Although Camus was called the "conscience of his age, " no writer has continued to be both more vilified and exalted in the West. Camus' writings are not only a devastating critique of Western philosophy, but his cultural horizons are infused with heartfelt insights of Eastern wisdom. Western culture is vulnerable to dilemmas of existence because it seeks to make abstract certain absolutes. The West has failed to come to grips with our finite existential condition. Indian thought distinguishes social, political, scientific, and philosophical views of reality from reality itself. And this distinction evokes hope, humility, and spirituality that promotes the courage to live with truths not faced by the West. This book now in paperback is a gateway to investigating whether Camus' ideal of living without conceptual absolutes is an attainable goal. Camus' insights in terms of the East are present in his fictional illustrations of alienated 20th-century outsiders (The Stranger), the pursu