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“The Translucence of the Eternal” Religious Understandings of the Natural Order by Kenneth Oldmeadow
“The Translucence of the Eternal” Religious Understandings of the Natural Order by Kenneth Oldmeadow Thou art the fire, Thou art the sun, Thou art the air, Thou art the moon, Thou art the starry firmament, Thou art Brahman Supreme: Thou art the waters, The creator of all! Thou art woman, thou art man, Thou art the youth, thou art the maiden, thou art the old man tottering with his staff; Thou facest everywhere. Thou art the dark butterfly, thou art the green parrot with red eyes, Thou art the thunder cloud, the seasons, the seas. Without beginning art thou, beyond time, beyond space. Thou art he from whom sprang the three worlds. (The Upanishads)1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. (Psalms)2 Crazy Horse dreamed and went out into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, 1. Svetasvatara Upanishad IV.2-4. 2. Psalms XIX.1 SACRED WEB 2 11 and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that world. (Black Elk)3 For the sage each flower is metaphysically a proof of the Infinite. (Frithjof Schuon)4 Introduction The modern mentality characteristically looks for solutions to our most urgent problems in the wrong places; more often than not the proposed remedies aggravate the malady. Various responses to the so-called envi- ronmental crisis are of this type. Hardly anyone is now foolish enough to deny that there is something fundamentally wrong with our way of “being in the world.” The evidence is too overwhelming for even the most sanguine apostles of “progress” to ignore. -
Religion and the Return of Magic: Wicca As Esoteric Spirituality
RELIGION AND THE RETURN OF MAGIC: WICCA AS ESOTERIC SPIRITUALITY A thesis submitted for the degree of PhD March 2000 Joanne Elizabeth Pearson, B.A. (Hons.) ProQuest Number: 11003543 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11003543 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 AUTHOR’S DECLARATION The thesis presented is entirely my own work, and has not been previously presented for the award of a higher degree elsewhere. The views expressed here are those of the author and not of Lancaster University. Joanne Elizabeth Pearson. RELIGION AND THE RETURN OF MAGIC: WICCA AS ESOTERIC SPIRITUALITY CONTENTS DIAGRAMS AND ILLUSTRATIONS viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix ABSTRACT xi INTRODUCTION: RELIGION AND THE RETURN OF MAGIC 1 CATEGORISING WICCA 1 The Sociology of the Occult 3 The New Age Movement 5 New Religious Movements and ‘Revived’ Religion 6 Nature Religion 8 MAGIC AND RELIGION 9 A Brief Outline of the Debate 9 Religion and the Decline o f Magic? 12 ESOTERICISM 16 Academic Understandings of -
Sri Ramakrishna and Religious Tolerance
Vincit Omnia Veritas II,2 Sri Ramakrishna and Religious Tolerance Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Copyright© Rama Coomaraswamy Courtesy of Rama Coomaraswamy Originally a lecture given in New York, March 1936, for the centenary of the birth of Sri Ramakrishna, , this text was published in Prabuddha Bharata, XLl ( 1936), and in French by Etudes Traditionelles (1936) . "They call Him by a multitude of names, Who is but One''; "A single Fire that burns on many altars''; ''Even as He sheweth, so is He named''; these are affirmations taken from tile sacrificial hymns of the Rg Veda. "As He is approached, so He becomes''; ''it is because of His great abundance-.-or because He can be so variously participated in-that they call Him by so many names.'' By way of comment, we cite St. Thomas Aquinas, "The many aspects of these names are not empty and vain, for there corresponds to a11 of them one single reality represented by them in a manifold and imperfect manner'' (Sum. Theol. 1.1.3.4 and a). Nothing, perhaps, so strangely impresses or bewilders a Christian student of Saint Ramakrishna's life as the fact that this Hindu of the Hindus, without in any way repudiating his Hinduism, but for the moment forgetting it, about 1866 completely surrendered himself to the Islamic way, repeated the name of Allah, wore the costume, and ate the food of a Muslim. This self-surrender to what we should call in India the waters of another current of the single river of truth resulted only in a direct experience of the beatific vision, not less authentic than before. -
Muslim Intellectuals and the Perennial Philosophy in the Twentieth Century1
Sophia Perennis Vol. 1, Number 1, 2009 Iranian Institute of Philosophy Tehran/Iran Muslim Intellectuals and the Perennial Philosophy in the Twentieth Century1 Zachary Markwith Abstract: This paper will examine how Muslim intellectuals, as a result of their attachment to the doctrine of Divine Unity (tawh¤īd), the Quran, Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad, and the doctrines and methods of Sufism, were largely responsible for the restating of the perennial philosophy in the West in the twentieth century. The article consists of four sections: an introduction to the term 'philosophia perennis'; the place of the perennial philosophy in the Qur'an and Sunnah; the perennial philosophy and the Islamic intellectual Tradition; the lives, writings, and intellectual contributions of the five most important Muslim perennialists of the twentieth century, namely, Guénon, Schuon, Burckhardt, Lings, and Nasr The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the inextricable link between Islam and the perennial philosophy in the twentieth century, while defending the role that orthodoxy and orthopraxy play in any authentic expression of the perennial philosophy. Key terms: Perennial Philosophy, Rene Guenon, Frithjof Schuon, Titus Burkhardt, Martin Lings, Seyyed Hossein Nasr Number 1, Winter 2009 39 Muslim Intellectuals and the Perennial Philosophy There is an attempt from certain quarters to marginalize the relationship between Islam and the perennial philosophy, and specifically what Frithjof Schuon called, “the transcendent unity of religions.” On the one hand, some interpreters of Schuon and the perennial philosophy have denied, in the name of pure esoterism, the necessary religious forms and discipline which allow man to transcend himself, and have an authentic vision of Reality. -
The Traces of the Bhagavad Gita in the Perennial Philosophy—A Critical Study of the Gita’S Reception Among the Perennialists
religions Article The Traces of the Bhagavad Gita in the Perennial Philosophy—A Critical Study of the Gita’s Reception Among the Perennialists Mohammad Syifa Amin Widigdo 1,2 1 Faculty of Islamic Studies, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta 55183, Indonesia; [email protected] 2 Wonderhome Library, Yogyakarta 55294, Indonesia Received: 14 April 2020; Accepted: 28 April 2020; Published: 6 May 2020 Abstract: This article studies the reception of the Bhagavad Gita within circles of Perennial Philosophy scholars and examines how the Gita is interpreted to the extent that it influenced their thoughts. Within the Hindu tradition, the Gita is often read from a dualist and/or non-dualist perspective in the context of observing religious teachings and practices. In the hands of Perennial Philosophy scholars, the Gita is read from a different angle. Through a critical examination of the original works of the Perennialists, this article shows that the majority of the Perennial traditionalists read the Gita from a dualist background but that, eventually, they were convinced that the Gita’s paradigm is essentially non-dualist. In turn, this non-dualist paradigm of the Gita influences and transforms their ontological thought, from the dualist to the non-dualist view of the reality. Meanwhile, the non-traditionalist group of Perennial Philosophy scholars are not interested in this ontological discussion. They are more concerned with the question of how the Gita provides certain ways of attaining human liberation and salvation. Interestingly, both traditionalist and non-traditionalist camps are influenced by the Gita, at the same time, inserting an external understanding and interpretation into the Gita. -
Book Reviews
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Volume 29 | Issue 1 Article 14 1-1-2010 Book Reviews Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/ijts-transpersonalstudies Recommended Citation (2010). Sotillos, S. B. (2010). [Review of the book Christian gnosis: From St. Paul to Meister Eckhart, by Wolfgang Smith]. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 29(1), 135–136. Sotillos, S. B. (2010). [Review of the book Hinduism and its spiritual masters, by William Stoddart]. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 29(1), 136–138. Sotillos, S. B. (2010). [Review of the book Frithjof Schuon and the perennial philosophy, by Harry Oldmeadow]. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 29(1), 138–142.. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 29 (1). Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/ijts- transpersonalstudies/vol29/iss1/14 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Book Reviews Christian Gnosis: From St. Paul to Meister Eckhart is something divine, something that belongs, not to a by Wolfgang Smith (Sophia Perennis, 2008). $19.95, man, but to God himself.” ISBN 978-1-59731-092-5 Readers can also note that nondualism is an essential theme presented throughout the entire work Reviewed by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos and can be found in every authentic sapiential tradition. Although nondualism is often associated with the esoteric “Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key or “inner” dimensions of religion, it is correspondingly of gnosis: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that inseparable from exoterism or its “outer” dimensions: “in were entering in ye hindered.” – Luke 11:52 fact, the first finds its consummation in the second.” In Dr. -
Aldous Huxley, Representative Man Edited by Gerhard Wagner
James Hull Aldous Huxley, Representative Man Edited by Gerhard Wagner LIT TABLE OF CONTENTS General Editors' Preface i Editor's Note ii Foreword by Robin Hull iii List of Abbreviations vi INTRODUCTION 1 PART ONE I. THE PREDESTINATION OF EVENTS 6 The Early Poems 10 II. SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE 24 Limbo 26 Crome Yellow 30 Mortal Coils 35 On the Margin 39 III. GONE ABROAD 45 Antic Hay 46 i) Paradise Lost 52 ii) Betrayal 55 iii) "What's He to Hecuba?" 57 iv) The Monster 58 v) Inferno 61 vi) The Last Ride Together 63 Little Mexican 66 IV. THE SEARCH FOR A NEW DIMENSION 78 Those Barren Leaves 78 i) "An Evening at Mrs Aldwinkle's" 78 ii) "Fragments from the Autobiography of Francis Chelifer" 82 iii) "The Loves of the Parallels" 89 iv) "The Journey" 93 Along the Road 97 Two or Three Graces 104 The Spectator: Jesting Pilate 110 i) Religion 112 ii) Art and Other Matters 114 iii) The Later Stages of the Journey 117 Proper Studies 118 i) The Idea of Equality 120 ii) Varieties of Intelligence 122 iii) The Way of the Solitary 124 iv) Personality and Ideals 126 V. LIFE WORSHIP 130 Point Counter Point 130 i) Philip and Elinor Quarles 132 ii) Returning from India 137 iii) Back Home 138 iv) Predestination 141 v) Rampion and Philip 144 vi) Walter Bidlake and the Siren 146 vii) Rachel Quarles and Marjorie Carling 150 viii) Spandrell 153 ix) Rampion 155 x) The "Spiritual Thermopylae" 160 xi) The Riddle of Burlap 163 xii) The Case of John Middleton Murry 166 xiii) Little Phil's Death 169 Do What You Will 170 i) Unity and Diversity 170 ii) The Two Humilities 174 iii) "Pascal" 176 iv) "Holy Face" 184 VI. -
A Critical Examination of Ibn-Sina's Theory of the Conditional Syllogism
Sophia Perennis Vol. 1, Number 1, 2009 Iranian Institute of Philosophy Tehran/Iran A Critical Examination of Ibn-Sina’s Theory of the Conditional Syllogism Zia Movahed Professor at Iranian Institute of Philosophy Abstract: This paper will examine Ibn Sina’s theory of the Conditional Syllogism from a purely logical point of view, and will lay bare the principles he adopted for founding his theory, and the reason why the newly introduced part of his logic remained undeveloped and eventually was removed from the texts of logic in the later Islamic tradition. As a preliminary discussion, this paper briefly examines Ibn Sina's methodology and gives a short summary of the relevant principles of Aristotelian logic, before delving into the analysis of Ibn Sina's treatment of the conditional, which is the heart of the paper. This analysis explains Ibn Sina's theory of conditionals in systematic stages, explaining his motivation at each step and showing the weaknesses in his argument using the tools of modern symbolic logic. The paper concludes by mentioning a few of Ibn Sina's remarkable insights regarding conditionals. Key terms: Conditional Syllogism, Ibn Sina, Aristotelian Logic. Introduction After the publication of Ibn-Sina’s al-Shifa: al-Qiyas, edited by S. Zayed, Cairo, 1964, where Ibn-Sina presented most extensively his theory of the Number 1, Winter 2009 5 A Critical Examination of Ibn-Sina’s Theory conditional syllogism and, later on, the publication of Nabil Shehaby’s translaon of it into English in 19731 I think we have all we should have in hand to evaluate Ibn-Sina’s theory as it is, a theory Ibn-Sina regards as his important contribution to Aristotelian logic and as a new form of argument “unknown until now, which I myself discovered”2 (my translation). -
Forgotten Truth by Huston Smith
FORGOTTEN TRUT~ ThE CoMMON VisioN of ThE WoRld's REliqioNs HUSTON SMITH =HarperSanFrancisco A Division of HarperCollinsPublishcrs Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the fol lowing material: Excerpts on pages 94-95 from Tales of the Deroishes by ldries Shah. Copyright© 1967 by ldries Shah. Reprinted by permission of ldries Shah and the publishers, Jonathan Cape Ltd., London, England, and E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. Excerpts on pages 33 and 145 from "Burnt Norton" and "East Coker" from Four QJLartets by T. S. Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc Excerpt on pages 43-46 from The Monastery ofjade Mountain by Peter Goullart. Reprinted by permission of John Murray Ltd., London, England. FORGOITEN TRUTH: The Common Vision of the Worlds Religions. Copy right© 1976 by Huston Smith. Preface copyright© 1992 by Huston Smith. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner what soever without written permission except in the case of brief quota tions embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022. FIRST HARPERCOLLINS PAPERBACK EDITION PUBLISHED IN 1992 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Smith, Huston Forgotten truth. Includes Index 1. Religion-Philosophy I. Title BL5l.S572 1985 200'.1 ISBN 0-06-250787-7 92-53925 05 RRD H 20 1918 17 16 CoNTENTs Preface v I. The Way Things Are I 2. Symbolism of Space: The Three-Dimensional Cross 19 3. The Levels of Reality 34 4. -
Beyond Theology
BEYOND THEOLOGY “Mysticism and the Perennial Philosophy” (#109) Host: Have you ever heard of the perennial philosophy? Do you know what it is? Stay tuned and see how it relates to the mystic’s vision. Announcer: Production funding for this program has been provided in part by the Shumaker Family Foundation – promoting social and environmental justice, education, spirituality and the arts. Host: With innovations in transportation and communication, the world has in effect become a smaller place than it used to be. It’s easier for people to travel and to see what’s happening in other parts of the world. In the process, people of different religious faiths have been rubbing shoulders with each other more often and sometimes coming into conflict. This has stimulated a greater interest in the study of other religions. Huston Smith published a well-known text on world religions back in 1958. In this program, we explore the views of this mystic philosopher and his perennial quest for truth. Huston Smith (Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and Religion): From as far back as I can remember, what I most wanted … outside of family and the intimacy there … was truth, but with a capital T -- The Truth about the ultimate nature of reality. Narrator: Born in China in the spring of 1919, Huston Smith grew up in a rural Chinese community, where his parents served as missionaries for the Methodist Church. Huston Smith: Yes. My parents were missionaries. And actually, I'm third generation of missionary parents because she was born in China, too, of missionary parents that went out in the 19th century. -
HUXLEY the Perennial Philosophy
ALDOUS HUXLEY The Perennial Philosophy 194? Chatto & Windus LONDON PUBLISHED BY Chatto & Windus LONDON * Oxford University Press TORONTO Applications regarding translation rights in any work by Aldous Huxley should be addressed to Chatto & Windus, 40 William IV Street, London, W.C. 2 FIRST PUBLISHED 1946 SECOND IMPRESSION 1947 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN IN COMPLETE CONFORMITY WITH THE AUTHORIZED ECONOMY STANDARDS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Contents Introduction page i Chapter i That Art Thou 7 ii The Nature of the Ground 29 in Personality, Sanctity, Divine Incarnation 45 iv God in the World 69 v Charity 95 vi Mortification, Non-Attachment, Right Livelihood 113 vii Truth 145 vin Religion and Temperament 168 ix Self-Knowledge 185 x Grace and Free Will 190 xi Good and Evil 202 xn Time and Eternity 212 xin Salvation, Deliverance, Enlightenment 230 xiv Immortality and Survival 242 xv Silence 247 xvi Prayer 251 xvn Suffering 260 xvm Faith 268 xix God is not mocked 273 vi THE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY Chapter xx Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum page 279 xxi Idolatry 287 xxn Emotionalism 292 xxni The Miraculous 298 xxiv Ritual, Symbol, Sacrament 301 xxv Spiritual Exercises 314 xxvi Perseverance and Regularity 334 xxvn Contemplation, Action and Social Utility 337 Bibliography 346 Index 353 Acknowledgments For permission to use the following selections, grateful acknowledgment and thanks are extended to the following authors and publishers : George Allen & Unwin Ltd.: MONKEY and THE WAY AND ITS POWER, translated by Arthur Waley; LETTERS, by Spinoza. Burns, Oates & Washbourne Ltd. : THE CLOUD OF UNKNOW- edited McCann THE OF ST. ING, by ; WORKS JOHN OF THE CROSS, translated by Allison Piers. -
Christian Esotericism and Primordial Tradition*
From the World Wisdom online library: www. worldwisdom.com/public/library/default.aspx 23. CHRISTIAN ESOTERICISM AND PRIMORDIAL TRADITION* Two kinds of ecumenisms are usually distinguished: “branches” and “roots.” The “ecumenism of branches” concerns the reconciliation of the three Christian confessions. With generous intentions, it all too often addresses the problem from the wrong end by dwelling on his torical or dogmatic considerations having little interest today with respect to the seriousness of the times, and without any of the three confessions in question being thoroughly convinced of the need for making the first sacrifices. In all immediate susceptibility, it would be incumbent upon Catholicism to renounce its legalism and papal monolithism, upon Protestantism to give up its rigid moralism and open up to the monastic and supernatural dimensions, upon Orthodoxy to abandon a certain intransigence that is no longer in season.1 Even when concessions are made here and there, even when a harmonization is in sight, a serious danger subsists: that of the break-up and thoughtless mixture of forms for which the tradition al movements pay. An excessive opening to the others increases the disorder under the cover of intercommunion, as well as developing the seeds of a dissolution of structures and a phenomenon of entropy. Similarly, an excessive withdrawal encourages a lack of growth, vitality, and flexibility, imprisons in ritualism and fossiliza tion, turns the sanctuary into a “laundered sepulcher.” In one case or the other, the absence of balance and moderation creates a risk of death. Rather than wanting to sew the too disparate points of view together, it would be undoubtedly wiser to consider that beyond the outdated disputes, the differences of mentalities and temperaments—Latin, Germanic, and Slavic to simplify—constitute * From Return to the Essential, III, 3.