A Diverse Array of Seekers, Deeply in Touch With the Transcendent

“All of us use spiritual genius some of the time,” insists Winifred Gallagher in “Spiritual Genius,” “but some of us use it all of the time.”

That’s what inspired Gallagher to seek out 11 examples of “spiritual genius,” which she defines broadly (and rather blandly) as “the uniquely human ability to seek life’s meaning.”

But she lets us see that spirituality finds vivid expression in the lives of the men and women profiled here, among them “a low-key Hindu doctor, a passionate Muslim scholar, a sociable Talmudist, a witty Buddhist hermit, [and] a workaholic Christian social reformer.”

Indeed, the callings of these “spiritual geniuses” are as diverse as their religious backgrounds. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, for example, is a thoroughly modern Jew who says medieval texts of Jewish mysticism offer “a diagram of the DNA of the universe,” a stance that inspired one rabbi to say Kushner “sells Hasidic mysticism to Reform Jews.”

The Venerable Tenzin Palmo, born Diane Perry in a Cockney area of London, is a Buddhist nun who “has spent most of 12 years--three of them uninterrupted--in solitary retreat in a remote Himalayan cave at 13,000 feet.” And Mata Amritanandamayi, “popularly known as India’s hugging saint,” is revered by her followers as an incarnation of Devi, the mother goddess of the universe. “The unique ministry of this up-close-and-personal goddess is as simple and earthy as it is profound,” writes Gallagher. “Over the past 25 years [she] has spent from five to 15 hours a day embracing all comers--so far, some 20 million.”

“Spiritual Genius” has its lighter moments. Gallagher attends a meeting of the Assn. of Contemplative Sisters--founded by cloistered Catholic nuns “to support the individual spiritual genius of each sister”--and finds “a chorus line of women, mostly of a certain age, costumed as Mouseketeers, movie queens, cowgirls and other L.A. types,” all of them belting out “California, Here I Come” to the delight of their fellow contemplatives.

The most compelling examples, however, are those who are called to the things of this world. Brother James Kimpton is a British Catholic monk who runs schools and settlements in one of India’s poorest backwaters. His daily concerns have far less to do with meditation than with feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless and comforting the sick.

“Back home, religion--or, more often, spirituality--is increasingly an aspect of ‘personal fulfillment,’” says Gallagher, “but to Brother, it’s a literal response to Jesus’ statement: ‘Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do to me.’ ”

Another example is Riffat Hassan, born in Pakistan and now living and teaching in America.

She is an Islamic feminist theologian and a human rights activist who speaks out against the abuse of women by fundamentalists in the Muslim world. The group she founded, the International Network for Rights of Female Victims of Violence in Pakistan, is devoted to the victims of “honor killings”--women murdered by male relatives on suspicion of adultery or other alleged behavior that impugns the family honor.

“In a society constructed on the true basis of Islam,” she says, “men and women would be equal, as they are in the sight of God.”

Gallagher understands the awkwardness of presenting a gallery of mystics and healers at the very moment when we have been reminded that spiritual fervor has its dark side, but she suggests that each person in her book has something important to teach us.

“Following history’s bloodiest century, our hopes for this new one have already been shaken by appalling acts of terrorism,” she writes. “We’re deeply disillusioned with institutions, including religious ones, but we still hunger for the meaning and authority they once supplied.”

Above all, she insists that the answer to religious fanaticism is to be found in religious diversity.

“It would have been as inconceivable to my husband’s English and Romanian ancestors to look beyond their Protestant and Jewish traditions for spiritual teachings as for my Irish ones to venture outside the Catholic Church,” she says.

“Now, Protestants, Jews and Catholics may hear teachers from other traditions from their own congregations’ pulpits or take yoga or Zen classes in their basements.”

*

Jonathan Kirsch, a Book Review contributor, is author of, most recently, “The Woman Who Laughed at God: The Untold History of the Jewish People.”