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of who is looking in that direction -- he will get the insight first. Otherwise the insight starts happening to many people; they may not be looking at it and therefore they will miss it.
Alan Watts, writing on this small treatise of tremendous beauty, the THEOLOGIA MYSTICA of St. Dionysius, says that one is tempted, greatly tempted, to think that Dionysius must have visited the East; if not, then some Eastern mystic must have traveled to Athens.
In those days, when Dionysius lived, many Western travelers had started coming to India. With the coming of Alexander the Great many barriers were broken, many bridges were made. And it was not onesided: Eastern mystics also started traveling towards the West. Even Jaina monks, who live totally naked, for whom the Western climate is bound to be far more harmful than Poona is for you, they went to Alexandria, to Athens, to the farthest corners of the known world. The Jainas are referred to in ancient Athenian treatises as "gymnosophists." SOPHIST means one who is searching for the truth and GYMNO comes from Jainu. "Gymnosophist" is the name for the Jaina mystics who had penetrated Athens. And there was great business going on between India and Greece. And, of course, with the businessmen, the traders coming and going, there was a great exchange of thoughts.
Alan Watts thinks either Dionysius visited India... because the way he speaks is so Eastern, the insight that he reveals is so Eastern. Even his words remind one of the Upanishads and nothing else. So Watts thinks either he visited the East or somebody from the East or many influences from the East somehow became available to him. But I am not tempted that way at all.
My own experience and understanding is this: that great truths erupt in many places in almost similar ways. Lao Tzu never came to India and nobody from India ever visited Lao Tzu. China and India were divided by the great Himalayan mountains; there was no business going on between India and China, no communication of ANY kind. Still, what Lao Tzu says is so similar to the Upanishads, is so synonymous with the teachings of Buddha, that there is a great temptation to believe that
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