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Background : The Clash Of Civilizations > Page1
A clash of civilizations is occurring throughout in the world today, a war of cultures at various levels in both our personal and in our public lives. One civilization, the Western-European-American is currently predominant and is strongly, if not rudely, trying to eliminate or subordinate the rest. Yet western civilization is spreading itself not so much by force, as in the colonial era, but by subtle new forms of social manipulation. These include control of the media and news information networks, the entertainment industry and commercial markets, by continued aggressiveness by western religions and - as important but sometimes overlooked - control of educational institutions and curriculums worldwide.
This control of education has resulted in a Western-European-American view of history and culture in textbooks and information sources in most countries, including India. Naturally, people educated according to western values will function as part of western culture, whatever the actual country of their birth. They will experience an alienation from their native culture that they have not really been raised in. They easily become a fifth column for the westernization of their culture, which usually means its denigration or, at best, its commercialization. For this reason, an authentic Indian or Indic perspective - a worldview coming out of the culture of India and its particular values and perceptions - is hardly to be found, even in India. The western school of thought is taught in India, not any Indic school of thought.
What is the Indic school of thought, one might ask? Does it exist at all? It is not at all something new or unknown. It is the great spiritual, philosophical, scientific, artistic and cultural traditions of the subcontinent that are among the largest and oldest in the world. The Indic school of thought is an emphasis on dharma, karma, pluralism and synthesis, on Yoga sadhana and moksha. It reflects a dharmic worldview, in which all aspects of human and cosmic life are integrated in a vision of the conscious and sacred nature of all existence. The Indic school of thought is not only the tradition of ancient sages from the Vedas and Upanishads to Buddhist and Yoga traditions but also modern teachers like Sri Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda. It is not only the vast literature of Sanskrit but also that of the many regional languages and dialects of the subcontinent, most of which have older literary traditions than the languages of Europe, including English.
Author - David Frawley
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