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Conclusion
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The ancient Indian Philosophy is based on a tragic sense of life. It believes that life is full of suffering. But the contemporary Indian thinkers consider life as meaningful. They go to the extent of saying that life gets dignity and human significance through pain and suffering. They accept the reality of the world and also of the bodily aspect of man. Unlike the ancient Indian thinkers, who think that a complete control of the body, senses and the mind is essential for spiritual growth, the contemporary thinkers say that these propensities are not to be killed but perfected. The world is considered as the only field for action and the body as 'the temple of the Divine'.
The concept of karma, rebirth, immortality etc. continue to stimulate the contemporary Indian mind. But their attitude in regard to the solution of these problems is different. Whereas the ancient thinkers were, more or less, other-worldly they are this-worldly. They have attempted to apply the metaphysical findings to the historical and social necessity of the time.
Unlike the traditional thinkers, contemporary thinkers like Sri Aurobindo argue that the karma is necessary for the evolution of the soul. Though the life of man is determi by his past actions, the soul is ever free. The soul is mightier than its karına. Freedom and karma are not incompatible. Freedom is interpreted metaphysically and existentially. Hence they conclude that man is potentially free, but there are certain obstacies which he has ignorantly put around himself. They bind him. His nature and destiny both are free. These thinkers go to the extent of asserting that the free individuality of the individual is not destroyed even in the state of realisation.
The emphasis on human life, society, nation and humanity is the special feature of the contemporary Indian thinkers. Their concern with the present human life makes their thought humane and their philosophy humanistic. The ancient thinkers also were, no doubt, concerned with finding out ways of freedom from suffering but their approach was individualistic. They were not as much concerned with our normal civic life, but with a peculiar life of escape. The contemporary thinkers relate Philosophy not with the life of escape but with human life in his social set-up. His work is not over, even after he has perfected himself. He has to live to help others realise
