“Panikkar proves himself to be one of the most creative contributors to the growing literature on religious dialogue.”
— Library Journal
Most human encounters, writes Raimon Panikkar, are either objective or subjective. They are rational dialogues, where people meet on the supposedly neutral ground of doctrines or opinions, or they are sentimental dialogues, which occur on terrains of sympathy or antipathy. Neither is sufficient for full human realization. The deepest encounters belong to our innermost constitution and touch ultimate questions of the meaning of life. Here people acknowledge fundamental connections. Here, as well, they realize uniqueness. This is the place of the intrareligious dialogue, when human encounter takes hold of our entire person—as opposed to interreligious dialogue, which stays on the level of rational or emotional discourse.
This book is a classic contribution to the encounter of religious traditions at the deepest and most personal level. It takes dialogue beyond credal statements to the realm of lived faith, where religious encounter is truly religious and where participants overcome the temptation to defend themselves. The author views the major religious traditions-but especially Christianity. Buddhism and Hinduism-as responses to the human predicament. Their encounter is a confession that the human enterprise is not finished but still in the process of becoming.
This revised and expanded volume of The Intrareligious Dialogue incorporates four new chapters into the classic 1983 edition.