Everything Is Interdependent
The first question:
WHILE TALKING ABOUT WISDOM, INSIGHTS, AND ENLIGHTENMENT, YOU OFTEN SAY 'WE IN THE EAST'. PLEASE EXPLAIN THE MEANING OF THIS PHRASE.
By saying 'WE IN THE EAST' it has nothing to do with the actual EAST. Using the phrase 'The East' is just symbolic of the inner space, of the inner world of consciousness. 'EAST' is symbolic of religion, WEST is symbolic of science. So even if in the East a person attains to a scientific attitude, he becomes Western. He may live in the East, he may be born in the East - that doesn't matter. Or, whenever a person attains to religious consciousness - he may be born in the West, it makes no difference - he begins to be a part of the East. Jesus, Francis, Eckhart, Boehme, Wittgenstein, even Henry Thoreau, Emerson, Swedenborg - they are all Eastern. The East is symbolic, always remember. I am not concerned with geography.
So whenever I say 'we in the East', I mean all who have come to know the inner reality. And whenever I say 'you in the West', I simply mean the scientific mind, the technological mind, the Aristotelian mind: rational, mathematical, scientific, but not intuitive; objective but not subjective.
Once you understand it, then there will be no problem. All the great religions were born in the East.
EAST | WEST
The West has not yet produced a great religion. Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Tao: they were all produced in the East. It is something like a feminine mind, and it has to be so because on every level there is a meeting of yin and yang, the male and the female. The circle has to be divided. The East functions as a feminine part, the West functions as a male part.
The male mind is aggressive; science is aggressive. The feminine mind is receptive; religion is receptive. Science tries hard. It forces nature to reveal its secrets. Religion simply waits, prays and waits, invokes but does not force; calls, cries, weeps, persuades, almost seduces nature to reveal its mysteries and secrets, but the effort is feminine. Hence, meditation. When the effort is male, aggressive, it is like the laboratory: all sorts of instruments to torture nature, to force nature to reveal its secrets, to hand over the key. The male mind is an attack. The male mind is a rapist mind, and science is a rape. Religion is the mind of a lover; it can wait. It can wait infinitely.
So whenever I say 'we in the East', I mean all, wherever they were born, wherever they were brought up. They are spread all over the world. The East is spread all over the world, just as the West is spread all over the world. When somebody from India gets a Nobel prize for his scientific discoveries, he is a Western mind. He's no more part of the East, he's no more part of the Eastern tradition. He has changed his home, he has changed his address. Now he has fallen in line, in the queue with Aristotle.
The East is within you, and we call it 'East' because East is nothing but the rising sun: awareness, consciousness, alertness.
So never be confused whenever I say 'we in the East'. I don't mean the countries that are in the East, no. I mean the consciousness that is Eastern. I don't mean India when I use the word 'India'.
It is a bigger thing for me. It is not just on the map as other countries. It is simply symbolic of the tremendous energy that India has put into the inner search. So wherever you are born, if you start moving towards God, you become Indian. Suddenly, your pilgrimage towards India starts. You may come to India or you may not come; that is not the point. But you have started your pilgrimage.
And the day you realize, suddenly you will become part of Gautam Buddha, Mahavir the Jaina, the Upanishadic seers, the rishis of the Vedas, Krishna, Patanjali. Suddenly, you are no more part of the technological mind, the logical mind; you have become supra-logical.
Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 10
Chapter #4
Chapter title: Everything Is Interdependent