The Way of the Hermit ─ Interfaith Encounters in Silence and Prayer

Noting the many instances when a religious hermit's search for solitude and meditation attracts pilgrims seeking prayers, encouragement, and spiritual affirmation, Aguilar explores how the hermit's solitude and search for spiritual and self-development brings unto it encounter with others and with others' experience of the Absolute. He discusses experiencing contemplation and interfaith dialogue; hermits in Christianity and Hinduism; ordering time, space, and meditation together; interfaith encounters and silence; creating liturgies for the Absolute; reading texts: Upanishads and Bodhisattvas; and the silence of death. Annotation ©2017 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

Mario I. Aguilar is Professor of Religion & Politics and Director of the Centre for the Study of Religion & Politics at the University of St Andrews. He is also a poet, an eremitic Camaldolese Benedictine Oblate, and has published widely in his interests in the theology of contemplation, the history of religion and issues of interfaith dialogue.