Diana L. Eck

In the summer of 1965, as young Americans everywhere struggled to come to terms with the war in Vietnam and the crises of the civil rights movement, Diana Eck was a college student learning Hindi in preparation for her first visit to India. It was a trip that would change her life, bringing her into relationships with non-Christians such as the former freedom fighter Achyut Patwardhan and the philosopher Krishnamurti, whose insights challenged her to examine her own Christian faith from a radically new perspective. Now in the 1990s the challenge of responding to the problem of religious difference is virtually universal. Is only one religion true? Is there a way ahead in a world of interreligious strife? Today most Americans have encountered religions not their own: a neighbor practices Buddhist meditation, one's child has a Muslim classmate, or a friend extends an invitation to a Christmas Eve service or a Passover seder. In Encountering God, Eck reflects on the questions posed by her own ongoing encounter with Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims. Her vivid story reminds us that interfaith dialogue "does not usually begin with philosophy or theory, but with experience and relationships.". Eck considers the spiritual questions that perplex each of us, Hindu or Christian, devout or not: Who is God? How are we to pray? What are we to believe in the face of inexplicable suffering and death? Eck insists as a Christian that her relations with people of other faiths have helped her to think about these questions and deepened her own faith. Above all, Encountering God instructs us in the urgent need for dialogue among the world's faiths as we enter the twenty-first century. Eck believes understanding between Christians and people of other faiths is not only possible but essential to our common future. As we confront our growing interdependence in a global community, she argues that we must all reach beyond mere "tolerance" of other religions toward a genuine pluralism based on respect for religious differences and openness to mutual transformation.

Why Understanding America's Religious Landscape Is the Most Important Challenge Facing Us TodayThe 1990s saw the U.S. Navy commission its first Muslim chaplain and open its first mosque.There are presently more than three hundred temples in Los Angeles, home to the greatest variety of Buddhists in the world.There are more American Muslims than there are American Episcopalians, Jews, or Presbyterians.

"One of the oldest living cities in the world, Banaras is the holy place of the Hindus, as significant to them as Jerusalem is to Jews and Christians and Mecca is to Muslims. Referred to by Hindus as Kāshī (the Luminous), the city is visited by pilgrims from all over India, who come to bathe in the Ganges--many, indeed, to die on its sacred banks. Basing her work on Sanskrit texts and on her experience of the city itself, the author analyzes the art and architecture, geography, history, and anthropology of Banaras and describes its elaborate and thriving rituals, its myths and literature, and its continuing importance to religious seekers."--Book cover.

An overview of India emphasizing its cultural aspects.

"India" explores the sacred places of India, taking the reader on an extraordinary trip through the beliefs and history of this rich and profound place.

Papers presented at an international conference, 1983, organized by Harvard University.