A Familiar Struggle

But more than that: what is happening in Tibet is symbolic of the fate of humanity. As on a gigantically-raised stage we witness the struggle between two worlds, which may be interpreted, according to the standpoint of the spectator, either as the struggle between the past and the future, between backwardness and progress, belief and science, superstition and knowledge — or as the struggle between spiritual freedom and material power, between the wisdom of the heart and the knowledge of the brain, between the dignity of the human individual and the herd-instinct of the mass, between the faith in the higher destiny of humanity through inner development and the belief in material prosperity through an ever-increasing production of goods.

 

Lama Anagarika Govinda (written in 1950)

from The Way of the White Clouds