Is the West Stealing Eastern Wisdom — or Just Misusing It?

There is something quietly unsettling about a Silicon Valley executive starting his morning with a meditation app rooted in Buddhist practice — then spending the rest of the day optimising profit margins. That tension is at the heart of a new opinion piece by Mauritian writer Samad Ramoly, published in the Mauritius Times, which takes sharp aim at what he calls the "white-washing" of Eastern wisdom. **The Argument: Reason vs. Sacred Knowledge** Ramoly traces the problem to the Enlightenment — the 17th and 18th-century European intellectual movement that elevated logic, measurement, and scientific rationalism above all other forms of knowing. This worldview, he argues, drove remarkable material progress in the West, but it came at a cost: it hollowed out the human interior, pushing aside intuitive, bodily, and spiritual ways of understanding the world. That void, he suggests, is precisely why practices like mindfulness, yoga, and meditation have flooded Western mainstream culture over the past few decades. People are hungry for something the purely rational tradition cannot give them. But here is where Ramoly's critique sharpens. The West, he argues, has not so much embraced Eastern wisdom as it has repackaged it — extracting the calming techniques while discarding the philosophical, ethical, and sacred frameworks that give those techniques their original meaning. Mindfulness, in its Buddhist roots, is inseparable from ideas about suffering, impermanence, and the nature of the self. Stripped of that context, it becomes a stress-management tool sold in app stores. **Why This Matters Beyond the West** For Mauritius — a small island nation shaped by Indian, African, Chinese, Creole, and European influences — this debate is not purely academic. Mauritius carries living traditions of Hindu philosophy, Sufi practice, Buddhist thought, and African spiritual heritage. These are not ancient relics; they are active frameworks through which hundreds of thousands of Mauritians navigate daily life, family, and meaning. When global wellness culture commodifies meditation or yoga without acknowledgement, it raises questions about cultural ownership, respect, and the politics of whose knowledge gets legitimised — and whose gets sold back to them as a lifestyle product. Ramoly's piece is part of a broader global conversation sometimes called "spiritual bypassing" or cultural appropriation in wellness spaces. Scholars, practitioners, and communities from India to Japan have raised similar concerns about how contemplative traditions are exported, rebranded, and monetised in ways that benefit Western companies far more than the cultures of origin. **What This Means** This is an opinion piece, not a policy story — but the ideas it raises have real-world implications. As Mauritius positions itself as a high-value tourism and wellness destination, the question of how Eastern traditions are presented, credited, and commercialised becomes increasingly relevant. Authentic cultural tourism and ethical wellness programming require exactly the kind of critical awareness Ramoly is calling for. For readers, the piece is an invitation to ask: when we adopt a practice from another culture, are we engaging with it — or simply consuming it? Source: Mauritius Times