Frithjof Schuon Archive

Salâm alaikum and shalm alēkhem —Heaven is peace; human history is strife.Peace radiates from Pure BeingAnd destroys the folly of this world.Unrest and vain triviality the evil one wants —Peace was before the din of the world.

“The vain chatter of philosophers” —So said one, king among mystics.I agree with the ancient philosophers;A narrow mysticism means little to me —And even less, a pointless quarrel.Narrow-minded believers are not sinners,They may be highly gifted, or like children;I...

Fire and water: fire, a wild conflagration,Yet also a motionless light before the altar;Water, heavy and immobile in itself,But also whipped up by a storm.Behold the wondrous in these two elements: each powerSeeks to reproduce what characterizes the other.

That sense-perception is the source of wisdom,Was doubtless, in Plato’s mind, a ruse;What is essential is the melody of the Ideas,Whatever its way of entry into this world.The Ideas are the Most High’s possibilities;Then the images of those possibilities, that we can...