Frithjof Schuon Archive
Featured Books
Das Spiel der Masken (e-Book)
Starting from the principles of metaphysics, Schuon deals with the essence of man, which he characterizes with the terms “comprehensive cognitive faculty, free will, feeling capable of disinterestedness”.
Featured Poems
Adastra and Stella Maris: Poems by Frithjof Schuon-Narcissus – Euterpe
Poems of youth: all too often they are mixed —Indiscipline disfigures nobleness.Narcissus is the demon of the young —God and experience help us to recover.A lyric poem is good, but it must give something;What does not enrich, has no right to exist.Euterpe’s word is...
Adastra and Stella Maris: Poems by Frithjof Schuon-Poetry
The wheel of time rolls on and brings me poems,So that the Spirit may discern the foolishness of men;And other poems too, that sing of Light and Love,And bring Heaven’s sweet solace to my soul.The harshness of existence forces poetryTo consider the many puzzles of...
Adastra and Stella Maris: Poems by Frithjof Schuon-Autumn Leaves
Autumn leaves — what is the meaning of this image?Poems come, tardy, to my ear,I know not how — their source is Light and Love —Tutti i miei pensier parlan d’amore.Spring and autumn: poles in the space of existence —Destiny has brought me to old age.Weary and selfless...
Adastra and Stella Maris: Poems by Frithjof Schuon-Unto Itself
Each poem is a world unto itself.Some of them may bloom together —Yet each one is for thee a single message,And wants to flow through thy soul on its own.The meaning of each is a unique gift,There is neither a “before” nor an “after” —Just as a song that nourishes thy...
Featured Articles
Foreword to “The Eye of the Heart”
Professor Huston Smith wrote the “Foreword” to the 1997 edition of Frithjof Schuon’s “The Eye of the Heart.” In it, Smith states unequivocally that he considers Schuon to be “the most important religious thinker of our century.” He explains this by pointing to Schuon’s solution to the thorniest issue facing those who believe in absolute Truth: Must there be only one valid Truth embodied in one religious tradition, thus excluding all others, or can there be another way in which absolute Truth can take on relative shadings, and still remain the Truth? Although Smith gives only brief attention to the specific contents of the book, he does summarize his thoughts with this: “Again in this book, as everywhere in Schuon’s writing, one is struck by the hierarchical, vertical character of his thinking — his depiction of an absolute and transcendent Reality that deploys itself through All-Possibility and ultimately returns to Itself through human beings ‘made in the image of God.'”
Book Review of “Dimensions of Islam”
Martin Lings reviews this book by Frithjof Schuon which is a complement to Understanding Islam and which explains in depth some of the problems that Christianity sees in Islam in the sanctity of the Prophet, for example, or the belittling of the human. Schuon explains that to be truly human and thus sanctified is to fit the divine mould which is Origin, Archetype, Norm and Goal. In Sufism this is expressed in a quaternary of divine Names: The First, the Last, the Outward and the Inward. Lings points out that these, “form the basis of this book, whose every chapter flows, as it were, along one or more of these dimensions.” Chapters under review include those on Jesus, Mary, the Archangels and the Five Divine Presences.
The Foreword to “Prayer Fashions Man”
In his “Foreword” to Prayer Fashions Man, Philip Zaleski highlights the central importance of prayer in Schuon’s message, and calls the book “a landmark compendium of writings on prayer.” Regarding the previously unpublished materials in the book, Zaleski notes that in them “we hear Schuon speaking in a new key, more personal and tender, although hardly less authoritative” than in his other, metaphysical, books.
Frithjof Schuon and Prayer
The importance of prayer was a fundamental theme in the writings of Frithjof Schuon. This article sets out to “draw attention to the subtlety, depth, and comprehensiveness that characterize Schuon’s elucidation of prayer, an elucidation which renders prayer not only an intelligible necessity for man in his quest for God, but also an irresistible summons and an inestimable gift from God to man.” This is accomplished through a general survey of Schuon’s perspective upon prayer and then a look at “the modes and degrees of prayer, beginning with the most ordinary meaning of prayer—personal petition to God—and culminating in the most exalted form of prayer—methodic invocation of the Name of God.”