Indeed India is
producing many of the best doctors, engineers and computer experts in the world. Westerner
can take up the practice of Eastern yogic and meditation disciplines. As time goes on with
the world-wide diffusion of ideas such phenomena will become more common.
The East-West division as we know it today was originally invented by so-called
Westerners, the Europeans, particularly Western Europeans, as an expression of cultural
superiority, particularly in the realm of science and technology. Everything to the East
of them became the realm of the backward Easterners, whether it was such diverse groups as
the Arabs, Hindus or Chinese. Eastern culture
was defined in several ways. Generally it was regarded as mystical, unscientific,
otherworldly, traditional, group oriented, and autocratic. This definition was relative to
Western culture which defined itself as practical, scientific, this worldly,
non-traditional, individual oriented, and democratic. |
