Diana L. Eck: My first intellectual challenge was to try to understand...

My whole worldview has changed because of the work that I do. Specifically, the way in which I appropriate my own faith as a Christian, and the way in which I think about the faith and life of others who are very different than myself. That mutuality of regard is how we deal with difference and diversity in the world.

Diana L. Eck

differences christian thinking

We tend to gravitate towards our tribes; the challenge is to understand the people of other tribes.

Diana L. Eck

tribes challenges people

Places where one can experience some of that separation from the world of the familiar, to defamiliarize ourselves with what we take for granted and enter into the ebb and flow of another culture, it certainly is one of the more valuable things that we do as human beings.

Diana L. Eck

ebb-and-flow culture world

I will say that the power of being a stranger in someone else's religious community has its own lessons, really. It is something like the power of visiting another very happy extended family and being at their table.

Diana L. Eck

lessons community religious

People get tired of talking about American exceptionalism, but I think this is an extraordinary thing about the United States, that we are a nation of immigrants, first of all, that is built upon a pluralistic society of native people that were here to begin with. The issue of diversity is really with us from the beginning.

Diana L. Eck

tired talking thinking

India is a culture in which religious life and spirituality is very much on the surface of things. That doesn't mean it doesn't have depth, but it is very visible. There are lots of temples, lots of Islamic centers, lots of gurdwaras, and lots of teachers.

Diana L. Eck

islamic religious teacher

Those are big challenges in our age, not just how we live as co-citizens in societies with people of different faiths and different cultures - I mean, that's a big challenge itself - but how we think about all that as Christians, or as Jews, or as Muslims, or as Hindus. How do we think about the religious other? There's a theological dimension as well as a civic dimension to our pluralism.

Diana L. Eck

religious christian mean

Pluralism isn't just diversity; it's something we create out of this diversity.

Diana L. Eck

pluralism diversity

I do think that the U.S. has an opportunity as a democracy to really exemplify what a religiously diverse society can be when it embraces the pluralism.

Diana L. Eck

diverse-society opportunity thinking

There are two great things that we need to find in life: one is love, probably the most important, and the second is work, and they compete with one another from time to time.

Diana L. Eck

important two needs

I guess one of the things that is an advantage of the world in which we live is that I can at least I can have multiple homes. I can have that attachment to Montana and to Cambridge and to India.

Diana L. Eck

india attachment home

The idea of going on a spiritual journey is really part of the DNA of India itself.

Diana L. Eck

dna journey spiritual

The journey to sacred places is the most common way that people travel in India. They are always going on pilgrimages to sacred places. They are always undertaking spiritual journeys to visit the great shrines in the Himalayan tier of pilgrimage places; these places are called tirthas, a word that means "crossing place," a place where you can cross the river to the far shore but also cross over into another dimension of life. Cross over to heaven, in one sense it's used.

Diana L. Eck

journey spiritual mean

When immigrants come, the freedom to practice their faith is a guarantee. They may have trouble with their neighbors, but freedom of religion is part of the blueprint for America, and that is the recipe for the religious diversity that we have today.

Diana L. Eck

religious practice america

We are built on a structure of the freedom of religion and the non-establishment of religion. That really is a pretty sturdy rudder for the U.S.

Diana L. Eck

freedom-of-religion rudders structure

I grew up going around with family, camping and living in a very beautiful mountain valley, knowing the names of the mountains and the rivers. I think it's no accident that I ended up studying the geography of India and knowing the names of the mountains and the rivers and all of that. I loved it. I think it gives a sense of space and a can-do-ness that was very powerful.

Diana L. Eck

powerful beautiful thinking

That is the strength of having a trusting and ongoing relationship that draws on our history and moves right on into our present, and I have that kind of marriage.

Diana L. Eck

ongoing kind moving

Be prepared for changes.

Diana L. Eck

be-prepared prepared

The practice of leaving settled society to undertake a spiritual journey, or a spiritual life really, is something that is much more common in India. Common especially to a certain phase of life, to the end of life. But not so unusual for younger people as well.

Diana L. Eck

journey practice spiritual

India is simply dotted with pilgrimage places, and with teachers and very powerful spiritual guides.

Diana L. Eck

powerful spiritual teacher

My first intellectual challenge was to try to understand this incredible city of Banaras (also called Varanasi) in India and its meaning for Hindus. That was the place I lived for the first year I was in India and I've been back many times. It's a kind of home to me.