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Frithjof Schuon

178 quotes

“To say that man is "made in the image of God" means that he represents a central and not a peripheral subjectivity, and consequently a subject which, emanating directly from the Divine Intellect, participates in principle in the power of the latter; man can know all that is real, hence knowable, otherwise he would not be that earthly divinity which in fact he is.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is in man’s theomorphic nature that in his capacity as man and in God’s creative intention, he cannot be something fragmentary or incomplete − which cuts short the absurdities of transformist evolution − thus that he must be something which is everything, and would be nothing if it were not everything; and it is in this sense that it has been said that man’s fundamental vocation is to "become what he is".”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man is a divine manifestation, not in his accidentality and his fallen state, but in his theomorphism and his primordial and principial perfection. He is the "field of manifestation" of the intellect, which reflects the universal Spirit and thereby the divine Intellect; man as such reflects the cosmic totality, the Creation, and thereby the Being of God.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Moral liberty and intellectual objectivity constitute a priori man’s deiformity.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The human being, by his nature, is condemned to the supernatural.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Objective intelligence, free will, virtuous soul: these are the three prerogatives that constitute man.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The double mission of man: to know the Absolute from the standpoint of the contingent, and to manifest the Absolute within the contingent.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the proofs of our immortality is that the soul − which is essentially intelligence and consciousness − cannot have an end that is beneath itself, namely matter or the mental reflections of matter; the higher cannot be merely a function of the lower, it cannot be merely a means in relation to what it surpasses. Thus it is intelligence in itself − and with it our freedom − which proves the divine scope of our nature and our destiny. Whether people understand it or not, the Absolute alone is proportionate to the essence of our intelligence.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The human vocation is to realize that which constitutes man's raison d’être: a projection of God and, therefore, a bridge between earth and Heaven; or a point of view that allows God to see Himself starting from an other-than-Himself, even though this other, in the final analysis, can only be Himself, for God is known only through God.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A priori, virility refers to the Principle, and feminity to Manifestation; but in an altogether different respect, that of complementarity in divinis, the masculine body expresses transcendence, and the feminine body, immanence; immanence being close to love, and transcendence to knowledge.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ego is at the same time a system of images and a cycle; it is something like a museum, and a unique and irreversible journey through that museum. The ego is a moving fabric made of images and tendencies; the tendencies come from our own substance, and the images are furnished by the environment. We put ourselves into things, and we place things in ourselves, whereas our true being is independent of them.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We live at the same time in the body, the head, and the heart, so that we may sometimes ask ourselves where the genuine "I" is located; in fact the ego proper, the empirical "I", has its sensory seat in the brain, but it readily gravitates toward the body and tends to identify itself with it, whereas the heart is the symbolic seat of the Self, of which we may or may not be aware, but which is our true existential, intellectual, and therefore universal center.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the soul has recognized that its true being is beyond this phenomenal nucleus which is the empirical ego and when it willingly holds fast to the Center − and this is the chief virtue, poverty, or effacement, or humility − the ordinary ego appears to the soul as outward to itself, and the world, on the contrary, appears to it as its own prolongation; all the more so since it feels itself everywhere in the Hand of God.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Intellect constitutes the raison d’être of the human condition.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Reason perceives the general and proceeds by logical operations, whereas Intellect perceives the principial − the metaphysical − and proceeds by intuition.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Divine Order is absolute with respect to human relativity, although not with respect to the pure Intellect, which transcends all relativity − effectively or potentially − otherwise we would not even have the notion of the Absolute.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Human intelligence, or the intellect, cannot disclose to us the aseity of the Absolute, and no sensible person would ask this of it; the intellect can give us points of reference, and this is all that is necessary as regards discriminative and introductory knowledge, the knowledge that can be expressed through words. But the intellect is not only discriminative, it is also contemplative, hence unitive, and in this respect it cannot be said to be limited, any more than a mirror limits the light reflected in it; the contemplative dimension of the intellect coincides with the ineffable.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man's thought, or his intelligence, is made for the divine Truth, and man's heart, or his being, is made for the divine Presence.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is logical that those who rely exclusively upon Revelation and not upon Intellection should be inclined to discredit intelligence, whence the notion of "intellectual pride". They are justified when it is a question of "our" intelligence "alone", but not when it is a question of intelligence in itself, inspired by the Intellect which is ultimately divine. For the sin of the philosophers consists, not in relying upon intelligence as such, but in relying upon their own intelligence, hence upon intelligence severed from its supernatural roots.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Consciousness of the Absolute is the prerogative of human intelligence, and also its aim.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Intellectual genius should not be confused with the mental acuity of logicians: intellectual intuition comprises in its essence a contemplativity that is in no way part of the rational capacity, this capacity being logical rather than contemplative; now it is contemplative power, receptivity toward the uncreated Light, the opening of the Eye of the heart, which distinguishes transcendent intelligence from reason.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Direct and supra-mental intellection is in reality a "remembering" and not an "acquisition": intelligence in this realm does not take cognizance of something located in principle outside itself, but all possible knowledge is on the contrary contained in the luminous substance of the Intellect − which is identified with the Logos by "filiation of essence" − so that the "remembering" is nothing other than an actualization, thanks to an occasional external cause or an internal inspiration, of a given eternal potentiality of the intellective substance.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The word "God" does not and cannot admit of any restriction, for the simple reason that God is "all that is purely principial", hence also − and a fortiori − "Beyond-Being"; one may not know this or may deny it, but it cannot be denied that God is "That which is supreme", hence That which nothing can surpass.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are three great theophanies, or three hypostases, which are, in descending order: firstly, Beyond-Being or the Self, Absolute Reality, Âtmâ; secondly, Being or the Lord, who creates, reveals and judges; and thirdly, the manifested Divine Spirit, which Itself possesses three modes: the universal or archangelic Intellect, the Man-Logos, who reveals in a human language, and the Intellect in ourselves, which is "neither created or uncreated", and which confers upon the human species its central, axial and "pontifical" rank, one which is virtually divine with regard to other creatures.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some will no doubt point out that Buddhism proves that the notion of God has nothing fundamental about it and that one can very well dispense with it in both metaphysics and spirituality; they would be right if Buddhists did not possess the idea of the Absolute or of transcendence, or of immanent Justice with its complement, Mercy; this is all that is needed to show that Buddhism, though it does not possess the word − or not our word − nonetheless possesses the reality itself.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Divine anthropomorphism responds to human theomorphism: if God can manifest Himself in human modalities, it is because man is "made in the image of God", and this is the very reason for man’s existence and for the cosmic miracle that he is.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To say that God is "unknowable" is, on the one hand simply a manner of speaking which intends to emphasize that reason is limited in principle, and on the other hand that the intellect, accidentally obscured, is limited in fact. To possess total Knowledge is to be possessed by it: it is to be a "knower by God" (ʿārif bi ʾLlāh), in the sense that God reveals Himself to the extent that He is, in us, both the Subject and the Object of Knowledge.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In pure theosophy there is no question of wishing to remove from God His mysteries by means of unveilings and specifications; for however acute our discernments, the divine mystery remains complete by reason of the Infinitude of the Real.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When God is absent, pride fills the void.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the spiritual order a proof is of assistance only to the man who wishes to understand and who, because of this wish, has in some measure understood already; it is of no practical use to one who, deep in his heart, does not want to change his position and whose philosophy merely expresses this desire.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is nothing more contradictory than a cerebral intelligence opposing itself to cardiac intelligence, whether it be to deny the possibility of knowledge or to deny the ultimate Knower: how can one not feel instinctively, "viscerally", existentially, that one cannot be intelligent, even very relatively so, without an Intelligence "in itself" that is both transcendent and immanent, and not grasp that subjectivity by itself is an immediate and quasi-fulgurating proof of the Omniscient, a proof almost too blindingly evident to be able to be formulated in words?”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we must love God, and love him more than ourselves and our neighbor, it is because love exists before us and because we are issued from it; we love by virtue of our very existence.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To love God does not mean to cultivate a sentiment − that is to say, something we enjoy without knowing whether God enjoys it − but to eliminate from the soul what prevents God from entering it.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love of God is firstly the attachment of the intelligence to the Truth, then the attachment of the will to the Good, and finally the attachment of the soul to the Peace that is given by the Truth and the Good.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One cannot love God without fearing him, any more than one can love one's neighbor without respecting him; not to fear God is to prevent Him showing mercy.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To fear God is first of all to see, on the level of action, consequences in causes, sanction in sin, suffering in error; to love God is first to choose God, that is to say, to prefer what brings one nearer Him over what estranges from Him.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Without fear of God as a basis, nothing is possible spiritually, for the absence of fear is a lack of self-knowledge.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fear of God is not in any way a matter of feeling any more than is the love of God; like love, which is the tendency of our whole being toward transcendent Reality, fear is an attitude of the intelligence and the will: it consists in taking account at every moment of a Reality which infinitely surpasses us, against which we can do nothing, in opposition to which we could not live, and from the teeth of which we cannot escape.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beauty, whatever use man may make of it, belongs fundamentally to its Creator, who through it projects into the world of appearances something of His being.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The beautiful is not that which we love and because we love it, but that which by its objective value obliges us to love it.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beauty is a reflection of divine beatitude; and since God is Truth, the reflection of His beatitude will be that blend of happiness and truth found in all beauty.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The beauty of the sacred is a symbol or a foretaste of, and sometimes a means for, the joy that God alone procures.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The interiorization of beauty presupposes nobility of soul and at the same time produces it.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The cosmic, and more particularly the earthly, function of beauty is to actualize in the intelligent and sensitive creature the Platonic recollection of the archetypes, and thus open the way towards the luminous Night of the one and infinite Essence.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beauty is a message that implies a reciprocity and a commitment: it implies a reciprocity between God and man, and a commitment from man to God. In and by beauty, God gives us a message of His nature; He reveals for our sake an archetype and an essence. Beauty is a manifestation of Mercy. Man’s gratitude is that, having glimpsed divine Beauty, he gives himself to God in his heart; to give oneself to God is the response proportionate to the earthly beauty in which God, in revealing Mercy, has given Himself to man.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The chief difficulty of the spiritual life is to maintain a simple, qualitative, heavenly position in a complex, quantitative, earthly setting.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The worldly or imperfect man journeys through life as if on a long road; if he is a believer, he sees God above him in the far distance, and also at the end of this road. However the spiritual man stands in God, and life passes before him like a stream.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is less the pettinesses of the world that poison us than the fact of thinking of them too much. We should never lose our awareness of the luminous and calm grandeur of the Sovereign Good, which dissolves all the knots of this world here below.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are agitated because we believe we have a motive for being so, that is to say, we take into account the accidents only, instead of looking toward the Substance; phenomena draw us into a vicious circle and make us forget that we bear within ourselves that which we are seeking outside.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are two moments in life which are everything, and these are the present moment, when we are free to choose what we wish to be, and the moment of death, when we no longer have any choice and the decision belongs to God. Now if the present moment is good, death shall be good; if we are with God now − in this present which is ceaselessly being renewed but which always remains this one and only moment of actuality − God shall be with us at the moment of our death. The remembrance of God is a death in life; it shall be a life in death.”
Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source