Categoria: Perenialistas – Temático

A BHAKTA is not a man who ‘thinks’, that is a man whose individuality actively participates in supra-individual knowledge and who consequently is able ‘himself’ to apply his transcendent knowledge to cosmic and human contingencies. In other words the BHAKTA attains and possesses knowledge, not in an intellectual, but in an ontological manner. On the…

In the path of love (the Hindu BHAKTI-MARGA, the mahabbah of Sufism), speculative activity – which by definition is of the intellectual order – does not play a preponderant part, as in the case in the way of knowledge (jnana-marga, ma‘rifah); the “lover” – the bhakta – must obtain everything by means of love and…

The Sanskrit word for ‘matter’, BHUTA, includes a meaning of ‘substance’ or of ‘subsistence’; matter derives from substance, it is a reflection of it on the plane of ‘gross’ coagulation, and is connected, through substance, with Being. (GTUFS: GnosisDW, Seeing God Everywhere)

The starting point of the path – the BODHISATTVAYANA is in fact the birth of an awareness that all things are “void”; it is not a matter of a merely moral option. The ego of the aspirant starts off by identifying itself with the whole of samsara; it is through understanding the nature of the…

Let us recall that the BRAHMANA represents the contemplative and sacerdotal mentality, the kshatriya, the active, combative, dynamic, noble, heroic mentality; the vaishya, the mercantile or artisanal mentality – or again that of the peasant according to the case, the vaishya mentality being “horizontal” in a certain sense. As for the shudra, he is a…

BUDDHA (Pratyeka / Samyaksam): To this difference between “light” and “radiation” corresponds the distinction between the Pratyeka-BUDDHA and the Samyaksam-BUDDHA, the first being enlightened “for himself” and the second having the function of enlightening others through preaching the Dharma, which makes one think of the respective roles of the Jivan-Mukta and the Avatara or –…

It consists in spreading around inaccurate and unfavorable facts and in interpreting unfavorably things that are susceptible of a favourable meaning, making no distinction between what is certain, probable, possible, doubtful, improbable and impossible. Calumny is not a matter of accidental mistakes, but of systematic passion. (GTUFS: SPHF, The Spiritual Virtues)

In its spiritual sense, CASTE is the “law” or dharma governing a particular category of men in accord with their qualifications. It is in this sense, and only in this sense, that the Bhagavad-Gita says: “Better for each one is his own law of action, even if imperfect, than the law of another, even well…

Certainty (two degrees): In CERTAINTY we must distinguish two modes or degrees: CERTAINTY of truth and CERTAINTY of being. The first refers to a truth which is no doubt direct in relation to reason, but which is nevertheless indirect in relation to union; and it is to union that the second CERTAINTY refers. It is…

Charity: It consists in abolishing the egocentric distinction between “ME” and the “other”: it is seeing the “I” in the “other” and the “other” in the “I.” (GTUFS: LSelf, A View of Yoga) Charity with regard to our neighbor, when it is the act of a direct consciousness and not just of a moral sentiment,…

Choice / Desire: The esoteric way, by definition, cannot be the object of a CHOICE by those who follow it, for it is not the man who chooses the way, it is the way that chooses the man. In other words, the question of a CHOICE does not arise, since the finite cannot choose the…

CHRIST: CHRIST is the Intellect of microcosms as well as that of the macrocosm. He is then the Intellect in us as well as the Intellect in the Universe and a fortiori in God; in this sense, it can be said that there is no truth nor wisdom that does not come from CHRIST, and…

Civilization: When people talk about “CIVILIZATION” they generally attribute a qualitative meaning to the term; now CIVILIZATION only represents a value provided it is supra-human in origin and implies for the “civilized” man a sense of the sacred: only peoples who really have this sense and draw their life from it are truly civilized. If…

The debasement of religion by means of the ideology of total and indefinite progress. (GTUFS: FaceA, Christian Divergences)

Strictly speaking, pure CONCENTRATION is less a fixing of the mind upon an idea or an object than the elimination of every distraction; the divine presence, or grace if one so prefers, or the intellect, according to the point of view, must be allowed to act without hindrance, like a leaven; but CONCENTRATION as such…

Concretism coincides with what may be described as “factualism,” or the superstition of the fact, a fact being regarded as the opposite of a principle, the opposite therefore of what current prejudice regards as an abstraction. (GTUFS: LogicT, Abuse of the Ideas of the Concrete and the Abstract) Philosophical CONCRETISM, actually an inverted realism, has…

To say CONSCIOUSNESS is “pure” means that it is situated beyond the polarity “subject-object,” that it is “thusness”. (GTUFS: TreasuresB, Treasures of Buddhism)

Contingency / Relativity: Contingency is always relative, but relativity is not always contingent; that is relative which is either “more” or “less” in relation to another reality;* that is contingent which may or may not be, hence which is merely possible. (*Thus the Creator – Being – is “more” than creation and creatures, but “less”…

Creation: Creation is the great “objectification” of the Divine Subject; it is the divine manifestation par excellence. It has a beginning and an end insofar as a particular cycle is envisaged, but it is in itself a permanent divine possibility, a metaphysically necessary objectification of the divine infinity; to deny the necessity of the CREATION…

More and more, CULTURE becomes the absence of CULTURE: the mania for cutting oneself off from one’s roots and for forgetting where one comes from. (GTUFS: HaveCenter, To Have a Center)