"Learning How to Learn" contains the authentic material from the Sufi standpoint, written in response to more than 70,000 questions prompted by Shah's books, his university lectures and radio and television programs. He answers government leaders, housewives, philosophy professors and factory workers around the world, on the subjects of how traditional psychology can illuminate current human, social and spiritual problems.

The lively question-answer format provides readers a direct experience of a Sufi learning situation. More than a hundred tales and extracts - ranging from Eastern parables of Jesus, the ancient Sufi classics such as Omar Khayyam, the Mulla Nasrudin teaching-figure, to today's newspapers and contemporary encounters with teachers and students - are woven into Shah's narratives of how and why the Sufis learn, what they learn, and how spiritual understanding develops and deteriorates in all societies.

Many of the concepts which Shah has introduced - including the vital role of the right time, place and company of higher studies, the very concept of 'learning how to learn' and the instrumental, specialized function of ordinarily automatically performed exercises and rituals - have recently been widely copied by serious psychologists and gurus alike. This book contains the authentic material, however, on these and dozens of other subjects.