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Introduction 1 Notes Introduction 1. Le paradoxe du monothéisme, Paris, L’Herne,1992. 2. “This contact between the Divine and the human is, by reason of its elu- siveness, a mystery, and even the mystery par excellence, for we touch God ‘everywhere and nowhere,’ as Pascal would say. God is quite close to us, infinitely close, but we are far from Him; He is incarnate in a given symbol, but we risk grasping only the husk, retaining only the shadow. Idolatry, which divinizes the shadow as such, and atheism, which denies God by reason of His intangibility—but it is we who are ‘absent,’ not God—reduce to absurdity the two aspects of symbolism: identity, which is unitive, and analogy, which is separative, but parallel.” Frithjof Schuon, Stations of Wisdom, Bloomington: World Wisdom, 1995, p.70. 3. “‘Mediation’ [. .] is always achieved by introducing a third category which is ‘abnormal’ or ‘anomalous’ in terms of ordinary ‘rational’ cate- gories. Thus myths are full of fabulous monsters, incarnate gods, virgin mothers. This middle ground is abnormal, non-natural, holy.” Edmund Leach, “Genesis as Myth,” Discovery, 23, 30–35, May 1962. 4. Translated by W.F. Trotter, “Car enfin qu’est-ce que l’homme dans la nature? Un néant à l’égard de l’infini, un tout à l’égard du néant, un milieu entre rien et tout.” Pensées, II: Misère de l’homme sans Dieu, 72. Translated by W.F. Trotter. “L’homme n’est ni ange ni bête, et le malheur veut que qui veut faire l’ange fait la bête.” Pensées, VI: Les philosophes, 358. Dover Publications, 2003. 5. Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions, by John Fire/Lame Deer and Richard Erdoies, New York: Touchstone, 1972, p.79. 6. “This book contains many facts that Indians, until recently, had avoided divulging because they thought, with reason, that these things are too sacred to be communicated to just anybody; nowadays, the few old sages who still live among them say that as the end of the cycle is approaching, when men have become everywhere incapable of under- standing and above all of realizing the truths that were revealed to them in the origin—together with the consequence of disorder and chaos in all domains—it is allowed and even preferable to bring this knowledge into full light; for truth defends itself against profanation by its own nature, and it is possible that thus it may reach those who are qualified 230 Notes to penetrate it deeply and capable, thanks to it, to strengthen the bridge that must be built to lead out of this dark age.” Translation of Frithjof Schuon’s “Avant-propos,” in Héhaka Sapa, Les rites secrets des indiens sioux, collected and annotated by Joseph Epes Brown, translated by Frithjof Schuon and René Allar, Paris: Payot, 1975, p.5. 7. Barry Holstun Lopez, Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with His Daughter: Coyote Builds North America, New York: Perennial, 1990. 1 MÂYÂ and the Divine Treasure 1. This “before” is to be interpreted as a symbol of metaphysical primacy, and not of chronological anteriority. 2. Cf. Henry Corbin, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabî, translated by Ralph Manheim, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. The Greek term kenôsis (“empty- ing”) refers to the theological commentary of Phil. 2:6–8: “Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But emptied [ekenosen] himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as man.” It primarily symbol- izes the “ontological humiliation,” lowering, or emptying, of God tak- ing flesh for the Redemption of mankind. But it may be more generally applied, in mystical theology, to God’s “letting be” of His exclusive Reality for the sake of the “being” of other-than-Himself. In the Kabbalah of Isaac Luria, the Infinite contracts (tsimtsum) and with- draws to allow the Creation to be. It is from this “withdrawal” that evil springs forth through the qelippot (literally “shells,” singular qelippa) in which the divine Light becomes entrapped after the breaking of the divine vases from which manifestation emanates. 3. This notion, as also the concept of “subject–object consciousness,” was forged by Franklin Merrell-Wolff in his Pathways through to Space, New York: Julian Press, 1973. 4. Swami Prabhavananda, Spiritual Heritage of India, Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1977, p.43. 5. Ibid., p.288. 6. Cf. Pathways through to Space, New York, 1973, pp.148–150. 7. Brahmasutrabhâsya, II, 1, 33, translated by George Thibaut, Oxford, 1890. 8. Holy Laughter, edited by M. Conrad Hyers, New York: Seabury Press, 1969, pp.24–25. 9. Cf. Titus Burckhardt, Introduction to Sufism, San Francisco, 1995, pp.65–66. 10. “The idea of mâyâ, the world as the magical display of the gods, describes a world that is enchanting, topsy-turvy, and ephemeral. The world born of mâyâ is at once a stage created by the gods upon which they may strut, a toy for their amusement, and a mirage through and Notes 231 by which they may dazzle. As a by-product of divine display, the world as the play of the gods or the magic of the gods is a fleeting, albeit dazzling, creation that lacks ultimate reality.” David R. Kinsley, “Creation as Play in Hindu Spirituality,” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 4.2, 1974/5, p.113. 11. Eknath Easwaran, “Three in One: Spirit, Matter, and Mâyâ,” Parabola Magazine, 14.4, 1989, p.27. 12. “L’homme de l’Occident est un homme essentiellement tragique parce que la négativité est chez lui originaire et non dérivée. Sa croyance à la réalité de l’ego nous paraît expliquer ce par quoi il se distingue fonda- mentalement de l’homme asiatique traditionnel.” Georges Vallin, “Le Tragique de l’Occident à la lumière du non-dualisme asiatique,” Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, 165, 1975, p.280. [“Western man is essentially tragic because, with him, negativity is original and not derivative. We think that his belief in the reality of the ego is the explicatory principle of his fundamental difference from the traditional mankind of Asia.”] 2Ambiguity of the Demiurge 1. Frithjof Schuon, Logic and Transcendence, London, 1975, p.152. 2. Ibid., p.154. 3. The Infinite is faceless because it transcends and encompasses all faces: “And Allâh’s is the East and the West, therefore, whither you turn, thither is Allâh’s face; surely Allah is Amplegiving, Knowing” (Qur’ân 2:115). 4. Frithjof Schuon, Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism, Bloomington: World Wisdom, 1986, p.23. 5. “To the extent that the God of Genesis is all-powerful in His creation, matter is a passive substrate; to the extent, however, that He is not responsible for evil in the world, matter is a factor of recalcitrance, though its role is reduced to a minimum and it shares the function of recalcitrance with human souls, which can turn in their freedom of choice to corruption.” Gretchen Reydams-Schils, Demiurge and Providence, Stoic and Platonist Readings of Plato’s Timaeus, Turnhout, Brepols 1999, p.150. 6. [houtô dê pan hoson ên horaton paralabôn ouch hêsuchian agon alla kinoumenon plêmmelôs kai ataktôs, eis taxin auto êgagen ek tês ataxias, hêgêsamenos ekeino toutou pantôs ameinon]. Cf. The Perseus Digital Library, Gregory Crane, Editor-In-Chief, Tufts University, www. perseus.tufts.edu. Text based on the following books: Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 4 translated by Harold North Fowler. Cambridge, MA; London, 1977. Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 7 translated by R.G. Bury. Cambridge, MA; London, 1966. Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 8 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA; London, 1955. Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 232 Notes translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1925. 7. [agathos ên, agathôi de oudeis peri oudenos oudepote engignetai phthonos: toutou d’ ektos ôn panta hoti malista eboulêthê genesthai paraplêsia heautôi]. 8. Purusha and Prakrti refer strictly speaking to the level of Being, thereby transcending the realm of the Demiurge, but what happens “above” is analogous to what happens “below.” Moreover, as the Demiurge can sometimes be understood in the widest sense as a dimension of Being itself. 9. “The Demiurge is no separate power or Independent Divinity, but merely a part or faculty of the World Soul, his apparent independence being due solely to the mythical form of the exposition.” Ibid., p.10. 10. “In [. .] the demiurgic Shiva of the Trimûrti [. .] it is not always easy to make a clear separation between principial necessity and demo- niacal initiative; or between the wrath of Heaven and this or that malefic caprice of the samsâra.” Frithjof Schuon, Having a Center, Bloomington, World Wisdom, 1990, p.67. 11. The black and white checkered textile that is the emblem of Shiva in Bali, the uses of which stem from devotion to magic, is a direct expression of this ambiguity. 12. Another passage of the Qur’ân states: “Remember how the unbelievers plotted against thee, to keep thee in bonds, or slay thee, or get thee out (of thy home). They plot and plan, and Allah too plans; but the best of planners is Allah” (8:30). 13. Cf. René Guénon, “Le Démiurge,” Mélanges, Paris, Gallimard, 1976, p.13. 14. Ibid., p.25. 15. Moreover, the King James version illustrates the two aspects of the matter by specifying “for thy sake” and “to thee,” thereby indicating that the “malefic” aspect of nature is not primordial but postlapsarian in origin. 16. Robert Ambelain, La Notion gnostique du Démiurge, Paris, Adyar 1959, pp.102–103.
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