Spirituality and Sustainable Development

In spite of heavy investments, development has failed to alleviate poverty and inequality, achieve environmental sustainability and deliver happiness to humanity. In his revolutionary book, Rohana Ulluwishewa shows that the root-cause of the failure lies within us. It is our self-centeredness and greed for material wealth. Conventional development ignores this truth, and attempts to change almost everything in the external world except ourselves. Of course, the changes it brings to the external world generate more material wealth, but as the selfishness within us remains unchanged, we fail to generate wealth in an environmentally sustainable manner, to distribute the wealth equally and to deliver happiness to all. While all great religions advocate the reduction of our selfishness, modern scientific evidence suggest that it is a temporary sign of our spiritual underdevelopment. As we develop spiritually, it is replaced by selfless love. Then spontaneously emerge a form of development driven by love which can eliminate poverty and inequality, achieve environmental sustainability and deliver happiness to all. This book concludes with policy measures required to promote the new form of development.