Traditional Quotes and Symbols
Whatever is not here is nowhere, and whatever is not now will never be. As is this moment in which I am free to choose God, so will be death, Judgement and Eternity.
Actualization of the consciousness of the Absolute (the "remembrance of God" or "prayer" in so far as it brings about a fundamental confrontation of creature and Creator) is already a death and a meeting with God and it places us already in Eternity; it is already something of Paradise and even, in its mysterious and "uncreated" quintessence, something of God.
Whatever is not here is nowhere, and whatever is not now will never be. As is this moment in which I am free to choose God, so will be death, Judgement and Eternity. Likewise in this center, this Divine point which I am free to choose in the face of this boundless and multiple world, I am already in invisible Reality.
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Human life is studded with uncertainties; man loses himself in what is uncertain instead of holding on to what is absolutely certain in his destiny, namely death, Judgement and Eternity. (But besides these there is a fourth certainty, immediately accessible moreover to human experience, and this is the present moment, in which man is free to choose either the Real or the illusory, and thus to ascertain for himself the value of the three great eschatological certainties. )
The consciousness of the sage is founded upon these three points of reference, whether directly or in an indirect and implicit manner through "remembrance of God".
Besides the dimension of succession, however, one must also consider that of simultaneity, which is based on spatial symbolism: the world around us is full of possibilities presented to our choice, whether we wish it or not; thus it is full of uncertainties, not successive as in the flux of life, but simultaneous like the things offered to us by space.
Here too whoever wishes to resolve these uncertainties must hold on to what is absolutely certain and this is what stands above us, namely God and our immortality in God.
But even here below there is something which is absolutely certain when we are confronted with the multitudinous and bewildering possibilities of the world, something of which sacred forms represent so many exteriorizations, and this is metaphysical truth and the "remembrance of God", that center which is within us and which places us, to the extent that we participate in it, beneath the "vertical" axis of Heaven, of God, of the Self.
Man finds himself in space and in time, in the world and in life, and these two situations imply two eschatological and spiritual axes, the one static and "vertical", the other dynamic and "horizontal" and more or less temporal; thus it is that contingency, in the mind of the contemplative man, is conceived in terms of the Absolute, is attached to it and leads back to it. But these various points of reference, in effect, only enter into consideration to the extent that the sage is necessarily conscious of contingent situations; they characterize his manner of taking account of his own relativity.
Within this whole context, but completely independent of it and not in any sense "localized", resides that mystery where knowing is being and being is knowing; in other words, these certainties of "succession" and "simultaneity", of "life" and "world", form the necessary framework of contemplation, representing points of reference which serve to free us from the world and from life, or which facilitate that liberation.
Indeed exoterism, which is the necessary basis of esoterism, is in the last analysis centered upon these elements which concern our final ends, namely Heaven and God, or death, Judgement and Eternity, and our own terrestrial attitudes as conforming to these realities.
The important thing to grasp here is that actualization of the consciousness of the Absolute (the "remembrance of God" or "prayer" in so far as it brings about a fundamental confrontation of creature and Creator) anticipates every station on the two axes: it is already a death and a meeting with God and it places us already in Eternity; it is already something of Paradise and even, in its mysterious and "uncreated" quintessence, something of God.
Quintessential prayer brings about an escape from the world and from life, and thereby confers a new and Divine sap upon the veil of appearances and the current of forms, and a fresh meaning to our presence amidst the play of phenomena.
Whatever is not here is nowhere, and whatever is not now will never be. As is this moment in which I am free to choose God, so will be death, Judgement and Eternity. Likewise in this center, this Divine point which I am free to choose in the face of this boundless and multiple world, I am already in invisible Reality.
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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: Sacramentarium from bibliotheque national
Whatever is not here is nowhere, and whatever is not now will never be. As is this moment in which I am free to choose God, so will be death, Judgement and Eternity.
Actualization of the consciousness of the Absolute (the "remembrance of God" or "prayer" in so far as it brings about a fundamental confrontation of creature and Creator) is already a death and a meeting with God and it places us already in Eternity; it is already something of Paradise and even, in its mysterious and "uncreated" quintessence, something of God.
Whatever is not here is nowhere, and whatever is not now will never be. As is this moment in which I am free to choose God, so will be death, Judgement and Eternity. Likewise in this center, this Divine point which I am free to choose in the face of this boundless and multiple world, I am already in invisible Reality.
----
Human life is studded with uncertainties; man loses himself in what is uncertain instead of holding on to what is absolutely certain in his destiny, namely death, Judgement and Eternity. (But besides these there is a fourth certainty, immediately accessible moreover to human experience, and this is the present moment, in which man is free to choose either the Real or the illusory, and thus to ascertain for himself the value of the three great eschatological certainties. )
The consciousness of the sage is founded upon these three points of reference, whether directly or in an indirect and implicit manner through "remembrance of God".
Besides the dimension of succession, however, one must also consider that of simultaneity, which is based on spatial symbolism: the world around us is full of possibilities presented to our choice, whether we wish it or not; thus it is full of uncertainties, not successive as in the flux of life, but simultaneous like the things offered to us by space.
Here too whoever wishes to resolve these uncertainties must hold on to what is absolutely certain and this is what stands above us, namely God and our immortality in God.
But even here below there is something which is absolutely certain when we are confronted with the multitudinous and bewildering possibilities of the world, something of which sacred forms represent so many exteriorizations, and this is metaphysical truth and the "remembrance of God", that center which is within us and which places us, to the extent that we participate in it, beneath the "vertical" axis of Heaven, of God, of the Self.
Man finds himself in space and in time, in the world and in life, and these two situations imply two eschatological and spiritual axes, the one static and "vertical", the other dynamic and "horizontal" and more or less temporal; thus it is that contingency, in the mind of the contemplative man, is conceived in terms of the Absolute, is attached to it and leads back to it. But these various points of reference, in effect, only enter into consideration to the extent that the sage is necessarily conscious of contingent situations; they characterize his manner of taking account of his own relativity.
Within this whole context, but completely independent of it and not in any sense "localized", resides that mystery where knowing is being and being is knowing; in other words, these certainties of "succession" and "simultaneity", of "life" and "world", form the necessary framework of contemplation, representing points of reference which serve to free us from the world and from life, or which facilitate that liberation.
Indeed exoterism, which is the necessary basis of esoterism, is in the last analysis centered upon these elements which concern our final ends, namely Heaven and God, or death, Judgement and Eternity, and our own terrestrial attitudes as conforming to these realities.
The important thing to grasp here is that actualization of the consciousness of the Absolute (the "remembrance of God" or "prayer" in so far as it brings about a fundamental confrontation of creature and Creator) anticipates every station on the two axes: it is already a death and a meeting with God and it places us already in Eternity; it is already something of Paradise and even, in its mysterious and "uncreated" quintessence, something of God.
Quintessential prayer brings about an escape from the world and from life, and thereby confers a new and Divine sap upon the veil of appearances and the current of forms, and a fresh meaning to our presence amidst the play of phenomena.
Whatever is not here is nowhere, and whatever is not now will never be. As is this moment in which I am free to choose God, so will be death, Judgement and Eternity. Likewise in this center, this Divine point which I am free to choose in the face of this boundless and multiple world, I am already in invisible Reality.
-----
Frithjof Schuon
-----
Quoted in: The Essential Frithjof Schuon (edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)
-----
image: Sacramentarium from bibliotheque national