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Consciousness of the Absolute is the prerogative of human intelligence, and also its aim. - Frithjof Schuon
" "Consciousness of the Absolute is the prerogative of human intelligence, and also its aim.
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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
The principal cause of a lack of metaphysical understanding is not so much a fundamental intellectual incapacity as a passional attachment to concepts that are congruent with man’s natural individualism. On the one hand, transcending this individualism predisposes man to such an understanding; on the other hand, total metaphysics contributes to this transcending; every spiritual realization has two poles or two points of departure, one being situated in our thought, and the other in our being.
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.
Prayer − in the widest sense − triumphs over the four accidents of our existence: the world, life, the body, the soul; we might also say: space, time, matter, desire. It is situated in existence like a shelter, like an islet. In it alone we are perfectly ourselves, because it puts us into the presence of God. It is like a diamond, which nothing can tarnish and nothing can resist.
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