Frithjof Schuon Archive

The town of Mostaghanem: dark blue sea,A golden land with palm trees — and the mosque;A few white houses. Pious people clad in white.Then yellow sand, as far as eye can see.The dervish brothers, who look toward the inward;The holy Shaikh, to whom I had been...

Vertical line and horizontal line —Synthesis and analysis; the latter is secondaryTo the former. Those whose thinking is immersed in multiplicityStress the analytical point of view.Synthesis seeks to put illusion aside;Analysis seeks to encompass everything.Certitude,...

Horizontal and vertical. Animals walk horizontally;Man — so it seems — walks vertically.His heart walks horizontally — this is his betrayalOf the human state; he closes the door on himself.There are also animals that like to stand vertically —A play of nature, as if...

The chain shows us how the forms of existenceForever interlock, link by link;Nothing on earth stands alone by itself;He is wise who sees the wholeness of things.The world and time — a never-ending meander,Alternately uniting and separating;The world should appear to...