| Many forms of Hinduism teach that the soul released | | | | temperament which rejects this world as |
| from the body can enjoy eternal bliss in the presence | | | | unsatisfactory and sets up another ideal, another |
| of God and even those severer philosophers who do | | | | sphere, another standard of values. This ideal and |
| not admit that the released soul is a personality in | | | | standard are not entirely peculiar to India but certainly |
| any human sense have no doubt of its happiness. | | | | they are understood and honoured there more than |
| The opposition is not so much between Indian | | | | elsewhere. They are professed by Christianity, but |
| thought and the New Testament, for both of them | | | | even the New Testament is not free from the idea |
| teach that bliss is attainable but not by satisfying | | | | that saints are having a bad time now but will |
| desire. The fundamental contrast is rather between | | | | hereafter enjoy a triumph, parlously like the |
| both India and the New Testament on the one hand | | | | exuberance of the wicked in this world. |
| and on the other the rooted conviction of European | | | | In many ways the Chinese are as materialistic as |
| races, however much Christian orthodoxy may | | | | Europeans, but throughout the long history of their |
| disguise their expression of it, that this world is | | | | art and literature, there has always been a school, |
| all-important. | | | | clear-voiced if small, which has sung and pursued the |
| This conviction finds expression not only in the | | | | joys of the hermit, the dweller among trees and |
| avowed pursuit of pleasure and ambition but in such | | | | mountains who finds nature and his own thoughts an |
| sayings as that the best religion is the one which | | | | all-sufficient source of continual happiness. But the |
| does most good and such ideals as self-realization or | | | | Indian ideal, though it often includes the pleasures of |
| the full development of one's nature and powers. | | | | communion with nature, differs from most forms of |
| Europeans as a rule have an innate dislike and | | | | the Chinese and Christian ideal inasmuch as it |
| mistrust of the doctrine that the world is vain or | | | | assumes the reality of certain religious experiences |
| unreal. They can accord some sympathy to a dying | | | | and treats them as the substance and occupation of |
| man who sees in due perspective the unimportance | | | | the highest life. |
| of his past life or to a poet who under the starry | | | | We are disposed to describe these experiences as |
| heavens can make felt the smallness of man and his | | | | trances or visions, names which generally mean |
| earth. But such thoughts are considered permissible | | | | something morbid or hypnotic. But in India their |
| only as retrospects, not as principles of life: you may | | | | validity is unquestioned and they are not considered |
| say that your labour has amounted to nothing, but | | | | morbid. The sensual scheming life of the world is sick |
| not that labour is vain. | | | | and ailing; the rapture of contemplation is the true |
| Though monasteries and monks still exist, the great | | | | and healthy life of the soul. More than that it is the |
| majority of Europeans instinctively disbelieve in | | | | type and foretaste of a higher existence compared |
| asceticism, the contemplative life and contempt of | | | | with which this world is worthless or rather nothing at |
| the world: they have no love for a philosopher who | | | | all. This view has been held in India for nearly three |
| rejects the idea of progress and is not satisfied with | | | | thousand years: it has been confirmed by the |
| an ideal consisting in movement towards an unknown | | | | experience of men whose writings testify to their |
| goal. They demand a religion which theoretically | | | | intellectual power and has commanded the respect of |
| justifies the strenuous life. All this is a matter of | | | | the masses. It must command our respect too, even |
| temperament and the temperament is so common | | | | if it is contrary to our temperament, for it is the |
| that it needs no explanation. | | | | persistent ideal of a great nation and cannot be |
| What needs explanation is rather the other | | | | explained away as hallucination or charlatanism. |