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Question
WHAT IS THE BASIC INDIAN PHILOSOPHY?
As far as I am concerned, I do not see philosophy as Indian or non-Indian. It is not possible. Philosophy is only universal. There can be no geographical division in the human mind. These divisions, these distinctions, are political. Indian, Japanese and German, or eastern and western -- all these divisions are political. They have arisen out of the political mind. In the realm of philosophy we apply them unnecessarily. Not only unnecessarily, but meaninglessly as well. There is no Indian philosophy as such; there cannot be. Philosophy is a universal attitude.
You can see the world through three dimensions. One dimension is science: that is, thinking empirically about reality. The second dimension is philosophy: thinking about reality speculatively. And the third dimension is religion: not thinking about reality at all, but experiencing it.
Science is based on empirical experimentation, observation and objective thinking. Philosophy is based on nonempirical, speculative thinking -- subjectively based. Religion transcends both.
Religion is neither objective nor subjective. Religion conceives of the whole in terms of its wholeness. That is why we use the term 'holy'. Holy means 'that which comprehends the whole'.
When we call a particular type of mind the Indian mind -- when we designate it as such, when we make this distinction -- it is not a geographical distinction. When we say 'Indian' -- to me it means that the world, the reality, is being seen neither through science nor through philosophy, but through religion. If you like you can say that this land -- this country and the mind that has evolved here has peered into reality through religion -- not through philosophy, not through science. The third dimension, religion, has been the basis for us.
When you think about it, any type of thinking is bound to be nothing more than an acquaintance. When I think about you, I am outside you. I can go around and around you, but whatever I come to know about you will just be an acquaintance. I cannot penetrate you, I cannot know you from within, so it is an acquaintance.
Science
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