Original Wisdom: Stories of an Ancient Way of Knowing

Western Culture has abandoned a fundamental feature of its ancestral roots: a faculty of knowing not predicated on rationalism. In our modern culture we race around endlessly on our freeways, hurry into and out of fast food restaurants, and hardly have a moment to spare for our families. So entranced are we with artificial values that rarely bring us a moments of peace. Robert Wolff's book reacquaints the modern mind with a value long forgotten by Eurocentric peoples. It represents a primer of return to an ancient way of knowing, and being-in-the-world long before our seduction by materialism, consumption, and greed; along with the terrible price we pay to our spirits, often crushed as they are by the machine of modern living. In this exploration to `learn' from an ancient people, we rediscover something we've long buried and denied in ourselves. The treasure waiting to be reclaimed deep inside is a rediscovery of who our authentic selves are. Within this rubric is the discovery of who we really are and not who we think we are. In this context the book is decisively spiritual and speaks to those who understand its meaning. We have much to learn from all ancient people still living in their original ways. This book unlocks a door to an ancient way of knowing. If you decide to enter, be aware that to embrace the wisdom you find there is not a journey for the faint of heart. Since change represents the only constant in the Universe, by aligning ourselves to this principle we also discover a deep and profound letting-go. If you decide to walk this path, your life may never be the same again.

This book is truly one of a kind. It is richly spiritual yet not religion based. It is about the author's cross cultural experience, which brought him to a realization. Those moments he started to question about his commonsense of the western beliefs are so honestly stated. The book took me into a very different world where things were simpler. In this environment I could unwind my restless heart, and observed the very foreign culture... The effect this book had on me has been profound and long lasting. In fact I am writing this review two years after reading it.

The aboriginal Sng'oi of Malaysia are often described with words like "pre-industrial" or "pre-agricultural," but it is a mistake to think of them as living in a former stage of what of our more "advanced" society has become. As Wolff shows in this book, it would be more precise to say that are living in another world - a better world. Having spent half his youth growing up among Sng'oi, Wolff says this: "I learned early on to be in two different realities." One reality was oriented around the clock, efficiency, technology, and harsh realism. The other was fluid, timeless, almost dreamlike - a world in which "people touched each other," a world in which "we knew animals and plants intimately." The bulk of this book is spent fleshing out differences between these worlds, in an attempt to teach us Westerners another way of knowing, another reality. Yet in the process of doing so, it quickly becomes apparent that the modern world doesn't quite measure up. As slaves to an alienating industrial system, we civilized people must pay rent to live. A completely self-domesticated species, we live in a state of complete dependence on big industry and agriculture. We are ignorant of the flora and fauna that support our life, and helplessness to a capricious global market. Thus, the condescending glance "modern" humanity casts at so-called "primitive peoples" is extremely ironic. Traditionally referred to as "Sakai," or slaves, by modern Malaysians, the Sng'oi do not take offense. Says one Sng'oi man, "We look at the people down below [literally, from up in the mountains] - they have to get up at a certain time in the morning, they have to pay for everything with money, which they have to earn doing things for other people. They are constantly told what they can and cannot do. No, we do not mind when they call us slaves." At one point in the book, Wolff recounts a number of silent educational trips into the rainforest with his friend/guide, Ahmeed, who was subtly trying to teach him to interact and connect with the forest on his own terms. After days of walking, Wolff became thirsty. It was precisely then that Ahmeed decided to sneak off and leave him to find water on his own. After searching for hours, he not only discovered water - he also discovered another way of seeing. "When I leaned over drink from the leaf, I saw water with feathery ripples, I saw a few mosquito larvae wriggling on the surface, I saw the veins of the leaf through the water, some bubbles, a little piece of dirt... How beautiful, how perfect." His perception suddenly "opened," and a deep feeling of connection enveloped him. "The all-ness was everywhere, and I was a part of it... I could not be afraid - I was apart of this all-ness." Contrast this with our culture, a culture walled-in with fear; a culture that "learns - has to learn - to shut off the senses, to protect oneself from all the noise." Unlike the Sng'oi, who are brought up to listen, watch and feel their world in dep

I just finished this book and was deeply moved by his description of the People are in touch with what so many of us have lost and spend money and time trying to regain through books, tapes, seminars, videos, etc. His own experience of coming into knowing was fascinating and inspiring.As one who teaches anthropology, I found some very useful and concrete examples to share with my students to help clarify points that the texts we use don't really do justice to. Wolff makes them crystal clear and explains them in a way that is easily accessible. It will help in a classroom of college students who are only taking the course because it's required to see that our approach to life is not the only way and the assumptions we make are not universal.This is an excellent book.

If this book was a drug the FDA would make it Class 3. It is that powerful and will have that strong an effect on your life. While it is described as an account of a Malaysia tribe, it is, more importantly, a window into another way of thinking about WHAT IT IS TO BE HUMAN. That is also the name the book was originally given by it's author. Robert Wolff opens our eyes to see and think about possibilities for being human that our western world's schools and media do not teach, do not suggest. Every person I know who has read this books says it changes the way they walk through the world, the way they see, the way they know. It discusses ideas that impinge upon parapsychology, shamanism, Carlos Castaneda's works, intuition, healing... The book is a precious gift that will make you feel joy and sadness-- joy from knowing the possibilities of being human, and the beauty of the Sng'oi, sadness, because the Sng'oi were reported to be "absorbed" by the Malaysian culture several years ago. They are gone. Thom Hartmann, who wrote the forward to the book, has written several other books which share a similar vision-- Prophet's Way, Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, and Greatest Spiritual Secret. Read this book and see if you can find a way to begin seeing and knowing, of being human, as the Sng'oi did, and see if you can find a part of them in your heart.