[Author’s Name]
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Essay on Philosophy - East and West
Introduction
Western philosophy suffers from a glaring drawback. It does not provide any natural means or ideas one can live by, which is important for any branch of human endeavor that attempts to answer the very basic questions concerning life itself. It quickly loses itself into esotery. Though it provides for wonderful mental exercise, it falls short as an enquiry of existence. Critical thinking cannot match the complexity of the universe. Perhaps someday, in culmination, it will. But I suspect the answers provided then are hinted upon now by its counterpart. In short, to bridge the gap between knowledge and wisdom, increasing knowledge till it crosses the threshold is the tedious way.
This critique of Western philosophy being made, it is also indispensable. One of the effects of being brought up in India, one absorbs at an early age some ideas from Hindu philosophy, but one does not realize their full implication till late. A philosophy capable of providing a useful and realistic view of the world would involve realizations deeper than the intellectual, but the intellectual realizations would have to come first. To sum up, Eastern philosophy seems like an answer sheet, one we need for we cannot conceivably reach the answers by ourselves. But if we can formalize them, we may claim to have truly understood them (Wawrytho).
Eastern Philosophy
Main Schools
- Buddhism
- Confucianism
- Hinduism
- Integral Yoga
- Islam
- Taoism
- Zen
Main Principles (Feibleman)
- Cosmological unity
- Life is a journey towards eternal realities that are beyond the realities that surround us
- Circular view of the universe, based on the perception of eternal recurrence
- Inner-world dependant
- Self-liberation from the false "Me" and finding the true "Me"
- Behavioral ethics
Relationship with Religion (Wawrytho)
Search for Truth & Fundamental Research...............
