In contrast, the Indian concept of non-violence (ahimsa) plays a key role throughout its history. It lies in universal harmony and love, characteristic of all deep phenomena and Nature. Its distinctive features are the supreme self-control of a person, the greatest gift, the highest sacrifice, the most beautiful power, happiness, the highest truth and the principle of creating the World out of harmony. Tolerance and conflict-free, the unity of mankind and all its constituent peoples. “Non-violence is the highest moral virtue” (Mahabharata). She urged “… to lead others not by violence, but by righteousness and justice” (Buddha).
The East, on the contrary, glorifies the rational dominant of feeling, elevates the spiritual component of the World, and perceives the truth through intuition, feelings and emotions. That is why eastern knowledge is indifferent to time running, and what was valued a thousand years ago is still valued today. To give just one example, “The supreme good of the human-beast is health; the supreme good of a spiritual human being is truth’16 (from The Gems of the East [15]). Is there anything to oppose this statement? Indeed, what is eternal is immune to change, and what is constant is eternal.
All this eventually shaped the different views of the people who live at the opposite points of the planet, both their views of themselves, and of the World around them. One of the cultures under consideration underestimates the world of consciousness, the other rejects that of the Uniform Spirit. The West celebrates “objectiveness’ sacrificing to it the beauty and the integrity of life. The East substitutes objectiveness with wisdom, peace of estrangement and psychic immobility that help human beings return to the source and leave all troubles and joys outside. “Subjectivity is really an advanced or preparatory stage for objectivity’ (Satprem [18]).
Having completed their historic development, the Europeans have gone so far from their origins that their minds have finally split into faith and knowledge. This is not surprising, as any psychological exaggeration leads to a split into the inherent opposites. Thus, a European person, equipped with the bad habit of believing and, at the same time, with a developed scientific and philosophic criticism, is inevitably trapped either in blind adoration or in an equally uncompromising rejection of foreign opinions and lifestyles.
The East believes that “Everything requires for its existence its own opposite, or else it fades into nothingness’ (Carl Gustav Jung, [17]). The World is stable as long as its composing factors are balanced. It understands that “Where there is faith, there is doubt; where there is doubt, there is thirst for faith; where there is morality, there is temptation’ (Laozi). That is why “The West can galvanize and separate, but it can neither stabilize nor unite’ (A. J. Toynbee).
An Indian take care both of the body and the mind, and a European keeps forgetting to attend to either the one or to the other. Where there is a will, there is a way, claims the West, and a European person takes this as a life motto. Thanks to persistent energy and forgetfulness, the Europeans have conquered the entire planet. And, at the same time, they have lost their planet. “That is the sickness of western man, and he will not rest until he has infected the whole world with his own greedy restlessness’ (C. G. Jung [17]). This is why the western man has become a symbol of the material component of the World, this is why he has made impressive material achievements. However, he has failed in the spiritual ones, as an increase in one place will always be balanced by a decrease in another, according to the law of conservation of energy.
In fact, neither of these two highly contrasted viewpoints is universal. As the great medieval scientist, theologian and poet Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī [19] said, there are two tools for discovering the world: logic and sense. And these two are inseparable and irreplaceable, just as the two sides of the coin. Rumi believed that the more one tries to push apart two opposites, the more power they have.
Obviously, a person’s mood and their understanding of the good and the evil, the moral and the immoral is profoundly influenced by the religious dogmas that the person lives by. It is evident that people with different psychic and incomparable values cannot pray to the same god. And for a Christian, notwithstanding his confession, the structure of the religion, i.e. the difference of its rituals from other religions, is more important than their sense. A Christian transposes these rituals onto himself and, as the result, feels the competition between the religions, but cannot imagine their union.
For an Indian, on the contrary, the apparent differences of the religions are of little consequence, as he instinctively tries to discard the superficial to glorify the common features of all religions. An Indian would rather give up dogmas than circumscribe the essence of God, making God universal through limitation. “One, He presides over all wombs and natures; Himself the womb of all’17 establishes Shvetashvatara Upanishad (V.5). According to the eastern philosophy, God and man are linked by indissoluble ties: “In whatever way people surrender unto me, I reciprocate with them accordingly. Everyone follows my path’18, reads Bhagavad Gita (IV,11 [15]).
Western religious practice is based on prayer, on the worship and the adoration of God. A person from the East mostly communicates with the Deity by being immersed in unconsciousness that they believe to be the supreme conscience. A European echoes Saint Paul, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me’ (Gal.2:20). And the Indian surah promises “And you shall know that you are Buddha’ (Taittirīya Upanishad X). This is the reason why the spiritual approach of the East stupefies western man, and vice versa. A good Christian cannot save himself, just as a Buddha cannot worship a God other than himself. And even though the western civilisation is not as blessed as it seems, it is also incapable of accepting the spiritual approach of the East. And similarly, the East cannot cast away its culture to adopt another one, raised from foreign ground.
The Hindu people believe that the Deity inhabits all things and, above all, any human being. In western religions, on the contrary, only humans are endowed with a soul, as well as some other living beings. In eastern cultures, human soul is identical to the souls of other natures of the Universe, to those of all things existing. This soul is described as follows: “He is the child of the waters, the child of the forests, the child of things stable and the child of things that move. Even in the stone he is there’19 (Rigveda, I.70.20). In the West, however, nature is inanimate, and the man is a consumer, capable of governing Nature and all of its components.
A Christian attains the supreme knowledge through losing his own self, while an Indian preserves the immutable foundation of his nature through rigorous respect of its unity with the deity or the universal nature: “The heavens beyond are great and wonderful, but greater yet and more wonderful are the heavens within you’ (Sri Aurobindo [18]). On the contrary, a European is more convinced by the visible reality with its materiality and weight. That is why a western man seeks rising above the World, while an Indian turns to the original sources of Nature.
As the result, the western Christian culture sees man free but at the same time fully subordinated to the will of God. Or, at least, to the church – the only institute of salvation on earth authorized by God. Thus, a European wants to mollify this “authority’ with his fear, his vows, his prayers, with obedience, self-humiliation, good deeds, and glorification. And, from time to time, with indulgences. A western person is tortured by the belief in absolute gods that share human passions and weaknesses, but in fact are nothing else than a veil of illusions woven by the imperfect human mind.
Deep down the western man feels his insignificance before God and therefore does