Huston Smith (May 31, 1919 – December 30, 2016), a sage in the world of religion. wrote, "Religion is the call to confront reality; to master the self."
His book, "The World's Religions," is still widely used on college campuses. Published in 1958, his book sold more than three million copies. The book examines the world’s major faiths as well as those of indigenous peoples, observing that all express the Absolute which is indescribable.
He had trained with Zen masters in Japan, camped with aborigines in Australia, practiced yoga with Hindu holy men, whirled with ecstatic Sufi Islamic dervishes and dropped peyote with Native American shamans. He didn't just study religions; he lived them. Yet he never stopped being a Christian saying, "God is defined by Jesus but not confined to Jesus.”
"Anyone who is only Japanese or American, only Oriental or Occidental, is but half human," Smith wrote at the beginning of "The World's Religions." "The other half that beats with the pulse of all humanity has yet to be awakened."
Like Huston Smith, Dr. Darrol Bryant did not just read books on different religions. He immersed himself in Hinduism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism and others. He stayed in Buddhist monasteries in Korea and Japan, visited Mosques in Jordan, Israel, Turkey, and China. He has engaged Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Tibetan Buddhists, Parsees and Christians in India – he has been to India more than 20 times. It is these encounters – and subsequent friendships – that have shaped his life and attitude towards the world’s religious pathways, these manifold ways to meaning.
Distinguished Professor Emeritus and currently Director of the Centre for Dialogue & Spirituality in the World Religions at Renison University College/University of Waterloo, he was educated at Concordia College (BA Philosophy & Political Science), Harvard Divinity School (STB, Theology), and the Institute of Christian Thought, St. Michael’s University College (PhD, Special Religious Studies). He taught at Waterloo Lutheran University (now Wilfrid Laurier) 1967-69 and Renison College, University of Waterloo (1973-2007). He is the author/editor of more than 25 volumes in the study of religion, most recently, the 3rd edition of Religion in a New Key and three volumes of Ways of the Spirit: Celebrating Dialogue, Diversity & Spirituality, Ways of the Spirit: Voices of Women, and Ways of the Spirit: Persons, Communities & Spiritualities.
In 2016, he convened a Contemplative Seminar on Practices of Compassion in Hyderabad, India, together with his good friend, the Venerable Doboom Tulku.