 Early photo of Brother Wayne with H. H. the Dalai Lama
Bro. Wayne
Website Section See the extensive
section of the Multiplex about Brother Wayne's work, vision, publi- cations and other
contribu- tions. You can reach this section by clicking on the "Bro. Wayne" link on all the major pages and homepage of the
Multiplex or going directly to: http://www.isdna.org/wayne.php
2002 meeting with spiritual teachers at
Omega Institute to discuss ISD Vision
2004 ISD program at the Parliament of the
World's Religions, Barcelona
 
Gorakh Hayashi and Kurt Johnson, speakers at
the 2005 Wayne Tribute Event and authors of ISD foundational documents and remembrances of
Wayne
 
Fr. Thomas Keating at ISDnA's 2005
"Common Ground" Conference hosted by The Crossings, Austin; Russill Paul, long
time friend of Bro. Wayne from the days with Fr. Bede Griffiths. Read his eulogy to
Bro. Wayne at:
www.isdna.org/eulogy.php
Regular "Circles" for Meditation
and Deep Dialogue, working with OneVoice in New York City
2009 participation in Aspen
"Spiritual Summit" and founding of Contemplative Alliance ("going
home" airport photo by Kurt Johnson of Rabbi Rami Shapiro [Spiritual Pathways],
Sraddhalu Ranade [Sri Aurobindo Ashram] and Diane Berke [One Spirit Interfaith Seminary])
Brother Wayne and Fr. Bede Griffiths
together in India. Bro. Wayne's last book was Bede Griffiths: an
Introduction to his Interspiritual Thought
Dr. Kurt
Johnson reading "Words of Bro. Wayne" at UOS Founding; left, Rev. Jean Leone,
Secretary-General of Order of Universal Interfaith
Sannyasa Transmission
Ceremony, Kurt Johnson and Dorothy Cunha, two original ISD Founders
Sannyasa Benediction by Rev.
Dr. Thomas Downes, a Founder of ISD |
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InterSpiritual Dialogue 'n Action (ISDnA) is your host at the
InterSpiritual Multiplex
Given the degree of growth and accomplishment by
ISDnA over the years, especially with the develop- ment of the Wayne-based education
curriculum at One Spirit in New York (see One Spirit at the New
York "hub" of the Multiplex), the founding this year of the InterSpiritual
Multiplex and the Universal Order of Sannyasa (described on pp. 248-250 of The Mystic
Heart), it becomes even more important to understand the generation of the network
and its connection to Bro. Wayne's InterSpiritual vision.
Founding of ISD with
Brother Wayne. ISDnA traces back to 2002 when Bro. Wayne was looking
for a way to found what he called "the Association", an international group
promulgating InterSpirituality that he envisioned in his classic book The Mystic
Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World's Religions
(1999). After reading the book, a number of the founders of ISDnA had contacted
Wayne because of our identification with his vision. Eight of these persons remain
part of ISDnA to this day: Kurt Johnson, Martha Gallahue, Michael Stone, Dorothy
Cunha, Lisa Lerner, Matt Mitler, Tom Downes and Robert Trabolt. Bro. Wayne replied
that he would be coming to New York in July of that year to speak at East/West Books and
he could speak with us then.
Several of us spoke with him that evening and
Kurt Johnson, who has handled the correspondence with him, then went out to dinner with
him, and a group of others, for a longer discussion. Bro. Wayne was impressed with
the idea that an ideal template for forming his association was the UN NGO community, with
which many of us were already associated, especially through the Spiritual Caucus and
Values caucuses-- what today are also recognized with the UN NGO Committee on
Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns. Soon after, some of us went to the
Spiritual Caucus and explained the vision (see our UN NGO colleagues at the UN NGO Multiplex page, especially the National Service Conference
which was our original sponsor there). We were informed that UN rules required that
we incorporate. So, we made "InterSpiritual Dialogue" (ISD), a religious
corporation. The law required three original incorporators all from the same county;
that included Kurt Johnson, Martha Gallahue and Tom Downes. Using the spelling of
the word that Bro. Wayne most preferred, capitalizing the S within the word we, with Bro.
Wayne as our "Founding Counselor", began.
The first activity of ISD, at the suggestion of
Brother Wayne, was to prepare a program on InterSpiritu- ality for the 2004 Parliament of
the World's Religions, a program which not only had the advantage of Bro. Wayne as
"lead" but our accompanyment by a sacred arts performing group, Dzieci (see Recommended in New York). Wayne began visiting us at least
twice a year from that time on. And, during that time we had a number of discussions
with spiritual teachers of many traditions (like the one shown at the left at Omega
Institute including Kurt Johnson, Sufi leader Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Advaita teachers
Pamela Wilson, Neelam and Annette Knopp, and the founders of Kalliopeia Foundation) about
the unfolding of interspiritual work. We began our first extensive website, which
was then at www.isdac.com, later replaced by the larger
website of ISDnA.
Kosmos: Tension in Barcelona:Parliament of World’s Religions 2004
By The Service Council of InterSpiritual Dialogue
View now
Bro. Wayne's Transition.
Because of the recurrence of Bro. Wayne's cancer, he was unable to join ISD at the
Parliament of the World's Religions (Barcelona). However, one artifact of ISD's
well-attended gathering on InterSpiritiuality (see photos at the upper left) was that
persons working with Wayne from a number of cities got to meet each other, including Drs.
Gorakh Hayashi and Kurt Johnson who would later go on to produce much of the foundational
documentation for the group (see where their articles are available at the Explore Features and Learn Pages and at InterSpirituality).
It took months for friends of Bro. Wayne to
adjust to the reality of his transition in 2004. Many but not all were able to
attend the final ceremonies for him in Chicago, where his old friend from the days with
Fr. Bede in India, Russill Paul (see photo left) delivered the eulogy (read it at link
with photo). But coop- eration again by the new year of 2005 allowed his
circle of friends to assemble again, this time at The Crossings retreat center in Austin,
Texas for a "tribute" to and remembrance of Bro. Wayne. This gathering,
including friends and care givers of Bro. Wayne, associates and friends like Fr. Thomas
Keating, Joan Borysenko, Betty Sue Flowers, Shaman Oscar Miro-Quesada, Joyce and Ken Beck
(founders of The Crossings, and members of their board and advisers Charles Ragland and
Dr. Adam Blatner), Gorakh Hayashi and many of the New York founders of ISD.
See The Crossings, Russill Paul and others at the Multiplex's Austin hub page.
Expansion to ISDnA.
On the Sunday of that gathering, this wider group decided to form up an
international network to replace ISD, and this became ISDnA, coined actualy around the DNA
acronym by Oscar Miro-Quesada. Aaron Froehlich, a talented web builder, then
volunteered to prepare the www.isdna.org website which
is now the host of the Multiplex, along with another entity, Broadband Contemplative
Alliances Network, which was a web name ISD took out prior to its programs at the World
Parliament, anticipating further expansion. The ongoing organizer group of ISDnA was
Ken and Joyce Beck, Gorakh Hayashi, Kurt Johnson, Charles Ragland, Adam Blatner, Deanne
Quarrie and Luca Valentino (whose photos are available here: http://www.isdna.org/organizers.php).
A video of the 2005 Tribute Event at The
Crossings is on YouTube at:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_gmNQqRv_M
Establishment of the
Education Curriculum with One Spirit. Within two years of the tribute event,
and with the beginning of some writing on Bro. Waynes vision in the months after his
transition (see Explore Features, Learn
Pages and InterSpirituality) One Spirit
Interfaith Seminary and Learning Alliance, who had already been using the works of Brother
Wayne in their curriculum, joined with ISDnA. One Spirit's founders Diane Berke and
Michael Pergola worked with ISD to consolidate a program in Integral Multifaith and
Consciousness Studies, bringing in the larger transformational map of Ken Wilber and Don
Beck's work and direct dharma teaching through Loch Kelly (an associate of Adyashanti) and
Kurt Johnson. Ten members of ISDnA were also among the founders of New York's
vibrant wider coalition of spiritual and transforma- tional groups called The Coalition
for OneVoice. See OneVoice, Loch Kelly and others at the Mutliplex's New York hub page).
The Future.
This year, 2010, finds the network establishing the InterSpiritual Multiplex and the
Universal Order of Sannyasa (now known as the Community of The Mystic Heart), the latter
in cooperation with another vibrant interspiritual group the Order of Universal Interfaith
and its emerging World Council of Interfaith Congregations, founded by Rev. Tim Miner and
associates (see OUNI and WCIC at the World hub of the
Multiplex). See also the Sannyasa and Bro.
Wayne pages at the Multiplex.
Important Links.
See, at the Multiplex these pages:
Bro.
Wayne (most extensive Bro. Wayne materials on the web)
World
hub (for Order of Universal Interfaith, Council of Interfaith Congregations
USA, and World Council of Interfaith Congregations)
Sannyasa
(for the Universal Order of Sannyasa, now known as the Community of The Mystic Heart)
Interspirituality
(for foundational articles by Hayashi and Johnson) and comments and remembrances about
Bro. Wayne by Johnson and Hayashi HERE (Johnson),
HERE (Johnson) and HERE (Hayashi).
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