My only serious significance as a writer does not lie in the quality of my work, about which I hold no illusions, but in the symbolic relation and representational capacity whereby I, as a Westerner, sought Eastern wisdom and I, as a mid-twentieth-century man, sought deliverance from the prevailing materialism.
My own personal quest is unimportant but Western man's quest is not. Something more than my personal life is involved. So far as my own character reflects certain characteristics and shares the trends of my generation, it is not arrogance to say that my personal search is also representative of one group within that generation's search. But so far as my character outsteps it, the search is a creative and pioneering one. The same struggle which enacts itself within my mind repeats itself in dozens of other minds. For it is representative of a development which must necessarily occur in this twentieth century above all other centuries to those who seek mysticism's true insights rather than its dangerous blindnesses.
I do not care to appeal to historicity and authority but rather to experience and intelligence. So I do not care to associate this teaching with P.B. as a person but rather with the research and seeking of his generation. It would be an error to regard P.B. as merely an individual airing his personal views. For a tremendous and momentous conflict between distinct ideologies is now going on in the world of thought. His attitude is representative of a particular one of these ideologies. The ideas at stake are immensely more significant than the ups and downs of one man's fame.
-- Notebooks Category 12: Reflections > Chapter 4 : Reflections On Truth > # 104
