Eastern and Western Thoughts about the Self: making a start, making broad statements and looking for some comments

In Eastern thought, meaning is in being; in Western thought meaning is in doing. Or, so summaries of philosophy and religion say. But, for a Buddhist or Hindu, certainly "being" doesn't mean a static state, but can be a pattern of active living or passive living. The Easterner, I think, is very concerned with living in harmony with BEING itself. And, the Easterner tends to believe that the way to that harmony lies within, deep within. And, the best I can tell, in Eastern thought there is no real concept of the self in the sense of the developed concept of "personality" that we in the West have. But, now I am really stepping into territory where I need to do some reading. Maybe it would be better to say that though the Eastern thinker reflects on inner feelings, and pays a lot of attention to the inner life, the Eastern way doesn't think the self can stake out any territory for itself. What I mean is that in the Eastern way, the self does not define itself over against other things and selves, but in continuity with other things and selves. The human person is a center of meaningful apprehension as well as being a center of activity, but in Eastern thought I think the meaning apprehension is the key, the center and that apprehension abides in any meaningful activity.

I am going to stop here and ask for some clarifications from others before I move on. Some of you have read and analyzed primary writings of Eastern thinkers. A little help from you would be appreciated.

Let me tell you where I am going with this. I have been having this feeling for some time that Paul's thought and that of most of the New Testament is so deeply "Eastern" in how it views and represents the human person that the hijacking of Paul's categories by "Western" theology (Roman theology) is a drastic corruption of the holy tradition of faith. I think that this hijacking began with a first anti-semitic movement in Church history away from Jewish thought (which is deeply Eastern in its own peculiar way). But, later on, when it was not popular to be anti-semitic, biblical scholars defined Jewish thought over against other eastern thought in such an extreme way and in such a western way that the Jewish way of thinking was considered the seed of all western thought. So, everything in Hebrew thought that didn't fit with western categories of thought was excised and forgotten. So, when scholars then turned to the New Testament with thoroughly western assumptions in place, Paul and even Jesus are seen through western eyes, which means not seen at all.

Now, I have to agree that there are some real distinctive aspects of the Hebrew view of God and creation and history, but these distinctive aspects of Hebrew theology need to be understood within an Eastern social/philosophical/psychological context. Christian theology and the Christian view of self implicit in this theology arise out of Hebrew thought, or out of a particularly dramatic reinterpretation of Hebrew thought through Jesus. To not know this intellectually - for scholars - and, to not know this intuitively for people of faith in general is to miss the heart and power of the Gospel of God in Jesus, the Christ.

Now, that I have stepped into such broad statements of abstract thought, I do want to acknowledge the deep influence of Christian theology on western philosophy and western society. And, not all of this can be attributed to a false apprehension of early Christian categories of thought. Maybe I would be on more solid ground if I said it this way: the intersection of Christianity with western philosophy gave rise to a profound and far-reaching interpretation of God's revelation in Jesus. Thus, Christianity was incarnated in the west. But, the intersection of Christianity with eastern philosophy and with thought patterns more eastern gave rise to a profound interpretation of God's revelation in Jesus that is not as widely known by westerners, but that may have more to say to current western societies because it is a new word, a word that sees the distortions of western Christianity. In many ways, Western theology has taken us too far in its direction; the fundamental resources of its thought have been "mined" and are exhausted. Eastern theology is a resource older than western, more primal, and speaks in a still small voice for those who can hear.