Philosophies of India

SR No.: 007309
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd
Publication Year: 1953
Total Pages: 709
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 34 MB

Page 67

THE FOUNDATIONS OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
They turn to the priest and assail him with unsettled doubts and skepticism, but he replics merely, "Pratiquez d'abord." That is to say: "Take up and practice first the orthodox, established way of the ritualistic duties-attending mass regularly, praying, going to confession and communion. Then gradually you will understand, and your doubts will vanish like mist in sunshine. You need not fathom the great depths of the dogma of the Trinity, nor the other mysteries, but you must indeed profess and feel an implicit faith that ultimately, somehow, these must be true. Then abide with the hope that their meaning may dawn upon you with the increasing operation within you of supernatural grace."
Precisely in this way, Oriental philosophy is accompanied and supported by the practice of a way of life-monastic seclusion, asceticism, meditation, prayer, yoga-exercises, and daily devotional hours of worship. The function of the worship is to imbue the devotee with the divine essence of the truth; this being made manifest under the symbolic thought-directing forms of divinities or other superhuman holy figures, as well as through the teacher himself, who, standing for truth incarnate, reveals truth continually, both through his teaching and in his way of daily life. In this respect Indian philosophy is as closely linked with religion, sacraments, initiations, and the forms of devotional practice as is our modern Western philosophy with the natural sciences and their methods of research.
This Indian view of the identity of personality and conduct with teaching is well rendered in the apt comment of a Hindu friend of mine in criticism of a certain popular book on Oriental philosophy. "After all," said he, "real attainment is only what finds confirmation in one's own life. The worth of a man's writing depends on the degree to which his life is itself an example of his teaching."
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