No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2014 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. The World’s Great Wisdom Timeless Teachings from Religions and Philosophies SUNY series in Integral Theory - Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, editor It is a unique resource that for the first time in history brings together our collective understanding of wisdom and the ways to develop it This book offers distillations of the world’s accumulated wisdom-ancient and modern, religious and scientific, philosophical and psychological. Practitioners from each of the great religions-as well as from Western philosophy and contemporary research-provide summaries of their traditions’ understandings of wisdom, the means for cultivating it, and its implications for the modern world. The World’s Great Wisdom makes these treasuries available. Where can we go to learn about wisdom? The answer is clear: to the world’s great religions and their accompanying philosophies and psychologies. In an era drenched in data, a desire for wisdom has been reborn.

However, along with scientific achievements came disasters, particularly the devastation of the planet through the accelerating use of modern technology. In the twentieth century, the search for wisdom was replaced by a search for knowledge as science and technology promised answers to life’s ills. What is wisdom and how is it cultivated? These are among the most important questions we can ask, but questions that have been routinely ignored in modern times. Surveying spiritual and philosophical traditions, this volume revives the search for wisdom for modern times.

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