ABSTRACT
the purpose of my commentary is to attempt to build a bridge of psychological understanding between East and West. The basis of every real understanding is man, and therefore I had to speak of human things. This must be my excuse for having dealt only with general aspects, and for not having entered into technical details. Technical directions are valuable for those who know, for example, what a camera is, or a combustion engine, but they are useless for anyone who has no idea of such apparatus. Western man for whom I write is in an analogous position. Therefore it seemed to me important above all to emphasize the agreement between the psychic states and symbolisms of East and West. By means of these analogies an entrance is opened to the inner chambers of the Eastern mind, an entrance that does not require the sacrifice of our own nature and hence does not threaten us with being torn from our roots. Nor is it an intellectual telescope or microscope offering a view fundamentally of no concern to us because it does not touch us. It is rather an atmosphere of suffering, seeking, and striving common to all civilized peoples; it is the tremendous experiment of becoming conscious, which nature has laid upon mankind, and which unites the most diverse cultures in a common task.
