Description

A provocative examination of how the great religious traditions can remain relevant in modern times by incorporating scientific truths learned about human nature over the last century–using Buddhism as an example.

¬†¬†¬†¬†¬†As the world’s religions increasingly lose followers, Integral philosopher Ken Wilber asks how humanity can evolve future religions that have discarded their dying forms, while retaining the changeless truths upon which they were founded. Exoteric religions have lost influence primarily because their myths are simply untenable to many people today. The only hope lies in the “inner teachings” of the great traditions, the goal of which is an Awakening to the Ultimate Reality that is every being’s True Nature. But for these traditions to attract modern men and women, they must incorporate the extraordinary number of scientific truths learned about human nature in just the past 100 years–about the mind and brain, emotions, and the growth of consciousness–that the ancients were simply unaware of and thus unable to include in their meditative systems.¬†
¬†¬†¬†¬† Using Buddhism as an example, Wilber demonstrates how his comprehensive Integral Approach–which is already being applied to several world religions–can avert a “cultural disaster of unparalleled proportions”–the utter neglect of the glorious upper reaches of human potential by the materialistic postmodern worldview. His most sweeping work since¬†Sex, Ecology, Spirituality¬†is an impassioned call for wholeness, inclusiveness, and unity in the religions of tomorrow.