When the Lights Hurt the Eyes

Ref DRUMZ #: 400

[Harimau: LOL no kidding... though id give them more credit. Melrose place? What about seinfeld? George=ganesh...]

Actually, I have never seen Melrose Place. But since most of the goddesses/celestial nymphs etc., have the figure of Heather Locklear (according to stone sculptures and bronze figures), I decided to use Melrose Place. None of the Earth Mother figures for us Hindus... you know what I mean: women with HUGE bottoms AND thunder thighs as seen in terra-cotta figurines from Mesopotamia or Moenja-daro/Harappa. Ugh! Also, there is quite a lot of lusting after goddesses and celestial nymphs by gods and sages (rishis), so I thought Melrose Place would be more appropriate. Plus Hinduism had to accommodate everything it encountered in the subcontinent and so whatever strange stories the local-yokels had also got into some of the mythology.

What with Ganesh, the seven-headed serpent, demons of both sexes with various deviations from the human form, we are set for a long-running TV series. It would certainly beat Pokemon in terms of the number of action figures (that is dolls for boys) and that should bring joy to those corporate types who drool at the possibility of marketing to the 6-year-old crowd, of which there is a perennial supply... I wonder why.

Anyway, time to pack my bags and check out airline tickets to SFO.

PS. You are right about Ganesh. While his head got replaced by that of an elephant (the first animal to wander by after Shiva had cut of his son`s head and promised his wife to bring him back to life by attaching the first head he could get), the jolly old fellow seems to have decided to match his body with his head and to have gone for binge-eating at the local smorgasbord.

DRUMZ #400
``Hinduism makes much more sense when one is high (im being serious). Thats the only conscious state in which u can feel timelessness (theres only the present, nothing else).Its also clearly delineates between your lower and higher self. Its like your higher self steps back and lets your lower self run things (this made much more sense last night)...``

DRUMZ, I`m afraid thats backwards. Its the higher self which needs to run things for the lower self and get its lower self ducks in line. A lower self at cross purposes with the higher self is supposed to only increase confusion and clouding of the mind and intellect, leading to demoralization and unhappiness.

btw, good luck with your exams and may the distractions cease and desist while you go after the beast !

re: Drumz # 400

About the confusion between the real and the unreal (Man and God), there is a very nice couplet that captures the mystical sense very beautifully. Like many of these dohas, the following has many meanings -

``Saree beech naree hai, ki naari beech saari hai;

Naaree hi ki saaree hai, ki saree hi ki naaari hai.``

At one level, the meaning is clever but mundane -

The poet sees a woman in a saree and wonders whether it is the saree wrapping the woman or the vice versa.

At another level, though, the poet captures the confusion between the real and the unreal, the ``substance`` and the ``clothing`` very well.

LOL...I know, this is getting a bit too ``out there.``

Very good luck to you on your exams. Remember, those exams are no Maya :)

Sadna: no need to explain, I have exams on friday... Yeah which is God, which is man, good Q. The egyptains had a pun for this. Anibus was thei God with a dog face (when followers become leaders)... Anyways I find the purpose question to be more pressing during these times of famine and disaster. There better be some real important reason for all this to do down.

PS: Im going off on a tangent here, but Hinduism makes much more sense when one is high (im being serious). Thats the only conscious state in which u can feel timelessness (theres only the present, nothing else). Its also clearly delineates between your lower and higher self. Its like your higher self steps back and lets your lower self run things (this made much more sense last night)...

sattar: Good point. There`s some theory out there which states that alexander took the shahada in egypt...

Harimau: LOL no kidding... though id give them more credit. Melrose place? What about seinfeld? George=ganesh...

Prem: Yeah i hear that. They say the more info one knows, the less enlightened he`ll will be. Im not really trying to get an answer (cuz there isnt one), just seeing what other think about this.

Tahmed: one more thing, Egypt is far more connected with christianity then islam. The egyptian God was depicted as the sun because the sun gives life to us all. Now look at the christian God. How many times is it called sun like (bright, light). There are some who suggest that Jesus was actually osirus from egypt (both were god`s son who were crucified and ressurected).

Hamzad: I did not mean they directly worship Muhammed but u must admit there`s a lot of idol worship around him (...why I like perwaiz). Muslims keep looking back to mecca as if it was a perfect society, this is why there is little reform in Islam. We have this defeatist attitue ``how can i do better then the prophet of islam?``

I dont agree that there is a true meaning to Allah. If u look at ancient israel, the nation was divided into a north and south. The north believed in YHWH while the south believed in El. This is why the Bible has two different creation stories.

Israel`s struggle with God was not a physical fight, but akin to a jihad in Islam, when we strive to be righteous. Elohim/Ibrahim have the masculine suffix Him. The word elohim is very interesting. `Eloh` is a female singular while Him is a masculine plural. Kinda like the yin/yang. You`re very right about jews being influenced by every society they met. About the pyramids, there is no evidence that jews were taken as slaves in egypt.

The pataan theory seems very interesting. much of their culture seems to be jewish. Scripture is more symbolic then literal. The 12 tribe`s may simply symbolize mans struggle on earth. See the number 12? 12 imams, 12 disciples, 12 months, signs, labours of hercules...

PS: That article was amazing. It touched on everything especially symbolism. A correction would be that the mysteries originated in egypt as was the concept of ``know thyself.`` What they would do is select some disciples and first teach them the lesser mysteries full of symbolism. Those deemed worthy would be taught the higher mysteries (symbolism explained). Sufism, Vedanta hinduism, christianity, judaism are all rivers leading to one ocean.

Tahmed: You`re absolutely right about gehennem (hebrew/arabic). Most Rabbis should be able to do the math on this one. The jews actually didnt believe in heaven or hell. They believed in Shoel, which was a mass ressurection of people after they died. No eternal punishment nonsense. Islam borrows heavily from judaism and a bit from zoroastrianism. (ever heard that on the day of judgement youll have to walk on a rope and if that rope can`t support u, youll fall down? Thats zarathustra, not muhammed`s saying). The jews are great assimilators, they inhereted the heaven and hell concept after their hellenization-Greek contact). Muhammed Asad brilliantly addresses the issue of how there is no such thing as heaven and hell in Islam...

Im really big on egypt. I havent heard the cat thing about muhammed. I believe Abu Hurirah`s name means ``father of the cats.`` Cats were given divine properties in egypt (cats dont adhere to time, they do whatever...). A lot in islam comes from egpyt. Moses own name comes from the egyptian Moshe. Abraham was known to frequent egypt (u can break down his name ab-Father, Ra-sun God and Ham-the name for egypt kemet, after one of noahs three sons: HAM). Many islamic rites are depicted in heiroglyphs there including salat. Our garb during hajj comes from egypt. Many historians say that Moses was actually akhenatin (the first monotheistic prophet).

I dont think lah connects but if u break it down, ALLAH, ELLAH, then u get the root El, the name of God in judaism. El is also the name of the SOURCE in Egypt (the source has exactly the same connotations as brahma in hinduism).

Bapu: Thats a good piece on western philosophy. Most dont know that reincarnation was described in the new testament, before they cut it out.

For Prem,Hobbity,& DRUMS

René Guénon

by Martin Lings

The following is a transcript of a lecture given in the autumn of 1994 at the Prince of Wales Institute in London and sponsored by the Temenos Academy.

As regards the early part of the life of René Guénon our knowledge is very limited because of his extreme reticence. His objectivity, which is one aspect of his greatness, made him realize the evils of subjectivism and individualism in the modern world, and impelled him perhaps too far in the opposite direction; he shrank at any rate from speaking about himself. Since his death book after book has been written about him and the authors have no doubt felt often extremely frustrated at being unable to find out various things and as a result, book after book contains factual errors.

What we do know is that he was born at Blois in France in 1886, that he was the son of an architect; he had a traditional Catholic upbringing and at school he excelled in philosophy and mathematics. But at the age of 21 he was already in Paris, in the world of occultism, which was in full ferment at that time, about 1906-08. And the dangers of that world were perhaps counteracted for him by the fact that it was more open to wider perspectives. It seems to be about this time, in Paris, that he came in contact with some Hindus of the Advaita Vedanta school, one of whom initiated him into their own Shivaite line of spirituality. We have no details of time or place and he seems never to have spoken about these Hindus nor does he seem to have had further contact with them after one or two years. But what he learned from them is in his books and his meeting with them was clearly providential. His contact with them must have been extremely intense while it lasted. His books are just what was and is needed as antidote to the crisis of the modern world.

By the time he was nearly 30, his phenomenal intelligence had enabled him to see exactly what was wrong with the modem West, and that same intelligence had dug him out of it altogether. I myself remember that world in which and for which Guénon wrote his earliest books, in the first decade after the First World War, a monstrous world made impenetrable by euphoria: the First World War had been the war to end war. Now there would never be another war; and science had proved that man was descended from the ape, that is, he had progressed from apehood, and now this progress would continue with nothing to impede it; everything would get better and better and better. I was at school at that time and I remember being taught these things with just one hour a week being taught the opposite in religious lessons. But religion in the modem world had long before then been pushed into a corner. From its corner it protested against this euphoria, but to no avail.

Today the situation is considerably worse and considerably better. It is worse because human beings have degenerated still further. One sees far more bad faces than one did in the 20s, if I may say so, at least, that is my impression. It is better because there is no euphoria at all. The edifice of the modern world is falling into ruin. Great cracks are appearing everywhere through which it can be penetrated as it could not be before. But it is again worse because the Church, anxious not to be behind the times, has become the accomplice of modernity.

But to return to the world of the 20s, I remember a politician proclaiming, as who would dare to do today, ``We are now in the glorious morning of the world.`` And at this same time, Guénon wrote of this wonderful world, ``It is as if an organism with its head cut off were to go on living a life which was both intense and disordered.`` (from East and West first published in 1924).

Guénon seems to have had no further contact with the Hindus and no doubt they had returned to India. Meantime, he had been initiated into a Sufi order which was to be his spiritual home for the rest of his life. Among the ills which he saw all around him he was very much preoccupied with the general anti-religious prejudice which was particularly rife among the French so-called intelligentsia. He was sure that some of these people were nonetheless virtually intelligent and would be capable of responding to the truth if it were clearly set before them. This anti-religious prejudice arose because the representatives of religion had gradually become less and less intelligent and more and more centered on sentimental considerations. In the Catholic Church especially, where the division of the community into clergy and laity was always stressed, a lay figure had to rely on the Church, it was not his business to think about spiritual things. Intelligent laymen would ask questions of priests who would not be able to answer these questions and who would take refuge in the idea that intelligence and pride were very closely connected. And so it is not difficult to see how this very anti-religious prejudice came into being especially in France.

Now Guénon put himself the question: Since these people have rejected Christianity would they be able to accept the truth when expressed in the Islamic terms of Sufism, which are closely related to Christian terms in many respects? He decided that they would not, that they would say that this is another religion; we have had enough of religion. However Hinduism, the oldest living religion, is on the surface very different from both Christianity and Islam, and so he decided to confront the Western world with the truth on the basis of Hinduism. It was to this end that he wrote his general Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines. The French was published in 1921 to be followed in 1925 by what is perhaps the greatest of all of Guénon`s books, Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta.

He could not have chosen a better setting for his message of truth to the West because Hinduism has a directness which results from its having been revealed to man in a remote age when there was not yet a need to make a distinction between esoterism and exoterism, and that directness means that the truth did not have to be veiled. Already in Classical Antiquity the Mysteries, that is esoterism, were for the few. In Hinduism however they were the norm and the highest truths could be spoken of directly. There was no question of `Cast not your pearls before swine` and `Give not holy things to dogs`. The sister religions of Hinduism, for example, the religions of Greece and Rome, have long since perished. But thanks to the caste system with the Brahmins as safeguarders of religion we have today a Hinduism which is still living and which down to this century has produced flowers of sanctity.

One of the points to be mentioned first is the question of the distinction which has to be made at the divine level and which is made in all esoterisms but cannot be made exoterically, that is, in religions as given to the masses today -- the distinction between the Absolute and the beginnings therein of relativity. The Absolute which is One, Infinite, Eternal, Immutable, Undetermined, Unconditioned, is represented in Hinduism by the sacred monosyllable Aum, and it is termed Atmâ, which means Self, and Brahma which is a neuter word that serves to emphasize that it is beyond all duality such as male and female. And it is also termed Tat (That), just as in Sufism, the Absolute is sometimes termed Huwa (He). Then we have what corresponds in other religions to the personal God, Ishvara, which is the beginning already of relativity, because it is concerned with manifestation, the term that Hindus use for creation, and creation is clearly the beginning of a duality -- Creator and created. Ishvara is at the divine level, yet it is the beginning of relativity.

In all esoterism one finds the same doctrine. Meister Eckhart came into difficulties with the Church because he insisted on making a distinction between God and Godhead -- Gott und Gottheit. He used the second term for the Absolute, that is for the Absolute Absolute, and he used God for the relative Absolute. It could have been the other way around, it was just that he needed to make some difference. In Sufism one speaks of the Divine Essence and the Essential Names of God such as The One, The Truth, the All-Holy, The Living, and the Infinitely Good, al-Rahmân, which contains the roots of all goodness and which is also a name of the Divine Essence. Below that there are the Names of Qualities, like Creator, the Merciful, in the sense of one who has Mercy on others, and that is clearly the beginning of a duality. In every esoterism this distinction is made even at the level of the Divinity. It cannot exist below esoterism because it would result in the idea of two Gods; a division in the Divinity would be exceedingly dangerous in the hands of the mass of believers. The Divine Unity has to be maintained at all costs.

Now Guénon, in this book, traces with all clarity the hierarchy of the universe from the Absolute, from the personal God, down to the created logos, that is buddhi, which is the word which means intellect and which has three aspects -- Brahmâ (this time the word is masculine), Vishnu and Shiva. Strictly speaking in the hierarchy of the universes these devas (this is the same word linguistically as the Latin deus), have the rank of what we would call archangels. Hinduism is so subtle however that though they are created they can be invoked as Names of the Absolute because they descend from the Absolute and they return to the Absolute. They can be invoked in the sense of the Absolute Brahmâ, in the sense of Atmâ, in the sense of Aum.

The Hindu doctrine, like Genesis, speaks of the two waters. The Quran speaks of the two seas, the upper waters and the lower waters. The upper waters represent the higher aspect of the created world, that is, of the manifested world, corresponding to the different heavens in which are the different paradises. It is all part of the next world from the point of view of this world. The lower waters represent the world of body and soul, and all is a manifestation of the Absolute.

In Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta, Guénon, having traced the manifestation of man and having shown what is the nature of man in all its details, then proceeds to show how, according to Hindu doctrine, man can return to his absolute source. It ends with the supreme spiritual possibility of oneness with the Absolute, a oneness which is already there. A Brahmin boy at the age of eight is initiated by his father and the words are spoken into his ear, ``Thou art That,`` meaning thou art the Absolute, tat vam asi. This shows how far we are from religion as understood in the modern world. But that truth which is called in Sufism the secret, al-sirr, is necessary in all esoterism in the present day, otherwise it would not deserve the name esoterism.

Another aspect of Hinduism which made it the perfect vehicle for Guénon`s message is the breadth of its structure. In the later religions it is as if Providence had shepherded mankind into a narrower and narrower valley: the opening is still the same to heaven but the horizontal outlook is narrower and narrower because man is no longer capable of taking in more than a certain amount. The Hindu doctrine of the samsâra, that is, of the endless chain of innumerable worlds which have been manifested, and of which the universe consists, would lead to all sorts of distractions. Nonetheless, when one is speaking of an Absolute, Eternal Divinity, the idea that that Infinitude produced only one single world in manifesting itself does not satisfy the intelligence. The doctrine of the samsâra does, on the other hand, satisfy, but the worlds are innumerable that have been manifested.

Another point in this respect is that Hinduism has an amazing versatility. It depends first of all on Divine Revelation. The Vedas and the Upanishads are revealed; the Bhagavad Gita is generally considered as revealed but not the Mahâbhârata as a whole, this ``inspired`` epic to which the Gita belongs. In Hinduism this distinction between revelation, sruti, and inspiration, smriti, is very clearly made, as it also is in Judaism and in Islam: The Pentateuch, that is, the first rive books of the Old Testament, were revealed to Moses, the Psalms to David, the Qur`ân to Muhammad. That is something which Christians as a rule do not understand. They have difficulty in realizing, in the Old Testament for example, the difference between the Pentateuch and the Books of Kings and Chronicles which are simply sacred history, inspired no doubt, but in no sense revealed. For Christians the revelation is Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh; the concept of ``the Word made book``, which is a parallel revelation, does not enter into their perspective.

Hinduism also has the avatâras, and that a Christian can well understand, that is, the manifestations, the descents, of the Divinity. Of course a Christian would not recognize the descents of the Hindu avatâras because for the average Christian there has only ever been one descent and that is Christ Himself, but Hinduism recognizes the descent as an inexhaustible possibility and it names ten avatâras who have helped maintain the vitality of the religion down to the present day. The ninth avatâra which is called the foreign avatâra is the Buddha himself because, although he appeared in India, he was not for Hindus but clearly for the Eastern world. The breadth of Hinduism is seen also in its prefiguration of exoterism which is the recognition of the Three Ways. These are still Ways back to God -- the three margas -- the way of knowledge, the way of love, and the way of action -- three ways which correspond to the inclinations and affinities of different human beings.

Another point which makes the terms of Hinduism so right for giving Europeans the message is that they have as Aryans an affinity with Hinduism because they are rooted in the religions of Classical Antiquity which are sister religions to Hinduism; their structure was clearly the same as the structure of Hinduism. Of course they degenerated into complete decadence and have now disappeared. Nonetheless our heritage lies in them and Guénon gives us, one might say, the possibility of a mysterious renascence in a purely positive sense by his message of the truth in Hindu terms. This affinity must not be exaggerated however, and Guénon never advised anybody who was not a Hindu, as far as I know, to become a Hindu.

His message was always one of strict orthodoxy in one esoterism, but at the same time of equal recognition of all other orthodoxies, but his purpose was in no sense academic. His motto Was vincit omnia veritas, Truth conquers all, but implicitly his motto was `Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you`. Implicit in his writings is the certainty that they will come providentially to those who are qualified to receive his message and they will impel them to seek and therefore to find a way.

Guénon was conscious of having a function and he knew what belonged to this function and what did not belong to it. He knew that it was not his function to have disciples; he never had any. It was his function to teach in preparation for a way that people would find for themselves, and this preparation meant filling in gaps which are left by modern education. The first of these gaps is the failure to understand the meaning of the transcendent and the meaning of the word intellect in consequence, a word which always continues to be used, but the intellect in the traditional sense of the word, corresponding to the Sansrit buddhi, had simply been forgotten in the Western world. Guénon insisted in his writings on giving this word its true meaning which is perception of transcendent realities, the faculty which can perceive the things of the next world, and its prolongations in the soul are what might be called intellectual intuitions which are the preliminary glimmerings before intellection in the full sense takes place.

One has the impression that Guénon must have himself had an intellectual illumination at quite an early age. He must have perceived directly spiritual truths with the intellect in the true sense. He fills in gaps by explaining the meaning of rites, the meaning of symbols, the hierarchy of the worlds. In modern education the next world is left out altogether whereas in the Middle Ages students were taught about the hierarchy of the faculties and correspondingly the hierarchy of the universe.

Now I must for the moment speak on a rather personal level, but perhaps it may not be without interest. When I read the books of Guénon in the early thirties it was as if I had been struck by lightning and realized that this was the truth. I had never seen the truth before set down as in this message of Guénon`s that there were many religions and that they must all be treated with reverence; they were different because they were for different people. It made sense and it also was at the same time to the glory of God because a person with even a reasonable intelligence when taught what we were taught at school would inevitably ask, well what about the rest of the world? Why were things managed in this way? Why was the truth given first of all to only the Jews, one people only? And then Christianity was ordered to spread over the world, but why so late? What about previous ages? These questions were never answered, but when I read Guénon I knew that what he said was the truth and I knew that I must do something about it.

I wrote to Guénon. I translated one of his first books, East and West, into English and I was in correspondence with him in connection with that. In 1930 Guénon left Paris, after the death of his first wife, and went to Cairo where he lived for twenty years until his death in 1951. One of my first ideas upon reading Guénon`s books was to send copies to my greatest friend who had been a student with me at Oxford, because I knew he would have just the same reaction as I had. He came back to the West and took the same way that I had already found, a way of the kind that Guénon speaks of in his books. Then being in need of work he was given a lectureship at Cairo University, and I sent him Guénon`s poste restante number. Guénon was extremely secretive and would not give his actual address to anybody; he wanted to disappear. He had enemies in France and he suspected that they wished to attack him by magic. I do not know this for certain but I know that Guénon was very much afraid of being attacked by certain people and he wished to remain unknown, to sink himself into the Egyptian world where he was, the world of Islam. And so my friend had to wait a long time before Guénon agreed to see him. But when the meeting finally took place Guénon became immediately attached to him, and told him that he could always come to his house whenever he liked.

In the summer of 1939 I went to visit my friend in Cairo and when I was there the war broke out. I had a lectureship in Lithuania at that time and, being unable to return there, I was forced to stay in Egypt. My friend, who had become like a member of Guénon`s household, collecting his mail from poste restante and doing many other things for him, took me to see Guénon. A year later I was out riding in the desert with my friend when his horse ran away with him and he was killed as the result of an accident. I shall never forget having to go to tell Guénon of his death. When I did he just wept for an hour. I had no option but to take my friend`s place. I had already been given the freedom of the household and very quickly I became like one of the family. It was a tremendous privilege of course. Guénon`s wife could not read and she spoke only Arabic. I quickly learned Arabic so I was able to talk to her. It was a very happy marriage. They had been married for seven years without children and Guénon, who was getting fairly old -- he was much older than she was -- had had no children with his first wife, so it was unexpected when they began to have children. They had four children altogether. I went to see Guénon nearly every day. I was the first person to read The Reign of Quantity, the only book he wrote while I knew him since the other books had all been written earlier. He gave it to me chapter by chapter. And I was able also to give him my own first book when I wrote it, The Book of Certainty, which I gave him also chapter by chapter. It was a very great privilege to have known such a person.

During this time a rather important question was resolved. The Hindus with whom Guénon had made contact in Paris had given him a wrong idea, not a strictly Hindu idea, about Buddhism. Hinduism recognizes the Buddha as the ninth avatâra of Vishnu but some Hindus maintain that he was not an avatâra, that he was just a revolted kshatriya, that is a member of the royal caste, against the Brahmins and it was this latter view which Guénon had accepted. Consequently he wrote about Buddhism as though it was not one of the great religions of the world. Now Ananda Coomaraswamy, Frithjof Schuon and Marco Pallis altogether decided that they would remonstrate with Guénon about this point. Guénon was very open to being persuaded and in 1946 I took Marco Pallis to see him with the result that he agreed that he had been mistaken and that the mistakes must be rectified in his books. Marco Pallis started sending him lists of many pages that needed correction.

Guénon almost never went out except when he came to visit us. I would send a car to fetch him and he would come with his family to our house about twice a year. We lived at that time just near the pyramids outside of Cairo. I went out with him only once and we went to visit the mosque of Sayyidnâ Husayn near al-Azhar. He had a remarkable presence; it was striking to see the respect with which he was treated. As he entered the mosque you could hear people on all sides saying, `Allâhumma salli `alâ Sayyidnâ Muhammad,` that is, `May God rain blessings on the Prophet Muhammad`, which is a way of expressing great reverence for someone. He had a luminous presence and his very beautiful eyes, one of his most striking features, retained their lustre into early old age.

With his book on the Vedanta ranks his book on symbols, entitled Fundamental Symbols: The Universal Language of Sacred Science, which was published after his death from all the articles which were written about symbols in his journal, Études Traditionelles. It was marvelous to read these articles when they came out month after month, but this book takes us back almost to prehistoric times as does Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta but in a wider sense. Everything is a symbol of course, it could not exist if it were not a symbol, but the fundamental symbols are those which express eloquently aspects of the Supreme Truth and the Supreme Way. For example, one of these aspects of both the Way and the Truth is what is called the `axis of the world`, the axis which runs through all the higher states from the center of this state. That is the meaning of what is called the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life is symbolized by many particular trees: the oak, the ash, the fig and others throughout the world. The axis is the Way itself, the way of return to the Absolute. It is also symbolized by man-made things: the ladder, the mast, weapons like the lance, and the central pillar of edifices. As architects know, many buildings are built round a central axis which is not in fact there, which is not materialized. Very often in traditional houses the hearth is the center of the house and the chimney through which the smoke rises is another figure of the axis. And things which are normally horizontal are symbols of the axis: a bridge is also a symbol of the world axis. Witness the title Pontifex, the maker of the bridge, which is given to the highest spiritual authority of the Church -- the bridge, which is the bridge between Heaven and earth.

Another fundamental symbol is the river. There are three aspects to the river: the crossing of the river symbolizes the passage from this world to a higher world, always, but then there is the river itself. There is the difficulty of moving upstream which symbolizes the difficulties of the spiritual path, of returning to one`s source against the current. There is also the symbolism of moving in the other direction to the ocean, of returning finally to the ocean; that is another symbol of the Way. In this book amongst many other symbols, Guénon also treats of the symbolism of the mountain, the cave, the temporal cycle. In the temporal cycle the solstices of summer and winter are the gates of the gods according to Hinduism. The gate of the gods is the winter solstice, in the sign of Capricorn; the gate of the ancestors is the summer solstice, in the sign of Cancer.

As I have said, Guénon did not like to talk about himself and I respected his reticence, I did not ask him questions and I think he was pleased with that. To sum up what his function was, one might say that it was his function, in a world increasingly rife with heresy and pseudo religion, to remind twentieth century man of the need for orthodoxy which itself presupposes firstly a divine intervention, and secondly a tradition which hands down with fidelity from generation to generation what Heaven has revealed. In this connection we are deeply indebted to him for having restored to the world the word orthodoxy in the full rigor of its original meaning, that is, rectitude of opinion, a rectitude which compels the intelligent man not merely to reject heresy, but also to recognize the validity of all those faiths which conform to those criteria on which his own faith depends for its orthodoxy.

On the basis of this universality, which is often known as religio perennis, it was also Guénon`s function to remind us that the great religions of the world are not only the means of man`s salvation, but that they offer him beyond that, even in this life, two esoteric possibilities which correspond to what were known in Graeco-Roman Antiquity as mysteria pava and mysteria magna, the `Greater Mysteries` and the `Lesser Mysteries`. The first of these is the way of return to the primordial perfection which was lost in the fall. The second, which presupposes the first, is the way to gnosis, the fulfillment of the precept, `know thyself`. This one ultimate end is termed in Christianity deificatio, in Hinduism, yoga, union, and moksha, deliverance, in Buddhism, nirvana, that is, extinction of all that is illusory. And in Islamic mysticism, that is Sufism, tahaqquq, which means realization and which was glossed by a Sufi sheikh as self-realization in God. The Mysteries and especially the Greater Mysteries are explicitly or implicitly the main theme of Guénon`s writing, even in The Crisis of the Modern World and The Reign of Quantity. The troubles in question are shown to have sprung ultimately from loss of the mysterial dimension, that is, the dimension of the mysteries of esoterism. He traces all the troubles in the modern world to the forgetting of the higher aspects of religion. He was conscious of being a pioneer, and I will end simply by quoting something he wrote of himself, ``All that we shall do or say will amount to giving those who come afterwards facilities which we ourselves were not given. Here as everywhere else it is the beginning of the work that is hardest.``



Dr. Martin Lings taught for many years at the University of Cairo before becoming Keeper of Oriental Manuscripts at the British Library. The author of numerous books including The Eleventh Hour, Symbol and Archetype, and Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, he is an authority on tradition and on Sufism in particular.

Prem & DRUMS.

Razors` Edge,by Somerset Maugham very good.Even better to watch the movie(60s/70s I think)--ends in Kashmir!

C.S.Lewis,another tall figure.He is played by Anthony Hopkins in ``....``(cant remember now) made in the 1990s---superb,sweet-sad,depressing movie,---------a must!

Drumz,

The question of the ``purpose of life`` is probably even more complex than that of the ``nature of life.`` :)

When I get a little more time I will share with you, again, my own layman`s understanding. As the Buddha said, these issues don`t really help much, but I know very well - those of us who like to follow the most difficult path of Gnana (knowledge) do need to do our best to know.

Regards.

CORRECTION:-----my post 387

Hobbity!

The site is www.nasr.org

All others also welcome to access it and benefit!

ESpecially die-hard RATIONALISTS.

tahmad---384.

No concept in the Abrahamic faiths is related to idolatory practices.Hence its iconoclastic power.It nullifies everything,LA,to clean the slate and write something radical & revolutionary.This has been the case since Adam,the first muslim.

What you are talking about,IMO,is the Parsee(Pehlvee)concept of dozakh & Firdous.The letter is from Paradosaa(eng.Paradise) which is a generic word for garden.Similary must be,i guess dozakh.There is another concept called barzakh,if you can recall----a kind of waystation for souls,generally shown in english movies(heaven can wait eg).

The origin of Jahannam I do not know myself and couldn`t locate either.Janna,as you know is from the arabic salaasee mujjarrad /JNN ...meaning that which is hidden from view.Corresponding words are Jinn(Genies),Juneen(Genes,Genetics),Junoon & MajnooN(brain-bug) etc etc.As you can see it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Firdous origin.So I believe must be Jehanna.

PS:I hope you will be able to enjoy & appreciate the following shair(by an almost unknown--Lais Qureishi)

Kyaa koi jahannam thhaa pas e pardah e afkaar?

ikk lums e guraizaan sey huay sholaa bajaan humm.

meaning:

Sometimes our thoughts,rationality,take us so close to heresy that we can almost feel the hell-fire searing our mind.

So ``was there some kind of hell as a back-drop to my thoughts,that as I was brushed by it,was afire``

PS:my suggestion that if you are into self-study & want to be an interpretor yourself then please get hold of Lughaat e Quraan by Pervaiz(no I am not a pervaizee & I do not have the dictionary myself but would want to).Use it as an aid,as another viewpoint.WE can all learn & enjoy from what others have done...and they are all towering giants.Ants like myself are happy to just hang around them.

Too late to enroll in a madressah;).(written to irritate you.Please get irritated).

Ref DRUMZ #: 378

[Can someone explain Brahma and its relation to the demigods? Is there sort of a heavenly society out there?]

Yeah; if you read Hindy mythology it seems like an early version of Melrose Place. Get someone to explain how Ganesha got his elephant head. Depending on which part of India, you get different stories.

Coming to think of it, I think I should just translate those stories into movie scripts; what with modern animatronics, I am sure we can get an extremely realistic Ganesha on the screen. And He would be a damned sight better than Jabba the Hutt. Anyway, most of the Star Wars crap is recycled mythology of several different civilizations.

I guess it is time for me to make a trip to Skywalker Ranch to see if I can meet with George Lucas about a new movie series.

Bapu (#383):

Yes, Quran has declared that prophets have been sent to all nations of the world. Also, thinking from a slightly different angle, it would not make sense if God created humans, gave them free-will, will hold them accountable for their actions one day, without guiding them about right and wrong. Indeed divine guidance has been provided through prophets, who conveyed the message of God Almighty to their respective nations.

Ahmadi-Muslims believe that Socrates was a prophet of Allah for the Greek nations. In his book, “Revelations, Rationality, Knowledge, and Truth”, Mirza Tahir Ahmad Sahib (Head of the Ahmadi-Muslim community) has discussed Socrates in more detail … interesting read. Besides Socrates … Ram, Krishna, Buddha, Confuscius, Zaratushtra, and others are also considered divine prophets by Ahmadis.

It is further interesting to note that all religions, in their pristine form, had a common message: worshipping One God, and having love and compassion for all of God’s creations. It is only later, that this message got modified as it passed through time and across various geographical regions. This explains the apparent differences between the teachings of various religions, all claiming to be revealed by the Almighty God.

I wish that mullahs, instead of threatening others with “jihad by sword”, understood this message and tried to integrate it into their lives. After all, Muslims claim to be the followers of the Prophet who came to unite all nations under one unified message, … the message of Quran. It would help if we, instead of squabbling over the differences, try to appreciate the common traits of various religions, and try to better understand the source of their teachings.

Asad

Bhardwaj-----386

What professor Dutt is saying is correct but also nothing new.

Iqbal considered nation-state,defined in geographical terms and setting roots to it, tantamount to idolatory.Even for hindus.

Nevertheless,as invariably happens in certain circles both in India & Pakistan,a spin is put on it as if he was against partition.Not at all.He was least concerned with mechanics.This subject has been hashed & rehashed so much that such report by an academic todays smacks of toadying upto the AMU & trying to flog a dead horse.

In laymans` terms he was not against muslims acquiring property as opposed to stay as annexe- tennants or in the servant quarters.

The point it that an obssession with greencards or US-friendship should not be at the expense of compromising upon Islamic principles & practice.

His vision for a vibrant,dynamic,forward-looking Ummah is increasingly coming into focus for others to witness as well.

Hobbity:

Regarding your enquiry about William chittick et el.

Please search the web for following names:Chittick,guenon,schuon,nasr.

www.nasr.org will introduce you to Hossein Nasr.All these muslim thinkers are bringing about a quiet revolution in the western mind and exercise a tremendous clout in the intellectual realm.

Just reading Nasr`s biography will blow away(I hope!)your mind.

PFRESS RELEASE

ALIGARH, Nov. 29 - Noted historian Professor V.N. Dutta of Kurukshetra University said that the great Urdu Poet, Dr. Mohd. Iqbal was opposed to territorial nationalism. He wanted the Muslims to be free from the geographical limits inspired by the British Government and he emphasized the necessity of a separate Muslim cultural identity.

Professor Dutta was delivering the second Professor Ather Ali Memorial Lecture on ``Iqbal, Jinnah and the Partition of India`` at Aligarh Muslim University. Prof. Dutta said that Iqbal gave a blue print for the solution of the Hindu-Muslim question. Iqbal did not contemplate a separate Muslim state but a North-West Muslim region within a loose Indian Federation comprising the Muslim-majority provinces but excluding Indian States, with full residuary powers by transferring such powers to the Centre as it deemed fit.

Prof. Dutta said that Iqbal advisied Jinnah to rebut Jawaharlal Nehru`s `aesthetic socialism` on the ground that the Muslim problem was not economic, but cultural. As a visionary Iqbal crowed the dawn of Pakistan of which Jinnah became an accessory by his tactical skills as a first class politician. Iqbal would thus go down in history as a herald of Pakistan and a political mentor of Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

In his presidential address, AMU Vice-Chancellor, Mr. M. Hamid Ansari said that Iqbal was not Only a great Urdu poet but a political philosopher. He was an instrument to create a good society, good citizen and good Muslim.

Noted historian Prof. Irfan Habib said that partition was a great tragedy. He said that the two nation theory cannot be justified by both Hindu Maha Sabha and the Muslim League.

In her welcome address, Prof. Shireen Mousavi, Secretary of the Aligarh Historians Society said that Ather Ali always strenuously opposed the communal perception of history. She said that Ather Ali was the founder member of the Indian History Congress and served as Secretary. He was one of the four distinguished authors of the Report to the Nation as the Babri Masjid, Ayodhya (1990), which was published in many Indian languages.