Customer Reviews

The Lotus and the Robot.

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By 1959, Koestler had a wide variety of life experiences that could have easily stimulated him to continue exploring the intellect in the unique way that was his style. Yet, as have many before him, he succumbed to the temptation to explore the Eastern traditions of self-realization in order to gain perspective on the predicament of the West and humanity in general. The Lotus and the Robot is the story of year and a half long journey to India and Japan and his study of Yoga and Zen in each respective country. With well balanced critical eye coupled with an open mind, Koestler's account reads like a spiritual ethnography, observing the implications of spiritual traditions within their cultures, their psychological manifestations, historical trends, and contrasts with his own collective Western ideals and biases. His ultimate conclusions are ambiguous; he is both fascinated by these traditions yet does not believe that the cultures studied can particularly "help" the West with the problems that they face. The deliberate irrationality of the East is not a direct antidote for the excessive rationality of the West, though a hybridization of the two may be beneficial. He also highlights similarity in Eastern traditions to diluted, forgotten, and vestigal Western traditions amd the vice versa unique embracement of Western technology and ideas by the East. While some sections lag, others show flashes of profound insight. All in all, a very instructive and illuminating book for those interested in the East-West dichotomy written by a brilliant observer of both.

In recent decades, the wholesale rejection of many Western ideals by large chunks of society has meant that people have turned to other sources... in many cases this has meant that they see those other sources as a little too perfect through their ignorance of them and/or they actually forget the better points of Western culture, because they see it to be totally "bankrupt".

While there are better guides to the overall "texture" and ideas of Asian philosophy and religion, Koestler doesn't flinch here from telling us some of the uglier details that don't generally reach the west. Yes, Koestler is at times a little prejudiced coming from a Western religious tradition (His family were Ashkenazi Jews), and you can see that in this book... but his descriptions of REAL Indian yoga, will show you how much it has been cleaned up and bowdlerised for western consumption. Koestler also reveals some of the darker side of Buddhism, particularly Japanese Zen, which as he shows can produce a doublethink which can avoid morality, and such thinking may have been partly responsible for darker moments of WWII in the East. He also comes up with many ideas that I haven't seen elsewhere... for example he considers meditation as almost a practice for death. He also reminds people of the similarity of lesser known Western movements to Oriental ones, and of the massive influence of the west on the east of the time (far greater by now of course). Koestler himself was not uninfluenced by certain Eastern thought, indeed he titled one of his other books "The YOGI and the Commissar", and often referred to the "oceanic feeling" in his works, a close lift from Buddhism.

Koestler was no Hippie (he had seen enough of *real* war and totalitarianism not to fall in that trap)... but in some ways he anticipated some of their concerns by investigating eastern thought, doing laboratory tests with LSD and being involved in the anti-nuclear movement.

This book is interesting, because it gives both sides of the story... not many books give a balanced view of the topic.

This book was published in 1960 soon after Arthur Koestler's visits
to India and Japan. The 285 page book is about evenly divided between these two countries. Since I come from India I was primarily
interested in the section covering India and these comments are confined to that half of the book.
Koestler is a very sharp, intelligent, sensitive and yet didactic
observer. His visit to India was to check whether the country's
culture and philosophy had anything worthwhile to offer to the West.
His check on Indian philosophy is suppoerted by a meticulous and
detailed analysis of origial sources of information and comment. This type of in-depth analysis is rarely done and it is a pleasure
to read his observations.
Koestler spent time meeting several several well known Gurus, both male and female, and their disciples. The accounts of these meetings
increase the value of the book particularly for those readers who may not be attracted to erudite, sometimes abstruse, discussion of
philosophic subjects.
This book is strogly recommended to readers with a serious interest
in India and its ancient spiritual culture.

Religion is a natural way of life for people who are overjoyed and want to be worshiped. The first chapter on contemporary saints in India ends with Anandamayee Ma. When a fly gets killed in a quote from a book by her favorite disciple, Bhaiji, Mother As Revealed To Me:

I said, "I have heard people say
there is heaven inside the body
of man." So saying, I swallowed
the fly.

The second chapter has some yoga techniques that make Arthur Koestler glad that he comes from a society with advanced medicine so he does not have to learn how to swallow a long strip of cloth (seven and a half yards of surgical gauze) that can be drawn out of the stomach again as a cleansing practice. In 2011 I read a book called The The Enzyme FactorEnzyme Factor by Dr. Shinya who thinks taking antacids prevents the stomach from doing what it is supposed to do to digest food. I would fear death by internal strangulation if I was being force fed with a feeding tube. Medicine has been putting its faith in whatever techniques a society can master, and surviving is merely one way of prolonging the agony.

Arthur Koestler brings a creepy political consciousness of the vile nature of consensus to mind in much of his writing. 2012 is an election year in the United States of America, and the partisan opposition that strives for recognition in American politics has a lot in common with the kind of happy upending that Arthur Koestler does in this book. My favorite part was about a stink of Zen. It is chapter 12, the final chapter in Part Two (Japan). Examination is too intrusive for this kind of meditation:

When you ask these logical questions,
we feel embarrassed.

This book could not be more racist
Seriously - Japan and India are two very different and distinct cultures from the rest of Asia and to compare and lump together all these different national beliefs, cultures, and ideas is just really ignorant. Just because you've visited two asian countries doesn't make you an expert - I've traveled all over the world and visited at least 10 Asian countries and at least 15 European countries, but I do not pretend to be an expert or lump these countries together because I've actually been there and seen how different they all are.
Seriously this idea of Western people being more rational than Asian people is incredibly ignorant, racist, and just downright stupid. My parents used to believe in God - then they realized it was stupid to believe in anything with Blind Faith which is exactly what Westerners do - no questions, just believe God exists, believe heaven and hell exists, just do what your leaders tell you to do and stay in line or you'll go to hell. - Talk about rational, seriously, this is the most irrational thing I have ever heard. I mean think about common sense - God didn't write the bible - MAN wrote the bible. Therefore it is flawed - therefore there is no proof of God. This is the biggest scam in history, yet everyone thinks Westerners are rational? It's like I'm taking crazy pills! Thank goodness there are rational people who actually believe in things like equality for all and doubting what you are told whether in religion or in govt - both teachings taught in Buddhism.

And Japaneses Zen Buddhism is FAR from buddhism. It is 80% Shintoism, the dominant religion in Japan before Buddhism. Some of it has almost NOTHING to do with Buddhism