This is a dialogue between Paola (WCCM Marketing) and Nikki Gasqueres, meditator and Clinical Counsellor, based in Perth, Australia.
Nikki, the theme for 2026 is ‘The Future of Religion’. Can you share any thoughts about this theme? How do you see this theme?
Nikki Gasqueres: So the future of religion, that’s such a big question. Well, it makes me reflect on what is religion now, what it’s been in the past. I know for me, it’s been a set of rules in the past, something that I’ve suddenly rebelled against in my teenage years, and I think that carried on for many, many years.
And the future I see religion as being a place of safety. In my own work, as a therapist, I see that people are not feeling safe in their feelings, what’s coming up in their body and their mind, and they’re looking for a place to be held and just gentleness. I think taking off the edges and the future of religion as well, is, you know, like it comes to the root of the words about joining people together.
And I think the future is about humanity becoming together as one own in acceptance of everyone’s individuality. But in the humanness – I think it’s really important that the future of religion speaks to that, the human experience and the human emotion. The answer is that there is no answer. And that’s okay.
That that sense of safety, I feel it’s very important for the future of religion for me anyway, and for what I do see in my room.
It almost taps into a human, core, trait, this need for safety you speak of.
Nikki Gasqueres: This need of safety and this non-judgment, when people don’t feel judged. Their alertness, am I safe scanning the environment, whatever that looks like. And that can be done on a very subconscious level. I think, religions that are very much: you must do this and you must do that and a lot of lot of and if you don’t do that, you’re not part, you know, you’re either in or you’re out.
How can that be the future? You know, there’s certainly values and ethics and morals and religious teachings, but the future is about being speaking to that human condition. Definitely.
From your experience, from communities such as the WCCM, as a contemplative community, what could be the role they can play in this future?
Yeah. It’s such a wonderful role. It’s such an important role to contemplate as communities like WCCM. It’s it’s all about setting, but encouraging people and showing people how to sit in silence using language that’s familiar to them. It helps people realize that if I’m sitting with that emotion, whether it’s fear or anger or grief and you sit with it, it’s actually okay to sit with it.
And a lot of human behavior is avoidance of those feelings. People, though, might be scrolling too much on their social media or watching too much TV, working too hard, drinking, taking drugs. A lot of that is escaping, can be escaping these feelings that are uncomfortable and communities like WCCM help to show you that you can see in your humanness.
And finally, by sitting in your self, you’re ultimately open to sitting with God. If that’s your way, what you believe in. But it’s certainly for me. It’s really ironically helped me come back to religion. The WCCM that it’s. It’s a bridge between having nothing and being linked back into a community.
