Growth Online > Knowledge Base > Society's Growth  > East and West East & West by Roy Posner and MSS   Eastern vs. Western Consciousness Western Consciousness Eastern Consciousness     Eastern vs. the Western Consciousness (top) The Role of Nature and Soul in Progress in the World Nature does not work for progress in all fronts at all places simultaneously. Nature herself is a partial force. Soul and Nature together make for the whole. Nature is a part. A partial force cannot work for total progress. Hence Nature has decided to develop emotion in Asia and Mind in Europe. India was chosen by Nature to develop the Spirit. (MSS) East and West Have What the Other Lacks The East has ignored the organization and materialism that the West embodies; the West, the spirituality that the East embodies. In the new age we are entering, this is overcome. East and West The East needs to return to its spiritual roots even as it embraces western materialism. It needs to experience spirit in life, not apart from life. The West needs to move away from the sprit-only view to embrace the spirit that the East knows. Overcoming Western Limits of Mind & Its Evil by Embracing the Consciousness the East Knows In 1830 China and India had 50% of the world's GDP. What happened thereafter? They failed to improve like the West. In Europe science developed, and then technology. She also shed much of her religious ignorance. The continent (and the US) boomed. Science and technology brought great prosperity to the West. But then her science brought evil, in the form of Atomic weapons, and in other ways. The mind that had shed the dogma of religion and opted for the rationality of science, had fallen into a limited field of materialism based on science and technology. The consciousness of the new mind of the West was not broad enough to avoid these consequences. China and especially India had the ancient knowledge of the broader nature of mind, of higher consciousness. The West avoided that knowledge and created destruction to match its vast positive construction. It did not respect and hence follow the wisdom of the East. Now India and China are using the technology of the West, and as a results the West may begin to respect the East, and delve deeper into the knowledge of consciousness the East knows. It will give the West a deeper understanding of the nature of mind, so it can go beyond its current limited Mind, which is separative and non-inclusive, preventing knowledge of the whole truth, which in turns creates evil for every good it creates. This Broader Mind -- i.e. Spiritual Mind -- would embrace all truths of an object, not just the material truth -- including the subtle, the psychological, and the spiritual.  Western and Eastern Genius Western genius is not in its philosophy or understanding of life's deepest secrets, but that it has brought out the infinite capacities of matter in all facets of life, from material well-being to the energy found in the atom to the cataloguing of the genetic code. Perhaps, we can then say that the West has released the "sprit" in the material. The genius of the East is the knowledge and experience of the spirit. It needs to embrace the spirit in an active material life. Each side has the secret the other is seeking. The ultimate complements of the world may be the contradiction of these two complementary approaches to life. East Meets West to Know Infinite in All The West is evolving material reality to infinity, even as it fails to see the Infinite behind. Now as the movement of technology moves from the US and enjoins India and the East, it can learn to recognize the Infinite behind the material. It can also know not only the material, but every aspect, dimension, current, and force of creation. Seeing Brahman at All Planes for Easterner and Westerner The flexibility of life permits any growth at any level to reach its acme in Brahman. Thus the Westerner has discovered Brahman in Matter. The rigidity of life permits progress to freeze at the first step. The priests of the East have taken the rituals of the Veda as ultimate and are stuck with it for the past several thousand years. If Spirit has developed in Asia and Mind has developed in Europe, each remains a partial achievement. The Spirit has not revealed itself as an integral whole. Mind that has discovered Brahman in Matter is still a stranger to the Spirit in its original integrality. The Indian should discover the Brahman in Matter, as the Westerner, and the American should discover the Spirit which India knows long ago. The methods are: --(especially for the East) The light they are born with in their bodies should rise to the Mind as values organised in life. --(especially for the West) The values of life and work should penetrate the fabric of existence to discover there a particle of light. Millions of such particles can come together as the Original Light.  (MSS, slight modification)  East and West We speak of East "meeting" West. However, it is East in its place, and the West in its place will complete the whole of the world. (Paraphrase of MSS) Ancient & Modern Spiritual Wisdom Emerging in the World India and China have cultural and spiritual values that are deep, penetrating, and profound, and yet the West caught up in its semi-rational modernity can hardly perceive it. The Upanishads, the Vedas, the Gita, the Tao te Ching, et al, plus all of the spiritual evolutionary Eastern teachings of the modern era can allow the world to fulfill the individuality that the West championed for humanity. Asia will outgrow its current superstitions -- religious and material -- and discover the profound basis of culture that is at its roots. She will also take the evolutionary Science and perceptions of the West and integrate it into their subtle, spiritual view, opening open up a new era of consciousness and awareness for humanity. The Indian sage and seer Sri Aurobindo presaged this all 50+ years ago, and the world is now taking its first small major steps in that direction. Cultural, social, and spiritual integration will follow the current economic basis of unity rising in the world. When the spirit is applied to the details of life, then the ancient wisdom and modern evolutionary spirituality will begin to take hold, ushering in the next stage of human evolution. Unifying Work and Spirit in Nations (i.e. their Integral Wholeness) The West, as in America, and the East, as in India, are at the extremes of work and Spirit. It may be asking too much for each to directly influence the other to enable each sides greatness in full. Each however individually can bring themselves to solve their problems and utilise their opportunities in the integral way. Sri Aurobindo's integral view is a perfect model for each to follow. He said that the hour has approached where the world can integrate Material Prosperity and Spiritual Realization to enable the evolution of the world. How to begin to do this? The best solution is for a few individuals from each side to try to live His integral ideas. The West is prosperous. Western prosperity is there because they have discovered Brahman in Matter. Their science is lifeless and produces negative side effects and strengthens the Forces of violence of all descriptions. Releasing the Spiritual Values of Life in India and the West The ancient Indian rishis/ascetics discovered the true Spirit in life. That truth has become the foundation of Indian culture, known nowhere else in the world to such a degree. It has been said that the very fiber of the Indian body is fundamentally filled with light, whereas the material Westerner, is empty and dark, since he doesn't know and experience the Spirit within, even taking pleasure in debunking its very existence. And yet on the surface of life, in the material realm, the Westerner has discovered the Spirit in Matter. Why is this so? It has because it has uncovered the true values of life. Values are the way that the Spirit express effectively and powerfully in daily life. Spiritual power in life is that power of truth, orderliness, regularity, etc. that brings about far greater results than we are used to. The West has these in great abundance. E.g. no science would have come into existence if scientists had been speaking falsehood, were clumsy, dirty, dishonest, or secretive, which are the values of darkness. The Indian life on the other hand is externally poor, dark, and filled with false values of life.  Should the Indian develop the values of Truth in life, as the Westerner has, he will find that the inner Spirit he knows will emerge at some time to express through his life, not outside and beyond his life. The Green Revolution in India is an example of this success. The joining together of India and the West will then unleash a power the world has not known so far. (Paraphrase of MSS) Upgrading the Values for the Westerner and the Indian/Easterner The values of the Westerner are work values. They should be upgraded into life values, mental values, spiritual values and finally values of the evolving soul, the Psychic Being. The Indian should go back to the ORIGINAL spiritual values of work, life and mind and upgrade them into psychic values. One is free to go directly to the spiritual values of the evolving soul. Capacity to surrender dispenses with all these intermediary methods and ushers him into the goal. Examples: The printer in the West whose book is without printing error has a vision of physical perfection from which he never deflects. It is perfection for perfection's sake. It can be perfection for the sake of the customer, which is one step higher, or for the sake of the Divine. To discover the inner divine is the first endeavour and to refer to HIM each part of the printing work will raise his work from printing perfection to divine perfection. The Indian who raises the level of his life, instead of doing it for his own sake, can refer to the inner divine who is established earlier. (MSS, slightly modified)  The Indian's Mind's Abilities and the Western Mind's Limitations to Fully Know Sri Aurobindo has said that when the Indian Mind takes up a subject it goes to the very end. Philosophers call this analysis understanding an issue from the "first principles"... The Indian can do this in potential because he has an association with the highest consciousness, which is the Overmental consciousness, which their representative avatar Krishna had risen to. [The Overmental consciousness takes the potentialities of the Supermind and follows them to their uttermost possibility, where each becomes Unique.] However, the Indian Mind because of his poverty and other factors has thus far not yet achieved this potential. Winston Churchill, in his History of the English Speaking People said that the enunciation of the first principles has always been an anathema to the English mind. The material success of the West, particularly the English, is largely due to this practical bent of mind focusing on the practical use of things. It prevents them from inquiring into the fundamental nature of things. Hence the limitation of Science. (MSS, somewhat paraphrased) How Indian & Westerner Embody Spirit The Indian has the spiritual light in his body. The Westerner knows the Spirit in his work. [MSS] Europe vs. Asia Europe is industrious, Asia is emotional and indolent. (MSS) Also See Thoughts on Individual Nations, such as India and USA, EU, etc. The Western Consciousness (top) Material Success, Prosperity; Limits of Materiality of the West Reason for Western Material Success The Westerner has material success in matter because he has applied true spiritual values to that endeavor such as honesty, orderliness, systemization, etc. The Prosperity of the West The West became enormously prosperous by hard work, overseas trade, scientific discoveries, socially productive organisation and various valuable values of punctuality, self-respect, integrity, cleanliness, political awareness, etc. (MSS) Westerners Do Not Know Spiritual Origins of Values They Utilize Theoretically, all values are spiritual. The Westerner who lives by values does not know their origin. He should know their spiritual origin which gives him access to their full spiritual power. (MSS) West's Prosperity and Science The West is prosperous. Western prosperity is there because they have discovered Brahman in Matter. [On the other hand] Their science is lifeless and produces negative side effects and strengthens the Forces of violence of all descriptions. (MSS slightly modified) The Unnecessary Western Path to Truth Western man cannot accept the Truth even from those who know it. He must discover it for himself; through his individuality. That is the mental stage of the West in its progress. It thus is a very long path that could have been made much shorter if he surrendered to the Truth that is available now. It is the ego of the mind refusing to learn form others, scarcely seeing a wider truth behind.  (Paraphrase of MSS) Westerner's Character and Personality Westerners are educated, are of well-formed character. The enormous amount of high level general reading they do has created a personality in the Individual out of his character. They all work hard, the Americans harder. The work values have grown into social values of civic consciousness and matured into personal values that ennoble the existing Individual he is. At the bottom of it all lies high prosperity and the incessant wars that he has fought. Work, a stomach full of food, a brain full of information unleashes the curiosity of the mind. Science flourishes. The whole nation rises in human values. Sri Aurobindo says when Force is sent to a Westerner, he receives it and uses it to charge his character as well as personality. (MSS)  Western Values Western values are industry, cleanliness, orderliness, efficiency, punctuality, honesty, honour, organisation, self-respect, and independence. All of them are universal values. A self-respecting individual acts not from the surface but from his depth. Hence it is spiritual. Hard work is exercising the substance of the body. Cleanliness is to give holy attention to objects. Efficiency is to enhance the volume of results. Organisation makes the mind work on the physical. Respect for the other man is supramental. Job satisfaction the Westerner demands is a higher value than money value. He understands, we memorize. (MSS) Westerner has Found Brahman in Matter Sri Aurobindo said the Westerner has discovered Brahman in Matter. [MSS, slightly modified.] Science and God in the West Science has usurped the position of God in the West. (MSS) Knowledge Beyond Its Utility Enables Ultimate Utility Knowledge is of value when it is untainted by use value, the ideal of a mercenary nature. The West is material that degenerates into it. In gathering knowledge, the motive should be knowledge for its own sake. When it is so gathered and formulated, it acquires power when expressed in action. Earlier attempts to convert it into practical application either prevent its complete formulation or prompt faulty partial formation. (MSS) The Westerner Perceives "God" in the Details of Matter  The Westerner’s curiosity to know the process of things, their details of measurement, colour or quality extends to the infinitesimal, which is Infinity in material particles. To him, the material findings are God and therefore sacred. Whatever his personal hygiene, he treats his collection of insects, shells, etc. to a high level of cleanliness and raises his own high sense of orderliness to further heights in cataloguing them. A medical doctor writes the thesaurus in the English language. Observation, collection, organisation, and systematization are his living gods and those gods have been vastly adored and worshipped in the West. Gross matter is Brahman to him and it receives greater attention than his own person. (MSS) Ways for the Material West to Discover Sprit The great success of Western civilization is due to its values. The West’s values have been work ethic, truthfulness, honesty, organisation, and values of organisation, e.g. punctuality, standards, systems, word of honour, etc. In our vocabulary, values are spiritual skills. Their success is really and essentially a success of the Spirit in life and particularly in MATTER. As they start with matter and collect FACTS, but do not see their origin in the higher plane of Life, they are unlikely to arrive at the truths for which those facts stand. Again, as they base themselves on facts, facts collected without sentiments, fully weaned away from sense impression, when they do stumble on a truth of life, they get an infinite treasure of life. Their success always had those two sides. For them, to move towards spirituality, to discover the greater treasures of life, they need to do the following: 1) Agree to study LIFE as they have studied MATTER. 2) See the truth of life in their past discoveries of matter. 3) Consider the laws of life subtle civilisations have developed long, long ago. 4) Put their practical discoveries on a sound theoretical basis. 5) Examine the direction of their enquiries form the points of view of a) unfailing success as well as b) the real source of energy. 6) Understand their other external successes in terms of their inner disposition.   They who have discovered Brahman in matter now must come to discover Brahman in life. (MSS)   Values of Westerner If Viewed as Spiritual Endowment Would Enable Perfect Outcomes Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days possesses an equality that is spiritual. That equality wins him the wager. He has taken punctuality and made it into an article of faith. His punctuality that was physical, taken to the extreme of perfection gave him the spiritual equality that rendered him immune against any failure in life. Did he know the origin of his strength? He passed through catastrophe, storms, fights, and unforeseen obstacles of every kind and still the spiritual power issuing from the physical skill of punctuality ensured him the success. If Fogg had understood the life value of a physical skill as a spiritual endowment, his success would have been ensured without all those obstacles cropping up on the way. That is the opportunity that awaits the Westerner. (MSS)   Limitations of Western Individuality Western Education & Accomplishment The Western system correspondingly turns out independent men who can achieve for themselves or the society. (MSS) Western Mind, Individualization, and Loss of the Divine Developing one's capacities is great, including one's individuality and personal values and skills. Yet, ironically developing such capacities increasingly makes man forget the Divine Spirit. To lose faith in the Divine and shift that faith to oneself is in essence Westernization of the Mind. All the values that issue from that mind-set are values that can make the human personality dry, even rotten. We should understand that man is man because the Divine Spirit dwells in him. Man cut off from those springs of Spirit is a bundle of flesh and a basket of skills worth throwing away. Let him instead find the spirit, even as he develops his capacities. In that way he will move from the Westernization of Mind to the Universalization of Spirit. (Based on a thought of MSS) The Unnecessary Western Path to Truth Western man cannot accept the Truth even from those who know it. He must [unfortunately] discover it for himself; through his individuality. That is the mental stage of the West in its progress. It thus is a very long path that could have been made much shorter if he surrendered to the Truth that is available now. It is the ego of the mind refusing to learn form others, scarcely seeing a wider truth behind.  (Paraphrase of MSS) MSS Article on Herman Hesse's Siddhartha  GO In essence Hermann Hesse making Siddhartha express his individuality by experiencing all dimensions of life on a long road that leads to his discovery of spirit, instead of availing of spirit that was right there before him (in the form of the Buddha). Hesse thus projects the western view that loses faith in one's True Self, Spirit in favor of the long discovery through individuality. Siddhartha could have experienced in a few years (or less) what took him a long and difficult lifetime to discover. Individuality of the Western Man The latest ideal in the West for fifty or a hundred years is “ I want to be myself”.  (MSS) The Nature of the Westerner The Westerner has cherished his personality, privacy, and the value of being an individual - individuality. As a result, we can now say God for the Westerner is his individuality. ... [In the West] God is replaced by the knowledge one has arrived at on his own. (MSS) The Fountainhead's Roarke's True Individuality of the Self, the Spirit  GO A model closer to the True Individual is that of Howard Roark of the Fountainhead, who does not so much try to live out his individuality in the western sense of living out all of the possibilities of his ego, but of discovering the true individuality of the self and spirit. Thoughts on the True, Spiritual Personality   Limits of Western Mind Infinite Physical a Result of Limited Mind Though in the West we have organized the physical to degrees bordering on infinite, it has come predominantly as a result of limited mind. [meaning he does not perceive the whole truth thus creates negatives with positives.] Progress of the West The progress of the West is mainly due to their reliance on Mind, disregarding the subtle realities of life. The Questioning Western Mind The Western mind questions because Mind thinks by questioning. Standing before knowledge questioning even in the shape of a doubt turns the questioner off. He is closed to knowledge. Supermind lies four levels beyond Silence. (MSS) Western System of Education The Western system of education can produce and has produced wonderful technology. It is a system that organises arch Ignorance. [i.e. Lack of knowledge of all the other domains of existence.] (MSS, with addition) How the Westerner Responds to a Crisis In Western life when a Man is confronted with a life or death situation, he tries his best to overcome it by his own ingenuity. When he fails, he gives up. He rarely, if ever, turns to God for relief through a prayer. It is that Mind and its individuality that has achieved what we know as the splendors of human accomplishment. (MSS) Limitation of the 'Straight Path' Solution of the Western Mind to Life's Problems Man loves to follow the straight path. The desire to avoid the crooked ways of life is the noble impulse of a rational mind. But all paths to great accomplishments are not straight. This is true of many small results too. Common sense often defies the straight path. This is so because MAN with the greatest faculties is not always rational. Events, small and big, are irrational. They love to be irrational and laugh at the childishness of the human mind that adores the admirable straight path. He who insists on the STRAIGHT path insists on complete folly and ensures no results in anything he undertakes. The idiom ’more than meets the eye’ metaphorically expresses this subtle idea of life. Life is complex, subtle, devious and mysterious, as it is a true expression of the Original Spirit. All those who are lucky know this aspect of life and honour it to their credit. There are times when a whole community to a man is up in arms against an idealist. They are dangerous times when such a man can be wiped out by a whiff of the angry breath of the society. I have been at pains to draw the attention of the pious population to this great fact, especially when life comes to one as LUCK. At such moments, desire for the straight path will turn out to be foolish stiffness that avoids luck. In 1964 three civil rights workers, two of them white and the third Black, came from Washington to Mississippi and were shot dead with the collusion of the police. Mississippi in 1964 was a state, which was consumed by racial prejudice. No man or woman, white or Black, would testify against this angry mood. The people defied the law and its enforcing officers. A young, educated FBI officer, Ward, along with an elderly assistant, Anderson, came to Mississippi to identify the culprits and punish them. Harvard education had given Ward what is known as the westernised mind. The elderly assistant was from another part of Mississippi and had the life knowledge which is subtle. The straight procedures of the FBI officer provoked the local population, who burned the houses of the Blacks in response. The assistant Anderson was oppressed. He knew how to go about handling the investigation, but it would not be according to the procedures. Ward and Anderson quarrelled. Ward relented. Anderson had his way. He adopted the same tricks of the hostile white population, set up quarrels among their leadership, kidnapped the Mayor and successfully collected all the evidence. He avoided the State Court, which was bitterly prejudiced against the Blacks, approached the Federal Court under another provision, and got all the top criminals punished. It was a success of LIFE. The officer was suffering from a superstition of procedures, which is the characteristic of the westernised mind. It cannot accomplish. It can only spoil or ruin. In India, we have not only subtle knowledge but subtle knowledge that is spiritual. Sri Aurobindo’s Force gives a further evolutionary dimension to that Spirit. We must be at pains to discover our treasure in life and Spirit. (MSS)   Evolution Required of the Westerner   New Values Needed by Westerners The values of the Westerner are work values. They should be upgraded into life values, mental values, spiritual values and finally values of the evolving soul, the Psychic Being. Westerners Need for Organization of Knowledge and their Personalities to Truly Know -There are stray cases of Westerners who are enamoured of the Eastern wisdom. In the process they collect an enormous amount of unrelated details each of which is a shining armour. -They are unaware of the organisation of knowledge which resides in consciousness. Nor are they aware of the strategies -- organisations of their own personalities that are needed for them to draw upon the vast resources that reside organised in consciousness. -The Westerner handles the gathered facts by his individuality, which he mistakes for independence. His facts are an aggregation, not an organised body of knowledge. His strategy is that of collection, not one of organised personality. When his personality of knowledge is organised to receive, it becomes the humility of the Individual, a concept that is anathema to the Western ego. -A child responds to attention but what he would fully respond to is affection. Similarly, the mastery of any subject requires humility of MIND before the vast ocean of knowledge. (MSS)   Personality and Light The Personality must move downwards to create light. The values of personality are seeds of light. He who has light in the body can recognize the objects as Brahman. Brahman is organised as consciousness progresses through organisation. E.g. the Westerners body has no light, but he has Personality. He can take this approach to light. (MSS, modified)    Other The West Organizing the Darkness The West is actively and childishly ORGANISING the Ignorant darkness intensely. (MSS)   From Memorization to Understanding to Thinking in the West Just now we see the West has emphasized UNDERSTANDING [in Education] in preference to memorisation. It is great. That understanding has yet not risen to thinking.  (MSS, with slight addition)   Family Shrinking, Disappearing in the West The institution of family is shrinking and disappearing in the West. (MSS)   Also See Thoughts on Individual Nations, such as USA, England, France, EU, etc.     The Eastern Consciousness (top) True Progress of Spirit in Life, i.e. the Third Dimension,  in the East It is progress for the Eastern countries to become open, Westernized-like societies — with their great concentration of technology users, a popular culture that is breaking the taboos, superstitions, and ignorances of the traditional, and living in ways increasingly focused on individual satisfaction. Still in this race to become modern, open, progressive individuals they must bring to bear the deep insight of spiritual wisdom born of their community, including the deepest psychological and spiritual insights of India and elsewhere. Thus we see that there is then the material on the one side, the deep spiritual (not the religious) on the other. The resolution then, i.e. the "third dimension," is to bring the spirit to bear in the material realm. This will enable the release of the infinite potential of the material in life; as well of the psychological, the subtle, the endless joy and delight of being, as the details of a progressive, dynamic life are married to the forces and powers of the Eternal. Seeing the Spirit in Machines/Technology A century of scientific thinking followed by another century of technological innovation saturated Europe with a culture of machine where the worker feels a sentimental reverence for the machine he uses. We [Indians] use the machines the Europeans have discovered. Naturally, we are not so oriented towards their operation and maintenance. An author says the Asians do not fully understand the atmosphere the workshop demands, nor do they know about the upkeep of the machines. The Westerner often talks to his machine. He refers to it as ’she’. Still, the relationship is one on the surface of his being. Indians relate to the field we plough as bhooma devi, the grain as Lakshmi, our tools as gods [infused with spirit]. We have a festival for them, Ayudha pooja. We are capable of knowing the tools as gods and worshipping them. It is a deeper relationship than the Westerner’s interest. At least, at our best we can rise to his level when we draw upon our spiritual attitude. (MSS, extracted)   Also See Thoughts on Individual Nations, such as India, China etc. Also see Evolution of Individual Nations of the World       Growth Online Contact Us