Eastern Philosophy for the Western Mind
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Some philosophy, some poetry and some religion, all from an Eastern point of view. The West is becoming Oriental, as it must if humankind is to survive.
Robert S. Hare
SINGULARITY publishes small, concise philosophical eBooks. The distilled prose delivers simple, raw philosophy to discerning readers – just the thing they didn’t know that they craved. Contact, sign up for new title alerts from SINGULARITY, at: RHare702@gmail.com
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Eastern Philosophy for the Western Mind - Robert S. Hare
Eastern Philosophy
for the
Western Mind
Robert S. Hare
Eastern Philosophy for the Western Mind
Robert S. Hare
SINGULARITY
SMASHWORDS EDITION
Copyright 2016, Robert S. Hare
No part of Eastern Philosophy for the Western Mind may be used without written (email) permission.
Please contact SINGULARITY, RHare702@gmail.com
Eastern Philosophy for the Western Mind may be shared only if additional copies are purchased,
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Table of Contents
Chapter One: Art
Literature and Writers
Poetry and Poets
Philosophy and Philosophers
Art and Artists
Chapter Two: Truth
Questions
Personal Truth
Philosophical Truth
Miscellaneous Truth
Chapter Three: Liberty
Freedom
Duty
Work
Power
Geniuses
Chapter Four: Mysticism
Mystical Philosophy
The Soul
Searching
Action
Meditation
Death
Chapter Five: Evil
Chapter Six: Morality
Virtue
Intention
Duty
Ideals
Chapter Seven: Civilization
History
Democracy
Education
Justice
The Classes
The Individual
Ideal Politics
Chapter Eight: Nature
Observations of Nature
Nature and Man
Nature and God
Chapter Nine: Spirituality and Religion
Spirituality
Religion
Chapter Ten: Hinduism
Chapter One: Art
Literature and Writers
Literature is freedom.
Literature is the permanent mode of the development of consciousness.
Literature is the nourishment of the soul and the medicine of the mind.
Literature’s end is the beauty of perfect fullness, consisting of simplicity and restraint.
One step above the sublime is the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous is the sublime again.
(Paine)
The main object of teaching is to knock at the door of the mind. What happens within is much bigger than what we can express in words. What is going on in the inner recesses of consciousness is not always known on the surface.
(My Reminiscences, Part III, Tagore)
A teacher can never truly teach unless he is still learning himself.
Teach men the art of creation.
To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, and my sincere motive for scribbling at all.
(The Bride of Abydos. A Turkish Tale, Intro., Byron)
A great writer is a martyr who does not die.
When I soared into the limitless, I found my songs!
Poetry and Poets
Poetry comes nearest to uttering the truth.
The poet interprets human life afresh.
He saw thro’ life and death, thro’ good and ill,
He saw thro’ his own soul . . .
(The Poet, Tennyson)
The poet’s aim is to console the afflicted, to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy happier, to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to think, to feel, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous.
(Wordsworth's letter to Lady Beaumont, 'Prose Works', vol. ii., p. 176)
Epistle To Robert Graham, Esq., Of Fintry
Requesting a Favor
When Nature her great master-piece design'd,
And fram'd her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,
She form'd of various parts the various Man.
Then first she calls the useful many forth;
Plain plodding Industry, and sober Worth:
Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth,
And merchandise' whole genus take their birth:
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds,
And all mechanics' many-apron'd kinds.
Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet,
The lead and buoy are needful to the net:
The caput mortuum of gross desires
Makes a material for mere knights and squires;
The martial phosphorus is taught to flow,
She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough,
Then marks th' unyielding mass with grave designs,
Law, physic, politics, and deep divines;
Last, she sublimes th' Aurora of the poles,
The flashing elements of female souls.
The order'd system fair before her stood,
Nature, well pleas'd, pronounc'd it very good;
But ere she gave creating labour o'er,
Half-jest, she tried one curious labour more.
Some spumy, fiery, ignis fatuus matter,
Such as the slightest breath of air might scatter;
With arch-alacrity and conscious glee,
(Nature may have her whim as well as we,
Her Hogarth-art perhaps she meant to show it),
She forms the thing and christens it--a Poet:
Creature, tho' oft the prey of care and sorrow,
When blest to-day, unmindful of to-morrow;
A being form'd t' amuse his graver friends,
Admir'd and prais'd--and there the homage ends;
A mortal quite unfit for Fortune's strife,
Yet oft the sport of all the ills of life;
Prone to enjoy each pleasure riches give,
Yet haply wanting wherewithal to live;
Longing to wipe each tear, to heal each groan,
Yet frequent all unheeded in his own.
But honest Nature is not quite a Turk,
She laugh'd at first, then felt for her poor work:
Pitying the propless climber of mankind,
She cast about a standard tree to find;
And, to support his helpless woodbine state,
Attach'd him to the generous, truly great:
A title, and the only one I claim,
To lay strong hold for help on bounteous Graham.
Pity the tuneful Muses' hapless train,
Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main!
Their hearts no selfish stern absorbent stuff,
That never gives--tho' humbly takes enough;
The little fate allows, they share as soon,
Unlike sage proverb'd Wisdom's hard-wrung boon:
The world were blest did bliss on them depend,
Ah, that the friendly e'er should want a friend!
Let Prudence number o'er each sturdy son,
Who life and wisdom at one race begun,
Who feel by reason and who give by rule,
(Instinct's a brute, and sentiment a fool!)
Who make poor will do
wait upon I should
--
We own they're prudent, but who feels they're good?
Ye wise ones hence! ye hurt the social eye!
God's image rudely etch'd on base alloy!
But come ye who the godlike pleasure know,
Heaven's attribute distinguished--to bestow!
Whose arms of love would grasp the human race:
Come thou who giv'st with all a courtier's grace;
Friend of my life, true patron of my rhymes!
Prop of my dearest hopes for future times.
Why shrinks my soul half blushing, half afraid,
Backward, abash'd to ask thy friendly aid?
I know my need, I know thy giving hand,
I crave thy friendship at thy kind command;
But there are such who court the tuneful Nine--
Heavens! should the branded character be mine!
Whose verse in manhood's pride sublimely flows,
Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose.
Mark, how their lofty independent spirit
Soars on the spurning wing of injured merit!
Seek not the proofs in private life to find
Pity the best of words should be but wind!
So, to heaven's gates the lark's shrill song ascends,
But grovelling on the earth the carol ends.
In all the clam'rous cry of starving want,
They dun Benevolence with shameless front;
Oblige them, patronize their tinsel lays--
They persecute you all your future days!
Ere my poor soul such deep damnation stain,
My horny fist assume the plough again,
The pie-bald jacket let me patch once more,
On eighteenpence a week I've liv'd before.
Tho', thanks to Heaven, I dare even that last shift,
I trust, meantime, my boon is in thy gift:
That, plac'd by thee upon the wish'd-for height,
Where, man and nature fairer in her sight,
My Muse may imp her wing for some sublimer flight.
(Robert Burns)
Sketch In Verse
Inscribed to the Right Hon. C. J. Fox.
How wisdom and Folly meet, mix, and unite,
How Virtue and Vice blend their black and their white,
How Genius, th' illustrious father of fiction,
Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction,
I sing: If these mortals, the critics, should bustle,
I care not, not I--let the Critics go whistle!
But now for