The most ironic thing about a life of crime is that it is based on a lie—the lie of materialism. The reason kids in poor neighborhoods idolize the local hoods is because they think that such hoods are happy. They see that by material . . .

The false identification of the body as the self leads to more than just racial conflicts. International conflicts, religious conflicts, sexual conflicts, and many other conflicts are rooted in this false identification.

(On the other hand,) for a person who cultivates wisdom or true knowledge, the results are inner peace, satisfaction, patience, respect for others, freedom from duplicity, compassion, joyfulness, remembrance of his . . .

In his book Small Is Beautiful, noted British economist E. F. Schumacher wrote:

Insights of wisdom … enable us to see the hollowness and fundamental unsatisfactoriness of a life devoted primarily to the pursuit of material ends, to the neglect of the spiritual. Such a life necessarily sets man against man and nation against nation, . . .