Why do we comprehend pictures so much better than words? The answer lies in the trajectory of our evolution. We were visual beings long before we had any concept of language. Our ability to process visual images is deeper, more nuanced, and infinitely more developed than our ability to express thoughts in words. Language is a crude tool compared to color, shape, and perspective.

Stick figures in particular are fascinating. They’re the oldest known art form. Long before he could talk coherently, man was scribbling pictures on any surface he could, making art, playing God, and setting himself apart from any other animal that shared the planet with him. Even today, we can see that phase in little children, who are fascinated with comics, and other simple pictographic narratives (along with the desire to crawl and hide in dark confined spaces).

Our reliance on sight does have a dark side too. When we ask ourselves in a new age funk why people cannot get beyond things like a person’s skin color or appearance, the answer is the same as why we’re moved to tears by a few dabs of paint on a canvas. We are visual beings. Beauty may be skin deep, but the perception of it goes to the very core of our being.

- Rudyard Kipling, “The Ballad of East and West”

It is taken almost as a self-evident truth in contemporary Western public discourse to talk about the Western way as embodying the values of rationality, truth, and of course, democracy. This is then held in juxtaposition against the Eastern way, which conveniently comprises everything that the West is not – intuitive, spiritual, and irrational. Even ardent admirers of the East – philosophers like Thoreau or scientists like Jung, have subscribed to this view, even if their position was one of admiration.

One manifestation of this supposed stranglehold of the East on philosophical pursuits is the periodic flowering of Godmen, much like mushrooms in mold. If there is one industry that has survived the vagaries of economics, it is this. It is always on an upswing, and there is never a shortage in demand for the next shaman from the East. India in particular has catered admirably to this demand, from genuine philosophers like Tagore to flamboyant glamor-gurus like Rajneesh or Mahesh Yogi to unapologetic charlatans like Deepak Chopra or Bikram (of hot Yoga fame). Yoga in particular presents an interesting sub-culture within Western society, and some of the same attitudes may be glimpsed among Yogis, though in this case usually couched in uncritical admiration. For example, a Yogi in San Francisco would consider his education incomplete, unless he has made at least one trip to India – the purpose of which is unclear. Perhaps to breathe the enlightenment-laden air. I was once asked, without a trace of irony, whether my soul took flight like a dove when I stepped on Indian soil. My bemused response was that I was too busy with my feet stuck in the dirt to notice.

Recently, I happened to read a book by Amartya Sen, the noted economist and Nobel laureate, on Indian history and traditions. It talks about this entirely fictitious dichotomy which has been foisted on any dialog on East vs. West. The constraints of a blog entry do not permit a detailed critique, but let us consider just one aspect of the supposed East-West divide, perhaps the most important one – the importance of the scientific method. It is accepted, again as an apparently self-evident premise to many an ensuing argument, that the rational scientific method is exclusively a Western invention. Yet how true is this assertion? Science, as any scientist worth his salt will tell you, progresses in increments. The work of scientists today reaches far, because they stand on the shoulders of giants. Each new invention, each new discovery, pushes the boundaries of the known universe, but no scientist is an island. Each one’s work builds on the ground laid by his predecessors. With that in mind, let us take a look at the history of invention.

The following entry in the Wikipedia shows the chronology of all known inventions in history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historic_inventions

It shows that right from antiquity all the way down to the Renaissance in Europe, all the significant inventions were made in Mesopotamia (modern Iran, Iraq, Syria), China, and India. This includes the fundamental underpinnings of entire modern sciences such as Chemistry, Astronomy, Architecture, and Medicine. When we talk about the middle-east today, the average Westerner conjures up images of a barbaric and backward society, relying entirely on its oil wealth to prop up radical theocracies. Yet, how many know of the scientific works of Geber or Al-Jazari? Thoreau has waxed lyrical on the beauty of the Bhagavad-Gita, but how many (even in India) know of the Sarvadarsanasamgraha (Collection of All Philosophies) and its analytical defense of atheism and materialism? For all of you readers out there to whom the list above is a surprise, I urge you to read some of the entries in greater detail. More surprises await you. East may be East, and West well be West, but under the skin, the twain ain’t so different after all.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Shorn of their context, these lines hang in the air like some vacuous inspirational slogan, vaguely self-congratulatory in tone. Here, look at me, I took the road less traveled by, and look where it got me, they seem to say. And indeed this is the most accepted meaning of these lines. It is precisely in this sense that these lines have been quoted in wall hangings and self-help books, in greeting cards and wrapping paper; they have been repeated and reproduced until they have been leached of any semblance of their original meaning. Even the most profound truths will be reduced to inanity by endless (and mindless) repetition – witness the “Serenity Prayer” – and so it has been with this poem as well.

Frost himself had described the original poem as complicated and “tricky”, and to a thoughtful reader, it is still a gem of contemplation. Here it is in its entirety:

The road not taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

In the context of the entire poem, the last three lines seem to say something altogether different. The poet is wistful, almost melancholy, as he weighs his choices. He knows the two paths are not really different, they are just as fair and worn about the same, yet he is forced to make a choice. He justifies it with the thought that he will come back to try the other path another day but almost as quickly discounts it; knowing in his heart that way leads on to way, and that he will never be back.

So it is with life; every day we make a choice to tread a particular path, and that makes all the difference. Yet perhaps it is not so much the path we walk on, but how we choose to walk that makes the difference – whether we go shuffling along with our eyes cast down, or whether we walk tall, with our head in the clouds, treading lightly. As if walking on air.

Figure of a woman at Albany Waterfront Park apparently sinking into Virabhadrasana. Even scrap art needs yoga to stay limber.