Traditional Quotes and Symbols
The worth of man lies in his consciousness of the Absolute, and therefore in the depth of this consciousness; having lost sight of it by plunging himself into the world of phenomena viewed as such, man needs to be reminded of it by the celestial Message.
One cannot understand the meaning of the divine Message without knowing the nature of the human receptacle; he who understands man, understands all the supernatural and cannot help but accept it. Now man is made to contemplate the Absolute starting from contingency; the Absolute is conscious of Itself in Itself, but It also wishes to be conscious of Itself starting from another than Itself; this indirect vision is a possibility necessarily included in the Infinitude belonging to the Absolute. In consequence it could not not be realized; it is necessary that there be a world, beings, men.
To contemplate the Absolute starting from the contingent is correlatively to see things in God and to see God in things, in such a manner that they do not take us away from God and that on the contrary they bring us near to Him; this is the reason for the existence of man, and from it ensue existential rights as well as spiritual duties.
Man in principle has the right to the satisfaction of his elementary needs and to the enjoyment of a congenial ambience, but he has this right only in view of his vocation of knowing God, whence derives his duty to practice the disciplines that contribute directly or indirectly to this knowledge.
The worth of man lies in his consciousness of the Absolute, and consequently in the integrality and the depth of this consciousness; having lost sight of it by plunging himself into the world of phenomena viewed as such (this is prefigured by the fall of the first couple), man needs to be reminded of it by the celestial Message.
Fundamentally, this Message comes from "himself:' not of course from his empirical "I" but from his immanent Ipseity, which is that of God and without which there would be no "1'', whether human, angelic, or any other; the credibility of the Message results from the fact that it is what we are, both within ourselves and beyond ourselves. In the depths of transcendence is immanence, and in the depths of immanence, transcendence.
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From the Divine to the Human by Frithjof Schuon
The worth of man lies in his consciousness of the Absolute, and therefore in the depth of this consciousness; having lost sight of it by plunging himself into the world of phenomena viewed as such, man needs to be reminded of it by the celestial Message.
One cannot understand the meaning of the divine Message without knowing the nature of the human receptacle; he who understands man, understands all the supernatural and cannot help but accept it. Now man is made to contemplate the Absolute starting from contingency; the Absolute is conscious of Itself in Itself, but It also wishes to be conscious of Itself starting from another than Itself; this indirect vision is a possibility necessarily included in the Infinitude belonging to the Absolute. In consequence it could not not be realized; it is necessary that there be a world, beings, men.
To contemplate the Absolute starting from the contingent is correlatively to see things in God and to see God in things, in such a manner that they do not take us away from God and that on the contrary they bring us near to Him; this is the reason for the existence of man, and from it ensue existential rights as well as spiritual duties.
Man in principle has the right to the satisfaction of his elementary needs and to the enjoyment of a congenial ambience, but he has this right only in view of his vocation of knowing God, whence derives his duty to practice the disciplines that contribute directly or indirectly to this knowledge.
The worth of man lies in his consciousness of the Absolute, and consequently in the integrality and the depth of this consciousness; having lost sight of it by plunging himself into the world of phenomena viewed as such (this is prefigured by the fall of the first couple), man needs to be reminded of it by the celestial Message.
Fundamentally, this Message comes from "himself:' not of course from his empirical "I" but from his immanent Ipseity, which is that of God and without which there would be no "1'', whether human, angelic, or any other; the credibility of the Message results from the fact that it is what we are, both within ourselves and beyond ourselves. In the depths of transcendence is immanence, and in the depths of immanence, transcendence.
---
From the Divine to the Human by Frithjof Schuon