The Transcendent Unity of Religions

This republication of Schuon’s “superlative” work on the unity of religions has a long, learned and enlightening introduction by Huston Smith, with a helpful diagram making even more precise Schuon’s thesis on the relation between religions

The dividing line is horizontal and occurs only once, rather than the distinction being between the religions themselves. For Schuon, existence—and, therefore, cognition—is graded. Hence, in God at the apex, religions converge; below the line they differ. So, too, religious discernment unites at its apex and divides below it.

Smith compares Schuon’s thesis with others, quoting the author himself in saying that there is “a unity at the heart of religions” that can be “univocally described by none and concretely apprehended by few.” Smith’s introduction concludes with a helpful description of the esoteric and exoteric distinction restated—a key, he says, to the understanding of the whole book. T.S. Eliot said of Schuon’s volume: “I have met with no more impressive work in the comparative study of Oriental and Occidental religion.” From beginning to end, Schuon quotes Muslim and Christian, Hindu and other mystics alike to substantiate his valuable insights. He insists that the unity of the different religions is not only unrealizable on the external level, that of the forms themselves, but ought not to be realized at that level even were this possible, for in that case the revealed forms would be deprived of their sufficient reason. The very fact that they are revealed, he claims, “shows that they are willed by the Divine Word.” He uses the word “transcendent” in the title because it means that the unity of the religious forms must be realized in a purely inward and spiritual way and without prejudice to any particular form. “The antagonisms between these forms no more affect the one universal Truth than the antagonisms between opposing colors affect the transmission of the one uncolored light.”

"The combination of these two facts – the longing in the depth of the heart for absolute good, and the power, though only latent, of directing attention and love to a reality beyond the world and of receiving good from it – constitutes a link which attaches every man without exception to that other reality. Whoever recognizes that reality recognizes that link. Because of it, he holds every human being without any exception as something sacred to which he is bound to show respect. This is the only possible motive for universal respect towards all human beings." Simone Weil

“Draft for A Statement of Human Obligations” SIMONE WEIL, AN ANTHOLOGY ed. Sian Miles

steve wrote:Very nice. Love the quote at the end. My only comment would be that we 'grow' only in the realization of Being and that, in our essense, WE are the Divine Word.

Nice.

steve wrote:Not even a disagreement, just a difference in perspective. I say the same as you, pay heed to the phrase posted over the Oracle of Delphi. I am spokesman for the Absolute and you for the relative, that's all. Flip a coin and call the head side 'good' and the tail side 'bad' and that would be rational and correct. But from the coins point of view, it matters not what is called what.

I see no wretched men. I see nothing apart from God (to name the nameless). Neither do I long for or seek (ok, maybe a little) spiritual experiences. All experiences come and go. I just say to examine the container, not the contents.

Great Peace,
s

Bob wrote:Hold on here, you are going to refer to a pagan temple, and then make remarks to make this reference feasible for you statement? What is the point in this pagan reference, is it to reference Socrates, and show your knowledge of philosophy, which does not hold, well Philosophy of Religion does, but you people just spit on that, and did not understand the references, the spiritual on high?

14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

"Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is." -- Erich Fromm

"The role of the intelligence - that part of us which affirms and denies and formulates opinions is merely to submit." Simone Weil

steve wrote:Our potential is for inner unity: "I Am." We simply cannot understand this before being on the way to becoming oneself. YES WE CAN

Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998) was a well respected European mystic, philosopher, poet, and painter. He was a scholar of Islamic culture and became a disciple of the Algerian Sufi Shaikh Ahmad Al’Alawi. Frithjof Schuon also studied Native American culture and was adopted into the Red Cloud family and later the Crow tribe. He has written a vast number of books in many languages.

"The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred million to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?"