Besides there is, in the expression "chose a path", when applied to a case like that of Guénon, something inadequate, tiresome and awkward-sounding; for Guénon was intrinsically a "pneumatic" of the "gnostic" or "jñâni" category; and, in this case, there is no question of a "path" or at least, if there is, the meaning is so altered that the expression itself becomes misleading. A pneumatic is in a way the "incarnation" of a spiritual archetype, which means that he is born with a state of knowledge which, for other people, would actually be the goal, and not the point of departure; the pneumatic does not "go forward" towards something "other than himself’; he stays where he is in order to become fully what he himself is - namely his archetype - by ridding himself, one after the other, of veils or outer surfaces, shackles imposed by the ambience or perhaps by heredity. He becomes rid of them by means of ritual supports - "sacraments", one might say - not forgetting meditation and prayer; but his situation is nonetheless quite other than that of ordinary men, even prodigiously gifted ones. From another point of view it must be recognized that a born gnostic is by nature more or less independent, not only as regards the "letter" but also as regards the "law"; and this does not make his relation with the ambience any simpler, either psychologically or socially. Essays A NOTE ON RENÉ GUÉNON

Guénon was like a personification, not of straightforward spirituality, but of intellectual certitude in its own right; or of metaphysical self-evidence in a mathematical mode, and this explains the tenor of his teaching, which is abstract and reminiscent of mathematics, as well as explaining - indirectly and because of the lack of compensatory features - certain of his traits of character. No doubt, he had the right to be "one-sided" but this constitution went ill with the broad sweep of his mission, or with what he believed to be his mission; he was neither a psychologist nor an esthete - in the best sense of these terms - which is to say that he underestimated both aesthetic values and moral values, particularly in relation to their spiritual functions. He had an inborn distaste for everything that is human and "individual", and there are certain points on which this affected his metaphysics as when, for example, he felt himself bound to deny that the "human state" has a "privileged position", or that the "mind" - the essence of which is reason - constitutes a privilege for man; in reality, it is the presence of the faculty of reason that proves the "central" and "total" character of the human state and it would not exist without this character, which is its entire raison d’être. Essays A NOTE ON RENÉ GUÉNON

In reality, gnosis is essentially the path of the intellect and hence of intellection; the driving force of this path is above all intelligence, and not will and sentiment as is the case in the Semitic monotheistic mysticisms, including average Sufism. Gnosis is characterized by its recourse to pure metaphysics: the distinction between Atma and Maya and the consciousness of the potential identity between the human subject, jivatma, and the Divine Subject, Paramatma. The path comprises on the one hand "comprehension," and on the other "concentration"; hence doctrine and method. The modalities of the latter are quite diverse: in particular, there is on the one hand the mantra, the evocative and transforming formula, and on the other hand, the yantra, the visual symbol. The path is the passage from potentiality to virtuality, and from virtuality to actuality, its summit being the state of the one "delivered in this life," the jivan-mukta. sophiaperennis: Gnosis

In order to be able to judge of the quality of happiness in some past state of the world one would have to be able to put oneself in the place of the men who lived in it and adopt their way of evaluating things and so also their imaginative and sentimental reflexes; many things to which we have become accustomed would seem to them intolerable restraints to which they would prefer the more familiar risks; just the ugliness and the atmosphere of triviality of the world of today would seem to them like the worst of nightmares. sophiaperennis: Sophia Perennis and the theory of evolution and progress

As regards the question of Western rationality, ... the following must be taken into account: the "critical mind," if one may so express it, developed in a world where everything is called into question and where intelligence is continually forced into a state of self-defense; whereas the East has been able to slumber in the shade of the sacred and of the conventional, in the security of a religious universe without fissures. sophiaperennis: Extenuating circumstances for rationalism

To return to what was said above about the understanding of ideas, a theoretical notion may be compared to the view of an object. Just as this view does not reveal all possible aspects, or in other words the integral nature of the object, the perfect knowledge of which would be nothing less than identity with it, so a theoretical notion does not itself correspond to the integral truth, of which it necessarily suggests only one aspect, essential or otherwise. [NA: In a treatise directed against rationalist philosophy, El-Ghazzâli speaks of certain blind men who, not having even a theoretical knowledge of an elephant, came across this animal one day and started to feel the different parts of its body; as a result each man represented the animal to himsel f according to the limb which he touched: for the first, who touched a foot, the elephant resembled a column, whereas for the second, who touched one of the tusks, it resembled a stake, and so on. By this parable El-Ghazzâli seeks to show the error involved in trying to enclose the universal within a fragment ary notion of it, or within isolated and exclusive ’aspects’ or ’points of view’. Shri Ramakrishna also uses this parable to demonstrate the inadequacy of dogmatic exclusiveness in its negative aspect. The same idea could however be expressed by means of an even more adequate example: faced with any object, some might say that it ’is’ a certain shape, while others might say that it ’is’ such and such a material; others again might maintain that it ’is’ such and such a number or such and such a weight and so forth. 2. The Angels are intelligences which are limited to a particular ’aspect’ of Divinity; consequently an angelic state is a sort of transcendent ’point of view’. On a lower plane, the ’intellectuality’ of animals and of the more peripheral species of the terrestrial state, that of plants for example, corresponds cosmologically to the angelic intellectuality: what differentiates one vegetable species from another is in reality simply the mode of its ’intelligence’; in other words, it is the form or rather the integral nature of a plant which reveals the state - eminently passive of course - of contemplation or knowledge of its species; we say ’of its species’ advisedly, because, considered in isolation, a plant does not constitute an individual. We would recall here that the Intellect, being universal, must be discoverable in everything that exists, to whatever order it belongs; the same is not true of reason, which is only a specifi cally human faculty and is in no way identical with intelligence, either our own or that of other beings.] sophiaperennis: What is dogmatism?

Relativism engenders the spirit of rebellion and is at the same time its fruit. The spirit of rebellion is not, like holy anger, a passing state and directed against some worldly abuse; on the contrary, it is a chronic malady directed against Heaven and against all that represents Heaven or is a reminder of it. When Lao-Tse said that "in the latter times the man of virtue appears vile," he had in mind this spirit of rebellion that characterizes our century; yet, for psychological and existentialist relativism, which by definition is always out to justify the crude ego, such a state of mind is normal, it is its absence which is a sickness; hence the would-be abolition of the sense of sin. The sense of sin is really the consciousness of an equilibrium that surpasses our personal will and which, even while wounding us on occasion, operates in the long run for the good of our integral personality and that of the human collectivity; this sense of sin is a counterpart of the sense of the sacred, the instinct for that which surpasses us and which, for that very reason, must not be touched by ignorant and iconoclastic hands. sophiaperennis: Existentialism

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

It follows from the above that in speculative doctrines it is the ’point of view’ on the one hand and the ’aspect’ on the other hand which determine the form of the affirmation, whereas in dogmatism the affirmation is confused with a determinate point of view and aspect, thus excluding all others. [NA: The Angels are intelligences which are limited to a particular ’aspect’ of Divinity; consequently an angelic state is a sort of transcendent ’point of view’. On a lower plane, the ’intellectuality’ of animals and of the more peripheral species of the terrestrial state, that of plants for example, corresponds cosmologically to the angelic intellectuality: what differentiates one vegetable species from another is in reality simply the mode of its ’intelligence’; in other words, it is the form or rather the integral nature of a plant which reveals the state - eminently passive of course - of contemplation or knowledge of its species; we say ’of its species’ advisedly, because, considered in isolation, a plant does not constitute an individual. We would recall here that the Intellect, being universal, must be discoverable in everything that exists, to whatever order it belongs; the same is not true of reason, which is only a specifi cally human faculty and is in no way identical with intelligence, either our own or that of other beings.] sophiaperennis: What is the understanding of an idea?

It is clearly the deiformity of the human body that has inspired sacred nudity; discredited in the Semitic religions for reasons of spiritual perspective and social opportuneness - although it has been manifested sporadically among contemplatives disposed to primordiality - it is still the order of the day in India, immemorial homeland of the "gymnosophists." Krishna, in removing all clothing from the adoring gopis, "baptized" them so to speak: he reduced them to the state before the "fall." [NA: In the climate of Semitic monotheism, dress doubtless represents the choice of the "spirit" against the "flesh"; nonetheless the body intrinsically expresses deiformity, hence primordial "divinity" and immanence. In a certain sense, if dress indicates the soul or the function, the body indicates the Intellect.] The path of liberation is to rebecome what one is. sophiaperennis: ART, ITS DUTIES AND ITS RIGHTS

When creating, man must project himself into matter in his ideal and spiritual personality, not in his state of fall, so that he may afterwards be able to repose his soul and his spirit in a framework that reminds him in a gentle and holy manner of what he must be. sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART

When 3 is multiplied by 4, the product is 12; it is neither 11 nor 13, but expresses exactly the conjugated powers of the multiplicand and of the multiplier. Likewise, metaphorically speaking, when the Christian religion is multiplied by Western humanity, the product is the Middle Ages; it is neither the age of the barbarian invasions nor that of the Renaissance. When a living organism has reached its maximum of growth, it is what it should be; it should neither stop short at the infantile state nor should it grow on indefinitely. The norm does not lie in hypertrophy, it lies at the exact limit of normal development. The same holds good for civilizations. sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART

Philosophers with justice define beauty as the harmony of diversity, and they properly distinguish beauty of form from beauty of expression, as well as the beauty of art from the beauty of nature; similarly, it has been very justly said that the beautiful is distinguished from the useful by the fact that it has no objective outside itself or outside the contemplation of which it is the object, and also that the beautiful is distinguished from the agreeable by the fact that its effect surpasses mere pleasure; and finally that it is distinguished from truth by the fact that it is grasped by immediate contemplation and not by discursive thought. [NA: Truth in the current sense of the word, that of a concordance between a state of fact and our consciousness, is indeed situated on the plane of thought, or at least it applies a priori to that plane. As for pure Intellection, its object is " reality" of which " truth" is the conceptual clothing. But in practice the terms " reality" and "truth" usually merge into one another.] sophiaperennis: Truths and Errors Concerning Beauty

What has been said concerning the intellectual quality of sensible forms must not make us overlook the fact that the further one goes back to the origins of a given Tradition, the less those forms appear in a state of full development. The pseudo-form, that is to say an arbitrary form, is always excluded, as already stated, but form as such can also be virtually absent, at least in certain more or less peripheral domains. On the other hand, the nearer one draws to the end of the traditional cycle under consideration, the greater the importance attaching to ’formalism’, even from the so-called ’artistic’ point of view, since the forms have by then become almost indispensable channels for the actualization of the spiritual deposit of the Tradition. [NA: This point is one that is ignored by certain pseudo-Hindu movements, whether of Indian origin or not, which move away from the sacred forms of Hinduism while believing themselves to represent its purest essence; in reality, it is useless to confer a spiritual means on a man, without having first of all forged in him a mentality which will be in harmony with this means, and that quite independently of the obligation of a personal attachment to an initiatory line; a spiritual realization is inconceivable outside the appropriate psychic ’climate’, that is to say; one that is in conformity with the traditional surroundings of the spiritual means in question.] sophiaperennis: CONCERNING FORMS IN ART

The majority of moderns who claim to understand art are convinced that Byzantine or Romanesque art is in no way superior to modern art, and that a Byzantine or Romanesque Virgin resembles Mary no more than do her naturalistic images, in fact rather the contrary. The answer is, however, quite simple: the Byzantine Virgin - which traditionally goes back to Saint Luke and the Angels - is infinitely closer to the ’truth’ of Mary than a naturalistic image, which of necessity is always that of another woman. Only one of two things is possible: either the artist presents an absolutely correct portrait of the Virgin from a physical point of view, in which case it will be necessary for the artist to have seen the Virgin, a condition which obviously cannot be fulfilled - setting aside the fact that all naturalistic painting is an abuse - or else the artist will present a perfectly adequate symbol of the Virgin, but in this case physical resemblance, without being absolutely excluded, is no longer at all in question. It is this second solution - the only one that makes sense - which is realized in icons; what they do not express by means of a physical resemblance, they express by the abstract but immediate language of symbolism, a language which is built up of precision and imponderables both together. Thus the icon, in addition to the beatific power which is inherent in it by reason of its sacramental character, transmits the holiness or inner reality of the Virgin and hence the universal reality of which the Virgin herself is an expression; in contributing both to a state of contemplation and to a metaphysical reality, the icon becomes a support of intellection, whereas a naturalistic image transmits only the fact - apart from its obvious and inevitable lie - that Mary was a woman. It is true that in the case of a particular icon it may happen that the proportions and features are those of the living Virgin, but such a likeness, if it really came to pass, would be independent of the symbolism of the image and could only be the result of a special inspiration, no doubt an unconscious one on the part of the artist himself. Naturalistic art could moreover be legitimate up to a certain point if it was used exclusively to set on record the features of the saints, since the contemplation of saints (the Hindu darshan) can be a very precious help in the spiritual way, owing to the fact that their outward appearance conveys, as it were, the perfume of their spirituality; but the use in this limited manner of a partial and ’disciplined’ naturalism corresponds only to a very remote possibility. sophiaperennis: CONCERNING FORMS IN ART

In the preceding paragraphs, we have already implicitly answered the question as to whether sacred art is meant to cater for the intellectual elite alone, or whether it has something to offer to the man of average intelligence. This question solves itself when one takes into consideration the universality of all symbolism, for this universality enables sacred art to transmit - apart from metaphysical truths and facts derived from sacred history - not only spiritual states of the mind, but psychological attitudes which are accessible to all men; in modern parlance, one might say that such art is both profound and ’naïve’ at the same time, and this combination of profundity and ’naivety’ is precisely one of the dominant characteristics of sacred art. The ’ingenuousness’ or ’candour’ of such art, far from being due to a spontaneous or affected inferiority, reveals on the contrary the normal state of the human soul, whether it be that of the average or of the aboveaverage man; the apparent ’intelligence’ of naturalism, on the .other hand, that is to say, its wellnigh satanic skill in copying Nature and thus transmitting nothing but the hollow shell of beings and things, can only correspond to a deformed mentality, we might say to one which has deviated from primordial simplicity or ’innocence’. It goes without saying that such a deformation, resulting as it does from intellectual superficiality and mental virtuosity, is incompatible with the traditional spirit and consequently finds no place in a civilization that has remained faithful to that spirit. Therefore if sacred art appeals to contemplative intelligence, it likewise appeals to normal human sensibility. This means that such art alone possesses a universal language, and that none is better fitted to appeal, not only to an elite, but also to the people at large. Let us remember, too, as far as the apparently ’childish’ aspect of the traditional mentality is concerned, Christ’s injunction to be ’as little children’ and ’simple as doves’, words which, no matter what may be their spiritual meaning, also quite plainly refer to psychological realities. sophiaperennis: CONCERNING FORMS IN ART

The monks of the eighth century, very different from those religious authorities of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries who betrayed Christian art by abandoning it to the impure passions of worldly men and the ignorant imagination of the profane, were fully conscious of the holiness of every kind of means able to express the Tradition. They stipulated, at the second council of Nicaea, that ’art’ (i.e. ’the perfection of work’) alone belongs to the painter, while ordinance (the choice of the subject) and disposition (the treatment of the subject from the symbolical as well as the technical or material points of view) belongs to the Fathers. (Non est pictoris - ejus enim sola ars est-rerum ordinatio et dispositio Patrum nostrorum.) This amounts to placing all artistic initiative under the direct and active authority of the spiritual leaders of Christianity. Such being the case, how can one explain the fact that during recent centuries, religious circles have for the most part shown such a regret table lack of understanding in respect of all those things which, having an artistic character, are, as they fondly believe, only external matters? First of all, admitting a priori the elimination of every esoteric influence, there is the fact that a religious perspective as such has a tendency to identify itself with the moral point of view, which stresses merit only and believes it is neces sary to ignore the sanctifying quality of intellectual knowledge and, as a result, the value of the supports of such knowledge; now, the perfection of sensible forms is no more ’meritorious in the moral sense than the intellections which those forms reflect and transmit, and it is therefore only logical that symbolic forms, when they are no longer understood, should be relegated to the background, and even forsaken, in order to be replaced by forms which will no longer appeal to the intelligence, but only to a sentimental imagination capable of inspiring the meritorious act - at least such is the belief of the man of limited intelligence. However, this sort of speculative provocation of reactions by resorting to means of a superficial and vulgar nature will, in the last analysis, prove to be illusory, for, in reality, nothing can be better fitted to influence the deeper dispositions of the soul than sacred art. Profane art, on the contrary, even if it be of some psychological value in the case of souls of inferior intelligence, soon exhausts its means, by the very fact of their superficiality and vulgarity, after which it can only provoke reactions of contempt; these are only too common, and may be considered as a ’rebound’ of the contempt in which sacred art was held by profane art, especially in its earlier stages. [NA: In the same way, the hostility of the representatives of exotericism for all that lies beyond their comprehension results in an increasingly ’massive’ exotericism which cannot but suffer from ’rifts’; but the ’spiritual porousness’ of Tradition - that is to say the immanence in the ’substance’ of exotericism of a transcendent ’dimension’ which makes up for its ’massiveness,’- this state of ’porousness’ having been lost, the above-mentioned ’rifts’ could only be produced from below; which means the replacement of the masters of medieval esotericism by the protagonists of modern unbelief.] It has been a matter of current experience that nothing is able to offer to irreligion a more immediately tangible nourishment than the insipid hypocrisy of religious images; that which was meant to stimulate piety in the believer, but serves to confirm unbelievers in their impiety, whereas it must be recognized that genuinely sacred art does not possess this character of a ’two-edged weapon’, for being itself more abstract, it offers less hold to hostile psychological reactions. Now, no matter what may be the theories that attribute to the people the need for unintelligent images, warped in their essence, the elites do exist and certainly require something different; what they demand is an art corresponding to their own spirit and in which their soul can come to rest, finding itself again in order to mount to the Divine. Such an art cannot spring simply from profane taste, nor even from ’genius’, but must proceed essentially out of Tradition; this fact being admitted, the masterpiece must be executed by a sanctified artist or, let us say, by one in a state of grace’. [NA: The icon-painters were monks who, before setting to work, prepared themselves by fasting, prayer, confession and communion; it even happened that the colours were mixed with holy water and the dust from relics, as would not have been possible had the icon not possessed a really sacramental character.] Far from serving only for the more or less superficial instruction and edification of the masses, the icon, as is the case with the Hindu yantra and all other visible symbols, establishes a bridge from the sensible to the spiritual: ’By the visible aspect’, states St. John Damascenus, ’our thoughts must be drawn up in a spiritual flight and rise to the invisible majesty of God.’ sophiaperennis: CONCERNING FORMS IN ART

Art should have both a human and a Divine character: human with respect to surrounding nature, which serves as its materia prima, and Divine with respect to the undetermined and unqualified human being, to the bare fact of our psychological existence. In the first case art detaches the human work from nature by reason of the fact that - far from being merely imitated - nature is interpreted and transfigured according to spiritual and technical laws; in the second case the raw human being receives an ideal content which organizes, directs and raises him above himself in accordance with the sufficient reason of our human state. It is these two characteristics which determine art and are the justification for its existence. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE

The ’sincerity’ to which certain artists lay claim is far too empty of content and too arbitrary to be able to link up with any truth, unless we are to call ’truth’ a state of psychological fact without horizons, which, it has to be said, is an abuse of language that is not uncommon. The pretentious pseudo-sincerity of the ’creators’, far from starting from primordial innocence - or from the healthy spontaneity of a barbarian - is, in fact, only a reaction from complications and stresses unknown to the primitive. It might be called a perverted veracity, for it is contrary, not only to objective truth, but also to the natural modesty and good sense of a virtuous man. What is normal is that a human being should seek his centre of inspiration beyond himself, beyond his sterility as a poor sinner: this will force him into making ceaseless corrections and a continuous adjustment in the face of an external norm, in short into changes which will compensate for his ignorance and lack of universality. A normal artist touches up his work, not because he is dishonest, but because he takes account of his own imperfection; a good man corrects himself wherever he can. The work of an artist is not a training in spontaneity - talent is not something that is acquired - but a humble and instructed search, either assiduous or joyously carefree, for perfection of form and expression according to sacred prototypes which are both heavenly and collective in their inspiration. Such inspiration in no wise excludes the inspiration of the individual but gives it its range of action and at the same time guarantees its spiritual value. The artist effaces and forgets himself; all the better if genius gives him wings. But before all else his work retraces that of the soul which transforms itself in conformity with a Divine model. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE

With all deference to certain ancient moralists who had difficulty reconciling femininity with deiformity, it is nonetheless quite clear that the latter essentially implies the former, and this for simply logical as well as metaphysical reasons. Even without knowing that femininity derives from an "Eternal Feminine" of transcendent order, one is obliged to take note of the fact that woman, being situated like the male in the human state, is deiform because this state is deiform. Thus it is not astonishing that a tradition as "misogynist" as Buddhism finally consented - within the Mahayâna at least - to make use of the symbolism of the feminine body, which would be meaningless and even harmful if this body, or if femininity in itself, did not comprise a spiritual message of the first order; the Buddhas (and Bodhisattvas) do not save solely through doctrine, but also through their suprahuman beauty, according to the Tradition; now who says beauty, says implicitly femininity; the beauty of the Buddha is necessarily that of Mâyâ or of Tara. sophiaperennis: The Message of the Human Body

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

Modern science, which is rationalist as to its subject and materialist as to its object, can describe our situation physically and approximately, but it can tell us nothing about our extra-spatial situation in the total and real Universe. Astronomers know more or less where we are in space, in what relative "place", in which of the peripheral arms of the Milky Way, and they may perhaps know where the Milky Way is situated among the other assemblages of stardust; but they do not know where we are in existential "space", namely, in a state of hardness and at the center or summit thereof, and that we are simultaneously on the edge of an immense "rotation", which is not other than the current of forms, the "samsaric" flow of phenomena, the panta rhei of Heraclitus  . Profane science, in seeking to pierce to its depth the mystery of the things that contain — space, time, matter, energy — forget the mystery of the things that are contained: it tries to explain the quintessential properties of our bodies and the intimate functioning of our souls, but it does not know what intelligence and existence are; consequently, seeing what its "principles" are, it cannot be otherwise than ignorant of what man is. [Light on the Ancient Worlds, p. 111]. sophiaperennis: Does modern science know what man is

All errors concerning the world and God consist either in a "naturalistic" denial of the discontinuity [between God and the world] and so also of transcendence [NA: It is mainly this "scientific" prejudice, going hand in hand with a falsification and impoverishment of speculative imagination, which prevents a man like Teilhard de Chardin from conceiving the overriding discontinuity between matter and the soul, or between the natural and the supernatural orders and so leads to the evolutionary outlook, which — inverting the truth — makes everything begin with matter. A minus always presupposed an initial plus so that a seeming evolution is no more than the quite provisional unfolding of a preexisting result; the human embryo becomes a man because that is what it already is; no "evolution" will produce a man from an animal embryo. In the same way the whole cosmos can only spring from an embryonic state which contains the virtuality of all its possible deployment and simply makes manifest on the plane of contingencies an infinitely higher and transcendent prototype.] — whereas it is on the basis of this transcendence that the whole edifice of science should have been raised — or else in a failure to understand the metaphysical and ’descending’ continuity which in no way abolishes the discontinuity starting from the relative... [Understanding Islam, p. 109]. sophiaperennis: Science and negation of Transcendence

Essence. [NA: It is in this sense that a Ramana Maharshi   could reduce the whole problem of spirituality to the single question: "Who am I?" Which does not mean - as some imagine - that this question can constitute a path; on the one hand, it indicates the incommunicable state of the Maharshi, and on the other the principle of spiritual subjectivity, of the progressive participation in the pure Subject at once immanent and transcendent.] sophiaperennis: Ramana Maharshi

human collectivity. They are distinct one from another, but none can be reduced simply to a question of realization. The realized man can have inspirations that are - as to their production - distinct from his state of knowledge, [NA: There are very many instances of this: thus Shri Ramana Maharshi said that his stanzas (Ulladu Narpadu or Sad-Vidya) came to him as if "from outside." And he even described how they became fixed in his will.] but he could not add one syllable to the Veda  . Moreover inspirations may depend on a spiritual function, for instance on that of a pontiff, just as they may also result from a mystical degree. As mind without the collaboration of his will. sophiaperennis: Ramana Maharshi

... some modern Vedantists ... claim that the two states in question [the waking and the dreaming egos] are quite unrelated, that the dreaming ego is not in any way the same as the waking one, that the two states are closed systems and that it is incorrect to take the waking ego as the point of reference for the dreaming consciousness; [NA: Like Kant  , Siddheswarananda, for instance, seems to think that his own experiences limit those of others.] and that consequently, the latter is in no way inferior to the former nor less real [NA: Some have even gone as far as to claim that dreaming is superior to the waking state since it comprises possibilities which are excluded by the physical world, as though these possibilities were anything but purely passive and as though the objective and determinant reality of the waking state did not compensate infinitely for the dream possibility of rising into the air; or again, as if one could not just as well dream of being deprived of movement.]. sophiaperennis: The Sophia Perennis and Neo-spiritualism

This extravagant and pseudo-metaphysical opinion is contradicted, in the first place, by the fact that, on awakening, we remember our own dream and not someone else’s; secondly, by the fact that the inconsistent and fluid character of dreams, on the one hand, and on the other, their reference to our subjectives experiences, prove their subjectivity, their passivity and their contingency; and, thirdly, by the fact that, while dreaming, we can perfectly well be aware that we are dreaming and that it is we — and not someone else — who are dreaming. The proof of this is that it may happen that we awaken of our own free will when the development of the dream takes a disturbing turn. On the other hand, no one would think of making an effort to emerge from the waking state — however disagreeable the situation — in the hope of awakening into some paradisial state with the conviction that one had emerged from an accident of one’s own imagination, whereas in reality the terrestrial world would remain what it is. Certainly the universe is, in a sense, an illusion in relation to the Principle, but the objective world is not an illusion in relation to a particular subjectivity on the plane of relativity. (Esoterism as Principle and as Way, p.215-216). sophiaperennis: The Sophia Perennis and Neo-spiritualism

As to individual prayer, grounds for its existence are incontestably to be found in our nature, since individuals do in fact differ from one another and have different destinies and desires. The aim of this prayer is not only to obtain particular favors, but also the purification of the soul : it loosens psychological knots or, in other words, dissolves subconscious coagulations and drains away many secret poisons ; it eternalizes before God the difficulties, failures and distortions of the soul, always supposing the prayer to be humble and genuine, and this externalization — carried out in relation to the Absolute — has the virtue of reestablishing equilibrium and restoring peace, in a word, of opening us to grace. [NA: The Christian sacrament of confession is founded on these data, and is an addition balanced by the action of a special celestial grace (absolution). Psychoanalysis offers an analogous process, but one satanic in form, for it replaces the supernatural by the infra-natural : in the place of God, it puts nature with all its blind, dark and inhuman aspects. For psychoanalysts evil is not what is contrary to God and to the final ends of man, but what troubles the soul, however beneficial the cause of disquiet may be ; further, the equilibrium resulting from psychoanalysis is basically of an animal order, and this is entirely contrary to the requirements of our immortality. In man, his disequilibria can and must be resolved with a view to a higher equilibrium, conformable to a spiritual hierarchy of values, and not in some quasi-vegetative state of bliss; a human evil cannot be cured apart from God. (Stations of Wisdom, p. 125-126).] sophiaperennis: The Sophia Perennis and Neo-spiritualism

Indian holly man manifests his love for a Hindu holy man; secondly, this apparently small incident reminds us of the unity of the primordial Sanatana Dharma, which is more or less hidden beneath the many forms of intrinsically orthodox tradition; and this unity is especially represented by the very function of the Jagadguru, who incarnates the Universal Truth. Thirdly, this little incident making a symbolical encounter between a Red Indian priest and a Hindu priest was in fact an act of prayer; and it show us that in prayer all earthly differences such as space and time are transcended, and that in prayer we are all united in one state of purity in one perfume of Deliverance. sophiaperennis: His Holiness and the Red Indian