Just as people
of the eastern world can become adept at science and technology and can add many new
insights and discoveries to it, so can many of us in the western world gain spiritual
knowledge and become capable of adapting or developing it further. As we are now open to
all the knowledge of the world, it no longer matters so much where we are born. We are
less tied to our local culture and better able to perceive things for their own
worth. We do not reject a peach because it is
originally a fruit from China. So too, knowledge has an intrinsic value apart from its
cultural context and this we should be open to that we might fully benefit from our
complete human heritage. Such divisions as East and West are simplistic ideas. They
exaggerate geographical or cultural differences. We label the greater part of the world to
be the East. Everything east of Europe is seen as the East, even though such cultures as
India and China are quite distinct.
They are as different from each other as our culture is
from theirs. In many respects the culture of India stands in the center between the
eastern influences of China and the western influences of Europe. For example, Hinduism
contains the same religious teachings of devotion to God, as does the
Judaeo-Christian-Islamic tradition to the west, as well as the formless meditative
approaches of Buddhism and Taoism which prevail to the east. As such it affords a good
point of integration for East and West.
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