Deep-Dialogue requires that we undergo a profound change in the way that we think. It requires a change in our very being. The Seven Stages of Deep Dialogue have been delineated by Prof. Leonard Swidler, one of the world’s foremost thinkers in the field of interreligious and intercultural dialogue.  

• Encountering an Other, one who has an entirely different way of viewing and experiencing the world, unsettles my sense of security with regard to my own worldview. I must change.

• Change entails that I distance myself from my former worldview. Taking my cue from the worldview of the Other, I realize that I must learn a different worldview.

• I feel a great affinity for the new world that I inhabit. I delight in making discovery through its worldview and my understanding of the Other is enriched. But in the end I realize this is not my home.   

• I return to my own world carrying with me new knowledge, understanding reality differently – how I see myself, others, and the world. My very identity is challenged; it is deepened. 

• My transformed sense of self now takes into account the many different worlds and viewpoints that surround me, all the while experiencing a greater connection to my communal environment, a network of relations with Others.    

• As my identity continues to deepen I become aware of the profound unity underlying the diversity of perspectives. This knowledge I bring to my peers, which can at first be a disorienting experience, for many among them cannot comprehend a diverse world. But I must persevere.

• The most profound change that I undergo in the overall process of Dialogical Awakening is the realization that I have a responsibility to my world, comprised as it is of Others, of bringing to it a sense of understanding and communion, not in spite of, but because of the differences.