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The Supreme Identity

An Essay on Oriental Metaphysic and the Christian Religion

By ALAN W. WATTS

NEW YORK

The Noonday press, inc

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

I.                 The Infinite and the Finite

II.                 The Supreme Identity

III.               The Problem of Evil

IV.              Involution and Evolution

V.                The Way of Realization

Bibliography

Index

PREFACE

We must face certain facts about the spiritual state of our civilization. One , too obsvious to need much stress, is that in practice our religious and educational institutions are providing neither the wisdom nor the power to cope with political, economic and psychological predicament in which we find ourselves. There can now be litle doubt that, if it follows its present course, the final result of Western man’s ‘conquest of nature’, scientific progress, and cultural imperalism will be a ‘last state worse than the first’, worse than the supposed barbarism in which  the history of Europe began. The present condition of Western civilization threatens the world with dangers that far outweigh its many achievements and blessings.

Another fact, far less obvious, is that our cultural expansion has brought us, quite unintentionally, a great spiritual opportunity. While we have been trying to secure our political, economic and cultural rule over the people of Asia, we have been quietly but powerfully invaded by the Orient in the realm of the mind. Western thought is beginning to feel the influences of what we call oriental ‘philosophy and religion’, though so long as we can believe that this influence is confined to afer a scholars or to cultists and faddhists, we are not going to be seriously concerned. Every day, however, we are hearing more and more about ‘the contribution of the Ancient East to modern culture’. Yet while thoughtfull Westerners are agreed that we do have something to learn from the wisdom of the East, they are mostly of the opinion that it is litle more than a refining enrichment of our already far superior way of life.

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