Traditional Quotes and Symbols
Fallen man is poisoned by the passional element, from this results an obscuring of the Intellect and the necessity of a Revelation coming from the outside.
The esoterist sees things, not as they appear according to a certain perspective, but as they are: he takes account of what is essential and consequently invariable under the veil of different religious formulations, while necessarily taking his own starting point in a given formulation.
This at least is the position in principle and the justification for esoterism; in fact it is far from always being consistent with itself, inasmuch as intermediary solutions are humanly inevitable.
Everything which, in metaphysics or in spirituality, is universally true, becomes "esoteric" in so far as it does not agree, or does not seem to agree, with a given formalistic system or "exoterism"; yet every truth is present by right in every religion, given that every religion is made of truth.
This amounts to saying that esoterism is possible and even necessary; the whole question is to know at what level and in what context it is manifested, for relative and limited truth has its rights, as does the total truth; it has these rights in the context assigned to it by the nature of things, which is that of psychological and moral opportuneness and of traditional equilibrium.
The paradox of esoterism is that on the one hand "men do not light a candle and put it under a bushel", while on the other hand "give not what is sacred to dogs"; between these two expressions lies the "light that shineth in the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not". There are fluctuations here which no one can prevent and which are the ransom of contingency.
Exoterism is a precarious thing by reason of its limits or its exclusions; there arrives a moment in history when all kinds of experience oblige it to modify its claims to exclusiveness, and it is then driven to a choice: escape from these limitations by the upward path, in esoterism, or by the downward path, in a worldly and suicidal liberalism. As one might have expected, the civilizationist exoterism of the West has chosen the downward path, while combining this incidentally with a few esoteric notions which in such conditions remain inoperative.
Fallen man, and thus the average man, is as it were poisoned by the passional element, either grossly or subtly; from this results an obscuring of the Intellect and the necessity of a Revelation coming from the outside. Remove the passional element from the soul and the intelligence (remove "the rust from the mirror" or "from the heart") and the Intellect will be released; it will reveal from within what religion reveals from without.
[This release is strictly impossible-we must insist upon It-without the cooperation of a religion, an orthodoxy, a traditional esoterism with all that this implies.]
This brings us to an important point: in order to make itself understood by souls impregnated with passion, religion must itself adopt a so to speak passional language, whence dogmatism, which excludes, and moralism, which schematizes; if the average man or collective man were not passional, Revelation would speak the language of the Intellect and there would be no exoterism, nor for that matter esoterism considered as an occult complement.
There are here three possibilities: firstly, men dominate the passional element, everyone lives spiritually by his inward Revelation; this is the golden age, in which everyone is born an initiate.
Second possibility: men are affected by the passional element to the point of forgetting certain aspects of the Truth, whence the necessity (or the opportuneness) of Revelations that while being outward are metaphysical in spirit, such as the Upanishads.
[Such a Revelation has a function that is both conservative and preventive, it expresses the Truth in view of the risk of its being forgotten; It consequently also has the aim of protecting the "pure" from contamination by the "impure", of recalling the Truth to those who run the risk of going astray by carelessness.]
Thirdly: the majority of men are dominated by passions, whence the formalistic, exclusive and combative religions, which communicate to them on the one hand the means of channelling the passional element with a view to salvation, and on the other hand the means of overcoming it in view of the total Truth, and of thereby transcending the religious formalism which veils it while suggesting it in an indirect manner. Religious revelation is both a veil of light and a light veiled.
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Frithjof Schuon: Understanding Esoterism (from Esoterism as Principle and as Way)
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Image:
Beatus de Facundus illuminated manuscript - Illustration for Revelation 1:1-3
1 The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.
testimonia.fr/beatus-de-facundus/
Fallen man is poisoned by the passional element, from this results an obscuring of the Intellect and the necessity of a Revelation coming from the outside.
The esoterist sees things, not as they appear according to a certain perspective, but as they are: he takes account of what is essential and consequently invariable under the veil of different religious formulations, while necessarily taking his own starting point in a given formulation.
This at least is the position in principle and the justification for esoterism; in fact it is far from always being consistent with itself, inasmuch as intermediary solutions are humanly inevitable.
Everything which, in metaphysics or in spirituality, is universally true, becomes "esoteric" in so far as it does not agree, or does not seem to agree, with a given formalistic system or "exoterism"; yet every truth is present by right in every religion, given that every religion is made of truth.
This amounts to saying that esoterism is possible and even necessary; the whole question is to know at what level and in what context it is manifested, for relative and limited truth has its rights, as does the total truth; it has these rights in the context assigned to it by the nature of things, which is that of psychological and moral opportuneness and of traditional equilibrium.
The paradox of esoterism is that on the one hand "men do not light a candle and put it under a bushel", while on the other hand "give not what is sacred to dogs"; between these two expressions lies the "light that shineth in the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not". There are fluctuations here which no one can prevent and which are the ransom of contingency.
Exoterism is a precarious thing by reason of its limits or its exclusions; there arrives a moment in history when all kinds of experience oblige it to modify its claims to exclusiveness, and it is then driven to a choice: escape from these limitations by the upward path, in esoterism, or by the downward path, in a worldly and suicidal liberalism. As one might have expected, the civilizationist exoterism of the West has chosen the downward path, while combining this incidentally with a few esoteric notions which in such conditions remain inoperative.
Fallen man, and thus the average man, is as it were poisoned by the passional element, either grossly or subtly; from this results an obscuring of the Intellect and the necessity of a Revelation coming from the outside. Remove the passional element from the soul and the intelligence (remove "the rust from the mirror" or "from the heart") and the Intellect will be released; it will reveal from within what religion reveals from without.
[This release is strictly impossible-we must insist upon It-without the cooperation of a religion, an orthodoxy, a traditional esoterism with all that this implies.]
This brings us to an important point: in order to make itself understood by souls impregnated with passion, religion must itself adopt a so to speak passional language, whence dogmatism, which excludes, and moralism, which schematizes; if the average man or collective man were not passional, Revelation would speak the language of the Intellect and there would be no exoterism, nor for that matter esoterism considered as an occult complement.
There are here three possibilities: firstly, men dominate the passional element, everyone lives spiritually by his inward Revelation; this is the golden age, in which everyone is born an initiate.
Second possibility: men are affected by the passional element to the point of forgetting certain aspects of the Truth, whence the necessity (or the opportuneness) of Revelations that while being outward are metaphysical in spirit, such as the Upanishads.
[Such a Revelation has a function that is both conservative and preventive, it expresses the Truth in view of the risk of its being forgotten; It consequently also has the aim of protecting the "pure" from contamination by the "impure", of recalling the Truth to those who run the risk of going astray by carelessness.]
Thirdly: the majority of men are dominated by passions, whence the formalistic, exclusive and combative religions, which communicate to them on the one hand the means of channelling the passional element with a view to salvation, and on the other hand the means of overcoming it in view of the total Truth, and of thereby transcending the religious formalism which veils it while suggesting it in an indirect manner. Religious revelation is both a veil of light and a light veiled.
-----
Frithjof Schuon: Understanding Esoterism (from Esoterism as Principle and as Way)
-----
Image:
Beatus de Facundus illuminated manuscript - Illustration for Revelation 1:1-3
1 The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.
testimonia.fr/beatus-de-facundus/