Jain Spirit 2003 12 No 17

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 54

INTER-FAITH
EAST AND WEST
Rabindranath Tagore connects the two different civilisations, demonstrating their inner unity
T
ODAY THE REAL EAST REMAINS UNEXPLORED. The blindness of contempt is more hopeless than the blindness of ignorance; for contempt kills the light which ignorance merely leaves unignited. The East is waiting to be understood by the western races, in order not only to be able to give what is true in her, but also to be confident of her own mission.
In Indian history, the meeting of the Muslim and the Hindu produced King Akbar, the object of whose dream was the unification of hearts and ideals. It had all the glowing enthusiasm of a religion and it produced an immediate and vast result even in his own lifetime.
The fact, though, still remains that the western mind after centuries of contact with the East has not evolved the enthusiasm of a chivalrous mind which can bring this age to its fulfilment. It is everywhere raising thorny hedges of exclusion and offering human sacrifices to national self-seeking. It has intensified the mutual feelings of envy among western races themselves, as they fight over their spoils and display a carnivorous pride in their snarling rows of teeth.
We must again guard our minds from any encroaching distrust of the individuals of a nation. The active love of humanity and the spirit of martyrdom for the cause of justice and truth, which I have met in the western countries, have been a great lesson and inspiration to me. I have no doubt in my mind that the West owes its true greatness not so much to its marvellous training of the intellect as to its spirit of service devoted to the welfare of man. Therefore I speak with a personal feeling of pain and sadness about the collective power which is guiding the helm of western civilisation. It is a passion, not an ideal. The more success it has brought to Europe, the more costly it will prove to her, when the accounts have to be rendered. The signs are unmistakable: the accounts have been called for. The time has come when Europe must know that the forcible parasitism, which she has been practising upon the two large continents of the world the two most unwieldy whales of humanity - must be causing to her moral nature a gradual atrophy and degeneration.
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Such, however, has been the condition of things for more than a century; and today, trying to read the future by the light of the European conflagration, we are asking ourselves everywhere in the East: "Is this frightfully overgrown power really great? It can bruise us from without, but can it add to our wealth of spirit? It can sign peace treaties, but can it give peace?"
It was about two thousand years ago that all-powerful
Jain Spirit • December 2003 - February 2004
Rome in one of its eastern provinces executed on a cross a simple teacher of an obscure tribe of fishermen. On that day, the Roman governor felt no falling off of his appetite or sleep. On that day, on the one hand, there was agony, humiliation and death; on the other, the pomp of pride and festivity in the governor's palace.
And today? To whom, then, shall we bow the head? Kasmai devaya havisha vidhema?
'To which God shall we offer oblation?'
We know of an instance in our own history of India, when a great personality, both in his life and voice, struck the keynote of the solemn music of the soul- love for all creatures. That music crossed seas, mountains and deserts. Races belonging to different climates, habits and languages were drawn together, not in the clash of arms, not in the conflict of exploitation, but in the harmony of life, in amity and peace. That was creation.
When we think of it, we see at once what the confusion of thought was that the western poet, dwelling upon the difference between East and West, referred to when he said, "Never the twain shall meet." It is true that they are not yet showing any real sign of meeting. The reason is that the West has not sent out its humanity to meet the man in the East, only its machine. Therefore the poet's line has to be changed into something like this:
"Man is man, machine is machine, And never the twain shall wed."
You must know that red tape can never be a common human bond; that official sealing wax can never provide means of mutual attachment. It is a painful ordeal for human beings to have to receive favours from animated pigeonholes and condescensions from printed circulars that give notice but never speak. The presence of the western people in the East is a human fact. If we are to gain anything from them, it must not be a mere sum-total of legal codes and systems of civil and military services. Man is a great deal more to man than that. We have our human birthright to claim direct help from the man of the West, if he has anything great to give us. It must come to us not through mere facts in a juxtaposition but through the spontaneous sacrifice made by those who have the gift and therefore the responsibility.
Earnestly I ask the poet of the western world to realise and sing to you with all the great power of music he has, that the East and the West are ever in search of each other, and that they must meet not merely in the fullness of