Some other religions in this world

Are worked out for inspiration

And people’s living emotions,

The feeling for the grim grandeur

And mystery of the universe and

A quest for security in time and space,

Satisfying man’s spiritual force

And unerring instincts for life.

There are moments in our lives,

Perhaps during the loss of our dears

Or during the phase of convalescence

From a serious sickness or calamity,

Or perhaps on a chilly autumn morn

As we look at the falling leaves

And a sense of death and futility

Overcomes us when we live more

Than the life of the senses

And we look over the visible world

Straightforward to the open sky. . .

Such moments come to all habitants

Of the Asian regions as of the West,

But reactions of them are different,

Decidedly different, I would say.

As for the Asians, their Confucius,

Who dismisses supernaturalism

As the realm of the unknowable

And expends utterly little time over it,

Is equally emphatic in the assertion

Of the superiority of the human mind

Over nature and in the denial

Of nature’s way of life or naturalism

As the human way—an attitude

Clearest in another great thinker

Of man’s place in nature is that

Heaven, Earth and Man are regarded

As the three powers of the universe.

It’s a distinction somewhat

Corresponding to the threefold distinction

Of supernaturalism, humanism

And naturalism. Heaven is seen

As consisting of the clouds, the stars

And all those unknowable forces

That the Western legal phraseology

Sums up as "acts of God"

While the earth is seen as consisting

And all those forces ascribed

In Greek mythology to Demeter

Or Ceres, her Roman equivalent,

And Man occupies an all-important place

Man knows where he belongs to

And is greatly proud of his central space.

And unlike the Gothic spires,

His spirit does not aspire to the heavens

But broods over the earth.

So, the question is: Whether does Man

Belong first to Heaven or Earth?

Any religion’s greatest achievement

Is to attain a measure of harmony

And happiness in this earthly life

Known as ‘the worldly attainments.’

The flying form of a Chinese roof

Suggests that the harmony and happiness

Is first to be found at home. Indeed,

The home stands for all of us

As a symbol of the worldly scale of values,

But the Asians have achieved

This simple ideal not by laziness of effort

But by a positive worship of simplicity,

Or the religion of common sense

Summarized by the name of ‘the heavens.’

How this can be achieved

The West has to realise for its own welfare.