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.
A single purpose lies at the heart of all the great religious
traditions: awakening to the astonishing reality of the true nature of
ourselves and the universe. At the same time, through centuries of
cultural accretion and focus on myth and ritual as ends in themselves,
this core insight has become obscured. Here Ken Wilber provides a path
for reenvisioning a religion of the future that acknowledges the
evolution of humanity in every realm while remaining faithful to that
original spiritual vision. For the traditions to attract modern men and
women, Wilber asserts, they must incorporate the extraordinary number of
scientific truths learned about human nature in just the past 100
years - for example, about the mind and brain, emotions, and the growth
of consciousness - that the ancients were simply unaware of and thus
were unable to include in their meditative systems. Taking Buddhism as
an example, Wilber demonstrates how his comprehensive Integral
Approach - which is already being applied to several world religions by
some of their adherents - can avert a "cultural disaster of unparalleled
proportions": the utter neglect of the glorious upper reaches of human
potential by the materialistic postmodern worldview. Moreover, he shows
how we can apply this approach to our own spiritual practice. This, his
most sweeping work since Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, is a thrilling
call for wholeness, inclusiveness, and unity in the religions of
tomorrow.
