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East and West THE East is spiritual by
nature, while the West is inclined towards materialism. The East seeks for the
world beyond. The West wants to possess this mundane world. Every rule,
however, admits of exception, but that does not make it a sham. The same
principle holds good here. The East is not wanting in epicures like Charvaka,
nor is the West wanting in personages like Saint Francis. Nevertheless, on the
whole it can be said that the life-current of the East tends towards the domain
beyond the senses, while that of the West is turned to the seekings of the
senses. The East is firmly rooted in the eternal Truth. The West is familiar
with the transient truths of the outer world. As a result of this difference
the West has become skilful in action, lively and dynamic, and the East has
become meditative, peace-loving and indifferent to life-activities. The present
urge of mankind is to synthesise these different traits and to impart to the
world at large a common, nobler and wider ideal. To-day we are convinced that
these two different types of virtue are complementary to each other. The body
without the soul is blind; the soul without the body is lame. The body must be
infused with the spirit of the soul, and the dynamis of the soul must manifest
itself through the body. This is indeed the ideal of the new synthesis. Let
us try to throw more light on this difference so that we may comprehend the
synthetic ideal more clearly. We wilt now compare and contrast, for example,
the genius of Valmiki and that of Shakespeare in the field of literature. On
Page – 253 reading Shakespeare a
stamp of characters that are human is left on our mind, and Valmiki impresses
us with characters that are superhuman. Shakespeare has depicted men solely as
human beings, while Valmiki read into men the symbol of some larger and higher
truth. In the works of
Shakespeare we feel the touch of material life and enjoy the savour of earthly
pleasure, the embrace of physical bodies with each other, as it were. But
Valmiki deals with experiences and realities that exceed the bounds of ordinary
earthly life. Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear are the highlights of
Shakespearae's creation. Valmiki's heroes and heroine are Rama, Ravana and
Sita. The characters depicted by Shakespeare are men as men are or would be.
But even the human characters of Valmiki contain something of the super-human,
they overflow the bounds of humanity. It
is not so difficult for us to grasp the clashes of sentiments that
go to make up the character of Hamlet, for we are already quite familiar with
them in our life; whereas the character of Rama which is not at all complex can
yet hardly be adequately measured. There is a mystic vastness behind the
character which can never be classed with human traits. Indeed, Rama and Ravana
both are two aspects of the same Infinite. Even the drama of their earthly life
is not merely founded on human qualities. The East wants to explore the
Infinite, while the West wants to delve into the finite. Homer, the father of
Western literature, is an illustrative example. The men of Homer's world,
however mighty and powerful they may be, are after all human beings. Achilles
and Hector are but the royal editions or dignified versions of our frail human
nature. Never do they reflect the Infinite. The gift of the West is to bring to
the fore the speciality of the finite through the senses. Plato himself did not
like very much the Homerian god who to him was only "human – all too
human." The gift of the East on the other hand is to manifest the Infinite
and the Truth beyond the grasp of the senses with the aid of the finite, with
the senses as a means.
Page – 254 Our
object will be served better if we compare Oriental painting and sculpture with
the Occidental. Let us compare the image of Venus with that of the Buddha.
Wherein lies the difference? The goddess Venus is in no way superior to a human
being. A finely modelled face, well-formed limbs, beautifully chiselled nose,
eyes, ears, forehead – in one word, she is the paragon of beauty. Softness and
loveliness are reflected in her every limb. The Greek goddess marks the
highest human conception of beauty and love. But the image of the Buddha is not
entirely flawless. No doubt, it is the figure of a human being, but an
anatomist will certainly be able to point out many defects and flaws of composition
in it. The image of the Buddha in the state of deep self-absorption does not
represent a man in contemplation, but it is a symbol of concentration;
it is meditation personified. This is the special character of Oriental Art.
Oriental Art does not try to express sentiment and emotion through an exact
portrayal. Its object is to give an adequate form to the idea itself. The
Buddhist sculptor gives an expression to the supernatural state of realisation
which the Buddha attained when he was on the verge of losing himself in
Nirvana. The sculptor is not concerned with the elegance or correctness of the
bodily limbs; his only care is to see how far the abstract idea has been
expressed. Wrinkles of thought or the smoothness of peace on the forehead, fire
of anger or spark of love in the eyes, the extraordinarily robust and highly
muscular limbs of a man, and smooth and soft creeper-like flowing arms of a
woman – such are the elements on which the Occidental artist has laid emphasis
to show or demonstrate the play of psychological factors. The Oriental artist
looked to the eternal truth that lies behind the attitudes of the mind and the
body; he has not laboured to manifest the external gestures, the physical
changes that are visible in our day-to-day life; the little that had to be done
in this connection was executed in such a manner as to make it coincide with
or merge into the idea of the truth itself – it
Page – 255 became the very body of
the idea. The Oriental sculptor has perpetuated in stone the eternal concepts
of knowledge, compassion, energy, etc. – various glimpses of the infinite – through
the images of Bodhisattwa, Avalokiteshwar, Nataraj and other deities. Raphael
has succeeded in imparting a divine expression to motherhood in the visage of
his Madonna, but that too is not Oriental Art. The image of the Madonna
represents an ideal mother, and not motherhood. The Madonna may be called the
acme of the emotional creation, but in the image of the Buddha the percepts of
a suprasensual consciousness have been heaped up. The East wants to discover
the true nature, the truth of things present in the ultimate unity, the
Infinite. The West dwells in the finite, the diverse, the duality. Beethoven
characteristically represents the West in music. The soul of the West is
reflected in the symphonies of Beethoven more than perhaps in anything else.
He has expressed human emotion in its different modes with their opulence, their
concords and even more their contrasts and clashes. Verily Beethoven's world
consists in Nature's dual, i.e., polarized, mood, manifesting itself in
innumerable channels. It is like an elephant running amuck and trampling
underfoot all that it meets in a virgin forest densely covered with trees and
bushes, thickets and creepers. The elephant's trumpeting, the yelling of
animals, the chirping of birds and the rustle of leaves – all these go to form
what would appear to be like the devastating clamour of the periodic
dissolution of the world. The genius of Beethoven has raised the unrhythmic
hulla-balloo of the world to a lofty pitch capable of charming the human
heart. As a contrast how calm, profound and unitonal is the kirtan of
Tyagraj! No doubt, his music has not the rich variation, the polyphonism of his
European counterpart; and yet rising on the crest of a single tune we are
transported to the Elysian lap of an infinite calm leaving behind this whirl of
the earth. We know European music takes pride in harmony, while Indian music is
noted for its
Page – 256 melody. In other words,
Occidental music expresses the multitudinous diversity of Nature, while
Oriental music represents the oneness of the truth beyond Nature. Further,
let us turn to the spiritual practices of the East and the West and their
effects on life. What is the nature of European religion? No doubt, the East has moral codes and in
profusion, but they are not considered to be the last word on spirituality;
Page –
257 they all fall under the
category of the 'Lesser Knowledge' (Apara Vidya) and therefore the East has not
confined itself within the play of the lower – the three gunas of
nature. Its gaze is fixed on a still higher region. Alexander,
Caesar and Napoleon are the ideal men of action in the West, while
Page – 258 moves in the diametrically
opposite direction and tries to attain perfection in every sphere of work in
the outer world. Typically, Haeckel was enthusiastic enough to devote his entire
life to the discovery of the life-history of the cray fish. To plant a banner
in the polar region has been the mission of many a youth in the West. The
Eastern mind is apt to look upon these things as a mere child's play. The
Eastern mind was never content until it could in some way or other associate
even the inescapable mundane knowledge with the knowledge of the Self. The
motto of the East runs: "Know the Self alone and cast aside all other
thoughts." The
East in its natural bent has aspired for the Divine, the Infinite, the Eternal.
She has sought for and found the Supreme which is unity in diversity and which
maintains its identity in the midst of multitudinous variables. The dynamic
West has understood well, too well, the restless movements of life, its
conflicts, its hustle-bustle, its hurly-burly, its diversity and it always
runs after something new, ever new. The East wants the Truth beyond the senses,
direct realisation and spiritual vision. The West wants Reason, Intellect, the
analytic and discursive faculty. Both seem to be wholly taken up – almost eaten
up – with their own ideals. Therefore they have secured benefit as well as
incurred loss. The East realised the Self, hence she is great and supreme in
that way. But at the same time, she lacks in a rich earthly mind that makes for
richness, opulence, success in life. The aspirant of the East has endeavoured
to acquire mastery over himself, but has failed to see that the mastery over
the world is the true fulfilment of one's own self-mastery. The West is
particularly concerned with the body. So she has come by the vast material
prospect of an infinite variety. But for want of the firm basis of the Self
behind the body all her acquisitions are but temporary, and have ended in an
external glamour. No doubt, she has created the joy of life, but in the absence
of the conscious knowledge of the Self, this joy has not culminated in the
bliss Page – 259 divine. The West seeks to
dominate the world by force and violence and by exercising her power through
external means. She has not the patience or the wisdom to realise that the
achievement of unity within one's self is the first necessity and absolute
condition, that alone can give a total fulfilment in a perfect contentment. The
East has discovered the foundation of Truth. She has not thought it necessary
to build a broad-based outward edifice of delight on it, while the West has
always tried to build a vast earthly palace, but where? On the shifting sands.
The West has become prosperous in life, accepting outward forms without number,
but she lacks in the intimate high seriousness. The East is profound with her
realisation, but in life she is or has become a destitute. In this new epoch our
aspiration should be for the self-realisation of the East and for this we have
first to realise the basic reality of all things and constantly live therein,
but not by severing ourselves from the world and its objects. We shall not
remain satisfied with the realisation of the Formless alone, because each and
every manifestation of the formless Self can yield some special kind of delight
and fulfilment. This truth we need must be learnt from the West. Also we have
to learn that this limited delight too does not really belong to the finite, it
is derived from the Infinite and has its final fulfilment in the Infinite. We
are not going to merge everything into the indeterminate Eternal, but we shall
enrich the delight we experience in the Formless Divine by the perception of
the same and equal Divinity in all the diverse forms and objects in the
manifestation. We do not propose to lose the earthly joy in the bliss of the indeterminate
Absolute. We shall give full importance to every one of the infinite activities
of life, but like the West we shall not consider any of them, in their present
make-up, as the one thing needful. We shall see the supreme Being surrounded
with all His powers and beauties. The ten-armed Goddess Durga will spread out
her ten arms in ten different directions.
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