New Delhi, June 17 -- As a leading scholar of Buddhism generally and Tibetan Buddhism particularly, Professor Robert A.F. Thurman, who died on June 16 at 84, was immersed lifelong in his idea of the need for an inner human revolution.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real Happiness, Thurman writes, "The peaceful influence of meditative realization a civilization has the two-sided effect of making that society happier, wealthier, gentler, but also militarily weaker, an attractive target for aggressive outsiders." The fact that he recognized the perils of a meditative civilization becoming militarily weaker was something he understood from his lifelong association with Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism as well as the 14th Dalai Lama.

In an inte...