Traditional Quotes and Symbols
Maya is the reverberation of the Self in the direction of nothingness. Nothingness cannot exist, but the direction towards nothingness exists and indeed this observation is fundamental in metaphysics.
Nothingness certainly has neither being nor existence, but it is none the less a kind of metaphysical 'direction', something we can conceive and pursue, but never attain; 'evil' is none other than 'nothingness manifested' or 'the impossible made possible.
To say that 'God became man in order that man might become God' means in the final analysis (if we want to pursue this reciprocity to its ultimate foundations) that Reality has entered into nothingness, so that nothingness might become real.
If it be objected here that nothingness, being nothing, can play no part, the answer lies in two questions: how is the existence of the very idea of nothingness to be explained? How is it that there is a 'nothing' on the level of relativities and in everyday experience?
Nothingness certainly has neither being nor existence, but it is none the less a kind of metaphysical 'direction', something we can conceive and pursue, but never attain; 'evil' is none other than 'nothingness manifested' or 'the impossible made possible: Evil never lives from its own substance, which is non-existent, but it corrodes or perverts the good, just as disease could not exist without the body which it tends to destroy; evil, says St Thomas, is there to allow the coming of a greater good, and in fact qualities have need of corresponding privations to enable them to be affirmed distinctively and separately.
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Maya is the reverberation of the Self in the direction of nothingness*, or the totality of the reverberations of the Self; the innumerable relative subjects 'are' the Self under the aspect of'Consciousness' (Chit), and the innumerable relative objects are once again the Self, but this time under the aspect of 'Being' (Sat). Their reciprocal relationships- or their 'common life’ constitute 'Beatitude' (Ananda), in manifested mode, of course; this is made up of everything in the world which is expansion, enjoyment or movement.
*Nothingness cannot exist, but the 'direction towards' nothingness exists, and indeed this observation is fundamental in metaphysics.
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Frithjof Schuon
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Quoted in: The Essential Frithjof Schuon (edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)
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Image: The Ardabil carpet
Maya is the reverberation of the Self in the direction of nothingness. Nothingness cannot exist, but the direction towards nothingness exists and indeed this observation is fundamental in metaphysics.
Nothingness certainly has neither being nor existence, but it is none the less a kind of metaphysical 'direction', something we can conceive and pursue, but never attain; 'evil' is none other than 'nothingness manifested' or 'the impossible made possible.
To say that 'God became man in order that man might become God' means in the final analysis (if we want to pursue this reciprocity to its ultimate foundations) that Reality has entered into nothingness, so that nothingness might become real.
If it be objected here that nothingness, being nothing, can play no part, the answer lies in two questions: how is the existence of the very idea of nothingness to be explained? How is it that there is a 'nothing' on the level of relativities and in everyday experience?
Nothingness certainly has neither being nor existence, but it is none the less a kind of metaphysical 'direction', something we can conceive and pursue, but never attain; 'evil' is none other than 'nothingness manifested' or 'the impossible made possible: Evil never lives from its own substance, which is non-existent, but it corrodes or perverts the good, just as disease could not exist without the body which it tends to destroy; evil, says St Thomas, is there to allow the coming of a greater good, and in fact qualities have need of corresponding privations to enable them to be affirmed distinctively and separately.
---
Maya is the reverberation of the Self in the direction of nothingness*, or the totality of the reverberations of the Self; the innumerable relative subjects 'are' the Self under the aspect of'Consciousness' (Chit), and the innumerable relative objects are once again the Self, but this time under the aspect of 'Being' (Sat). Their reciprocal relationships- or their 'common life’ constitute 'Beatitude' (Ananda), in manifested mode, of course; this is made up of everything in the world which is expansion, enjoyment or movement.
*Nothingness cannot exist, but the 'direction towards' nothingness exists, and indeed this observation is fundamental in metaphysics.
---
Frithjof Schuon
---
Quoted in: The Essential Frithjof Schuon (edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)
---
Image: The Ardabil carpet