Page Text
________________
THE PHILOSOPHY OF SUCCESS
to the practical reckoning of the stresses in almost any historical scene-a really wonderful achievement of that Hindu genius which so loves to indulge in highly abstract intellectual exercises, yet at the same time has a conspicuous gift for intuitive insight, symbolic expression, and the pictorial language of the parable and the myth.
When applied to the map of Europe the ancient Indian mandala supplies a perfect pattern for the issues and vicissitudes, understandings and seeming misunderstandings, that have underlain our almost incessant wars. At the opening of the modern period, in the sixteenth century, France found herself threatened with encirclement when Spain and the German Empire became united under the dynasty of the Hapsburgs. The subsequent struggle for hegemony between the French kings and the emperors in Vienna-from the time of Francis I (1515-47) and Charles V (1519–56)-continued until the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Louis XIV (1643-1715)-that "most Christian king," who persecuted the Calvinist Huguenots and expelled them from his realm -secured the support of the Mohammedan Turks in the rear of the Hapsburg dominions in eastern Europe, and these then invaded the enemy territories from what is now Yugoslavia, and through Hungary, while the armies of France fought the German Imperial forces in Flanders and along the Rhine.
The neighbor to the rear, or at the flank, of one's own neighbor and rival is the born ally: that is the supreme principle. Moral and religious considerations, matters of ideology, and common spiritual tradition do not have the force of this simple geometrical fact. The Christian king did not hesitate to betray and endanger the Christian civilization of Europe by inspiring and supporting an invasion by the very power that had been the primary common foe of Christendom for the past thousand years. In precisely the same way, Nazi Germany today betrays the cornmon cause of Europe, i.e., the White Man's colonial empire and civilization, by its co-operation with Japan's attempt to con
116
| SR No. | 007309 |
| Book Title | Philosophies of India |
| 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 |