The DESIRE to transcend the plane of logic is combined, in a certain sectarianism hostile to discursive expression, with the DESIRE to transcend the “scission” between the subject and the object; now this complementary opposition does not prevent the known — whatever the situation of the knower — from being of the loftiest order. The subject and the object are not adversaries; they unite in a fusion that — according to the content of the perception — can have an interiorizing and liberating virtue, of which aesthetic enjoyment and the union of love are the foremost examples. In Atmâ, the triad Sat, Chit, Ananda — “Being, Consciousness, Beatitude” — is not a factor of scission; similarly, on earth, the dimensions of physical space do not prevent space from being one, so that we perceive no fissure in it. Essays Norms and Paradoxes in Spiritual Alchemy
The ape, for example, is there to show what man is and what he is not, and certainly not to show what he has been; far from being able to be a virtual form of man, the ape incarnates an animal DESIRE to be human, hence a DESIRE of imitation and usurpation; but he finds itself as if before a closed door and falls back all the more heavily into its animality, the perfect innocence of which, it can no longer recapture, if one may make use of such a metaphor; it is as if the animal, prior to the creation of man and to protest against it, had wished to anticipate it, which evokes the refusal of Lucifer to prostrate before Adam. (From the Divine to the Human, p. 98) sophiaperennis: Sophia Perennis and the theory of evolution and progress
However that may be, the DESIRE to enclose universal Reality in an exclusive and exhaustive “explanation” brings with it a permanent disequilibrium due to the interferences of Maya; moreover it is just this disequilibrium and this anxiety that are the life of modem philosophy. Nevertheless this aspect of unintelligibility, this kind of “irrationality”, this elusive and almost “mocking” element in Maya that condemns philosophy “according to the flesh” (St. Paul) to a vicious circle and finally to suicide, proceeds in the last analysis from the transcendence of the Principle, which will no more allow itself to be imprisoned by blind ratiocinations than will our sensorial faculties allow themselves to be perceived by our senses; the use of the word “imprisoned” allows the “indicative” value of logical processes to remain unquestioned. sophiaperennis: Thought and mental cristallizations
On the whole, modern philosophy is the codification of an acquired infirmity: the intellectual atrophy of man marked by the “fall” entails a hypertrophy of practical intelligence, whence in the final analysis the explosion of the physical sciences and the appearance of pseudo-sciences such as psychology and sociology. (NA In the nineteenth century, the DESIRE to reconcile faith and reason, or the religious spirit and science, appeared in the form of occultism: a hybrid phenomenon that despite its phantasmagoria had some merits, if only by its opposition to materialism and to confessional superficiality. ) sophiaperennis: Modern definition of Philosophy
In theology as in philosophy, and to varying degrees, one encounters a deliberate way of reasoning in a given manner and in a given direction in order to support a certain axiom, and to exclude from the intelligence all possibilities which do not serve this end. The subjectivists will say that the same holds true for all demonstrations, but this is not so, since in the case of a certitude independent of all sentimental postulates, the arguments result objectively from the certitude to be demonstrated, and not subjectively from our DESIRE to prove it. sophiaperennis: About the rational mode of knowledge
What is crucial in Kantianism is not its pro domo logic and its few very limited lucidities, but the altogether “irrational” DESIRE to limit intelligence; this results in a dehumanization of theintelligence and opens the door to all the inhuman aberrations of our century. In short, if to be man means the possibility of transcending oneself intellectually, Kantianism is the negation of all that is essentially and integrally human. sophiaperennis: Kantianism
2. Kant calls “transcendent al subreption” (Erschleichung) the trans formation” of the purely ” regulative” idea of God into an objective reality; which once more proves that he is unable to conceive certitude outside a reasoning founded on sense experience and operating beneath the reality which he pretends to judge and deny. In short, Kantian ” criticism’ consists in calling liar” whoever does not bend to its discipline; agnostics do practically the same, by decreeing that no one can know anything, since they themselves know nothing, or DESIRE to know nothing. sophiaperennis: Kantianism
It is not surprising that the aesthetics of the rationalists admits only the art of classical Antiquity, which in fact inspired the Renaissance, then the world of the Encyclopedists of the French Revolution and, to a great extent, the entire nineteenth century. Now this art – which, by the way, Plato did not appreciate – strikes one by its combination of rationality and sensual passion: its architecture has something cold and poor about it – spiritually speaking – while its sculpture is totally lacking in metaphysical transparency and thereby in contemplative depth. (NA: In Greek art there are two errors or two limitations: the architecture expresses reasoning man inasmuch as he intends to victoriously oppose himself to virgin Nature; the sculpture replaces the miracle of profound beauty and life by a more or less superficial beauty and by marble.) It is all that the inveterately cerebral could DESIRE. A rationalist can be right – man not being a closed system – as we have said above. In modern philosophy, valid insights can in fact be met with, notwithstanding that their general context compromises and weakens them. Thus the “categorical imperative” does not mean much on the part of a thinker who denies metaphysics and with it the transcendent causes of moral principles, and who is unaware that intrinsic morality is above all our conformity to the nature of Being. sophiaperennis: Rationalism
Certainly the artist does not fashion his work with the sole intention of producing a spiritually or psychologically useful object; he also produces it for the joy of creating by imitating, and of imitating by creating, that is to say, for the joy of elucidating the existential intention of the model, or in other words, of extracting from the latter its very quintessence; at least this is so in some cases, which it would be pretentious and out of proportion to generalize. In other cases, on the contrary, the work of the artist is an extinction through love, the artist dying, so to speak, in creating: he performs an act of union by identifying himself with the admired or beloved object, by recreating it according to the music of his own soul. In other cases again – and all these modes may or must combine with one another to different degrees – the artist is fired by the DESIRE to adapt the object to a given material or a given technique: the Japanese engravers confer on Fuji and other views a quality that makes one think of the wood that they use, and the painters of screens present rivers and the moon against a gilded background which enhances them by giving them in addition a paradisal perfume. sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART
At all events, the “sensible consolation” is in the work before being in the result; the sanctification of the religious artist precedes that of the spectator. Every legitimate art satisfies both emotivity and intelligence, not only in the finished work, but also in its production. There is likewise in art a DESIRE to pin down the visual, auditive or other forms which escape us, and which we wish to retain or possess; to this DESIRE for fixation or possession there is added quite naturally a DESIRE for assimilation, for a quality must not only be beautiful, it must also be entirely ours, which brings us back directly or indirectly, depending on the case, to the theme of union and love. sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART
It has just been stated that European ‘idealism’ allied itself to individualism and ended by identifying itself with the crudest expressions of the latter. As for those things that the West finds crude’ in other civilizations, they are nearly always only the more or less superficial aspects of a ‘realism’ that scorns delusive and hypocritical veils. However, one should not lose sight of the fact that ‘idealism’ is not bad in itself inasmuch as it finds its place in the minds of heroes, always inclined towards ‘sublimation’; what is bad, and at the same time specifically Western, is the intrusion of this mentality into every sphere, including those in which it has no place. It is this distorted ‘idealism’, all the more fragile and dangerous because it is distorted, that Islam, with its DESIRE for equilibrium and stability – in other words ‘realism’- wished to avoid at all costs, having taken, moreover, into consideration the restricted possibilities of the present cyclic period, already far removed from its origin; herein lies the reason for that ‘earthly’ aspect with which Christians are wont to reproach the Islamic civilization. sophiaperennis: CONCERNING FORMS IN ART
From an ascetico-mystical or penitential point of view beauty may appear as something worldly, because such a point of view tends to look at everything with the eye of the will; beauty is then confounded with DESIRE. But from the intellective point of view – which is that of the nature of things and not that of expediency – beauty is spiritual, since in its own way it externalizes Truth and Bliss. That is why the born contemplative cannot see or hear beauty without perceiving in it something of God; and this Divine content allows him the more easily to detach himself from appearances. As for passional man, he sees in beauty the world, seduction, the ego; it distances him from the ‘one thing needful’, at least in the case of natural beauty, though not in the case of the beauty of sacred art, for then the ‘one thing needful’ harnesses the need for beauty in the cause of piety, of fervour and of heaven. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE
Purple is too ‘heavy’, since it is composed of two heavy colours, one hot and the other cold. Orange on the other hand is too ‘hot’, because it is composed of two hot colours, one heavy and the other light. Green is neither too heavy nor too hot, being composed of a heavy colour and a light colour, one cold and the other hot; it is the only happy mixture. In purple the mingled elements are too different; in orange the two elements are too much alike; green, on the contrary, unites opposites which are situated on different planes and cannot be in conflict; it therefore manifests equilibrium. Purple on the other hand expresses overloading, fatigue and languor, and orange ‘overheating’, the joyous excitement of DESIRE and not a transparent joy like yellow. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE
We have alluded above to the evolutionist error which was inevitable in connection with our considerations on the deiformity of man, and which permits us here to insert a parenthesis. The animal, vegetable and mineral species not only manifest qualities or combinations of qualities, they also manifest defects or combinations of defects; this is required by All-Possibility, which on pain of being limited – of not being what it is – must also express “possible impossibilities,” or let us say negative and paradoxical possibilities; it implies in consequence excess as well as privation, thereby emphasizing norms by means of contrasts. In this respect, the ape, for example, is there to show what man is and what he is not, and certainly not to show what he has been; far from being able to be a virtual form of man, the ape incarnates an animal DESIRE to be human, hence a DESIRE of imitation and usurpation; but he finds itself as if before a closed door and falls back all the more heavily into its animality, the perfect innocence of which, it can no longer recapture, if one may make use of such a metaphor; it is as if the animal, prior to the creation of man and to protest against it, had wished to anticipate it, which evokes the refusal of Lucifer to prostrate before Adam. (NA: According to the Talmud and the Koran.) This does not prevent the ape from being sacred in India, perhaps on account of its anthropomorphism, or more likely in virtue of associations of ideas due to an extrinsic symbolism; (NA: As was the case for the boar, which represents sacerdotal authority for the Nordics; or as the rhinoceros symbolizes the sannyâsi.) this also would explain in part the role played by the apes in the Ramayana, unless in this case it is a question of subtle creatures – the jinn of Islam – of whom the ape is only a likeness. (NA: The story recounted in the Râmayana is situated at the end of the ” silver age” (Treta- Yuga) and consequently in a climate of possibilities quite different from that of the ” iron age” (Kali- Yuga); the partition between the material and animic states was not yet ” hardened” or ” congealed” as is above all the case in our epoch.) One may wonder whether the intrinsically noble animals, hence those directly allowing of a positive symbolism, are not themselves also theophanies; they are so necessarily, and the same holds true for given plants, minerals, cosmic or terrestrial phenomena, but in these cases the theomorphism is partial and not integral as in man. The splendor of the stag excludes that of the lion, the eagle cannot be the swan, nor the water lily the rose, nor the emerald the sapphire; from a somewhat different point of view , we would say that the sun doubtless manifests in a direct and simple manner the divine Majesty, but that it has neither life nor spirit; (NA: It can nevertheless have a sacrament al function with regard to men who are sensitive to cosmic barakah.) only man is the image-synthesis of the Creator, (NA: And this in spite of the loss of the earthly paradise. One of the effects of what monotheist symbolism calls the ” fall of Adam,” was the separation between the soul and the body, conjointly with the separation between heaven and earth and between the spirit and the soul. The ” resurrection of the flesh” is none other than the restoration of the primordial situation; as the body is an immanent virtuality of the soul, it can be remanifested as soon as the separative ” curse” has drawn to its close, which coincides with the end of a great cycle of humanity.) owing to the fact that he possesses the intellect – hence also reason and language – and that he manifests it by his very form. sophiaperennis: The Message of the Human Body
Wanting to believe only what they see, scientists condemn themselves to seeing only what they believe; logic for them is their DESIRE not to see what they do not want to believe. Scientism in fact is less interested in the real as such -which necessarily goes beyond our limitations – than in what is non- contradictory, therefore in what is logical, or more precisely, in what is empirically logical; thus in what is logical de facto according to a given experience, and not in what is logical de jure in accordance with the nature of things. sophiaperennis: Science and logic
Some will doubtless object that industrialism is a fact and must be accepted as such, as though the character of being a fact took precedence over truth. People easily mistake for courage and realism what is their exact opposite: that is to say, because some calamity cannot be prevented, people call it a ‘benefit’ and make a virtue of their own inability to escape from it. Error is deemed truth simply because it exists and this fits in well with the dynamism and existentialism of the mentality of a machine age; everything that exists, thanks to the blindness of men, is called ‘our time’, just as if this fact by itself constituted a categorical imperative. It is all too clear that the impossibility of escaping from an ill does not prevent that ill from being what it is; in order to find a remedy it is necessary to consider the ill quite apart from our chance of escape or our DESIRE not to perceive it, for no good can arise in opposition to truth. sophiaperennis: Science and mythologies