Frithjof Schuon: Life and Teachings

CHAPTER THREE. Esoterism and Tradition

CHAPTER THREE Esoterism and Tradition In esoterism there are two principles which may be actualized sporadically and at different levels, but always in a partial and contained manner: the first is that fundamentally, there is only one religion with various forms, for humanity is one and the spirit is one; the second principle is that man bears everything within himself, potentially at least, by reason of the immanence of the one Truth. —Frithjof Schuon, In the Face of the Absolute The definition and scope of esoterism remains an ambiguous and disputed matter, as is clearly apparent from a variety of reactions to Frithjof Schuon’s presentation of the concept of religio perennis. In one of his later books, Schuon indicates his preference for this term on the basis of its operative implications, while considering himself as a spokesman of the sophia perennis, thereby allowing us to label him a “perennialist” author, that is, one who claims the universality and primordiality of fundamental metaphysical principles and the perennity of the wisdom that actualizes these principles in man, as expressed in all great revelations and major teachings of sages and saints throughout the ages. In that sense, perennialism implies the emphases on both tradition as repository of the sacred, and esoterism as inner content of all religions. It can be argued that the latter occupies the most central position in Schuon’s thought. Actually, there appears to be little doubt that the question of esoterism should lie at the center of any objective and consistent interpretation of Schuon’s writings. It is true that some critics have tended to introduce the works of Schuon in terms of an emphasis on tradition, a tendency that is parallel to placing Schuon in the strict lineage of Guénon, Coomaraswamy, and other traditionalist authors.1 In the wake of these interpretations, there is no doubt that Frithjof Schuon can be characterized as a traditionalist insofar as tradition, far from being simply defined by 79 customs or conventions, constitutes for him the horizontal continuation of revelation and therefore bears the imprint of the sacred.2 The origin of tradition is not simply human; like the ashvattha tree of the Baghavad Gîtâ (XV, 1), tradition is a tree that has its roots in Heaven. As Seyyed Hossein Nasr writes in his introduction to his edition of the Essential Writings of Frithjof Schuon, tradition is “all that has its origin in Heaven, in revelation in its most universal sense, along with its unfolding in a particular spatio-temporal setting determined by the Source from which the tradition originates. It applies not only to this truth of celestial origin, but to the applications of the principles contained therein to realms as disparate as law and art, as methods of meditation and the manner of cultivating a garden.”3 Insofar as Schuon understands tradition as being the semidivine and semihuman reality that provides mankind with a general climate conducive to the consciousness of the Absolute and the integration of all its dimensions in this remembrance, thereby fulfilling its highest vocation in view of its eschatological ends, one may define Schuon as a traditionalist without the least reservation. ESOTERISM AND TRADITION However, an exclusive or excessive emphasis on the traditional dimension of Schuon’s teachings may tend to blur the fundamental specificity of his perspective within the so-called perennialist school while, more importantly, eroding the core substance of his work and perspective. While it is true that, for Schuon, tradition may indeed be understood as the best possible approximation on the terrestrial level of a conformity to Reality, in the sense that it guarantees horizontal equilibrium and provides the necessary means for vertical ascension within the strictures of fallen mankind, it would actually be more accurate to define it as a lesser evil than as an unmixed and sublime good. Schuon is certainly not a traditionalist if being a traditionalist amounts to giving a seal of qualitative excellence and penetrating intelligence to all the phenomena that tradition carries in its wake. There is a certain margin of unintelligence, bias, and even occasional lack of beauty in tradition. Schuon does not claim, for example, that all traditional sciences are necessarily more adequate to physical reality than modern sciences. For instance, he acknowledges the lack of critical sense and the speculative excesses of some traditional cosmological sciences. This acknowledgement is not only a theoretical matter: it bears important and concrete consequences for the ways in which tradition may be introduced to...