Traditional Quotes and Symbols
If Heaven were not present in earth, existence would vanish into nothingness, it would be impossible a priori.
The religious phenomenon is reducible in the final analysis to a manifestation at once intellective and volitive of the relationship between the divine Substance and cosmic accidentality or between Atma and Samsara; and as this relationship comprises diverse aspects, the religious phenomenon is diversified in function of these aspects or these possibilities.
Every religion in effect presents itself as a "myth" referring t a given "archetype", and thereby, but secondarily, to all archetypes; all these aspects are linked, but one alone determines the very form of the myth. If the Amidist perspective recalls the Christian perspective, that is because within the framework of Buddhism it refers more particularly to the archetype which determines Christianity; it is not because it was influenced by the latter, apart from the historical impossibility of the hypothesis.
The average man is incapable, not of conceiving of the archetypes no doubt, but of being interested in them; he has need of a myth which humanizes and dramatizes the archetype and which triggers the corresponding reactions of the will and sensibility; that is to say that the average man, or collective man, has need of a god who resembles him. [Personal and dramatic in the case of Christianity; impersonal and serene in the case of Buddhism; the one being reflected sporadically in the other. We cite these two examples be cause of their disparity. Let us add that Arianism is a kind of interference within Christianity of the possibility-archetype of lslam, whereas inversely, Shi'ism appears within Islam as an archetypal interference of Christian dramatism.]
The Taoist Yin-Yang is an adequate image of the fundamental relationship between the Absolute and the contingent, God and the world, or God and man: the white part of the figure represents God and the black part, man. The black dot in the white part is "man in God” - man principially prefigured in the divine Order - or the relative in the Absolute, if this paradox is permitted - or the divine Word which in effect prefigures the human phenomenon; if cosmic manifestation were not anticipated within the principial order, no world would be possible, nor any relationship between the world and God.
Inversely and complementarily, the white dot in the black part of the Yin-Yang is the "human God”, the "Man-God”, which refers to the mystery of Immanence and to that of Theophany, hence also to that of Intercession and Redemption, or of the as it were "respiratory" reciprocity between earth and Heaven; if Heaven were not present in earth, existence would vanish into nothingness, it would be impossible a priori.
Herein is the whole play of Maya with its modes, its degrees, its cycles, its diversity and its alternations.
On the one hand the Principle alone is, manifestation - the world - is not; on the other hand manifestation is real - or "not unreal"- by the fact precisely that it manifests, projects, or prolongs the Principle; the latter being absolute, hence infinite for that very reason, It requires in virtue of this infinitude, the projection of Itself in the "other than Itself."
On the one hand the Principle has a tendency to "punish" or to "destroy" manifestation because the latter as contingency is not the Principle, or because it tries to be the Principle illusorily and with a luciferian intention, in short because "It alone is"; on the other hand, the Principle "loves" manifestation and "remembers" that it is Its own, that manifestation is not "other than It”, and within this ontological perspective the mystery of Revelation, Intercession, Redemption, is to be found.
It is thus that the relationships between the Principle and manifestation give rise to diverse archetypes of which the religions are the mythical crystallizations and which are predisposed to set in motion the will and sensibility of particular men and of particular human collectivities.
But the archetypes of the objective, macrocosmic and transcendent order are also those of the subjective, microcosmic and immanent order, the human Intellect coinciding, beyond the individuality, with the universal Intellect; so much so that the revealed myth, even while coming in fact from the exterior and from the ”Lord” comes in principle also from "our selves," from the interior and from the "Self”, That is to say that the acceptance of the religious Message coincides, in principle and in depth, with the acceptance of what we are, in ourselves yet at the same time beyond ourselves; for there where immanence is, there is also the transcendence of the Immanent.
To believe in God is to become again what we are; to become it again to the very extent that we believe, and the believing becomes being.
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Frithjof Schuon
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To Refuse or to Accept Revelation - From the Divine to the Human - Chapter 10
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Quoted in: The Essential Frithjof Schuon (Edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)
If Heaven were not present in earth, existence would vanish into nothingness, it would be impossible a priori.
The religious phenomenon is reducible in the final analysis to a manifestation at once intellective and volitive of the relationship between the divine Substance and cosmic accidentality or between Atma and Samsara; and as this relationship comprises diverse aspects, the religious phenomenon is diversified in function of these aspects or these possibilities.
Every religion in effect presents itself as a "myth" referring t a given "archetype", and thereby, but secondarily, to all archetypes; all these aspects are linked, but one alone determines the very form of the myth. If the Amidist perspective recalls the Christian perspective, that is because within the framework of Buddhism it refers more particularly to the archetype which determines Christianity; it is not because it was influenced by the latter, apart from the historical impossibility of the hypothesis.
The average man is incapable, not of conceiving of the archetypes no doubt, but of being interested in them; he has need of a myth which humanizes and dramatizes the archetype and which triggers the corresponding reactions of the will and sensibility; that is to say that the average man, or collective man, has need of a god who resembles him. [Personal and dramatic in the case of Christianity; impersonal and serene in the case of Buddhism; the one being reflected sporadically in the other. We cite these two examples be cause of their disparity. Let us add that Arianism is a kind of interference within Christianity of the possibility-archetype of lslam, whereas inversely, Shi'ism appears within Islam as an archetypal interference of Christian dramatism.]
The Taoist Yin-Yang is an adequate image of the fundamental relationship between the Absolute and the contingent, God and the world, or God and man: the white part of the figure represents God and the black part, man. The black dot in the white part is "man in God” - man principially prefigured in the divine Order - or the relative in the Absolute, if this paradox is permitted - or the divine Word which in effect prefigures the human phenomenon; if cosmic manifestation were not anticipated within the principial order, no world would be possible, nor any relationship between the world and God.
Inversely and complementarily, the white dot in the black part of the Yin-Yang is the "human God”, the "Man-God”, which refers to the mystery of Immanence and to that of Theophany, hence also to that of Intercession and Redemption, or of the as it were "respiratory" reciprocity between earth and Heaven; if Heaven were not present in earth, existence would vanish into nothingness, it would be impossible a priori.
Herein is the whole play of Maya with its modes, its degrees, its cycles, its diversity and its alternations.
On the one hand the Principle alone is, manifestation - the world - is not; on the other hand manifestation is real - or "not unreal"- by the fact precisely that it manifests, projects, or prolongs the Principle; the latter being absolute, hence infinite for that very reason, It requires in virtue of this infinitude, the projection of Itself in the "other than Itself."
On the one hand the Principle has a tendency to "punish" or to "destroy" manifestation because the latter as contingency is not the Principle, or because it tries to be the Principle illusorily and with a luciferian intention, in short because "It alone is"; on the other hand, the Principle "loves" manifestation and "remembers" that it is Its own, that manifestation is not "other than It”, and within this ontological perspective the mystery of Revelation, Intercession, Redemption, is to be found.
It is thus that the relationships between the Principle and manifestation give rise to diverse archetypes of which the religions are the mythical crystallizations and which are predisposed to set in motion the will and sensibility of particular men and of particular human collectivities.
But the archetypes of the objective, macrocosmic and transcendent order are also those of the subjective, microcosmic and immanent order, the human Intellect coinciding, beyond the individuality, with the universal Intellect; so much so that the revealed myth, even while coming in fact from the exterior and from the ”Lord” comes in principle also from "our selves," from the interior and from the "Self”, That is to say that the acceptance of the religious Message coincides, in principle and in depth, with the acceptance of what we are, in ourselves yet at the same time beyond ourselves; for there where immanence is, there is also the transcendence of the Immanent.
To believe in God is to become again what we are; to become it again to the very extent that we believe, and the believing becomes being.
----
Frithjof Schuon
----
To Refuse or to Accept Revelation - From the Divine to the Human - Chapter 10
----
Quoted in: The Essential Frithjof Schuon (Edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)