by several of the great pioneers in the band of interreligious explorers or ‘ferrymen’.

It is plain that this work of listening, exploring and mutual fertilization does not have for its objective the achievement of a completely shared language, still less of entirely shared positions. Anything shown to be held in common, or at least convergent, will have been purified by fire; anything that appears different and perhaps divergent, even incompatible, will thus stand out with all the greater force and truth because critical study and rigorous exchange will have removed superficial prejudices and surmountable disagreements, allowing light to be shed on areas of real difference. It is then with these differences—and even because of these differences—that one must learn to live together, to travel and to think. Experience teaches that there is no conversation except between different people (and traditions) who underline their differences—“underline” does not mean “exacerbate”. From the gratitude we feel for the differences we have offered one another there then arises a question: Can it be that we were sent to one another?