Tobin Hart - The Four Virtues: Presence, Heart, Wisdom, Creation

COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

Tobin Hart, PhD, is a father, professor, psychologist, and author of The Secret Spiritual World of Children . He serves as a professor of psychology at the University of West Georgia, as well as cofounder and president of the ChildSpirit Institute, a nonprofit educational and research hub exploring the spirituality of children and adults. His work integrates spirituality, psychology, and education.

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This luminous book reflects the highest state of realized humanity. To read it is to be guided forward into discovering the basis for our finest selves. Rarely has there been a book of such exquisite wisdom, such potent truth about the nature and practice of virtue. (I will send it to all my friends who are in political office!)

Jean Houston , author of The Wizard of Us

We seem to be at a point in human history when mystical unitive understanding, which was once the esoteric experience of a few, is becoming present in a growing number of people. There is a new awakening to the potential of spiritual growth and the flowering of human society that it can bring. In this beautifully written book, Tobin Hart illuminates that path, skillfully applying his scholarship, experience, and insights to provide a vivid roadmap for the spiritual seeker.

Peter Laurence, EdD , director of Education as Transformation Project at Wellesley College

A work of wide learning and deep reflection, The Four Virtues eloquently teaches what is most important to learn: the art of living a meaningful life.

Pir Zia Inayat-Khan, PhD , spiritual leader of Sufi Order International and author of Aracen Chivalry

This is a gem of a book. Drawing on his own rich life experiences, neuroscience, and ancient wisdom traditions, Tobin Hart explores how we can cultivate capacities that allow us to be deeply connected to ourselves, to each other, and to the world. And he offers practical ways to continue to both assess and nurture these capacities in ourselves.

Pamela Seigle, PhD , executive director of Courage & Renewal Northeast

In this remarkable book, Tobin Hart applies ancient wisdom to the information age. Not only has he given his readers a psycho-spiritual matrix for internal growth but has also provided a road-map for finding their way through an external world of increasing complexity. At the very least, The Four Virtues is a fascinating document; at the very most it will change the lives of many of those who read it and practice its exercises.

Stanley Krippner, PhD , coauthor of Personal Mythology

With this book, Tobin Hart is doing something audacious: offering us a guide to our deepest, most meaningful life while, in his writing, embodying the virtues he identifies as key. For example, he writes beautifully about the Beautiful, offers truth about the True, is wise about Wisdom, and brings to the project a wide range of perspectivesfrom neuroscience to the worlds great prophets, interspersed with his own personal stories and sagacity. This is a book to be savored. Ill be reading sections of it over and over.

Richard Schwartz, PhD , president of the Center for Self Leadership and developer of the Internal Family Systems model of psychotherapy

Into this historic time of excessive change, fragmentation, speed, and deep spiritual hunger, Tobin Hart meets us and invites us to come through the thicket and stopto see who we are and where we are now as a human species. He leads us on a simple footpath to a summit where he shares his vision of transformation out of a lifetime of experience as teacher and healer. Step by step, he then guides us into a clearing where he tells us stories that interweave insight and wisdom from sources Eastern and Western, psychological and spiritual, scientific and religious, ancient and modern, along with practical ways for tapping into the current of our own deepest inner natures where we may find a new way. This remarkable book is a treasured gift for teachers, therapists, counselors, and all those who wish to grow the soul.

Carolyn Toben , author of Recovering a Sense of the Sacred

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Copyright 2014 by Tobin Hart

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Managing editor: Lindsay S. Brown

Editors: Sylvia Spratt, Emily Han

Copyeditor: Henry Covey

Proofreader: Jade Chan

Design: Devon Smith

Composition: William H. Brunson Typography Services

First Atria Paperback/Beyond Words trade paperback edition February 2014

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Date:

Hart, Tobin.

The four virtues : presence, heart, wisdom, creation / Tobin Hart, PhD. First Atria paperback/Beyond Words trade paperback edition.

pagescm

Includes bibliographical references.

1.Spirituality.2.Spiritual life.3.Virtues.I.Title.

BL624.H3352014

179.9dc23

2013032941

ISBN 978-1-58270-447-0

ISBN 978-1-4767-3460-6 (ebook)

The corporate mission of Beyond Words Publishing, Inc.: Inspire to Integrity