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RELEASE AND PROGRESS to either the spectacle of nature or the documents of human history, but to rend the tangible veil. Mokșa is a technique of transcending the senses in order to discover, know, and dwell at one with the timeless reality which underlies the dream of life in the world. Nature and man, in so far as they are visible, langible, open to experience, the sage cognizes and interprets, but only to step through them to his ultimate metaphysical good.
On the other hand, in the Occident, we have had no metaphysics-practical or otherwise-since the middle of the eightecnth century. In diametric contrast to the dominant Oriental view of the insubstantiality of the world of change and decay, our materialistic minds have developed and favored an optimistic view of evolution and, together with this, a fervent faith in the perfectibility of human affairs through better planning, technology, a wider spread of education, and the opening of opportunities for all. Whereas the Hindu fcels himself to be utterly at the mercy of the destructive forces of death (discases, plagues, warfare, human tyranny and injustice), and the inevitable victim of the relentless flow of time (which swallows individuals, wipes out the bloom of realms and towns, and crumbles even the ruins to dust), we feel the power of human genius to invent and organize, the sovereign strength of man to achieve collective discipline, and both the urge and the capacity to control the moving forces of nature. We are the ones who work changes; nature remains ever the same. And this nature, conquered by scientific analysis, can be compelled to submit to the harness of the triumphant chariot of our human advance. Europe's eighteenth-century thinkers believed in progressive collective enlightenment: wisdom as a dispeller of darkness, making society perfect, noble, and pure. The nineteenth century believed in collective material and social progress: the conquest of nature's forces, the abolition of violence, slavery, and injustice, and the victory over not only suffering but even premature death. And
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| 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 |