| Moreover,
oriental mysticism is not necessarily unscientific or irrational. It is part of an entire
science of Yoga that is laid out as systematically as any modern science. Hindu and
Buddhist spiritual teachings are not filled with dogma and superstition, but with various
methods of inquiry and experiments in consciousness. This
has attracted many Westerners to them, not in denial of rationally, but often as an
extension of it to a spiritual level. Hence the Oriental and the Pagan is the mother not
only of mysticism but of science and philosophy. What later Western religions brought was
mainly dogma and fundamentalisms, not any internal science of mysticism or any external
physical science.
Therefore to say that scientific Westerners should not
adapt Eastern spirituality does not make any sense. The criticism of Eastern spirituality
as being unsuitable for Westerners are more appropriate for Christianity and related
religions, which tend to be anti-rational, than for Hinduism and Buddhism, which are
rational approaches to the spiritual life. |
