Layering Interreligious Harmony: Integrating The Robin Approach and Causal Layered Analysis at the Parliament of the World’s Religions

Article

Virginia Robin^1*

¹Feel Better Futures, Queensland, Australia

Abstract

This inquiry considers the manifestation of interreligious harmony at the 2023 Parliament of the World’s Religions, Chicago, themed around defending freedom and human rights, by examining the alignment between its proclaimed ideals and participants’ embodied experiences. By employing the Robin Approach, a reflexive, feeling-based framework for decision-making derived from yogic traditions, embodied cognition, and somatic principles, the inquiry utilised a collaborative art initiative, where 98 participants contributed intuitive marks to a communal canvas after attuning to a present-state feeling of ‘paradise’. A post-event analysis applied Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) to examine institutional narratives, suggesting a dissonance. While the event visibly promoted harmony through diverse representations and declarations, participants often positioned harmony as a future aspiration rather than an immediate, embodied reality, highlighting epistemological hierarchies that privilege cognitive discourse over relational presence. This work contributes to futures studies by advocating for embodied practices in interfaith dialogue, reframing harmony as an accessible present state, and integrating creative methodologies to foster transformative connections. It proposes that meaningful transformation may require shifting from future-oriented goals to the present embodiment of harmonious states.

Keywords

Interreligious harmony, Causal Layered Analysis, Embodied awareness, Futures methodologies

Introduction

The doors to the church closed for me in my late teens – it seemed my Madonna-inspired fashion choices did not meet the dress code. This moment profoundly shaped my perspective on organised religion. The silent judgement I encountered contrasted with the inclusive ideals religious communities often espouse. Some forty years on, in 2023 I ironically attended the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, themed: A Call to Conscience: Defending Freedom and Human Rights. This global interfaith gathering, representing over 210 traditions from 95 countries, aimed to cultivate harmony among diverse faiths.

I was then developing what I will refer to here as the “Robin Approach” – a feeling-based framework for navigating complex challenges. I considered the Parliament a unique opportunity to explore whether its vision of creating interreligious harmony was manifest within the participants.

I created a collaborative art initiative called the Paradise at Work Project intended to elicit embodied expressions of harmony onto canvas using abstract, intuitive marks. I now reflect on the project’s findings, using the Robin Approach to explore individual experiences. Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) (Inayatullah, 2004), is used post-event as a theoretical basis to deepen my inquiry into the status of the Parliament’s vision from a layered, systems perspective.

The project revealed that while the Parliament visibly promoted harmony, participants often perceived harmony as a future goal rather than a present state, highlighting tensions between cognitive ideals and embodied experience.

The Robin Approach

The Robin Approach emerges from a decade of observing how states of being influence conflict outcomes in legal practice. It draws inspiration from yogic traditions, Eastern philosophy, and principles of physics, and builds on established fields such as embodied cognition (Varela et al., 1991), somatic experiencing (Levine, 2010), and the recognition that bodily awareness can transcend cultural conditioning (Bussey, 2017). The approach is informed by the insight that the external world reflects the internal state of the observer, where apparent separations are, at deeper levels, fundamentally interconnected (Bohm, 1980). Decisions made from elevated emotional states such as joy, compassion, or acceptance tend to generate coherent, life-affirming outcomes, while those arising from contracted states like fear or anger often perpetuate conflict (Hawkins, 2020).

This approach offers a reflexive, three-step framework for decision-making in complex, interdependent environments:

1. Feel what is: Attune to current emotional states without judgement, cultivating present-moment awareness.
2. Loosen identification: Release limiting narratives, judgements, or identities that distort authentic self-perception.
3. Align with a better-feeling state: Foster positive emotions to align with the self-organising dynamics of complex adaptive systems (Laszlo, 2023).

It is assumed that feeling states are not peripheral to decision-making but central in nature, offering access to intuitive wisdom that complements cognitive approaches (Gendlin, 1966). At the Parliament, the Robin Approach was employed to investigate whether participants experienced the harmony the event aimed to cultivate, focusing on embodied awareness rather than intellectual engagement alone.

Causal Layered Analysis (CLA)

Beyond structural analysis, CLA has also been applied to processes of inner reflection and personal transformation (Milojević & Inayatullah, 2015; Houston, 2022), including somatic adaptations drawing on Polyvagal Theory (Wilson & Inayatullah, 2024). However, in this inquiry, CLA is used structurally to examine the collective and institutional narratives surrounding interreligious harmony.

The Paradise at Work Project

Design

The Parliament’s physicality presented as visually striking. Turbans, robes, yarmulkes, saffron cloth, hijabs, crosses, bare feet, and mala beads, juxtaposed with neat rows of stalls, formed a moving tapestry of faith and diversity. Beneath this surface display, I sensed the commonality of humans longing for connection that transcended doctrinal differences.

The Paradise at Work Project was a collaborative art initiative that invited Parliament attendees to contribute their ‘mark’ to a communal canvas. Art can offer “an emergent critical reflective and shared meaning-making system” (Grushka, 2005). I felt it offered a playful and engaging channel through which the Robin Approach could be further explored.

Over three days, 98 participants chose to engage with the project, representing diverse age, religious, and cultural backgrounds. Figure 1 depicts the diversity of participants, yet while this self-selected sample cannot claim representativeness of all Parliament attendees, it provided rich qualitative data.

Fig 1: A mosaic of diverse participants

Implementation

Before painting a mark on the canvas, participants were invited to animate the feeling state of paradise within their body and proceed to paint free from rules or aesthetic expectations. The emphasis was on sensing as opposed to thinking their way into that state (Gendlin, 1966). This process reframed harmony as an embodied, immediately accessible experience, aligning with the desired focus on embodied awareness. The initial question, “What do you believe paradise to be?” elicited cognitive responses, often situating paradise as an external or future state. As participants took their place before the canvas, I posed an alternative framing: “What if paradise is a feeling accessible by you right now?” This shifted the focus to embodiment, encouraging participants to sense harmony before creating.

The process was intentionally simple yet purposeful: participants paused, breathed deeply, felt a harmonious state, and painted freely, choosing from various brushes and colours laid out as shown in Figure 2. There were no other instructions. This rules-free environment emphasised releasing judgement to foster authentic expression.

Fig 2: A participant readying to make a mark

Observations and Emerging Patterns

Data collection involved participant-observer notes, photographic documentation, and video reflections from select participants, with consent. This qualitative approach prioritised felt experience over quantitative outcomes, capturing the nuances of participants’ engagement with the process. The project ran over three days at a designated booth, allowing for diverse interactions and observations.

Physical manifestations of internal shifts

Participants exhibited visible responses, such as prolonged calm silence, deeper breathing, or emotional releases (laughter, tears, sighs). Some froze, unable to access a positive state, suggesting a disconnect between cognitive ideals and embodied awareness. These shifts indicated engagement with internal states transcending external religious or cultural identities.

Resistance and release

Adults often hesitated, seeking reassurance with questions like, “What if I paint over someone else’s mark?” or fearing they might “get it wrong.” One Christian priest made several tentative approaches before finally adding a small dab of paint then, encouraged to “be three years old again,” expanded his contribution with quiet joy. This release of judgement unlocked creativity. In contrast, children acted with spontaneity. Figure 3 shows the mark of one youth who boldly inscribed their initials “J R” with a “smiley face” across the canvas. This surprised onlookers who were gently reminded that all expressions are welcome, as all marks ultimately merge into the rich tapestry of this collective creation.

Fig 3: A youth’s mark – initials with a ‘smiley face’

Novel access to embodied awareness

Many participants expressed surprise at the invitation to feel paradise as a present accessible feeling state, with some struggling to access a positive feeling state.

Experiences of non-hierarchical connection

Participants frequently articulated a sense of equality, with one stating, “No one is more important than another here.” This non-hierarchical space fostered transformative creation, aligning with Yunkaporta’s (2019) concept of “free agents within complex systems”, where diverse expressions carry equal validity.

Cross-cultural resonance

Participants from varied racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds expressed deep gratitude for the communal experience, particularly when their marks reflected personal or spiritual identities. This suggested that shared inner states bridged doctrinal divides, creating connection across differences. The completed artwork in Figure 4 shows the collection of diverse marks.

Click on the following video to see the diversity of expression coming together on the canvas: https://youtu.be/MdnYzvySiwE?si=Dns0-zRMVCSFqhm0

Fig 4: The completed artwork

A CLA Perspective on the Parliament’s Approach

CLA offers a valuable framework for making sense of how the Parliament’s vision is enacted at an institutional level. It deepens this inquiry by providing a structured approach to unpacking complex social phenomena across four progressively deeper layers of perceived reality (Inayatullah, 2004, 2008). Given I apply CLA theoretically, I approach it playfully using its structure as a guide rather than a constraint (Bussey, 2022) and summarise this framework in Table 1.

Litany: Perceptions of harmony

At the most visible level, the Parliament presented with a curated narrative of harmony through diversity, evident via participants’ overall enjoyment. It offered keynotes and plenary sessions featuring representatives from major world religions, exhibitions displaying religious artifacts, ceremonial rituals and dance emphasising shared values, and public declarations affirming interfaith cooperation.

The visual impact was an undeniable celebration of religious pluralism embodied in the diverse symbols and practices represented. The Parliament’s website proclaimed its commitment to “cultivating harmony among the world’s religious and spiritual communities.” This narrative dominated the surface experience evident via signage throughout the venue displaying messages of unity, peace, and shared humanity.

Systemic layer: Disharmony is prevalent

Beneath this visible narrative, the Parliament delivered its discourse through structural elements reflecting the Western conference model. An opening keynote warned of the threat of the return of an “existential global scourge” presently facing the community which needed to be urgently addressed.

Those systemic structures revealed underlying assumptions about how harmony might be achieved: through organised dialogue, institutional cooperation, and formal declarations. This approach exemplifies what Martin Buber (1923) describes as “I-It” relationships, treating harmony as an object to be systematically achieved rather than allowing it to emerge from more meaningful “I-Thou” encounters between whole persons.

The systemic layer also reflected epistemological hierarchies, where Western methodologies for fostering harmony as codified in The Declaration Toward a Global Ethic were privileged over non-Western approaches grounded in story, ritual, or relational presence.

Yet, to realise actual change it was recognised that people needed to be reached “outside of our bubble.” This acknowledgment revealed an awareness of the limitations of the Parliament’s structure in achieving its broader aims.

Worldview: Intellectual mechanisms for harmonious discourse

These systemic elements assume that the worldview remains one of disharmony, where harmony emerges primarily through “bold wisdom talks,” intellectual exchange, formal dialogue, and institutional cooperation designed to bridge difference through discursive means.

This worldview privileges cognitive understanding and verbal exchange as the primary pathways to harmony. However, this approach is limiting, as deeper ways of knowing exist beneath semantics, or what Vanessa Machado De Oliveira (2021) terms “wording the world.” It frames religious difference as a problem to be solved through improved communication and mutual understanding, rather than as diversity to be experienced through embodied practice. This emphasis on dialogue reflects Western values of rationality and discursive reasoning that may not fully encompass non-Western approaches to religious harmony, which tend to prioritise shared ritual, contemplative practice, or communal experience.

Myth/metaphor: Harmony is a goal

The underlying myth/metaphor that interreligious harmony is an “attainable goal” indicates its present absence. This positions disharmony as the default condition, with harmony as something to be worked toward rather than discovered as already present beneath surface differences.

The metaphor is one of harmony as a bridge to be built, a structure that must stretch to span the perceived chasm between traditions, requiring blueprinting, co-operation, and effort. This framing casts religious difference as a problem to be solved through engineered connection, rather than an inherent generativity to be experienced. It suggests that without deliberate intervention, religions would remain in conflict or mutual incomprehension, a narrative that may itself reinforce and perpetuate the separateness it seeks to overcome.

An alternative metaphor emerged through the Paradise at Work Project: harmony as an ever-present undercurrent, paradise that can be accessed through shared embodied experience. This metaphor suggests that the fundamental coherence of human experience precedes and transcends external symbolic difference, accessible not through discourse alone but through attunement to present-moment awareness.

Table 1. Summarising the CLA of the Parliament

CLA Layer	Description	Insights from the Parliament
Litany	Surface-level events, trends, and narratives	A visible display of harmony through interfaith ceremonies, diverse cultural representation, and signage promoting unity and shared humanity.
Systemic	Social, political, economic, and institutional drivers	Dominance of Western structures such as organised panels, formal declarations, and universal ethics privileging discursive and codified methods over others.
Worldview	Deep beliefs, ideologies, and paradigms that shape systemic choices	Assumes disharmony is the default condition. Religious difference is seen as a problem to be solved through formal dialogue, rational consensus, and ethical agreement privileging “wording the world” (De Oliveira, 2021) over embodied or relational knowing.
Myth/Metaphor	Deep unconscious stories and symbolic imagery that shape perception	Harmony is imagined as a bridge to be built, a future goal requiring construction, effort, and institutional cooperation. This frames difference as distance rather than diversity, reinforcing separation over immediacy.

Conclusion

The CLA revealed the Parliament of the World’s Religions successfully presented harmony at the litany level. Its vibrant interfaith ceremonies, diverse cultural representations, and collective affirmations visibly enact its mission of fostering religious coexistence and mutual respect within the space.

The Robin Approach revealed dissonances beneath this surface success. Participants’ tendency to locate paradise in the future rather than the present, and their hesitation before creative expression, exposed limitations not apparent at the litany level. This reflects a temporality constrained by linear time potentially limiting access to deeper, non-local modes of consciousness (Currivan, 2017; Wahbeh, 2021). Paradoxically, future-oriented temporalities may constrain the very harmony they seek to create. These observations, when analysed through CLA’s deeper layers, suggest that transformation has not yet fully penetrated the systemic and worldview dimensions.

At the systemic level, Western conference models and formal dialogue remain dominant, while at the worldview level, assumptions persist that privilege cognitive understanding over embodied experience. The myth/metaphor of interreligious harmony as an attainable goal continues to position harmony as something to be achieved through future discourse, rather than directly experienced as a present state.

CLA confirms the Parliament’s commitment to harmony at structural and symbolic levels, while the Robin Approach illuminates the need for deeper transformation. True interfaith harmony may require not only talking across difference but feeling beyond difference via cultivating present-moment connection that transcends doctrinal boundaries connecting us to the essence of what is.

While limited in scope, this inquiry suggests several implications for interfaith practice:

1. Embodied approaches to dialogue: Incorporating embodied awareness practices as a precursor to discursive methods could deepen participants’ connection across differences.
2. Present-moment orientation: Reframing harmony as an accessible present-state rather than a distant goal might shift focus from theoretical agreement to lived experience.
3. Creative expression as methodology: Arts-based approaches offer alternative pathways to experiencing shared humanity that complement intellectual exchange.
4. Heirarchically-aware facilitation: Centre diverse voices and methodologies to create more genuinely inclusive spaces.

The limitations of this study include the small self-selected sample and my dual role as both facilitator and observer. Future research might explore embodied approaches in conflict settings where accessing positive feeling states may present greater challenges.

Ultimately, harmony might not be an agreement we sign up for. Perhaps it’s more like art or music, where sense is made from a felt place, revealed in the resonance that emerges when we attend to the embodied experience beneath our doctrinal differences.

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