As someone who awoke rather late to the importance of mathematics (whose general use for the esoteric student is not only helpful, but even necessary), I decided to read my first full Rene Guenon treatise. The fundamental distinction which he makes is between the Indefinite and the Infinite. Since Wilhelm … Continue reading
Category Archives: Rene Guenon
The Esoteric Path
It would be better to be able to take as its basis a Western organization already enjoying an effective existence. It seems quite clear that there is now but one organization in the West that is of a traditional character and that has preserved a doctrine that could serve as an appropriate basis for the work in question. Continue reading
The Exoteric Path
If our contemporaries as a whole could see what it is that is guiding them and where they are really going, the modern world would at once cease to exist as such. Continue reading
The Crown of Creation
The understanding of esoteric symbols is the result of revelations given by divine grace, and this demands a progressive opening out, in quality and in strength, of adequate faculties latent in the student. One arrives at this through a tension of the will toward the goal of the search. When it is strong enough and properly oriented, this tension resolves itself in a series of partial revelations that are acquired, and which lead by stages toward those that are given. Continue reading
Esoteric Anthropology
So the first task is to begin observing and transcending the misconceptions of the first stage. A temporary “I” develops that integrates the three lower centers. This is still a transitional, or psychological, state, often represented as the lower Ego. Continue reading
Multiplicity and Unity
Analogously, we see this in the microcosm of our own mind. Our spirit manifests itself in a multiplicity of feelings, thoughts, and desires, while remaining one. This does not mean, however, that there is always an awareness of the unity of the spirit. On the contrary, usually a course of spiritual development is necessary to bring about this awareness of the I as subject of the multiplicity of experiences. This I is prior to its manifestations. Continue reading
The Purpose of Life
The stone exists; the plant exists and is living; the animal lives and is conscious of its life. Man understands the meaning of life according to ideas; the Sons of God actively realize this meaning or the perfect morel order in all things to the end. Continue reading
Initiation and the State of War
men of Tradition in the West today are in a “state of war” or a state of transition, since there is the memory of a recent Tradition yet no way to fully embrace it. Continue reading
The Perennial Wisdom
While Sanatana and Perennis are equivalent, Guenon claims that Philosophia is not exactly the same as dharma. The latter term refers to doctrine that is not understood as a theory, but “as a knowledge which must be effectively realized” and its applications extend to all modalities of human life, without exception. Continue reading
The Seed of the Future World
Recently someone, claiming to be a Hindu priest despite looking European, informed me vaguely that Westerners misunderstand the Sanatana Dharma. Since my understanding is heavily colored by the writings of Rene Guenon, we shall rely on his essay on that topic included in the collection Studies in Hinduism. We shall … Continue reading