People who engage in the search for the Absolute are faced with the same obstacles and try to surmount them in similar ways. Mayeul de Dreuille, a Benedictine monk who has spent a good deal of time in Asia and Africa, shows that problems that seem to us typically modern and Christian (or even Roman Catholic) -- obedience, celibacy, the leadership of communities, rules about speech and silence, withdrawal from and openness to the outside world -- existed thousands of years ago in Egyptian, Hebrew, Hindu, and Buddhist contexts.
