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Gnosis is essentially the path of the intellect and thus of intellection; the motive force of this path is above all intelligence, not will and senti… - Frithjof Schuon
" "Gnosis is essentially the path of the intellect and thus of intellection; the motive force of this path is above all intelligence, 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 Ātmā and Māyā and the consciousness of the potential identity between the human subject, jīvātmā, and the Divine Subject, Paramātmā.
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About Frithjof Schuon
Frithjof Schuon ( ; ; 18 June 1907 – 5 May 1998) was a Swiss philosopher and spiritual leader, belonging to the Traditionalist School of Perennialism. He was the author of more than twenty works in French on metaphysics, spirituality, religion, anthropology and art. He was also a painter and a poet. With René Guénon and Ananda Coomaraswamy, Schuon was one of the major 20th-century representatives of the philosophia perennis. Like them, he affirmed the reality of an absolute Principle – God – from which the universe emanates, and maintained that all divine revelations, despite their differences, possess a common essence: one and the same Truth. He also shared with them the certitude that man is potentially capable of supra-rational knowledge, and undertook a sustained critique of the modern mentality severed, according to him, from its traditional roots. Following Plato, Plotinus, Adi Shankara, Meister Eckhart, Ibn Arabī and other metaphysicians, Schuon sought to affirm the metaphysical unity between the Principle and its manifestation. Initiated by Sheikh Ahmad al-Alawī into the Sufi Shādhilī order, he founded the Tarīqa Maryamiyya. His writings emphasize the universality of metaphysical doctrine, along with the necessity of practicing a religion; he also insists on the importance of the virtues and of beauty. Schuon cultivated close relationships with a large number of personages of diverse religious and spiritual horizons. He had a particular interest in the traditions of the North American Plains Indians, maintaining firm friendships with a number of their leaders and being adopted into both a Lakota Sioux tribe and the Crow tribe. Having spent a large part of his life in France and Switzerland, at the age of 73 moved to Bloomington, Indiana, where he had a community of disciples.
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Isâ Nûr ad-Dîn
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Isa Nur ad-Din
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Fritjof Schuon
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Sheikh Issa Nureddin Ahmad al-Shadhili al-Darqawi al-Alawi al-Maryami
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Additional quotes by Frithjof Schuon
If every man possessed intellect, not merely in a fragmentary or virtual state, but as a fully developed faculty, there would be no Revelations, because total intellection would be a natural thing; but as this has not been so since the end of the Golden Age, Revelation is not only necessary, but even normative with regard to individual intellection, or rather with regard to its formal expression. No intellectuality is possible outside a revealed mode of expression, a scriptural or oral tradition, although intellection can occur, as an isolated miracle, wherever the intellective faculty exists; but an intellection outside tradition will have neither authority nor efficacy. Intellection has need of occasional causes in order to become fully aware of itself and exercised without constraints; therefore in milieus that are practically speaking deprived of Revelation − or forgetful of the sapiential meanings of the revealed Word − intellectuality generally exists only in a latent state; even where it is still affirmed despite everything, perceived truths are made inoperative by their overly fragmentary character and by the mental chaos which surrounds them. For the intellect, Revelation is like a principle of actualization, expression and control; in practice the revealed "letter" is indispensable in intellectual life.
The perception of beauty, being a strict adequation and not a subjective illusion, essentially entails, on the one hand, a sense of satisfaction for the intelligence, and on the other, a sentiment at once of security, infinity, and love. Of security: because beauty is unitive and excludes, by means of a kind of musical evidence, the fissures of doubt and worry; of infinity: because beauty, by its very musicality, melts all hardness and limitations, thus freeing the soul from its constrictions, be it only in a minute and remote manner; of love: because beauty conjures love, that is to say, it draws the soul to union and hence to unitive extinction.
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