First published in India, this is a revised translation of essays that elucidate the universal principles for which the Advaita-Vedanta is so revered, encompassing in its amplitude every legitimate spiritual modality. In the chapter, “The Meaning of Caste,” the reader is afforded an intelligent and spiritually vibrant way of understanding the archetypal roots that differentiate humankind. “The Meaning of Race” demolishes current errors and prejudices while depicting that genius which is unique to each race. “Principles and Criteria of Art” insists on the necessity of objective criteria for beauty. The shock to the Western readers upon encountering this idea gives way to joy, arising from the restoration of art’s mission of transmitting the qualities of intelligence, beauty and nobility that are at once the natural and necessary dimensions of the human condition, as well as the projection of Truth and Beauty into the world of forms.
The modern outlook–despite its professed “objectivity”–recoils from the notion at the foundation of all traditional wisdom that there is an absolute, transcendent Reality. Whereas consciousness of the Absolute and its infinitude constitutes man’s very reason for being, therefore his salvation and his happiness. Schuon’s perspective is that of Sanatana Dharma, the “eternal religion,” which is based on the intrinsic nature of things. For Western minds, which have a tendency toward irreducible alternatives, Schuon’s crystalline yet musical delineations of the levels of reality come as a refreshing relief. At the root of this discernment is neither mere reasoning nor a willing of “what should be,” but a disinterested contemplation of the metaphysical transparency of phenomena.
