Western Civilization

"Western civilization is like the tree outside, and the Eastern understanding of the Spirit is like your roots. So there is a continuity, I mean I cannot separate one from another, you need the tree and a tree needs the roots also. Roots must have the tree, you cannot do without it, so both things are complementary to each other. But when there is an imbalance, like a tree grows too much beyond, and it doesn’t reach its source, then there could be a destruction. And that’s what exactly what has happened in the West, that you have overdeveloped yourself, and that overdevelopment has led you to a problem, because you have exhausted the Mother Earth, exhausted your energies, exhausted your brains, everything is at an exhaustion point. So now it’s better to get to the roots. So when you get to the roots you find, you have not reached the source. And where is the source? Source lies within yourself, in the human being himself and that source is to be found out. And that source is the Spirit, which all the great saints, all the great incarnations, in their own traditional way has one after another have expressed and told."
(H.H.Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, Radio Interview, Vienna, Austria, 1984)


Reporter: What do you think of western civilization?

Mahatma Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.