The Essential Rene Guenon

Download or read book The Essential Ren‚ Gu‚non written by René Guénon and published by World Wisdom, Inc. This book was released on 2009 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A prolific writer and author of over 24 books, Rene Guenon was the founder of the Perennialist/Traditionalist school of comparative religious thought. Known for his discourses on the intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of the modern world, symbolism, tradition, and the inner or spiritual dimension of religion, this book is a compilation of his most important writings. A key component of his thought was the assertion that universal truths manifest themselves in various forms in the world's religions and his writings on Hinduism, Taoism, and Sufism are particularly illuminating in this regard.

Download or read book Initiation and Spiritual Realization written by René Guénon and published by Sophia Perennis. This book was released on 2004-05 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Initiation and Spiritual Realization is the closest thing to a work on 'spiritual direction' René Guénon ever wrote, touching as it does upon such vital topics as the transmission of initiatic grace, the various types and functions of the spiritual master, obstacles the aspirant is likely to encounter, different modes of contemplation, and the degrees of spiritual realization. A companion volume to Perspectives on Initiation, where Guénon had defined the nature of initiation and of the organizations qualified to transmit it, Initiation and Spiritual Realization was the first thematic collection of Guénon's articles to appear after his death. And one doctrine expressed in this book stands out as particularly timely: that esoterism is not and cannot be a religion in itself, since to take it as such is to reduce it to an 'alternative' exoterism, and a heterodox one at that. Initiatic esoterism can only be legitimately and effectively practiced within the context of one of the established, revealed religions.

Download or read book The Unanimous Tradition written by Ranjit Fernando and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays by Joseph Epes Brown, Titus Burckhardt, Rama P. Coomaraswamy, Gai Eaton, Isaline B. Horner, Toshiko Izutsu, Martin Lings, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Lord Northbourne, Marco Pallis, Whitall N. Perry, Leo Schaya, Frithjof Schuon, Philip Sherrard, William Stoddart, Elemire Zolla. Their subjects range over the religious doctrines of East and West and the societies which derived from them, including especially their sacred art and their sciences. In addition, and no less importantly, they demonstrate that the whole of that view of the world and of the nature of things common to all religions is, for mankind, the normal view -- properly referred to as the traditional point of view -- and that this view is absolutely opposed to and cannot be reconciled with the fundamentally profane beliefs and ideals which have dominated European thought since the Renaissance, resulting in the destruction of Western Christianity.

Download or read book Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines written by René Guénon and published by Sophia Perennis. This book was released on 2004-05 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: René Guénon's Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines can serve as an introduction to all his later works-especially those which, like Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta, The Symbolism of the Cross, The Multiple States of the Being, and Studies in Hinduism, expound the more profound aspects of metaphysical doctrines in greater detail. In Part I Guenon clears away certain ingrained prejudices inherited from the 'Renaissance', with its adulation of the Greco-Roman culture and its compensating depreciation-both deliberate and instinctive-of other civilizations. In Part II he establishes the fundamental distinctions between various modes of thought and brings out the real nature of metaphysical or universal knowledge-an understanding of which is the first condition for the personal realization of that 'Knowledge' which partakes of the Absolute. Words like 'religion', 'philosophy', 'symbolism', 'mysticism', and 'superstition', are here given a precise meaning. Part III presents a more detailed examination of the Hindu doctrine and its applications at different levels, leading up to the Vedanta, which constitutes its metaphysical essence. Lastly, Part IV resumes the task of clearing away current misconceptions, but is this time concerned not with the West itself, but with distortions of the Hindu doctrines that have arisen as a result of attempts to read into them, or to graft onto them, modern Western conceptions. The concluding chapter lays down the essential conditions for any genuine understanding between East and West, which can only come through the work of those who have attained, at least in some degree, to the realization of 'wisdom uncreate'-that intellective, suprarational knowledge called in the East jñana, and in the West gnosis.

Download or read book The Symbolism of the Cross written by René Guénon and published by Sophia Perennis. This book was released on 2001 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Symbolism of the Cross is a major doctrinal study of the central symbol of Christianity from the standpoint of the universal metaphysical tradition, the 'perennial philosophy' as it is called in the West. As Guernon points out, the cross is one of the most universal of all symbols and is far from belonging to Christianity alone. Indeed, Christians have sometimes tended to lose sight of its symbolism of its symbolical significance and to regard it as no more than the sign of a historical event. By restoring to the full spiritual value as a symbol, but without in any way detracting from its historical importance for Christianity, Guenon has performed a task of inestimable importance which perhaps only he, with his unrivaled knowledge of the symbolic languages of both East and West, was qualified to perform.

Download or read book Studies in Hinduism written by René Guénon and published by Sophia Perennis. This book was released on 2001 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of various aspects of the traditional metaphysical doctrines of the Hindu Tradition, along with extensive book and article reviews

Download or read book The Multiple States of the Being written by René Guénon and published by Sophia Perennis. This book was released on 2001 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Multiple States of the Being is the companion to, and the completion of, The Symbolism of the Cross, which, together with Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta, constitute René Guénon's great trilogy of pure metaphysics. In this work, Guénon offers a masterful explication of the metaphysical order and its multiple manifestations-of the divine hierarchies and what has been called the Great Chain of Being-and in so doing demonstrates how jñana, intellective or intrinsic knowledge of what is, and of That which is Beyond what is, is a Way of Liberation. Guénon the metaphysical social critic, master of arcane symbolism, comparative religionist, researcher of ancient mysteries and secret histories, summoner to spiritual renewal, herald of the end days, disappears here. Reality remains.