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Summary: A Review of Roots of the Human Condition
Review: Roots of the Human Condition As its title indicates, this book deals with the fundamental principles of universal and perennial metaphysics and their application on the level of spiritual and moral life. The book is divided into three sections: the first dealing with metaphysics and epistemology, the second concerning esoterism and its interpretation of religions, while the third focuses on spiritual and moral life. Everything begins with intelligence as a principle of dicernment. Intelligence is defined by Schuon, in the wake of traditional wisdom, as an intuition of Reality, or as a discernment between Reality and illusion, which must manifest itself on all levels of being. Its primary organ is not the mind, which is akin to discursive reason, but the Heart, which is none other than the intuitive and existential center of man. Reason left to itself is unable to lift the "Veil of Isis" or the Mystery of Reality because it is always exterior to its object. In this connection, Schuon devotes an important chapter to the limits of modern science. The latter is doomed to fail because it proceeds through an indefinite exploration of phenomena and remains unaware of the Supreme Identity between Object and Subject in the Divine Unity. Given its epistemological a priori modern science cannot but be blind to the objective and subjective "proofs" of God. The former include pure existence, the indefinite extension of space and time and existential qualities, which bear witness respectively to the Absolute, Infinite and Perfect Reality of the One. On the side of the subject, the paradox of the plurality of the "I" ultimately point to the one and only reality of the Divine Self. The immanence of the Divine Self is also at the core of the saving dimension of the Divine, which is examined in two essential chapters devoted to the Divine Shakti --the celestial and cosmic energy which pulls us inward-- and to the complementarity between karma and grace --the first expressing the necessity of the Absolute, the second the freedom of the Infinite. The esoteric approach allows Schuon to provide the reader with a masterly and enlightening phenomenology of religions which takes him to the metaphysical and sapiential core of the various creeds. Two amazingly synthetic chapters are thus devoted to Christianity and Islam, unveiling the inner dimension and specificity of each of these religions. Schuon proposes to define Christianity by the patristic formula "God has become man so that man may become God." The first half of this formula is the key to a deeper understanding of the Eucharist, the Icon and the Divine Name as vehicles of Divine Presence. As for Islam, it is understood by Schuon as the religious form manifesting the substance of all religions through its simplicity, primordiality and terminality. Schuon's Islam is essential and universal as evidenced by the way in which he refers all five pillars of this religion back to their inner spiritual meaning. As in all of other Schuon's works, metaphysics and comparative religion find their spiritual and moral necessary complement in a profound science of virtues. For Schuon, the quintessence of virtues is veracity and sincerity, or conformity to Truth and its consequences. A final chapter devoted to the spiritual meaning of love shows how all terrestrial loves are fundamentally open doors onto the love of God which is their essence. In a world more and more engrossed by the phenomenal periphery of things, this book brings a much-needed message of return to the roots of our being.
Rating:
Summary: A Review of Roots of the Human Condition
Review: Roots of the Human Condition As its title indicates, this book deals with the fundamental principles of universal and perennial metaphysics and their application on the level of spiritual and moral life. The book is divided into three sections: the first dealing with metaphysics and epistemology, the second concerning esoterism and its interpretation of religions, while the third focuses on spiritual and moral life. Everything begins with intelligence as a principle of dicernment. Intelligence is defined by Schuon, in the wake of traditional wisdom, as an intuition of Reality, or as a discernment between Reality and illusion, which must manifest itself on all levels of being. Its primary organ is not the mind, which is akin to discursive reason, but the Heart, which is none other than the intuitive and existential center of man. Reason left to itself is unable to lift the "Veil of Isis" or the Mystery of Reality because it is always exterior to its object. In this connection, Schuon devotes an important chapter to the limits of modern science. The latter is doomed to fail because it proceeds through an indefinite exploration of phenomena and remains unaware of the Supreme Identity between Object and Subject in the Divine Unity. Given its epistemological a priori modern science cannot but be blind to the objective and subjective "proofs" of God. The former include pure existence, the indefinite extension of space and time and existential qualities, which bear witness respectively to the Absolute, Infinite and Perfect Reality of the One. On the side of the subject, the paradox of the plurality of the "I" ultimately point to the one and only reality of the Divine Self. The immanence of the Divine Self is also at the core of the saving dimension of the Divine, which is examined in two essential chapters devoted to the Divine Shakti --the celestial and cosmic energy which pulls us inward-- and to the complementarity between karma and grace --the first expressing the necessity of the Absolute, the second the freedom of the Infinite. The esoteric approach allows Schuon to provide the reader with a masterly and enlightening phenomenology of religions which takes him to the metaphysical and sapiential core of the various creeds. Two amazingly synthetic chapters are thus devoted to Christianity and Islam, unveiling the inner dimension and specificity of each of these religions. Schuon proposes to define Christianity by the patristic formula "God has become man so that man may become God." The first half of this formula is the key to a deeper understanding of the Eucharist, the Icon and the Divine Name as vehicles of Divine Presence. As for Islam, it is understood by Schuon as the religious form manifesting the substance of all religions through its simplicity, primordiality and terminality. Schuon's Islam is essential and universal as evidenced by the way in which he refers all five pillars of this religion back to their inner spiritual meaning. As in all of other Schuon's works, metaphysics and comparative religion find their spiritual and moral necessary complement in a profound science of virtues. For Schuon, the quintessence of virtues is veracity and sincerity, or conformity to Truth and its consequences. A final chapter devoted to the spiritual meaning of love shows how all terrestrial loves are fundamentally open doors onto the love of God which is their essence. In a world more and more engrossed by the phenomenal periphery of things, this book brings a much-needed message of return to the roots of our being.
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