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Versiune completa:Metafizică Universală
HanuAncutei.com - ARTA de a conversa > Odaia Dezbaterilor: Stiinta si Cultura > Dincolo de Ratiune
shapeshifter
Metafizica pură, fiind prin esenţa ei în afară şi dincolo de toate formele şi contingenţele nu este nici orientală nici occidentală ci UNIVERSALĂ. Metafizica adevărată se regăseşte pretutindeni şi întodeauna din simplul motiv că adevărul este unul. Dacă se vrea a şti ce este cu adevărat ce este metafizica, Orientul e cel căruia trebuie să i ne adresăm deoarece Occidentul s-a rupt de adevărata metafizică. Echivalentul metafizcii hinduse de exemplu, se regăseşte în China, în daoism şi de asemenea în anumite şcoli ezoterice (acest ezoterism islamic nu are nimic în comun cu filozofia exterioară a arabilor, care în cea mai mare parte este de inspiraţie greacă) ale Islamului.

Vreau să atrag atenţia aici că nu se poate da o definiţie a metafizicii văzută în acest mod (universal) ci doar se poate caracteriza. Astfel Metafizica desemnează CEEA CE ESTE ,,DINCOLO DE FIZICÔ. Aici prin cuvântul ,,fizic㔠trebuie înţeles ansamblul tuturor ştiinţelor naturii, considerat într-un mod cu totul general şi NU doar una dintre aceste ştiinţe.
Metafizica astfel înţeleasă ESTE esenţial CUNOAŞTEREA UNIVERSALULUI sau altfel spus a PRINCIPIILOR DE ORDIN UNIVERSAL.
O definiţie riguroasă a ,,metafizicii”astfel înţeleasă este imposibil de dat datorită tocmai acestei universalităţi care este aşa cum am mai spus prima dintre caracteristicile sale şi din care derivă toate celelalte. Deci nu poate fi definit decât ceea ce este LIMITAT, iar METAFIZICA ESTE dimpotrivă, în însăşi esenţa sa, ABSOLUT NELIMITATĂ.
DISTINCŢIA fundamentală dintre metafizică astfel înţeleasă şi ştiinţe (în sensul propriu al acestui cuvânt) care sunt particularizate şi specializate ESTE CEA DINTRE UNIVERSAL ŞI INDIVIDUAL, această distincţie nu înseamnă opoziţie pentru că între universal şi individual NU EXISTĂ NICI O MĂSURĂ COMUNĂ şi nici o relaţie de simetrie sau de coordonare posibilă.
Nu poate exista opoziţie sau conflict de nici un fel între metafizică şi ştiinţe, deoarece domeniile lor sunt profund SEPARATE şi la fel stau lucrurile între metafizică şi religie.
Domeniul metafizicii cuprinde totul, ceea ce este necesar pentru ca metafizica să fie într-adevăr UNIVERSALĂ în mod esenţial iar domeniile proprii diferitelor ştiinţe nu rămân din acest motiv mai puţin de cel al metafizicii (înţeleasă în sensul discutat mai sus).
Domeniul oricărei ştiinţe ţine întotdeauna de experienţă, într-una din diversele sale modalităţi, pe când cel al metafizicii este în mod esenţial constituit din CEEA CE SCAPĂ ORICĂREI EXPERIENŢE POSIBILE, metafizica fiind DINCOLO DE EXPERIENŢĂ.
Rezultă de aici că orice ştiinţă poate să se întindă INDEFINIT (a nu se înţelege infinit, indefinitul nefiind decât o extensie a finitului) fără a ajunge vreodată să aibă nici cel mai mic punct de contact cu acela al metafizicii.
De observat deci că OBIECTUL METAFIZICII ESTE ÎNTODEAUNA ACELAŞI, acesta neputând fi în nici un grad ceva schimbător şi supus timpurilor şi locurilor, contingentul, accidentalul, variabilul care aparţin domeniului individualului.
Rezultă din observaţiile de mai sus că ceea ce se schimbă în legătură cu metafizica sunt DOAR MODURILE DE EXPUNERE ale sale, moduri care se pot schimba în funcţie de timp şi loc, formele exterioare în care ea poate fi îmbrăcată, care sunt susceptibile de adaptări care ţin de stadiul de cunoaştere/ignoranţă a oamenilor faţă de metafizica veritabilă, metafizică ce rămâne perfect identică cu ea însăşi, deoarece OBIECTUL SĂU E în mod esenţial UNUL (,,fără dualitate”), obiect care este mereu ,,DINCOLO DE NATURÔ şi deci SCHIMBARE.
ÎN METAFIZICĂ NU ESTE POSIBILĂ ABSOLUT NICI O DESCOPERIRE deoarece este vorba despre un mod de a cunoaşte CE NU ARE NEVOIE DE NICI UN MIJLOC SPECIAL ŞI EXTERIOR DE INVESTIGAŢIE, tot ceea ce este susceptibil să fie cunoscut a putut fi cunoscut de către oameni din toate epocile, acest lucru (cu referire la faptul că au existat întotdeauna oameni care au cunoscut ce e susceptibil a fi cunoscut) reieşind dintr-o examinare profundă a doctrinelor metafizice tradiţionale.
ÎN RAPORT CU METAFIZICA IDEILE DE EVOLUŢIA ŞI PROGRES NU AU NICI O APLICAŢIE POSIBILĂ, de aceea ideile de evoluţie şi progres sunt complet străine orientalilor care nu au fost despărţiţi niciodată de metafizica veritabilă aşa cum s-a întâmplat şi se întâmplă Occidentului.
Punctul de vedere metafizic SE OPUNE RADICAL PUNCTULUI DE VEDERE ISTORIC, dar această opoziţie trebuie văzută nu doar ca o chestiune de METODĂ ci şi ca una de PRINCIPIU. Doctrina metafizicii universale fiind de ordin universal, asupra acestei doctrine nu se pot exercita influenţele individuale (contingenţe). Circumstanţele de timp şi loc NU POT INFLUENŢA DECÂT EXPRESIA EXTERIOARĂ şi nicidecum ESENŢA ÎNSĂŞI a doctrinei metafizicii universale.
Metafizica nu participă în nici un fel la relativitatea ştiinţei, ea trebuie să implice certitudinea absolută drept caracter intrinsec (prin obiectul său dar şi prin metoda sa).
Metafizica exclude, în mod necesar orice concepţie cu un caracter ipotetic, astfel ADEVĂRURILE METAFIZICE, ÎN ELE ÎNSELE, NU POT FI ÎN NICI UN FEL CONTESTABILE. Concepţiile metafizicii, prin natura lor universală, NU SUNT NICIODATĂ CU TOTUL EXPRIMABILE, NICI CHIAR IMAGINABILE, neputând fi atinse în esenţa lor DECÂT DE INTELIGENŢA PURĂ ŞI ,,INFORMALÔ.
Cunoaşterea de ordin universal trebuie să fie dincolo de toate distincţiile ce condiţionează cunoaşterea lucrurilor individuale, cea între subiect şi obiect fiind tipul general şi fundamental.
OBIECTUL METAFIZICII nu este comparabil cu obiectul special a indiferent oricărui alt gen de cunoaştere, neputând fi nici măcar numit obiect decât într-un sens pur analogic, deoarece este obligatoriu, pentru a putea vorbi despre el, să i se atribuie o denumire oarecare.
MIJLOCUL CUNOAŞTERII METAFIZICE nu poate fi decât una cu însăşi cunoaşterea, în care subiectul şi obiectul sunt în mod esenţial unificate, acest mijloc de cunoaştere nu poate fi nimic de felul exerciţiului unei facultăţi discursive precum raţiunea umană individuală.
ORDINUL DE CUNOAŞTERE al metafizicii este cel SUPRA-INDIVIDUAL şi deci SUPRA-RAŢIONAL adică DEASUPRA RAŢIUNII, care nu poate interveni aici decât într-un mod cu totul secundar, pentru formularea şi expresia exterioară a acestui adevăr ce depăşeşte domeniul să şi importanţa sa.
Trebuie precizat aici faptul că ordinul cunoaşterii supra-raţionale este cel al CONŞTIINŢEI ÎNSEŞI (cunoaşterea pură) în care ,,a cunoaşte” înseamnă ,, a fi”, în care nu intervine raţiunea deoarece această cunoaştere supra-raţională NU ESTE SEPARATĂ DE NIVELUL CONŞTIINŢEI ÎNSEŞI, cel al cunoaşterii pure.
Adevărurile metafizice nu pot fi înţelese decât printr-o FACULTATE CE NU MAI ESTE DE ORDIN INDIVIDUAL, INTUITIVĂ, intuiţie care nu se referă la semnificaţia obişnuită a cuvântului aceea de facultate pur senzitivă şi vitală (care este de fapt infra-raţională şi nu supra-raţională). Adevărurile metafizice pot fi înţelese printr-o INTUIŢIE INTELECTUALĂ (căreia filozofia i-a negat şi ignorat existenţa) adică INTELECTUL PUR (vezi Aristotel, scolasticii) acesta posedând ÎN MOD IMEDIAT CUNOAŞTEREA PRINCIPIILOR, operarea Intelectului Pur fiind imediată, în sensul că acesta nu este realmente distinct de ,,obiectul” său.

O observaţie foarte importantă trebuie făcută:
Distincţia fundamentală şi profundă dintre CUNOAŞTEREA METAFIZICĂ ŞI CEA A ŞTIINŢEI este dată de faptul că, CUNOAŞTEREA METAFIZICĂ ESTE A INTELECTULUI PUR, CARE ARE DREPT DOMENIU UNIVERSALUL, PE CÂND CEA A ŞTIINŢEI ESTE CEA A RAŢIUNII, CARE ARE CA DOMENIU GENERALUL.

Punctul de vedere al ştinţei este de ordin individual pentru că generalul NU SE OPUNE deloc individualului ci doar particularului, el fiind de fapt INDIVIDUALUL EXTINS, dar individualul poate fi extins, chiar INDEFINIT (a nu se înţelege infinit) fără a-şi pierde pentru asta natura sa şi fără să iasă din condiţiile sale restrictive şi limitative. Rezultă din cele spuse că ŞTIINŢA AR PUTEA SĂ SE EXTINDĂ INDEFINIT FĂRĂ SĂ ÎNTÂLNEASCĂ NICIODATĂ METAFIZICA, faţă de care va rămâne întodeauna PROFUND SEPARATĂ, pentru că NUMAI METAFIZICA ESTE CUNOAŞTEREA UNIVERSALULUI.

O altă observaţie foarte importantă:
CEEA CE FILOZOFIEI MODERNE ÎI PLACE UNEORI SĂ NUMEASCĂ METAFIZICĂ, NU CORESPUNDE ÎN NICI UN GRAD CONCEPŢIEI METAFIZICII UNIVERSALE CARACTERIZATĂ ÎN RÂNDURILE DE MAI SUS.
CONFUZIILE MAJORE CARE AU MARCAT GÂNDIREA OCCIDENTALĂ MODERNĂ SUNT CELE LEGATE DE CONCEPEREA INFINITULUI ŞI A ETERNITĂŢII:
- INFINITUL reprezentat întodeauna ca un spaţiu NU POATE FI DECÂT INDEFINIT, indefinitul fiind nul în raport cu INFINITUL ,,înţeles” în adevăratul său ,,sens”.
- ETERNITATEA care rezidă în mod esenţial în ,,non-timp”a fost şi este confundată cu perpetuitatea, care este o extensie indefinită (indefinitul nefiind în realitate decât o extensie a finitului) a timpului.
- O altă confuzie obişnuită este cea între RAŢIONAL ŞI INTELECTUAL. Pretinsa intelectualitate occidentală NU ESTE în realitate, mai ales la moderni, DECÂT EXERCIŢIUL FACULTĂŢILOR CU TOTUL INDIVIDUALE ŞI FORMALE: RAŢIUNEA ŞI IMAGINAŢIA iar de aici se poate înţelege lesne ce o separă de INTELECTUALITATEA ORIENTALĂ, pentru care nu este cunoaştere adevărată şi valabilă decât cea care îşi are rădăcina sa profundă ÎN UNIVERSAL ŞI INFORMAL.

De precizat că aceste confuzii nu au apărut în gândirea orientală (aici orientală nu se referă doar la India ci şi la lumea musulmană, China, Indo-China).
Punctul de vedere metafizic (cel prezentat în rândurile de mai sus) ESTE SINGURUL CU ADEVĂRAT UNIVERSAL, DECI NELIMITAT, oricare alt punct de vedere fiind în consecinţă mai mult sau mai puţin specializat şi obligat la anumite limitări.

În continuare voi arăta alte carcateristici ale metafizcii pure precum şi raporturile dintre acesteia cu teologia (care este o aplicaţie a sa), ştiinţa, filozofia, logica şi matematica. Trebuie spus încă de pe acum că după teologie, logica şi matematica au cele mai multe raporturi cu metafizica universală, ceea ce nu se poate spune despre ştiinţă, filozofie.
shapeshifter
Interviu Frithjof Schuon - Ce este Sophia Perennis?

The Sophia Perennis is to know the total Truth and, consequently, to will the Good and love Beauty; and this in conformity to this Truth, hence with full awareness of the reasons for doing so.
The doctrinal Sophia treats of the Divine Principle on the one hand and of its universal Manifestation on the other: hence of God, the world and the soul, while distinguishing within Manifestation between the macrocosm and the microcosm; this implies that God comprises in Himself - extrinsically at least - degrees and modes, that is to say that He tends to limit Himself in view of His Manifestation. Therein lies all the mystery of the Divine Mâyâ...
As for the Good, it is a priori the supreme Principle as quintessence and cause of every possible good; and it is a posteriori on the one hand that which in the Universe manifests the Principle, and on the other hand that which leads back to the Principle; in a word, the Good is first of all God Himself, then the "projection" of God into existence, and finally the "reintegration" of the existentiated into God...
As for Beauty, it stems from Infinitude, which coincides with the divine Bliss; seen in this connection, God is Beauty, Love, Goodness and Peace, and He penetrates the whole Universe with these qualities. Beauty, in the Universe, is that reveals the divine Infinitude: every created beauty communicates to us something infinite, beatific, liberating. Love, which responds to Beauty, is the desire for union, or it is union itself...
Goodness, for its part, is the generous radiation of Beauty: it is to Beauty what heat is to light. Being Beauty, God is thereby Goodness or Mercy: we could also say that in Beauty, God lends us something of Paradise; the beautiful is the messenger, not only of Infinitude and Harmony, but also, like the rainbow, of reconciliation and pardon. From an altogether different standpoint, Goodness and Beauty are the respectively "inward" and "outward" aspects of Beatitude, whereas from the standpoint of our preceding distinction, Beauty is intrinsic inasmuch as it pertains to the Essence, whereas Goodness is extrinsic inasmuch as it is exercised in relation to accidents, namely towards creatures.
In this dimension, Rigor, which stems from the Absolute, could not be absent: intrinsically, it is the adamantine purity of the divine and of the sacred; extrinsically, it is the limitations of pardon, owing to the lack of receptivity of given creatures. The world is woven of two majors dimensions, mathematical rigor and musical gentleness; both are united in a superior homogeneity that pertains to the very fathomlessness of the Divinity." [Roots of the Human Condition, Frithjof Schuon, p. 93-95]
Strictly speaking, there is but one sole philosophy, the Sophia Perennis; it is also - envisaged in its integrality - the only religion. Sophia has two possible origins, one timeless and the other temporal; the first is "vertical" and discontinuous, and the second, "horizontal" and continuous; in other words, the first is like the rain that at any moment can descend from the sky; the second is like a stream that flows from a spring. Both modes meet and combine: metaphysical Revelation actualizes the intellective faculty, and once awakened, this gives rise to spontaneous and independent intellection.
The dialectic of the Sophia Perennis is "descriptive", not "syllogistic," which is to say that the affirmations are not the product of a real or imaginary "proof", even though they may make use of proofs - real in this case - by way of "illustration" and out of concern for clarity and intelligibility. But the language of Sophia is above all symbolism in all its forms: thus the openness to the message of symbols is a gift proper to primordial man and his heirs in every age; Spiritus autem ubi vult spirat.
One of the paradoxes of our times is that esoterism, discreet by the force of things, finds itself obliged to assert itself publicly for the simple reason that there is no other remedy for the confusion of our time. For, as the Kabbalists say, "it is better to divulge Wisdom than to forget it." [The Transfiguration of Man, Frithjof Schuon, p. 9-10]"
...the question may be asked whether the sophia perennis is a "humanism"; the answer would in principle be "yes", but in fact it must be "no" since humanism in the conventional sense of the term de facto exalts fallen man and not man as such. The humanism of the moderns is practically an utilitarianism aimed at fragmentary man; it is the will to make oneself as useful as possible to a humanity as useless as possible.
[To Have a Center, Frithjof Schuon, p. viii]

The Adversaries of the Sophia Perennis
...The rationalists and the fideists are not the only adversaries of the Sophia Perennis: another opponent — somewhat unexpected — is what we could term "realizationism" or "ecstatism": namely the mystical prejudice — rather widespread in India — which has it that only "realization" or "states" count in spirituality. The partisans of this opinion oppose "concrete realization" to "vain thought" and they too easily imagine that with ecstasy all is won; they forget that without the doctrines — beginning with the Vedanta! — they would not even exist; and it also happens that they forget that a subjective realization — founded on the idea of the immanent "Self" — greatly has need of the objective element that is the Grace of the personal God, without forgetting the concurrence of Tradition.
We must mention here the existence of false masters who, as inheritors of occultism and inspired by "realizationism" and psychoanalysis, contrive to invent implausible infirmities in order to invent extravagant remedies. What is surprising logically is that they always find dupes, even among the socalled "intellectuals"; the explanation for this is that these novelties come to fill a void that never should have been produced. In all these "methods," the point of departure is a false image of man; the goal of the training being the development — patterned after the "clairvoyance" of certain occultists — of "latent powers" or of an "expanded" or "liberated" personality. And since such an ideal does not exist — more especially as the premise is imaginary — the result of the adventure can only be a perversion; this is the price of a supersaturated rationalism — blown up to its extreme limit — namely an agnosticism devoid of all imagination.
shapeshifter
Why Do We Need Metaphysics?

A starting point could be when we realize that 'there is more to the world than eyes can see,' meaning that sense-perception and rational thinking can only serve as very restricted sources of knowledge, not to be relied on.
If we agree so far, it will be clear that the kind of knowledge which we don't possess could just be that knowledge which we need to 'safely reach the other side', meaning the higher stages of being beyond this earthly life.
And which loss could be greater, than ignoring this essential and sacred knowledge which is most unlike that of discursive reasoning?
An attitude of 'healthy criticism' is useful and understandable. How often has not truth been sacrificed for power and selfish purposes? But if this criticism becomes cynical or the dominant mental attitude, as in our culture of criticism, it'll go to extremes, denying that there is any independant, universal truth at all, especially that there is an objective, Ultimate Truth.
In this respect, the following disposition is to present some fundamental metaphysical principles. It is partly a synopsis from the work by Charles Upton, The System Of Antichrist (abbrev.: SAC)
We do not agree to the general credo of 'postmodernist thought' that every opinion about what is true is correct, so imagine by way of example the police trying to catch a murderer leading them to round up any bystander, because if nothing is absolutely true, anything can be, which shows the absurdity of postmodernist relativism!

Objective Standards For Knowledge
Instead of this absurd postmodernist relativism we believe that "only an understanding of integral metaphysics derived from the study of the pinnacles of the human spirit as expressed in the world's great religions and wisdom traditions can give us the objective standards against which we can judge whether a given culture is healthy, tired, degenerate, or actively subversive of the truth." SAC-75
These traditions have been absorbed, refined and redefined by the Islamic tradition, because "Islam as we know it now is the totality of experience that has been given to mankind through the ages from the time of man's existence." F.A. Murshid Ali ElSenossi

Stages Of Spiritual Decline
Human history is cyclical, all traditions agree on that times are cyclically 'wearing down' more or less and according to Islam we are in the 'âkhiru zamân', the 'Latter Times', when the Dajjâl (Antichrist) will appear and the beasts of Gog and Magog:
Especially in times as ours, when knowledgeable leaders of religion are fewer and fewer and when sacred knowledge is taken away, traditional metaphysics and theology (ilâhiyyât) are all the more necessary:
"Without traditional metaphysics, theology declines. Without theology, religion and spirituality are judged only by their power to produce experience. When experience is the only criterion of spirituality, intensity becomes its only measure. When intensity alone becomes the goal, love and truth are excluded, and darkness fills the gap." SAC-134


Being Is Arranged Hierarchically
Quite the opposite to our modern 'flattening' of absolute values and to the Promethean myth of equality, which is without direction and transcendent meaning and which is indifferent for the human and the divine, for the profane and the sacred, we declare that there really is a hierarchy of Being:
"According to traditional metaphysics, Being is arranged hierarchically, in discrete ontological levels." This traditional view 'collapsed' when "we started to see the hierarchy of Being horizontally in terms of time instead of vertically in terms of eternity - and so it was transformed into the myth of progress. When we - as postmodern man - no longer recognized the Absolute as the eternal crown of the hierarchy of Being, we were forced to imagine that something bigger and better - or at least weirder and more powerful - lay in the Future.
'God above' was replaced by 'whatever is going to happen up ahead.' All spiritual traditions and traditional philosophies include this hierarchy of Being in one form or another. The following presentation is adapted from Charles Upton, which he mostly derived from Ibn Arabi and what he calls 'the Traditionalist school of thought'. SAC-331
This disposition "is based on eight levels of Being, in descending order. Each level not only transcends all that is below it, but also contains, in higher form, all that is below it. The first two levels are purely Divine, the second two Spiritual, the third two psychic, and the fourth two physical."SAC-331
(In a less elaborate way, and when referring to the microcosmos of Man, Being is threefold: The Spiritual, the psychic and the material.) SAC-79


The Eight Levels Of Being


THE DIVINE
"The first level is Beyond Being (Dionysius the Areopagite), Godhead (Meister Eckhart), the unknowable Divine Essence, Allah (dhâtu-Allâhi), beyond manifestation."

"The second level is pure Being (the 'Deity'), God Himself - the personal God Who is Creator, Ruler, Judge and Savior of the universe, Allah (sifâtu-Allâhi), while
*transcending these functions absolutely (see superiour level), since He is not limited by any relationship with created beings."

THE SPIRIT
"The third level is the Intellect, God's primal act of Self-understanding in terms of subject and object."
"Intellect is the ray of the Divine within the creatures -the nous of the Neo-Platonic philosophers -about which Eckhart said, there is 'Something in the soul which is uncreated and uncreatable.' In terms of its creative function, the Intellect is the pneuma, the Holy Spirit of God that 'moved on the face of the waters'."
"The fourth level is the Archangelic, the realm of the permanent archetypes . This is the level of the eternal metaphysical principles or Platonic Ideas, which, far from being abstractions, are in reality more densely concrete-for all their transparency to the Divine Light-and more highly charged with, creative and truth-revealing energy than anything below them."

THE PSYCHE
"The fifth level is the Angelic, the manifestation of the Spirit on the psychic plane, the plane of thought, emotion and intent. Each angel is both a living, conscious individual and the manifestation of a specific Idea."
"The sixth level is the Imaginal, the astral plane or `alâm al-mithâl', where every thought, feeling or intent, whatever the level of being it essentially corresponds to, appears as a symbolic image which is at the same time a living being. This is the world of dreams and mental images, which is not simply happening inside this or that individual consciousness, but is continuous with an objective psychic 'environment' just as the human body is continuous with the natural world."
(The central part of the psyche is (what is called in Sufism) the Heart,
it "is intersected by a ray of the Spirit.")


THE MATERIAL WORLD
"The seventh level is the Etheric. This is the realm of the 'soul of matter', the hidden face of nature, the world of the Celtic Fairies, the Muslim Jinn, the world of 'bioplasma' of auras, of elemental spirits and subtle energies. It is the World Soul, the essential pattern and subtle substance of the material world."
"The eighth level is the Material, the world reported by our senses."

"Science deals almost exclusively with the eighth level, though it must sometimes confront phenomena emanating from the seventh, and theorize about seventh-level realities in order to explain apparent paradoxes appearing on the eighth. And since science has largely replaced religion and metaphysics as our dominant way of looking at the world, we are at a nearly total loss when it comes to explaining, and especially to evaluating, the UFO phenomenon.
"Because we believe in evolution and progress instead of understanding the eternal hierarchical nature of Being, anything that pops through from level seven to level eight, as far as we are concerned, might be God, or Merlin the Magician, or a 'highly-evolved technological race' or God knows what. And the reason why so many seventh-level beings are now appearing to us, on a global level, may be because we have lost the ability to evaluate them; they can now represent themselves to us as anything they please. SAC-332-333

The Dire Need For Metaphysical Knowledge

"The civilization of the modern West appears in history a veritable anomaly: among all those which are known to us ... this civilization is the only one which has developed along purely material lines ..." René Guénon, East and West

"So a society's relationship to metaphysical truth has everything to do with the essential nature of that society. But social value of metaphysics is only a reflection of much deeper levels of truth, one of which has to do with the fact that some people absolutely need metaphysical knowledge if they are to have a living relationship with God. These people are not 'believers, they are 'knowers'. Faith is not enough for them, not because they scorn faith but because they are capable of knowledge, and will not be allowed to 'bury their talent' without serious consequences.

"But in a society like ours which both fundamentally denies objective metaphysical truth, and at the same time provides a vast spectrum of false doctrines, either foolish, unconsciously sinister or deliberately subversive, which masquerade as metaphysics, the person with the potential to be a 'knower' is misdirected at every turn, and is in danger of becoming either a religious skeptic, since the religious doctrines he is exposed to seem childish to him (ignorant as he is of their deeper meaning), or an apologist for seemingly more sophisticated doctrines which, unknown to him, are radically opposed to traditional metaphysics." SAC-75


How to Come To An Understanding Of Absolute Truth
In this postmodern nihilism and loss of direction, "only metaphysics can demonstrate both that there is an Absolute Truth common to all true religions [or traditions] (remembering that not everything which calls itself a 'religion' actually is), and that this Truth cannot be reached by combining them, since the existence of different religious revelations, like that of different races or different individuals, is metaphysically necessary." SAC-77
As Allah says in the Qur'ân:
If Allah had pleased He would have made you (all) a single people
(Sura TheTable (5) Vers 48)

"Any intelligent and spiritually sensitive individual, with or without a religious background, must pass through the fires of religious skepticism in today's world. Simple belief unless one is fortunate enough to retain a real simplicity of soul, to be among those we call 'the salt of the earth', is no longer possible for many today. The sophisticated ability to see the depth and value in religious traditions other than one's own will almost inevitably erode one's faith, at least to begin with. For such a person there is no way 'back' to simple religious faith; the only way is 'forward', to an understanding that there is an Absolute Truth behind all the religions," SAC-77
This Absolute Truth can only be reached by following the last of the still valid religions, which is Islam, all the way to that Truth.

What Is The Intellect?
The organ for understanding metaphysical truth is the inner light with which normal man has been endowed: the intellect (`aql, ma`rifah) of which Charles Upton says:

"Another one of the 'fallen words' is intellect. To most of us, it means logic, rationality, or even the ability to manipulate and remember large amounts of information. Not so to the scholastic philosophers of the Middle Ages. To them, intellectus (the Latin translation of the Greek nous) meant the faculty by which we can understand spiritual or metaphysical Truth directly, just as the human eye 'understands' light. They distinguished it from ratio, the rational or logical mind. Given a premise, ratio can reach a conclusion, but it does not thereby reach an entirely 'new' truth. It has no power to apprehend Truth on its own, only to demonstrate the logical implications of an already given truth, a truth 'given' to it by intellectus. Intellect is the source of all axioms - of truths which cannot be demonstrated, only intuitively known. SAC-79

In medieval scholastic philosophy Intellect was the faculty of direct vision of the transcendant, a vision that is then translated by the mental faculties into concepts than can be expressed in human language. Hasan G Eaton in AS187

Description Of The Psychic

"The psychic plane is the natural 'environment'of the human psyche (soul) just as the earth and the material universe are the environment of the human body. It is not purely evil, as some Christians believe, but it is certainly dangerous, since if we break into it either accidentally or on our own initiative, we have lost the protection of the material realm before having necessarily gained the protection of the spiritual realm, and are therefore extremely vulnerable not only to the scattering of our psychic and vital energy, but to obsession or possession by the powers of evil.

"Nonetheless, the psychic plane is not exclusively demonic, otherwise we could not receive divine guidance in dreams, nor could physical miracles occur, since every influence from the spiritual realm must pass through the psychic realm before it can come into material reality. But because this is so, it is very difficult to tell whether a psychic or anomalous physical manifestation originates on the psychic or the Spiritual plane.
Nonetheless there is a profound difference in level between an act of magic (whether for the purpose of healing or harming) which emanates from the psychic plane, and a miracle originating on the Spiritual plane. Psychic or magical or shamanic practices are 'technologies', instances of willful intervention by human beings or psychic entities. Miracles are manifestations of the Spirit, the eternal truth and love of God, on the psychic and material levels. They accomplish many different things at once, effortlessly, by the unveilinig of a small part of God's infinite Truth and Love. SAC-134

Difference Between Spirit And Soul Or Psyche
"According to almost all ancient traditions, including traditional Christianity and Platonic philosophy, the human being is composed of three levels of being:
Spirit, soul and body - in Greek, Pneuma (or Nous), psyche and soma; in Latin, Spiritus (or Intellectus), anima, and corpus" [in Arabic rûh, nafs and jism].

"In the modern era, however, the distinction between Spirit and soul has been lost, with disastrous consequences. We now tend to believe, unless we are complete materialists, that anything which isn't material must be spiritual, which often means to us that whatever we encounter through dreams or psychological introspection or psychic experiences must be true, and by implication 'good' - or at least not to be criticized, even if we hate or fear it... even less so, of course, if it is pleasant or fascinating.
And it is precisely this metaphysical error - that there is no distinction between psyche and Spirit which is at this moment opening whole masses of people to demonic influences, and which will make it possible for Antichrist to concoct a plausible psychic counterfeit of the eternal Spiritual Reality.

"If we knew psyche and Spirit as two different things (or, rather, two different levels of being) we would not, for example, patronize the many psychic hotlines now advertised on TV and elsewhere, because we would know that just because someone can tell you the color of your underwear or what you did last Tuesday, it doesn't mean her or she is necessarily either wise or good. And the fact is that many psychics (though certainly not all) often have imbalanced personalities, and will tend to use their psychic powers dishonestly, since those powers have given them a certain ability to 'live by their wits'. SAC-80


Final Note: Why Metaphysics Is Important

"In the last analysis, however, all these reasons why metaphysics is important are only side issues. The real reason why metaphysics is important is because it is true, and whatever is true is also good. God Himself since He is Absolute Truth, is also the Sovereign Good. SAC-78
shapeshifter
Understanding and Believing - Frithjof Schuon

It is generally recognized that man is capable of believing without understanding; one is much less aware of the inverse possibility, that of understanding without believing, and it even appears as a contradiction, since faith does not seem to be incumbent except on those who do not understand. Yet hypocrisy is not only the dissimulation of one who pretends to be better than he is; it also lies in disproportion between certainty and behavior, and in this respect most men are more or less hypocritical since they claim to admit truths which they put no more than feebly into practice. On the plane of simple belief, to believe without acting in consequence of what one believes corresponds, on the intellectual plane, to an understanding without faith and without life; for real belief means identifying oneself with the truth that one accepts, whatever may be the level of this adherence. Piety is to religious belief what operative faith is to doctrinal understanding or, we may add, what sainthood is to truth.
If we take as starting point the idea that spirituality has essentially two factors, namely discernment between the Real and the illusory and permanent concentration on the Real, the conditio sine qua non, being the observance of traditional rules and the practice of the virtues that go with them, we shall see that there is a relationship between discernment and understanding on the one hand and between concentration and faith on the other; faith, whatever its degree, always means an as it were existential participation in Being or in Reality; it is to take a basic hadith "to worship God as if thou sawest Him, and if thou seest Him not, yet He seeth thee". In other terms, faith is the participation of the will in the intelligence; just as on the physical plane man adapts his action to the physical facts which determine its nature, so also, on the spiritual plane, he should act in accordance with his convictions, by inward activity even more than outward activity, for "before acting one must first be", and our being is nothing other than our inward activity. The soul must be to the intelligence what beauty is to truth, and this is what we might call the "moral qualification" that should accompany the "intellectual qualification".
There is a relationship between faith and the symbol; there is also one between faith and miracle. In the symbolic image as in the miraculous fact, it is the language of being, not of reasoning, which speaks to a manifestation of being on the part of Heaven, man must respond with his own being, and he does so through faith or through love, which are the two faces of one and the same reality without therefore ceasing to be a creature endowed with thought. In plain terms, one might wonder what is the basis or what is the justification of an elementary faith which is disdainful, or almost so, of any attempt at comprehension; the answer has just been given namely that such faith is based on the illuminating power which belongs in principle to the symbols, the phenomena and the arguments of the Revelation[1]; the "obscure merit" of this faith consists in not closing oneself to a grace for which our nature is made. There is room for differences, on the human side, as regards the modes or degrees of receptivity and also the intellectual needs; these needs do not in any sense mean that the thinking man lacks faith; they merely show that his receptivity is sensible to the most subtle and most implicit aspects of the Divine Message; now what is implicit is not the inexpressible but the esoteric, and this has the right to be expressed.[2] Attention has already been drawn to the relationship between faith and miracle; perfect faith consists in being aware of the metaphysically miraculous character of natural phenomena and in seeing in them, by way of consequence, the trace of God.
The demerit, therefore, of unbelief or lack of faith does not lie in a natural lack of special aptitudes nor is it due to the unintelligibility of the Message for then there would be no demerit but in the passionate stiffening of the will and in the worldly tendencies which bring about this stiffening. The merit of faith is fidelity to the super-naturally natural receptivity of primordial man; it means remaining as God made us and remaining at His disposition with regard to a message from Heaven which might be contrary to earthly experience, while being incontestable in view of subjective as well as objective criteria.[3]
It is related that Ibn Taimiyyah[4] once said, while coming down from the pulpit after a sermon: "God comes down from Heaven to earth as I am coming down now"[5]; there is no reason to doubt that he meant this to be taken literally, with a literalism not to be bowed before any interpretation, but his attitude has none the less a symbolic value which is independent of his personal opinions; the refusal to analyze a symbol by discursive and separative thought in order to assimilate it directly and as it were existentially does in fact correspond to a perspective which is possible and therefore valid in the appropriate circumstances. "Simple faith of" may be seen to coincide here with an attitude which is its opposite while being at the same time analogous, namely the assimilation of the faith through the symbol and by means of the whole soul, the soul as such.
Faith as a quality of the soul is the stabilizing complement of the discerning and as it were explosive intelligence; without this complement, intellectual activity lets itself be carried away by its own movement and is like a devouring fire; it loses its balance and ends either by eating itself up in a restlessness without issue or else simply by wearing itself out to the point of sclerosis. Faith implies all the static and gentle qualities such as patience, gratitude, confidence, generosity; it offers the mercurial intelligence a fixative element and thus realizes, together with discernment, an equilibrium which is like an anticipation of sainthood. It is to this polarity in the highest degree that the complementary terms "blessing" (or "prayer", salah) and "peace" (or "greeting", salam) are applied in Islam.
An intellectual qualification is not fully valid in view of the contents which correspond to its scope except if it be accompanied by an equivalent moral qualification; here lies the explanation of all the fideist attitudes which seem bent on limiting the impetus of the intelligence. The upholders of tradition pure and simple (naql) in the first centuries of Islam were deeply conscious of this, and Ash'ari[6] himself felt it (although in a somewhat opposite way since he ventured on to the plain of theological reasoning) when he attributed to God an unintelligibility which, all told, could only signify the precariousness of man's intellectual means in the face of the dimension of absoluteness.
One can meditate or speculate indefinitely on transcendent truths and their applications that is moreover what the author of this article does, but he has valid reasons for doing it, nor does he do it for himself one can spend a whole lifetime speculating on the supra-sensorial and the transcendent, but all that matters is the "leap into the void" which is the fixation of spirit and soul in an unthinkable dimension of the Real; this leap, which cuts short and completes the in itself endless chain of formulations,[7] depends on a direct understanding and on a grace, not on having reached a certain phase in the unfolding of the doctrine, for this unfolding, we repeat, has logically no end. This "leap into the void" we can call "faith" ; it is from the negation of this reality that all theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..)', 271)";>philosophy of the type "art for art's sake" springs, all thought that believes it can attain to an absolute contact with Reality by means of analyses, syntheses, arrangements, filtrations and polishings thought that is mundane by the very fact of this ignorance and by the concomitant fact of its "vicious circle which not merely allows no escape from illusion but also reinforces illusion by the lure of a progressive and in fact non-existent knowledge.[8]
In view of the harm that the prejudices and tendencies of ordinary piety can on occasion do to metaphysical speculations, we might be tempted to conclude that piety should be abandoned on the threshold of pure knowledge, but this would be a false and eminently pernicious conclusion; in reality piety or faith must never be absent from the soul, but it is only too clear that it must be on a level with the truths that it accompanies, which means that such an extension is perfectly in its nature, as is proved by the Vedantic hymns, to take just one particularly conclusive example.
The Hindus have been reproached for being inveterate idolators and for finding in the least phenomenon a pretext for idolatry; there is, it seems, an annual festival at which the artisan gathers his tools together in order to worship them. In fact, the Hindu refuses to become rooted in outwardness: he readily looks to the divine substratum of things, whence his acute sense of the sacred and his devotional mentality; this is the last thing that modern man wants, monstrously "adult" as he has become in conformity with the worst illusion that has ever darkened the human outlook. The reflection of the sun is not the sun but it is none the less "something of the sun", and in this respect it is not wrong to speak elliptically of a kind of identity, the light being always the one light and the cause being really present in the effect; he who does not respect the effect makes himself incapable of respecting fully the cause, apart from the fact that the cause withholds itself from whoever despises its reflections; whoever understands the cause perceives it also in its earthly traces. The sense of the sacred: this phrase expresses felicitously a dimension which should never be absent, either in metaphysical thought or in everyday life; it is this which gives birth to the liturgies, and without it there is no faith. The sense of the sacred, with its concomitances of dignity, incorruptibility, patience and generosity, is the key to integral faith and to the supernatural virtues which are inherent in it.

* * *

When one admits the distinction made by the alchemies between a "dry path" and a "moistpath", the former corresponding to "knowledge" and the latter to "love", one should know also that the two poles "fire" and "water" which these paths represent respectively are both reflected in each path, so that "knowledge" has necessarily an aspect of "moisture", and "love" an aspect of "dryness". Within the framework of a path of love, this aspect of "dryness" or of "fire" is doctrinal orthodoxy, for it is well known that no spirituality is possible without the implacable and immutable bulwark of a Divine expression of the saving Truth; analogously and inversely, the aspect of "moisture" or of "water" which, being feminine, is derived from the Divine Substance (Prakriti, the Shakti), is indispensable to the path of "knowledge" for the evident and already mentioned reasons of equilibrium, stability and effectiveness.
When one compares the quality of "knowledge" with fire, one is aware that this comparison cannot perfectly and exhaustively account for the metaphysical reaches of the intelligence and for its activity of realization : fire in itself, besides its qualities of luminosity and ascension, has in fact an aspect of agitation and destructiveness, and it is this aspect the very one that the fideist opponents of kalam had in mind which proves that "knowledge-fire" is not self-sufficient and that it has in consequence an imperative need of a "knowledge-water", which is none other than faith with all its fixative and peace-giving virtues[9] Even the most penetrating intelligence, if it relies too much on its own strength, runs the risk of being abandoned by Heaven ; forgetting that the Subject, the Knower, is God, it closes itself to the Divine Influx. Profane thought is not only thought which is ignorant of metaphysical and mystical truths,[10] but also that which, while knowing these truths well enough in theory, has none the less a disproportionate approach to them, an approach that is unaccompanied by sufficient adaptation of the soul ; not that such thought is profane by definition as in the case of ignorant thought, but it is so secondarily or morally and lies in grave danger of error, for man is not merely a mirror, he is a cosmos which is both complex and fragile. The connection often affirmed by tradition between Knowledge and Peace, shows in its own way that in pure intellectuality the mathematical element is not everything, and also that fire alone in itself could not be the symbol of intellectuality.[11]
The combination between the principles "fire" and "water" is nothing other than "wine", which is both "liquid fire" and "igneous water"[12]; liberating drunkenness proceeds precisely from this alchemical and as it were miraculous combination of opposite elements. It is thus wine, and not fire, which is the most perfect image of liberating idea that one may ‘know God’ ( gnosis theou) is very rare in the classical Hellenic literature, which rather praises episteme and hieratic vision, epopteia, but is common in Hermetism, Gnosticism and early Christianity; following the Platonic tradition (especially Plotinus and Porphyry), Augustine introduced a distinction between knowledge and wisdom, scientia and sapientia, claiming that the fallen soul knows only scientia, but before the Fall she knew sapientia ( De Trinitate XII).
(more..)', 271)";>gnosis envisaged not only in its total amplitude but also in the equilibrium of its virtual modes, for the equilibrium between discernment and contemplation can be conceived at every level. Another image of this equilibrium or of this concordance is oil; it is through oil that fire is stabilized into becoming the calm and contemplative flame of the lamps in sanctuaries. Like wine, oil is an igneous liquid, which "shineth even though the fire have not touched it", according to the famous Verse of Light (āyat an-Nur).
From a certain elementary point of view, there is a connection between the emotional path of "warriors" and water, which is passive and "feminine", just as there is a connection between the intellectual path of "priests" and fire, which is active and "masculine" ; but it is only too clear, we repeat, that water has sacerdotal aspect of peace, and that fire has a warlike aspect of devouring activity, and that each path has necessarily a "dry" pole and a "moist" pole. All these considerations converge on the problem of the relationships between speculative intelligence and faith: faith is a pure and calm "water", intelligence is an active and discriminating "fire". To say that water is pure amounts to saying that it has a virtual quality of luminosity, that it is thus predisposed to be a vehicle for fire and to be transmuted into wine, as at the marriage of Cana; when considered with regard to its possibilities, water is a virtual wine since it has already, through its purity, a luminosity, and in this sense it is comparable to oil; like wine, oil is igneous by its very nature, but at the same time it does not correspond exactly to wine except when combined with the flame that it fosters, whereas wine has no need of any complement to manifest its nature.
shapeshifter
It follows from all that has been said so far that faith and intelligence can each be conceived at two different levels: faith as certainty, ontological as it were and pre-mental, ranks higher than the discerning and speculative aspects of intelligence,[13] but intelligence as pure intellection ranks higher than that faith which is no more than an adherence of the sentiments; it is this ambivalence which is the source of numerous misunderstandings, but which makes possible at the same time an exo-esoteric language that is both simple and complex. Faith in its higher aspect is what we might call religio corgis: it is the "inward religion" which is supernaturally natural to man and which coincides with religio caeli or perennis that is, with universal truth, which is beyond the contingencies of form and of time. This faith can be satisfied with little: unlike an intelligence which is all for exactness but never satisfied in its play of formulations, and which passes from concept to concept, from symbol to symbol, without being able to make up its mind for this or for that, the faith of the heart is capable of being satisfied by the first symbol that providentially comes its way,[14] and of living on it until the supreme Meeting.
The faith in question, which we have called religio cordis it is the subjective and immanent side of religio caeli has two poles, in conformity with the distinction between the "dry" and "moist" paths; they are represented in the Buddhism of the North by Zen and Jodo respectively. Both turn away from verbal comprehension, the one to plunge into our very being and the other to plunge into faith: For Zen truth must coincide with reality and this is our substratum which is both existential and intellectual, whereas for Jodo truth-reality is attained in perfect faith, the giving up of oneself to the universal Substance which is Mercy and which is manifested in some Sign or some Key.[15]
The "wine" element referred to previously is represented, in the Mahayana, by the union of the two poles Vajradhatu and Garbhadhatu --the Thibetan Yab-Yum--which signifies the conjunction of "illuminating truth" (upaya) and "saving Gnosis" (prajnā), this sexual symbolism (lingam-yoni) having the same meaning as that of drunkenness in the case of wine; the "great Bliss" (mahasukha) which results from the union of the two poles, evokes the Beatitude (Ananda) of Atma, wherein is the meeting of "Consciousness" (Chit) and "Being" (Sat). According to its most general and most human acceptation, this symbolism expresses the equilibrium between mental assets and virtue; on this basis, the equilibrium may be between doctrinal investigation and spiritual practice, or between doctrine and method. All these modes can be brought back to a confrontation between a "knowledge" and a "being", or between an intellectual objectivization and a participation of the will, that is, an as it were existential participation, or, we might say, between a mathematical or architectural dimension and an ethico-aesthetic or musical dimension, in the vastest sense that these terms can have, in view of the fact that phenomena have their roots in the Divine. It is true that from a certain point of view, the element "being " is more than a complement: it is the combination of the elements "knowing" and "willing" and in this case it represents the sainthood synthesis that underlies the polarity "intelligence-beauty" which brings us back the symbolism of love and wine, and to the mystery of the coincidence of faith with gnosis.
The cult of a Goddess, of a Shakti, of a Tara of a "Lady" if one will may indicate the predominance of a perspective of love, of dogmatic and methodic bhakti, but it may equally well be the sign, even within a perspective of idea that one may ‘know God’ ( gnosis theou) is very rare in the classical Hellenic literature, which rather praises episteme and hieratic vision, epopteia, but is common in Hermetism, Gnosticism and early Christianity; following the Platonic tradition (especially Plotinus and Porphyry), Augustine introduced a distinction between knowledge and wisdom, scientia and sapientia, claiming that the fallen soul knows only scientia, but before the Fall she knew sapientia ( De Trinitate XII).
(more..)', 271)";>gnosis or of jnāna, that stress is placed on the element "faith" in the highest sense of the term, the very sense in which Zen and Jodo conceive it, the one according to the "dry path", and the other according to the "moist path". This is also what Ibn `Arabi meant and there cannot be the slightest doubt that his perspective was that of idea that one may ‘know God’ ( gnosis theou) is very rare in the classical Hellenic literature, which rather praises episteme and hieratic vision, epopteia, but is common in Hermetism, Gnosticism and early Christianity; following the Platonic tradition (especially Plotinus and Porphyry), Augustine introduced a distinction between knowledge and wisdom, scientia and sapientia, claiming that the fallen soul knows only scientia, but before the Fall she knew sapientia ( De Trinitate XII).
(more..)', 271)";>gnosis by the "religion of Love", which he identified with al-islam, the essential conforming of intelligence and of soul to the Divine Nature, which is beyond forms and oppositions.



NOTES

[1] The "signs" (ayat) of which the Koran speaks, and which may even be natural phenomena envisaged in the light of the revealed doctrine. A remark which calls to be made in this context is that the insensibility of the believers of any intrinsically orthodox religion to the arguments of another religion does not in any sense come into question here, since the motive for refusal is in that case a positive factor, namely an already existing faith which is in itself valid.

[2] It goes without saying that the implicit is to be found even on the plane of the literal meaning, but this mode of indication causes practically no problems and is not in question here.

[3] To say that Abraham and Mary had the merit of great faith means that they were sensible to the Divine criteria despite the apparent impossibility of the Message ; this means also that the men of old were by no means credulous, if we may be allowed to make this remark in a context which goes beyond the level of ordinary humanity.

[4] Arab theologian of the XIIlth century, the protagonist, Hanbalite by origin, of an extreme exoterism.

[5] With reference to the Hadith an-NuzĂ»l : "Our Lord Blessed and Exalted be He cometh down each night unto the nethermost heaven (as-samā' ad-dunya, a Koranic term which signifies, not the lowest of the seven Heavens, but the terrestrial firmament) while the last third of the night yet remaineth, and He saith : Who calleth upon Me, that I may answer him ? Who asketh of Me, that I may give unto him ? Who seeketh My forgiveness, that I may forgive him?".

[6] See the previous number of this review, p. 67, note 1.

[7] But for such completion there would be no such thing as doctrines, these being by definition forms, delimitations, mental coagulations.

[8] A valid doctrine is a "description", the author of which is able to base his conclusions on direct, supramental knowledge and is therefore in no sense duped by his "description" as regards its inevitable formal limitations ; on the other hand, a theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.

(more..)', 271)";>philosophy which claims to be a "research" is a mere nothing and its apparent modesty is no more that a pretentidus negation of true wisdom. There is clearly no humility in saying that one is ignorant because everyone is ignorant.

[9] "There is no lustral water like knowledge", says the Bhagavadgita : it is here water, not fire, which is related to jnana.

[10] "Metaphysical" : concerning universal realities objectively. "Mystical" : concerning the same realities subjectively, that is, in relation to the contemplative soul, insofar as they enter operatively into contact with it.

[11] Shankara, affirming his identity with "inward Wisdom", calls it : "That which is the stilling of mental agitation and the supreme appeasement . . . That which is the pool Manikarnikā . . . That which is the Ganges . . ." images referring to water, not to fire. Islam, for its part, associates coolness, the colour green, streams, with Paradise.

[12] When the Red Indians called alcohol "fire-water", they were expressing, without knowing it, a profound truth: the achemical and as it were supernatural coincidence of liquidity and ignition. According to the Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad and the Shatapatha Brāhmana, the Divine Fire (Agni) is engendered in the un-differentiated Self (Anna) by the tension between igneous Energy (Was) and the Water of Life or the Elixir (rasa) ; Agni is "churned" and "born of the Waters", or "born of the Lotus"; he is the Lightning hidden in the Celestial Waters.

[13] This higher faith is something altogether different from the irresponsible and arrogant taking of liberties so characteristic of the profane improvisors of Zen or of Jnana, who seek to "take a short cut" by stripping themselves of the essential human context of all realization, whereas in the East, and in the normal conditions of ethical and liturgical ambiance, this context is largely supplied in advance. One does not enter the presence of a king by the back door.

[14] In the lives of the saints, the spiritual career is often inaugurated by an outward or inward incident which throws the soul into a particular and definitive attitude with regard to Heaven ; the symbol here is not the incident itself, but the positive spiritual factor that the incident serves to bring out.

[15] In other terms : in Amidism faith is ultimately based on intuition of the essential Goodness of Reality which is Divinely "the Other" in relation to the existence-bound subject ; in Zenism, on the contrary, what we call "faith" is based on intuition of the essential reality of our "Self", of our subjective essence in its Nirvānic Transpersonality.
shapeshifter
Frithjof Schuon: Questions and Answers


I. Spirituality Frithjof Schuon


Question : You have written more than twenty books on religion and spirituality. Your first book has the title The Transcendent Unity of Religions. May I ask you how one should understand this unity?


Frithjof Schuon: Our starting point is the acknowledgment of the fact that there are diverse religions which exclude each other. This could mean that one religion is right and that all the others are false; it could mean also that all are false. In reality, it means that all are right, not in their dogmatic exclusivism, but in their unanimous inner signification, which coincides with pure metaphysics, or in other terms, with the philosophia perennis.

Q. : How can we know that this metaphysical meaning is the truth?

F.S.: The metaphysical perspective is based on intellectual intuition, which by its very nature is infallible because it is a vision by the pure intellect, whereas profane philosophy operates only with reason, hence with logical assumptions and conclusions.

Q. : This being so, what is the basis of religion?

F.S.: The religious, dogmatic or theological perspective is based on revelation; its main purpose is, not to explain the nature of things or the universal principles, but to save man from sin and damnation, and also, to establish a realistic social equilibrium.

Q. : If we have religion, which saves us, why do we also need metaphysics?

F.S.: It is because metaphysics satisfies the needs of intellectually gifted men. Metaphysical truth concerns not only our thinking, but it penetrates also our whole being; therefore it is far above philosophy in the ordinary sense of the word.

Q. : On the spiritual level, what does every human being need?

F.S.: Three things: truth, spiritual practice, morals. Pure and unveiled truth coincides with metaphysics; the religious dogmas are symbols of metaphysical truths; the deep understanding of religious symbolism is esoterism. Pure metaphysics is hidden in every religion.

Q. : And what about spiritual practice?

F.S.: Spiritual practice is essentially prayer. There are three forms of prayer: first, canonical prayer, for instance the Lord's prayer; second, personal prayer, whose best model is given by the Psalms; third, the contemplative prayer of the heart; this is mystical spirituality, which requires certain conditions. The story of the "Russian Pilgrim" offers an image of it; also Hindu texts about japa-yoga, methodical invocation.

Q. : And what about morals?

F.S.: This is, after truth and spiritual practice, the third dimension of spiritual life. On the one hand, morals mean a reasonable, healthy and generous behavior; on the other hand, it means beauty of the soul, hence intrinsic nobility. Without this quality, doctrine and spiritual practice would be fruitless.

Q. : You mentioned before intellectual intuition. Doesn't every man possess this faculty?

F.S.: Yes and no. In principle, every man is capable of intellection, for the simple reason that man is man; but in fact, intellectual intuition -- the "eye of the heart" -- is hidden under a sheet of ice, so to speak, because of the degeneration of the human species. So we may say that pure intellection is a gift and not a generally human faculty.

Q. : Is it possible to develop this higher intuition?

F.S.: There is no need to develop it. Man can be saved by faith alone. But it is evident that a very pious or contemplative person has more intuition than a worldly person.


II. Art

Q. : May I ask you what the role of art is in the spiritual existence of man?


F.S.: We could say that after morals, art -- in the broadest sense of the word -- is a natural and necessary dimension of the human condition. Plato said: "Beauty is the splendor of the true." So let us say that art -- including crafts -- is a projection of truth and beauty in the world of forms; it is ipso facto a projection of archetypes. And it is essentially an exteriorization in view of an interiorization; art does not mean dispersion, it means concentration, a way back to God. Every traditional civilization has created a framework of beauty: a natural, ecologically necessary surrounding for spiritual life.

Q. : What are the criteria for knowing the worth of a work of art, its level of inspiration?

F.S.: The archetypes of sacred art are celestial inspirations; all other artworks draw their inspiration from the spiritual personality of the artist. The criteria for knowing the worth of a work of art are: the content of the work, its mode of expression and its technique, its style.

Q. : Are the criteria different for various types of art: painting, sculpture, dance, music, poetry, architecture?

F.S.: No, the criteria are not different for various types of art.

Q. : With beauty, there is what one might call an ambiguous element, since it can be conducive to a worldly self inflatedness or on the contrary to a remembrance of the Divine. What is it about certain arts -- music, poetry and dance, for example -- that makes the ambiguous element more pronounced in them?

F.S.: Painting and sculpture are in a way more cerebral and objective than poetry, music and dance, which are more psychic and subjective; therefore the ambiguous element is more pronounced in these three arts.

Q. : Could one say that the Hindu notion of darshan has an application in experiencing art and beauty?

F.S.: Of course, the Hindu notion of darshan applies to any esthetic or artistic experience; but in this case it also involves mental and auditive perceptions, not only vision.

Q. : Could one say that there is a natural link between beauty in the broadest sense and esoterism?

F.S.: Yes, there is a link between beauty and esoterism, because "Beauty is the splendor of the True." Traditional art is esoteric, not exoteric. Exoterism is interested in morals, not in beauty; it even happens that exoterism can be opposed to beauty because of a moralistic prejudice.

Q. : Would it be legitimate to say that esoterism has certain rights in regard to art and beauty which transcend the limits and prohibitions laid down by the various exoterisms?

F.S.: In principle, esoterism has certain rights which transcend the prohibitions of exoterism, but in fact, esoterism can rarely make use of these rights. Nonetheless, it has occurred, for example, in the case of dervish dances or of apparently shameless Tibetan paintings.

Q. : Besides the "fine arts," there are--in Japan, for example--the art of flower arranging, the tea ceremony, even the martial arts, which are (or were originally) recognized as manifestations of a spiritual nature. How does it come about that an activity as "everyday" as preparing tea can become the vehicle of a spiritual barakah (grace)?

F.S.: The Zen arts -- like the Tea Ceremony -- crystallize certain manners of acting of the Buddha, or let us say: of Primordial Man; now the Buddha never handled a sword, but if he had, he would have done so like a Zen Master. Acting like the Buddha -- even at such a level as preparing tea -- means: to assimilate something of the Buddha-Nature; it is an open door to Enlightenment.

Q. : Modern art is not traditional. Does this mean that a modern artwork is necessarily bad?

F.S.: No, because a modern artwork -- modern in the broadest sense -- may manifest different qualities, in regard to the content as well as in regard to the treatment and also to the artist. Some traditional productions are bad, and some nontraditional productions are good.

Q. : What does art mean for the artist himself?

F.S.: By creating a noble work of art, the artist works on his own soul; in a way, he creates his own archetype. Therefore the practice of every art is a way of self-realization, in principle or also in fact. With unimportant or even negative subjects, the artist may remain intentionally unaffected, but with noble and profound subjects, he works with his very heart.


III. Primordiality

Q. : Your book The Feathered Sun reveals your interest in the American Indians. May I ask you what the stimulus of this interest or affinity is?


F.S.: The Red Indians -- and especially the Indians of the Plains -- have much in common with the Japanese samurai, who very often practiced Zen spirituality; morally and aesthetically speaking, the Plains Indians were one of the most fascinating peoples of the world. It was the great mistake of the 19th century to distinguish only between "civilized people" and "savages"; there are distinctions which are far more real and important, for it is obvious that "civilization" in the ordinary sense is not the highest value of mankind, and also that the term "savage" is not suitable to the Indians. What makes the value of a man is neither his mundane culture nor his practical or inventive intelligence, but his attitude in the face of the Absolute; and he who has the sense of the Absolute never forgets the relationship between man and virgin Nature, because Nature is our origin, our natural homeland and a most transparent Message of God. For the Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, the very condition of a realistic civilization is the equilibrium between Bedouins and city dwellers, which means between nomads and sedentaries; between the healthy children of Nature and the representatives of elaborated cultural values.

Q. : Your art books The Feathered Sun and especially Images of Primordial and Mystic Beauty deal with the mystery of sacred nudity. Could you explain in a few words the meaning of this perspective?

F.S.: Sacred nudity -- which plays an important role not only with the Hindus but also with the Red Indians -- is based on the analogical correspondence between the "outmost" and the "inmost": the body is then seen as the "heart exteriorized," and the heart for its part "absorbs" as it were the bodily projection; "extremes meet." It is said, in India, that nudity favors the irradiation of spiritual influences; and also that feminine nudity in particular manifests Lakshmi and consequently has a beneficial effect on the surroundings. In an altogether general way, nudity expresses -- and virtually actualizes -- a return to the essence, the origin, the archetype, thus to the celestial state: "And it is for this that, naked, I dance," as Lalla Yogishvari, the great Kashmiri saint, said after having found the Divine Self in her heart. To be sure, in nudity there is a de facto ambiguity because of the passional nature of man; but there is not only the passional nature, there is also the gift of contemplativity which can neutralize it, as is precisely the case with "sacred nudity"; similarly, there is not only the seduction of appearances, there is also the metaphysical transparency of phenomena which permits one to perceive the archetypal essence through the sensory experience. St. Nonnos, when he beheld St. Pelagia entering the baptismal pool naked, praised God for having put into human beauty not only an occasion of fall, but also an occasion of rising towards God.


IV. Message

Q. : What would be your message for the average man?


F.S.: Prayer. To be a human being means to be connected with God. Life has no meaning without this. Prayer and beauty, of course; for we live among forms and not in a cloud. Beauty of soul first, and then beauty of symbols around us.

Q. : You have spoken of metaphysics. May I ask you what the main content of this perennial wisdom is?

F.S.: Metaphysics means essentially: discernment between the Real and the apparent, or the illusory; in Vedantic terms: Atma and Maya ; the Divine and the cosmic. Metaphysics is concerned also with the roots of Maya in Atma,-- this is the Divine Personification, the creating and revealing God -- and then with the projection of Atma into Maya -- this means everything that is positive or good in the world. And this is essential: metaphysical knowledge requires intellectual, psychic and moral assimilation; discernment requires concentration, contemplation and union. Therefore metaphysical theory is not a philosophy in the modern sense of the word; it is essentially sacred. The sense of the sacred is an indispensable qualification for metaphysical realization, as it is for every spiritual way. For the Red Indian, as also for the Hindu, everything in nature is sacred; this, modern man has to learn, because it is a question of ecology in the broadest' sense of the word. What is needed first, is prayer; and then: back to Nature! One could object that it is too late; now, each person is responsible for what he or she does -- not for what others do -- because each one stands before God and can do what is requested for his immortal soul. The first step back to Nature is dignity; dignity of forms and of behavior; this creates the climate in which prayers feel at home, because dignity partakes of the immutable Truth.
shapeshifter
Cele 6 atitudini spirituale fundamentale:
„negaţie”, „afirmaţie”; „pasivitate”, „activitate”; „vid”, „plenitudine”
:
sau:
„răceală”, „uscăciune”; „umiditate”, „căldură”; „vid”, „plenitudine”
simboluri: „cristal”, „fulger” („spadă”); apă”, „foc”; „noapte”, „soare”

„Frica”:
1. atitudinea negativă = renunţarea, detaşarea
„E cert că lumea este suferinţă şi că trebuie să mor”

2. atitudinea afirmativă = efortul, perseverenţa
„E cert că tot ceea ce iubesc este în mod veşnic în Dumnezeu”

„Iubirea”:
1. atitudine pasivă = mulţumirea, pacea
„E cert că Dumnezeu mă vede şi că trebuie să-L întâlnesc”

2. atitudine activă = credinţa, fervoarea
„E cert că Graţia Sa, căreia mă conformez şi în care îmi pun întreaga credinţă, mă va salva”

„Cunoaşterea”:
1. atitudine distinctivă = discernământul (între Real şi ireal)
„E cert că Dumnezeu singur este şi că, în consecinţă, lumea nu este şi eu nu sunt”

2. atitudine unitivă = concentrarea (asupra a Ceea ce sunt în mod real), identitatea (cu Ceea ce sunt)
„E cert că nefiind neant, eu nu sunt altceva decât Ceea ce este: atât prin existenţa mea, care este în mod esenţial Existenţa totală, cât şi prin Intelect”.

„Frică”:
„În Dumnezeu nu este nici suferinţă nici moarte”
„Dumnezeu este cea mai bună protecţie”

„Iubire”:
„Dumnezeu este tot ceea ce iubesc”
„Dumnezeu este Iubirea care salvează”

„Cunoaştere”:
„Dumnezeu singur este”
„Eu nu sunt altul decât El”, ori: „Doar în El, eu sunt Eu însumi”


„Frică”:
„Dumnezeu este Puritatea imuabilă”
„El este Puterea triumfătoare”

„Iubire”:
El este Frumuseţea preafericită”
El este Bunătatea salvatoare, Iubirea milostivă”

„Cunoaştere”:
„El este Inteligenţa pătrunzătoare, Unicitatea; nimic nu este în afara Lui”
„El este Realitatea una; în El nu este separare; totul este în El şi prin El”
Erwin
QUOTE
Nu poate exista opoziţie sau conflict de nici un fel între metafizică şi ştiinţe, deoarece domeniile lor sunt profund SEPARATE şi la fel stau lucrurile între metafizică şi religie.


nu între ele, dar în sinea lor sunt pline de conflicte şi contradicţii. Ştiinţa le rezolvă (pe unde se poate) iar metafizica le prescrie.
Artanis
şeipşiftăr, esti fenomenal...ai deschis intr-o luna treij' de topicuri noi...te incadrezi lejer la spam...sad.gif
andra_v
Pai si eu propuneam, in cadrul Comunitatii Credintei, un fel de Arhipelag, unde am avea placerea sa mutam 20 de topicuri el lui Shape.
shapeshifter
Înţelegerea pur „teoretizant㔠a unei idei, adică care are tendinţa limitativă de paralizare a ideii, se caracterizează prin termenul „dogmatism” însă doar prin obligaţia de a exclude alte forme conceptuale, şi nu, în sine însuşi, dogma religioasă reprezintă o idee privită din unghiul tendinţei teoretizante iar acest mod exclusiv a devenit una dintre caracteristicile punctului de vedere religios ca atare.
Însă, o dogmă religioasă încetează de a mai fi astfel limitată îndată ce e înţeleasă în adevărul său intern, care e de ordin universal. Dogma religioasă nu e nicidecum o dogmă în sine, ci devine o dogmă doar fiindcă e privită ca atare, printr-un soi de confuzie între idee şi forma care o înveşmântă. Pe de altă parte, dogmatizarea exterioară a adevărurilor universale este perfect justificată, deoarece adevărurile sau ideile universale, stând la temelia unei tradiţii, trebuie să fie asimilabile, într-un anumit grad sau altul, de către toată lumea. „Dogmatismul” nu constă în simpla enunţare a unei idei – în a da o formă unei intuiţii spirituale – ci într-o interpretare care, în loc să ajungă la Adevărul informal şi total pornind de la una din formele lui, paralizează forma negându-i potenţialităţile intelectuale şi atribuindu-i un caracter absolut pe care singur Adevărul informal şi total îl poate avea.
shapeshifter
Acolo unde este coincidenţa între Început şi Sfârşit, este necesar ca şi mijlocul să coincidă. Aceasta însă pare a fi Identicul însuşi, în care toate sunt acelaşi lucru despre care vorbeşte proorocul David: „La început Tu ai întemeiat pământul, iar lucrarea mâinilor Tale sunt cerurile. Ele vor pieri: Tu însă eşti chiar Identicul.”
Identicul absolut fiind identic, este etern. Căci Identicul absolut nu poate proveni din Diferit. Din moment ce Identicul este apt să facă să ia fiinţă identicul, rezultă şi că Diferitul este apt să facă să ia fiinţă diferitul. Identicul absolut este etern, simplu, nelimitat, infinit, inalterabil, nemultiplicabil şamd. Identicul trebuie să fie etern, Identicul neputând proveni din nimic altceva, el este deci nelimitat, fiind etern, este aşadar infinit şi inalterabil, fiindc㠄alterabilitate” vine de la „alter” (altul). Identicul implică însă prin sine inalterabilitatea, deci şi ne-multiplicabilitatea, care nu poate exista fără alteritate.
În unele locuri, Dumnezeu este chemat UNU şi IDENTIC, unii l-au pus pe Unu chiar înaintea Identicului, ca şi cum Identitatea ar fi mai mică decât Unul, fiindcă orice identic este unu, şi nu invers. Ei au pus Fiinţa, şi Eternitatea, şi tot ce nu este Unu după Unul absolut , însă nu acesta este modul de a concepe Identicul în sens absolut.
Aşa este Identicul, cel despre care vorbeşte proorocul David,, fiindcă este însuşi Identicul absolut, înălţat deasupra oricărei diversităţi şi opoziţii, fiind identic. Identicul de nespus, în care toate sunt acelaşi lucru, nu este deci identic sau diferit faţă de nimic altceva. În Identic, universalul şi particularul sunt Identicul însuşi, unitatea este aceeaşi cu infinitatea, la fel actul şi potenţa sau esenţa şi fiinţa; ba chiar, în Identicul absolut, a fi şi a nu fi trebuie să fie Identicul însuşi.
Cei care spun că un lucru există se referă la Identic, după cum tot la Identic se referă dacă spun că el nu există. De aceea Identicul absolut este astfel încât în el nu se poate afla vreo opoziţie car să nu îngăduie Identicul, aşa încât toate celelalte diverse, opuse, compuse, contractate, generale, speciale sunt mult posterioare acestui Identic absolut.
Când spunem că Diferitul este diferit, afirmăm de fapt că Diferitul este identic cu sine însuşi, deoarece Diferitul nu poate fi diferit decât prin Identicul absolut, prin care tot ceea ce există este identic cu sine însuşi şi este altceva decât altul. Dar nici un lucru care e identic cu sine şi diferit de altceva nu este Identicul absolut: acesta nu este nici identic, nici diferit de altceva (nu e identic – cum i s-ar potrivi atunci la modul absolut calificativul absolut de „identic”?, şi nici diferit – cum s-ar putea potrivi diversitatea faţă de Identicul absolut, care precedă orice diferenţă şi alteritate?) ”
Dintre toate fiinţele nu există nici una care să nu fie identică cu sine şi diferită de alta, deci nici una din ele nu este Identicul absolut, chiar Identicul absolut nu este diferit de nici una din cele identice cu sine şi diferite de celelalte.
Identicul absolut, „Dumnezeu”, nu este supus numărului împreună cu nimic altceva, aşa încât Dumnezeu şi cerul să fie mai multe, sau două, sau altele şi diferite, după cum nici cerul nu este Identicul absolut (cerul fiind altul decât pământul). Iar fiindcă identicul absolut este în act Forma oricărei forme ce poate fi formată, forma nu poate exista în afara Identicului, căci forma face ca un lucru să fie identic cu sine dar faptul că un lucru este diferit de un altul se datorează Identicului absolut, adică Formei oricărei forme. Aşadar, Identicul absolut este începutul, mijlocul şi sfârşitul oricărei forme, actualizarea absolută a oricărei potenţe, el este Identicul necontractat în ceea ce este diferenţiat, în care universalul nu se opune particularului, fiindcă acestea urmează după el, universalul fiind identic cu sine şi diferit de particular, tot astfel şi particularul. Identicul absolut este înălţat deci deasupra tuturor universalelor intelectuale şi a particularelor reale existente.
Toate lucrurile participă la Identicul absolut căci dacă Identicul absolut ar fi altul şi diferit de toate lucrurile, ele n-ar fi ceea ce sunt. Cum ar putea fi un lucru oarecare identic cu sine dacă Identicul absolut ar fi diferit, distinct sau altul decât el? Tot astfel, dacă participantul la Identic ar fi acelaşi cu Identicul la care participă, cum ar putea fi diferit de un altul car e şi el identic cu sine însuşi?
De la Dumnezeu, Care este cel mai pur Intelect, existând complet şi în act, se ivesc formele naturale ale lucrurilor prin porunca voinţei, aşa cum se iveşte forma unei case la porunca arhitectului căruia i se supun uneltele. Orice agent, fiind identic cu sine însuşi, produce identitate, deci orice agent reprezintă în acţiunile sale, printr-o anumită analogie, <actul> Creaţiei.
Sticlarul adună materialul, apoi ajutat de foc, îl potriveşte în cuptor, apoi, prin intermediul unui tub de fier cu care materialul este legat pentru ca, prin suflarea meşterului, să primească forma vasului conceput în mintea meşterului, sticlarul suflă un duf care pătrunde în materialul însuşi; iar prin intermediul duhului care pune în mişcare materialul conform cu intenţia meşterului, el face un vas de sticlă din materialul căruia îi lipsea orice formă de vas.
<Forma> aceasta formează materia pentru ca vasul să fie aşa cum este, de o asemenea specie, încât materialul acela, acum stând sub o formă, este lipsit de posibilitatea universală de a avea orice formă de vas, fiindcă posibilitatea universală este specificată în act. Dar atunci când meşterul îşi propune ca din vasul acesta, de această specie, să facă un altul de o altă specie, văzând că nici vasul acesta, nici părţile lui nu pot deveni ceea ce are el în gând (fiindcă oricare <vas> este întreg şi complet, iar părţile lui sunt părţi ale acelui întreg), el face ca vasul sau bucăţile lui să se întoarcă la materia primă, înlăturând actualitatea formei <în care era turnat> vasul.
Iar materialul fiind atunci readus prin dizolvare la fluiditate şi la posibilitatea universală, el face un alt vas. Printr-o astfel de asemuire, chiar dacă îndepărtată, Dumnezeu, deşi nu culege din ceva vreun lucru pe care să nu-l fi creat, duce spre fiinţă posibilitatea tuturor lucrurilor. Şi natura se foloseşte de căldura soarelui în formele sensibile precum sticlarul de foc: natura acţionează precum suflarea sticlarului, ea fiind condusă de mintea Artistului suprem precum suflarea meşterului de mintea acestuia.

Pentru a-l chema pe învăţăcelul neinstruit spre o identitate a măiestriei, învăţătorul cheamă tăcerea spre vorbire, ca asemuire a conceptului său, iar tăcerea se ridică prin asimilarea conceptului magistrului – asimilare care este efectiv un cuvânt intelectual, figurat în cel raţional, iar acesta în cel sensibil.
Cuvântul sensibil, în ce priveşte vocalizarea lui, se ridică din tăcere şi, trecând prin stadiul de sunet confuz, devine o rostire distinctă, articulată. Cei mai îndepărtaţi de magistrul care repetă aud un fel de sunet confuz, deci sunetul iese ca posibilitate sau materie proximă a rostirii. De aceea, atunci când o rostire este chemată din tăcere, mai întâi ia naştere un sunet ca un fel de posibilitate a rostirii, astfel încât posibilitatea care e sunet nu este nici tăcere, nici rostire formată, ci una formabilă, apoi din sunetul confuz iau naştere literele, apoi combinaţia literelor în silabe, a silabelor în expresii, a expresiilor într-un enunţ. Acestea se petrec treptat, în această ordine, atunci când tăcerea este chemată spre rostirea cuvântului vocal, chiar dacă auzul nu percepe cu adevărat deosebirea de anterioritate şi posterioritate.
Cuvântul astfel rostit de magistru conţine apoi în sine o triplă ordine. Căci acesta este cuvânt sensibil şi el este perceput numai cu urechile sensibile de către cei care ignoră complet cuvintele <rostite>, iar modul acesta ţine de animalitate, căci toate animalele, împreună cu omul care ignoră termenii <folosiţi>, nu percep altceva decât sunetul care a fost articulat.
Cuvântul acela este apoi cuvânt raţional, fiindcă cele rostite sunt percepute de cunoscători, de aceea întrucât numai raţiunea pricepe termenii <folosiţi>, la fel şi vorbirea magistrului este percepută numai de om, iar nu de animale.
Dar fiindcă, cel ce studiază gramatica nu poate sesiza decât vorbirea magistrului, nu şi mintea lui, care se străduieşte să explice prin vorbire un concept matematic sau teologic, cuvântul magistrului există într-o altă ordine raţională decât a învăţăcelului. Apoi, întrucât cel ce studiază matematica sau teologia priveşte mintea magistrului în cuvântul acestuia, se deduce de aici cuvântul intelectual, care aparţine celei de a treia ordini, purtând cea mai apropiată asemuire cu mintea magistrului. În privinţa rostirii cuvântului însuşi, la magistru se mai vede şi o anumită putere a suflării, din care trebuie să provină diversele mişcări ale limbii, ale buzelor şi ale altor organe.
Identicul absolut este ÎN ACT Forma oricărei forme ce poate fi formată, forma nu poate exista în afara Identicului, căci forma face ca un lucru să fie identic cu sine. Cu cât un lucru tinde spre a fi identic cu sine, cu atât se apropie de Identicul absolut care este Forma oricărei forme ce poate fi formată.


Pentru Dumnezeu, a cunoaşte este a fi, pentru El, a fi este fiinţa Lui, pentru El cunoaşterea este prezenţa Fiinţei divine în toate făpturile. Mintea noastră nu e prezentă în toate pe care le cunoaşte, aşa cum e Dumnezeu, care, Cunoscând, creează şi dă formă. Ci prin cunoaştere mintea noastră discerne între cele create, aşa încât le îmbrăţişează pe toate prin puterea ei conceptuală. După cum Dumnezeu are în Sine modelele tuturor lucrurilor pentru a le putea forma pe toate, la fel şi mintea (noastră) are în sine modelele tuturor lucrurilor pentru a le putea cunoaşte pe toate. Dumnezeu este Puterea creatoare şi prin această putere El face ca toate să fie cu adevărat ceea ce sunt, El fiind fiinţa tuturor făpturilor. Mintea noastră este o putere conceptuală şi, prin puterea aceasta, ea face ca toate lucrurile să existe conceptual. Aşadar, adevărul este obiectul ei, şi dacă-şi asimilează conceptul ei cu adevărul, posedă în cunoaşterea ei toate lucrurile, iar ele se numesc „entităţi ale raţiunii”. Căci în cunoaşterea minţii (noastre) o piatră nu este o entitate reală, ci una a raţiunii. Dumnezeu nu are nevoie de număr ca să discearnă, pe când fără de număr minţii noastre îi este cu neputinţă să discearnă alterităţile şi deosebirile lucrurilor.
Dumnezeu le creează pe toate, chiar şi lucrurile alterabile, schimbătoare şi coruptibile, dar alteritatea şi schimbarea sau coruptibilitatea nu El le creează: fiind însăşi Fiinţa, nu creează pieirea, ci fiinţarea. Iar faptul că se alterează sau pier nu-l au de la Creator, ci aceasta se întâmplă astfel doar în mod contingent. Dumnezeu este cauza eficientă a materiei – nu a privaţiunii şi a lipsei, ci a prilejului şi a posibilităţii, după care urmează lipsa, astfel încât nu există prilej fără o lipsă care survine în mod contingent. Aşadar, răul şi capacitatea de a păcătui, de a muri şi de a se altera nu sunt creaturi ale lui Dumnezeu, Care este Fiinţă. Alteritatea nu poate ţine deci de esenţa vreunui lucru, fiinţa neaflându-se în ea, nici ea în fiinţă. Iar ea nu ţine nici de esenţa dualităţii, chiar dacă, prin simplul fapt că este o dualitate, îi aplică fiinţei în mod contingent o alteritate.
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