| Author Quoted | Arthur Koestler |
| Title Quoted | Lotus and the Robot |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1968/11/28 |
| Imprint | London : [s.n.]. 1960 |
| Quotation | Dr. Raghavan had had quite a bit to say about his guru, Sankaracharya of Kanchi, whom I have not met"”he is traveling in the villages. I forgot I had read about him in Koestler's (bad) book The Lotus and the Robot. Rereading an excerpt"”I find Sankaracharya saying: "Adaptations have no place in the standards of spiritual discipline." Against shortening or changing the ancient rituals. No concessions to be made. One who cannot fulfill his obligations can somehow substitute by regret and repentance, but the obligations are not to be slackened. Koestler was bothered by this "unyielding attitude." Sankaracharya's views, he thought, "bore no relation to contemporaneity." |
| Quotation Source | The Other Side of the Mountain: The End of the Journey. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 7, 1967-1968.; Edited by Patrick Hart, O.C.S.O. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1998, p. 304 |
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| Link to Merton's Copy |
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