This week we present the video recording of our “Common Word” 2013 conversation, as it took place at Clare College Cambridge last November, involving Rowan Williams, Abdal Hakim Murad (T.J. Winter) and David Ford in deep and convivial shared reflections on the theology and implications of Christian-Islamic dialogue.

• From the rare articles penned by D.M. Matheson, we bring “Psycho-Analysis and Spirituality”, with particular attention to the Hindu tradition and its relation to modernist ideas:

Words have not only such private and personal associations as psychologists lay stress on in their free association tests, they also often have “historical” associations for a given society and at least some have a well nigh universal significance as symbols. “The Tao which can be named is no longer the Tao,” and the nearer to the Tao, we might say, the less can words directly serve to define.

• Our readers will appreciate the addition of Arabic audio readings and an original Arabic PDF to our existing translation of the famous Hikam (Sufi Aphorisms) of Ibn Ata’ Allah of Alexandria. Regarding the musicality of the Hikam, a centuries-old Islamic saying affirms that “If it were allowed to recite anything other than the Quran during the canonic prayer, it would be the Hikam.”

The cosmos is large in respect to your body but is not large in respect to your soul.

• Upcoming events: 26 April, Vancouver, Sacred Web 2014 Conference on the theme of “Rediscovering the Sacred in our Lives and in our Times.” —Our April Islam-Buddhism Common Ground event: film screening followed by a question and answer session with Rev. Kemmyo Taira Sato and Dr Reza Shah-Kazemi. —From 9th to 11th May, Sacred Gardens, practical & philosophical workshop with Emma Clark.