object:31.10 - East and West
book class:Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
subject class:Integral Yoga
class:chapter
The Cause of Indias Decline Where is God?
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta On National HeritageEast and West
East and West
THE East is spiritual by nature, while the West is inclined towards materialism. The East seeks for the world beyond. The West wants to possess this mundane world. Every rule, however, admits of exception, but that does not make it a sham. The same principle holds good here. The East is not wanting in epicures like Charvaka, nor is the West wanting in personages like Saint Francis. Nevertheless, on the whole it can be said that the life-current of the East tends towards the domain beyond the senses, while that of the West is turned to the seekings of the senses. The East is firmly rooted in the eternal Truth. The West is familiar with the transient truths of the outer world. As a result of this difference the West has become skilful in action, lively and dynamic, and the East has become meditative, peace-loving and indifferent to life-activities. The present urge of mankind is to synthesise these different traits and to impart to the world at large a common, nobler and wider ideal. To-day we are convinced that these two different types of virtue are complementary to each other. The body without the soul is blind; the soul without the body is lame. The body must be infused with the spirit of the soul, and the dynamis of the soul must manifest itself through the body. This is indeed the ideal of the new synthesis.
Let us try to throw more light on this difference so that we may comprehend the synthetic ideal more clearly. We wilt now compare and contrast, for example, the genius of Valmiki and that of Shakespeare in the field of literature. On reading Shakespeare a stamp of characters that are human is left on our mind, and Valmiki impresses us with characters that are superhuman. Shakespeare has depicted men solely as human beings, while Valmiki read into men the symbol of some larger and higher truth. In the works of Shakespeare we feel the touch of material life and enjoy the savour of earthly pleasure, the embrace of physical bodies with each other, as it were. But Valmiki deals with experiences and realities that exceed the bounds of ordinary earthly life. Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear are the highlights of Shakespearae's creation. Valmiki's heroes and heroine are Rama, Ravana and Sita. The characters depicted by Shakespeare are men as men are or would be. But even the human characters of Valmiki contain something of the super-human, they overflow the bounds of humanity. It is not so difficult for us to grasp the clashes of sentiments that go to make up the character of Hamlet, for we are already quite familiar with them in our life; whereas the character of Rama which is not at all complex can yet hardly be adequately measured. There is a mystic vastness behind the character which can never be classed with human traits. Indeed, Rama and Ravana both are two aspects of the same Infinite. Even the drama of their earthly life is not merely founded on human qualities. The East wants to explore the Infinite, while the West wants to delve into the finite. Homer, the father of Western literature, is an illustrative example. The men of Homer's world, however mighty and powerful they may be, are after all human beings. Achilles and Hector are but the royal editions or dignified versions of our frail human nature. Never do they reflect the Infinite. The gift of the West is to bring to the fore the speciality of the finite through the senses. Plato himself did not like very much the Homerian god who to him was only "human - all too human." The gift of the East on the other hand is to manifest the Infinite and the Truth beyond the grasp of the senses with the aid of the finite, with the senses as a means.
Our object will be served better if we compare Oriental painting and sculpture with the Occidental. Let us compare the image of Venus with that of the Buddha. Wherein lies the difference? The goddess Venus is in no way superior to a human being. A finely modelled face, well-formed limbs, beautifully chiselled nose, eyes, ears, forehead - in one word, she is the paragon of beauty. Softness and loveliness are reflected in her every limb. The Greek goddess marks the highest human conception of beauty and love. But the image of the Buddha is not entirely flawless. No doubt, it is the figure of a human being, but an anatomist will certainly be able to point out many defects and flaws of composition in it. The image of the Buddha in the state of deep self-absorption does not represent a manin contemplation, but it is a symbol of concentration; it is meditation personified. This is the special character of Oriental Art. Oriental Art does not try to express sentiment and emotion through an exact portrayal. Its object is to give an adequate form to the idea itself. The Buddhist sculptor gives an expression to the supernatural state of realisation which the Buddha attained when he was on the verge of losing himself in Nirvana. The sculptor is not concerned with the elegance or correctness of the bodily limbs; his only care is to see how far the abstract idea has been expressed. Wrinkles of thought or the smoothness of peace on the forehead, fire of anger or spark of love in the eyes, the extraordinarily robust and highly muscular limbs of a man, and smooth and soft creeper-like flowing arms of a woman - such are the elements on which the Occidental artist has laid emphasis to show or demonstrate the play of psychological factors. The Oriental artist looked to the eternal truth that lies behind the attitudes of the mind and the body; he has not laboured to manifest the external gestures, the physical changes that are visible in our day-to-day life; the little that had to be done in this connection was executed in such a manner as to make it coincide with or merge into the idea of the truth itself - it became the very body of the idea. The Oriental sculptor has perpetuated in stone the eternal concepts of knowledge, compassion, energy, etc. - various glimpses of the infinite - through the images of Bodhisattwa, Avalokiteshwar, Nataraj and other deities. Raphael has succeeded in imparting a divine expression to motherhood in the visage of his Madonna, but that too is not Oriental Art. The image of the Madonna represents an ideal mother, and not motherhood. The Madonna may be called the acme of the emotional creation, but in the image of the Buddha the percepts of a suprasensual consciousness have been heaped up. The East wants to discover the true nature, the truth of things present in the ultimate unity, the Infinite. The West dwells in the finite, the diverse, the duality.
Beethoven characteristically represents the West in music. The soul of the West is reflected in the symphonies of Beethoven more than perhaps in anything else. He has expressed human emotion in its different modes with their opulence, their concords and even more their contrasts and clashes. Verily Beethoven's world consists in Nature's dual, i.e.,polarized, mood, manifesting itself in innumerable channels. It is like an elephant running amuck and trampling underfoot all that it meets in a virgin forest densely covered with trees and bushes, thickets and creepers. The elephant's trumpeting, the yelling of animals, the chirping of birds and the rustle of leaves - all these go to form what would appear to be like the devastating clamour of the periodic dissolution of the world. The genius of Beethoven has raised the unrhythmic hulla-balloo of the world to a lofty pitch capable of charming the human heart. As a contrast how calm, profound and unitonal is the kirtanof Tyagraj! No doubt, his music has not the rich variation, the polyphonism of his European counterpart; and yet rising on the crest of a single tune we are transported to the Elysian lap of an infinite calm leaving behind this whirl of the earth. We know European music takes pride in harmony, while Indian music is noted for its melody. In other words, Occidental music expresses the multitudinous diversity of Nature, while Oriental music represents the oneness of the truth beyond Nature.
Further, let us turn to the spiritual practices of the East and the West and their effects on life. What is the nature of European religion? Greece is the mother of modern Europe. The Europe of to-day is the outcome of Graeco-Roman culture. What was the conception of religion in Greece? Her religion surely consisted in all that is decent, lovely and harmonious. But the Greek people failed to discover or envisage the self-existent truth that reigns supreme within the heart of man. They were solely interested in external expression through rhythm; cadence and harmony of a mental or rational idealism. There was Plato, no doubt, and the Platonists and esoterics (like Pythagoras), but Aristotle and not Plato came to be their teacher and legislator. The virtue of the Romans lay in virility and the spirit of conquest and effective organisation of life. And the virtue of Europe has combined in itself the aesthetic sense of Greece and the military and state spirit of Rome. In Europe they want to regulate life through codes, moral and legal. Forced by circumstances and for the sake of mutual interest they have set up a mode of moral standard, and this they want to impose on all peoples and countries. The utmost contribution of European religion has been a kind of temporising and understanding with the lower propensities of men and somehow presenting a smooth and decorous surface of life. Association, Arbitration, Federation, Co-existence and such other mottoes and shibboleths that are in the air to-day are but the echoes of that mentality. Deutschtum of Germany sought to transcend this religion of morality. It tried to found religion on some deeper urge within. But in its quest it took the ego for the Self and the demoniac vital energy for the Divine Power.
No doubt, the East has moral codes and in profusion, but they are not considered to be the last word on spirituality; they all fall under the category of the 'Lesser Knowledge' (Apara Vidya) and therefore the East has not confined itself within the play of the lower - the three gunasof nature. Its gaze is fixed on a still higher region. Europe claims herself to be the follower of the Christ. But how has Christianity developed there? It was the Church martyr in the beginning, it developed into the Church militant which finally turned into the Church political. The Christian church aimed at establishing the kingdom of Heaven on earth, but as a matter of fact, it has succeeded in establishing something of an earthly kingdom only. On the other hand, the religion of the East has quite a different movement. The ideal of the East is represented by Vedic seers like Vasishtha and Viswamitra who sought to realise the great Heavens - the Vast Truth. And their descendants clung to this ideal so firmly that no other thing existed for them. Vasishtha and Viswamitra have been consummated in Buddha and Shankara. The West has brought religion down to the level of the mundane and is about to lose it there, while the East has pushed religion up and is at last on the verge of losing the world in the Brahman or the Void.
Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon are the ideal men of action in the West, while Krishna, Arjuna and Bhishma are the representatives 'of the ideal of the East. The European heroes display daemoniac restlessness and exuberance. The Indian heroes possess the godly virtues of calmness and poise along with clear insight. Napoleon is a mighty Vibhuti of the Divine Power. But Sri Krishna is the Incarnation of God Himself Leaving aside some solitary exceptions, the West has generally failed to imbibe spirituality; even so the East has failed to assimilate the true spirit of earthly action. As in the West the Christ is practically buried in oblivion, so the East has somehow managed to wipe out the teachings of Sri Krishna. And, in consequence, the people of the East try to avoid action as much as possible in order to attain to union with God. The West moves in the diametrically opposite direction and tries to attain perfection in every sphere of work in the outer world. Typically, Haeckel was enthusiastic enough to devote his entire life to the discovery of the life-history of the cray fish. To plant a banner in the polar region has been the mission of many a youth in the West. The Eastern mind is apt to look upon these things as a mere child's play. The Eastern mind was never content until it could in some way or other associate even the inescapable mundane knowledge with the knowledge of the Self. The motto of the East runs: "Know the Self alone and cast aside all other thoughts."
The East in its natural bent has aspired for the Divine, the Infinite, the Eternal. She has sought for and found the Supreme which is unity in diversity and which maintains its identity in the midst of multitudinous variables. The dynamic West has understood well, too well, the restless movements of life, its conflicts, its hustle-bustle, its hurly-burly, its diversity and it always runs after something new, ever new. The East wants the Truth beyond the senses, direct realisation and spiritual vision. The West wants Reason, Intellect, the analytic and discursive faculty. Both seem to be wholly taken up - almost eaten up - with their own ideals. Therefore they have secured benefit as well as incurred loss. The East realised the Self, hence she is great and supreme in that way. But at the same time, she lacks in a rich earthly mind that makes for richness, opulence, success in life. The aspirant of the East has endeavoured to acquire mastery over himself, but has failed to see that the mastery over the world is the true fulfilment of one's own self-mastery. The West is particularly concerned with the body. So she has come by the vast material prospect of an infinite variety. But for want of the firm basis of the Self behind the body all her acquisitions are but temporary, and have ended in an external glamour. No doubt, she has created the joy of life, but in the absence of the conscious knowledge of the Self, this joy has not culminated in the bliss divine. The West seeks to dominate the world by force and violence and by exercising her power through external means. She has not the patience or the wisdom to realise that the achievement of unity within one's self is the first necessity and absolute condition, that alone can give a total fulfilment in a perfect contentment. The East has discovered the foundation of Truth. She has not thought it necessary to build a broad-based outward edifice of delight on it, while the West has always tried to build a vast earthly palace, but where? On the shifting sands. The West has become prosperous in life, accepting outward forms without number, but she lacks in the intimate high seriousness. The East is profound with her realisation, but in life she is or has become a destitute.
In this new epoch our aspiration should be for the self-realisation of the East and for this we have first to realise the basic reality of all things and constantly live therein, but not by severing ourselves from the world and its objects. We shall not remain satisfied with the realisation of the Formless alone, because each and every manifestation of the formless Self can yield some special kind of delight and fulfilment. This truth we need must be learnt from the West. Also we have to learn that this limited delight too does not really belong to the finite, it is derived from the Infinite and has its final fulfilment in the Infinite. We are not going to merge everything into the indeterminate Eternal, but we shall enrich the delight we experience in the Formless Divine by the perception of the same and equal Divinity in all the diverse forms and objects in the manifestation. We do not propose to lose the earthly joy in the bliss of the indeterminate Absolute. We shall give full importance to every one of the infinite activities of life, but like the West we shall not consider any of them, in their present make-up, as the one thing needful. We shall see the supreme Being surrounded with all His powers and beauties. The ten-armed Goddess Durga will spread out her ten arms in ten different directions.
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The Cause of Indias Decline Where is God?
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