Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1907-11-09
Far east is east and west is west.
And never the twain shall meet

And never the twain shall meet
1t is not improbable that Rudyard
Kipling saw the gulf dividing the two
civilizations in his early acquaintance
ship with Bahia Bharati when both
were journalists in India. 1t is GER
tain that Bharati saw it, for he came
to the Occident avowedly to study the
possibilities of bridging it. Now, after
five years among us he has gone back
to his own people, never, he says, to
return. And with his perspective of
time, old ideals of civilization and dis
interestedness Bahia Bharati, Citizen
of the universe ascetic, philosopher
and apostle of the purely spiritual
life, sees war impending between east
and west; war, not of the west
against the yellow peril" but of the
east against what he calls the white
peril of aggressiveness and material
ism.
THE Orient will rise and drive the
white man forth. This will happen in
a very few years. By 1915, 1 believe,
this conflict will be well under way.
This is my own prophecy, but 1 find
that Lafcadio Hearn made virtually
the same forecast some years ago. 1t
is the White Peril from which we suf-
fer in the Orient-Caucasian aggres-
siveness- and soul-killing civilization"
Such was Bharati's parting message
to the western world.
Bahia (Father) Bharati is not to be
confounded with the type of pic
turesque Hindu charlatans who, with
appropriate scenery and costumes, have
come to America from time to time
to wheedle dollars from silly women
and men who wear thumb rings. His
sponsors were men of like standing
with Rev. DIR. r. Heber Newton, Prof.
Charles R. Lanman, of Harvard, and
DR.. Felix Adler, of the Ethical Culture
society. He is Brahmfn of the first
order. His father was a magistrate
and his uncle a judge of the high
court of Calcutta. Twenty years ago
he was editor of the Lahore Tribune
when Kipling was a newspaper writer
there. Later he became the editor
and proprietor of a society paper in
Calcutta Then his religious instincts
asserted themselves, and for IL years
he became an ascetic, hermit, living
life of austere simplicity in Brinda-
ban, most holy of Indias holy lands
While here he met the great joyce of
Barada, a giant in stature, and be-
lieved to be the most spiritual man in
India Under his teachings Bahia
Bharati came to believe that he had
message to carry to the Caucasian
world. He did not wish to go, and for
time he struggled against what he
deemed a command from on high
Then he went forth, and now he re-
CARDS his work well done. He is hap
Ply in the thought of return, yet has
learned to love the American people
and feels pangs of regret at leaving
them forever.
The Orient for OrientaIs.
Large of frame, with the prayer
cloth of his .'Krishna.' yellow and in
scribed with wondrous words to the
Hindu faith, wound around his turban,
long raven black curls dropping down
about his shoulders. with an eye as
clear as Rhenish wine and a face of
peculiarly benign mien, yet strongly
chiseled. combining as it does a GER
tain acquired western vigor with the
placidity and calmness of the Orient
Bahia Bharatf is striking figure. He
has studied the Occident and its ways
and declares that the aggression, the
tremendous conceit and the blindness
of the white race are going to bring
about the uprising of all Asia-that
Asia will be free at last from domino,