InterSpiritual
Mandala Course
Create Your Spiritual Practice and Path by
Harnessing Your Spiritual Styles
to Find Answers to your Spiritual Questions
8 Weekly Sessions Beginning Wednesday, April 5, 2023, 4 – 5:30 pm Pacific
The InterSpiritual Mandala Overview
The InterSpiritual Mandala offers a universal, non-sectarian, and
holistic process for developing a personal spiritual path from one
or more spiritual and secular traditions. It outlines a life-long
journey of spiritual inquiry, insight and integration wherein we are
empowered to fully engage the challenges of the world from the
inside out. The Mandala contains twelve families of spiritual styles,
questions and traditions. By systematically moving through these,
we gradually can discern valid teachers and resources that will
help us define our own spiritual paths.
Explore the Mandala
Click on the words in the Mandala to learn about each of the 12 Styles, Questions & Sources.
- Arts
- Body
- Devotion
- Imagination
- Love
- Meditation
- Mystic
- Nature
- Prayer
- Reason
- Relationships
- Wisdom
- Consciousness
- Death
- Existence
- Freedom
- God
- Good & Evil
- Happiness
- Reality
- Soul
- Spirit Beings
- Suffering
- Transformation
- Buddhism
- Christianity
- General
- Hinduism
- Indigenous
- Islam
- Judaism
- Mythology
- Philosophy
- Psychology
- Science
- Taoism
InterSpiritual Mandala
8-Session Mandala Course Membership Includes
- 8 sessions for both live synchronous interaction and asynchronous independent study.
- Live & recorded meditations.
- Instructional video clips from Ed Bastian and teachers from various traditions.
- Journaling tool for each student.
- Profile tools for harnessing your personal styles and questions.
- Discussion forums for course members.
- Custom search engine for
resources from various teachers
and traditions. - Guided audio meditations.
- Discussion forums to connect with an interspiritual community.
- A mobile-ready platform for easy use on your tablet or phone.
- Regular community meditations and discussions.
- Optional support from mentors and facilitators.
- Perpetual member access to this
course.
How the Mandala Course Works
Your Personal Spiritual Styles Profile Tool
We begin by discovering and harnessing our internal archetypal styles. These are the internal lenses through which we perceive, process and interpret spiritual information and practice. The Spiritual Styles Profile Tool helps us to discover, honor, harness and harmonize our 12 styles. By gradually activating all our styles, we can fulfill our highest human potential.
The Way of the Arts
The Way of the Body
The Way of Devotion
The Way of Imagination
The Way of Love
The Way of Meditation
The Way of the Mystic
The Way of Nature
The Way of Prayer
The Way of Reason
The Way of Relationship
The Way of Wisdom
Your Spiritual Questions Profile Tool
The Spiritual Questions Profile Tool is designed to help re-awaken our natural curiosity about life’s big spiritual questions. We engage with an intention to energize our journey of discovery by exploring perspectives from profound spiritual and secular sources that will give our live meaning and purpose.
- Consciousness – Is it confined to my body?
- Death – What happens when I die?
- Existence – What is the source of my being?
- Freedom – How can I be truly free?
- God – What is God? How do I define God?
- Good and Evil – What is their source?
- Happiness – How can I be truly happy?
- Reality – Is the world I perceive real?
- Soul – Do I have a permanent soul?
- Spirit Beings – Are there spirit beings?
- Suffering – What is the cause of my suffering?
- Transformation – How can I be transformed into my highest potential?
Find Your Answers
Then, our Custom Search Tool helps us to find our answers f rom
authentic sources. These sources include spirituality, science,
philosophy, psychology and mythology. The 12 Families of Sources are listed in the inner circle of the Mandala. These are:
- Buddhism
- Christianity
- Hinduism
- Islam
- Judaism
- Taoism
- Indigenous
- General (Authentic Spiritual & Secular Sources)
- Mythology
- Psychology
- Philosophy
- Science
Mandala Course Syllabus
Week 1:
Course
Introduction
Week 2:
Styles:
Arts & Body
Questions:
Consciousness & Death
Week 3:
Styles:
Contemplation & Devotion
Questions:
Existence & Freedom
Week 4:
Styles:
Imagination & Love
Questions:
God & Good and Evil
Week 5:
Styles:
Mystic & Nature
Questions:
Happiness & Reality
Week 6:
Styles:
Prayer & Reason
Questions:
Soul & Spirit Beings
Week 7:
Styles:
Relationships & Wisdom
Questions:
Suffering & Transformation
Week 8:
Course Review & Presentations
The Instructors
Each class will be led and moderated by Matt Whitney with the support of Ed Bastian and other trained Mentors and Facilitators who will share their perspectives and experiences working with the InterSpiritual Mandala.
Matt Whitney
Matthew Whitney is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and pedestrian. He lives and works in Seattle, Washington, and enjoys going for walks with his family.
He is the Creative Director for Spiritual Directors International, a learning community for people who provide spiritual care, engage in the vocation of spiritual direction, and for all who seek to connect with spiritual companionship and deep listening. Matt provides oversight on visual communications, art and illustration, and is host of the weekly podcast
SDI Encounters which engages in conversations around spiritual direction, contemplative practice, and spiritual care.
Matt is a Certified ISM Facilitator and is completing an 18 month training to become a spiritual guide
through the Spiritual Guidance Training Institute, an interspiritual program sourced in the Perennial
Tradition, which explores, recognizes, and celebrates the deep mystery and wisdom that arises out of all the
world’s mature spiritual traditions. He has taught art courses at Seattle Pacific University, Seattle Central
College, and Northwest University.
Ed Bastian, PhD, Founder
InterSpiritual Meditation courses were created by Dr. Ed Bastian and co-led with a team of certified InterSpiritual Mentors. He holds a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies and is the founder and president of Spiritual Paths Foundation. He formulated the 7-step interspiritual meditative process based on his work with over 40 teachers of meditation from the world’s great spiritual and secular traditions. This process is designed to help meditators of all levels to engage in a holistic, integrated, and systematic InterSpiritual Process to find their path, their practices and their answers to their deepest questions. He developed this process through his fifty years of research, study, and teaching, especially during the past twenty years, with over fifty esteemed teachers from Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, and Native American traditions. He is the award winning co-author of Living Fully Dying Well, author of InterSpiritual Meditation, author of Mandala – Creating an Authentic Spiritual Path, contributor to Meditations for InterSpiritual Practice, and producer of documentaries on religion for the BBC and PBS. He is the former co-director of the Forum on BioDiversity for the Smithsonian and National Academy of Sciences, teacher of Buddhism and world religions at the Smithsonian, an internet entrepreneur, and translator of Buddhism scriptures from Tibetan into English. He is also a faculty member of Antioch University in Santa Barbara where he teaches courses on Buddhism, Mindfulness Meditation and religion. He has led dozens of retreats and programs at such organizations as the Parliament of World’s Religions, the Chaplaincy Institute, One Spirit Interfaith, CIIS, Omega, Esalen, Hollyhock, La Casa de Maria, Garrison Institute, the Aspen Chapel and the Aspen Institute.
What spiritual leaders say about our programs
Father Thomas Keating Founder, Centering Prayer
Spiritual Paths is an
excellent program that grew out of the
Snowmass Inter-religious Conference at St. Benedict’s Monastery. As inter-religious dialogue continues to deepen and spread, experienced spiritual practitioners, with some capacity for scholarship, need to suggest what works best for spiritual growth. This is the thrust of the Spiritual Paths conferences and educational activities.
Rabbi Zalman Schachter Founder, Jewish Renewal
Spiritual Paths brings
together the wisdom of
authentic teachers from
the worlds spiritual
traditions, provides an
excellent curriculum
based on those traditions, and leads us toward a new paradigm of InterSpiritual education and practice.
Imam Feisal Abdul-rauf Founder, American Sufi Muslim Association
I am particularly excited
by this initiative of
Edward Bastian and the
Spiritual Paths
Foundation. It as a sea
change in the evolution
of what we used to call
the ecumenical activity. I see us coming into the
next phase of
inter-religious dialogue,
to introduce one another to the inner experience of each others faith traditions. For when we do, we shall come to the
realization that the end is One. In a sense, the
previous intellectual
phase of inter-religious
dialogue was like reading cookbooks on French food, or Indian food what Spiritual Paths is suggesting we do now, is to taste and sample it!
Carol Pearson Past President, Pacifica Graduate University
Dr. Bastian has done for
spirituality what I’ve
worked to do with
archetypes, developing a system through which
anyone–religious or
not–can identify his or
her own natural mode of assessing spiritual truth. Dr. Bastian’s work is a great and important
breakthrough, as so many believe they are not spiritual because they do not follow a particular dogma or because the tradition in which they were raised does not fit for them. His work also can be of assistance to
those within any spiritual tradition to expand their
horizons and to promote
respectful interfaith
dialogue.
Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault Author & Teacher
