Metaphysical thought essentially presupposes intellection, or let us say intellectual intuition; the latter is not a matter of sentiment, of course, but of pure intelligence. Without this intuition, metaphysical speculation is reduced either to an opaque dogmatism or to an imprecise ratiocination; and quite evidently, speculative thought deprived of its intuitive foundation would be unable to prepare the ground for Gnosis: for direct, concrete and plenary KNOWLEDGE. Let us specify that the eventual gaps in the human mind are due, not to fortuitous causes, but to the very conditions of the “dark age,” the kali-yuga, which has as an effect — among other modes of decadence — a progressive weakening of pure intellection and of the ascending tendencies of soul; whence the necessity of the religious Revelations, and whence also the problematical phenomenon of gratuitous and divergent philosophies. But man always remains man “made in the image of God”; nothing could prevent — even in these millennia of darkness–the flowering of wisdoms pertaining to the Sophia Perennis: such as the Upanishads, the Brahma-Sûtras and the Advaita-Vedânta. Essays Norms and Paradoxes in Spiritual Alchemy
Unquestionably, the partisans of a symbolist and anti-intellectual intuitionism make a mistake in reproaching speculative intelligence for not being KNOWLEDGE as such — which it does not claim to be — and in concluding that it is an obstacle in the Path, whereas, quite evidently, theoretical knowledge is an indispensable stage of the pilgrimage towards total KNOWLEDGE. Man is a thinking being, and he cannot evade thought; and “in the beginning was the Word.” Essays Norms and Paradoxes in Spiritual Alchemy
But here also — in the face of these two Mysteries — there are the divergent options of those who make of every complementarity an alternative: some believe that everything has to fall from Heaven; others believe that everything can and must come from our own efforts. Now human intelligence, being theomorphic, possesses in principle a supernatural power; but whatever be the prerogatives of our nature, we can do nothing without God’s help: for it is He who causes us to participate in the KNOWLEDGE He has of Himself. Essays Norms and Paradoxes in Spiritual Alchemy
To say Beauty is to say Love; and it is known how important this idea of Love is in all religions and all spiritual alchemies. The reason for this is that Love is the tendency towards Union: this tendency can be a movement, either towards the Immutable, the Absolute, or towards the Limitless, the Infinite; on the plane of human relations, a particular love is the support for Love as such; and the love of man for woman can be compared to the liberating tendency towards the Divine Infinitude — woman personifying All-Possibility — whereas the love of woman for man is comparable to the stabilizing tendency towards the Divine Center, which offers all certitude and all security; however, each partner participates in the other’s position, given that each is a human being and that in this respect the sexual scission is secondary. As regards sexuality in itself, the Sufi Ibn Arabi deems sexual union to be, in the natural order, the most adequate image of Supreme KNOWLEDGE: of Extinction in Allâh of the “Knower through Allâh.” Essays Norms and Paradoxes in Spiritual Alchemy
One might illustrate this in the following manner: whoever participates in universal KNOWLEDGE will regard two apparently contradictory truths as he would two points situated on one and the same circumference which links them together by its continuity and so reduces them to unity; in the measure in which these points are distant from, and thus opposed to, one another, there will be contradiction, and this contradiction will reach its maximum when the two points are situated at the extremities of a diameter of the circle; but this extreme opposition or contradiction only appears as a result of isolating the points under consideration from the circle and ignoring the existence of the latter. One may conclude from this that a dogmatic affirmation, that is to say an affirmation which is inseparable from its form and admits no other, is comparable to a point, which by definition, as it were, contradicts all other possible points; a speculative formulation, on the other hand, is comparable to an element of a circle, the very form of which indicates its logical and ontological continuity and therefore the whole circle or, by analogical transposition, the whole Truth; this comparison will, perhaps, suggest in the clearest possible way the difference which separates a dogmatic affirmation from a speculative formulation. sophiaperennis: What is dogmatism?
In the example just given error corresponds to an inadequate view of the object whereas a dogmatic conception is comparable to the exclusive view of one aspect of the object, a view which supposes the immobility of the seeing subject. As for a speculative and therefore intellectually unlimited conception, this may be compared to the sum of all possible views of the object in question, views which presuppose in the subject a power of displacement or an ability to alter his viewpoint, hence a certain mode of identity with the dimensions of space, which themselves effectually reveal the integral nature of the object, at least with respect to its form which is all that is in question in the example given. Movement in space is in fact an active participation in the possibilities of space, whereas static extension in space, the form of our bodies for example, is a passive participation in these same possibilities. This may be transposed without difficulty to a higher plane and one may then speak of an ‘intellectual space, namely the cognitive all-possibility which is fundamentally the same as the divine Omniscience, and consequently of ‘intellectual dimensions’ which are the ‘internal’ modalities of this Omniscience; KNOWLEDGE through the Intellect is none other than the perfect participation of the subject in these modalities, and in the physical world this participation is effectively represented by movement. sophiaperennis: What is dogmatism?
The latter is the Word of God spoken to His creatures, whereas intellectual intuition is a direct and active participation in divine KNOWLEDGE and not an indirect and passive participation, as is faith. In other words, in the case of intellectual intuition, knowledge is not possessed by the individual in so far as he is an individual, but in so far as in his innermost essence he is not distinct from his divine Principle. sophiaperennis: Difference between Metaphysics and Philosophy
To illustrate the three modes of thought we have been considering (metaphysics, philosophy, theology) let us apply them to the idea of God. The philosophical point of view, when it does not purely and simply deny God even if only by ascribing to the word a meaning it does not possess, tries to ‘prove’ God by all kinds of argument; in other words, this point of view tries to ‘prove’ either the ‘existence’ or the ‘nonexistence ‘of God, as though reason, which is only an intermediary and in no wise a source of transcendent knowledge, could ‘prove’ anything one wished to prove. Moreover this pretension of reason to autonomy in realms where only intellectual intuition on the one hand and revelation on the other can communicate knowledge, is characteristic of the philosophical point of view and shows up all its inadequacy. The religious point of view does not, for its part, trouble itself about proving God – it is even prepared to admit that such proof is impossible – but bases itself on belief. It must be added here that ‘faith’ cannot be reduced to a simple matter of belief; otherwise Christ would not have spoken of the ‘faith which moves mountains’, for it goes without saying that ordinary religious belief has no such power. Finally, from the metaphysical standpoint, there is no longer any question either of ‘proof’ or of ‘belief’ but solely of direct evidence, of intellectual evidence that implies absolute certainty; but in the present state of humanity such evidence is only accessible to a spiritual elite which becomes ever more restricted in number. It may be added that religion, by its very nature and independently of any wish of its representatives, who may be unaware of the fact, contains and transmits this purely intellectual KNOWLEDGE beneath the veil of its dogmatic and ritual symbols, as we have already seen. sophiaperennis: Reason and Intellection
This may be transposed without difficulty to a higher plane and one may then speak of an ‘intellectual space’, namely the cognitive all – possibility which is fundamentally the same as the divine Omniscience, and consequently of ‘intellectual dimensions’ which are the ‘internal’ modalities of this Omniscience; KNOWLEDGE through the Intellect is none other than the perfect participation of the subject in these modalities, and in the physical world this participation is effectively represented by movement. sophiaperennis: What is the understanding of an idea?
From the point of view of the Platonists – in the widest sense – the return to God is inherent in the fact of existence: our being itself offers the way of return, for that being is divine in its nature, otherwise it would be nothing; that is why we must return, passing through the strata of our ontological reality, all the way to pure Substance, which is one; it is thus that we become perfectly “ourselves”. Man realizes what he knows: a full comprehension – in the light of the Absolute – of relativity dissolves it and leads back to the Absolute. Here again there is no irreducible antagonism between Greeks and Christians: if the intervention of Christ can become necessary, it is not because deliverance is something other than a return, through the strata of our own being, to our true Self, but because the function of Christ is to render such a return possible. It is made possible on two planes, the one existential and exoteric and the other intellectual and esoteric; the second plane is hidden in the first, which alone appears in the full light of day, and that is the reason why for the common run of mortals the Christian perspective is only existential and separative, not intellectual and unitive. This gives rise to another misunderstanding between Christians and Platonists: while the Platonists propound liberation by KNOWLEDGE because man is an intelligence (NA: Islam, in conformity with its ” paracletic” charact er, reflects this point of view – which is also that of the Vedanta and of all other forms of gnosis – in a Semitic and religious mode, and realizes it all the more readily in its esoterism; like the Hellenist, the Moslem asks first of all: “What must I know or admit, seeing that I have an intelligence capable of objectivity and of totality?” and not a priori “What must I want, since I have a will that is free, but fallen?”) the Christians envisage in their over-all doctrine a salvation by Grace because man is an existence – as such separated from God – and a fallen and impotent will. Once again, the Greeks can be reproached for having at their command but a single way, inaccessible in fact to the majority, and for giving the impression that it is philosophy that saves, just as one can reproach the Christians for ignoring liberation by KNOWLEDGE and for assigning an absolute character to our existential and volitive reality alone and to means appropriate to that aspect of our being, or for taking into consideration our existential relativity and not our “intellectual absoluteness”; nevertheless the reproach to the Greeks cannot concern their sages, any more than the reproach to the Christians can attack their gnosis, nor in a general way their sanctity. sophiaperennis: Platonism and Christianity
In connection with this question of intellectual intuition, it would be useful to reply here to a difficulty raised by Pascal: “One cannot undertake to define being without falling into absurdity: for a word cannot be defined without beginning with the words it is, whether they are expressed or implied. Therefore in order to define being it would be necessary to say it is, and so to use the word to be defined in formulating its own definition” (Pensées et Opuscules).9 It is in fact impossible, in European languages, to give a definition without using the word “is”; if in other languages, in Arabic for example, a definition can be made without the help of this word or of some other copulative, that is exactly for the same reason, namely that all is immersed in Being and that Being therefore has an a priori evidentness; if Being cannot be defined outside itself, any more than can KNOWLEDGE, it is because this “outside” does not exist; the separation necessary for every definition thus actually lies within the thing to be defined, and in fact although we are “within Being” we are not Being. The copulative “it is” indicates a determination or an attribute according to the circumstances, and this shows the meaning of the word: we will define Being in itself as the universal determination, that is to say as the supreme Principle “insofar as It determines itself,” to use Guénon’s expression; if we start from the ternary Beyond-Being, Being and Manifestation, we see that Being is “Principle” in relation to the world but “determination” in relation to Beyond-Being. Now, given that Being is determination in relation to Beyond-Being and the source of every attribute in relation to the world, every determination and every attribute can be expressed by means of the verb “to be,” hence by “it is,” so that Pascal’s difficulty can be resolved thus: “being” manifests (or “is” the manifestation of) an aspect of its own inner limitlessness, thus a possibility, an attribute. When we say: “The tree is green,” this is, by analogy, like saying: “Being comprises such and such an aspect,” or again in the deepest sense: “Beyond-Being determines itself as Being”; the thing to be defined – or determined – serves analogically as “Being,” and the definition – the determination – serves as “divine attribute.” Instead of speaking of “Being” and of “attribute of Being,” we could refer to the first distinction: Beyond-Being and Being. When the verb “to be” designates an existence, it has no complement; on the other hand, when it has a complement it does not designate an existence as such, but an attribute; to say that a certain thing “is,” signifies that it is not non-existent; to say that the tree “is green” signifies that it has this attribute and not some other. In consequence, the verb “to be” always expresses either an “existence” or a “character of existence,” in the same way as God on the one hand “is” and on the other “is thus,” that is to say Light, Love, Power and so forth. Saint Thomas expresses this well by saying that if Being and the first principles which flow from it are incapable of proof, it is because they have no need of proof; to prove them is at once useless and impossible, “not through a lack, but through a superabundance of light.” sophiaperennis: Pascal
Scriptures tirelessly attest, and this is so for the common man as well as for the sage–although for very different reasons–but not necessarily so for the philosopher who may have neither the eyes of Faith nor those of KNOWLEDGE, and who in this case struggles vainly with the antilogies of a sterile conceptualism. sophiaperennis: Rationalism
There is not only the beauty of the adult, there is also that of the child as our mention of the Child Jesus suggests. First of all, it must be said that the child, being human, participates in the same symbolism and in the same aesthetic expressivity as do his parents – we are speaking always of man as such and not of particular individuals – and then, that childhood is nevertheless a provisional state and does not in general have the definitive and representative value of maturity. (NA: But it can when the individual value of the child visibly over rides his state of immaturity; notwithstanding the fact that childhood is in itself an incomplete state which points towards its own completion.) In metaphysical symbolism, this provisional character expresses relativity: the child is what “comes after” his parents, he is the reflection of Atmâ in Mâyâ, to some degree and according to the ontological or cosmological level in view; or it is even Mâyâ itself if the adult is Atmâ. (NA: Polarized into “Necessary Being” and “All-Possibility.”) But from an altogether different point of view, and according to inverse analogy, the key to which is given by the seal of Solomon, (NA: When a tree is mirrored in a lake, its top is at the bottom, but the image is always that of a tree; the analogy is inverse in the first relationship and parallel in the second. Analogies between the divine order and the cosmic order always comprise one or the other of these relationships.) the child represents on the contrary what “was before,” namely what is simple, pure, innocent, primordial and close to the Essence, and this is what its beauty expresses; (NA: We do not say that every human individual is beautiful when he is a child, but we start from the idea that man, child or not, is beautiful to the extent that he is physically what he ought to be.) this beauty has all the charm of promise, of hope and of blossoming, at the same time as that of a Paradise not yet lost; it combines the proximity of the Origin with the tension towards the Goal. And it is for that reason that childhood constitutes a necessary aspect of the integral man, therefore in conformity with the divine Intention: the man who is fully mature always keeps, in equilibrium with wisdom, the qualities of simplicity and freshness, of gratitude and trust, that he possessed in the springtime of his life. (NA: “Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)) Since we have just mentioned the principle of inverse analogy, we may here connect it with its application to femininity: even though a priori femininity is subordinate to virility, it also comprises an aspect which makes it superior to a given aspect of the masculine pole; for the divine Principle has an aspect of unlimitedness, virginal mystery and maternal mercy which takes precedence over a certain more relative aspect of determination, logical precision and implacable justice. (NA: According to Tacitus, the Germans discerned something sacred and visionary in women. The fact that in German the sun (die Sonne) is feminine whereas the moon (der Mond) is masculine, bears witness to the same perspective.) Seen thus, feminine beauty appears as an initiatic wine in the face of the rationality represented in certain respects by the masculine body. (NA: Mahâyanic art represents Prajnâpâramitâ, the “Perfection of Gnosis,” in feminine form; likewise, Prajnâ, liberating KNOWLEDGE, appears as a woman in the face of Upâya, the doctrinal system or the art of convincing, which is represented as masculine. The Buddhists readily point out that the Bodhisattvas, in themselves asexual, have the power to take a feminine form as they do any other form; now one would like to know for what reason they do so, for if the feminine form can produce such a great good, it is because it is intrinsically good; otherwise there would be no reason for a Bodhisattva to assume it.) sophiaperennis: The Message of the Human Body
A priori, virility refers to the Principle, and femininity to Manifestation; but in an altogether different respect, that of complementarity in divinis, the masculine body expresses Transcendence, and the feminine body, Immanence; the latter being near to Love, and the former to KNOWLEDGE. sophiaperennis: The Message of the Human Body
Much could be said concerning the abstract and concrete symbolism of the different regions or parts of the body. A symbolism is abstract inasmuch as it signifies a principial reality; it is concrete inasmuch as it communicates the nature of this reality, that is, makes it present to our experience. One of the most salient characteristics of the human body is the breast, which is a solar symbol, with an accentuation differing according to sex: noble and glorious radiation in both cases, but manifesting power in the first case and generosity in the second; the power and generosity of pure Being. (NA: The ritual dance of the dervishes – setting aside the variety of its forms – is often designat ed by the term dhikr assadr ” remembrance (of God) by the breast,” which evokes this verse of the Koran: “Have We (God) not expanded thy breast?” (Sura Alam Nashrah, 1) Koranic language moreover establishes a relationship between the acceptance of Islam – as ” resignation” or ” abandon” (islam) to the divine Will – and dilation of the breast; calm and deep respiration expressing truth, peace, happiness.) The heart is the center of man, and the breast is so to speak the face of the heart: and since the heart-intellect comprises both KNOWLEDGE and Love, it is plausible that in the human body this polarization manifests itself by the complementarity of the masculine and feminine breasts. sophiaperennis: The Message of the Human Body
(In Hindu shaktism) … femininity is what surpasses the formal, the finite, the outward; it is synonymous with indetermination, illimitation, mystery, and thus evokes the “Spirit which giveth life” in relation to the “letter which killeth.” That is to say that femininity in the superior sense comprises a liquefying, interiorizing, liberating power: it liberates from sterile hardnesses, from the dispersing outwardness of limiting and compressing forms. On the one hand, one can oppose feminine sentimentality to masculine rationality — on the whole and without forgetting the relativity of things — but on the other hand, one also opposes to the reasoning of men the intuition of women; now it is this gift of intuition, in superior women above all, that explains and justifies in large part the mystical promotion of the feminine element; it is consequently in this sense that Haqiqah, esoteric KNOWLEDGE, may appear as feminine. (Roots of the Human Condition, p. 40-41) sophiaperennis: Femininity
One of the most salient characteristics of the human body is the breast, which is a solar symbol, with an accentuation differing according to sex: noble and glorious radiation in both cases, but manifesting power in the first case and generosity in the second; the power and generosity of pure Being. The heart is the center of man, and the breast is so to speak the face of the heart: and since the heart-intellect comprises both KNOWLEDGE and Love, it is plausible that in the human body this polarization manifests itself by the complementarity of the masculine and feminine breasts. (From the Divine to the Human, p. 94-95) sophiaperennis: Femininity
A few words should be said here about the ancient American religion, or more precisely that of the Plains and Woodland Indians. The most eminent manifestations of the “Great Spirit” are the Cardinal Points together with zenith and nadir, or with Heaven and Earth, and next in order are such as the Sun and the Morning Star. Although the Great Spirit is one, He comprises in Himself all those qualities the traces of which we see and the effects of which we experience in the world of appearances. The East is Light and KNOWLEDGE and also Peace; the South is Warmth and Life, therefore also Growth and Happiness; the West is fertilizing Water and also Revelation speaking in lightning and thunder, the North in Cold and Purity, or Strength. Thus it is that the Universe, at whatever level it may be considered, whether or Earth, Man or Heaven, is dependent on the four primordial determinations: Light, Heat, Water, Cold. sophiaperennis: His Holiness and the Red Indian