Categoria: Guénon, René

In the Koranic text given above the term as-saffat literally designates the birds but symbolically refers to the angels (al-mala’ikah), and thus the first line signifies the constitution of the celestial and spiritual hierarchies. (NA: The word saff, “RANK,” is one of the many that have been suggested as the origin of the word sufi…

The attachment to multiplicity is also, in a certain sense, the Biblical “temptation”, which, by making the being taste the fruit of the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”, moves him away from the original central unity and stops him from reaching the “Tree of Life”; and it is just by that, in fact,…

Our understanding of it is made easier by the notion of what in Hindu doctrine is called “svadharma”, that is the performance by every being of an activity consistent with his own nature, and it is also by this notion, or rather by its absence, that the deficiency of the profane conception is most clearly…

Our understanding of it is made easier by the notion of what in Hindu doctrine is called “svadharma”, that is the performance by every being of an activity consistent with his own nature, and it is also by this notion, or rather by its absence, that the deficiency of the profane conception is most clearly…

Among visual symbols themselves there is also an example of “instantaneity” which is fairly comparable to that of sound symbols. This is the case of symbols that are not traced permanently but only employed as signs in initiatory rites (notably the “SIGNS OF RECOGNITION”) (NA: Utterances that serve a similar purpose, passwords for example, fall…

“Simplicity” meaning the unification of all the being’s powers, is a feature of the return to the “primordial state”; and here is seen the whole difference that separates the transcendent knowledge of the sage from ordinary and “profane” knowledge. This “SIMPLICITY” is also what is called elsewhere the state of “childhood” (in Sanskrit baalya), to…

But this is not all, for the above-mentioned conception of the symbol is really much too narrow. There are not only figurative or visual symbols but also auditory symbols, a division into two fundamental categories that in the Hindu doctrine are those of the yantra and the mantra. Their respective predominance is characteristic of the…

If the craft is something of’ the man himself and is, in a way, a manifestation or expansion of his own nature, it is easy to understand, as we have already said, that it can be used as a basis for an initiation and that generally even it is the fittest thing for this end.…

Among visual symbols themselves there is also an example of “instantaneity” which is fairly comparable to that of sound symbols. This is the case of symbols that are not traced permanently but only employed as signs in initiatory rites (notably the “signs of recognition”) (NA: Utterances that serve a similar purpose, passwords for example, fall…

IN order thoroughly to understand the teaching of the Vedânta as it pertains to the human being, it is essential to define from the start, as clearly as possible, the fundamental distinction between the “SELF,” which is the very principle of the being, and the individual “ego.” It is hardly necessary to explain that the…

The contingent being may be defined as one that is not self-sufficient, not containing in himself the point of his existence; it follows that such a being is nothing by himself and he owns nothing of what goes to make him up. Such is the case of the human being in so far as he…

The ” Self,” considered in this manner, in relation to a being, is properly speaking the Personality; one might, it is true, restrict the use of this latter word to the “Self ” as principle of the manifested states, just as the “Divine Personality,” Ishwara, is the Principle of universal Manifestation; but one can also…

This brings us back directly to what was said at the outset about “the language of the birds,” which can also be called “angelic language” and which is symbolized in the human world by rhythmic language, for the science of rhythm, which has many applications, is in fact ultimately the basis of all the means…

A warning must also be addressed to those who, through their capacity for a higher understanding if not through the degree of, knowledge to which they have actually attained, seem destined to become elements of a possible elect. There is no doubt that the force of modernism, which is truly ” diabolic ” in every…

On the other hand, there is nearly always a close connection made between Enoch (Idris) and Elijah (Ilyas), both of whom were taken up to heaven without passing through bodily death, (NA: It is said that they are to appear on earth again at the end of the cycle; they are the two “witnesses” mentioned…

THE hermetic tradition is, strictly speaking, concerned with knowledge that is not metaphysical but only cosmological, in the double sense of “MACROCOSMIC” and “microcosmic.” This statement must not be taken in any sense as a depreciation of the traditional sciences that come under the heading of Herme-tism or of those that correspond to them in…

This reduction of the “distinct ego”, which finally disappears by being reabsorbed into a single point, is the same thing as al-Fanaa, and also as the “emptiness” mentioned above; moreover, it is clear, according to the symbolism of the wheel, that the “MOVEMENT” of a being becomes more reduced the nearer this being is to…

This central point, through which there is, for the human being, communication with the higher or “celestial” states, is also the “NARROW GATE” of the Gospel symbolism and from what has gone before it will be easily understood who are the “rich” who cannot pass beyond it; they are the beings who are attached to…

If we view the history of humanity as taught by traditional doctrines, in conformity with cyclical laws, we must say that in the beginning man had the full possession of his state of existence and with it he naturally had the possibilities corresponding to all the functions prior to any distinction of these. The division…

Referring to the original “yoga,” and while declaring that it has always meant essentially the same thing, one must not forget to put a question of which we have as yet made no mention. What is the origin of these traditional metaphysical doctrines from which we have borrowed all our fundamental ideas? The answer is…