Beacons of Hope: Our Interreligious S/Heroes Beacons of Hope: Our Interreligious S/Heroes – Netanel Miles-Yépez

Each month, we honor an individual whose commitment aligns with the bridge-building efforts of the Miller Center. For August, we shine a light on artist, philosopher, and religion scholar Netanel Miles-Yépez, DD, current Pir of the Inayati-Maimuni lineage of Sufism, and chair of Religious Studies at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.

Please share with us about your own spirituality, and how it informs your academic and interspiritual leadership.

I was born into a philosophically and spiritually open Mexican-American family, but my Anglo father became an Evangelical Christian when I was a child, and so we became Christian early on. I was actually on the brink of entering a Christian seminary at 17 or 18, when I learned, in rather dramatic fashion, that my Mexican family members were ‘crypto-Jews,’ those Jews who had been forced to convert during the Inquisition and had kept their Jewish identity secret ever since. This, as you might imagine, significantly altered the course of my interests and led me to study the History of Religions in college; I wanted to understand the complex ways in which religion can shape our lives. But my longing to understand and connect to Judaism also remained strong, and eventually brought me to Boulder, Colorado, to study with Rabbi (or “Reb” — a less formal title) Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, the founder of the Jewish Renewal movement. He was then the World Wisdom Chair holder at the Naropa Institute (now Naropa University). I studied and worked closely with Reb Zalman for 16 years, focusing on ‘Deep Ecumenism’ (the phrase he adopted from his Christian colleague, Rev. Mathew Fox, for interreligious work), spiritual guidance, and Hasidism (about which we wrote many books together).

I mention all this background information to say that my spirituality is complex and might best be described as ‘interspiritual.’ At Naropa University, where I teach, it is desired that we be ‘scholar-practitioners’ of our traditions; thus, I teach a course on “Interspiritual Dialogue,’ discussing these issues of braided identity, and the complex relationships existing between religions today and how they might be navigated. Outside of the university, I have a foundation—Charis Foundation—which sponsors dialogues and interspiritual practice opportunities around the country.

What is the Keating-Schachter Center for Interspirituality and what is its relationship with Naropa University?

I founded the Keating-Schachter Center for Interspirituality at Naropa University in 2023 to create opportunities for university students and staff to meet and interact with genuine wisdom holders from the diversity of the world’s spiritual traditions. To this end, each semester, the Keating-Schachter Center sponsors a World Wisdom Teacher-in-Residence to meet with students and staff for small circle dialogues and to give public talks to the Boulder community. The Keating-Schachter Center also sponsors smaller community-focused “Wisdom Talks” throughout the school year, as well as multi-religious and interspiritual practice opportunities and resources at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, and at our affiliated retreat facility, Charis Mandala in Des Moines, New Mexico. Naropa University, where I am the Chair of Religious Studies, has been a wonderful partner in the work of the Keating-Schachter Center, providing offices, facilities, and event support.

What is “Interspirituality” and how does it guide the Keating-Schachter Center’s work?

As you have heard, my own spiritual identity is complex, which is why I am involved in the discourse around what is called ‘interspirituality’ today. One aspect of interspirituality is the recognition that our spiritual identities are often layered, i.e., being influenced (sometimes profoundly) by more than one spiritual tradition. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi talked about this as ‘hyphenated spirituality.’ Many of us today are ‘hyphenated,’ being ‘Bu-Jews’ (Buddhist Jews) or ‘Jewfis’ (Jewish Sufis), or a variety of other combinations of significant influence. For instance, I have a multiracial, multicultural, multireligious or spiritual heritage which complicates my identity, especially if I am asked to try to fit myself into the old colonially defined categories of ‘Caucasian,’ ‘Latino,’ ‘Christian,’ or ‘Jew.’ I am not any of these things exclusively, nor all of them without qualification. ‘Interspiritual’ is a convenient term (coined by Brother Wayne Teasdale) for those complex identities and the complex relationships that now exist between religious traditions on the planet.

Today, the Master of Divinity program at Naropa University is an interspiritual program, creating chaplains to serve people, whatever their spiritual identity. The Keating-Schachter Center (named after Father Thomas Keating and Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi) exists to hold the ideals of interspirituality and dialogue between religious traditions at Naropa University, supporting students and the wider community in accessing genuine wisdom from the world’s great teachers. We were honored to recently host Rabbi Or Rose to share his vision of Judaism and interreligious cooperation with our community, and to deepen ties between Naropa and Hebrew College. Or and I are working together on various projects on Reb Zalman’s life and work and engage in ongoing conversation about the work of the Miller and Keating-Schachter centers.

Please tell us about the Inayati-Maimuni lineage of Sufism and your relationship with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.

Well, the complexities continue! In 1998, as I already mentioned, I moved to Boulder, Colorado, to meet Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, a master of the Hasidic and Kabbalistic traditions of Judaism, founder of the Jewish Renewal movement, and a pioneer in interreligious dialogue. I was blessed to be taken under his wing and personally instructed by him for the next 16 years. Today, I am aware that I received an extremely rare gift, deep spiritual intimacy and apprenticeship (working and traveling with) a true master. In many ways, it was an older apprenticeship model in which I did what I was told and paid close attention to what was happening. We also wrote numerous books together. It was among the most significant relationships of my life.

Though I came to Reb Zalman to reconnect to Judaism and study Hasidism, as strange as it may seem, he also asked me to take initiation as a Sufi. He, it turned out (though it was not then well-known), was both a Hasidic master and a Sufi master. It is a long story, but he asked me to study both. In 2002, he ordained me as his Sufi successor, and in this way a hybrid Sufi-Hasidic lineage was birthed, being formally acknowledged in 2004 as the Inayati-Maimuni Order (being connected in spirit to the Jewish Sufism of the great Maimuni family of Egypt). Reb Zalman died ten years later, just shy of his 90th birthday and my 42nd. On the day he died, Sufi shaykhs and pirs from around the world wrote and acknowledged me as his successor and the new pir. It’s a strange story, I know, but for me, it is simply what happened!