we are in a kind of exile here and it has its ups and down, mix and joys and sorrow, but our destiny, our origin and destiny is anchored in a different world, which is the true world. >> all right, so, the creation

and then moving to a new world, you said there was three. was there a third? >> you are very astute. i haven't forgotten but i know that time goes fast on television. the third is mystery. mystery, because it is so real beyond our cause i real and cross aphonia world that our minds in this day are in keep full of comprehended it in its thoroughness. it would be like dogs trying to understand what einstein's equation was all about by using their noses. now come our distance from the divine mind is greater then a dogs, a distance of a dogs mind to einstein so maybe this time i'm hoping they can give a sense of the excitement of giving one's light. not going through the motions on this world of shadows and so on, but trying to penetrate in

so far as the human mind can, into the mysteries and glories because that is the better part of that other world. >> i want to come back to that but we do want to give the viewers an opportunity to get a brush through or an overview of how you went into this work by looking at different religions. i want to come back and see how you distilled those three. let's start with hinduism. i think we have a graphic. talk to us a little bit about this. >> that is a dancing shiva, which now virtually belongs to the world. it is a symbol of nature. graceful dancing. shiva dances in the twirling stars, in the circling seasons, the rhythms of the human heart and how beautiful, and contrasted.

we have a bigger universe. 20 billion light-years across, but as far as the stars are beautiful, but on the other hand, that is dead matter for us, whereas this is eminently alive and the secret is that bottom leg, which is planted on the door, which symbolizes the skin encapsulated eagle, they are noisy as long as we have our self-centeredness firmly underfoot and can rise above it, then, we can see reality in this beauty and gracefulness. >> give us some ballpark, a formation of hinduism, what years? >> well, hinduism was the

indigenous tradition, half of it, of the indian people, but when the aryans came in the second millennium bc, the fusion of the aryan transition with the local indigenous tradition was the creation of hinduism. so, we should say about 2000 bc. >> policy is many gods. is that fair? >> well, that is only half the truth. there are standard numbers, 33 million. but that is because at that time, that was a population of india, but now it is up to the 700 million, but that is misleading because if we stop there, it looks like polytheism. but, behind all of these, these are only the multiple faces of them.

the absolutely single one. >> houston smith, we will be back. ♪

>> we're talking to doctor houston smith. you have led us through growing up in rural china and suddenly you landed back in missouri. you made an intellectual decision and then you spent your life in academia. from central missouri, where did you go? >> i went to the university of chicago and began, i did my graduate work in contemporary philosophy. but then, it was only after i got sprung from there, had my degree in hand that i realized that in my teaching, i loved

teaching about these world's great religions and in comparison, modern philosophy seemed pretty tame and almost like a cage because it had been infected by the scientific outlook and when i say infected, i don't mean to say anything disrespectful towards science. i had prostate cancer five years ago and without radiation, we wouldn't be here talking, so i'm not going to badmouth science as such. but, science congeal, to put it simply, only the facts. it cannot deal with values. and human life is a mix of facts and values and so, what i believe, and what has been the exhilaration of my life is trying to help my students see

that we need binocular vision to look at life in the world with the factual information that science gives us, but not do it through one i only. but then bring in the world of values and there, the world's great religious traditions are what i have come to call the wisdom tradition of the human race because when we come to values, they are like the databanks and that is why i love my career, more in soaking myself in the great enduring perspectives of these religions rather than adding to newcastle and dwelling on modern philosophy and science. >> academia certainly is not

the most hospitable to someone who has a religious interest. >> that is a fair statement. >> where to next? >> a couple of years in colorado for teaching, but then the first long stint was at the washington university and st. louis and that is where i phased into pvs because when ed went on the air, like, i was asked to teach a course on world religion. now, as my career comes full circle, they say don't you do a series, pbs special five programs on world religion. it has been a very happy home

one. >> we are taking some photographs from your illustrated version with that show and let's put that one up on buddhism. taken from the illustrated world religion. >> >> an image and a little memory near kyoto and it was an image of the coming buddha. which would be the counterpart to the second coming of christ. at the end of history, the buddha would return and this is an artist depiction of what the buddha will look like. >> let's go to the next was in. taoism because it is rooted where you grew up. >> that is like the advancing shiva. this image of the ying yong in the center there now virtually belongs to the world and

chinese say that one can learn more from gazing at that image and from reading 1000 books. what it does is to take the opposite of life, good and evil, light and dark, sickness, health, and show that there is no razor-sharp division, but note the way in which each sort of meanders in to the others domain and takes up at citadel in the very heart of its opposite. very quickly, let me tell you a story that i think will be at the heart of it. it is of a farmer and his horse ran away. they are helping to commiserate. he says who knows what is good or bad and true? the next day, the horse came back with a drove of wild horses that it had defended, so the neighbor comes over tulatet

again, who knows what is good or bad and true? because his young teenage son got horsing around on those horses, fell off and broke his leg. the neighbor comes over to commiserate. man says who knows what is good and bad? and his son didn't have to go because of his broken leg. and as i say, this is a symbol of life. we take it as though these are opposite, but, the problem is to mold them together to a single coherent whole. >> our problem is we have a break. we will be right back.

>> we're back, talking with doctor houston smith. this book has been condensed, reduced by 50% in text and some pictures added to it. the world great religions on your screen now and this is a companion to the show you did with mr. moyers? >> that is correct. >> and so we've been looking at some stills taken. how many photographs or images in this book? >> to tell, i haven't counted, but, on every page, there would be an average of one, so, what,

270 pages? >> so, it is talking about the world's great religions and illustrations. >> the world's great religious art, folded into the pages. >> let's go back, we're talking about taoism and i was interested since you grew up and they wouldn't get that image back up onto the screen of the union, since you grew up in china, do you think chinese is urologic, do you still speak? >> i speak my hillbilly dialect with the vocabulary native speaker's accent of a 12-year- old, because when i was 13, i went to shanghai to an american boarding school and my vocabulary did not advance, actually, i studied a little bit, so i can get around in chinese all right, but, most chinese go into hysterics because it is like speaking with a dip deep adulation

height chinese action. >> talk about the black and white lines. how does that? >> let me give you another image. my father came from a farm and thought we should have some beef. but when he went to do that, it would be like a sideshow. would have one of the straw hats with debris and brim and mosquito netting all over him. he always got stung. and finally our cook said, well you know, there is a be professional in the town, why don't you have him come in? and so he did. he came in in long rows of scholars, there was a man of dignity and when he went to the bees, he rolled back his long

sleeves and it was like a dance, the way he worked with those bees. they were all over him and he came out and got his honey. and i have, that image has remained with me as the young and the taoism because here are antagonists. you've got a thief coming in that, but look at the way they work together and look how it comes out with no sting. it is a parable for life. >> i advise you, to your next confrontation, to go at it this way. >> thank you. you are going to stay with us into another conversation. thank you for being with us on mosaic. imq burrows. ♪

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