It seems that you think it would be very easy to change between western and eastern philosophy. I do not think so. One can learn much about a philosophy of a foreign culture but not live it as if it were the philosophy of one’s own culture (the culture in which one has grown up). The change between different national philosophies can already be a problem, so the change between greater different units like the western culture(s) and the eastern culture(s) is not as easy as one may think.
the study of ancient eastern and western knowledge share common roots. I suggest that you google up ‘mystery schools’ .The same story comes into many flavors. I think the west has lost much of its holism during the great inquisition, this of course was one of the aims. As a result the feminine was lost. Western society and philosophy, lost their holistic metaphysical edge, became left brained as a result. And the left brain is very dominant.
most westerners smile or shrug at ancient knowledge, in the east they listen attentively. But mentalities are changing slowly on, now the philosophy of Aryuveda and Vedic Texts for example is gaining traction in the west. I agree that as long as man ignore his relation to the cosmos (as above so below), he will continue to wander.
I am genuinely pleased by your response and hesitate to disturb a nice moment of agreement, but…could we not extrapolate the skill sets (overlapping) coming from these two forms of reason and imagine a team of two equals, one with the feminine reason and one with the masculine? (again not imagining a binary set up, but two people with the counterpoised tendencies/strengths . I assume you will know the thread/issue I am referring to. (while the coyote and the badger do not fit masculine and feminine roles, I would like to use their teamwork hunting as an example of two organisms with different skill sets can partner and it is not clear if at all one is dominant or superior to the other.)
I generally agree, and that’s one of the reasons I have never adopted any sort of eastern spiritual path, let alone an eastern religion. Overall in my life I’ve read quite a bit more western philosophy than eastern philosophy, although the eastern philosophy I’ve read has been more my cup of tea. With that said, I have seen friends of mine go to far to the East, as if they were going to find salvation there, and have also listened to experts of eastern philosophy warn westerners of the dangers of adopting foreign ways of thinking that was not meant for them. At the end of the day, I enjoy the variety and balance that both western and eastern thought brings to me, while always reminding myself that I am a westerner. The West will always be my home, but the east is a great addition to my diet, so to speak.
Are what you have referred to as the “mystery schools” the same as the “wisdom traditions”? In that I mean Gnosticism, Sufism, Jewish Kabullah(sp?) and such? I know that all of the esoteric paths of all of the major religions have much in common, primarily when it comes to finding the kingdom of God/Enlightenment within oneself and in the moment, along with looking at scripture mythologically more than literally. I myself am extremely right brained/intuitive and introverted, which is probably a big reason I have found very little commonality with the culture I live in as well as enjoying Eastern though in general more than Western thought. Or I should say, I love the variety and balance that Eastern thought brings to me, in conjunction with western thought.
There are a lot of "we’"s in your one liner, One Liner.
The Occidental culture is an “I”-culture, thus it is very much more individualistic than all other cultures. So in the Occidental culture the “I” is more considered than in all other cultures. But this does not mean that the Occidental culture does not comsider the “we” - it merely means that it considers the “I” much more than all other cultures do. And this is especially due to the reformation (protestantism) as Ierrellus and I have pointed out:
If I had to choose only one attribute to describe the Occidental culture, then I would always choose “faustic” (just like Spengler did with reference to Goethe’s “Faust”).
The “eastern/analytic mix” or, if it exists, a “southern/analytic mix” is always an “offset” (“offshoot”, “cutting”, “layer”, “scion”) of the western - exactly northwestern (because it is both western and northern) - analytic tradition.
There is more than just Eastern and Western thought. The written word does not equate to absolutism and in the process make every other strand of thought obsolete.
Yes, of course, and there is also more than human thought, because some other living beings have thoughts too, although only some thoughts. But all those other thoughts are not the topic of this thread. This thread is about the Occidental philosophy and the Oriental philosophy. So it is about two huge thinking systems that are probably the most dualistic ones too. There are no other thinking systems that are as huge as these two, provided that all regional or national thinking systems of both the Occident and the Orient can really be integrated in their respective superordinated thinking system.
I for one think that the holographic universe explains why all observations are validating the same phenomenon, that it just depends on the chosen angle to observe the latter.
and this would mean that all points of views never oppose but are complementary. “versus” doesnt exist.
