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“Religion,” Smith once wrote, is “the call to confront reality; to master the self.” Smith had strived to answer that call for much of his life.

He had trained with Zen masters in Japan, camped with aborigines in Australia and dropped peyote with Native American shamans. He didn’t just study religions; he lived them.

In time, Smith became known as the sage of world religion. He introduced the Dalai Lama to the West; befriended mythologist Joseph Campbell and was the subject of a five-part PBS series hosted by Bill Moyers called “Wisdom of the Ages.”

But as Smith sat at his daughter’s bedside, the wisdom of the ages offered little consolation. “I would sob uncontrollably, crying in anguish,” he said.Read more at www.cnn.com