"The dharmic traditions do not transmit knowledge, values and experience by cultivating a collective and absolute historical identity in the Judeo-Christian sense. Instead, the aspirant is free to start afresh and tap into his potential for discovering the ultimate reality in the here and now. .... The Abrahamic traditions tend to focus outward; the dharmic ones, inward. The difference between observing historical mandates and discovering the structures of consciousness is stark. ... The history-centric worldview results in synthetic unity, not integral unity."
In sociology, the East–West dichotomy is the perceived difference between the Eastern and the Western worlds. Cultural and religious rather than geographical in division, the boundaries of East and West are not fixed, but vary according to the criteria adopted by individuals using the term.
"Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at Gods great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, border, nor breed, nor birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!"
"Now it is not good for the Christians health to hustle the Aryan brown, For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the Christian down; And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, with the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear: "A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East."
"Characteristic of the Semitic religions are features such as a historically attested teacher or prophet, a sacred book, a geographically identifiable location for its beginnings, an ecclesiastical infrastructure and the conversion of large numbers of people to the religion-all characteristics which are largely irrelevant to the various manifestations of Hinduism until recent times. Thus instead of emphasizing the fact that the religious experience of Indian civilization and of religious sects which are bunched together under the label of ‘Hindu’ are distinctively different from that of the Semitic, attempts are being made to find parallels with the Semitic religions as if these parallels are necessary to the future of Hinduism. (…)"
"India seen as a mirror image of the West appears otherworldly, fatalistic, non-egalitarian. It is as though we would be less ourselves, less this-worldly, masterful, egalitarian and individualistic if Indians were less what they are."
"And East and West, without a breath, Mixt their dim lights, like life and death, To broaden into boundless day."
"Following such fractured leadership, Europe’s oldest dividing line, roughly east and west of the Elbe/Danube, is re-emerging. The nations to its east are drifting away from the liberal values entrenched in half a century of union, and are moving in the direction of nationalism and autocracy. Relations with Putin’s Russia have reverted to the belligerence and rhetoric of the cold war. It seems Europe never learns."