Think back to Ancient India as described by the Greek philosophers Megasthenes and Arrian, summarized by Kevin Carmody on his site.
The fact that these interchanges between Greece and India have been recorded and passed down through history is incredible — even more incredible that the Greek writings show deference to the wisdom of a foreign culture! Just read this:
The fifth [sage], being asked [by Alexander] which, in his opinion, was older, day or night, replied: “Day, by one day”; and he added, upon the king expressing amazement, that hard questions must have hard answers.
Alexander’s experiences in India always strike me as a vivid portrayal of the balance between external power and internal power. Though we may never be able to know exactly how these specific discussions went, the same balance of external and internal power has lived on — to relive that feeling, just take a look at the pictures of the man blocking tanks during the Tiananmen square protests.
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