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shapeshifter
mesaj 13 Jul 2009, 10:51 PM
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Argument
The Greek word kategoria, “argument,” means in the last analysis: an ultimate form of thought, that is to say a key-notion capable of classifying other notions, or even all the notions having a bearing on existence.

Detachment
Detachment is the opposite of concupiscence and avidity; it is the greatness of soul which, inspired by a consciousness of absolute values and thus also of the imperfection and impermanence of relative values, allows the soul to keep its inward freedom and its distance with regard to things. Consciousness of God, on the one hand annuls, in a certain fashion, both forms and qualities, and on the other confers on them a value that transcends them; detachment means that the soul is so to say impregnated with death, but it also means by compensation, that it is aware of the indestructibility of earthly beauties; for beauty cannot be destroyed, it withdraws into its archetypes and into its essence, where it is reborn, immortal, in the blessed nearness of God.

Detachment / Attachment
It is to be observed first of all that attachment is in the very nature of man; and yet he is asked to be detached. The criterion of the legitimacy of an attachment is that its object should be worthy of love, that is, that it should communicate to us something of God, and, even more importantly, should not separate us from Him; if a thing or creature is worthy of love and does not alienate us from God, – in which case it indirectly brings us close to its divine model – it may be said that we love it “in God” and “towards God”, and thus in keeping with Platonic “remembrance” and without idolatry and centrifugal passion. To be detached means not loving anything outside of God or a fortiori against God: it is thus to love God ex toto corde.

Devil:
The devil being the humanized personification – humanized on contact with man – of the subversive aspect of the centrifugal existential power; not the personification of this power in so far as its mission is positively to manifest Divine Possibility.

Dialectic (spiritual):
When the notion of dialectic is applied to the domain of spirituality, it must be amplified to include more than the art of reasoning correctly, for what is at stake now is the whole problem of spiritual expression itself; before knowing how to reason, it is necessary to know how to express oneself, because spiritual dialectic is first and foremost the capacity to give account in human language of realities that transcend, if not man’s mind, at least his earthly experience and his ordinary psychology. In other words, dialectic is not only a question of logic, it is also a question of verbal adequation; both things require principles and experience.

Doctrine:
Doctrine offers the whole truth, first by virtue of its form, and then in regard to the capacity of the properly qualified intelligence to receive and actualize it; it lays open its content in a way that is doubtless elliptical, since it is a form, but in a way that is also total since this form is a symbol and is therefore something of what it has to communicate.

Doctrine (exoteric / esoteric):
A doctrine or a Path is exoteric to the degree that it is obliged to take account of individualism – which is the fruit not so much of passion itself as of the hold exerted by passion upon thought – and to veil the equation of Intellect and Self under a mythological and moral imagery, irrespective of whether a historical element is combined with that imagery or not; and a doctrine is esoteric to the degree that it communicates the very essence of our universal position, our situation between
nothingness and Infinity. Esoterism is concerned with the nature of things and not merely with our human eschatology; it views the Universe not from the human standpoint but from the “standpoint” of God.

Doctrine (limitation):
A doctrinal limitation does not always denote a corresponding intellectual limitation since it can be situated on the level of mental articulation and not on that of pure intellection.

Doctrine (quintessence):
When one speaks of doctrinal “quintessence,” this may mean one of two things: firstly, the loftiest and subtlest part of a doctrine, and it is in this sense that Sufis distinguish between the “husk” (qishr) and the “marrow” (lubb); and secondly,
an integral doctrine envisaged in respect of its fundamental and necessary nature, and thus leaving aside all outward trappings and all superstructure.

Doctrine (truth):
It is sometimes said that no doctrine is entirely wrong and that there is truth in everything; but this is altogether false, because, while fundamental – and thus decisive – truths can neutralize any minor errors in a doctrine, minor truths are valueless within the framework of a major error; this is why one must never glorify an error for having taught us some truth or other, nor look for truth in errors on the pretext that truth is everywhere the same – for there are important nuances here – and above all one must not reject a fundamental and comprehensive truth because of a minor error that may
happen to accompany it.

Dogmatism:
Dogmatism is characterized by the fact that it attributes an absolute scope and an exclusive sense to a particular point of view or aspect. [Dogmatism as such does not consist in the mere enunciation of an idea, that is to say, in the fact of giving form to a spiritual intuition, but rather in an interpretation that, instead of rejoining the formless and total Truth after taking as its starting point one of the forms of that Truth, results in a sort of paralysis of this form by denying its intellectual potentialities and by attributing to it an absoluteness that only the formless and total Truth itself can possess.

Dogmatism / Empiricism:

A few words must be said here on the antinomy between dogmatism and empiricism: the empiricist error consists not in the belief that experiment has a certain utility, which is obvious, but in thinking that there is a common measure between principial knowledge and experiment, and in attributing to the latter an absolute value, whereas in fact it can only have a bearing on modes, never on the very principles of Intellect and of Reality; this amounts to purely and simply denying the possibility of a knowledge other than the experimental and sensory. On the dogmatist side, on the contrary, it is necessary to guard against the danger of underestimating the role of experiment within the limits where it is valid, for even thought based on an awareness of principles can go astray on the level of applications, and that precisely through ignorance of certain possible modes, without such misapprehension however being able to affect knowledge in a global sense. It is self-evident that dogmatism – whether rightly or wrongly so called – has value only insofar as the immutability of its axioms derives from
that of principles, hence of truth.

Doubt:
Doubt is nothing else but the void left by absent certainty and this void readily makes way for the false plenitude of error.

Ego:
The ego is at the same time a system of images and a cycle; it is something like a museum. The ego is a moving fabric made of images and tendencies; the tendencies come from our own substance, and the images are provided by the environment. We put ourselves into things, and we place things in ourselves, whereas our true being is independent of them.
The ego is, empirically, a dream in which we ourselves dream ourselves; the contents of this dream, drawn from our surroundings, are at bottom only pretexts, for the ego desires only its own life: whatever we may dream, our dream is always only a symbol for the ego which wishes to affirm itself, a mirror that we hold before the ‘I’ and which reverberates its life in multiple fashions. This dream has become our second nature; it is woven of images and of tendencies, static and dynamic elements in innumerable combinations: the images come from outside and are integrated into our substance; the tendencies are our responses to the world around us; as we exteriorise ourselves, we create a world in the image of our dream, and the dream thus objectivized flows back upon us, and so on and on, until we are enclosed in a tissue, sometimes inextricable, of dreams exteriorized or materialized and of materializations interiorised. The ego is like a watermill whose wheel, under the drive of a current – the world and life – turns and repeats itself untiringly, in a series of images always different and always similar.

Empirical “I”:
The empirical “I” is nothing but a shifting tissue of images and tendencies; when the ego of an individual eight years old is compared with the ego of the same individual at eighty years of age one may well ask oneself where the real “I” is. And if a man could live for a thousand years, what would remain of that which was his “I” in the first century of his life? We live at the same time in the body, the head and the heart, so that we may sometimes ask ourselves where the genuine ‘I’ is situated; in fact, the ego, properly speaking, the empirical ‘I’, has its sensory seat in the brain, but it gravitates towards the body and tends to identify itself with it, while the heart is symbolically the seat of the Self, of which we may be conscious or ignorant, but which is our true existential, intellectual, and so universal center.

Error:
The fact that errors exist does not in itself amount to a proof that the intelligence suffers from an inevitable fallibility, for error does not derive from intelligence as such. On the contrary, error is a privative phenomenon causing the activity of the intelligence to deviate through the intervention of an element of passion or blindness, without however being able to invalidate the nature of the cognitive faculty itself. To give to partial truths an absolute significance is the very definition of error.

Evil:
From the spiritual point of view, which alone takes account of the true cause of our calamities, evil is not by definition what causes us to suffer, it is that which – even when accompanied by a maximum of comfort or of ease, or of “justice” so-called – thwarts a maximum of souls as regards their final end. Manifestation is not the Principle, the effect is not the cause; that which is “other than God” could not possess the perfections of God, hence in the final analysis and within the general imperfection of the created, there results that privative and subversive phenomenon which we call evil. This is to say that the cosmogonic ray, by plunging as it were into “nothingness,” ends by manifesting “the possibility of the impossible”; the “absurd” cannot but be produced somewhere in the economy of the divine Possibility, otherwise the Infinite would not be the Infinite. But strictly speaking, evil or the devil cannot oppose the Divinity, who has no opposite; it opposes man who is the mirror of God and the movement towards the divine. With the intention of resolving the problem of evil, some have maintained that evil does
not exist for God, and consequently that for Him everything is a good, which is inadmissible and ill-sounding. What ought to be said is that God sees the privative manifestations only in connection with the positive manifestations that compensate for
them; thus evil is a provisional factor in view of a greater good, of a “victory of the Truth”; vincit omnia Veritas.
In order to resolve the thorny problem of evil, some have claimed that nothing is bad since everything which happens is “willed by God,” or that evil exists only “from the standpoint of the Law”; which is by no means plausible, first because the Law exists on account of evil and not conversely. What should be said is that evil is integrated into the universal Good, not as evil but as an ontological necessity, as we have pointed out above; this necessity underlies evil, it is metaphysically inherent in it, without however transforming it into a good. Infinitude, which is an aspect of the Divine Nature, implies unlimited Possibility and consequently Relativity, Manifestation, the world. To speak of the world is to speak of separation from the Principle, and to speak of separation is to speak of the possibility –and necessity – of evil; seen from this angle, what we term evil is thus indirectly a result of Infinitude, hence of the Divine Nature; in this respect, God cannot wish to suppress it; likewise, in this respect – and only in this respect – evil ceases to be evil, being no more than an indirect and distant manifestation of a mysterious aspect of the Divine Nature, precisely that of Infinitude or of All-Possibility. One could also say that Infinitude engenders Possibility, and Possibility engenders Relativity; now Relativity contains by definition what we could term the principle of contrast. Insofar as a quality is relative – or is reflected in Relativity – it has ontological need of a contrast, not intrinsically or in virtue of its content, but extrinsically and in virtue of its mode, thus because of its contingency. Indeed, it is the relative or contingent character of a quality that requires or brings about the existence of the corresponding privative manifestation, with all its possible gradations and as a result, its defect, vice, evil. Evil is the possibility of the impossible, since relative good is the Possible approaching impossibility; for it is from this paradoxical combination of Possibility with
impossibility – impossibility becoming real only in and through Possibility – that Contingency or Relativity originates, if one may be allowed an ellipsis that is complex and daring, but difficult to avoid at this point.
If God cannot eliminate evil as a possibility, it is because in this respect evil is a function of His Nature and, being so, it ceases as a result to be evil; and what God cannot do, on pain of contradiction or absurdity, He could never will. However, the Divine Will opposes evil inasmuch as it is contrary to the Divine Nature, which is Goodness or Perfection; in this relationship of opposition – and in this alone – evil is intrinsically evil. God fights this evil perfectly since, on all planes, it is the good that is finally victorious; evil is never more than a fragment or a transition, whether we are in a position to see this or not.
The nature of evil, and not its inevitability, constitutes its condemnation; its inevitability must be accepted, for tragedy enters perforce into the divine play, if only because the world is not God; one must not accept error, but one must be resigned to its existence. But beyond earthly destructions there is the Indestructible: “Every form you see,” says Rumi, “has its archetype in the divine world, beyond space; if the form perishes what matter, since its heavenly model is indestructible? Every beautiful form you have seen, every meaningful word you have heard – be not sorrowful because all this must be lost; such is not really the case. The divine Source is immortal and its outflowing gives water without cease; since neither the one nor the other can be stopped, wherefore do you lament? . . . From the first moment when you entered this world of existence, a ladder has been set up before you . . .”
Now, if we start out from the idea that, metaphysically speaking, there is no “evil” properly so called and that all is simply a question of function or aspect, we shall then have to specify on the following lines: an evil being is a necessary fragment of a good – or an equilibrium – which exceeds that being incommensurably, whereas a good being is a good in itself, so that any evil in the latter is but fragmentary. Evil, then, is the fragment of a good and the good is a totality including some evil and neutralizing it by its very quality of totality.

Evil / Good:
The distant and indirect cause of what we rightly call evil – namely privation of the good – is the mystery of All-Possibility: that is to say that the latter, being infinite, necessarily embraces the possibility of its own negation, thus the “possibility of the impossible” or the “being of nothingness.” This paradoxical possibility, this “possibility of the absurd” – since it exists and since nothing can be separated from the Good, which coincides with Being – has of necessity a positive function, which is to manifest the Good – or the multiple “goods” – by means of contrast, as much in “time” or succession as in “space” or co-existence. In “space,” evil is opposed to good and by that fact heightens the latter’s luster and brings out its nature a contrario; in “time,” the cessation of evil manifests the victory of the good, in accordance with the principle that vincit omnia Veritas; the two modes illustrate the “unreality” of evil and at the same time its illusory character. In other words: since the function of evil is the contrasting manifestation of good and also the latter’s final victory, we may say that evil by its very
nature is condemned to its own negation; representing either the “spatial” or “temporal” absence of good, evil thus returns to this absence, which is privation of being and hence nothingness. If one were to object that good is likewise perishable, we would answer that it returns to its celestial or divine prototype in which alone it is wholly “itself”; what is perishable in the good is not the good in itself, it is this or that envelope limiting it. As we have said more than once – and this brings us back to the root of the question – evil is a necessary consequence of remoteness from the Divine Sun, the “overflowing” source of the cosmogonic trajectory; the mystery of mysteries being All-Possibility as such. A remark is necessary here: one might object that evil likewise, by its very nature, tends to communicate itself; that is true, but it has this tendency precisely because it is opposed to the radiation of the good and thus cannot help imitating the latter in some fashion. For evil is by definition both opposition and imitation: within the framework of opposition it is ontologically forced to imitate; “the more they curse God the more they praise Him,” said Meister Eckhart. Evil, insofar as it exists, participates in the good represented by existence.
Good and evil are not, strictly speaking, existential categories as are the object, the subject, space and time; because the good is the very being of things – manifested by the categories precisely – such that they, the things, are all “modes of the good”; whereas evil indicates paradoxically the absence of this being, while annexing certain things or certain characteristics at the level at which they are accessible and by virtue of predispositions allowing it. But despite this reservation, one may consider good and evil as existential categories for the following reasons. The good includes on the one hand all that manifests the qualities of the Divine Principle, and on the other hand all things inasmuch as they manifest this same Principle by their existence, and also inasmuch as they fulfill a necessary ontological function. Evil for its part includes all that manifests a privation from the standpoint of the qualities or from that of Being itself; it is harmful in various ways, even though this harmfulness be neutralized and compensated, in given cases, by positive factors. That is to say that there are things which are bad or harmful in principle but not in fact, just as there are others which are good and beneficial in the same way; all
of which contributes to the unfolding of the cosmic play with its innumerable combinations.

Evil / Good / Absoluteness:
Evil cannot be absolute, it always depends upon some good which it misuses or perverts; the quality of Absoluteness can belong to good alone. To say “good” is therefore to say “absolute,” and conversely: for good results from Being itself, which it reflects and whose potentialities it unfolds.

Acest topic a fost editat de shapeshifter: 13 Jul 2009, 11:09 PM


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shapeshifter
mesaj 13 Jul 2009, 11:13 PM
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Existence:
Existence is a reality in some respects comparable to a living organism; it cannot with impunity be reduced, in man’s consciousness and in his modes of action, to proportions that do violence to its nature; pulsations of the “extra-rational” pass through it from every quarter. Now religion and all forms of supra-rational wisdom belong to this extra-rational order; the presence of which we observe everywhere around us, unless we are blinded by a mathematician’s prejudice; to attempt to treat existence as a purely arithmetical and physical reality is to falsify it in relation to ourselves and within ourselves, and in the end it is to blow it to pieces. The very fact of our existence is a prayer and compels us to prayer, so that it could be said: “I am, therefore I pray; sum ergo oro.” Existence is by nature ambiguous and from this it follows that it compels us to prayer in two ways: first by its quality of being a divine expression, a coagulated and segmented mystery, and secondly by its inverse aspect of being a bondage and perdition, so that we must indeed think of God not merely because, being men, we cannot but take account of the divine basis of existence – insofar as we are faithful to our nature – but also because we are by the same token forced to recognize that we are fundamentally more than existence and that we live like exiles in a house afire. On the one hand, existence is a surge of creative joy and every creature praises God: to exist is to praise God whether we be waterfalls, trees, birds or men; but on the other hand, existence means not to be God and so to be in a certain respect
ineluctably in opposition to Him; existence is something which grips us like a shirt of Nessus. Someone who does not know that the house is on fire has no reason to call for help, just as the man who does not know he is drowning will not grasp the rope that could save him; but to know we are perishing means, either to despair or else to pray. Truly to know that we are nothing because the whole world is nothing, means to remember “That which Is” and through this remembrance to become free. If a man has a nightmare and, while still dreaming, starts calling on God for aid, he infallibly awakens; this shows two
things: first, that the conscious intelligence of the Absolute subsists during sleep as a distinct personality – our spirit thus remaining apart from our states of illusion – and secondly, that when a man calls on God he will end by awakening also from that great dream which is life, the world, the ego. If this call can breach the wall of common dreams, why should it not also breach the wall of that vaster and more tenacious dream that is existence?

Existence / Intelligence:
Existence, the being of things, neutralizes and unites, whereas intelligence discerns and separates. Existence by its very nature is an “exit” (ex-sistere, ex-stare) out of Unity and thus is the plane of separation, whereas intelligence, being Unity by its intrinsic nature, is the ray leading back to the Principle. Both existence and intelligence unite and divide, but each does so in a different relationship, so that intelligence divides where existence unites and vice versa.

Existence / Phenomena:
Existence . . . concerns all things – whether qualitative or not and whether conscious or not – by the simple fact they stand out against nothingness, if one may express it thus. Phenomena are “neither God nor other than He”: they possess nothing of themselves, neither existence nor positive attributes; they are divine qualities “corroded” in an illusory manner by nothingness – itself non-existent – by reason of the infinitude of universal Possibility.

“Father”:
In calling God “Father,” Christ attests to the “Sovereign Good”: he refers on the one hand to the essentiality of the divine Goodness, and on the other hand to the reciprocity between the Creator and the creature “made in His image”; this means that Christ grants priority, not to the divine Power and to the aspect of Lordship, but to the divine Love and to the aspect of Paternity, precisely; as a result, man is presented, not as a simple slave, but as a child who, in relation to his Father, has rights granted to him by that Father, and which stem from his being a “valid interlocutor” and “image of God.” In Christ’s language, there is clearly a distinction to be made between “our Father” and “my Father”: the relation of filiation is principial and potential in the former case, and fully actual and effective in the second. The ordinary man is a “child of God” in the
respect we have just indicated, that is, by the simple fact that he is man and hence “interlocutor”; but Christ is “child” or “son of God” in still another respect, which is superimposed onto the preceding; it is, geometrically speaking, what the vertical
dimension is to the horizontal, or what the sphere is to the circle: he is “child” or “son” by his personality and not by the simple fact that he belongs to the human species, nor by virtue of an initiation or a spiritual orientation capable of actualizing a potentiality of theosis. For the Avatara is a cosmic phenomenon implying by definition every spiritual perfection possible – as well as every physical perfection – but which no realization on the part of an ordinary man could produce; the yogi, the sannyasi, the jnani, can realize Brahman, but he will never be Rama or Krishna . . . But let us return, after this digression, to the idea of the divine “Father.” This term, as we have said, has a meaning which differs according to whether it relates to man as such or to Christ alone; but it also has a meaning which differs according to whether it is conceived “vertically” or “horizontally”: that is to say, according to whether it relates, either to “Beyond-Being,” or to Being. In the first case, the “Father” is the pure Absolute and nothing can be associated with Him; the two other “Persons” already pertain to Relativity, of which they represent the summit; far from pertaining to the manifested world, they, together with the Absolute pure and simple, constitute what we may call the “Divine Order.” In the second case – which alone has been retained by dogmatic theology – the “Father” is situated at the same level of ontological reality as the other two hypostases; whence the Trinity “Power,” “Wisdom,” “Love,” if one may express it thus. True, this ontological and “horizontal” Trinity does not coincide with the “pure Absolute,” but it is absolute from the point of view of creatures; thus man, when he prays, should not concern himself with the “degrees of reality” comprised in the principial Order, on pain of speaking into the void.
It may be objected that religion has no reason for including the idea of “Beyond-Being,” since its aim is the salvation of souls and not metaphysical knowledge, and indeed, as far as its saving function is concerned, religion can do without the idea in question; but in another respect, that of its claim to absoluteness, it must include it, on pain of misleading – or excluding – certain souls or certain intelligences. One is therefore right in thinking that the word “Father” expresses all that it is capable of expressing, at all levels of doctrine and degrees of understanding.
The question of knowing to which “divine level” man must address himself when praying never ought to arise, for to pray is to speak to God, independently of any metaphysical specification; the man who prays, even if he addresses a celestial personification, should not concern himself with the ontology of the celestial Interlocutor. On the one hand, “the kingdom of God is within you”; and on the other hand, “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” But also, and above all: “Our Father who art in Heaven.”

Trinity (Koranic):
The Trinity “Father, Son, and Mother”, which the Koran attributes to Christianity, has three meanings: first, it expresses a psychological situation de facto, Mary being much more present to Christian people, so far as a truly divine function is
concerned, than is the Holy Ghost; second, it implies that the Holy Virgin is identified with the Spirit insofar as she is the Wisdom that has been “set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was” (Proverbs 8:23); third, the Koranic formulation has to stress the exoteric incompatibility of Christian Trinitarianism with Islamic Unitarianism.

Trinity (metacosmic, macrocosmic, microcosmic):
The “Father” is God as such, that is as metacosm; the “Son” is God insofar as He manifests Himself in the world, hence in the
macrocosm; and the “Holy Spirit” is God insofar as He manifests Himself in the soul, hence in the microcosm. From another point of view, the macrocosm itself is the “Son”, and the microcosm itself – in its primordial perfection – is identified with the “Holy Spirit”; Jesus corresponds to the macrocosm, to the entire creation as divine manifestation, and Mary corresponds to the “pneumatic” microcosm; and let us recall in this respect the equation that has been made sometimes between the Holy Spirit and the Divine Virgin, an equation that is linked, in some ancient texts, to the feminization of the Divine Pneuma.

Trinity (“vertical” and “horizontal”):
The Trinity can be envisaged according to a “vertical” perspective or according to either of two “horizontal” perspectives, one of them being supreme and the other not. The vertical perspective – Beyond-Being, Being, Existence – envisages the hypostases as “descending” from Unity or from the Absolute – or from the Essence it could be said – which means that it envisages the degrees of Reality. The supreme horizontal perspective corresponds to the Vedantic triad Sat (supraontological Reality), Chit (Absolute Consciousness) and Ananda (Infinite Beatitude), which means that it envisages the Trinity inasmuch as it is hidden in Unity.* The non-supreme horizontal perspective on the contrary situates Unity as an Essence hidden within the Trinity, which is then ontological and represents the three fundamental aspects or modes of Pure Being, whence the triad: Being, Wisdom, Will (Father, Son, Spirit).

(* The Absolute is not the Absolute inasmuch as it contains aspects, but inasmuch as it transcends them; inasmuch as it is Trinity it is therefore not Absolute.)


Transgression:
Transgression is essentially non-conformity of action.

Unity:
Unity is the first principle that penetrates and regulates universal Manifestation, in the sense that on the one hand it projects its reflections everywhere, and on the other hand brings phenomena back to Unity.

Universal Radiation:
Universal radiation is the unfolding of accidents, starting from initial Relativity; necessary Being, radiating by virtue of its infinitude, gives rise to Contingency.

Universal Spirit:
The Universal Spirit is the divine Intelligence incarnate in Existence; it is like the reflection of the divine Sun in the cosmic Substance: God projects Himself, so to speak, into that “void” or “nothingness” which is the plane of the creature. He creates Himself, it might be said, as “the Spirit of God” moving “upon the face of the waters,” and it is from these – from the chaos of cosmic possibilities – that He causes the world to come forth. This Spirit is thus the divine Intellect immanent in the Cosmos, of which It constitutes the center and the heart; It penetrates as by innumerable arteries of light into all realms – or into all microcosms – of the manifested Universe; it is thus that God is present at the center of everything.

Universe:
The universe is an order that is so to speak architectural, deployed from the Supreme Principle by way of intermediaries, or of hierarchies of intermediaries, down to earthly creatures; all the cosmic principles and their rays are divine, or half-divine, which amounts to saying that they are envisaged in relation to their essential and functional divinity.

World:
From the standpoint of the Self there is no confrontation between a Principle and a manifestation, there is nothing but the Self alone, the pure and absolute Subject which is its own Object. But, it will be asked, what then becomes of the world that we still
cannot help perceiving? . . . The world is Atma, the Self, in the guise of Maya; more especially it is Maya insofar as the latter is distinct from Atma, that goes without saying, for otherwise the verbal distinction would not exist; but while being Maya, it is
implicitly, and necessarily, Atma, in rather the same way that ice is water or is “not other” than water.
The world is a movement which already bears within itself the principle of its own exhaustion, a deployment which displays at every point the stigmata of its limitations and in which Life and the Spirit have gone astray, not by some absurd chance but because this encounter between inert Existence and living Consciousness is a possibility and thus something which cannot but be, something posited by the very infinitude of the Absolute. The world is divine through its character as a divine manifestation, or by way of the metaphysical marvel of its existence.

Possibility:
Possibility is none other than the Infinitude of the Real. By definition, a possibility wants to be what it is, its nature is its will to be; God creates only by “giving existence” to that which wants to be this or that. Possibilities are differentiated revelations of Being; they proceed from It and not from an arbitrary Will which would conceive them ex nihilo; and it is this diversifying and contrasting refraction which brings forth the inverted and privative modalities of possibilities which are necessarily positive at their origin, or positive in their roots.

Potency:
Potency comes from the Latin posse “to be able,” from which, precisely, comes possibilis: to be potent is to be greatly “able,” and thus to be rich in “possibilities.” Potentiality is of the same order.

Creation:
Creation is the great “objectification” of the Divine Subject; it is the divine manifestation par excellence. It has a beginning and an end insofar as a particular cycle is envisaged, but it is in itself a permanent divine possibility, a metaphysically necessary objectification of the divine infinity; to deny the necessity of the creation would amount to attributing arbitrariness to the Divinity . . . Creation is perfect by its very oneness and totality, it reabsorbs in its perfections all partial disequilibria.

Emanation:
We understand the term “emanation” in the Platonic sense: the starting point remains transcendent, hence unaffected, whereas in deist or naturalist emanationism the cause pertains to the same ontological order as the effect. “Emanation” is strictly discontinuous because of the transcendence and immutability of the divine Substance, for any continuity would affect the Creator by way of the creation, quod absit.

Ether:
The universal “ether,” of which the physical element is only a distant and grosser reflection, is none other than the divine Word which is everywhere “being” and “consciousness” and everywhere creative and liberating or revealing and illuminating.

Analogy / Identity:
Analogy is a discontinuous identity, and identity a continuous analogy. The relationship of analogy is that of discontinuity between center and periphery: created things, including thoughts – everything indeed that constitutes cosmic manifestation – are separated from the Principle . . . The relationship of identity on the contrary is that of continuity between center and
periphery, it is consequently distinguished from the relationship of analogy as radii are distinguished from concentric circles. Divine manifestation, around us and in us, prolongs and projects the Principle and is identified with it precisely in respect of the immanent divine quality.

Ancestor:
Among the peoples of the Far East, the ancestor is at once the origin and the spiritual or moral norm; he is, for his descendants, the essential personality, that is to say the substance of which they are like the accidents; and piety consists precisely in viewing him thus and in seeing in him but the bridge connecting them – his descendents – with the Divine . . . Ancestors are the human imprints of angelic substances and, for that reason, also of divine Qualities; to be true to them is to be true to God; they oblige us to remain in conformity with the eternal “idea” whence we came forth, and which is the law
of our existence and the goal of our life. This connection between the ancestor and his angelic and divine prototypes is moreover apparent in the Japanese word kami, which denotes the ancestor and the literal meaning of which is “located above”; in sacred language, this word means “divine aspect,” “cosmic principle,” “spirit.” The Shinto tradition is called Kami-no-Michi or “Way of the Gods,” which implies that it is also the way of the ancestors.

Archangel Gabriel:
The Archangel Gabriel is a personification of a function of the Spirit, the celestial ray which reaches the Prophets on earth.

Archetype:
The archetypes represent uniquely perfections and totalities, and not privative and hence fragmentary manifestations, and that in consequence there are earthly phenomena which are not to be found as such in the Platonic ideas precisely because they are either privative or existentially fragmentary by virtue of privation.

Acest topic a fost editat de shapeshifter: 14 Jul 2009, 12:22 AM


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Atma:
The term Atma corresponds most nearly to “the Essence”. Atma is beyond the opposition of subject-object; one can, however, call it pure Subject when one starts from the consideration of “objects,” which are so many superimpositions in relation to Atma.

Atma / Maya:
Atma is pure Light and Beatitude, pure Consciousness, pure Subject. There is nothing unrelated to this Reality; even the “object” which is least in conformity with It is still It, but “objectified” by Maya, the power of illusion consequent upon the infinity of the Self. Maya exists only through its contents, which prolong Atma; this is to say that Atma is conceivable without Maya, whereas Maya is intelligible only through the notion of Atma.

Beyond-Being / Being:
It should not be forgotten that God as Beyond-Being, or supra- personal Self, is absolute in an intrinsic sense, while Being or the divine Person is absolute extrinsically, that is, in relation to His manifestation or to creatures, but not in Himself, nor with respect to the Intellect which “penetrates the depths of God”.
The essential distinction between God as Essence or Beyond-Being, and God as Creator or Being is that Beyond-Being is absolute Necessity in itself, whereas Being is absolute Necessity in respect of the world, but not in respect of Beyond-Being. Beyond-Being, or the Self, possesses the possible as an internal dimension and in virtue of its infinitude; at this level, the possible is precisely Being, or Relativity, Maya. We would say consequently that Being is not other than Possibility; possibility necessary in itself, but contingent in its increasingly relative contents; and by definition non-absolute, in the paradoxical sense of a “lesser absoluteness” (apara Brahma).
But let us return to supreme Beyond-Being: in order to distinguish it from Being, it could be said that the first is “absolutely infinite” whereas the second is relatively so, which, while being tautological and even contradictory, is nevertheless a useful expression in a necessarily elliptical language; the gap between logic and transcendent truths permits the latter occasionally to override the former, although the converse is clearly excluded. If we set Beyond-Being aside, we are entitled to attribute Infinitude to Being; but if it is Beyond-Being that we are taking into consideration, then we shall say that the Infinite is in truth Beyond-Being, and that Being realizes this infinitude in relative mode, thereby opening the door to the outpouring of possibilities endlessly varied, thus inexhaustible.

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Logic:
It is not for nothing that “logic” (logikos) comes from “Logos,” which derivation indicates, in a symbolical fashion at least, that logic – the mental reflection of ontology – cannot, in its substance, be bound up with human arbitrariness; that, on the contrary, it is a quasi-pneumatological phenomenon in the sense that it results from the Divine Nature itself, in a manner analogous – if not to the same degree – to that of intellectual intuition .. . Let us admit that human logic is at times inoperative; however, it is not inoperative because it is logical, but because it is human; because, being human, it is subject to
psychological and material contingencies which prevent it from being what it is by itself, and what it is by its origin and in its source, wherein it coincides with the being of things.
As is proved by the practice of meditation, intuition can arise through the workings of a rational operation – provisional and not decisive – which then acts as a key or as an occasional cause; on condition, of course, that the intelligence has at its disposal correct and sufficient data, and that it benefits from the concurrence of a moral health founded upon the sense of the sacred, and consequently capable of a sense of proportions as well as of aesthetic intuition. For all things are linked together: if the intelligence directly has need of rigor, it also indirectly has need of beauty.
It is not possible to emphasize too strongly that philosophy, in its humanistic and rationalizing and therefore current sense, consists primarily of logic; this definition of Guénon’s correctly situates philosophical thought in making clear its distinction from “intellectual intuition,” which is direct perception of truth. But another distinction must also be established on the rational plane itself: logic can either operate in accordance with an intellection or on the contrary put itself at the disposal of an error, so that philosophy can become the vehicle of just about anything; it may be an Aristotelianism conveying ontological knowledge, just as it may degenerate into an existentialism in which logic is no more than a blind, unreal activity, and which can rightly be described as an “esoterism of stupidity.” When unintelligence – and what we mean by this is in no way incompatible with “worldly” intelligence – joins with passion to prostitute logic, it is impossible to escape a mental Satanism which destroys the very basis of intelligence and truth.
The validity of a logical demonstration depends then on the prior knowledge which this demonstration aims at communicating, and it is clearly false to take as the point of departure, not a direct cognition, but logic pure and simple; when man has no “visionary” – as opposed to discursive – knowledge of Being, and when he thinks only with his brain instead of “seeing” with the “heart,” all his logic will be useless to him, since he starts from an initial blindness . . . The fact that the philosophic mode of thought is centered on logic and not directly on intuition implies that intuition is left at the mercy of logic’s needs . . . Some will certainly raise the objection that traditional metaphysics, whether of the East or the West, makes use of rational argumentations like any philosophy; but an argumentation a man uses to describe to his fellow men what he knows is one thing, and an argumentation a man uses on himself because he knows nothing is quite another. This is a capital distinction for it marks the whole difference between the intellectual “visionary” and the mere “thinker” who “gropes alone through the darkness” (Descartes) and whose pride it is to deny that there could be any knowledge which does not proceed in the same fashion.

Logic (pure and simple):
Pure and simple logic is only a very indirect manner of knowing things; it is, before all else, the art of coordinating true or false data according to a given need for causality and this within the limits of a given imagination, so much so that an apparently faultless argument can yet be quite erroneous in function of the falseness of its premises; the latter normally depend not on reason or experience, but on pure intelligence and this to the very extent that the thing to be known is of an elevated order. What we are criticizing here is not the exactitude of science, far from it, but the exclusive level of this exactitude, which renders this quality inadequate and inoperative: man can measure a distance by his strides, but this does not enable him to see with his feet, if one may so express it. Metaphysics and symbolism, which alone provide the
decisive keys to the knowledge of supra-sensible realities, are highly exact sciences – with an exactitude greatly exceeding that of physical facts – but these sciences lie beyond the scope of mere ratio and the methods it inspires in a quasi-exclusive manner.

Logic (supralogical / illogical / acephalous / infra-logic):
Logic is nothing other than the science of mental coordination, of rational conclusion; hence it cannot attain to the universal and the transcendent by its own resources; a supralogical – but not “illogical” – dialectic based on symbolism and on analogy, and therefore descriptive rather than ratiocinative, may be harder for some people to assimilate, but it conforms more closely
to transcendent realities. Avant-garde philosophy is properly an acephalous logic: it labels what is intellectually evident as “prejudice”; seeking to free itself from the servitudes of the mind, it falls into infra-logic; closing itself, above, to the light of the intellect, it opens itself, below, to the darkness of the subconscious.

Logos:
The Logos . . . is the prototype of the cosmos in the Principle, or of the world in God; and in this case the epithet does not refer to any man. Let us specify that the idea of the Logos is polyvalent: If God is “Beyond-Being” – which He never is in ordinary theology – the Logos will be creating or conceiving Being; if God is Being, the Logos will be His creating or efficient Word; if this Word is God, the Logos will be the reflection of God in the cosmos, namely the universal Intellect.
The Logos – the Avatara – presents himself either objectively as “Divine Image,” in which case he is transcendent in relation to ordinary men, or subjectively as the Intellect, in which case he is immanent; he is then like the door towards the Divine Self, the immanent Divine Subject in our immortal substance. The Logos is one, but its modes of human manifestation may differ without in any way detracting from its quality as Logos.

Pneumatic:
The pneumatic is a man who identifies a priori with his spiritual substance and thus always remains faithful to himself; he is not a mask unaware of his scope, as is the man enclosed in accidentality.
In practice, it suffices to know that to say “yes” to God, while abstaining from what takes one away from Him and accomplishing what brings one closer to Him, pertains to the “pneumatic” nature and assures salvation, all question of “original sin” and “predestination” aside; thus in practice there is no problem, save that which we conceive and impose upon ourselves.
The “pneumatic” is the man who so to speak incarnates “faith which saves,” and thus incarnates its content, . . . he cannot sin – except perhaps from the point of view of appearances – because, his substance being “faith” and therefore “justice through faith,” all that he touches turns to gold.
The “pneumatic” may incarnate either an attitude of knowledge or of love, although the former manifests more directly his essential nature; he is not necessarily a great sage, but he is necessarily a pure and quasi-angelic man. 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. At this point the following objection has to be parried: does not the “path” consist for every man in getting rid of obstacles and in “becoming oneself”? Yes and no; that is to say: metaphysically it is so, but not humanly because, I repeat, the pneumatic “realizes”
or “actualizes” what he “is”, whereas the non-pneumatic realizes what he “must become” – a difference at once “absolute” and “relative” about which one could argue indefinitely.
The quality of the born-gnostic involves not only modes but also degrees; there is the difference between the jnani and the bhakta on the one hand and, on the other, differences of plenitude or breadth in the manifestation of the archetype. In any case, the pneumatic is situated, by his nature, on the vertical and timeless axis – where there is no “before” or “after” – so that the archetype which he personifies or “incarnates”, and which is his true “himself” or “his very self” can, at any moment, pierce through the contingent, individual envelope; it is therefore really “himself” who is speaking. The real gnostic does not attribute any “state” to himself, for he is without ambition and without ostentation; he has a tendency rather – through an “instinct for holding back” – to disguise his nature inasmuch as he has, in any case, awareness of “cosmic play”(lila) and
it is hard for him to take secular and worldly persons seriously, that is to say, “horizontal” beings who are full of self-confidence and who remain, “humanists” that they are, below the vocation of man.
What the natural gnostic seeks, from the point of view of “realization”, is much less a “path” than a “framework” – a traditional, sacramental and liturgical setting which will allow him to be ever more genuinely “himself”, namely a particular archetype of the celestial “iconostasis” . . .
“Know thyself” was the inscription written above the portico of the Temple of Delphi; that is, know thine immortal essence but also, by that very token, know thine archetype. This injunction no doubt applies in principle to every man, but it applies to the pneumatic in a far more direct manner, in the sense that he has, by definition, awareness of his celestial model in spite of the flaws which his earthly shell may have undergone in contact with an all too uncongenial ambience.

Pneumatic / Psychic / Hylic:
The “pneumatic” is the man in whom the sense of the sacred takes precedence over other tendencies, whereas in the case of the “psychic” it is the attraction of the world and the accentuation of the ego that take priority, without mentioning the “hylic” or “somatic” who sees in sensory pleasure an end in itself.

Plenitude:
Plenitude is that which brings together a maximum of homogeneous aspects, or which introduces totality into form.

Philosophy:
It should be possible to restore to the word “philosophy” its original meaning: philosophy – the “love of wisdom” – is the science of all the fundamental principles; this science operates with intuition, which “perceives,” and not with reason alone, which “concludes.” Subjectively speaking, the essence of philosophy is certitude; for the moderns, on the contrary, the essence of philosophy is doubt: philosophy is supposed to reason without any premise (voraussetzungloses Denken), as if this condition were not itself a preconceived idea; this is the classical contradiction of all relativism. Everything is doubted except for doubt.
Taking into account the fact that according to a – rightly or wrongly – universally recognized terminology, the word “philosophy” designates all that extrinsically pertains to thought, we would say that there is a philosophy according to the “spirit,” which is founded on pure intellection – possibly actualized by a particular sacred Text – and a philosophy according to the “flesh,” which is founded on individual reasoning in the absence of sufficient data and of any supernatural intuition; the first being the philosophia perennis, and the second, the ancient Protagorism as well as the rationalist thought of the moderns.
According to Pythagoras, wisdom is a priori the knowledge of the stellar world and of all that is situated above us; sophia being the wisdom of the gods, and philosophia that of men. For Heraclitus, the philosopher is one who applies himself to the knowledge of the profound nature of things; whereas for Plato, philosophy is the knowledge of the Immutable and of the Ideas; and for Aristotle, it is the knowledge of first causes and principles, together with the sciences that are derived from them. In addition, philosophy implies for all of the Ancients moral conformity to wisdom: only he is wise, sophos, who lives wisely. In this particular and precise sense, the wisdom of Solomon is philosophy; it is to live according to the nature of things, on the basis of piety – of the “fear of God’ – with a view to that which is essential and liberating.
All this shows that, to say the least, the word “philosopher” in itself has nothing restrictive about it, and that one cannot legitimately impute to this word any of the vexing associations of ideas that it may elicit; usage applies this word to all thinkers, including eminent metaphysicians – some Sufis consider Plato and other Greeks to be prophets – so that one would like to reserve it for sages and simply use the term “rationalists” for profane thinkers. It is nevertheless legitimate to take account of a misuse of language that has become conventional, for unquestionably the terms “philosophy” and “philosopher”
have been seriously compromised by ancient and modern reasoners; in fact, the serious inconvenience of these terms is that they conventionally imply that the norm for the mind is reasoning pure and simple,* in the absence, not only of intellection, but also of indispensable objective data. Admittedly one is neither ignorant nor rationalistic just because one is a logician, but one is both if one is a logician and nothing more^ . . .
. . . In short, the term “philosopher” in current speech signifies nothing other than the fact of expounding a doctrine while respecting the laws of logic, which are those of language and those of common sense, without which we would not be human; to practice philosophy is first and foremost to think, whatever may be the reasons which rightly or wrongly incite us to do so. But it is also, more especially and according to the best of the Greeks to express by means of the reason certainties “seen” or “lived” by the immanent Intellect, as we have remarked above; now the explanation necessarily takes on the character imposed on it by the laws of thought and language.

* - Naturally the most “advanced” of the modernists seek to demolish the very principles of reasoning, but this is simply fantasy pro domo, for man is condemned to reason as soon as he uses language, unless he wishes to demonstrate nothing at all. In any case, one cannot demonstrate the impossibility of demonstrating anything, if words are still to have
any meaning.

^ - A German author (H. Turck) has proposed the term “misosopher” – “enemy of wisdom” – for those thinkers who undermine the very foundations of truth and intelligence. We will add that misosophy – without mentioning some ancient precedents – begins grosso modo with “criticism” and ends with subjectivisms, relativisms, existentialisms, dynamisms, psychologisms and biologisms of every kind. As for the ancient expression “misology,” it designates above all the hatred of the fideist for the use of reason.)

Philosophy (avant-garde):
Avant-garde philosophy is properly an acephalous logic: it labels what is intellectually evident as “prejudice”; seeking to free itself from the servitudes of the mind, it falls into infra-logic; closing itself, above, to the light of the intellect, it opens itself, below, to the darkness of the subconscious. Philosophical skepticism takes itself for an absence of prejudices and a healthy attitude, whereas it is something quite artificial: it is a result not of knowledge but of ignorance, and that is why it is as contrary to intelligence as it is to reality.

Philosophy (profane):
Profane philosophy is ignorant not only of the value of truth and universality in Revelation, but also of the transcendence of the pure Intellect; it entails therefore no guarantee of truth on any level, for the quite human faculty which reason is, insofar as it is cut off from the Absolute, is readily mistaken even on the level of the relative. The efficacy of reasoning is essentially conditional.

Philosophy / Reason:
In the opinion of all profane thinkers, philosophy means to think “freely,” as far as possible without presupposition, which precisely is impossible; on the other hand, gnosis, or philosophy in the proper and primitive sense of the word, is to think in accordance with the immanent Intellect and not by means of reason alone. What favors confusion is the fact that in both cases the intelligence operates independently of outward prescriptions, although for diametrically opposed reasons; that the rationalist if need be draws his inspiration from a pre-existing system does not prevent him from thinking in a way that he deems to be “free” – falsely, since true freedom coincides with truth – likewise, mutatis mutandis: that the gnostic – in the orthodox sense of the term – bases himself extrinsically on a given sacred Scripture or on some other gnostic cannot
prevent him from thinking in an intrinsically free manner by virtue of the freedom proper to the immanent Truth, or proper to the Essence which by definition escapes formal constraints. Or again: whether the gnostic “thinks” what he has “seen” with the “eye of the heart,” or whether on the contrary he obtains his “vision” thanks to the intervention – preliminary and provisional and in no wise efficient – of a thought which then takes on the role of occasional cause, is a matter of indifference with regard to the truth, or with regard to its almost supernatural springing forth in the spirit.

Philosophy (modern) / Wisdom (genuine):
No sooner does one thinker believe he has found the cause of phenomena than another philosopher comes forward to accuse him of failing to find the cause of the cause, and so on ad infinitum. This shows that when philosophy has become “art for art’s sake” it is no more than a search for the cause of the cause of the cause, carried on in a state of utter mental deception and without the least possibility of arriving at a conclusion; in the case of genuine wisdom, on the other hand, one knows before hand that the complete truth can and must spring forth from any adequate formulation like a spark from a flint, but that it will always remain incommunicable as far as its intrinsic infinitude is concerned. To search, as do modern thinkers and as did certain ancient writers, for completely adequate formulations capable of satisfying all causal needs, the most artificial and the least intelligent included, is assuredly the most contradictory and the most fruitless of occupations; the “quest” of philosophers, therefore, has nothing in common with that of contemplatives, since its basic principle of exhaustive verbal adequacy is opposed to any liberating finality, to any transcending of the sphere of words. It is not to be wondered at that after centuries of unsatisfied ratiocination – unsatisfied because in principle not capable of satisfaction – people should have become weary of what is looked upon, rightly or wrongly, as “abstract,” and that they should turn, alas, not to the “concrete” reality that lies within and which the sages of old and the saints always knew, but, on the contrary, to an outward counterfeit, at one and the same time hardening and dispersive in its effects, and totally illusory. The innovators, nihilists and “constructivists” alike, claim that they wish “to start again from zero” in every field, as if it were possible for man to create himself over again, to create the intelligence with which he thinks and the will with which he desires and acts; in short, as if man’s existence came from nowhere else than from our own opinions and desires.

Perfection:
Perfection lies in the equilibrium between complementary opposites.

Pantheism:
(To believe that) God is all that exists, no more no less.
In reality, pantheism consists in the admission of a continuity between the Infinite and the finite; but this continuity can only be conceived if it is first admitted that there is a substantial identity between the ontological Principle – which is in question in all forms of theism – and the manifested order, a conception that presupposes a substantial, and therefore false, idea of Being, or the confusing of the essential identity of manifestation and Being with a substantial identity. Pantheism is this and nothing else.

Objectivity:
By “objectivity” must be understood not a knowledge that is limited to a purely empirical recording of data received from outside, but a perfect adequation of the knowing subject to the known object, which indeed is in keeping with the current
meaning of the term. An intelligence or a knowledge is “objective” when it is capable of grasping the object as it is and not as it may be deformed by the subject. Objectivity is a kind of death of the subject in the face of the reality of the object; the subjective compensation of this extinction is the nobleness of character. One must not lose sight of the fact, moreover, that the transcendent Object is at the same time the immanent Subject, which is affirmed in the knowing subject, to the extent that the latter is capable of objectivity. Objectivity is none other than the truth, in which the subject and the object coincide, and in which the essential takes precedence over the accidental – or in which the Principle takes precedence over its manifestation – either by extinguishing it, or by reintegrating it, according to the diverse ontological aspects of relativity itself.

Nothingness:
Nothingness is, on the one hand, an intellectual notion and, on the other hand, a cosmic tendency; this notion of nothingness is identical with that of impossibility; that is to say, nothingness is total impossibility, whereas there do exist relative
impossibilities, namely those which represent situations modifiable in principle.

Acest topic a fost editat de shapeshifter: 14 Jul 2009, 02:09 PM


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Nothing / Being:
The notion of “nothing” is essentially a reference – obviously negative – to something possible or existent, otherwise it would be meaningless and even inconceivable. Indeed, “nothing” indicates by definition the absence of something: it excludes one or many objects, or all objects, according to context; to speak of an intrinsic “nothingness,” of a nothing in itself, without reference to the things which it excludes, would be a contradiction in terms. When a receptacle is filled and then emptied, there is a difference; now this difference is a reality, otherwise no one would ever complain about being robbed. If this “nothing” were in itself a “nothingness” – if it had no “referential” character – there would be no difference between presence and absence, plenitude and vacuity, existence and inexistence; and every thief could argue that the “nothing” he
produced in someone’s purse does not exist; the word “nothing” would be devoid of meaning just as the nothingness is devoid of content. “Nothing,” envisaged in a concrete context, can in practice compete with “something”; while an intrinsic nothingness cannot concretely be opposed to anything or be affected by anything in any way. And similarly space, if it were an absolute emptiness – if it did not in practice coincide with ether – could not comprise distance and separation, for a nothingness added to another nothingness – if this were conceivable without absurdity – could not produce a distance.
A logically utilizable “nothing” has therefore nothing absolute about it; it is by definition relative to something, although in a negative manner. However, it comprises an aspect of absoluteness through the totality of the negation it represents: the difference between 1 and 2 is relative, but the difference between 1 and 0 can be termed absolute, with evident
metaphysical reservations. A thing cannot exist half-way, either it exists or it does not exist; consequently, since there is something absolute about existence in relation to inexistence – this being the whole miracle of creation – there is likewise ipso facto something absolute about the negation or exclusion of something existent – not the negation “in itself,” but in relation to that which is negated or excluded; this is our well-known thesis of the “relatively absolute.”*
The idea of “being” positively implies reality, and restrictively manifestation; we say “restrictively” because manifestation or existence represents a “less” or a limitation in relation to the Principle which is pure Being. In signifying reality, the idea of “being” evokes ipso facto the “good” and also the “more,” hence quality and quantity; but above all it evokes “presence.” As for the opposite idea of “nothingness,” it implies first of all the “absence” of being, or impossibility, and more relatively the absence of determinate things; it also implies, by derivation and by analogy, the phenomenon of “less” and, in another respect, that of “evil.” But this idea can also be applied, quite paradoxically, to the transcendent or principial order: from the standpoint of the manifested world – hence from the standpoint of existence in the restricted sense of the term – all that transcends this world and consequently is free from existential limitations,^ is “nothingness.”

(* When one, two or three out of four candles are extinguished, the difference in luminosity is relative; but when the last one is extinguished, the difference is total, for it is that between light and darkness.

^ This is what allows negative expressions such as “the Void” (Shunya), “not this, not this” (neti neti), and other terms of the kind to be applied to pure Being, and a fortiori to Beyond-Being. All apophatic theology stems from this principle of terminology.)


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Nirvana:
In their esoteric meaning, the words “God,” “divine,” “Divinity” signify none other than the terms Shunya and Nirvana, even though they can also refer to the Buddha and the Bodhisattva. That the Buddhist Absolute is not “nothingness” pure and simple is self-evident: “For some, Nirvana is a state in which there could be no memory of the past and present, it would thus be comparable to a lamp whose oil is used up or to a kernel of grain that one burns or a fire that has gone out, for in these cases there is a cessation of all substrata . . . But this is not Nirvana, for Nirvana is not simply destruction and emptiness”
(Lankavatara-Sutra, XIII).
According to an error widespread in the West, the spiritual “extinction” that Buddhism has in view – for generally it is Buddhism that is cited – is a “nothingness,” as if it were possible to realize something that is nothing. Now either Nirvana is nothingness, in which case it is unrealizable; or else it is realizable, in which case it must correspond to something real. It is too easily forgotten that Paradise – not to mention the uncreated Bliss that is none other than the positive content of Nirvana – can also be regarded as an “annihilation,” the relationship between formal and non-formal manifestation being analogous to that between manifestation as such and non-manifestation.

Nirvana (three degrees):
It is necessary to distinguish between three Nirvanas, or three degrees of Extinction, two of which are still in the order of Maya or contingency, while the third, Parinirvana, is the Absolute; if another Nirvana were the Absolute there could not be a question of a Parinirvana. The first Nirvana is ontologically that of the Bodhisattva: it is extinction in relation to formal manifestation and corresponds to the degree of the Archangels, Heaven, Existence; we say “ontologically” because the
Bodhisattva “lives” at this level even if he has already realized the second Nirvana, the one which coincides with the state of the terrestrial Buddha, that is to say with extinction in regard to universal manifestation, which corresponds to the degree of pure Being. The third Nirvana, beyond Maya, is that of the celestial or absolute Buddha: this is Parinirvana, extinction in relation to Being or to Maya and which corresponds to the supreme Self of the Vedantists.

Nirvana / Parinirvana:
Nirvana is extinction in relation to the cosmos, and Parinirvana in relation to Being; Nirvana is thus identified with Being, according to a connection that is more initiatory than properly metaphysical, since a “principle” is here represented as a “state”; and Parinirvana is identified with Non-Being, that is to say with the divine “Quiddity” which, according to Greek theology, “envelops” Being, and which, according to Sufism, “erases all predicates” (munqat al-isharat).


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mesaj 14 Jul 2009, 01:39 PM
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Metempsychosis:
“Transmigration” . . . (is) not to be confused with metempsychosis, whereby psychic elements – perishable in principle – graft themselves upon the soul of a living person, which may give the illusion of a “reincarnation.” The phenomenon is benefic or malefic according to whether the psychism is good or bad; that of a saint or that of a sinner.

Microcosm:
The human microcosm is like a circle, the center of which is situated on the circumference of a larger circle, namely the sensible macrocosm, and the center of this second circle in its turn is situated on a still larger circumference, representing the total
Macrocosm.


Macrocosm:
The macrocosm – the ensemble of worlds and cosmic cycles – is an inexhaustible realm, in accordance with the indeterminate nature of the Universal Substance; therefore it cannot become the object of any scientific investigation claiming to lead to a polyvalent and definitive result. Otherwise said, the macrocosm is neither our visible world nor is it God: we can know creation and the Creator, or the “I” and the “Self” – with all the reservations and conditions that impose themselves as the case may
demand – but it is not possible for us to know the totality of the phenomena of the Universe: the latter escapes the mind, which is especially made for knowing our world, and the Intellect, which is especially made for knowing the Absolute.

Mahapralaya:
The total cyclic dissolution that the Hindus call maha-pralaya, a dissolution that implies the annihilation of the entire Creation (samsara).

Mahapralaya / Pralaya:
The difference between the “particular judgment” and the Last Judgment, or between death and the end of the world, consists in the fact that at the time of death only the soul – and not the body, which belongs to our own world – is reabsorbed in the direction of the Principle in order to be judged, whereas at the time of this world’s ending it is the world itself that is thus reabsorbed. But there is yet a third and ultimate reabsorption to be reckoned with, the one marking the end of all
manifestation: for the elect, this is not an ending but an exaltation in the “Uncreated Light.”*

(* In Hindu terms, this is the mahapralaya, the great return into undifferentiation – pralaya being this return when applied to our world alone – and doubtless such is also the meaning of the apocatastasis of Western Antiquity and of certain gnostics.)

Manifestation:

Manifestation is not the Principle, yet it is the Principle by participation, in virtue of its “non-inexistence”; and Manifestation – the word indicates this – is the Principle manifested, but without being able to be the Principle in itself.

Materialism:
Nothing is more contradictory than to deny the spirit, or even simply the psychic element, in favor of matter alone, for it is the spirit that denies, whereas matter remains inert and unconscious. The fact that matter can be thought about proves precisely that materialism contradicts itself at its starting point, rather as with Pyrrhonism, for which it is true that there is no truth, or with relativism, for which all is relative exceptthis affirmation.
The flagrant contradiction of materialism is the negation of the spirit by means of the spirit; that of existentialism, is making use of this negation as a basis from which to dismantle the normal functions of intelligence under the pretext of defending the rights of “existence” or the “concrete” against “abstraction.” “The more he blasphemes, the more he praises God,” says Eckhart; materialist and concretist ideologies, by the very excess of their inanity, bear witness indirectly to the reality of the spirit and consequently also to its primacy.

Matter:
Matter is the sensible manifestation of existence itself . . . Matter extends – starting from its base, ether – from extreme subtlety to extreme solidity; one could say: from substantiality to accidentality. Matter, in fact, refers in the final analysis to the divine Substance. Matter is the final point of the descent of the objective pole. Matter, though divine inasmuch as it forms bodily creatures, nonetheless includes an aspect of hostility to the Spirit. Matter . . . is nothing else but the extreme limit or precipitation-point in the process of manifestation, at least for our world; consequently, it is the “lowest” thing to be found
within that reality that concerns us. It might nevertheless be asked whether this lowest thing is not on the contrary a consciousness of sorts, namely the principle of evil, that very Mara who tempted the Buddha, or Satan who tempted Christ? This difficulty is resolved if one distinguishes in the cosmos two poles, one existential, blind and passive and the other intellectual, therefore conscious and active: matter is the point of precipitation in relation to the existential pole alone, whereas the intellectual pole gives rise, at the extreme limit of the process of flight from God, to the personifiable force, or that perverted consciousness, which is Satan or Mara. In other words, matter is the existence most remote from pure Being, and the devil is the consciousness most remote from the divine Intellect; and just as on the intellectual plane this remoteness can only spell subversion or opposition, that intelligence which is most remote from the Absolute will be the one that denies the Absolute as “intelligently,” or rather as “consciously,” as possible. Existence – the materia secunda or natura naturata – by drawing away from pure Being becomes hardened and at the same time segmented; matter is the “heaviest” and the most discontinuous, the most “broken” existence there is – seen always from the point of view of the human state, for there are other worlds and other limits of manifestation – and Satan is the most subversive, the most perverse intelligence; compared with Satan, matter – though hardened and corrupted – remains innocent.
As for matter, it is, still more directly than the subtle or animic substance, universal substance ‘congealed’ or ‘crystallised’ by the cold proximity of ‘nothingness’; this ‘nothingness’ the process of manifestation could never reach, for the simple reason that absolute ‘nothingness’ does not exist, or rather that it exists only by the way of ‘indication’, ‘direction’ or ‘tendency’ in the work of creation itself; an image of this is seen in the fact that cold is only a privation and thus has no positive reality, though it transforms water into snow and ice, as if it had the power to produce bodies.

Matter (physical substance):
Physical substance – in its “present” and “post-Edenic” state – is in reality but a kind of “accidental” crystallization of the subtle substance (the sukshma sharira of the Hindus); whatever its consistency or its quality, it is none other than the extreme limit or “point of precipitation” – for our sensible world – of the demiurgic process of manifestation.

Khaos:
Just as principial Maya is bipolarized into Purusha and Prakriti, so manifested Maya comprises two poles, namely the active and imaginative demiurge and the passive but efficient Substance; it is this materia prima which is the tohu wa bohu of Genesis or the khaos – the “void” – of Hesiod’s theogony. Let it be noted that the Greek word khaos has the double meaning of “primordial abyss” and “indeterminate matter”; it is neither nothingness pure and simple nor a substance preceding the creative act, but, together with the demiurge, the first content of creation; the active demiurge being the center, and its
passive complement, the periphery. This two-fold demiurge constitutes the creative power in the midst of creation itself.

Acest topic a fost editat de shapeshifter: 14 Jul 2009, 02:12 PM


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mesaj 14 Jul 2009, 01:53 PM
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Maya:
Maya is an exclusively Vedantic term, often rendered as “universal illusion”, or “cosmic illusion”, but she is also “divine play”. She is the great theophany, the “unveiling” of God “in Himself and by Himself” as the Sufis would say. Maya may be likened to a magic fabric woven from a warp that veils and a weft that unveils; she is a quasi-incomprehensible intermediary between the finite and the Infinite – at least from our point of view as creatures – and as such she has all the multi-coloured ambiguity
appropriate to her part-cosmic, part-divine nature.
It has been stated that from the standpoint of the Self there is no confrontation between a Principle and a manifestation, there is nothing but the Self alone, the pure and absolute Subject which is its own Object. But, it will be asked, what then becomes of the world that we still cannot help perceiving? . . . The world is Atma, the Self, in the guise of Maya; more especially it is Maya insofar as the latter is distinct from Atma, that goes without saying, for otherwise the verbal distinction would not exist; but while being Maya, it is implicitly, and necessarily, Atma, in rather the same way that ice is water or is “not other” than water. In the Self, in the direct or absolute sense, there is no trace of Maya, save the dimension of infinitude . . . from which Maya indirectly proceeds, but at the degree of Maya the latter is “not other” than the Self; . . . since the polarities are
surpassed. Maya is the reverberation of the Self in the direction of nothingness, or the totality of the reverberations of the Self; the innumerable relative subjects “are” the Self under the aspect of “Consciousness” (Chit), and the innumerable relative objects are once again the Self, but this time under the aspect of “Being” (Sat). Their reciprocal relationships, or their “common life,” constitute “Beatitude” (Ananda), in manifested mode, of course; this is made up of everything in the world which is expansion, enjoyment, or movement.
From a certain point of view, Maya is the Shakti of Atma just as Infinitude is the complement of the Absolute, or as All-Possibility prolongs Necessary Being. From another point of view, Maya is relativity or illusion, and is not “on the left” but “below.” As the universal archetype of femininity, Maya is both Eve and Mary: “psychic” and seductive woman, and “pneumatic” and liberating woman; descendent or ascendant, alienating or reintegrating genius. Maya projects souls in order to be able to free them, and projects evil in order to be able to overcome it; or again: on the one hand, She projects her veil in order to be able to manifest the potentialities of the Supreme Good; and, on the other, She veils good in order to be able to unveil it, and thus to manifest a further good: that of the prodigal son’s return, or of Deliverance.
Opposing and inverting differentiation is due to the dark pole of Relativity, of Maya; this is the metaphysical basis of the “fall of the angels.” Maya brings forth the world by “radiation of love” and by virtue of Divine Infinitude but also – through its other
dimension – by centrifugal passion both dispersive and compressive; thus there is at the root of the world the luminous Logos on the one hand, and the tenebrous demiurge on the other hand; and the ultimate Cause of this second pole is, we repeat, that the Infinite cannot exclude what appears to be opposed to it, but which, in reality, contributes to its radiation.
The sun, not being God, must prostrate itself every evening before the throne of Allah; so it is said in Islam. Similarly Maya, not being Atma, can only affirm herself intermittently; the worlds spring from the divine Word and return into it. Instability is the penalty of contingency; to ask how we can know why there will be an end of the world and a resurrection amounts to asking why a respiratory phase stops at a precise moment to be followed by the opposite phase, or why a wave withdraws from the shore after submerging it, or again, why the drops from a fountain fall back to the ground. We are divine possibilities projected into the night of existence, and diversified by reason of that very projection, as water scatters into drops when it is launched into space, and also as it is crystallized when it is captured by cold.
The very notion of cosmic “manifestation” – or of “creation” – implies by way of consequence that of “reintegration”. A Red Indian, speaking of the “Great Spirit”, very rightly called attention to the fact that “all that the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The Heavens are round . . . even the seasons form a great circle in their succession, and they always come back to their point of departure”. Thus it is that all that exists proceeds by way of gyratory movements, everything springs from the Absolute and returns to the Absolute; it is because the relative cannot be conceived otherwise than as a “circular emergence” – therefore transitory because returning to its source – from the Absolute . . . relativity is a circle, and the first of all circles; Maya can be described symbolically as a great circular movement and also as a spherical state . . . According to the degree of its conformity to its Origin, the creature will be retained or rejected by the Creator; and Existence in its totality will finally return, with Being itself, into the infinity of the Self.
Maya returns to Atma, although strictly speaking nothing can be taken away from Atma nor consequently return thereto . . . Atma became Maya so that Maya might become Atma. Maya includes not only the whole of manifestation, she is also affirmed already a fortiori “within” the Principle; the divine Principle “desiring to be known” – or “desiring to know” – stoops to the unfolding of its inward infinity, an unfolding at first potential and afterwards outward or cosmic. The relationship “God-world”, “Creator-creature”, “Principle-manifestation”, would be inconceivable if it were not prefigured in God, independently of any question of creation.
And let us recall that Maya does not coincide purely and simply with the manifested Universe, since – beyond the Universe – it encompasses Being itself, that is to say that the discernment between “God” and the “world” is metaphysically less rigorous and less fundamental than that between Atma and Maya, “Reality” and “illusion.” The protagonists of Vishnuism, whose sanctity is obviously no more in dispute than that of the great spokesman of kalam, see fit to assert against the Maya of Shankara that souls, like the physical world, are real – something that Shankara never denied, for the notion of Maya does not contradict relative reality, but simply annuls it at the level of Absolute Reality; now it is precisely this spirit of alternatives, this inability to reconcile apparent antinomies on a higher plane, as well as the failure to understand relativity and absoluteness, which are common to Semitic exoterism and Hindu bhaktism.
For the Vedantists, Maya is in a sense more mysterious, or less obvious than Atma. If there were no Maya, Atma would not be Atma. As for Maya, it proceeds necessarily from the very nature of Atma – on pain of being a pure impossibility – and proves the Infinitude, All-Possibility and Radiation of Atma; Maya exteriorizes and unfolds the innumerable potentialities of Atma. Maya cannot not be, and to deny it is to be unaware of the nature of the supreme Self.
Cosmic Maya, and with all the more reason, evil, is in the final analysis the possibility of Being not to be. All-Possibility must, by definition and on pain of contradiction, include its own impossibility; the Infinite must realize the finite on pain of not being the Infinite.
There is a Maya which is divine and attracts to God, another which is satanic and takes away from God, and an intermediary one which a priori is innocently passional and seeks only to be itself, so that it remains provisionally neutral in relation to the other two qualities.
An essential distinction must be made between the Maya that is divine (=Ishvara), another that is celestial (= Buddhi and Svarga), and a third that humanly speaking is “earthly” but which, in reality, encompasses the whole domain of transmigration
(Samsara), the round of births and deaths. One can likewise distinguish in Maya an objective mode, which refers to the universe surrounding us and partly transcending us, and a subjective mode which refers to the experiences of our ego; in principle, man can act upon the magic of the world by dominating the magic of his soul. Some near synonyms of the term Maya – which roughly signifies “magic power” – are lila, “play,” and moha, “illusion”; Maha-Moha is the “Great Illusion,” namely Manifestation in its full extension, metacosmic as well as cosmic.
Atma became Maya so that Maya might become Atma.

Acest topic a fost editat de shapeshifter: 14 Jul 2009, 01:53 PM


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mesaj 14 Jul 2009, 02:16 PM
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Immanence / Transcendence:
Immanence is not only the presence of the divine in our soul, it is also this presence around us, in the world, just as inversely, transcendence is the inaccessibility of God, not only above us, in the Heavens, but also within us, in the depths of the heart.*

(*At least a priori, leaving out of consideration mystical union or metaphysical realization.)

Immanent:
We interpret the words “immanent,” “immanence” and “immanentism” according to the etymological meaning: immanens means “dwelling within.” The modern philosophical interpretation, starting with Spinoza, is abusive; immanence is neither identity, nor negation of transcendence; nor epistemological subjectivism, of course.

Supreme Principle:
The Supreme Principle is pure Substance, which is to say It is without accident. Without accident, that is: without contingency, without limit and without imperfection; contingency being opposed to Absoluteness as the accident is opposed to the Substance; and similarly, limit being opposed to Infinitude, and imperfection to Perfection, or the Potentiality of Good.


Transcendence / Immanence:

God is one, and as a result the Transcendent comprises a dimension of immanence, just as for its part the Immanent comprises a dimension of transcendence: for on the one hand, the divine Presence in the depths of the sanctified heart, or in the pure Intellect, does not lose its transcendence by the fact of its immanence, since the ego is not identified tale quale with the Self; and on the other hand, the transcendence of the creative Principle does not preclude the objective and existentiating immanence of the same Principle in creation. In other words to say transcendence is to say, first of all macrocosm, and to say immanence, is to say a priori microcosm; however, each pole always includes the other, as is shown graphically by the
Far Eastern symbol of the Yin-Yang, whose testimony we never tire of invoking in our doctrinal expositions.
On the one hand, there is no transcendence without immanence; for the very perception of transcendence implies immanence in the sense that the knowing subject is situated at the level of the object known; one can know divine truth only “by the Holy Spirit” which is immanent in the Intellect, otherwise man would not be “made in the image of God.”
On the other hand, there is no immanence without transcendence: that is to say, the ontological, and in principle mystical, continuity between the immanent Divinity and the individual consciousness in no way excludes the discontinuity between these two poles which in truth are incommensurable.
To say transcendence is to say both metaphysical Truth and saving Divinity; and to say immanence is to say transpersonal Intellect and divine Selfhood. Transcendence means discontinuity between the Principle and its manifestation, hence separation, and Immanence means continuity, hence union. Immanence is not only the presence of the divine in our soul, it is also this presence around us, in the world, just as inversely, transcendence is the inaccessibility of God, not only above us, in the Heavens, but also within us, in the depths of the heart.

Transcendence / Immanence (objective / subjective):
Transcendence is objective inasmuch as it concerns the Divine Order in itself, immanence is subjective inasmuch as it refers to the Divine Presence in us; nonetheless there is also a subjective transcendence, that which within us separates the divine Self from the human “I,” and an objective immanence, namely the divine Presence in the world surrounding us. To be really
conscious of “God-as-Object” is also to be conscious of His immanence, and to be conscious of “God-as-Subject,” is also to be conscious of His transcendence. In Immanence as well as in Transcendence, it is necessary to distinguish two aspects, one objective and one subjective: objective Transcendence is that which is indicated by the world itself; but it may be termed “subjective” when its situation at the core of our personality is considered, in which case it indicates the Transcendence of the Self which, although subjective by definition, is nonetheless transcendent in relation to the “I.” As for Immanence, it is termed “subjective” when it indicates the Self which is situated within us, as well as the continuity which exists in principle between the “I” and the Self, or more precisely, between the latter and the former; but Immanence may be termed “objective” when, in the beings and things surrounding us, we discern Immanence as the existentiating and qualifying Substance.

Transcendence / Immanence (Yin-Yang):
When we speak of transcendence, we understand in general objective transcendence, that of the Principle, which is above us as it is above the world; and when we speak of immanence, we understand generally speaking subjective immanence, that of the Self, which is within us. It is important to mention that there is also a subjective transcendence, that of the Self within us inasmuch as it transcends the ego; and likewise there is also an objective immanence, that of the Principle in so far as it is immanent in the world, and not in so far as it excludes it and annihilates it by its transcendence. One finds here an application of the Taoist Yin-Yang: transcendence necessarily comprises immanence, and immanence just as necessarily comprises transcendence. For the Transcendent, by virtue of its infinity, projects existence and thereby necessitates immanence; and the Immanent, by virtue of its absoluteness, necessarily remains transcendent in relation to existence.

Acest topic a fost editat de shapeshifter: 14 Jul 2009, 03:47 PM


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mesaj 19 Jul 2009, 07:40 PM
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Buddha (Pratyeka / Samyaksam):
To this difference between “light” and “radiation” corresponds the distinction between the Pratyeka-Buddha and the Samyaksam-Buddha, the first being enlightened “for himself” and the second having the function of enlightening others through preaching the Dharma, which makes one think of the respective roles of the Jivan-Mukta and the Avatara or – in Islamic terms – of the Wali and the Rasul.

Buddha (Samyaksam / Bodhisattva):
It is appropriate not to confuse the Samyaksam-Buddha with the Bodhisattva who has not attained Nirvana and whose cosmic movement is “spiroidal” and not “vertical,” in conformity with his particular vocation. The Bodhisattva is, in his human aspect, a karma-yogi completely dedicated to charity towards all creatures, and in his celestial aspect, an “angel” or more precisely an “angelic state,” whence his function of rescuer and “guardian angel.”

Buddha (three “hypostases”):
The three “hypostases” of the Blessed One: the Dharmakaya (the “universal body”) is the Essence, Beyond-Being; the Sambhogakaya (the “body of felicity”) is the “heavenly Form,” the “divine Personification”; the Nirmanakaya (the “body of metamorphosis”) is the human manifestation of the Buddha.

Buddha Image:
The image of the Buddha is like the sound of that celestial music which could charm a rose tree into flowering amid the snow; such was Shakyamuni – for it is said that the Buddhas bring salvation not only through their teaching but also through their superhuman beauty – and such is his sacramental image. The image of the Messenger is also that of the Message; there is no essential difference between the Buddha, Buddhism and universal Buddha-nature. Thus, the image indicates the way, or
more exactly its goal, or the human setting for that goal, that is, it displays to us that “holy sleep” which is watchfulness and clarity within; by its profound and wondrous “presence” it suggests “the stilling of mental agitation and the supreme appeasement,” to quote the words of Shankara . . . Like a magnet, the beauty of the Buddha draws all the
contradictions of the world and transmutes them into radiant silence; the image deriving therefrom appears as a drop of the nectar of immortality fallen into the chilly world of forms and crystallized into a human form, a form accessible to men . . . He is the gateway to the blessed Essence of things, and he is this Essence itself.

Bodhisattvayana:
The starting point of the path – the Bodhisattvayana is in fact the birth of an awareness that all things are “void”; it is not a matter of a merely moral option. The ego of the aspirant starts off by identifying itself with the whole of samsara; it is through
understanding the nature of the latter that the soul disengages itself from its congenital error and lays itself open to the realization of the Universal Body of the Buddha.

Acest topic a fost editat de shapeshifter: 19 Jul 2009, 07:44 PM


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Discernment / Concentration:
To “discern” is to “separate”: to separate the Real and the illusory, the Absolute and the contingent, the Necessary and the possible, Atma and Maya. To discernment is joined, complementally and operatively, “concentration,” which “unites”: it is – starting from earthly and human Maya – the plenary awareness of Atma at once absolute, infinite and perfect; without equal, without limit and without blemish.

Discernment / Contemplation:
Discernment by its adamantine rigor, refers as it were to the mystery of the Absolute; analogously, contemplation, by its aspect of musical gentleness, pertains to the mystery of the Infinite. In the human microcosm, the volitive faculty stems as it were from the absoluteness of the Sovereign Good, whereas the affective faculty testifies to its infinitude.

Discriminative / Contemplative / Operative:

Discriminative: that is to say, capable of discerning intuitively between the Absolute and the relative, and of prolonging this discernment onto planes that are relative;
contemplative: that is to say, capable of attaching itself – in a “naturally supernatural” manner – to the consciousness of pure Being and to the pure Essence;
operative: that is to say, predisposed to pass from potentiality to act, hence from the abstract to the concrete and from intelligence to will.

Concentration:
Strictly speaking, pure concentration is less a fixing of the mind upon an idea or an object than the elimination of every distraction; the divine presence, or grace if one so prefers, or the intellect, according to the point of view, must be allowed to act without hindrance, like a leaven; but concentration as such could not draw these out of nothing.

Acest topic a fost editat de shapeshifter: 19 Jul 2009, 07:50 PM


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mesaj 19 Jul 2009, 07:56 PM
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Esoterism:
The word “esoterism” suggests in the first place an idea of complementarity, of a “half” as it were: esoterism is the complement of exoterism, it is the “spirit” which completes the “letter”. Where there is a truth of Revelation, hence of formal and theological truth, there must also be a truth of intellection, hence of non-formal and metaphysical truth; not legalistic or obligatory truth, but truth that stems from the nature of things, and which is also vocational since not every man grasps this nature. But in fact this second truth exists independently of the first; hence it is not, in its intrinsic reality, a complement or a half; it is so only extrinsically and as it were “accidentally”. This means that the word “esoterism” designates not only the total truth inasmuch as it is “colored” by entering a system of partial truth, but also the total truth as such, which is colorless. This distinction is not a mere theoretical luxury; on the contrary, it implies extremely important consequences.
Thus esoterism as such is metaphysics, to which is necessarily joined an appropriate method of realization. But the esoterism of a particular religion – of a particular exoterism precisely – tends to adapt itself to this religion and thereby enter into
theological, psychological and legalistic meanders foreign to its nature, while preserving in its secret center its authentic and plenary nature, but for which it would not be what it is.
Esoterism it is that lays bare either the relativity of an apparent absoluteness or the absoluteness of an apparent relativity. Seen from high above, the absolutism of a given form reveals its limits, while the existential contingency of a given phenomenon reveals, on the contrary, its essential absoluteness, so that one and the same sacred element, after having lost the formally absolute character attributed to it by the exoteric perspective, assumes so to speak another absoluteness, or rather reveals it, namely that of the archetype which it manifests. The Gospel appears absolute inasmuch as it imposes itself
on Christians as the unique word of God; but the esoteric vision of things enables us, on the one hand, to discover the limits of this totalitarianism, and, on the other, to discern in this very Gospel the absoluteness of the Divine Word as such, the Word from which all Revelations derive.
Esoterism is so to speak the “religion of intelligence”: this means that it operates with the intellect – and not with sentiment and will only – and that consequently its content is all that intelligence can attain, and that it alone can attain.* The “subject” of esoterism is the Intellect and its “object” is ipso facto total Truth, namely – expressed in Vedantic terms –the doctrine of Atma and Maya; and he who says Atma and Maya thereby says Jnana, direct knowledge, intellectual intuition.

(*It is far from being the case that all historical esoterism is esoterism pure and simple; an exegesis colored by confessional bias, or overly involved in mystical subjectivism is far from true gnosis. On the other hand, it is far from being the case that all that is put into the category of esoterism pertains to it: it too often happens that in treating this subject authors make no distinction between what is genuine and what is counterfeit, thus between truth and error, in accordance with the two sins of our time which are the replacement of intelligence by psychology and confusion between the psychic and the spiritual.)
If one may define esoterism as a “shortcut” not within reach of every mental make-up or every degree of intellectual scope, the Adamantine Vehicle, with its perspective of “ubiquity” and its quasi-theurgic method of mantra, provides a particularly conclusive example of what constitutes an esoteric method.

Esoterism (authentic):
Authentic esoterism stems from the nature of things and not from a dynastic institution; its seeds are everywhere present, sparks can flash from every flint; to make esoterism result from a religious program and a theological argument is a
contradiction in terms. Authentic esoterism – let us say it again – is the way which is founded on total or essential truth, and not merely on partial or formal truth, and which makes an operative use of the intelligence, and not only of the will and the feelings. The totality of truth demands the totality of man.

Esoterism / Apostasy:
Esoterism, which brings limitations back to their unlimitedarchetypes, and apostasy, which rids itself of them in favor of nothingness.

Esoterism / Ascesis:
The apparently problematical – but in reality elliptical – equation “esoterism equals ascesis” means in substance: esoterism is the elimination of the individual obstacles which prevent or “veil” the irradiation of the divine Self in the soul. . . the removal of an obstacle in view of the “unveiling” of the one Reality.

Esoterism / Gnosis:

Direct and inward knowledge, that of the Heart-Intellect, is what the Greeks called gnosis; the word “esoterism” – according to its etymology – signifies gnosis inasmuch as it de facto underlies the religious, and thus dogmatic doctrines.


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Exoterism:
The term “exoterism” designates three different orders: firstly, a system of symbols and means; secondly, a way; and thirdly, a mentality. The first category embraces dogmas and rites, then legal, moral and other prescriptions, and liturgy in the
widest sense; the second embraces the general religious practices, those which are incumbent upon all; and the third category comprises the psychism corresponding to a particular religious climate, thus all the manifestations of sentimentality and imagination determined by a particular religion, a particular piety and particular social conventions.
In other words, it is important to distinguish the following aspects in exoterism: the formal system, which offers symbols and means; the exoteric way, which is based exclusively upon this system; the exoteric mentality, which is formalistic, voluntaristic and individualistic, and which adds all kinds of restrictive sentimentalities to the simple forms. These are three altogether different meanings of the term “exoterism”: according to the first, the religious Law is necessary and venerable, and it becomes a constitutive element of esoterism; according to the second meaning, the Law is different from esoterism without necessarily excluding certain elements of the latter; according to the third meaning, there is an antinomy between the “outward” and the “inward,” or between the “letter” and the “spirit.”
It is of the highest importance not to confuse these three levels; in particular, not to lose sight of the fact that the first – Dogma and Law – is available to esoterism as regards both interpretation and practice. Exoterism transmits aspects or fragments of metaphysical truth – which is nothing other than the whole truth – whether about God, about the universe or about man. In man it chiefly envisages the passional and social individual; in the universe it discerns only what affects that individual; in God it hardly sees anything more than what has to do with the world, creation, man and his salvation. Consequently – and at the risk of repetition, this must be emphasized – exoterism takes no account either of the pure Intellect, which transcends the human plane and opens out onto the divine, or of pre-human and post-human cycles, or of Beyond-Being which is beyond all relativity and thus also beyond all distinctions. Such a perspective is comparable to a skylight, which gives the sky a certain form, round or square perhaps; through this the view of the sky is fragmentary, though it certainly does not prevent the sky from filling the room with light and life.
Every exoteric perspective claims, by definition, to be the only true and legitimate one. This is because the exoteric point of view, being concerned only with an individual interest, namely, salvation, has no advantage to gain from knowledge of the truth of other religious forms. Being uninterested as to its own deepest truth, it is even less interested in the truth of other religions, or rather it denies this truth, since the idea of a plurality of religious forms might be prejudicial to the exclusive pursuit of individual salvation.
The exoteric point of view is fundamentally the point of view of individual interest considered in its highest sense, that is to say, extended to cover the whole cycle of existence of the individual and not limited solely to terrestrial life. The exoteric claim to the exclusive possession of the truth comes up against the axiomatic objection that there is no such thing in existence as a unique fact, for the simple reason that it is strictly impossible that such a fact should exist, unicity alone being unique and no fact being unicity; it is this that is ignored by the ideology of the “believers,” which is fundamentally nothing but an intentional and interested confusion between the formal and the universal. The ideas that are affirmed in one religious form
(as, for example, the idea of the Word or of the Divine Unity) cannot fail to be affirmed, in one way of another, in all other religious forms; similarly the means of grace or of spiritual realization at the disposal of one priestly order cannot but possess their equivalent elsewhere; and indeed, the more important and indispensable any particular means of grace may be, the more certain is it that it will be found in all the orthodox forms in a mode appropriate to the environment in question.
The foregoing can be summed up in the following formula: pure and absolute Truth can only be found beyond all its possible expressions; these expressions, as such, cannot claim the attributes of this Truth; their relative remoteness from it is expressed by their differentiation and multiplicity, by which they are strictly limited.
In a certain respect, each religion is in the right versus the others, failing which any exoterism would be nothing but a snare; but precisely, exoterism is by definition unable of being conscious of the relationship which, at one and the same time, justifies it and yet limits it.

Exoterism / Esoterism:
To speak of exoterism is to speak also of esoterism, and this means that the statements of the former are the symbols of the latter. The exoteric point of view is fundamentally the point of view of individual interest considered in its highest sense, that is to say, extended to cover the whole cycle of existence of the individual and not limited solely to terrestrial life. Exoteric truth is limited by definition, by reason of the very limitation of the end it sets itself, without this
restriction, however, affecting the esoteric interpretation of which that same truth is susceptible thanks to the universality of its symbolism, or rather, first and foremost, thanks to the twofold nature, inward and outward, of Revelation itself; whence it follows that a dogma is both a limited idea and an unlimited symbol at one and the same time. To give an example, we may say that the dogma of the unicity of the Church of God must exclude a truth such as that of the validity of other orthodox religious forms, because the idea of religious universality is of no particular usefulness for the purpose of salvation and may even exert a prejudicial effect on it, since, in the case of persons not possessing the capacity to rise above an individual standpoint, this idea would almost inevitably result in religious indifference and hence in the neglect of those religious duties the accomplishment of which is precisely the principal condition of salvation. On the other hand, this same idea of religious universality – an idea that is more or less indispensable to the way of total and disinterested Truth – is nonetheless included symbolically and metaphysically in the dogmatic or theological definition of the Church or of the Mystical Body of Christ; or again, to use the language of the other two monotheistic religions, Judaism and Islam, we may find in the respective conceptions of the “Chosen People,” Yisra’el, and “submission,” Al-Islam, a dogmatic symbol of the idea of universal orthodoxy, the Sanatana Dharma of the Hindus.
The exoteric aspect of a religion is thus a providential disposition that, far from being blameworthy, is necessary in view of the fact that the esoteric way can only concern a minority, especially under the present conditions of terrestrial humanity. What is
blameworthy is not the existence of exoterism, but rather its all-invading autocracy – due primarily perhaps, in the Christian world, to the narrow precision of the Latin mind – which causes many of those who would be qualified for the way of pure Knowledge not only to stop short at the outward aspect of the religion, but even to reject entirely an esoterism that they know only through a veil of prejudice and deformation, unless indeed, not finding anything in exoterism to satisfy their intelligence, they be caused to stray into false and artificial doctrines in an attempt to find something that exoterism does not offer them, and even takes it upon itself to prohibit.
The exoteric viewpoint is, in fact, doomed to end by negating itself once it is no longer vivified by the presence within it of the esoterism of which it is both the outward radiation and the veil. So it is that religion, according to the measure in which it denies metaphysical and initiatory realities and becomes crystallized in a literalistic dogmatism, inevitably engenders unbelief; the atrophy that overtakes dogmas when they are deprived of their internal dimension recoils upon them from the outside, in the form of heretical and atheistic negations.
Now, if one proceeds from the idea that exoterists do not understand esoterism and that they have in fact a right not to understand it or even to consider it nonexistent, one must also recognize their right to condemn certain manifestations of esoterism that seem to encroach on their own territory and cause “offence,” to use the Gospel expression; but how is one to explain the fact that in most, if not all, cases of this nature, the accusers divest themselves of this right by the iniquitous manner in which they proceed? It is certainly not their more or less natural incomprehension, nor the defence of their genuine
right, but solely the perfidiousness of the means that they employ that constitutes what amounts to a “sin against the Holy Ghost”; this perfidiousness proves, moreover, that the accusations that they find it necessary to formulate, generally serve only as a pretext for gratifying an instinctive hatred of everything that seems to threaten their superficial equilibrium, which is really only a form of individualism, therefore of ignorance.

Acest topic a fost editat de shapeshifter: 19 Jul 2009, 08:05 PM


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mesaj 19 Jul 2009, 08:10 PM
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Form / Essence:
A form is a coagulated essence, which is to say that the relationship resembles that between ice and water; the formal world – the material and animic states –thus possesses the property of “congealing” spiritual substances, of individualizing them,
and hence of separating them more or less fundamentally from each other . . . What form is with regard to essence, manifestation – whether essential or not – is with regard to the Principle.

Freedom (purpose of):

The purpose of freedom is to enable us to choose what we are in the depths of our heart. We are intrinsically free to the extent that we have a center which frees us: a center which, far from confining us, dilates us by offering us an inward space without limits and without shadows; and this Center is in the last analysis the only one there is.


Acest topic a fost editat de shapeshifter: 19 Jul 2009, 08:11 PM


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mesaj 19 Jul 2009, 08:13 PM
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Gnosis:
The word “gnosis,” which appears in this book and in our previous works, refers to supra-rational, and thus purely intellective, knowledge of metacosmic realities. Now this knowledge cannot be reduced to the Gnosticism of history; it would then be
necessary to say that Ibn ‘Arabi or Shankara were Alexandrine Gnostics; in short, gnosis cannot be held responsible for every association of ideas or every abuse of terminology. It is humanly admissible not to believe in gnosis; what is quite inadmissible in anyone claiming to understand the subject is to include under this heading things having no relation – whether of kind or of level – with the reality in question, whatever the value attributed to that reality. In place of “gnosis,” the Arabic term ma’rifah or the Sanskrit term jnana could just as well be used, but a Western term seems more normal in a book
written in a Western language; there is also the term “theosophy,” but this has even more unfortunate associations, while the term “knowledge” is too general, unless its meaning is made specific by an epithet or by the context. What must be emphasized and made clear is that the term “gnosis” is used by us exclusively in its etymological and universal sense and therefore cannot be reduced to meaning merely the Graeco-Oriental syncretism of later classical times; still less can it be applied to some pseudo-religious or pseudo-yogic or even merely literary fantasy. If for example, Catholics can call Islam, in which they do not believe, a religion and not a pseudo-religion, there seems no reason why a distinction should not also be made between a genuine gnosis having certain precise or approximate characteristics and a pseudo-gnosis devoid of them.
In gnosis, there is first of all the intellective knowledge of the Absolute – not merely of the “personal God” – and then self-knowledge; for one cannot know the Divine Order without knowing oneself. “Know thyself,” says the inscription over the portal of the initiatory temple at Delphi; and “the kingdom of God is within you.” Just as the ether is present in each of the sensible elements, such as fire and water, and just as intelligence is present in each of the mental faculties, such as imagination and memory, so gnosis is necessarily present in each of the great religions, whether we grasp its traces or not.
We have said that the driving force of the path of gnosis is intelligence; now it is far from being the case that this principle is applicable in a spiritual society – unless it is not very numerous – for in general, intelligence is largely inoperative once it is called upon to hold a collectivity in balance; in all justice, one cannot deny in sentimental and humilitarian moralism a certain realism and hence a corresponding efficacy. It follows from all this, not that gnosis has to repudiate socially its principle of the primacy of intelligence, but that it must put each thing in its place and take men as they are; that is precisely why the
perspective of gnosis will be the first to insist, not upon a simplifying moralism, but upon intrinsic virtue, which – like beauty – is “the splendor of the true.” Intelligence must be not only objective and conceptual, but also subjective and existential; the unicity of the object demands the totality of the subject.
Gnosis, by the very fact that it is a knowing and not a willing, is centered in “that which is” and not in “that which ought to be”.

Gnosis / Gnosticism:
It is a fact that too many authors – we would almost say: general opinion – attribute to gnosis what is proper to Gnosticism and to other counterfeits of the sophia perennis, and moreover make no distinction between the latter and the most freakish movements, such as spiritualism, theosophism and the pseudo-esoterisms that saw the light of day in the twentieth century. It is particularly regrettable that these confusions are taken seriously by most theologians, who obviously have an interest in
entertaining the worst opinion possible concerning gnosis; now the fact that an imposture necessarily imitates a good, since otherwise it could not even exist, does not authorize charging this good with all the sins of the imitation.
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.
As for Gnosticism, whether it arises in a Christian, Moslem or other climate, it is a fabric of more or less disordered speculations, often of Manichean origin; and it is a mythomania characterized by a dangerous mixture of exoteric and esoteric concepts. Doubtless it contains symbolisms that are not without interest – the contrary would be astonishing – but it is said that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”; it could just as well be said that it is paved with symbolisms.
Gnosis is the way of the intellect. We say “gnosis” and not “Gnosticism,” for the latter is most often a heterodox mythological dogmatism, whereas intrinsic gnosis is not other than what the Hindus mean by jnana and Advaita-Vedanta. To claim that all gnosis is false because of Gnosticism, amounts to saying, by analogy, that all prophets are false because there are false prophets . . . In common opinion gnosis equals “intellectual pride,” as if this were not a contradiction in terms, pure intelligence coinciding precisely with objectivity, which by definition excludes all subjectivism, hence especially pride
which is its least intelligent and coarsest form.

Acest topic a fost editat de shapeshifter: 19 Jul 2009, 08:15 PM


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mesaj 19 Jul 2009, 08:27 PM
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God:
What must be understood by the term “God”? From the strictly human point of view, which alone is what religions as such have in view, “God” could not be the Absolute as such, for the Absolute has no interlocutor; we may, however, say that God is
the hypostatic Face turned towards the human world, or towards a particular human world; in other words, God is Divinity which personalizes itself in view of man and insofar as it more or less takes on the countenance of a particular humanity. Another question: what does this personalized Divinity, this God become partner or interlocutor, or this Divine Face turned towards man “want” or “desire”? The most concise answer seems to us to be the following: if the Divine Essence, being infinite, tends to manifest itself by projecting its innumerable potentialities into the finite, the Divine Face, for its part, operates this projection and then – at a more relative level – projects within this first projection a principle of coordination, among other things a Law intended to regulate the human world and above all to regulate this miniature world that is the individual. This Face is thus like a sheaf of rays with diverse functions; a Face which, although it issues from the same Divine Order, does not amount to a single subjectivity with a moral intention; thus it is vain to seek behind the infinitely diverse combinations of the veil of Maya an anthropomorphic and humanly graspable personality.
God is the Absolute, and being the Absolute, He is equally the Infinite; being both the Absolute and the Infinite, intrinsically and without duality, He is also the Perfect. Absoluteness is reflected in space by the point or the center; in time, by the movement or the present; in matter, by ether, which vehicles energy; in form, by the sphere; in number, by unity.
Infinitude, for its part, determines space by extension; time, by duration; matter, by substantial indefiniteness; form, by the limitless diversity of formal possibilities; number, by quantitative limitlessness.
As for the divine Perfection – from which all manifested perfections derive – it is reflected in space by the contents of matter inasmuch as they express either simple existence, or the divine Qualities which space vehicles.
Indeed, God is ineffable, nothing can describe Him or enclose Him in words; but on the other hand, truth exists, that is to say that there are conceptual points of reference which sufficiently convey the nature of God; otherwise our intelligence would not be human, which amounts to saying that it would not exist, or simply that it would be inoperative with respect to what constitutes the reason for man’s intelligence. God is both unknowable and knowable, a paradox which implies – on pain of absurdity – that the relationships are different, first of all on the plane of mere thought and then in virtue of everything that separates mental knowledge from that of the heart; the first is a “perceiving,” and the second a “being.” “The soul is all that it knows,” said Aristotle; it is necessary to add that the soul is able to know all that it is; and that in its essence it is none
other than That which is, and That which alone is.
It is important never to lose sight of the fact that the term “God” designates the Divinity, either in all its possible aspects – hence also beyond every aspect – or in some particular aspect, notably that of the Creator. It is necessarily thus because this term cannot contain in itself a privative nuance.
It should be noted here that the word “God” does not and cannot admit of any restriction for the simple reason that God is “all that is purely principial” and that He is thus also – and a fortiori – Beyond-Being; this one may not know or may deny, but one cannot deny that God is “That which is supreme” and therefore also That which nothing can surpass.
In reality God is indeed not “existent” in the sense that He cannot be brought down to the level of the existence of things. In order to make it clear that this reservation implies no kind of privation it would be better to say that God is “non-inexistent”. When it is said that the personal God is situated in Maya, which runs the risk of sounding offensive, one must be careful to make it clear that this God is the Supreme Principle “entering” into universal Relativity, hence still “Supreme” despite the “entering,” which enables one to affirm that God the Creator and Legislator is at one and the same time Atma and Maya, or Atma in Maya, but never simply Maya. On the one hand, God is the “Other” who is infinitely “above” the world, and on the other hand, the world is His manifestation in which He is present; this implies that without this immanence the world would be reduced to nothing, and that the world – and all that it contains – is necessarily symbolical. In a certain sense, nothing resembles God; but in another sense, everything resembles Him, at least with respect to positive, not negative, manifestation. Likewise, the human subject – the ego – is as though suspended between “elevation” and “depth”: between the Divine Being which resides “in the Heavens,” and the Divine Self which resides “in the depths of the heart.” The first is the separative
dimension, that of adoration, worship, law, obedience, in short, of religion; the second is the unitive perspective, that of wisdom and union; or that of pure sanctity, which by definition is “being” and not merely “thought.”
In the three Semitic monotheistic religions, the name “God” necessarily embraces all that is proper to the Principle, with no restriction whatever, although their exoteric formulations evidently envisage the ontological aspect alone. God is the Eye that sees the world and which, being active where the creature is passive, creates the world by His vision, this vision being act and not passivity; thus the eye becomes the metaphysical center of the world of which it is at the same time the sun and the heart. God sees not only the outward, but also – or rather with all the more reason – the inward, and it is this latter vision that is the more real one, or strictly speaking, the only real one, since it is the absolute or infinite Vision of which God is at once the Subject and the Object, the Knower and the Known.


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mesaj 23 Jul 2009, 05:08 PM
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Ascesis:
There is an ascesis that consists simply in sobriety, and which is sufficient for the naturally spiritual man; and there is another which consists in fighting against passions, the degree of this ascesis depending upon the demands of the individual nature;
finally, there is the ascesis of those who mistakenly believe themselves to be charged with all sins, or who identify themselves with sin through mystical subjectivism, without forgetting to mention those who practice an extreme asceticism in order to expiate the faults of others, or even simply in order to give a good example in a world that has need of it.

Barzakh (archetype of):

The archetype of the barzakh is the half-divine, half-cosmic frontier separating, and in another sense uniting, Manifestation and the Principle; it is the “Divine Spirit” (Ruh) which, seen “from above” is manifestation, and seen “from below” is Principle. Consequently, it is Maya in both its aspects; the same thing appears, in a certain manner, in the Christian expression “true man and true God.”


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God (Personal):
The “Personal God” is in fact none other than the personification of the Essence. The Absolute by definition comprises the “energy” or “shakti” that is Infinitude, and, as All-Possibility, it projects Relativity, Maya. Now, the Personal God is the center or the very summit of this extrinsic dimension; far from being able to determine the Absolute-Infinite, His function is to bring about and govern existential projection; it is with regard to this projection that God as Creator, Legislator and Retributor is omnipotent and appears to be the Absolute itself.


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Inspiration:
Inspiration by the Holy Spirit does not mean that It is to replace human intelligence and free it from all its natural limitations, for that would be Revelation; inspiration simply means that the Spirit guides man in accordance with the divine intention and on the basis of the capacities of the human receptacle. Were this not so, there would be no theological elaboration, nor any divergences within orthodoxy, and the first Church Father would have written a theological treatise that would have been unique, exhaustive, and definitive; there would never have been either a Thomas Aquinas or a Gregory Palamas. As to the rest, there are men who are inspired by the Holy Spirit because they are saints and inasmuch as they are, whereas there are others who are saints because they are inspired by the Holy Spirit and inasmuch as they are.

Inspiration / Reflection / Reasoning / Intellection:
Inspiration, like revelation, is a divine dictate, with the difference that in the second case the Spirit dictates a law-giving
and obligatory Message of overriding force, whereas in the first case the Message, whatever be its value, has no dogmatic import, and has an illustrative role within the framework of the fundamental Message.

Reflection, like intellection, is an activity of the intelligence, with the difference that in the second case this activity springs from that immanent divine spark that is the Intellect, whereas in the first case the activity starts from the reason, which is capable only of logic and not of intellective intuition. The conditio sine qua non of reflection is that man reason on the basis of data that are both necessary and sufficient and with a view to a conclusion, the latter being the reason for the existence of the mental operation.

From the point of view of knowledge properly so-called, reasoning is like the groping of a blind man, with the difference that – by removing obstacles – it may bring about a clearing of vision; it is blind and groping due to its indirect and discursive nature, but not necessarily in its function, for it may be no more than the description – or verbalization – of a vision which one possesses a priori, and in this case, it is not the mind that is groping, but the language. If we compare reasoning to a groping, it is in the sense that it is not a vision, and not in order to deny its capacity of adequation and exploration; it is a means of knowledge, but this means is mediate and fragmentary like the sense of touch, which enables a blind man to find his way and even to feel the heat of the sun, but not to see.

As for intellection, on the one hand it necessarily expresses itself by means of reason and on the other hand it can make use of the latter as a support for actualization. These two factors enable theologians to reduce intellection to reasoning; that is to say, they deny it – while at the same time seeing in rationality an element that is more or less problematic if not contrary to faith – without seeking or being able to account for the fact that faith is itself an indirect, and in a way, anticipated mode of intellection.

Acest topic a fost editat de shapeshifter: 2 Aug 2009, 09:23 PM


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Intellect / Revelation:
The intellect knows through its very substance all that is capable of being known and, like the blood flowing through even the tiniest arteries of the body, it traverses all the egos of which the universe is woven and opens out “vertically” on the Infinite. In other words: the intellective center of man, which is in practice subconscious, has knowledge, not only of God, but also of man’s nature and his destiny; and this enables us to present Revelation as a “supernaturally natural” manifestation of that which the human species knows, in its virtual and submerged omniscience, both about itself and about God.
Pure Intellection is a subjective and immanent Revelation just as Revelation properly so called is an objective and transcendent Intellection.


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Intellect / Spirit:
Intellect and Spirit coincide in their essence in that the former is like a ray of the latter. The Intellect is the Spirit in man; the Divine Spirit is nothing other than the universal Intellect.


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Inwardness:
The fact that the subject amounts to a dimension of the object, rather as time is in a sense a dimension of space – this fact shows how important the perspective of “inwardness” is in the face of God; that is, the accentuation of inward, intrinsic, profound qualities, and by way of consequence the concern to avoid the pitfall of superficial formalism. Christ intended that one adore God “in spirit and in truth,” and not by “the prescriptions of men”; he opposed inward, and by definition sincere, values to outward and extrinsic attitudes; and this, if it is not esoterism pure and simple, is at least one of its fundamental dimensions. “The kingdom of God is within you”; this refers metaphysically to the divine “Self,” to the immanent Atma; hence to the “uncreated and uncreatable” Intellect of the Eckhartian doctrine.
“The world is false, Brahman is true; the soul is not other than Brahman.” This Vedantic formula furnishes the key of the principle of inwardness: which means that we can attain the divine Self only within ourselves, given that it is our essence. Moreover, it is this mystery of potential or virtual identity that explains the secretiveness of esoterism. In a more elementary mode, inwardness is faith, which by its very nature frees from formalistic and legalistic servitude, and which essentially saves us; however, more profoundly, inwardness is union with the immanent divine Presence and, in the final analysis, with the divine Self. This dimension of depth does not, of course, abolish faith, but on the contrary includes and “essentializes” it; if faith can save us, that is because it is, at the level it pertains to, a mode of our paradisiacal essence.


Inwardness / Outwardness:
The quality of inwardness demands of us not a renunciation of the outward world – which, besides, would be impossible – but an equilibrium determined by the spiritual meaning of the world and of life. The vice of outwardness is the lack of harmony between the two dimensions: between our tendency towards the things that surround us and our tendency towards the “kingdom of God which is within you.” What is necessary is to realize a spiritual rootedness that removes from outwardness its tyranny at once dispersing and compressing, and that on the contrary allows us to “see God everywhere”; which means to perceive symbols, archetypes and essences in sensible things, for the beauties perceived by an interiorized soul become factors of interiorization. Similarly regarding matter: what is necessary is not to deny it – if that were possible – but to withdraw from its seductive and enslaving grasp; to distinguish in it what is archetypal and quasi-celestial from what is accidental and indeed too earthly; hence to treat it with nobleness and sobriety.
In other words, outwardness is a right, and inwardness a duty; we have the right to outwardness because we belong to this spatial, temporal and material world, and we must realize inwardness because our spiritual nature is not of this world, nor, consequently, is our destiny. God is generous: when we withdraw towards the inward, it will, in compensation, manifest itself for us in the outward; nobleness of soul is to have the sense of the divine intentions, hence of the archetypes and essences, which readily reveal themselves to the noble and contemplative soul. Conversely, when we withdraw towards the heart, we will find therein all the beauties perceived outwardly; not as forms, but in their quintessential possibilities. In turning towards God, man can never lose anything.
Thus, when man interiorizes himself, God so to speak exteriorizes Himself while enriching man from within; there lies all the mystery of the metaphysical transparency of phenomena and of their immanence in us.


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shapeshifter
mesaj 2 Aug 2009, 09:34 PM
Mesaj #24


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Islam:
Islam is the Message of Unity, and thereby of the Absolute and the Essence, and this implies in principle that along with the simplifications and impasses of theology –whose authority in Islam is after all somewhat fluctuating – it offers all the mysteries that Unity comprises by its nature; that in consequence it postulates not only transcendence, which is separative by definition, but also immanence, which is unitive and which links man existentially and intellectually to his divine Origin.
Islam . . . proceeds through sincerity in unitary faith; and we know this faith must imply all the consequences logically following from its content, which is Unity, or the Absolute. First there is al-iman, the accepting of Unity by man’s intelligence; then, since we exist both individually and collectively, there is al-islam, the submission of man’s will to Unity, or to the idea of Unity; this second element relates to Unity insofar as it is a synthesis on the plane of multiplicity; finally there is al-ihsan, which expands or deepens the two previous elements to the point of their ultimate consequences. Under the influence of al-ihsan, al-iman becomes “realization” or a certitude that is lived – knowing becomes being – while al-islam, instead of being limited to a certain number of prescribed attitudes, comes to include every level in man’s nature; a priori faith and submission are hardly more than symbolical attitudes, although nonetheless efficacious at their own level. By virtue of al-ihsan, al-iman becomes gnosis, or participation in the divine Intelligence, and al-islam becomes extinction in the divine Being.

Acest topic a fost editat de shapeshifter: 2 Aug 2009, 09:36 PM


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