{"id":2623,"date":"2013-07-13T01:42:49","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2623"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:42:49","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:49","slug":"51-towards-unification-vol-12-essays-divine-and-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/12-essays-divine-and-human\/51-towards-unification-vol-12-essays-divine-and-human","title":{"rendered":"-51_Towards Unification.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Towards Unification <\/b>
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\tThe progress of distance-bridging inventions, our modern
\nfacility for the multiplication of books and their copies and the increase of human curiosity are rapidly converting humanity
\ninto a single intellectual unit with a common fund of knowledge and ideas and a unified culture. The process is far from complete,
\nbut the broad lines of the plan laid down by the great Artificer of things already begin to appear. For a time this unification
\nwas applied to Europe only. Asia had its own triune civilisation, predominatingly spiritual, complex and meditative in India,
\npredominatingly vital, emotional, active and simplistic in the regions of the Hindu Kush and Mesopotamia, predominatingly
\nintellectual, mechanical and organised in the Mongolian empires. East, West and South had their widely separate spirit and
\ntraditions, but one basis of spirituality, common tendencies and such commerce of art, ideas and information as the difficulties
\nof communication allowed, preserved the fundamental unity of Asia. East & West only met at their portals, in war oftener than
\nin peace and through that shock and contact influenced but did not mingle with each other. It was the discovery of Indian
\nphilosophy and poetry which broke down the barrier. For the first time Europe discovered something in the East which she
\ncould study not only with the curiosity which she gave to Semitic and Mongolian ideas and origins, but with sympathy and even
\nwith some feeling of identity. This metaphysics, these epics and dramas, this formulated jurisprudence and complex society had
\nmethods and a form which, in spite of their diversity from her own, yet presented strong points of contact; she could recognise
\nthem, to a certain extent she thought she could understand. The speculativeness of the German, the lucidity of the Gaul,
\nthe imagination and aesthetic emotionalism of the British Celt found something to interest them, something even to assist. In
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the teachings of Buddha, the speculation of Shankara, the poetry
\nof Kalidasa their souls could find pasture and refreshment. The alien form and spirit of Japanese and Arabian poetry and of
\nChinese philosophy which prevented such an approximation with the rest of Asia, was not here to interfere with the comprehension of the human soul & substance. There was indeed a single exception which remarkably illustrates the difficulty of
\nwhich I speak. The art of India contradicted European notions too vitally to be admitted into the European consciousness;
\nits charm and power were concealed by the uncouthness to Western eyes of its form and the strangeness of its motives and it
\nis only now, after the greatest of living art-critics in England had published sympathetic appreciations of Indian art and energetic
\npropagandists like Mr. Havell had persevered in their labour, that the European vision is opening to the secret of Indian
\npainting & sculpture. But the art of Japan presented certain outward characteristics on which the European could readily
\nseize. Japanese painting had already begun to make its way into Europe even before the victories of Japan and its acceptance
\nof much of the outward circumstances of European civilisation opened a broad door into Europe for all in Japan that Europe
\ncan receive without unease or the feeling of an incompatible strangeness. Japanese painting, Japanese dress, Japanese decoration are not only accepted as a part of Western life by the select few and the cultured classes but known and allowed,
\nwithout being adopted, by the millions. Asiatic civilisation has entered into Europe as definitely though not so victoriously
\nas European civilisation into Asia. It is only the beginning, but so was it only the beginning when a few scholars alone
\nrejoiced in the clarity of Buddhistic Nihilism, Schopenhauer rested his soul on the Upanishads and Emerson steeped himself
\nin the Gita. No one could have imagined then that a Hindu monk would make converts in London and Chicago or that a
\nVedantic temple would be built in San Francisco and Anglo-Saxon Islamites erect a Musulman mosque in Liverpool. It
\nappears from a recent inquiry that the only reading, omitting works of fiction, which commands wide and general interest
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among public library readers is either scientific works or books
\nreplete with Asiatic mysticism. How significant is this fact when we remember that these are the two powers, Europe & Asia,
\nthe victorious intellect and the insurgent spirit, which are rising at this moment to do battle for the mastery of the unified world.
\nNevertheless it is not the public library reader, that man in the street of the literary world, but the increasing circle of men
\nof culture and a various curiosity through whom the Orient & the Occident must first meet in a common humanity and
\nthe day dawn when some knowledge of the substance of [the] Upanishads will be as necessary to an universal culture as a
\nknowledge of the substance of the Bible, Shankara’s theories as familiar as the speculations of Teutonic thinkers and Kalidasa,
\nValmekie & Vyasa as near and common to the subject matter of the European critical intellect as Dante or Homer.
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It is the difficulties of presentation that prevent a more rapid and complete commingling.
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Towards Unification   The progress of distance-bridging inventions, our modern facility for the multiplication of books and their copies and the increase of human curiosity…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12-essays-divine-and-human","wpcat-52-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}