This book, according to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “is the second work of Schuon (following The Transcendent Unity) which is devoted primarily to comparative religion. Beginning with two essays on the distinction between truth and presence and form and substance in religions, the author then turns to major metaphysical studies of the most subtle nature concerning the distinction between Atma and maya and subject and object. He devotes several studies to specifically Islamic themes including Islamic understanding of Christ and Mary and two essays on Buddhism. The work concludes with another set of chapters which treat some of the most difficult theological and religious problem such as the question of theodicy, difficulties in sacred texts, paradoxes of spiritual expression, the effect of the human margin in revelation, and certain eschatological issues.”
At the level of ideas, Schuon is an unsurpassable expositor of first principles. Included here are seminal chapters such as Atma-Maya and Truth and Presence. Schuon’s fluency in so many “languages” of the spirit is widely acclaimed. There are gems here from the traditional worlds of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. These essays definitively establish that the Sacred has not only the first but also the final word.
