The Lotus and The Robot

by Arthur Koestler

Book Overview

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• Format: Hardcover
• ISBN: B004FEXMFW
• Release Date: January 1960
• Publisher: HUTCHINSON OF LONDON
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Not Koestler's best!

Koestler's writings are as rule well researched and balanced. Regrettably, however, this cannot be said of 'The Lotus and the Robot.' The blurb attached to the 1964 p/back edition described the text as 'a cool, clear look at the Yoga doctrine in India, and the Zen cult in Japan' - but, this is an odd, tension filled book. While it would be unfair to say that all of Koestler's criticism was ill-founded, his account was seriously jaundiced - full of rash deductions and harsh conclusions, after devoting a year and a half to a somewhat shallow exploration of both traditions. Koestler was not writing with practical experience of either tradition, but as a reporter, commenting upon the mere externals. Admittedly, Indian yogic systems and Zen - are open to the sort of abuses discussed by Koestler and it is probably true to say that both have been exploited as forms of social control. Koestler was perfectly correct to point out that there is a distinct difference between breaking down the ego in order to perceive a higher identity, and breaking down the ego as a corollary of social control. To put it another way, the wish to be 'nirvandva' or 'free of the opposites' makes sense if it presupposes a quest for transcendence; it becomes dangerous when it violates or negates common sense on the empirical level. Koestler was right to complain about the failure to distinguish between these two levels (i.e. the different claims accorded to samvrtti or paramartha-satya). What is disappointing, is that Koestler says next to nothing about the positive attributes of these traditions. Reading page after page of negative assessments, is about as inspiring as reading a 'bad food guide.' Indian yoga and Buddhist Dhyana both had their origin in Vedic tradition but racial stereotypes aside, it must be admitted that something about yogic postures conveys a cosmic intuition - the image of the whole being, grounded and centered. Hence, whether seen as an attribute of yoga or Zen, the psycho-somatic processes involved here - are, rightly directed, healing processes. For one reason or another, Western culture has departed from or lost touch with this sense of rootedness and the greater energic identity it embraces. Hence, in its hour of need, the West has turned to Asia for inspiration. In the final estimate, what matters is not shallow racial distinctions and stereotypes, but whether we know the 'primal being' - and live and move in it. Those who find their way back to the primal man and the invisible centre are stengthened thereby, just as those who lose sight of the invisible centre - are weakened. As a counter-balance to Koestler's negative conclusions, I recommend reading reliable Vedic sources, and Durckheim's 'Hara: The Vital Centre of Man.'

Both sides of Oriental Mysticism

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.

A European intellectual reflects and comments on the East

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.