Thomas Cleary

Sartaz Aziz

Healing a Wounded World is a study of world wisdom traditions in the context of the historical human problems they undertake to address and alleviate. This study takes its cues from the Sufi-inspired novel Shikasta by Nobel laureate Doris Lessing, illustrating and elucidating this modern example of the traditional practice of using fiction to convey social and spiritual lessons. In this sense, Healing a Wounded World might be described as an account of the facts behind the fiction, demonstrating commonalities of world religions in their function of diagnosing and remedying 'diseases' in the body of humanity. The immediate underlying inspiration of Healing a Wounded world, Lessing's masterwork Shikasta, presents a panoramic picture of the human condition and a dramatic description of the modern predicament. A major contribution of Lessing's work in Shikasta is in having brought to the public a wealth of spirituality and wisdom in a secular context and a nondogmatic manner relevant to everyday life, beyond the boundaries of formal religion and sectarian conventions. As a work of social criticism and a cautionary tale, the message of Shikasta is if anything more important now than ever; the current corona virus pandemic, and the rise of virulent nationalism, indeed, are dramatic reminders of the immense importance of what Doris Lessing refers to in Shikasta as 'Substance-of-We-Feeling,' essential to the survival of life on earth.

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