- Pages: 208
- Book Size: 5.25 x 8.5
- ISBN-13: 9780892818662
- Imprint: Inner Traditions
- On Sale Date: August 1, 2001
- Format: Paperback Book
• Explores the lifestyle of indigenous peoples of the world who exist in complete harmony with the natural world and with each other.
• Reveals a model of a society built on trust, patience, and joy rather than anxiety, hurry, and acquisition.
• Shows how we can reconnect with the ancient intuitive awareness of the world's original people.
Deep in the mountainous jungle of Malaysia the aboriginal Sng'oi exist on the edge of extinction, though their way of living may ultimately be the kind of existence that will allow us all to survive. The Sng'oi--pre-industrial, pre-agricultural, semi-nomadic--live without cars or cell phones, without clocks or schedules in a lush green place where worry and hurry, competition and suspicion are not known. Yet these indigenous people--as do many other aboriginal groups--possess an acute and uncanny sense of the energies, emotions, and intentions of their place and the living beings who populate it, and trustingly follow this intuition, using it to make decisions about their actions each day.
Psychologist Robert Wolff lived with the Sng'oi, learned their language, shared their food, slept in their huts, and came to love and admire these people who respect silence, trust time to reveal and heal, and live entirely in the present with a sense of joy. Even more, he came to recognize the depth of our alienation from these basic qualities of life. Much more than a document of a disappearing people, Original Wisdom: Stories of an Ancient Way of Knowing holds a mirror to our own existence, allowing us to see how far we have wandered from the ways of the intuitive and trusting Sng'oi, and challenges us, in our fragmented world, to rediscover this humanity within ourselves.
Foreword
Introduction
Assumptions
Draw Something, Anything
Bali and the Barong
Different Realities
Succession
Dimensions of Healing
The People
The Real World, the Shadow World
Reading and Writing
Trees in the Jungle
Slaves
The Mango Tree
Shaman
Learning to Be Human Again
Privacy and Alienation
What Do Those Hundred Men Do?
We Take Care of Each Other
Afterword
Edward Hallowell, M.D., author of Connect and Human Moments: How to Find Love and Meaning in Your Everyday Life
“Robert Wolff’s moving autobiographical narrative takes us back to an older, wiser human time, when people knew that spirituality was not apart from the naturalness of things. This book demonstrates how the legendary “dream people” were not at all ephemeral, but vulnerably and exquisitely human.”
Stephen Larsen, author of Fire in the Mind
“It will fill you with hope for a human future more in line with what it means to truly be human. Read it, dream about it, and share it with your friends. This is a message the world must hear.”
Thom Hartmann, author of The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight
“It will fill you with hope for a human future more in line with what it means to truly be human. Read it, dream about it, and share it with your friends. This is a message the world must hear.”
--Thom Hartmann, author of The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight
“Each chapter in this book contains help, knowledge, and a new perspective. Even though the author is warning us about many dangers we face these days, this book is full of hope, affirmation, and love. I hope you will plunk it down on your kitchen counter or bedside table and read into it for as far as it takes you. That may be to a new and better world.”
--Edward Hallowell, M.D., author of Connect and Human Moments: How to Find Love and Meaning in Your Everyday Life
“Robert Wolff’s moving autobiographical narrative takes us back to an older, wiser human time, when people knew that spirituality was not apart from the naturalness of things. This book demonstrates how the legendary “dream people” were not at all ephemeral, but vulnerably and exquisitely human.”
--Stephen Larsen, author of Fire in the Mind
The aboriginal Sng’oi of Malaysia--pre-industrial, pre-agricultural--live without cars or cell phones, without clocks or schedules, in a lush, green place where worry and hurry, competition and suspicion are not known. These indigenous people--as do many other aboriginal groups--understand themselves to be part of all things, living and nonliving. From this understanding comes their acute and uncanny sense of the energies, emotions, and intentions of their place and the beings who populate it, and their willingness to follow this intuition and use it to make decisions about their actions each day.
Psychologist Robert Wolff, who has spent a lifetime with indigenous people from many parts of the world, lived with the Sng’oi during the years he spent in Malaysia. He learned their language, shared their food, slept in their shelters, and came to love and admire these people who respect silence, trust time to reveal and heal, and live entirely in the present with a sense of joy. Even more, he came to recognize the depth of our alienation from these ways of living.
Much more than a collective document of a disappearing people, these stories hold a mirror to our own existence, allowing us to see how far we have wandered from the ways of the Sng’oi. And ultimately they challenge us, in our fragmented world, to rediscover within ourselves the Sng’oi’s humanity, trust, and sense of connection to all creation.
ROBERT WOLFF was raised among the indigenous peoples of Indonesia. A psychologist and educator who has lived in Suriname, Southeast Asia, and Europe, he has taught at the University of Hawaii and currently lives on the Big Island.
