The author reflects on a personal memory of Dean Samuel Miller, who emphasized that birth and death, two of the most profound human experiences, are becoming increasingly insulated from everyday life in the modern 20th century. Miller argued that these experiences have the potential to shape the character and quality of life but are instead falling victim to technological efficiency, contributing to dehumanization rather than counteracting it. The lecture explores these ideas in the context of human immortality.
Interfaith dialogue can be understood through the lens of mystical consciousness. The article argues that the Trinity can be directly experienced in interfaith contexts and proposes an interfaith framework that accounts for the possibilities, complexity, and challenges of such encounters. It applies Gavin Flood's three orders of discourse—traditions' experience and texts, interpretation within traditions, and academic inquiry—to the study of interfaith mysticism, using a phenomenological emphasis on hermeneutics. The inquiry draws on Hindu mystical figures (Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Aurobindo) and Christian interfaith thinkers (Henri Le Saux, Bede Griffiths, David Steindl-Rast), in conversation with Raimon Panikkar and Francis X. Clooney.