{"id":2375,"date":"2025-05-08T10:01:56","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T10:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/raimon-panikkar.org\/?page_id=2375"},"modified":"2025-12-16T14:54:53","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T14:54:53","slug":"glossary-invisible-harmony","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/raimon-panikkar.org\/?page_id=2375","title":{"rendered":"GLOSSARY – Invisible harmony"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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INVISIBLE HARMONY<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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“The inner harmony I am referring to is manifested in the spontaneous and creative way in which we may be able to deal with one particular religion because we are really at home there and able to simplify, to relate disparate things, or put practices together. … When dealing with a religion at that level we should speak ex abundantia<\/em>\u00a0cordis et ment<\/em>i, more than from a catalogue of propositions. .. Any authentic religious dialogue dispels misunderstandings from both sides and calls for rectifications and new interpretations.\u201d (Invisible Harmony, Essays on Contemplation Responsibility<\/em>, Minneapolis 1995).<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>

The\u00a0invisible harmony<\/strong><\/em> is the harmony that ought to exist among all religions and cultures, the same harmony that exists in all of reality. Panikkar\u2019s thought with regard to the relationship between the distinct religions of the world is the opposite of elaborating a universal theory of religion based on an attempt to reach an intellectual and global understanding of all religions (an equalizing ecumenism, a comparative religion, or an \u201cecumenical Esperanto\u201d). For RP, it is rather a matter of discovering the \u201cinvisible harmony\u201d of all religions and cultures, of all reality. The search for a \u201cuniversal theory\u201d fosters dialogue, but runs the risk of imposing its own language, and \u201cthe supremacy of the logos<\/em> over pneuma<\/em>\u201d, or reason, the power of the word, over the spirit (Invisible Harmony<\/em>).
As opposed to this, we must open ourselves to others and believe in, have faith in human experience as a whole, in the\u00a0harmony of human beings and of the cosmos.<\/em> Especially so in the religious phenomenon, because if religion has led to the greatest catastrophes and made manifest the most base human passions, so too \u201chave the most sublime human experiences taken place there\u201d, and religion has, more than anything else, revealed \u201ca certain totality\u201d; \u201creligion is the symphony<\/em>, not merely the musician\u201d.
It is what RP calls the \u201cpars pro toto\u201d<\/em> effect: each of us can be conscious of the all, but from a particular perspective. The all is always appealing (and healthful, adds Panikkar) to us, and \u201csomething is complete when it has an inner harmony\u201d; the all suggests knowledge, but also beauty and goodness.<\/p>

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INVISIBLE HARMONY “The inner harmony I am referring to is manifested in the spontaneous and creative way in which we may be able to deal with one particular religion because we are really at home there and able to simplify, to relate disparate things, or put practices together. … When dealing with a religion at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"elementor_header_footer","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2375","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/raimon-panikkar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/raimon-panikkar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/raimon-panikkar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raimon-panikkar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raimon-panikkar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2375"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/raimon-panikkar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5254,"href":"https:\/\/raimon-panikkar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2375\/revisions\/5254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/raimon-panikkar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}