René Guénon
Some Observations
Schuon, Frithjof.
Hillsdale, NY: Sophia Perennis, 2004.
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 80
ISBN: 0-900588-85-3
Price: $15.95
Table of Contents:
Editorial Note—René Guénon: Definitions—René Guénon: A Note—René Guénon: Some Observations—Frithjof Schuon and René Guénon (Paul Serant)—Letter
Description:
To the 'mathematical' precision of Guénon's metaphysics, cosmology, and esoteric history, Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) added a poetic or 'musical' element, inspired by his close relationship to the Divine Feminine. He also presented the spiritual path as a concrete praxis, involving the spiritual virtues and 'stations of wisdom', that was not so prominent in Guénon's writings. On the other hand, Guénon's prophetic eschatology, especially in The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, as well as his analysis of the 'counter-tradition', gives him a unexpectedly contemporary 'edge' that is perhaps less prominent in Schuon's more aesthetic approach.
René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon illuminate each other, both through their unanimity and the specific points where they differ. Each is almost the only means of taking the other's measure. Questions of who was greater, who more traditional, are finally less interesting than the tremendous vision of human reality and spiritual truth that emerges from their shared role as renewers of traditional metaphysics and religious understanding. Schuon, as the younger man, was in a position to compose an evaluation of his early intellectual master, and in view of his long and illustrious career as an author after Guénon's death, Schuon's central essay René Guénon: Some Observations is also his profoundly appreciative as well as pointedly critical declaration of independence (though simultaneously a declaration of collegiality) from the man who, more than anyone else in the modern world, opened to him a fundamental view of 'principial' reality.
For us, the works of Guénon are not so much an attempt to create an 'intellectual elite', such as was envisaged—on an incontestably problematical basis—in his book East and West, as the radiance of pure principles: the presentation, both precise and profound, of crucial ideas, and thus of indispensable truths. And for these keys, we owe Guénon an unfailing gratitude.
Frithjof Schuon
About the Author:
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998), born in Switzerland of German parents, received his early education in French and German. From his youth, Schuon devoted himself to search for metaphysical truth, studying the classics of Western philosophy and the sacred literatures of the East. Moving to France, Schuon became influenced by the writings of René Guénon, which confirmed his own intellectual intuitions. A student of Arabic and Islam, Schuon travelled several times to North Africa, where he met Guénon and the Algerian Sufi Shaykh Ahmad al-'Alawi. Imprisoned by the Germans in the Second World War, he was eventually released and granted asylum by Switzerland, which became his home until 1980, when he emigrated to the USA. Metaphysician, poet, and painter, Schuon's writings have been compared to those of Plato and Shankaracharya. A sampling of his oeuvre is available in The Essential Writings of Frithjof Schuon, edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Of his first publication in English, The Transcendent Unity of Religions (1953), T.S. Elliot remarked, 'I have met with no more impressive work on the comparative study of Oriental and Occidental religion.'